My father, not a lover of written fiction, preferred films. And one of his favourites was John Huston’s 1951 The African Queen based on CS Forester’s 1935 novel. That meant that I saw it  several times when I was growing up before eventually coming to the novel and discovering what a little masterpiece it is. I doubt that my father ever read it any more than I’ve seen the film since about 1965. But the novel is a firm favourite of mine and it was a treat to take down my well thumbed copy for a revisit.

What strikes me now, over 50 years since I first enjoyed it, is what a classic it is in every sense. If you subscribe to the view, as I do, that all fiction is rooted in a handful of basic, timeless stories then The African Queen is at least three of them. In case you don’t know the story it gives us a frumpy missionary’s sister and a cockney mechanic forced by circumstances to escape down a treacherous central African river to outwit the ruling Germans in 1914. Thus it is a quest story as they head for the lake with a crazy plan to strike a blow for Britain. It is also a  seeing off the monster (Germany) narrative and against the odds it is also a very unlikely, passionate, tender love story. No wonder it works so well.

I relish the way Forester, whose writing is economical and sometimes even spare, describes the river with its rapids, shoals, cataracts, bends, rushes, weeds, leeches. The water swirls and changes colour as they haul themselves through the overgrown channels in the delta after the dangers of shooting at high speed through stretches which were regarded by explorers and mapmakers as unnavigable. It’s always sensual, often colourful and never overwritten.

He’s brilliant on the feelings of both characters too – Rose’s dogged determination and Alnutt’s skilful ingenuity create a strong team and the development of the relationship between them is beautifully judged. So are the descriptions of Alnutt keeping the boat going by collecting driftwood to burn in the boiler, repairing propeller and shaft and, eventually improvising a couple of torpedoes.

Of course EM Forster would have had a few things to say about it As he points out in Aspects of the Novel, Homo Fictus doesn’t quite function like Homo Sapiens. Although Alnutt and Rose bathe off the boat privately from each other at first we are left to assume that their bladders and bowels stop working when they leave the Mission. And doesn’t Rose have periods? After weeks of “marriage” to Alnutt she’d probably be pregnant anyway but it’s a minor gripe – and really just a reflection of how many novels were written 86 years ago although I’m not sure I noticed it when I first read it.

It’s quite an accolade for a book, I think, if you can read and like it at 18, come back to it decades later in maturity and still admire it. Rereads can be disappointing – but not this one. I see the film is available on Netflix and I’m wondering whether to revisit that too.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: A Twist of the Knife by Peter James

I was sent a proof copy of this novel a few months ago and it published earlier this month. Historical fiction is part of my eclectic taste along with family sagas, literary stuff, young adult fiction and anything to do with detectives. So I pounced on this brick of a book which is actually a sequel to an earlier novel but I was half way through it before I realised that.

Now – having grown up on Jean Plaidy and Anya Seyton – much of the history I know first came to my attention through fiction. But most of it was, and still is, British via Philippa Gregory, CJ Sansom, Hilary Mantel et al.  The Tsarina’s Daughter plunged me into eighteenth century Imperialist Russia and it felt a bit deep end because most of my usual landmarks were missing.

However I learned an enormous amount – assisted my Google which I kept consulting to check that the historical facts are right. And of course they are.  As historian Will Durrant observed: Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance.

Elizabeth is the daughter of Peter the Great in a dynasty which has succession by appointment rather than automatic birthright, Her fortunes go up and down after the death of her father and life is hideously dangerous and very violent. Puzzlingly, characters seem to keep changing their personality – friendly one minute and (very) hostile the next but everyone is involved in a power struggle and I suppose the (literal) backstabbing culture really was part of everyday life.

Lizenka, as she is known to her intimates, eventually rises to the top of the pile, against the odds and after a couple of colourfully evoked love affairs, and reigns for twenty years.

It’s an interesting read for another reason. I will overlook the occasional jarring laziness in the writing (“Russia was caught between a rock and a hard place”) for the general knowledge I picked up. The Russian version of soured cream is known as smetena and the whip used for corporal punishment at court was a knout – what a useful Scrabble word! There is a nice lot of this sort of thing in what is actually a pretty compelling novel.  I might now read Alpsten’s Tsarina which was published last year.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The African Queen by CS Forester

Hilary Mantel, now in her late sixties, was a successful award- winning novelist long before she disappeared for 15 years to live with the Tudors, producing Wolf Hall (2009) Bring Up the Bodies (2012) and The Mirror and the Light (2020) –  becoming, incidentally, the first woman ever to win the Booker Prize twice.

I found a hard backed copy of An Experiment in Love (1995) literally on my bookshelves. I remembered nothing about it although I must have bought and read it 26 years ago. It’s a signed copy and if I met Hilary Mantel then I’m afraid I have no memory of that either. But I was curious to read this pre-Wolf Hall novel now and to discover how I reacted to it.

The answer is – with pleasure, admiration and recognition. It is 1971.  Three young women leave home in the North to take up places at London University. They know each other from school and all go to live in the same female hall of residence. Mantel is my generation and I can confirm that her account of this period is so accurate you can reach out and touch it. My college days were spent in a city outside London but I remember the late keys, the sitting in each others rooms drinking tea or eating toast made in the hostel kitchen, smuggling boyfriends in (they are meant to leave at 11pm), trying to get some work done, longing for letters from home – and all the rest of it. Some students are very religious, some are dull, some are apparently ultra-sophisticated, Backgrounds vary enormously too. Some students come from comfortable homes with generous allowances. Others don’t. And then someone gets pregnant. Yes, yes, yes that’s exactly how it was although at my college there was plenty to eat and I don’t think we’d ever heard of anorexia.

Mantel’s narrator, Carmel, is a bright law student from a low income home with a difficult mother. She’s struggling for money (making the grant go round – remember those?) and eats less and less. Karina, the friend with whom she has a love/hate relationship remains chubbier than ever. Then there’s Julianne. Carmel’s roommate and a medical student.

In many ways this novel is a very readable fictional snapshot in time – without much overall structure although there’s a defining incident (in well worn literary tradition) at the end which dramatically sorts out a few people, attitudes and decisions. And the writing is masterly – although don’t expect anything remotely like Wolf Hall.

How on earth I managed completely to forget this compelling novel, I don’t know. It’s under my skin now and I shall remember it this time.