I don’t know what film the critics have seen, but it’s certainly not the one I saw on Friday night. There seems to be some sort of competition amongst the newspaper reviewers to be the most cultured, the most literarily authoritative and the most incandescent about how Luhrmann has ‘trampled over the subtleties’ of the original text. Please! Subtleties? Have they read The Great Gatsby? Aside from Of Mice and Men, you couldn’t find a more unsubtle novel. It bludgeons you over the head with its themes from the very first page, for heaven’s sake! Such an obvious novel cries out for a fresh, bold interpretation on the screen; one that lifts it from its established reading and allows it to be viewed from a new perspective. Baz Luhrmann has done just that, and I thought his vision was absolutely marvellous.

He brings the world of the roaring twenties magnificently and surreally to life. Gatsby and Daisy’s mansions are breathtakingly opulent, the legendary parties are a riot of colour and movement set to fantastic music (the soundtrack is seriously amazing) and New York is a throbbing, colourful, seedy metropolis. The costumes are a vision of loveliness and there are moments of cinematography that are truly breathtaking. Aside from the visuals, the acting is tremendous. Leonardo DiCaprio is Gatsby; he perfectly captures the childlike vulnerability of the character, his eyes haunted by a past he can’t reveal and a future he never stops hoping he will attain. Everyone else does a fine job, but they don’t match up to DiCaprio; he is the heart of the film, and actually made me feel emotionally engaged with the story for the very first time. I was a mess by the end.

There are some liberties taken with the storyline and characterisation, but I didn’t care. As an interpretation of a famous story, it was gloriously innovative, visually stunning and artistically brilliant. It enriched the message of the novel for me, bringing it to life in a way that Fitzgerald never quite manages. As with his version of Romeo and Juliet, Luhrmann has brought a familiar tale up to date, making it both emotionally and experientially relevant to a huge audience of people who would probably never otherwise access the original text. I loved every single minute, and would happily go and see it again every night of the week. Please don’t believe the critics; they’ve missed the point entirely. This isn’t about making a faithful adaptation of a period novel; it’s about bringing the world of The Great Gatsby to vivid, tangible life. Frankly, no one could have done it better.

I’ve had this sitting on my shelves for years; I bought it in a second hand bookshop in Alton when I went to Jane Austen’s house a few summers ago. Having loved another of Crompton’s adult novels, Family Roundabout, I was sure that I’d find Frost at Morning equally delightful, but life intervened to prevent me from reading it immediately after purchase and it has been gathering dust ever since. Over the sunny bank holiday weekend, I finally decided to take it off the shelf and find out what was lying beneath the innocuous looking covers. While basking in a deckchair, I raced through the entire thing, riveted by the action unfurling in front of my eyes. Crompton’s ability to capture the world through a child’s eyes is uncanny, as is her skill at demonstrating just how blind adults can be to the needs of the children they are supposed to be protecting. Since becoming a teacher, I have become increasingly aware of the damage that can be done to children by unthinking parents, and how much sensitivity and vulnerability can be hidden beneath the surface of a seemingly happy child. As such, Frost at Morning really tugged on my heartstrings and had me longing to reach in to rescue the children who had all been left so alone and misunderstood. My desperation was akin to the moment in Tess of the D’Urbervilles when that bloody letter goes underneath the doormat; this is powerful stuff indeed!

The novel opens on an idyllic post WWI scene; a sunny vicarage garden, peopled with small children playing in the dappled pool of light beneath a lush canopy of trees. Philip, Geraldine and Monica have been sent to stay at the vicarage as companions to the Vicar’s daughter, Angela, because their parents, for various reasons, cannot currently have them at home. Angela’s parents, however, are just  as absent as those of her guests; her ridiculously eccentric mother is a famous novelist, so wrapped up in her characters’ lives that she has no time for her husband and daughter, and her father lives his life ruled by the routines of his parish, with no real interest in his wife and child. Angela, blonde and beautiful, is already aware of her power over others. Philip, sensitive and insular, is desperately seeking her approval, but the only attention he receives is from claustrophobically overbearing Geraldine. Monica is aloof from the rest, marked out as different due to her mother’s marital indiscretions. Miss Rossiter, the governess, has been left to cope with all of the children over the summer, but she is far too preoccupied with her own concerns to take much of an interest. As such, they are largely left to themselves, and despite their differing personalities, a strange bond will be formed between them that will last into adulthood.

The novel follows the children as they leave the vicarage to return home. Sensitive Philip, so desperate for his heroic father’s approval, returns to the shock of a new stepmother and a stepbrother who has the courage and strength he lacks. Unable to communicate the pain he feels at being sidelined for this new brother, Philip retreats into his own world, refusing to care for others lest he be hurt. Monica returns to her beautiful mother, whose infidelities and alcoholism will destroy her childhood, filling it with an atmosphere of constant worry, uncertainty and far too much responsibility. Geraldine returns to her adoptive parents and finds that in her absence her mother has given birth to a baby of her own. Desperate to prove her worth, her overbearing nature becomes even worse, suffocating all who come near. Angela, ignored by her parents, grows into a self interested and shallow princess, delighting in teasing men and causing a stir in order to gain the attention she has always craved.

As the children grow into adults, their lives frequently collide, and it is fascinating to see how the failures of their parents have moulded the way they relate to themselves and one another as they age. It is interesting that when the novel opens, the children are all around 7 years old; I wonder whether Crompton had in mind the adage ‘give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.’ My heart broke for them all, in different ways; Monica and Philip because of their vulnerability and desperation to be loved, Geraldine because of her inability to understand that her behaviour caused those she loved to turn away from her, and Angela because she saw no value in herself other than her looks. They are all damaged goods, who could so easily have been repaired, but as the years pass, their cracks become ever deeper, until it seems they can never find true happiness and become whole again.

The rather unrealistically neat and tidy ending does somewhat ruin the psychological sophistication of the rest of the novel, but Crompton just about gets away with it due to the quality of her writing. I don’t think I’ve read a better analysis of child psychology, where someone has been so thoroughly able to capture the terrible paralysing helplessness of children. This is a beautifully written, heartrending novel that is both a brilliant exploration of childhood and a marvellous evocation of inter war Britain. The inter war setting adds much to the interpretation of why these parents may be such failures, considering with what their own youths were marked, and Crompton leaves the reader with much to ponder on as they close the pages. Frost at Morning is sadly out of print, but it’s not extortionate to buy second hand; if you come across a copy, I urge you to buy it and read it post-haste. I can’t compare its merits with Family Roundabout as I can’t really remember much about that (time for a re-read, I think), but I don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t also be reprinted; it’s a marvel, and I wish I could give everyone a copy to enjoy.

‘Philip turned back into the room. He wasn’t trembling any longer, but there was a cold numbed feeling at his heart. They didn’t want him. All right, he wouldn’t want them. He tried to whip up his anger against them in order to hide from himself the misery that threatened to engulf his spirit, the black emptiness that lay ahead of him.’

We stayed in the small village of Firle, which Ravilious often stayed on the outskirts of with his friend Peggy Angus. Her cottage, Furlongs, was frequently host to raucous parties of bohemian artists coming to descend for the weekend, roughing the spartan conditions with typical bonhomie. We were delighted at the thought that Ravilious probably drank at the pub we stayed in, and came into the village to use the post office and village shop, which Virginia Woolf also would have done when she rented Little Talland House on the main street in 1911. Ravilious painted many pictures of Furlongs and its surroundings, but I had no idea of where it was, and in the snowy, freezing conditions we endured during our trip, it wasn’t exactly the weather to go roaming across the Downs to find it.

Thank goodness for Donna; she had done her research, and was sure she could direct us to the right place. So, we jumped in the car and drove a short way outside of the village before branching off down a tiny lane. In the distance we saw a little flint cottage, but the track leading up to it was marked ‘Private’. Had I been alone, I would have hesitated, but with strength in numbers, we were determined to press on. Imagine our joy when we reached the top of the lane and found Furlongs, unchanged! It was somehow even more special to find Furlongs than it was to see Charleston; the unexpectedness of it, its lonely position and its surprising familiarity were strangely touching. It was quite the pilgrimage.

I watched a new BBC version of The Lady Vanishes a few weeks ago, and was enthralled by the concept of a woman having to prove the existence of a supposedly imaginary missing governess. The intriguing plot coupled with the 1930s glamour, Orient-Express style setting and eclectic mix of stock Period British Mystery Novel characters made me desperate to read the original story (actually called The Wheel Spins), and thankfully my local library had a copy. I thought I might find White to be a bit of a second rate Agatha Christie, but instead I was surprised to discover a writer who not only weaved an excellent tale of suspense, but whose prose is vivid, elegant and beautifully evocative, in a style vaguely reminiscent of Ann Bridge. I loved it so much that I genuinely couldn’t put it down; I read it in just a couple of hours, and went onto amazon as soon as I’d finished to find more. Sadly she’s almost entirely out of print; surely this is a terrible oversight? I can’t believe that writing this good is practically impossible to get hold of!

The tale begins thus; Iris Carr is a rich orphan with bad taste in friends and a fondness for frivolity. She is staying at a rustic hotel in an Italian beauty spot with a large group of hangers on; a misunderstanding leads to a falling out, and Iris decides she would like to stay on alone for a few days, leaving them to go home without her. Iris is disapproved of by the other English guests; two spinster sisters, a glamorous honeymooning couple, and a middle aged Vicar and his wife. They are all planning to go home on the last day of the season, and so Iris books herself on the train leaving the day before to avoid travelling with them. However, while Iris is waiting at the station for her train, she passes out with sunstroke, and almost misses its departure. She is shoved into a stiflingly hot carriage at the last minute, and finds herself sitting with an Italian family, an overbearing woman in black and a middle aged English governess.

The governess, Miss Froy, takes pity on Iris and invites her for tea; she explains that the black clad woman is a powerful Baroness, and part of the family she used to work for. Iris quickly becomes bored of Miss Froy’s incessant chatter, and is perturbed by the strange presence of all the other English guests from her hotel on the train. Feeling unwell, she heads back to her carriage and falls asleep. However, when she wakes up, she finds Miss Froy gone. Her enquiries as to where she is are met with blank stares and denials that there ever was a Miss Froy. Concerned, Iris seeks help from an English professor and his young student, who agree to translate for her. Their questioning of the other occupants of the carriage results in the same outcome; all deny that there ever was a governess, and a doctor travelling with the Baroness’ party suggests that Iris may be suffering from a temporary madness resulting from her heatstroke. Iris is adamant that they are wrong, but with everyone on the train denying Miss Froy’s existence, and thinking Iris is a hysterical madwoman, how can she find a way to prove it before the train reaches the end of the line?

There are many twists to the tale, and these provide an interesting exploration of how reliable anyone is as a witness, and how easy it is to manipulate the truth in order to suit your own ends. Iris’ inability to make herself understood, and the confusion she finds herself in after everyone starts to undermine her and label her as mad is truly terrifying. The stifling heat of the confined train carriages all adds to the tense and claustrophobic atmosphere, and the images of Iris being oppressed on all sides by faces leering as she makes her way down swaying corridors, frantically searching for a woman she is even starting to think may not exist, is pure Hitchcock. This is just the sort of novel I love; intelligent, thought provoking, beautifully written and absolutely gripping. Someone needs to reprint White’s work for a modern discerning reader; this is vintage crime at its best.

I started an American Literature Book Club at school a few months ago. We’ve read an eclectic mix, from Truman Capote short stories to Little Women, with detours to take in The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. It’s been an interesting journey for me as much as it has been for my students; I’ve re-read books I first read without much thought or discernment as a teenager, and been surprised by my reaction to them as an adult. I’ve discovered writers I’ve been meaning to read for years, and found new favourites as a result. So much of what I read in the normal course of things is about the same society, the same culture, the same history, the same surroundings; the settings and the people are distinctively British and instinctively familiar. American literature is a welcome change, opening my eyes to new cultures, new histories and new places. The writing is subtly different, too, in ways I can never quite put my finger on. I never got used to the florid and rather earnest style of newspaper reportage in the US, and the language of American writers is similarly discordant with their British counterparts. It is a window into a different view of the world.

The Catcher in the Rye was my first great surprise. Many people say that it is a book for teenagers and adults tend to find its teenage protagonist self indulgent and irritating. I have had the opposite experience. I read it at 16, and was underwhelmed. I didn’t really understand Holden’s restlessness and self destructive personality; his world was too far from my own for me to relate to it. Reading it as an adult, I was overwhelmed with sadness for this lonely, lost boy whose parents have withdrawn from him in their grief for his dead brother. Unable to cope with his loss, Holden builds a barrier of indifference around himself, rebuffing the kindness of those who do try to help him because he can’t face having to reveal the pain that lies beneath that careless exterior. His relationship with his sister is powerful and touching; through his concern for Phoebe, we see his true personality. Behind the rude, destructive facade, he is a kind, caring, loving boy, longing to make meaningful connections with other people. His brother’s death has made him question life; he sees no joy, no happiness, no hope, in a world where such tragedy can strike and rip out the heart of our existence in a matter of moments. He is looking for answers, and can find none.

He will, in time, find his way, but this razor sharp portrayal of the stripping of trust in life that happens when we reach the cusp of adulthood is brilliant and demonstrates perfectly the vulnerability of the young. My students’ response proved to me that this is not, as so many say, a teenager’s novel; they could not understand Holden, and struggled to see the point of the book at all. When I told them my own thoughts, it was as if I had read a completely different story. They had not noticed the importance of that character, they had not understood why this or that had happened…the conversations we had were fascinating as I helped them to pick apart the reasoning behind Holden’s behaviour, and they discussed their changing impressions. Many said they would re-read it, with these new perspectives in mind. However, I don’t think they’ll truly appreciate it until they’ve passed that tipping point from innocence to experience. Few writers can create such compelling characters who stay with the reader so powerfully, and can continue to touch them in different ways throughout their reading lives. I  wish J D Salinger had written more.

The Great Gatsby was my second surprise. I read it as a teenager and thought it was fascinating and profound in its exploration of the hollowness of upper class life. This time around, I found it self indulgent, overwritten and cold. Fitzgerald could certainly write outstanding prose; there are many beautiful phrases throughout that took my breath away. However, there is a self conscious quality to his writing that irritates, and I couldn’t care about any of the characters, none of whom were as fascinating as Fitzgerald seemed to think they were. I couldn’t understand Gatsby’s obsession with the pampered and childish Daisy; I never saw the heart I presume she was meant to have hiding somewhere beneath her frivolous and spoiled exterior. Therefore, I never sympathised with him, and I certainly couldn’t grieve him despite the poignant loneliness of his death. I know the whole point of the novel is to show the emptiness at the core of the glittering American Dream, but considering Fitzgerald’s own relentless pursuit of this halcyon world he recreated on the pages of his novels, this message doesn’t really ring true. There is a falseness behind the words, a lack of heart, that I found insurmountable. It’s no classic for me.

Immediately after reading The Great Gatsby, I picked up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of my absolute favourites. Instantly immersing myself into the lives of the Nolan family, whose warmth and vivacity light up the pages, I understood the main reason why I didn’t enjoy The Great Gatsby. I can’t feel involved in the lives of people who live in an alternate world of unthinking privilege, where problems can be solved with a hastily written cheque and a trip abroad. There’s no truth for the majority in this depiction.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn shows the real America; people working their way from the ground up to make a better life for their children. Most will never have riches and most will never see their dreams come true, but they have a spirit and a fire that the cool and languid characters of Fitzgerald’s world lack. They are alive, struggling, fighting, striving, pushing themselves forward and dragging their children behind them. They do not glide along carelessly in a world of ease already formed by parents and grandparents who did all the striving for them. They are society at large, reflecting the experience of the average person, revealing the true philosophy and values that underpin American life.

I have only skimmed the surface of all that America’s literature has to offer. The variety of people and experiences and histories spread across the huge mass of North America never ceases to fascinate me, and I love discovering new authors and new novels that teach me more about life on the other side of the pond. One book that certainly should be a classic of ordinary American life, but isn’t yet, is Helen Hull’s Heat Lightening, which has now been reprinted beautifully by Persephone. She is America’s Dorothy Whipple, so even those of you who hate it when I write about American literature (Darlene!) will love it. Don’t bother re-reading The Great Gatsby before the film comes out; read that instead.