Blog Tour: The Rabbits, A.A. Milne

This post is part of a blog tour. Thank you to Random Things Tours and Farrago for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

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Today, best known for his delightful children’s stories based around Winnie-the-Pooh and friends, A.A. Milne published many popular stories for adults during his career. These new editions from Farrago give a new generation of readers a chance to discover them. Originally published as a series of sketches for Punch, the stories in The Rabbits centre around a group of friends in the early twentieth century. Their life is largely carefree, being in a position where money doesn’t appear to be a worry. We see them at intervals throughout their young adulthood, often playing games, teasing each other, and generally having a good time. As the book progresses we see them begin to settle down, marry, have children, and move into their own homes. It is heartening to see their friendship continue throughout these major life events, always there to support each other, but always with a sense of fun and irreverence. 

The years covered are 1909 through to 1914. This is not historic fiction, Milne was publishing these short pieces in real time, and so as a modern reader we are very aware of the imminent disaster of war approaching in a way the characters are not. At one point a new mother mentions that her child will be a soldier. It is a harsh reminder to us what that would mean, how the next generation of young adults would have such a drastically different existence. 

Their lives are so very different to ours in many ways, and the book captures the lives of the upper middle class at a very particular moment in time, yet as we watch them grow together, the way they interact, the ease with which they tease each other, and their hopes for their own lives and those of their children, we see that there is so much that is familiar.

This is an incredibly easy book to read, even as someone who doesn’t read quickly I found the pages flying by. The episodic nature of the stories might be off-putting to some but many will revel in the snippets of life we’re privy to. It makes for a light, entertaining read, and you’re able to delve in to each section, feeling satisfied before returning to find out what japes the Rabbits have got up to next. 

Pick up a copy:

Bookshop

Waterstones

Sudden Traveller, Sarah Hall

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Hall’s latest short story collection is a searing look at humanity and the inevitable trauma and grief that comes with being alive. The book opens with a surreal tale of a woman transforming into something new and living with an excruciating, mystery pain. It ends with a mother comforting her child at night. The prose is beautiful and evocative throughout and you’ll find yourself wanting to just sit and let what you’ve read sink in.

Relationships, especially within families, are a recurring theme. In The Grotesque we follow Dilly as she runs some errands around Cambridge before her birthday party. She initially seems childlike but we soon discover she is much older than originally imagined. With an over-bearing mother and a family she feels outside of, she lives in fear and subservience of her more self-assured relatives. You get the sense that outward appearance is more important to them than genuine affection. Dilly’s party is full of her mother’s friends, and she is too afraid to eat a scone in case she is seen to be breaking the diet her mother enforces. Her reaction to seeing Charlie-bo, a local homeless man, at the brunt of a prank is to feel pity while commenting that others would have found it funny. Her mother would be dismissive of him. From this opening we understand that her family is not like her. Hall expertly builds character without resorting to explicit description, and allows us to feel we know far more about the characters than you’d expect in short form.

We also see death discussed in several of the stories. In Orton a woman has decided to have her pacemaker turned off, choosing death. The story has a sense of calm and control to it as she reminisces about an early sexual encounter that had happened near where she has decided to breathe her last. In Sudden Traveller we experience the heartbreak that follows death as a new mother sits in a car breastfeeding her baby as her brother and father prepare a grave for her own mother. It is a devastating read as the young woman tries to come to terms with what has happened, thinks about having to carry the coffin, and describes how they’ve each dealt with their grief uniquely. For me this was the standout story of the collection, it packed a real emotional punch.

The book is a treasure trove of intensely felt stories of ordinary people. A triumphant reminder that short stories can be every bit as compelling and affecting as a novel, the characters and events condensed into a concentrated bullet that goes straight to the heart. 

Pick up a copy:

Foyles

Waterstones

The Moth: Occasional Magic, ed. Catherine Burns

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Founded by George Dawes Green, The Moth had its first event in 1997. The venues and audiences may have grown but the essence is the same – a microphone and a selection of speakers sharing their stories with a room of strangers. The Moth now has a large following with millions of podcast subscribers, regular radio slots, and sell-out shows across the world, it reminds us of the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Occasional Magic is the latest book to come out of the project and it makes for emotional reading. You’ll find yourself completely immersed and invested in the fifty tales within its pages. The stories are varied - from finding out a parent isn’t quite what you thought to losing a loved one, trekking across Antarctica, or confronting an inappropriate street performer. The storytellers come from all walks of life, offering an insight into experiences so different from our own and yet reminding us of our shared humanity.

The stories are all fairly short but you’ll struggle to put the book down as you alternate between laughing and crying, with moments where you need to sit with what you’ve just read. This is a brilliant read that reminds you there is hope in even the darkest of times and that every life has some occasional magic in it.

Pick up a copy:

Foyles

Waterstones

Ox-Tales: Earth

In 2009 Oxfam published four short story collections to raise money and awareness of their work. The first, based around the theme of Earth, contains stories by Ian Rankin, Kate Atkinson, Jonathan Coe, Marina Lewycka, Nicholas Shakespeare, Rose Tremain, Marti Leimbach, Hanif Kureshi, Jonathan Buckley, and a poem by Vikram Seth.  With such a varied and talented group of contributing writers there are certainly some treasures within. The theme is very loosely applied, more obvious recurring themes include death and relationships.

The book opens and closes with stories that feature famous names. The first, The Jester of Astapovo by Rose Tremain focuses on the stationmaster who looked after Tolstoy in his last hours. An interesting story about an event that previously I knew nothing of. The closing story from Nicholas Shakespeare weaves the story of a middle-aged African woman with the death of Marat. The president of her country runs a cruel dictatorship and so she aligns herself with Charlotte Corday, who took Marat’s life. It is an intriguing story that discusses how we embed our homeland in our identity and how even after we leave, it will always be a part of us.

In between you will find stories of struggling marriages, people who find themselves as outsiders of society, and parents struggling to connect. A stand-out for me was Boys in Cars by Marti Leimbach which discusses the difficulty for a child with autism to attend a birthday party. The resilience of his mother and his determination to try are movingly written so that you feel the struggle, even in such a short space. 

Overall a varied read. Not all the stories were entirely captivating but almost all will make you feel something.

Attrib. and other stories, Eley Williams

The debut collection from Williams contains a series of emotionally charged musings on the small things in life that can become a source of great anxiety. The interiority of each piece with their mostly first-person narratives means each nugget of beautifully constructed fiction packs a punch.

In Smote we see a woman agonizing over whether or not to kiss her girlfriend in an art gallery, unable to get over the feeling that it might not be appropriate. Alight at the Next shows a combination of turmoil over whether or not to invite a boyfriend home with annoyance at inconsiderate commuters on the Tube. These scenarios turn moments that in reality occupy mere seconds into pages as their internal monologues go into overdrive.

There are tales of burgeoning love alongside the crushing uncertainty and worry that comes when they begin to fall apart. In Concision we are privy to the painful end to a difficult phone call yet not a word of dialogue is included. In Platform the potency of a final photo of a loved one is mixed with humour as the narrator notices another personal drama unfolding in the background as a toupee flies off one head, ready to hit another unsuspecting traveller. A reminder that all around us life is happening outside of the nexus of our own.

Animals feature heavily, most memorably in Spines in which a family refuses to help a frightened hedgehog that has fallen in to their holiday pool. This story is a perfect example of Williams’ ability to draw believable, complex characters through their actions.

Whether you regularly read short stories or not I would highly recommend Attrib. It catches your heart from the first and skillfully takes you through the mundane in quite an extraordinary way. Williams’ love of words shines bright as she leads you on a journey of word play, literary experimentation and very human tales.