This Is The Castle

Dad had an innocent affection for scouring secondhand book shops for unremarkable first editions. He would never have paid the going rate for important such editions. He also liked to pass some of those editions on to me as gifts. I have just finished reading one of them and I'm sorry I didn't get round to it sooner - not because of any great literary merit but because of the note in Dad's familiar handwriting which I found in it when I picked it up off my bookshelf. The note was neatly folded in two and on its outer leaf was the text, 'D, Read the book first and then read this note! Dad X'.

Well, I have at last done as directed and today I finished this curiosity of a novel. I have opened the note and Dad's reading of the bizarre ending is not quite the same as mine. I won't set it our here in case you want to try the book for yourself. It is the work of a successful but not critically acclaimed author and it is about a successful but not critically acclaimed author, so there is an element of navel-gazing going on - This is the Castle by Nicolas Freeling. Not by any stretch a great novel but a commendably workmanlike one and it contains an important gem of a passge about the author as manic depressive that hits the nail on the head:

Fear of having talent and fear of not having any - manic depressive, isn't it? - depends whether the swing of the moment is up or down.

I miss the sorts of conversation about books that Dad and I shared. Of course dementia had ended those conversations by the end but there are decades of golden memories. That note has been carefully re-folded and put back in the book - perhaps someday another reader will find it and enjoy the game of reading. I hope so.