Jane Gardam
The book I have most enjoyed this year (I have to say that I haven't read A Suitable Boy yet. It is so heavy to lift off the table) is In the Place of Fallen Leaves by Tim Pears, (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99). I left it on the table for rather a long time, too, because I thought the title sounded a bit sickly, but all was forgotten on page one. A beautiful, powerful book about real rural ways, sav- age sometimes, very funny and sometimes touching the heart like Hardy. But the spir- it of it is Proust. Haunting. It is a first novel.
A second novel is Paradise by Abdul Razak Gurnah (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99, to be published in February). It is about Zanzibar in the time of the writer's grand- father — a ferocious society which yet has some laughter in it. Mediaeval scenes of story-telling in the burning night of lands where the sun does not set and the earth is covered with glass. I want to read every- thing he writes.
Elizabeth Gaskell by Jenny Uglow (Faber, £20, £12.99) brought a new woman to light, much braver and younger and live- lier than I'd realised. There's rather too much analysis of the novels but an impres- sive comprehension of Mrs G's back- ground. Mr Gaskell towers above. It took me back to the novels, particularly North and South, and made me ponder on Mrs G's secrets and awful sorrows.
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