Sorrow and Bliss

 Don't let the title put you off. I'm blogging about the book I'm reading. I'm mostly okay. 

Anyway, I'm engrossed in a book, so much so, all I want to be doing is lie on my soon to be procured Hemingway chair and read it. Sod work, sod everything else. I'm in love with this book. I'm there. It's drawn me in. 

The book is Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss. The book was liberated from the Mary Martin Bookshop near work, also known as the most dangerous place in Melbourne. It spoke to me. 

Anyway, the book is wonderful. Part Bridget Jones' Diary, part Fleabag, part Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisted (or Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle) set in the noughties, it relates the story of Martha as she travels through life. 

What I can tell you about her is that she is a poor cousin, her parents, a scultptor and a very unsuccessful poet live in central London, supported by her mother's sister. You get to meet the aunt's family in their Fitzrovia mansion. Characters include the adopted 'coloured' son, his brother and his school friend, and the slightly airy-fairy younger sister. 

Martha's own sister reminds me a lot of Fleabag's sister, Claire, though I think Ingrid is a little less snippy and not as demanding.

Martha has a lovely husband called Patrick, who's a doctor, and tolerates her occasional bad behaviour. 

Oh, and Martha has some pretty big struggles with mental illness. As yet, she's not got a real diagnosis, but I'll put my money on her being bi-polar at worst, or chronically and clinically depressed as a next best guess. The novel gives a realistic view of mental illness. 

But I'm loving the book. The scenes of London in the nineties, Martha's struggles with her wastrel parents and how she seems to drift through life. 

It's also making me very, very homesick for London. 

The writing is incredible. Sharp, witty, funny and glorious. The plot is relateble. The characters are people you know - or want to know. Or maybe don't want to know. 

I'm just adoring this book. It's taking every fibre of my being not to lie down and read it all day, but the short sections mean it's great for having mini reading breaks. 

It'll definitely be on my book group short list. 

It's the thing that's keeping me happy at the moment.

Today's song: