#6Degrees of Separation from I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith to Songs for the Living and the Dead by Sarah M Salah

This meme is hosted by Kate from Books are my Favourite and Best, and this month starts with  I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Would I have read this book if it wasn’t this month’s starting point for the meme? Probably not. It may be a classic, but it wasn’t a book which had previously crossed my reading radar. Yes, I enjoyed it (mostly) but as I wrote in my review: ‘I am old now, less attracted to ruined castles and more irritated by ineffective parenting’.

So where do I go from here? Jump to another classic, look for another chess reference (yes, a tiny stretch), find another castle, choose a book by another author whose given name was Dorothy? Some combination of these possibilities?  The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett meets at least two of those criteria for me, and who can forget this opening line: ‘Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.’. The Ringed Castle is the novel which hooked me on the Lymond series in the mid-1980s. A friend tried to introduce me to Lymond in 1974, but The Game of Kings was beyond me then. After I read The Ringed Castle, I went back to the beginning and devoured the series.

I am resisting the temptation to link to another Dorothy Dunnett book, and instead will move down the classic path to Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. I recently reread this and was inspired by the knowledge that ‘Tomorrow would be a beautiful day’. Of course it will. Such optimism.

Speaking of satisfying endings takes me to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brönte. I have read this book many times since I first read an abridged version at primary school. I cannot explain in any rational way why I am so drawn to this novel, so I no longer try. It is a classic and while it does not involve a castle, it does involve a farm. And, as I write with mixed feelings, to several different retellings and interpretations in print and on film.

While those interpretations do not work for me, there is a retelling of the Faust legend that I quite enjoyed. While each of the authors mentioned above are dead, Oliver Pötzsch is not. My link is to The Master’s Apprentice (A Retelling of the Faust Legend) by Oliver Pötzsch. The second book in this series (which I accidentally read first) is called: The Devil’s Pawn . Legends belong with classics, don’t you think?  I also enjoyed the first four books in Oliver Pötzsch’s The Hangman’s Daughter series.

 So where to from here? Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sarah M Salah brings me to the present and reminds me (uncomfortably) that while struggles can be described in fiction, they are (unfortunately) not confined there:

‘It was strange, how humans filled their mouths with platitudes and pleasantries. It often worked, washing any bitterness away, but never for long.’

Legends, classics, references to chess, reminders of struggles: these are the paths I have taken for this month’s #6Degrees of Separation. There were many possibilities, but I found myself caught in a bit of a classic bind. Have you read any of my choices? If you have, did you enjoy them?