Sunday morning with William Fiennes

I woke as usual around 6.30 and made my early morning tea. I knew what I was going to do this sunday, go to the gym and walk on the treadmill in the (vain) hope that my tummy would shrink and that the strange and new stiffness in my right leg would ease. Why I thought about The Music Room I don't know, but I dragged my bookclub bag onto the bed and started reading. It's now 9,36 and it's over. I read it in one fell swoop but I would like to return to it one day. It's simply beautiful, a book about boyhood in a magical place, a ancient castle, a family heirloom, greatly loved by all who live there and conjured up in this book as a reverent memory still wholly alive. The upper classes of Great Britain are an endearing lot. They struggle with money like the rest of us but on a different plane. To keep the castle in some kind of decent order, the family entertains the public throughout the summer, with Dad acting as ticket keeper and Mom as tour guide. But this is no sentimental gush about a lost past, it is a sharply focused memoir suffused with detail about birds, plants, lineage and, above all, about the human brain and the history of medical procedure and research into epilepsy. Rich, Williams much older brother acts as the focal point of this book. His charm and ferocious strength alternate with his joy in using language like a poet. His rages are terrifying but the family cocoons him with loving protection. The ending is a marvel, once again, bringing me to tears. I am definitely getting old.

William Fiennes. The Music Room. Picador. 2009.