June Book Meet me at the Museum

I quite enjoyed this book. However it seemed to me that the two letter writers were a bit too similar in style of writing to be two different people. And also was surprised how easily Tina was able to move to a romantically remote cottage. What was she doing for income? Also she seemed to be able to leave her children very easily.
Found it all a bit implausible.

Only half way through and have been dutifully reading as I so appreciate GN Bookclub. I was disappointed not to be more enthusiastic as when my daughter lived in Covent Garden, I often walked to the BM solely to commune with ‘Peat Moss’ and wonder about his life, and death.

I’m now, after page 80, likening the reading experience to a mountain walk. Suddenly a glimpse of Christiania, which has long interested me, then clerodendrum, a plant I didn’t know, beside the path.

Tina’s descriptions of the opera and of the festival in her next letter completely won me over. I am now reading, (and walking!), with renewed energy and true appreciation of Anne Youngson’s skill and her commitment to writing (and pathfinding!).

Must go, read more ...

I agree with loopyloo I also found the voices of the letter writers rather similar and the book took too long to get going for my taste.

A gentle book, to read slowly. That is why I haven't finished it yet. I like the farming background in contrast to Anders life.

Question if not too late - Did Anne Youngson make up the Rag Man story or is it a traditional Danish folk tale? I love it.

Elrel....Thanks for asking about the Rag Man story. Also interested in the answer

No answers yet? Maybe Anne Youngson is very busy, or on holiday.

Just finished reading this book, having been the fortunate recipient of a second-in-line GN copy (someone else passed it on to me).

It took me a while to get into it at first, I was slightly disbelieving of the fact that people would still "put pen to paper" in order to write to someone, so I was quite relieved when Tina and Anders switched to corresponding by email, with their letters as attachments.

I have a very good friend, the husband of an old friend of mine, and we frequently correspond with each other, and I never think to tell my husband about the content of the emails, because he wouldn't be interested (although he knows we write to each other). This same man also occasionally will send me a postcard and I like that, because handwriting is so personal. Our friendship is entirely platonic, but because of this I fully accepted the correspondence between Tina and Anders becoming established over time.

I enjoyed this book, I don't feel the need for a sequel.

I found the character of Birgitt very interesting, although she was on the periphery of the story, and my question to the author would be - was she based on someone you knew?

GeminiJen
I guess we’ll never know about the Ragman story.

Thank you to all the thoughtful Gransnet contributors who commented on the book and raised interesting questions. It has been one of the joys of having my work published that I learn how other people react to it, and this gives fresh life to the characters and makes me think again about some aspects of the book that I hadn’t appreciated would carry such meaning for some readers.

The main question, and one I have been asked in events as well, is whether there will be a sequel. I do not plan to write one, and the reason is exactly what one of the contributors wrote in their feedback: ‘I think it is the right place to leave Tina and Anders, we can each visualise our own preferred future for them’. This was the conclusion I came to, too. I know what my preferred future for them would be, but I am happy to hold that in my imagination, knowing other outcomes are also possible. I feel I have taken them on a journey of discovery which has given them new possibilities and new perspectives on life; it is up to them now, whatever they decide.

There is undoubtedly a question about the moral dilemma Tina faces, of whether she was wrong to be engaging in a correspondence with a stranger her husband knows nothing about. This is another topic on which I would anticipate that readers would have different opinions. I think she was right to be concerned that this was disloyal. Relationships depend on loyalty, emotional as well as physical. However, she had demonstrated true loyalty to the partnership with her husband over a number of years, so the lapse, if that is what it was, needs to be seen in the
context of the many failings that both of them had – as everyone does – that meant the partnership was never perfect.

When I started to write the book, I did not have it in mind that this would be an epistolary novel; I thought the exchange of letters would take me so far, and then I might need to find other ways to move the story forward. But there was never a moment when it stopped working; the form was never restricting and I realised the power of showing what these two people were saying by, as it were, eavesdropping on an intimate conversation. So the question of whether I would write another novel in letter format must depend on what that novel sets out to do.

There are very clever tricks a novelist can play with letters. I would pick out Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn, a comic novel in which an oppressive regime starts to ban the use of certain letters of the alphabet; the impact of this would be hard to describe unless the communication between citizens was written. Also The Last Summer by Ricarda Huch, written in 1910 about a family in Russia, in which the thoughts and motivations of the members of a family and a visiting secretary are understood by the reader, because they are all writing letters to people outside the family, but hidden from each other. So, if I have an idea as good as either of these, then I might write another epistolary novel, but the one I am working on now does not involve letters.

The background to the story, the two places involved and the occupations of the two correspondents, arose because of the inspiration from the Tollund Man who, as one of your contributors assumes, was indeed the starting point for the story. I have wanted, for a long time, to create something from the thoughts that occurred to me when I looked at his picture and read the poem Seamus Heaney wrote about him, but I could never work out where to start.

When I read the book by Professor Glob, which is dedicated, in a letter, to East Anglian schoolgirls, I had at last the hook I needed. One of these girls, I thought, might naturally pick up a pen when she reached the stage of wondering what life had all been about, and write back.

From this point, as well as the letter format, where Tina and Anders lived was fixed. I could have moved Tina anywhere in the country but I liked the idea of the emptiness and huge skies of East Anglia, the peace and yet the loneliness of the countryside; and I wanted her to be a farmer’s wife because it meant she was grounded in the soil, as the Tollund Man had been. I knew enough about Suffolk and farming, although I have never lived there, nor farmed. I had never been to Denmark either, but obviously Anders had to live in Silkeborg and be a museum curator, so for this I did need to do research, initially on the internet, by reading books and finally by visiting. None of this was a chore; I am pleased to have come to know Denmark in this way.

I have asked myself one of the questions a contributor asks me: do I regret not having started my publishing career when I was younger. On the one hand, the whole experience has been so interesting, so eye-opening and above all such fun, that I think I could have had more of all this if I started years ago. On the other hand, there is a buzz about doing something for the first time.

On this basis, I feel incredibly lucky to have saved up this amazing new career until a point when it might otherwise have been hard to find new things to do. I am also quite sure I could not have written this book when I was younger.

It is because I like to find new things to do that I am studying for a PhD. A creative writing PhD involves producing an original piece of prose, of novel length, and an academic analysis of that writing and whatever overarching theme is being explored. I am looking at how stories start – how do the first words, sentences, paragraphs impact on the way the story unfolds, and on the reader’s relationship with the story. For this, I am writing a collection of short stories (when I started ‘Meet Me at The Museum’ I thought it might turn out to be a short story, but there was little hope of that!).

I have enjoyed both sides of the work for the PhD, and have also valued meeting other research students and finding out about the truly amazing topics they are studying.

One of the questions was about a film. My writing mentor, who is also my tutor on the PhD course and a best-selling author, told me quite early on in the writing process that he could see it as a stage play. No one has suggested that to me, yet, but I have met with some interested parties from the world of film; though I know very little about how films are made, I do know that there are no certainties, so it is unlikely to happen any time soon.

AnneYoungson
Many thanks for taking so much care to provide such thoughtful responses.
Much appreciated