Conundrum (1974) by Jan Morris

This meeting marked our 20th anniversary. Yep, 20 glorious years of Hove Book Group. Needless to say all current participants receive commemorative badges

Theme: I Travel

Nick said with me spending more time away from home over the next year, I thought that Travel and Journeys would be an interesting departure point for Hove’s premier book club. And as you will now be aware, it is journeys and travel in a few  different senses. It looks like I will miss most meetings this year, but hope I can continue to be involved from a distance.

READ: Conundrum (1974) by Jan Morris 

Nick: I’ve been meaning to read this book for a while - I’ve read a few articles about Jan Morris and saw this book recommended in numerous places as an important early description of trans experience. I was looking forward to it. . .

I think it is impossible to read this book without at least a nod to the very different world of the 1970s in which it was written - the BBC documentary I shared is very good at displaying how a lot of Britain felt about ‘others’ be it homosexuals, transvestites or the ‘coloureds’. And this is indeed a period piece, which is a flawed, egocentric, anti-feminist monologue, whilst being touching, pro-choice and empowering. It has all the qualities of great reportage whilst being as unreliable as any autobiography must surely be (thanks Nigel for sharing the article about some of the family context).

Jan as we all are, is a mess of contradictions, fantastically self obsessed and mean; her description of the “true transsexuals,” against “the poor castaways of intersex, the misguided homosexuals, the transvestites’ is outrageous -  taken against her touchingly wondering whether and how to come out with young children in the house, and “the fear that I might in some way harm them by revealing the truth too soon. Besides they had a marvellous mother already.” 

Or her extremely conventional idea of women as the weaker sense whilst living a very unconventional life herself through her non-stop travels and her admiration for successful women such as the Queen.

Whilst I found the story of her journey interesting the  book really excels through the travel writing by which she rightly became famous. Her descriptions of Everest bring it vividly to life - “within the bowl everything is brilliant white and blue. It is silent in there. The mountain walls deaden everything and cushion the hours in a disciplinary hush,” or of a Venice as mysterious as that revealed in ‘Don’t Look Now’.

So whilst I enjoyed reading the book and about Jan’s journey from James, and the novella size of it certainly helped, I much preferred the travel writing, which I will delve into more. Jan’s story is Jan’s story and it is not a wider story about the trans experience. It doesn’t claim to be that, but coupled with some alarming ideas, I did find it at time difficult to find good things through my wincing eyes. I wonder if an updated version with some fresh interpretation as an introduction, warts and all, is overdue. 

A brave and flawed book.

Keith: unsatisfying

Hamish: Lacked Elizabeth, lacked solidarity with women and minorities

Tristan: Interesting but dated, and interesting because it is dated

Roland: endearing and genuine

Nigel: interesting but unreliable

Robin: engaging and thoughtful

Nick 6.5 / Tristan 6 / Nigel 6 / Keith 5 / Roland 8 / Robin 7.5 / Hamish 2

LISTEN: Minimum Maximum by Kraftwerk 

Nick: Kraftwerk are great and I particularly like this slightly updated version of them from the early 2000s. The music somehow manages to capture the sheer monotony of being stuck on the motorway or stretched out in the peloton for an interminable amount of time with the sheer joy of escape or as the bike hurtles down the hill. Possibly the most important band of all time.

Roland: Mediocre and simplistic

Tristan: Meh

Hamish: Iconic, exceptional

Nigel: Fabulous update

Robin: love Kraftwerk

Nick 9 / Tristan 2 / Nigel 9 / Keith - / Roland 4 / Robin - / Hamish 7

WATCH: Before Sunrise (1995) dir by Richard Linklater

Nick: I’d never seen this film even though it has been lauded as a classic. I’m not generally taken with romantic films and it does feel pretty dated now, albeit with themes that never seem to go away such as a war not very far away or a media controlling our minds.

I also don’t think a film like this could be made now. Boy meets girl on a train and asks her to give up her plans to spend a day in a strange European city with her. There are some supremely naff things like the early morning harpsichord player and some of the dialogue feels quite stilted. But it does have two convincing performances and it is great to see two actors who though without doubt  are very beautiful, don’t have perfect teeth or abnormal muscles. The scene in the listening booth is handled with panache and you do get the sense of them falling in love. Vienna looks beautiful.

I wouldn’t have gone to watch that play either.

Keith: painful 

Hamish: Middling

Tristan: loved on first release, now feels long and tortuous

Nigel: loved on first release, still packs a punch but now distracted by aftermath of lack of sleep

Roland: still love it second time round

Nick 7 / Tristan 10 (1995 score) / Nigel 6 / Keith - / Roland 8 / Robin - did not watch / Hamish 6

HBG endorse it: 15 November 2024 - 9 January 2025

Lucan (BBC iPlayer)

The Quiet Girl (Channel 4)

After The Party (Channel 4)

Turning Point: The Bomb And The Cold War (Netflix)

Mad About The Boy: The Noel Coward Story (BBC iPlayer)

The Boys (Prime)

Prima Facie (National Theatre)

Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Book)

Dinosaur (BBC iPlayer)

Patrick Leigh Fermor "Between The Woods and the Water"

Patrick Leigh Fermor "Between The Woods and the Water"

The hardest working book group in Hove gathered in their traditional haunt in Hove's glamorous Poets Corner district to focus their prodigious intellects on "Between The Woods and the Water" by Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915–2011) was an intrepid traveler and a heroic soldier who is widely considered to be one of the finest travel writers of the twentieth century. After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in A Time of Gifts (1977) and continues through Between the Woods and the Water (1986) and The Broken Road (published posthumously in 2013), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek archipelago. His books A Time to Keep Silence (1957), Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. 

The controversial book cover

How would HBG respond to Paddy and his teenage travels?

Nigel, who had selected the book, was predictably enthusiastic.  He explained how he was already "in deep" with Paddy and listed the other books he had read by, or about, the man, including the biography by Artemis Cooper.


Nigel had revelled in "A Time of Gifts", the first volume in the trilogy that recounts Patrick Leigh Fermor's extraordinary journey, which commenced in 1933, when he was 18 years old, and during which he set out to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. At the end of "A Time of Gifts" Nigel had left Paddy in Hungary, and this is where "Between the Woods and the Water" picks up the journey.  In "Between The Woods And The Water", Paddy travels to Budapest and thence across the Great Hungarian Plain, before travelling through Transylvania and the upper Carpathian Mountains, variously walking, riding on horseback, by car, on a boat, and by train.  Paddy continues to share his enthusiasm for life, language, history, nature, religion, people, music, food and anything else that piques his interest. His gift for making friends knows no bounds. In this volume, alongside the usual array of aristocrats, Paddy befriends two communities of Gypsies, young women harvesting, Transylvanian shepherds, an Orthodox rabbi and his sons, and various other people and groups he encounters. It appears there is no one with whom he cannot find common ground despite the differences in language, circumstance and culture.

Nigel "revelled"

This book was published in 1986, nine years after "A Time of Gifts", however both books share the same vivacity and freshness that belies the gap between the original experience and when the books were written. What elevates this book, and its predecessor, is Paddy's gorgeously poetic descriptions, which vividly bring his journey to life.  Nigel concluded by hailing it as another beautifully written travel book, that also variously serves as a book about European history, social history, relationships, youth, lost worlds, and all in the company of the most charming, erudite and enthusiastic travelling companion imaginable.  9/10

Robin's body language and demeanour suggested the Paddy love-in was about to abruptly end - and so it came to pass.  Robin felt disengaged by much of the book and found himself frequently zoning out.  Robin loves Laurie Lee.  There, he's said it.  He wants to shout about his love for Laurie Lee from the rooftops.  The downside of his love for Laurie is that it leaves little leeway for alternative attractions.

Robn - loves Laurie Lee

Robin demands that his travel writers rough it every night - not just when the writer is not staying in castles and playing bicycle polo.  Horses, boats, cars?  Come on Paddy.  Rough it man.  Rough it.  4/10

Tristan hailed Paddy as "a remarkable person" with a "prodigious intellect".  He shines a light on a lost Europe and we all benefit from this illumination.  

There is also the occasional reminder of the dreadful future awaiting so many of the people he met along his way in 1934:

"Every part of Europe I had crossed so far was to be torn and shattered by the war; indeed, except for the last stage before the Turkish frontier, all the countries traversed by this journey were fought over a few years later by two mercilessly destructive powers; and when war broke out, all these friends vanished into sudden darkness. Afterwards the uprooting and destruction were on so tremendous a scale that it was sometimes years after the end of it all that the cloud became less dense and I could pick up a clue here and there and piece together what had happened in the interim. Nearly all of them had been dragged into the conflict in the teeth of their true feelings and disaster overtook them all." 

Tristan was able to further enhance his splendid review with reference to his own recent visit to Transylvania.  He regaled us with slides of his visit that included a ex-Salt Mine now used for table tennis, an abandoned and highly toxic chemical factory and his legendary re-enactment of The Matrix.  Confused?  So were we.  But delightfully so.  

Sadly Tristan could exclusively that the Water Buffalo are no longer a regular sight and the diversity of wildlife is in steep decline.

Tristan - re-enacted The Matrix in Transylvania

Back to the book and its gold-panning Gypsies, bawdy village crones, sun-brown reapers, flirty women, Transylvanian shepherds, and the impenetrably reserved Orthodox rabbi, and - of course - the reports from within the “manor houses harbouring over-civilised boyars up to their ears in Proust and Mallarmé”, and - of course - the exploration of European history, language and customs, for Tristan this all added up to a whole heap of literary and intellectual pleasure.  

Well played PLF.  7.5/10

Keith described the book as "genre busting" and a highly intelligent account of Paddy's teenage travels.  How much of what Paddy reported reflected his teenage musings?  And how much was a lifetime of learning superimposed onto the journey?  Keith raised a quizzical eyebrow whilst surveying his HBG bredren.  Either way, Paddy revels in his powers of observation, his historical awareness, and his magnificent prose. Landscape came alive, the people whom he encountered were described and what shone through was their humanity.  The historical and philosophical digressions enchanted Keith and illuminated the reading experience. Keith was there, alongside Paddy, on the vast eastern plain, and he loved it.

Keith - nationalism schmationlism

Keith was also struck by the endless movements of people and customs across geography, of migrations, exiles, conversions and conquests that compose Middle Europe, Keith could not help but reflect upon the ridiculous imposture of nationalism, borders, and the futility and pettiness of statehood.  Europe's people have always, and will always, ebb and flow and that's what define us UKIP, Cameron and the rest of you small minded, blinkered fools.  Keith climbed down from the table to rousing cheers from the assembled throng.  8/10

Hamish went above beyond the call of duty by reading A Time of Gifts before starting this one (although he had to abandon it before finishing in order to read this volume before our discussion).  Once the cheering had died down, Hamish stated he loved the accounts of Paddy's walk.  From the moments in Budapest, with the “noctambulistic” smart set (cellar nightclubs, scotch-and-soda, American jazz) whose country-housed, horse-lending population extended deep into Hungary and Romania, along the still-twitching nerves of the old empire.  With these connections, much of 1934 was a Summer sojourn amongst old Hapsburg nobility.  Paddy pausing for weeks at a time to sample the “learning, munificence, and douceur de vivre” of that soon-to-be-swept-away class. Suddenly, the daunting hike described in this book and A Time of Gifts became more extended holiday filled with picnics, bicycle polo, and undisturbed hours in manorial libraries in which the lore and languages of the region. 

Hamish - went beyond the call of duty

Hamish revelled in Paddy's fantastic language, whilst an easy read Hamish found he could only manage the book in small doses due to the richness of each section.  The downside of travel writing is the that we don't always get as much about the personal aspect of the journey and Hamish enjoyed those sections where this was not the case.  One memorable example was the night spent with the gypsies when Paddy was unsure if his horse would still be with him in the morning.  Hamish concluded his review by asking whether there people like Paddy still exist.  We concluded they probably don't.  8/10 (including a point for the cover which, unbelievably, not everyone liked)

The complimentary film selection was...

The Grand Budapest Hotel - complimentary

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014) directed by Wes Anderson

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 comedy film written and directed by Wes Anderson and inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig. It stars Ralph Fiennes as Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous hotel from the fictional Republic of Zubrowka between the first and second World Wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.



Nigel enjoyed it, and the echoes of the old Hapsburg nobility and the pre-war era with its ominous storm clouds darkening a world of culture and sophistication.  8/10

Keith, who barely knows how to operate a television, was underwhelmed. 6/10

Tristan called it a very good film which ticked all his boxes. 9/10

Robin loved it 7/10

And, to round things off, we enjoyed...

Muzsikás Feat. Marta Sebestyen "Fly Bird Fly - Very Best of"

...or did we?  Robin imagined the music, and the rest of the HBG had not noticed... 

Nigel's lovingly crafted YouTube playlist (good innit) 

...all except Hamish who borrowed the CD and was able to bring some sanity to the discussion by praising the merits of this Hungarian group who mainly play folk music from Hungary and the other countries of the region.  The perfect soundtrack to Paddy's journey.  Thanks Hamish.  The textbook response.

And on that high note the Hove Book Group bade each other farewell with much hearty slapping of backs and kissing of cheeks.