tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91959809357359032342024-03-21T14:59:24.921+00:00BigFeetBearsRuthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.comBlogger516125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-90122812050494147612021-07-28T06:23:00.008+01:002022-05-01T22:27:55.409+01:00Janet Frame, Victoria Woodhull, Muriel Spark, and a poetry anthology by Alan Bennett<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_NzljS-eJ5u3JMRz6aEvN4CP9I9szi84ZP0raWCl_0porc7b8XzjUxzxfpjXVYnFrIK6MY2K_TmMQeDUBBK-Hqakd085TA4tC9lUKXRes3wGcBzd7OqqRoFw9nOz6DLlZcp152-PhdbF/s2048/IMG_3328.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_NzljS-eJ5u3JMRz6aEvN4CP9I9szi84ZP0raWCl_0porc7b8XzjUxzxfpjXVYnFrIK6MY2K_TmMQeDUBBK-Hqakd085TA4tC9lUKXRes3wGcBzd7OqqRoFw9nOz6DLlZcp152-PhdbF/w480-h640/IMG_3328.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>An Angel At My Table: The Complete Autobiography</i>, by Janet Frame, The Women’s Press (2001).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I really enjoyed this book. It’s a literary book – the life story of a writer and poet – but also of someone who both had terrible things happen to her, and went her own way in life, all of which makes for terribly interesting reading. The writing itself is wonderfully, creatively dense; not in a way that makes it difficult to read – it is just packed with recollections. (I am very envious of her ability to remember things and the order in which they happened. At one point, discussing her childhood, she seems to recall each year distinctly.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Frame was born between the wars, and grew up in rural New Zealand. Her family was large and poor and her mother seems to have been overworked and overwhelmed by family, but despite this – and despite losing two sisters to drowning – Frame’s early childhood seems to have been happy. She is shy though, and compliant, and self-effacing. When she goes to college, she stays with an aunt, and – so as not to cause any trouble – insists she doesn’t eat much, and she’s happy to eat her dinner in the hall. It is only when her younger sister joins her, and angrily threatens to write home and tell their parents the aunt is mistreating them, that the ridiculousness of the situation becomes apparent.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I did not quite follow the thought process that led her, as a young student, to walk away from a teaching career. At any rate, she evidently wasn’t happy and, in confiding her troubles to a friendly ear, naively accepted the suggestion that she enter a hospital for some respite – ‘asylum’ in the more innocent sense – and was then diagnosed with schizophrenia (a diagnosis which is later found to be mistaken). This allowed her to be detained involuntarily, but it is far from clear that the long periods of time she spent in mental hospitals were completely involuntary. She had a desire to please, to follow orders, to avoid causing trouble, which apparently made it easier to incarcerate her, but also she found in her diagnosis a means of escaping her problems, and she seems to have gravitated, almost helplessly, towards institutional care in times of crisis. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In an often cited episode she escaped a lobotomy when one of her doctors heard that a piece of her writing had won an award: writing really did save her life. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">But for much of her youth, she wrote hopelessly; even publication didn’t help her. The turning point of the book seems to have been her meeting the writer, Frank Sargeson, who gave her both the space (a shed in his garden, where she could live and write) and the encouragement – maybe the permission – to choose writing as a way of life, a job. He also encouraged her to travel overseas which, in spite of the fright it caused her occasionally, seems to have given her more independence of spirit, more resilience.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I love reading about how writers become writers (having always wanted to write) but this was also a story of an escape, and the pursuit of happiness, and about a woman who discovers she works better alone – albeit with supportive individuals nearby – and successfully lives her life on that basis.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The one thing missing is an actual account of her years in hospital: she omits this because she has written about it elsewhere, in a novel called <i>Faces in the Water, </i>which I hope to go on to read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9AxO18kA64X2WRUhiDduHaiyK6vDGNFNUEWl8-umkjgzOy3aJBYv2G2LBJVsoHTcQGMsdf0d5RhPqXdXJKL1tUO5s6tLSFYS3y9I0WOO3wMzSsacfMRBAZr4DJl3h5Ya9yiOAnWiP1Bg/s2048/IMG_3329.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9AxO18kA64X2WRUhiDduHaiyK6vDGNFNUEWl8-umkjgzOy3aJBYv2G2LBJVsoHTcQGMsdf0d5RhPqXdXJKL1tUO5s6tLSFYS3y9I0WOO3wMzSsacfMRBAZr4DJl3h5Ya9yiOAnWiP1Bg/w480-h640/IMG_3329.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Mrs Satan: The Incredible Saga of Victoria Woodhull</i>, by Johanna Johnston, Macmillan (1967).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Another book I bought years ago and finally got around to reading (and another book with fantastic cover art): I did not particularly enjoy it. I’m not sure which I disliked the most – Victoria Woodhull, or the way she was written about. Woodhull was an American, born in 1838, to parents who were poor, religious and enterprising to the point of not caring what side of the law they were on. Her childhood reminds me of that of the poet, Anna Wickham. Woodhull seems to have spent her youth moving from place to place, being put on stage, telling fortunes and providing spiritual cures. She and her sister, Tennessee, are two of a kind and, with their large family following in their wake, they go to New York and become variously successful – Wall Street’s first female brokers, newspaper proprietors, free love enthusiasts, blackmailers, proponents of women’s suffrage, candidates for political office. Woodhull is later involved in a major scandal involving the integrity of one of America’s most popular preachers, Henry Ward Beecher. She then comes to the UK and marries very a rich man, and – despite it bubbling up repeatedly – manages to live down what comes to seem like a particularly indecorous past.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Woodhull does not seem a very likeable figure, and Johnston does not seem particularly concerned to describe her as such. I suppose I was hoping that beneath the sensationalist book title, there would be more shades of grey. But story and title alike could have been pieced together from tabloid newspapers, and perhaps they were – one can only write history from the available sources, after all.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">But I felt as though more context (and thus more understanding) could have been given on the doctrine of ‘free love’ and why it might have appealed to women whose options were terribly limited. And, as Woodhull collected male devotees, who apparently worked assiduously to make successes of her various enterprises, there is definitely an implication in the book that she was a figurehead – beautiful, sad-looking, quietly magnetic – short on intellectual abilities. But Johnston does not seriously address the question of exactly how much input Woodhull had into the articles and pamphlets published in her name. Surely this is important.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I also felt that context was lacking on the question of her oratorical abilities. Johnston describes some of Woodhull’s stage successes in detail. She was apparently a very compelling speaker, and the story brought to mind various other women from the period – Mrs Henry Ward, for example – but with the rise of the women’s suffrage movement, it must have been an era of talented female speakers. I thought that Woodhull’s accomplishments lost some of their shine in being described so singularly, in isolation.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In this book, Woodhull also reminded me a little of Marie Stopes, of whom I read a biography a little while ago: both self-publicists who broke boundaries through sheer force of personality when younger but who became laughable in later years. Woodhull, having married her rich Englishman, returned frequently to the United States to pursue her presidential nomination, and quickly returned home when stories from her past came up in the press. Her devoted (and apparently clueless) husband steps in to defend her at every point. Then she gets into a very public argument over money with her sister, where her sister says that ‘Victoria sent her money from time to time certainly, but only so that she, Margaret Ann, could put it in a private account for Victoria, from which she could withdraw it as she wished without her husband’s knowledge.’ (291) Back to England they go. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">On the same page, Johnston quotes from Woodhull’s attempt at autobiography: ‘Sitting here today in this north room of 17 Hyde Park Gate, London – dreary, smoky, foggy, insulated as you are in the customs and prejudices of centuries – I am thinking with all the bitterness of my woman’s nature how my life has been warped and twisted out of shape by this environment’. She then gives up on it, but publishes the fragment as a pamphlet.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Despite finding it quite funny in places, I was a bit uncomfortable at being encouraged to laugh at a woman who, it seemed to me, the book did not make much attempt to understand.</div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthBYgi8mA1_RUMzdalCyRPtA_uLcuEQf6ohC2qVFAYQGhZ1VsktD8JYjsvbHhjYmOs_KNvxBlWK_LMrCIIc6ySNhGg1_aFcsow6yGyZyMUzbGec6okpLzQULjE9jcv-XohQM-eX7K_uVG/s2048/IMG_3330.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthBYgi8mA1_RUMzdalCyRPtA_uLcuEQf6ohC2qVFAYQGhZ1VsktD8JYjsvbHhjYmOs_KNvxBlWK_LMrCIIc6ySNhGg1_aFcsow6yGyZyMUzbGec6okpLzQULjE9jcv-XohQM-eX7K_uVG/w480-h640/IMG_3330.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Memento Mori</i>, by Muriel Spark, Virago Press (2018).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I love Muriel Spark’s writing, although this wasn’t one of my favourites of her books. I was going to say initially that her books always have very strong plots, but actually I think what they have is a very strong idea, and very strong character back stories. The direction of the novel seems less prescribed.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In <i>Memento Mori</i>, the central theme at first seems to be the anonymous telephone calls, but this turns out to be a more abstract, spiritual idea than you would have thought. It doesn’t actually have much effect on the direction of the novel. There’s also the destructive machinations of Mrs Pettigrew with regard to Godfrey and Charmian’s marriage, and this does resolve itself, but Godfrey’s showdown with Mrs Pettigrew is cut short by the announcement about Lettie’s death – which goes back to the issue of the telephone calls. So there are these two ideas, one practical and one more philosophical, which cut across each other.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Spark’s characters, and the way she tells the story, are very genteel, humorous, polite – very British – but there’s some sturdy stuff underneath. The scene where Lettie Colston dies is particularly stark – partly because it was so sparsely described; partly because the gentle writing lulled me into a false sense of security. I love the scene where they have a meeting about the telephone calls: “When Godfrey came in he glanced round at the furnishings with an inquiring air.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> ‘Is this the right room?’ he said.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Alec Warner thought: He is probably looking for signs of a tea-tray. He probably thinks we are not going to get any tea.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> ‘Yes, I think this is the most suitable,’ said Henry, as one taking him into consultation. ‘Don’t you? We can sit round the table and talk things over before tea.’</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> ‘Oh!’ said Godfrey. Alec Warner congratulated himself.” (p.148)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Spark is very minimal in her descriptions of appearance – hair, clothing, and so on. In the first chapter, for example, we are introduced to Lettie, Charmian and Godfrey, but we’re not told what any of them looks like. There is a description of Olive’s appearance (p.86), but this stands out for being one of the few – and she is appearing as a ‘love interest’ (or object of desire) to Godfrey in that scene, so her appearance is perhaps especially relevant. Even when Dame Lettie is scared by the appearance of two strange men, their appearance is not actually described. (p.183) I suppose I find this remarkable because, whenever I have attempted creative writing, I have felt like I have to describe the characters’ appearances in minute detail before getting round to plot. Spark’s insouciance with regard to the visual aspect is refreshing, and the book does not suffer from its lack. Indeed, perhaps it benefits. AL Kennedy writes in the introduction that there are no long Muriel Spark novels: they are very succinct.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I like also the way Spark retains an authorial voice – she doesn’t speak through any one character – so she can describe how one character feels, and then go on to talk about them; she has no particular investment in a single protagonist. Again, whenever I attempt creative writing, I immediately become heavily invested in the protagonist, to the detriment of every other character, and the story becomes one-dimensional very quickly.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Spark also has a rather ominous way of describing the actions of characters, and making their motivations perfectly clear, without actually stating them expressly – as on p.80-81, where Mrs Pettigrew smells food burning, but goes back upstairs and says nothing about it. And on p.85, where Godfrey first visits Olive. His movements are described minutely, but the purpose of his visit is not revealed – until it eventually becomes plain.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I’m not sure why I didn’t enjoy this as much as I have some of Spark’s other books – possibly just tired from too many early mornings! I think it lost focus for me as the plot was diluted by other themes and personalities. You could say similarly of, for example, Barbara Pym’s books, but Pym’s books – those I have read – do have protagonists, which provide a focal point as the story bobs its way along.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1r1jqdRk2BLN0k0W0IcGHQYVPJGw_0plYEGLM_O5TbPwzMIDqR8WrA_-caKgCzSFvsv8Sp59-CK0PjU0XrGBwVaVLlcpq1Gov_R2QvX3SjliDfsq3tpF4pIctytAg7ZmMgEMrdwGVG9uD/s2048/IMG_3331.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1r1jqdRk2BLN0k0W0IcGHQYVPJGw_0plYEGLM_O5TbPwzMIDqR8WrA_-caKgCzSFvsv8Sp59-CK0PjU0XrGBwVaVLlcpq1Gov_R2QvX3SjliDfsq3tpF4pIctytAg7ZmMgEMrdwGVG9uD/w480-h640/IMG_3331.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin. An Anthology by Alan Bennett</i>, Profile Books (2014).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">There was a great deal of poetry in Janet Frame’s An Angel at My Table: not only did she write poetry herself, but her mother was fond of it, and it was something that Frame grew up with. I didn’t, particularly, but I’m always quite envious when I read about people for whom poetry is important: it’s a world apart from the one I know.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">But who better to introduce it than funny, awkward, colloquially English Alan Bennett. I admit I found the commentary more interesting than the poetry. Who knew that Thomas Hardy didn’t like to be touched, or that his cat came to be called Kiddleywinkempoops Trot. Such gems warmed my heart, which had been thoroughly frozen towards him by the first chapter (and decidedly no further) of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Then there is Bennett’s description of Auden’s status among the 1930s poets (p.157), or his quotation from MacNeice about his Oxford days: ‘‘Homosexuality and intelligence, heterosexuality and brawn were almost inexorably paired. This left me out,’ he said, ‘and I took to drink.’’ (p.153)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Nonetheless, after this, I would happily pick up books of poetry by Hardy (‘Christmas: 1924’), A. E. Housman (‘I Did Not Lose My Heart’), and John Betjeman (‘Business Girls’), and perhaps even Louis MacNeice (‘Death of an Actress’, although I’m not sure I understood much of Larkin or Auden.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Both this book and Janet Frame’s are reassuring on the point that it’s fine to enjoy poetry for it’s rhythm and sentimental appeal, even if some of the sterner stuff remains a bit foggy in meaning. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I can’t help thinking though that poetry is one of the big advantages of public libraries. I’m sure I once bought a book of Auden’s poems, aspirationally as it were, thinking – ‘come on, he is highly-acclaimed – of course I’ll enjoy it’ but, as here, I couldn’t really make a dent in it.</div><div><br /></div></div><br /></div></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-59249192786587288732021-06-16T19:34:00.002+01:002021-06-16T19:34:37.646+01:00House photos<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I have given up trying to write about my attempts to decorate my house. Not only am I not an interiors writer, but I don't have a clue what I'm doing. So instead, with minimum wordage, here are some recent photographs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is the rose on the front of the house, coming into bloom,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DmpKLCgrRlrjjWxiLOAnJSBm4t0-rh0e95RYJe58a7ORJj2k0yLh6Fj5KsPRIpgwswbjEIyrrJheJh4mtxZ814OPwN9OpfAEhXBjCgP6pEKj7YepRqnqOxyfg9MpI5V9JNOBOUTba7Xi/s2048/IMG_3062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DmpKLCgrRlrjjWxiLOAnJSBm4t0-rh0e95RYJe58a7ORJj2k0yLh6Fj5KsPRIpgwswbjEIyrrJheJh4mtxZ814OPwN9OpfAEhXBjCgP6pEKj7YepRqnqOxyfg9MpI5V9JNOBOUTba7Xi/w480-h640/IMG_3062.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The hole in the front garden filled in - although sadly there'll be another trench at the end of the month - for the fitting of the gas pipes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEKoBp5nBwsCQH_Bh5IAgnI2UneTqb76YyCZXzPSMwFFZhRwDJsfGbLBf0LTLvbqO2kg4qoqG9gux7n2Glxmjpsh3NOXJUGjV1yFn7UqrwOHlAOHDI8x-8qw0nj40o5oHtGKrdXTLiopy/s2048/IMG_3038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEKoBp5nBwsCQH_Bh5IAgnI2UneTqb76YyCZXzPSMwFFZhRwDJsfGbLBf0LTLvbqO2kg4qoqG9gux7n2Glxmjpsh3NOXJUGjV1yFn7UqrwOHlAOHDI8x-8qw0nj40o5oHtGKrdXTLiopy/w480-h640/IMG_3038.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Newly green back garden.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlb_okm8jFyPGpNO_FFCskqBjwoi4wYm0O-armIkYkIIKgfy_1bOcheTqiL4ixF8bfZfuOITXdvokyAfMqCpNwz_nG7ACS0Dh1A_ydsUXE9Y40R_KxBjkrVlxDF7aEwiuXZcXO4qaKEF7F/s2048/IMG_3054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlb_okm8jFyPGpNO_FFCskqBjwoi4wYm0O-armIkYkIIKgfy_1bOcheTqiL4ixF8bfZfuOITXdvokyAfMqCpNwz_nG7ACS0Dh1A_ydsUXE9Y40R_KxBjkrVlxDF7aEwiuXZcXO4qaKEF7F/w480-h640/IMG_3054.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Gorgeous poppies, planted by the previous owner.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBmCjDNTRoN1krVYg-2qztazobhto4U0UPYYIuXmMCTf2ATx-jmtGGaXGvSMpfttD3xbUH5XmFqNYgLcPsvzNUd6i9GD535D-eyN86mT77jAANfZD1jB1vHBWfitItZ_kpQ6KnZfdhpQP/s2048/IMG_3031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBmCjDNTRoN1krVYg-2qztazobhto4U0UPYYIuXmMCTf2ATx-jmtGGaXGvSMpfttD3xbUH5XmFqNYgLcPsvzNUd6i9GD535D-eyN86mT77jAANfZD1jB1vHBWfitItZ_kpQ6KnZfdhpQP/w480-h640/IMG_3031.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Lots of copper pipage going in for the gas.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1HtyVAhF-OCftP9TJ44VzOPVoOql9DfrmjhQC3kTTz5TX7HnIV3bpFdbxnmYlvnjQfbGicZpj00TaepBPv_xcBOfJHePuc4a7IuEI1QYXAhaPKahOzDRMBZfYV81zMxRpH7cYQkxDhh8t/s2048/IMG_2940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1HtyVAhF-OCftP9TJ44VzOPVoOql9DfrmjhQC3kTTz5TX7HnIV3bpFdbxnmYlvnjQfbGicZpj00TaepBPv_xcBOfJHePuc4a7IuEI1QYXAhaPKahOzDRMBZfYV81zMxRpH7cYQkxDhh8t/w480-h640/IMG_2940.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A... some-or-other. Conditioner?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeqIoVSUJMg6ZR8CGBo6hLb2Ju2qRoaO7WQbPSDHiJh-DehMrEgZ0ZzOhST7VjXVQW_oIPNqzAIKhfWng3MPhYRCDMsWoD4k_PioOa7O3XcX0cymLTDXL8Lhv1Ea5IPaWf85aY21uJNOgn/s2048/IMG_2941.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeqIoVSUJMg6ZR8CGBo6hLb2Ju2qRoaO7WQbPSDHiJh-DehMrEgZ0ZzOhST7VjXVQW_oIPNqzAIKhfWng3MPhYRCDMsWoD4k_PioOa7O3XcX0cymLTDXL8Lhv1Ea5IPaWf85aY21uJNOgn/w480-h640/IMG_2941.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">New Ikea units and shelves in the ktichen. Haven't gotton round to painting the wall yet. I am getting very used to the pale pink of the bare plaster!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixym_jPFf5E70SI1q-_tothQeNHrNYjYkifCOzb9czzosNG87aqMMD0ZKkeISDTeoHZuvfGPSiY1hv3XAMBfSEIkpKdp8M-acKX99oZQpV2HK-UZHFusdP5eu8NhN4Nb7FBRrI8LCkRzLA/s2048/IMG_3045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixym_jPFf5E70SI1q-_tothQeNHrNYjYkifCOzb9czzosNG87aqMMD0ZKkeISDTeoHZuvfGPSiY1hv3XAMBfSEIkpKdp8M-acKX99oZQpV2HK-UZHFusdP5eu8NhN4Nb7FBRrI8LCkRzLA/w480-h640/IMG_3045.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Lots of new radiators, including shiny new towel rail in the bathroom (scuzzy polystyrene ceiling tiles not shown).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL-Z2LaaXequkQsSpZAapW18wYOb9_SmvDtYOyRQ52jeQ1QfhGBuuFqj7Tbptt9lmIYXgjeiMTKO374xHe5zLBEhVV0jik9ZcLuMps10sLrCPTkGNmaGzRM4aPhrE3n_W-jDhXI3juVh7M/s2048/IMG_2969.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL-Z2LaaXequkQsSpZAapW18wYOb9_SmvDtYOyRQ52jeQ1QfhGBuuFqj7Tbptt9lmIYXgjeiMTKO374xHe5zLBEhVV0jik9ZcLuMps10sLrCPTkGNmaGzRM4aPhrE3n_W-jDhXI3juVh7M/w480-h640/IMG_2969.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Me looking at myself in the mirror!</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE9d6CxJHWt1jbQqmYIaX51m_2dlTlLPTzyfz5lbMFsxuhhmIwc5BTseMHOfHwBjOYoui3I9jN_BWaKhWunpBxKIUrkkEWi5tTzcTPjSWST1QyH4pFFPp9lyei6X3eb-FLUIaBIawl284T/s2048/IMG_2975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE9d6CxJHWt1jbQqmYIaX51m_2dlTlLPTzyfz5lbMFsxuhhmIwc5BTseMHOfHwBjOYoui3I9jN_BWaKhWunpBxKIUrkkEWi5tTzcTPjSWST1QyH4pFFPp9lyei6X3eb-FLUIaBIawl284T/w480-h640/IMG_2975.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Pet woodworm(!) It might have been the wrong decision not to have the woodworm treatment done.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicnHGhqOLNMQbyzKv7wAx7ofLjs2DfcFLAXorPrG7XSMVYV_olVKMMAWgWHnCp0unH5JeNn-lwaRdny4Q5IenB4-RFM8xGI7EEsESXYbSv3dRaXvqxu7h2veDbO1_c3rM1fO0cVXRdNgWg/s2048/IMG_2987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicnHGhqOLNMQbyzKv7wAx7ofLjs2DfcFLAXorPrG7XSMVYV_olVKMMAWgWHnCp0unH5JeNn-lwaRdny4Q5IenB4-RFM8xGI7EEsESXYbSv3dRaXvqxu7h2veDbO1_c3rM1fO0cVXRdNgWg/w480-h640/IMG_2987.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">New water connection!</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3dOr5R3l3ETPgd0y29-5gRok8gbBSKlB-GT7dZ9ZTDjAhhChqJHDJRJ54EQzZ2iY3dGqmJXvDILxixo_0QZ_nQB4VKZOSfihQRWiFuabecPcx5yjlfdb2Tz_FgY-X3tA-XNA7hm0zHL6/s2048/IMG_2993.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3dOr5R3l3ETPgd0y29-5gRok8gbBSKlB-GT7dZ9ZTDjAhhChqJHDJRJ54EQzZ2iY3dGqmJXvDILxixo_0QZ_nQB4VKZOSfihQRWiFuabecPcx5yjlfdb2Tz_FgY-X3tA-XNA7hm0zHL6/w480-h640/IMG_2993.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Really sweet little second-hand display cabinet, bought on Gumtree.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiegmmeHyhC3Z0OaJk8KnOAHbdKcaG08j5r7eCe2iUnA2IB2grFDpkbiq2ezkBTZ1ioEL3LzL1uVYyFBtWX4e64AgC5tUg6gsO7o2xE7mWfm7GZTNjs3x7sFyiOzTBhYLTuuphKUkr-acGM/s2048/IMG_3007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiegmmeHyhC3Z0OaJk8KnOAHbdKcaG08j5r7eCe2iUnA2IB2grFDpkbiq2ezkBTZ1ioEL3LzL1uVYyFBtWX4e64AgC5tUg6gsO7o2xE7mWfm7GZTNjs3x7sFyiOzTBhYLTuuphKUkr-acGM/w480-h640/IMG_3007.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My house at night, with Freecycle table lamps.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTdVZQmD3D8iP92pYwd66-jwShG5s3DREs6hKKnGr98PvFYWBJC4ooL4X2CbA_Ec-KOoNJIXP4S27gTJw7PxNi6je7YYnfk7NkbBtZ3q9Cljp-UKEvemdEP_ne28zVi1zY7w10_2sDsLx/s2048/IMG_3008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTdVZQmD3D8iP92pYwd66-jwShG5s3DREs6hKKnGr98PvFYWBJC4ooL4X2CbA_Ec-KOoNJIXP4S27gTJw7PxNi6je7YYnfk7NkbBtZ3q9Cljp-UKEvemdEP_ne28zVi1zY7w10_2sDsLx/w480-h640/IMG_3008.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Mirror on the wall above the sofa.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVL6QAPyykn_fzMpvJqtuuDFBc33DIROTWlQKXdKUi6E1bkZNJyEyD91vYV70KBXLu_ovt2iTxk-rdUGshL3AHLRfOPc5D7Cd6o8ZiDrwaVo6-fkdy_jHjD2Z5UdoeQAhBV92BR-MC070/s1920/IMG_3047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVL6QAPyykn_fzMpvJqtuuDFBc33DIROTWlQKXdKUi6E1bkZNJyEyD91vYV70KBXLu_ovt2iTxk-rdUGshL3AHLRfOPc5D7Cd6o8ZiDrwaVo6-fkdy_jHjD2Z5UdoeQAhBV92BR-MC070/w360-h640/IMG_3047.JPG" width="360" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And, much needed, after living here for several months with just a brush a pan...</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFIqkcDx-1EyXJVvpHO5BguRWC32vb5NxOVq04rtNNcj_5cNryo6an1xUbRQCRKTkeIGXc_lvnVtlMgymQYeSEBDH5C91en2BIcDY0n-sUxFRSN-6mlhUetDRfBXBPG-WUtrMMXrsWBvf/s2048/IMG_3057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFIqkcDx-1EyXJVvpHO5BguRWC32vb5NxOVq04rtNNcj_5cNryo6an1xUbRQCRKTkeIGXc_lvnVtlMgymQYeSEBDH5C91en2BIcDY0n-sUxFRSN-6mlhUetDRfBXBPG-WUtrMMXrsWBvf/w480-h640/IMG_3057.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-49348085881946971152021-06-16T18:08:00.020+01:002021-06-16T18:37:09.955+01:00Hugo Gryn, Albert S. Lindemann, and Adrienne Rich<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOGWZMd9HSSOKbSdDqdjQh3k8E4ds9DBbKzDWmxYRO5bXfpZYXMAn8s05GHJT0t0-_iMUkFhblZf93OtrtvolDlfyMMqEoegKsiAKvEspZaIlwDKAHjOyIfur5qKvj6lnRSHjUnFNWcc-R/s2048/IMG_3058.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOGWZMd9HSSOKbSdDqdjQh3k8E4ds9DBbKzDWmxYRO5bXfpZYXMAn8s05GHJT0t0-_iMUkFhblZf93OtrtvolDlfyMMqEoegKsiAKvEspZaIlwDKAHjOyIfur5qKvj6lnRSHjUnFNWcc-R/w480-h640/IMG_3058.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Chasing Shadows</i> by Hugo Gryn, with Naomi Gryn, Penguin Books (2001).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My mother's husband used to listen to Hugo Gryn on Radio 4 and admired his calm, compassion and restraint when talking about the Holocaust. I bought this book for him - in the mistaken belief that everyone wants to read the biographies of people they admire. Really I think, it was me that wanted to read it, but it was during the non-reading period of my life, so it has sat on the bookshelves ever since; a sort of aspiration. I was inspired to dig it out again after reading <i>The Hare With the Amber Eyes</i>, recently.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> I did very much enjoy it. I have to say that the beginning, which focuses on Gryn’s family history and early childhood, didn’t particularly grip me. There was something very lovely though, in his portrayal of the Jewish community of Berehovo, where he grew up; particularly in its communal inter-dependence, and it’s focus on learning. I’d like to be able to say the same about my family, although I suspect for us, as for a lot of people, formal learning comes to seem like a young person’s game. In Gryn’s case too, I suspect I am idealizing – for by learning, I think he is referring for the most part to a quite narrowly religious study. Nonetheless, I do very much admire (and aspire to) the idea of continual learning and study.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Much of the early part of the book is made up of funny stories about his childhood and his relatives and he makes frequent use of exclamation marks! – which makes him seem warm and open, but also old-fashioned and maybe limited as a writer. Clearly though, as Nazi policies begin to affect Gryn and his family directly, his writing takes on what is becoming the familiar tone of testimony – witness being borne to something horrendous. I suppose the nearest thing I have to compare it to is the first part of Primo Levi’s book, <i>If This Is A Man</i>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> For me, there is something very different about Gryn’s account though. He seems freer, more resilient, even strangely light-hearted at times. I think this is down to several things – his youth, for example. I think I read that he was 15 when he was liberated, at the end of the war. Perhaps because of his youth, there were people in positions of power in the camps who took to him, and tried to help him out occasionally (e.g. p.221). He also writes about smuggling himself out of the brick factory in Berehovo, where the Jewish people had been detained prior to being taken to concentration camps, and then smuggling himself back in again, having dug up a small stash of bank notes he had buried in the garden before his family were taken away (p.152). He wanders around observing people and asking what they’re up to (p.148), and at Liberose, the labour camp he went to after Auschwitz, he talks about occasionally being able to find some secure spot during the day and hiding out for several hours (p.230). Certainly such possibilities never arose in Levi’s account.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> There’s a measure of personality difference too though. As noted earlier, Gryn comes across as warm and open, a teller of funny stories alongside the somber ones, and these don’t stop altogether on his family’s internment. He also has a habit of taking time to appreciate the comparatively pleasant moments – although sometimes this comes across rather strangely. For example, he talks about when his family were loaded into the train to Auschwitz: ‘We were the first to get in, and secured a corner. Most of the people in the wagon were friends of ours and we were confident that we would come to no clashes, though nobody entertained illusions about any pleasantness.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> ‘When everybody was inside, gendarmes came round and shut the doors. As it was still early afternoon, the light coming through the windows was quite sufficient, and soon everybody was preparing to settle down.’ (p.168) It sounds almost genteel. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Then his description of his first shower at Auschwitz: ‘speaking for myself, it was the first thing I really enjoyed. A hot shower! I washed myself and then Dad’s back, and Dad in turn rubbed my back. This went on for a few minutes until suddenly the water stopped, but before we had time to say ‘Oh, dear!’ a fresh shower of ice cold water came pouring down. That was hell!’ (p.179-80)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> His inadvertent discovery of, and near escape from, the gas chamber (p.190) sounded a little disingenuous, retrospectively staged.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> But the strength of the book I thought, came partly in the firsthand account that he gives, and partly also in his later reflections which his daughter (who published the book after his death) collected at the end. Indeed, if you think – as I did initially – that Gryn didn’t really seem to experience the horrors that others did, the last couple of chapters will change your mind. He talks for example, of being party to the killing of one particularly sadistic SS guard (p.235) and of another guard being caught and strung up in the courtyard outside the hospital after liberation, by ‘some of the boys’ – presumably liberated prisoners. (p.242-3)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> In the final chapter, he talks about the difficulty of maintaining self-respect, and therefore surviving the experience emotionally. He also refers to the difficulty of believing in one’s own innocence, which I thought at first was a reference to survivor’s guilt – something he also talks about. I think though, that actually he was referring to a different type of guilt – the kind one may be made to feel when accused and imprisoned of something, but no self defence is possible and no one else steps forward to intervene. ‘Being in slave labour camps after Auschwitz,’ he writes, ‘gave me a measure of breathing space. I had periods of reflection, especially about guilt – and one early realization was that I was not guilty. I knew that I was innocent and that, contrary to appearances, it was our gaolers who were the guilty ones. It was a conviction that I never lost, even though everything around us was designed to convince us otherwise.’ (p.249) I don’t think I ever considered this before. Nazi Germany seems such a clear case of evil versus innocence. That those who were persecuted were ever in doubt about this never crossed my mind.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Gryn also addresses the question of how to explain the Holocaust if one believes in God, which seems almost impossible to answer. But Gryn came to his own understanding. ‘People sometimes ask me ‘Where was God in Auschwitz?’ I believe that God was there Himself – violated and blasphemed. The real question is ‘Where was man in Auschwitz?’ (p.251) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> The impression one is left with at the end of the book is of Gryn’s great moral conviction and courage – no so much in surviving physically, but in his emotional survival and strength, and his ability to address the issue, and to face Holocaust deniers, in the years since.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzMaYUQKkTrrZnlH_o8vsqKFL0ZyJBQaOIqjDmjmKZoQHV6nAFmT4K1sh0bRu96zUXqIS9xaPFVVhDM0qno7RJCgmUPbKGpU4-9LJcAJwWN8YdL6zF-vUaNIMRA4IFAVcFzUzM8L9Zptls/s2048/IMG_3059.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzMaYUQKkTrrZnlH_o8vsqKFL0ZyJBQaOIqjDmjmKZoQHV6nAFmT4K1sh0bRu96zUXqIS9xaPFVVhDM0qno7RJCgmUPbKGpU4-9LJcAJwWN8YdL6zF-vUaNIMRA4IFAVcFzUzM8L9Zptls/w480-h640/IMG_3059.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Esau’s Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews</i>, by Albert S. Lindemann, Cambridge University Press (2000).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">When I was at university, I did a module on anti-Semitism, and this was the key text. As far as I remember, they stopped short of insisting that everyone read it – stating simply that certain chapters would be up for discussion on certain days. I remember at the time, being incredibly impressed by it (I <i>bought</i> it, didn’t I?), but at the same time finding the idea that I could read a whole, large, densely-academic book for a single module, quite impossible. It wasn’t only that we had various modules (all with their own long book lists), and only a matter of days to get the required reading done, but also that I was living alone for the first time – struggling with loneliness and enforced sociability with people I didn’t have much in common with, and unfamiliar practicalities such as feeding myself, laundry, cleaning, managing my own time and money. For most of my time at college, I think the major portion of my energy went into such mundane things. Looking back, it’s clear that reading this should have been non-negotiable – and I should have read a whole lot more besides! But, better late than never I suppose.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Albert Lindemann enters into this subject extremely cautiously, as if into a minefield, whilst at the same time clearly having some vexations of his own to vent. The field is marred, he argues, by a lack of scholarly thoroughness. Looking at some of the late nineteenth century writers for example, who have apparently been presented as the predecessors of the Nazis for their antisemitic pronouncements, he argues that their positions were more nuanced than previously suggested. Many of them would have been horrified by the thought that violence against Jewish people might in any way have been considered justifiable.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> In particular, Lindemann takes issue with two ideas that he says characterize previous scholarship. Firstly, the idea that antisemitism is a completely irrational ethos, entirely divorced from reality, and usually found in people who have no contact at all with Jewish people. Secondly, the idea that talking about ‘the rise of the Jews’ is somehow dangerous, and plays into the hands of antisemites. On the contrary, he says, Germany did have a large number of Jews compared to countries like Britain and France; as a group, Jews did do well in the late nineteenth century; they were overrepresented in particular professions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> The picture that arises from Lindemann’s analysis of pre-1914 Germany and its Jewish population was, for me, entirely new. He describes a quite lively debate over the issue of Jewish assimilation, and a certain confidence, even arrogance, and a spirit of criticism among Jewish writers which caused much irritation among some of their Gentile counterparts. Those Jewish responses to antisemitism that I have seen have always centred around the horror of the Holocaust, so it was fascinating to see a different perspective.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> It was interesting, (and often quite embarrassing) reading the marginal notes I wrote as a student. One of the few things I agree with my twenty-year-old self about is that Lindemann’s discussion of antisemitism, and relations between Jews and Gentiles, creates quite a strange, indeed almost racist atmosphere – ‘racist’ in the sense of suggesting some kind of innate, determinative difference. The subject matter means that, from the outset, Jews and Gentiles are divided, and treated as quite separate groups. And whilst Lindemann starts out with the premise that today we don’t find any significant difference in ‘race’, in discussing a society where apparently everyone did, the objective (or modern) disregard for race is not always a key part of the discussion.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> This strangeness is intensified by Lindemann’s tendency to talk about ‘kinds’ of people, as though social tendencies are somehow integral and permanent. For example, on p.233, he refers to ‘those members of society prone to violence and vandalism on the streets’, and on p.234, he says that ‘Captain Dreyfus’s story has been too tempting, too appealing to the popular, vulgarizing kind of historian’.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> So too, there was something a little odd, I thought, about Lindemann’s attempts to refute the idea that antisemitism was based on fantasy and had little to do with Jews themselves. ‘It is particularly inaccurate and misleading,’ he says, ‘to insist that these anti-Jewish leaders were lashing out at targets they knew nothing about. Nearly all of the prominent anti-Semites of these years had regular, even intimate contacts with Jews… Von Treitschke’s ire at Graetz’s writings was hardly the result of baseless fantasies, and Goldwyn Smith’s anger at Disraeli was based on the fact that Disraeli had mocked him. Smith and others who attacked Disraeli in anti-semitic language also simply differed with Disraeli on political and foreign policy issues.’ (p.271) But there is a world of difference surely, between one man disliking another simply for personal or political reasons, and his extending that dislike to an enormous group of people who he feels must share the characteristics of the one. Lindemann has explained the first position, but not the second; even after his analysis, it is still perfectly sensible to say that antisemitism has little to do with Jewish people as a group.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> I loved the territorial breadth of this book, and the temporal breadth. By discussing the situation of Jewish people in Europe before the First World War, it felt like the book filled in the missing first half of the story. I thought that it gained something by not centring directly on the Nazis – although obviously the Holocaust was still a dominant presence. I also loved that academic thing where the writer begins by reviewing the field of study as a whole and evaluating its weaknesses. It does seem strange that the book has no bibliography though.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxiaoLtg5jLhygDrSuOcyRTiZW31P9slmHmZ4X3NQIKbJSAduYAztWpPmsPJLdnSqHJGWZI2RBGBrnzykSfIhuD2BVs91NH8R-jVLUTXF8AiIJDQURd8SjKaENBKpnXPZ8j2B3xnqo6EEC/s2048/IMG_3060.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxiaoLtg5jLhygDrSuOcyRTiZW31P9slmHmZ4X3NQIKbJSAduYAztWpPmsPJLdnSqHJGWZI2RBGBrnzykSfIhuD2BVs91NH8R-jVLUTXF8AiIJDQURd8SjKaENBKpnXPZ8j2B3xnqo6EEC/w480-h640/IMG_3060.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985</i>, by Adrienne Rich, Virago Press (1987).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Back in college (and not reading my course texts), I collected books on the women’s movement. The second-hand bookshops of York were apparently hotbeds of second-wave feminism, so I had lots of books published in the 1970s. I didn’t read many of them (this was my non-reading period) – it just seemed important to keep them. I bought this book back then. I had heard of Adrienne Rich elsewhere but I was not (am still not) familiar with her poetry.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> I do really like her prose writing though. She has both sincerity and authority about her, and although the book was in parts particularly dense and theoretical, there were many moments of wonderful clarity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> One thing that struck me quite forcibly was her discussion of racism within the feminist movement. Rich grew up in the American South, and the issue seems to have been one of immediate importance to her. It surprised me how much of the language and argument she uses has echoes in the Black Lives Matter movement today. She talks about intersectionality and ‘having work to do’ within herself, and the term ‘anti-racism’ crops up repeatedly. (p.82-84) For some reason, I had assumed these were modern phrases. It made visible the links between academic work and popular movements, that I hadn’t appreciated before.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> I found Rich very pragmatic and helpful on a subject which, sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be any way of addressing at all. ‘I have come to wonder,’ she writes, ‘if guilt, with its connotations of being emotionally overwhelmed and bullied, or paralysed, is not more a form of defensive resentment or self-protection than an authentic response to the past and its warts… I would like to ask every white woman who feels that her guilt is being provoked in discussions of racism to consider what uses she has for this guilt and how it uses her, and to decide for herself if a guilt-ridden feminism… sounds like a viable way of life.’ (p.82) In other words, whilst we should all be trying to ‘unlearn the norm of universal whiteness’, as she puts it elsewhere, guilt is not a particularly productive response.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> In ‘Towards a More Feminist Criticism’, she has this to say. ‘No one is suggesting that the women with all or many of the privileges of white skin, heterosexuality, class background is thereby disqualified from writing and criticizing. However, I believe she has a responsibility not to read, think, write, and act as if all women had the same privileges, or to assume that privilege confers some special vision. She has a responsibility to be as clear as possible about the compromises she makes, about her own fear and trembling as she sits down to write; to admit her limitations when she picks up work by women who write from a very different culture and sourcement [sic?], to admit to feelings of confusion and being out of her depth.’ (p.95) It makes perfect sense. My reservation would be that several things I have read recently suggest that it has been characteristic of women particularly, to hedge their words, temper them with qualifications and apologies, anything to soften their impact and avoid causing offence. I suppose the subject matter makes all the difference.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Coincidentally, having just read two books about antisemitism and the Holocaust, it turns out that Rich was also Jewish, and the book includes several essays where she examines her Jewish identity. It’s quite a sad story of her father, who was an assimilated Jew, and had nothing to tell her on the subject. When she went, by herself, to watch newsreels of the Allied liberation of the German concentration camps, her parents were not pleased, and she was unable to discuss it with them. When she herself married a man from an orthodox, eastern European Jewish family, her father saw it as a betrayal and refused to attend the wedding. She talks about how the women in her family were urged, particularly, to be quietly spoken – anything too flamboyant or aggressive would be seen as Jewish. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> I think this is one of the things I really liked about the book – this mix of the personal with the political and academic. </div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-56843599531024832772021-05-12T17:10:00.011+01:002021-05-12T17:36:59.879+01:00Jonathan Franzen, Julian Barnes, Lucia Berlin, and Siddhartha Mukherjee.<p style="text-align: center;"> I'm finally getting some reading done again!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg67R5kA_3dQlB_wAxysGxvt0nSpC6vhhUUd2J4vaMuAyG0G0Af008Yb2gP2n_4O2iTp6kqnL2_sP-NLdLO-PuwXO9rXSHA7yquK_0NDGTwSyT50u18NoHU_wV0VpM9RlmVJuANvX2aF_i/s2048/IMG_2945.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg67R5kA_3dQlB_wAxysGxvt0nSpC6vhhUUd2J4vaMuAyG0G0Af008Yb2gP2n_4O2iTp6kqnL2_sP-NLdLO-PuwXO9rXSHA7yquK_0NDGTwSyT50u18NoHU_wV0VpM9RlmVJuANvX2aF_i/w480-h640/IMG_2945.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Corrections</i>, by Jonathan Franzen, Fourth Estate (2002).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is another book from the <i>Guardian</i>'s best-dressed list and I enjoyed it very much. It was a rather anxious read - no one in it seemed particularly happy - but since I was getting ready to move house at the time and feeling rather stressed, it fitted well with my mood.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It’s a book based around a family, Albert and Enid Lambert – an elderly couple – and their children who have grown up and moved away. Albert is developing Parkinson’s disease and dementia, and his worsening health is the sort of loose, central thread of the book. Of their children, Gary, the oldest, is ambitious and financially successful, with a dysfunctional but apparently fairly stable marriage, and three kids. Chip is the younger, academic, left-leaning son who messes his life up, and eventually – at the bottom of his spiral – flies out to Lithuania to help patriotic Lithuanian mobsters defraud westerners of their money. The daughter, Denise, gets into a pattern of sleeping with older, married men, becomes a successful chef and then is fired for sleeping with her boss’s wife. Right at the end of the book, they all return to their parents’ home for Christmas, and find their father’s health is deteriorating much faster than anyone thought.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book drew me in from the first page with its blissful description of an autumn day in St Jude – it reminded me of one of Katherine Mansfield’s stories. Then there was the humour, also from the first page, which also made me feel very much at home. The book has a very insistent, sometimes ugly, truthfulness to it, and finds humour in the obvious, the visceral, and the ridiculous. There’s a scene right at the start for example, where the postman knocks on the door. Enid answers it, but Alfred doesn’t hear her do so, and she can hear him shouting for her all over the house, but he can’t hear her calling back to him. ‘Alfred had emerged from the basement, bellowing like a piece of earth-moving equipment, “There’s somebody at the door!” and she’d fairly screamed, “The mailman! The mailman!” and he’d shaken his head at the complexity of it all.’ (p.5) Then there’s Chip and his red chaise longue for making love on; he cleans off the worst stains when his parents visit. When he and his friends are chased by ski-masked police in Lithuania, driven off the road, and made to strip at gunpoint in the snow, he has to physically hold his buttocks together to stop his bowels releasing. It sounds terribly crass, but it was funny in context.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Then there was Denise walking in on her father giving himself an enema (‘Whoops! Sorry!’) – funny but not funny – and when the pompous Gary first arrives to see his mother at Christmas, he washes his hands and then – standing in front of her – sniffs the towel before drying. That made me laugh out loud too; I don’t think I’d forgive anyone who did that to me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Strangely, given the subject matter, I didn’t find it a sad book – bitter at times, but not sad. Partly, this might be down to the fact that Alfred’s problems are not clearly visible until the end. Much of the book follows his children, who live far away and don’t really know what’s going on. Partly, the lack of sadness may be down to who he is – a retired engineer, who seems to apply his problem-solving brain to each new challenge relatively calmly, even when the challenges are basic, day-to-day things. He’s also quite a self-contained character: there wasn’t the enormous sense of injustice and regret that one might expect. Denise does have regrets by the end of the book – relating to something she finds out about the way her own youthful conduct affected her father – but I’m not sure it had a great deal of impact on the way I viewed Alfred.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There wasn’t much comfort in the book either, for people with dementia in their lives. I don’t know whether you’d call Franzen’s portrayal pessimistic or realistic, but it was very noticeable to me that, when he ties up all the loose ends in the final pages, everyone seems to get some kind of happy ending except Alfred. More than that in fact, Alfred gets a sort of final kick in the teeth, because in his incapacitated state, his wife is able to berate him without any rebuttal and treat him as she has always wished to do. That is her happy ending; but it sounds terrible for him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Finally, I couldn’t help marveling (and raising an eyebrow sometimes) over the range of characters Franzen takes on in the book. It’s not that it’s particularly densely populated, but he goes into all five of his main characters in quite some depth. If we were talking about an actor taking on roles, those taken on here would be quite astonishing; I’m not sure it’s all that much different with an author. That’s not to say I didn’t query the way he wrote some of them – Denise, for example. She wasn’t unrealistic, but it’s strange reading a middle-class white man putting words into women’s mouths – particularly words about men, and about sex.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, I did very much enjoy reading this.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPECQjXHm3V8DEUcU8JdJwXvTxwlVPT4BhyBhAEfhMA4IYrNFyRjk1zmRS6ZQ7xI12PNrGNl7JaLxZa7OgCgPSQrywbcFcYJymbDejyRlB9_FTxlYHSMLQ-vQgngtqTCN8mkpVnb1Oklu/s2048/IMG_2944.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPECQjXHm3V8DEUcU8JdJwXvTxwlVPT4BhyBhAEfhMA4IYrNFyRjk1zmRS6ZQ7xI12PNrGNl7JaLxZa7OgCgPSQrywbcFcYJymbDejyRlB9_FTxlYHSMLQ-vQgngtqTCN8mkpVnb1Oklu/w480-h640/IMG_2944.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Levels of Life</i>, by Julian Barnes, Jonathan Cape (2013).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's certainly a great cover design. However, I’m not sure I was really able to give this book the appreciation it deserves. It doesn’t feel right even to be just lukewarm about a book which is about someone’s grief, but I suppose I didn’t really understand the structure. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book is divided into three parts. The first is about three early hot air balloonists – it’s interesting and funny and lovely to read. The second part is an apparently fictional love story between two of these balloonists. One of the reviews I read online – in The Lancet – called this an ‘enjoyably sensuous encounter’, which I thought was a strange way to put it. To me it was rather wooden and uncomfortable, and ruthlessly capped off when Sarah Bernardt demonstrates her refusal Fred Burnaby’s offer of marriage (quite needlessly I thought) by inviting him to come to her dressing room to watch her leave with someone else. It was all a bit <i>Venus in Furs</i>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the third part, Barnes writes about the period that followed the death of his wife. He talks about the responses he hated from people, that they supposed to be comforting; he talks about suicide; about telling a Christian friend that his prayers hadn’t had much effect (p.94); and taking to opera, as an art form in which sudden, wild emotional responses are perfectly normal (p.92). He is refreshingly bad-tempered, although off-base, I thought, when complaining about the phrase ‘lost his wife to cancer’, comparing it to ‘we lost our dog to gypsies’ or ‘he lost his wife to a commercial traveller’. (p.83) Who on earth would use those last two phrases!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I am assuming that Barnes is trying to draw attention to a parallel between hot air ballooning and grief, or perhaps love. Blake Morrison, writing about this book in The Guardian, said ‘the themes that preoccupy Barnes – love and ballooning (and grief and photography) – take a little longer to line up but discovering how they do is half the pleasure. We've work to do’. Although there were substantial bits of the book I enjoyed reading, I did struggle to see the connections Barnes seemed to be trying to make.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Morrison has a few suggestions: just as every love story is a potential grief story, every balloon ascent is a potential disaster. But the book is not about ballooning disasters - it has little to say about them at all. I felt Barnes focused more on the eccentricities of the balloonists. This – and the fact that one of his recurring phrases is ‘you put two together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed’ (e.g. p.31) – made me wonder if he saw himself and his wife as a particularly unusual pairing; their meeting as particularly unlikely, fortuitous.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On the other hand, as Morrison indicates, Barnes is very close-lipped about his wife in the book; we learn more about her from the little publisher’s blurb at the back, than from the text itself. He could certainly have been clearer if he were making a specific point about her character. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Perhaps the phrase about ‘putting two people together’ is more generic; maybe this is just how people feel when they find exactly the right person for them – ‘what are the chances?’</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Lancet review mentioned earlier seems to see the hot air ballooning as a sort of sidelong, indirect way of approaching the difficult topic of the grief. Perhaps this is true. Maybe Barnes is not trying to suggest any particular connection but, in an abstract way, one topic reminds him of another. Maybe Sarah Bernardt reminds him of his wife.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It is difficult, and not entirely appropriate, to speculate on the subject of someone’s grief. Perhaps I am just unequal to the work Morrison refers to, but I do wish the point had been made more manifest. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ZYhAZTtzWhMzDnl4s72-g_VFAaJsW9xKLmqHBMeVmydvmpLOmBXvZWVMOBPgKQa3qj9qWUg0G6fVMVGUS1I5spKgbisc5-n6bPEcr3OG3BgSL1QoUFJL06bMTXB0LyK6SOR84KxXhLEM/s2048/IMG_2943.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ZYhAZTtzWhMzDnl4s72-g_VFAaJsW9xKLmqHBMeVmydvmpLOmBXvZWVMOBPgKQa3qj9qWUg0G6fVMVGUS1I5spKgbisc5-n6bPEcr3OG3BgSL1QoUFJL06bMTXB0LyK6SOR84KxXhLEM/w480-h640/IMG_2943.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>A Manual For Cleaning Women</i>, by Lucia Berlin, Picador (2015).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I absolutely loved this book. It was a book about tough lives (or a tough life) – something like Last Exit to Brooklyn – but smarter, broader, and female. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">When I started it, I did find it difficult to identify with the narrator. I warmed to her very quickly though – her intelligence and her interest in other people – and the lack of common ground ceased to matter. I found her very unexclusionary, and very easy to like.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">She also has that thing – like Joan Didion (and the lady who wrote The Sixth Extinction) – of being quite unselfconscious. It always surprises me about women writers, how they can not be physically self-aware – fail to mention things like weight, appearance, clothes – all the things women are expected to care about. But it’s refreshing, almost masculine, to read someone so little concerned about her own person, beyond details of work, family, addiction, whatever. Could you say there are two types of writers – those that look inwards (or both in and out), and those who only look outwards, like Berlin?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book has quite a unique structure. Initially, I had thought it was a collection of short stories, and it does seem like there are fictional parts, but actually the same people and circumstances come up repeatedly so the impression I got was that many of them are stories from Berlin’s life. The line between fiction and memoir is very blurred. It's an interesting idea that one could write about one's own life in a series of short strories.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There is a fabulous picture of Berlin inside the back cover, looking very glamorous and 1960s-ish, with dark eyeshadow and bouffant hair. She comes across in the book – quite exotically to me – as young and Midwestern; having known what it’s like to have money at some point in her life, but also being very familiar with poverty; a single mother who has to work to feed her kids; a woman who struggles with alcohol addiction; a survivor. She is also someone who stands out for the fact that, despite her pursuit of love and alcohol, she clearly values education and has worked some interesting jobs as well as the unskilled, low wage variety.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3abGn3X06_snIawL-0Yu4l_B8-_l6tegsnzoXovDCRI_TBU9Vw9Xum4xRopwa8CHemX_Iw9_lljgSDnOwwN6BTeRZ_bYyyAUkdzSVs0Ap-SOJI0k3oebBJrJ7gzAnkdZAkG4A3UZMgcei/s2048/IMG_2942.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3abGn3X06_snIawL-0Yu4l_B8-_l6tegsnzoXovDCRI_TBU9Vw9Xum4xRopwa8CHemX_Iw9_lljgSDnOwwN6BTeRZ_bYyyAUkdzSVs0Ap-SOJI0k3oebBJrJ7gzAnkdZAkG4A3UZMgcei/w480-h640/IMG_2942.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer</i>, by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Scribner (2011).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is a book on the history of the scientific study of cancer, tracing how doctors have understood and treated it (or attempted to treat it) over the years. It is far from being just a list of progressive discoveries though – that would be boring. The path of progression is shown to have been messy, jagged and often obstructed. Cancer medicine had its titans – in terms of both clinicians and theories – who/which exerted such a powerful influence that no contradiction could be countenanced, and progress ground to a halt. So too, it has struggled – at first to exert its own importance, and then to overcome powerful adversaries (such as the tobacco industry), and to acquire the necessary funding. Even those apparently wholly on the side of the cancer doctors, enthusiastic devotees of ‘the war on cancer’ were not always helpful in the pursuit of a fuller (and inevitably therefore, slower) understanding of the disease.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In some ways, it is a case study in the creation of scientific knowledge. I was taken aback by how near it sometimes seemed to being unethical. The nineteenth-century paradigm of radical surgery, for example, which insisted that surgery should remove as much material as possible around the site of the tumour to lessen the possibility of regrowth, and led to women with breast cancer having large sections of their chest walls removed, clavicles, pectoral muscles, lymph nodes, the lot. The post-surgery deformities must have been horrendous. Can you call something unethical though, if it involves a genuine attempt to save someone’s life? This no-holds-barred approach to medicine is perhaps what gives the book a slightly eye-watering quality at times.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">For the most part, I very much enjoyed the book. It took me quite a long time to finish it, but I didn’t have any trouble picking it up and going back to it each time. I was surprised I understood what he was talking about at all; I think Mukherjee for the most part does really well at making the science accessible. It was only at the end, where he discusses the current state of knowledge, that the jargon began to get too thick for me. Perhaps I was just suffering some kind of science exhaustion by that point. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">His conclusions were very interesting though. Mukherjee characterizes cancer, first of all, as something struggling for survival in much the same way as the human species has done – adapting and evolving to meet the challenges (and the drugs) it faces. Secondly, he points out that whilst cancer can arise as a result of damage by carcinogens, it can also be just an accidental effect of human growth: ‘seemingly random errors in copying genes when cells divide’ (p.462). So perhaps cancer is a sort of intrinsic part of being human – something built into the human genome; what Mukherjee calls ‘the leaden counterweight to our aspirations for immortality (p.466). Perhaps we wouldn't be human without it. Looking at it this way, the search for a complete cure appears like a useless exercise. Mukherjee suggests that we should be revising our expectations of cancer treatment: instead of aiming to eradicate cancer, we should be looking, more modestly, merely to prevent cancer deaths before old age.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div></div></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-51343101342112136992021-05-03T20:36:00.012+01:002021-05-03T20:49:14.001+01:00Vegan cheese sauce<p style="text-align: center;"> I haven't written much about going vegan (in fact, I haven't been doing very well with the blog at all lately) and blogging about food with spur-of-the-moment, unstylized, mobile phone photos is probably a mistake; photos are <i>everything </i>when it comes to food blogging, even if some people manage to make their gorgeous photos look completely effortless. </p><p style="text-align: center;">Nonetheless... I am going to post my terrible photos anyway! </p><p style="text-align: center;">Tonight I had my first go at making a vegan cheese sauce. What I would really like to do is to replicate the cauliflower cheese pies from <a href="https://www.higgidy.co.uk/our-food/cauliflower-cheese-broccoli-pie/">Higgidy</a>, that we used to eat (and occasionally still sneakily do), but one thing at a time - I wanted to try to get the cheese sauce down first.</p><p style="text-align: center;">I was loosely following the idea in <a href="https://lovingitvegan.com/vegan-cheese-sauce/">this recipe</a> (all inadequacies are of course my own) - i.e. making a bechamel as you would usually, but with non-dairy fat, and vegan milk, then adding mustard and seasoning and nutritional yeast. I used almond milk, and olive oil-based vegan butter.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2L3xsQrWb4hWW6TZjKZsUmmeAXp3trovhfpsggcnUS3Z9T3qm34wFuYZonOApNP_tG9BlKkkTKDeO_NBVZ4VF3ptn4IXRg-nrK61MskhIL5rkLHOfgo22svdxUNA46J2Kr9sKKAPgpI8/s2048/IMG_2923.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2L3xsQrWb4hWW6TZjKZsUmmeAXp3trovhfpsggcnUS3Z9T3qm34wFuYZonOApNP_tG9BlKkkTKDeO_NBVZ4VF3ptn4IXRg-nrK61MskhIL5rkLHOfgo22svdxUNA46J2Kr9sKKAPgpI8/w640-h480/IMG_2923.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In many respect, it did exactly what it was supposed to. The floury taste had to be cooked out of course, but it thickened quickly when it came to a simmer, and it had a lovely shine to it(!) However, the colour was unappetizing, and the taste disappointingly mild. I would have kept adding the nutritional yeast, but although I do actually like the flavour and could eat it by the spoonful on its own, I don't think it really does the trick when you're trying to make something that tastes like a cheese sauce. Adding more wouldn't have helped. Really, it needed something with a bit more sting to it. I used to think that nutritional yeast tasted a bit like marmite, and actually a couple of spoons of marmite would have done wonders for the flavour. But it still wouldn't have tasted like a cheese sauce.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Other recipes I've found online suggest using vegan cheese in place of nutritional yeast - <a href="https://www.thevegspace.co.uk/recipe-vegan-cheese-sauce/">this one</a>, for example. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I am slightly worried about this. I'm not at all joking when I say that you have to handle vegan cheese with kid gloves. It took me months to get used to the flavour - not the stuff that tastes mildly of coconut, but the mature cheddar substitute which is really like something scraped out of the back recesses of Satan's refrigerator. Even once... acclimatised... to the smell, you have to get used to its textural peculiarities. It is very difficult to crisp up. When laid over the top of some dish and gratinated, it goes slightly brown on the surface, and then weirdly smooth and creamy underneath. Somebody said to me that the bit underneath reminded them of those foil-wrapped cheese triangles, and that probably describes it as well as anything. Only once did I manage to get it crispy: I was struggling to get used to a new, more powerful oven, and at the same time I had arranged to take delivery of my new sofa just before dinner. It took longer than expected to make the sofa feel at home, and by the time I got back to the oven, the veg was soggy and the ratatouille was almost black. But the cheese was good.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">So, yes, the prospect of melting it in a sauce concerns me slightly. It's worth a shot though, because I didn't think the nutritional yeast version worked very well.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Actually, in a pie, it might be fine. I think, more than I realised, the taste of cauliflower cheese comes from the roasted cauliflower. With a sauce that was there merely for lubrication, it might still be reminiscent of cauliflower cheese.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">By the way, can I just say that that thing in the foreground of the photo is a Tesco nut burger and, dry and uninviting as it looks, they're actually very nice!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Tomorrow, for the birthday of my aunt (who's favourite dessert is lime meringue pie), I'm going to make... vegan(ish) madeleines! Madeleines, because a madeleine tin is the only cake tin I possess at the moment. Vegan(ish), because I'll be using duck eggs - albeit from ducks that I know are genuinely free range, since they live in my sister's garden. I'm only vegan for animal welfare reasons. I might, or might not, post a photo, depending on how well they turn out!</div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-84098480737031090472021-04-27T14:31:00.005+01:002021-04-27T14:36:46.088+01:00Sofas<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAHIDO0TZ9mmssQ_ZN1FRdnzC0sCN42UF91WpEdNiDmzTVsK0IIz2vduUUr6W-Dl-fOHDNpyB7C03O3hhbIW-IMrIV3skMvLmagqbOYwmDntzF736rTw8tOrQny_MvMVfUKDqeGgXaH_g/s2048/IMG_2914.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAHIDO0TZ9mmssQ_ZN1FRdnzC0sCN42UF91WpEdNiDmzTVsK0IIz2vduUUr6W-Dl-fOHDNpyB7C03O3hhbIW-IMrIV3skMvLmagqbOYwmDntzF736rTw8tOrQny_MvMVfUKDqeGgXaH_g/w640-h480/IMG_2914.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The new sofa went in surprisingly easily. It turned out that the legs come off, and so it just slid straight in. It made me wonder why we had such a palaver with the first one!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And here is the first one, crammed up under the window, with a beautiful view of the sky and the sunny terraces opposite.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkp_Ml320fXT4c6o-76KS_RjYxPbkJwS5txWQPJgdQRiSyONOabWurnTPn__NXdSDZWKl10Hhs53iJluIeJONrkOXlt3oM_RwTOp2KaeTT5ojwtSUgqd4pOobDZW0xB-rYbgPefvvTk61V/s2048/IMG_2901.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkp_Ml320fXT4c6o-76KS_RjYxPbkJwS5txWQPJgdQRiSyONOabWurnTPn__NXdSDZWKl10Hhs53iJluIeJONrkOXlt3oM_RwTOp2KaeTT5ojwtSUgqd4pOobDZW0xB-rYbgPefvvTk61V/w480-h640/IMG_2901.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxLijuwrdEUS5WcrVm5_WdSuZp-DDkqpj2lW6sG1OppOB0umCGlzVh3vcJBdfiPIHBxay-tRg4VhrCmk9oTIfFE9JVC2_dkYdH_qyC1YMUoxav23Xl1jBRRPb5pzOxT3nowvo7ItVCe8Be/s2048/IMG_2897.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxLijuwrdEUS5WcrVm5_WdSuZp-DDkqpj2lW6sG1OppOB0umCGlzVh3vcJBdfiPIHBxay-tRg4VhrCmk9oTIfFE9JVC2_dkYdH_qyC1YMUoxav23Xl1jBRRPb5pzOxT3nowvo7ItVCe8Be/w480-h640/IMG_2897.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> It does look a good deal darker with that beautiful pale floor covered up, but cosy hopefully! The new sofa is perhaps not as smart as I'd like, but incredibly comfortable! Which is good, because I find the first sofa beautiful to look at but not especially comfortable.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKeYMMrckTKAJE9dfuMHqKncxgwmWyOwXVlj8YUVetdYIpf6DRyDzDYBYO5XcVPm9K7J79htKQU_87XouDzJDL7l6SmsFLi1tUUFjF84dFEy1BS7de5n26X9Cu6RdTFpyDC6KHN282s5dU/s2048/IMG_2905.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKeYMMrckTKAJE9dfuMHqKncxgwmWyOwXVlj8YUVetdYIpf6DRyDzDYBYO5XcVPm9K7J79htKQU_87XouDzJDL7l6SmsFLi1tUUFjF84dFEy1BS7de5n26X9Cu6RdTFpyDC6KHN282s5dU/w640-h480/IMG_2905.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I'm having a bit of an issue with lighting. Each sofa <i>just</i> fits in the space provided, both bordered by a bookshelf on one side and doorway on the other. There is no room to put a table with a lamp on it (apart from right in the middle of the floor), and the bookshelves - being straight - don't allow any room for a lampshade, or the 'elbow' of a reading light. You can see in the first photo (above), I've squeezed in a yellow lamp, but it can only just turn round enough to cast a light on the nearest side of the sofa. Anyone sitting on the other side had better find something else to do - no reading for them! Perhaps some kind of wall sconce is required - in which case, it'll have to wait!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the meantime, we've been digging the trench in the front garden for the new water pipes. The incoming pipes are made of lead, which - although a lot of people seem to have them on my street - isn't recommended, so I'm having them replaced. The water company will put a new connection in free of charge, so long as I take care of the pipes on my property.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Digging the trench might have been the hardest bit...</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8MxNcAPyxpP5f6qcPh_2vTga7_oQi_RgdTQ4a_ke46N5zbQNfh3YmwrCnda15vqa8fDxDN2Au04UvNUQmsWZy-Fw94cZR1JB-0xhoH4-JY_cAC3NZt6MlQQJpWAQumUVu9Acda0h49pN/s2048/IMG_2907.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8MxNcAPyxpP5f6qcPh_2vTga7_oQi_RgdTQ4a_ke46N5zbQNfh3YmwrCnda15vqa8fDxDN2Au04UvNUQmsWZy-Fw94cZR1JB-0xhoH4-JY_cAC3NZt6MlQQJpWAQumUVu9Acda0h49pN/w480-h640/IMG_2907.jpg" width="480" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I have been worried about people falling down the hole, so I put a bin there. This morning, the postman made a heroic effort and managed to get past the wheelie bin and shove a pile of junk mail through my letterbox! Perhaps what I need is another wheelie bin directly in front of the door?</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-91114212365924637582021-04-21T07:19:00.006+01:002021-04-21T07:27:28.509+01:00Front room floor!<p style="text-align: center;">My new front room floor is in!</p><p style="text-align: center;">Today, the builders are coming in to finish off the skirting boards, and they've promised to put my venetian blind up for me. Then on Friday, I am going to attempt to take delivery of a lovely, secondhand, Laura Ashley sofa from Facebook Marketplace. I say 'attempt' because I'm not at all certain it will fit through the front door! It is similar sized (plus just a few small inches) to the one I've got, so fingers crossed. Otherwise the poor seller will have to take it away again(!)</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xas7a1ywVjLizpz1954fvc8xOzBVL8zVcrxzWuhTJHJI5rVJgE-qbdS9W1eEF2uxVV2Zly3EQ7xuoD3LJc-VHK1DCv4ycLlzs9MqQx-va1GCUbc2ivQghye7P8il0yzxOi6fDWyb2Xu6/s2048/IMG_2894.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xas7a1ywVjLizpz1954fvc8xOzBVL8zVcrxzWuhTJHJI5rVJgE-qbdS9W1eEF2uxVV2Zly3EQ7xuoD3LJc-VHK1DCv4ycLlzs9MqQx-va1GCUbc2ivQghye7P8il0yzxOi6fDWyb2Xu6/w480-h640/IMG_2894.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-74732850788681125822021-04-13T17:38:00.005+01:002021-04-13T17:40:28.174+01:00Builders in<p style="text-align: center;">Yesterday I moved into the house properly. I say 'properly', but it's a bit like camping out at the moment. I have both the builders and the plumber here, so everything's a bit disorderly! I'm back to work tomorrow (fingers crossed) and and it might be a relief to get out the way; I feel like I'm right under everyone's feet. The floor's all been taken up in the front room - some of the joists needed replacing, and the new gas and water pipes are going down - and the back room is full of the tools and pipes and stuff. The front path has been [half] taken up - again for the pipe work. It's all a bit hair raising.</p><p style="text-align: center;">This is the front room at the moment...</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFc_ilG2nwWiOZBRIIavWT4JwuOG26aC90Iwrvk7-hSN8jF6UPgm4IPRPjBw-eZAPjge6afbUhpOdGbDT8w1dmfXOAuOGhwy9oAAaQCWf4v5bok40bfcVi_ATfbLLfiNFmxvfh_1PYGEls/s2048/IMG_2862.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFc_ilG2nwWiOZBRIIavWT4JwuOG26aC90Iwrvk7-hSN8jF6UPgm4IPRPjBw-eZAPjge6afbUhpOdGbDT8w1dmfXOAuOGhwy9oAAaQCWf4v5bok40bfcVi_ATfbLLfiNFmxvfh_1PYGEls/w480-h640/IMG_2862.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">And this is the back...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYK5mU0aJfPOkQEOwmyxF9ZHcrtRso8Pr434TDH5930xtdCuCsnxYeI-zktAZHw9IrfWTeEenEYGVYzOmPFa4CxLlGTlbHtKAqwxTfNG4Do9uc0AT_jvenGFkqolfcWhPLaESnTQjeLqtG/s2048/IMG_2860.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYK5mU0aJfPOkQEOwmyxF9ZHcrtRso8Pr434TDH5930xtdCuCsnxYeI-zktAZHw9IrfWTeEenEYGVYzOmPFa4CxLlGTlbHtKAqwxTfNG4Do9uc0AT_jvenGFkqolfcWhPLaESnTQjeLqtG/w480-h640/IMG_2860.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On the plus side, when everyone leaves between four and five o'clock, the house is blissfully quiet and the sun streams in the dining room window; it's glorious. (Note to self: clean that window.)</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu53Q9SuovUj_yx7_MdCnTc7s7UFhP6Y870nxInd-Yi2-Pf3MBPgrbCRZunZB9hF1OOJfktRJ4nMphFcrn_6c5ikdl2E2I_gFOJILr9pSBSip0gBkqY925b-jAoZuxpgqSd6cUX2ncE1Nc/s2048/IMG_2854.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu53Q9SuovUj_yx7_MdCnTc7s7UFhP6Y870nxInd-Yi2-Pf3MBPgrbCRZunZB9hF1OOJfktRJ4nMphFcrn_6c5ikdl2E2I_gFOJILr9pSBSip0gBkqY925b-jAoZuxpgqSd6cUX2ncE1Nc/w480-h640/IMG_2854.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And, the new Ikea sink unit is in and it looks really lovely. It's all plumbed in, but there's something weird about the old plumbing, so the pressure of the hot water in the kitchen is next to nothing. This will be remedied when the gas is fitted, but that won't be till the end of June(!) So I will be filling the washing-up bowl in the bathroom until then.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGU7a261R1d4yetnoauEgXn8QM2SC_vFbCxUE4KRxddUbIFeGuAPPLfRB1Ktq4MDbcXUiefTWKIUyJCR3btLMW2CuYPSZTMOPiGYvKF7BFjigP8zsFRLVodl0yzLtrci9TxDAGv-mAdWau/s2048/IMG_2851.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGU7a261R1d4yetnoauEgXn8QM2SC_vFbCxUE4KRxddUbIFeGuAPPLfRB1Ktq4MDbcXUiefTWKIUyJCR3btLMW2CuYPSZTMOPiGYvKF7BFjigP8zsFRLVodl0yzLtrci9TxDAGv-mAdWau/w480-h640/IMG_2851.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">(Note to self: clean that window too.)</p><p style="text-align: center;">But despite everything, the place is beginning to feel a bit more like home. The books and the sofa are in...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwt-wShyG4WFwW5p_igPem5qxjGdKULK3ONyQ3wfliKu9Y63GA5EORuCv9llSjaCNwxe4tiNAH5K8cGPuNn79krxsKUnRBWIRyilqANyW892sEy3gpAiibXHKNtxdr8mIRaeEMPZRuxc4g/s2048/IMG_2842.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwt-wShyG4WFwW5p_igPem5qxjGdKULK3ONyQ3wfliKu9Y63GA5EORuCv9llSjaCNwxe4tiNAH5K8cGPuNn79krxsKUnRBWIRyilqANyW892sEy3gpAiibXHKNtxdr8mIRaeEMPZRuxc4g/w480-h640/IMG_2842.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">And the bed...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7c1PhQPQJW7LcimJRH9cuwWpK0hp2HSKLy70wyOLW1tRVKBxwqXUEKw2TR2F6bm79wmPsb6-FKEQHsGHsXx47G50kZ2od_ywR-aNXhH8Bl2h-Lr92vCo7tD6jzyF0ewBRsvMLJSqYwiNX/s2048/IMG_2837.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7c1PhQPQJW7LcimJRH9cuwWpK0hp2HSKLy70wyOLW1tRVKBxwqXUEKw2TR2F6bm79wmPsb6-FKEQHsGHsXx47G50kZ2od_ywR-aNXhH8Bl2h-Lr92vCo7tD6jzyF0ewBRsvMLJSqYwiNX/w480-h640/IMG_2837.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Before I completed on the house, I bought a pair of beautiful, floral Laura Ashley curtains on Ebay - second-hand - thinking it would be good to be prepared, and have them there ready to hang immediately on moving in. We hung them a few days ago...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHUF3c6jUV7hMjjb4g9yZnw55JlWsB6nx4XmijjFL-kJcXPjNW8DIs6ewv8E0jF9KXdfeVtDfT1PYH6rwfmf7ffTk58MFzU_PZ1-wY-qETNM5a5owWbYDy2BLVg5be9RhTG3su1XOjDQut/s2048/IMG_2840.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHUF3c6jUV7hMjjb4g9yZnw55JlWsB6nx4XmijjFL-kJcXPjNW8DIs6ewv8E0jF9KXdfeVtDfT1PYH6rwfmf7ffTk58MFzU_PZ1-wY-qETNM5a5owWbYDy2BLVg5be9RhTG3su1XOjDQut/w480-h640/IMG_2840.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">It did make me laugh! I'll have to find them a new home. In the meantime - when I can be bothered to fight my way into the front room at all - I've had to use a bit of tarpaulin to cover the window. Not pretty; but temporary; it'll get there in the end.</p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-13136610814364116732021-04-01T16:30:00.004+01:002021-04-01T16:33:05.596+01:00Slow progress<p style="text-align: center;">It's really difficult to make any progress at the moment - I'm so short of money - but tins of paint have been forthcoming from family members, thankfully, so I have done some work. </p><p style="text-align: center;">I have painted the living room white...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQIA1LvHi9UgF7ASjy8rffBRrPHBaaGnTLZ4j3SctMuqP3SNHUHdoBnZOU-yFTQvwvI1j94Wj9N6E27PjDyD6XWOeTH-CVuNpmjO-kYq8JBjhyMCF9zB9xWnjQQ9fkXMwFruPP0dkwswiJ/s2048/IMG_2761.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQIA1LvHi9UgF7ASjy8rffBRrPHBaaGnTLZ4j3SctMuqP3SNHUHdoBnZOU-yFTQvwvI1j94Wj9N6E27PjDyD6XWOeTH-CVuNpmjO-kYq8JBjhyMCF9zB9xWnjQQ9fkXMwFruPP0dkwswiJ/w480-h640/IMG_2761.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">That thing on the right is the front door, and immediately beyond that is the right-hand wall, so you can see how small it is.</p><p style="text-align: center;">I thought before I started that I definitely <i>wasn't</i> going to paint everything white - I'm really not keen on minimalist, white interiors - but that's exactly what I'm doing. It was just intended as a blank canvas, from which I can hopefully go on to other more exciting colours, but actually in the front room, the white looks really good. It goes well with the pine; the whole thing looks bigger and airier.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Having said that, I'm re-considering whether to actually use it as a living room. It seems very goldfish-bowl-like, even with the voile curtain. I will try a blind, which is how a lot of people in my street seem to deal with the public aspect of their front rooms; otherwise it might just end up being a very large entrance hall, and I shall cram everything into the back room!</p><p style="text-align: center;">In the back room, I still haven't sorted my lime plaster wall out. I was a bit confused for a while - someone suggested that it looked more like concrete than lime(!) - but the builders have just started and they reckon it's lime, so when I can afford to, I'm going to buy some kind of lime-based product and have a go at patching it up. In the meantime, I have painted everything around it white...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgxT_BtalQrRDupOgUaRFKODXY57mbKRQ8p5ssMkAtId-TE3HI3UcQNJXhMTWotz0KKK_tdnCVkoEs1jYK-sXUgup-sUPeR07nKymefv0F4wQ7dBaMy9cTNbFyPNtKA8gqQgHm7r-QfOu/s2048/IMG_2787.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgxT_BtalQrRDupOgUaRFKODXY57mbKRQ8p5ssMkAtId-TE3HI3UcQNJXhMTWotz0KKK_tdnCVkoEs1jYK-sXUgup-sUPeR07nKymefv0F4wQ7dBaMy9cTNbFyPNtKA8gqQgHm7r-QfOu/w640-h480/IMG_2787.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I'm not so taken with the white in the back room. It's a very strange house for light - very flush on the east-west axis - so in the morning, the front of the house is gorgeous and the back looks like hell; in the afternoon - <i>if </i>the sun is shining - it's the other way round. At any rate, the back room seems to be darker more often, so the white paint generally looks a bit grey.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've also stripped out the little cupboard under the stairs. It did have little shelves in it - about 6 inches deep - that had been wallpapered over several times. That seemed like a bit of a waste of space though; it's not big enough to be a <i>walk-in cupboard;</i> so I thought the best thing to do would be to take out the little shelves and put a more substantial shelving arrangement in there. The walls, again, are lime, and rather crumbly so the shelves would have to be free-standing, but that would be fine - that would work. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbm96DYeKoDSOxY7ODM-8TLInnqt7qrAll69zRvj2qszMjm-1c3rSQqK0RhLpZYNndeuPaXY7OPmw-xwIhgUXvmHSN2o8rJMzpj4sfYNjMlCyr1pfQEnNSbRL6HOZ6-B0rrSvV7JR19Kct/s2048/IMG_2788.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbm96DYeKoDSOxY7ODM-8TLInnqt7qrAll69zRvj2qszMjm-1c3rSQqK0RhLpZYNndeuPaXY7OPmw-xwIhgUXvmHSN2o8rJMzpj4sfYNjMlCyr1pfQEnNSbRL6HOZ6-B0rrSvV7JR19Kct/w480-h640/IMG_2788.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHYoaiGZcDnaL9yql8mdo-nZbfiXIPID8p5nShmU2HuSg4NboTmKhtG1pE1peNPM7B89aN_-XIPbWnXJZF7IWCjOrg0UOZ-bbN46TjeckcH1CA6QRBDnm8YH78g9abc69C9qNExV1IYAM/s2048/IMG_2789.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHYoaiGZcDnaL9yql8mdo-nZbfiXIPID8p5nShmU2HuSg4NboTmKhtG1pE1peNPM7B89aN_-XIPbWnXJZF7IWCjOrg0UOZ-bbN46TjeckcH1CA6QRBDnm8YH78g9abc69C9qNExV1IYAM/w480-h640/IMG_2789.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3cz8_EdovP-ZQZcy9vOaL0rU4h-jtzto_KdUSo4JBeFk1cs85S3P9FoBT_mazkaQJpmfy8pFW1aDqIKkRx3DpOwGV854WMeIjI6kp_dqxT48fgd_QohoZmdojrIRELVB5iKdo8CQqoaM/s2048/IMG_2791.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3cz8_EdovP-ZQZcy9vOaL0rU4h-jtzto_KdUSo4JBeFk1cs85S3P9FoBT_mazkaQJpmfy8pFW1aDqIKkRx3DpOwGV854WMeIjI6kp_dqxT48fgd_QohoZmdojrIRELVB5iKdo8CQqoaM/w480-h640/IMG_2791.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I am very attached to this cupboard! Despite the 1960s-style slatted doors, it seems like one of the most authentically Victorian parts of the house. There's a bit of me that thinks it would be a terrible shame to fill it up with shelves so you can't go in there any more. (It is, in fact, a walk-in cupboard, despite its lack of grandiosity.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">As I said, the builders started this week. They have chased all the electric cables in the kitchen, installed concrete blocks on the left-hand side of the steps, to match the right-hand side, and prepared all the walls for the plasterer today. This is what it looked like when they left yesterday...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb44PHkVcsBAyhsRAbg38i9F4yUsbDV9BiLr-HEgqodcWpzRQ1K49lNwz3lR0MHAp_XevDpkEPB9_t-foClVbjmXHw4l2Jzt864_1Lb-i0hHIXC9U33cOgaOzXOFix8iNmCGmjOYthxbYT/s2048/IMG_2793.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb44PHkVcsBAyhsRAbg38i9F4yUsbDV9BiLr-HEgqodcWpzRQ1K49lNwz3lR0MHAp_XevDpkEPB9_t-foClVbjmXHw4l2Jzt864_1Lb-i0hHIXC9U33cOgaOzXOFix8iNmCGmjOYthxbYT/w480-h640/IMG_2793.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And this is what it looks like now...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp5pzZKjbna8n15TyOg6YGAyANBidQkGK7jvNcC4Rj40H86mk-4Yx2zGyQ5CXEcNkbB9zdzkP1SdmfdudX-kCEW4AaEFCQ-qYbsEHyNkCxG9aI4sxEGehHZIXc7U423LbXV54O4ar9tHUr/s2048/IMG_2804.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp5pzZKjbna8n15TyOg6YGAyANBidQkGK7jvNcC4Rj40H86mk-4Yx2zGyQ5CXEcNkbB9zdzkP1SdmfdudX-kCEW4AaEFCQ-qYbsEHyNkCxG9aI4sxEGehHZIXc7U423LbXV54O4ar9tHUr/w480-h640/IMG_2804.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Woo! Isn't it beautiful?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Also, at the risk of one too many basic photographs, there was an engineer at the house the day before yesterday...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1YLnV09hO4c6k-R1XToD2WPNqzJgNCxxLhX7QvvhZJ-fWgsDpsOXifq0_8Yv5DxeE5BenP40SzL4t_A54kvHB-Eo_jY6nmVArEguQy_FFpTVYU_FFGnSnT00bURiBI9BNF0gUAxJCB9j/s2048/IMG_2805.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1YLnV09hO4c6k-R1XToD2WPNqzJgNCxxLhX7QvvhZJ-fWgsDpsOXifq0_8Yv5DxeE5BenP40SzL4t_A54kvHB-Eo_jY6nmVArEguQy_FFpTVYU_FFGnSnT00bURiBI9BNF0gUAxJCB9j/w640-h480/IMG_2805.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Excited as I am about the plastering, I cannot tell you what a difference a broadband connection and a new rug make to comfort levels. Ooh, new rug...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ0b7SbJdXxjSRBV6Y7NotxbjEvwHDz6CZnbwZaPcSBTtngsgcTZYTzKBDtTthAmOx-46suUWd8E688_Qkh9Sxmmj0eaaGAIuKXNOWrbGUdIb23V3biPNqS8tK46uQslmVKyXji3o3iFMi/s2048/IMG_2799.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ0b7SbJdXxjSRBV6Y7NotxbjEvwHDz6CZnbwZaPcSBTtngsgcTZYTzKBDtTthAmOx-46suUWd8E688_Qkh9Sxmmj0eaaGAIuKXNOWrbGUdIb23V3biPNqS8tK46uQslmVKyXji3o3iFMi/w480-h640/IMG_2799.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It is second-hand, from Facebook Marketplace and I'm really chuffed with it. When I turned up to collect, the gentleman had a whole bunch of other rugs he thought I might be interested in, and there I was with my tight budget, and my thrifty £55 in cash, thinking how wonderful they all looked. Sadly I couldn't afford any of them. Maybe another time.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Next week, the kitchen floor gets levelled and (fingers crossed) tiled, and the fridge arrives. Oh yes, and right at the end of the week I'll actually be <i>moving in</i>! Sometime in the middle of all that, I'm hoping to get the sink fitted and the kitchen plumbing reattached. It will be a very exciting week. Then the week after, fingers crossed, I go back to work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-59065622212832014082021-03-20T12:14:00.005+00:002021-03-20T12:21:56.772+00:00Lime plaster walls!<p style="text-align: center;"> Good morning! </p><p style="text-align: center;">When I first got the keys to my house, I thought 'one room at a time; first off: kitchen', but of course, there's always some waiting to be done between stages - waiting for <i>stuff</i> to arrive, or builders to arrive. At some point, it was [gently] suggested to me that I might get on and paint something else while I'm engaged in said waiting(!) So yesterday, I tackled the wallpaper in the dining room. Naturally, it immediately turned into an <i>enormous </i>job!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKijgow8VS7TWSiNgcOqXjXe9QOVM1ki2OEKwgvLu8sgmAkzAr6ChA8Zc6azLqO4_h_EWu7nLpyMlEEaPbLdHVmxylKS4IBTtLniHmhx906b85ks2oG4WM-9LUAcQGQHMhgG4kXP8jKM0/s2048/Dining6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKijgow8VS7TWSiNgcOqXjXe9QOVM1ki2OEKwgvLu8sgmAkzAr6ChA8Zc6azLqO4_h_EWu7nLpyMlEEaPbLdHVmxylKS4IBTtLniHmhx906b85ks2oG4WM-9LUAcQGQHMhgG4kXP8jKM0/w640-h424/Dining6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is what it looked like before. I don't think it's terrible, but it wouldn't be my choice, so I thought I might as well get rid of it. It turned out it was covering polystyrene-backed lining paper. There was no way to separate the floral wallpaper from the lining paper (no layer of paint in between), but the polystyrene is supposed to be dangerous anyway, so I took it all off.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It also turned out that what initially looked like a slab of plaster board or particle board (is that a thing?) or something underneath, was actually lime plaster! This substantially survived my wallpaper-stripping efforts, but there were areas where bits crumbled and fell out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQP3TDhn-PKMchMe0VgI9PgZICrKZJfA_Gkbjyje-ztoqjBHc7wlhqjWtsYl2ifVkxxadXPZpyhgSt2PmS1eB3cTyFW0YqzA5aTXyCYXphyphenhyphenJdnD0M5JGyz9X_f5_ABT4ldCd0h4orTvl8/s2048/IMG_2741.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQP3TDhn-PKMchMe0VgI9PgZICrKZJfA_Gkbjyje-ztoqjBHc7wlhqjWtsYl2ifVkxxadXPZpyhgSt2PmS1eB3cTyFW0YqzA5aTXyCYXphyphenhyphenJdnD0M5JGyz9X_f5_ABT4ldCd0h4orTvl8/w480-h640/IMG_2741.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">You can't really see the holes properly from here - but there are chunks of plaster missing. I'm not sure whether to panic about this or not(!)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The other thing is, not only are there now holes in my lime plaster, but the surface itself isn't particularly smooth - like you'd get with gypsum plaster. I'm not sure whether the lime is meant to be like this, or whether it needs some kind of finish. I'm not going to put gypsum over the top, but is there an appropriate lime finish? I don't think I've ever seen a finished lime plaster wall up close to inspect it. (Next time I find myself in an old period building, I shall definitely be inspecting the walls closely!)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Weirdly, although it's a mess at the moment, I do think it's quite attractive in a rustic kind of way. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Having lime plastering done professionally is apparently phenomenally expensive, so my options will be, either to leave it au natural (and I'll be honest, I haven't yet warmed to the mould marks), at least until I can afford to have it done properly - which might not be for a few years. B and 2, fill in the holes as best I can with some kind of cheap filler, and reapply lining paper, then paint the wall, and hope it'll be alright. C and 3, grab the bull by the horns and try lime plastering myself!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Given that a lot of actual plasterers who contribute to online forums and discussions boards seem to think that lime plastering is messy and difficult, the idea of doing it myself is probably laughable. On the other hand, given how long it would take me to save up to have it done properly, I don't think I have anything to lose by trying. It's not a major job, after all, just a few repairs. And if it goes wrong, the house isn't going to fall down (hopefully).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, also yesterday the plumber came to shut off the water pipes in the kitchen and remove the old sink unit, and this morning I have ordered the new one. Just the sink, and sink unit, with a bit of worktop to go over the top. The rest will have to come later. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And I put up the bed I inherited. First outing for my electric drill! I am dead chuffed with it - and with the bed too(!) The bed is rather larger than I expected. It turns out that the little box room I wasn't sure what to do with will be needed for holding all other bedroom stuff apart from the bed.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1rc4w0BnqZ9pgZUpvYF6fHW9daV-MBwt0Ap2Hs24tbuDEOpqMrR-fxhthwAmlma9Tw7s_EdNw6xoGC7ZUjMf_39bdaImoaJ2rZAwAmIG730mlVx-A6ClugUth8mMgMmgpvqwFaNfHyLZa/s2048/IMG_2743.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1rc4w0BnqZ9pgZUpvYF6fHW9daV-MBwt0Ap2Hs24tbuDEOpqMrR-fxhthwAmlma9Tw7s_EdNw6xoGC7ZUjMf_39bdaImoaJ2rZAwAmIG730mlVx-A6ClugUth8mMgMmgpvqwFaNfHyLZa/w480-h640/IMG_2743.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, today I have plans to demolish the sink unit, and take it home to be scrapped, and remove the polystyrene coving from the front room. I'm hoping (please, please, please) that the wall will be alright underneath and it won't be another candidate for my non-existent lime plastering skills! It would be nice to have one room to actually sit in while the rest of the house looks like a building site.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">If the coving removal goes well, I shall get rid of the wall hooks and fill in the holes, and sugar soap ready to paint - woo hoo!</div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-49503959278545966512021-03-18T19:29:00.003+00:002021-03-18T19:33:41.010+00:00New project<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> Just to show I do occasionally do something other than read books... I bought a house!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">It is a very tiny, Victorian, mid-terraced property in an urban area, with not a few problems to its name (and guarded by a trio of rather sturdy, delinquent-looking dustbins), but I have plans to fix the problems (among other things, I am going to paint the front door yellow) and that rose is lovely when it's in flower. Life is going to be stressful for some time to come, but of course I am very lucky to have it, so do let me give you the tour.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6pGd4p1zsKwHSUnjCM402YJU0wRbYdUIzGemghXu-NnOdNeDt5fjlDn_Ox4i2mrVtri_aAEuSN5g2IeTK8Z8cHQdp7WdAfcDHePiQvo1SboNs-d0o5zD5Pm8BK0yfgAznhuHhG82pJ2Hd/s2048/IMG_2720.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6pGd4p1zsKwHSUnjCM402YJU0wRbYdUIzGemghXu-NnOdNeDt5fjlDn_Ox4i2mrVtri_aAEuSN5g2IeTK8Z8cHQdp7WdAfcDHePiQvo1SboNs-d0o5zD5Pm8BK0yfgAznhuHhG82pJ2Hd/w480-h640/IMG_2720.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The front room. I think I must have taken this photograph in the morning, because for most of the day, this room looks darker than this. It is extra specially small, but has lovely built-in bookcases on both sides of the fireplace.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-iCyEC2ZhyJBn8zGRIpG7vLmPYQiYpQWz5RsVG9Taj90TykDu7LPbGPz-AMdFtP1LWyRtlYa7_KPmTYjhv8Gy6JYnHuqnvIErSQ8f3wYqGD0UtNcM4V5l-edStHvg6JDp0rg2Mw9R-p1W/s2048/IMG_2724.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-iCyEC2ZhyJBn8zGRIpG7vLmPYQiYpQWz5RsVG9Taj90TykDu7LPbGPz-AMdFtP1LWyRtlYa7_KPmTYjhv8Gy6JYnHuqnvIErSQ8f3wYqGD0UtNcM4V5l-edStHvg6JDp0rg2Mw9R-p1W/w480-h640/IMG_2724.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The dining room. Again, this is quite deceptive: the room looks dark here, but it does get the sun - particularly in the afternoon. It, too, has lovely built-in bookcases (or perhaps 'dressers'?). The stairs run between the front and the back rooms, from left to right, parallel with the road. They're a bit difficult to photograph, because they're narrow and dark, but they are very Victorian-looking stairs - definitely one of its best features.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTVum0l3IJs1bUpM_5594GXUlBhyDkQ5cLVUfzwyDPr2wRRu58gRhwWnxIsh7Z9xVOmwBSUHI7R_xvn3IwKNiiojVEGV5XnQK_cDLhcmXrcUJiCDNrA6qO5f7c6s-GFXSvfNteMK1hF8OK/s2048/IMG_2725.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTVum0l3IJs1bUpM_5594GXUlBhyDkQ5cLVUfzwyDPr2wRRu58gRhwWnxIsh7Z9xVOmwBSUHI7R_xvn3IwKNiiojVEGV5XnQK_cDLhcmXrcUJiCDNrA6qO5f7c6s-GFXSvfNteMK1hF8OK/w480-h640/IMG_2725.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Kitchen! Which looks dreadful at the moment. I had thought that I would keep the old cabinets and decor for a while while I settled in and saved up some money to change it, but it turned out that the concrete floor was damp and the cabinets mouldy(!) I'm afraid I pulled everything out rather quickly, without thinking too hard about what would replace it, so now I am rushing round worrying about how to make it liveable before I move in, in April. It will be fine, although I might strain the boundaries of everyone's hospitality for a while.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRmuv6IyoAELcj-pYb7aS3GFimiGP7B9jizBzvTTlWDmAXgRrsoMBJporm9RvkEWLv01VBhSaU9MAPEkb7NnZpleMa5LWUZLDYkjh6xEv1NpzM9iZU67IXgzp_pIcbHO2CAxW3TjB5Mo7C/s2048/IMG_2726.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRmuv6IyoAELcj-pYb7aS3GFimiGP7B9jizBzvTTlWDmAXgRrsoMBJporm9RvkEWLv01VBhSaU9MAPEkb7NnZpleMa5LWUZLDYkjh6xEv1NpzM9iZU67IXgzp_pIcbHO2CAxW3TjB5Mo7C/w480-h640/IMG_2726.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The house has a little garden, more than shown here, but it's difficult to photograph because it's narrow, and cluttered and rather overgrown. I am leaving it to the gardeners in the family, while I worry about the kitchen, and the possibility of damp problems, and woodworm, not to mention paying bills and the prospect of living alone for the first time in twenty years.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgptCKSaqvHAT2jdYx3JkvwsadvpKqKu0QQMxmny6qZsprWVxk87Sg_2LxCXIgy_VDQ7crCGItqG81AoUiu9YDhU2fMWOD0yMP4rR0_s1QwMh3QIxs1GhVbfu4Zv3mGQTsLhBBFVlO-ISt5/s2048/IMG_2729.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgptCKSaqvHAT2jdYx3JkvwsadvpKqKu0QQMxmny6qZsprWVxk87Sg_2LxCXIgy_VDQ7crCGItqG81AoUiu9YDhU2fMWOD0yMP4rR0_s1QwMh3QIxs1GhVbfu4Zv3mGQTsLhBBFVlO-ISt5/w480-h640/IMG_2729.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Upstairs, there are two bedrooms and then a tiny room over the kitchen - barely big enough to fit a bed into. I didn't photograph them because there's nothing in them at the moment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was not at the front of the queue when DIY skills were being handed out, and I don't think I'm taking particularly well to being dumped in at the deep end - I seem to spend most of my time wondering around with a tape measure in my hand, wondering if there's something I should be going to B&Q for, or whether it's time to make coffee again yet. But I'm sure I shall get better. Yesterday I spent several hours trying to scrape away the remains of that stuff the splash back tiles were fixed on with, before I gave up and sanded it to within an inch of it's life! If nothing else, I have learned how to use a palm sander. I then attempted to remove some shelves and a door, and failed on both counts because I couldn't get the screws out(!) So I gave up and scrubbed the shower and the hallway instead. There's certainly plenty of cleaning to do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Today was a day off from the practical stuff, trying to arrange utilities and order tiles for the kitchen floor. Tomorrow I am going to renew my assault on the shelves and the door and, with any luck, get round to painting the pink front room.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-71700907466478169842021-03-11T18:46:00.021+00:002021-03-11T19:19:13.181+00:00Dorothy B. Hughes, W. G. Sebald, and Oliver Sacks<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhtjrKeQpvWXVuTGfbntj6ZLwWr0VIhyphenhyphenHP-6ad8cuH7nKxcZMjG7eQEpUojFSp_hLd_YTM2UpLuPHRO6kT7WyOqmMhIzKb2_VcBrr2PX1fTRQmN2e26316zUDsH4Hc7yHqxo-stiKfXw_/s2048/IMG_2632.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhtjrKeQpvWXVuTGfbntj6ZLwWr0VIhyphenhyphenHP-6ad8cuH7nKxcZMjG7eQEpUojFSp_hLd_YTM2UpLuPHRO6kT7WyOqmMhIzKb2_VcBrr2PX1fTRQmN2e26316zUDsH4Hc7yHqxo-stiKfXw_/w480-h640/IMG_2632.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>In A Lonely Place</i>, by Dorothy B. Hughes, Penguin Classics (2010).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I am not usually a fan of thriller novels but this was recommended on Radio 4's 'A Good Read' programme, and I was persuaded to try it. Having done so, I am still not a fan of thriller novels, but I have to admit, there was something completely, eerily gripping about the personality of the protagonist.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The story is about a guy called Dix Steele - ex-military - who moves to Los Angeles and eventually looks up an old friend from the forces who lives there. The friend has joined the police and is involved in investigating a series of stranglings carried out in the area. I don't think it's a spoiler (it's quite clear from the outset) that it is Steele who killing all these women.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's not a gory book. The ickiness, the tension, is around (a) whether he will be discovered, and (b) whether, as things start going wrong in the relationship he has with a women who lives in his apartment complex, and as the police start to get closer to him, he will kill again, as a sort of release; to clear his mind and get him back on track.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Steele has a lot of plates spinning at once - a lot of lies going on - which set me on edge right from the start. Obviously, he lies about the murders, but also about the circumstances in which he came to live in the apartment, about writing a book, about having money - and, at a more basic level, his personality is a rather brittle facade. Each of these lies begins to give as the story progresses.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I couldn't quite get to grips, either, with the way Steele accommodates his desire to kill within his personality. It wasn't quite Jekyll & Hyde - he was not unaware of the murders he had committed, and he was clearly cautious when talking to his policeman friend. On the other hand, it wasn't like he lived the reality of what he was every day either. There was a kind of separation between the self that killed and the self that lounged around, pretending to be a writer whilst wining and dining glamorous women. I have read somewhere that it is not unusual for serial killers to return to the scene of their crimes. This guy has no interest in that at all. Killing isn't some entire fantasy world that he lives in - it's just an instinct which arises intermittently, and delivers him a shot in the arm.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is not a book for someone with anxiety issues - not because of the killing but because, as a reader, you're effectively paired up with Steele, sharing the way he analyses the other characters, scrutinising them for signs of suspicion, coldness, dislike. Irrationally, I felt quite hurt when he sensed people withdrawing from him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another discomforting thing about Steele is his optimism. In <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2021/03/barbara-ehrenreich-richard.html">Andrew Solomon's book, <i>The Noonday Demon</i></a>, he suggests that one of the [few] redeeming features of depression is its realism. When questioned following a test, depressive people showed a greater awareness of where they were likely to have gone wrong and what the outcome was likely to be, compared to non-depressives who frequently over-estimated how well they'd done. I would put myself in the depressive-but-realistic camp. Steele is definitely not depressive. He has the kind of outlook that salesmen always seem to have (no offence) - a kind of impervious confidence in himself, regardless of what goes wrong. He gets upset, dramatically tears a cheque to shreds, then the next minute he goes out to buy a new jacket and suddenly he's feeling good about himself again.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book reminded me of <i>Strangers on a Train,</i> by Patricia Highsmith (another thriller I was fooled into reading by Harriet Gilbert!) - perhaps because it seems to come from a similar era, but also for the rootless, untethered personality of the killer.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDM0e1LztVlTbevt9wyqGBXpHUR9qWYrST-2FyUH7lrQv6C13NesBVQASmGDf-oh62OBumxlebJJ-G58qzwBa6-jbsxDIj3-WIUJBALmdgfQjepHXJb2vb2sCL6rtzvrJePgY-UpJ1NLg/s2048/IMG_2633.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDM0e1LztVlTbevt9wyqGBXpHUR9qWYrST-2FyUH7lrQv6C13NesBVQASmGDf-oh62OBumxlebJJ-G58qzwBa6-jbsxDIj3-WIUJBALmdgfQjepHXJb2vb2sCL6rtzvrJePgY-UpJ1NLg/w480-h640/IMG_2633.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Austerlitz, </i>by W. G. Sebald, Penguin Books (2002).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I really enjoyed this. It is a very, very gentle, academically meditative book - a little bit like Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson - except that this is described more as a journey than as an event. There are no chapters, no breaks - no paragraphs even - just a long narrative, with nothing particular to mark either the beginning or the end. The sentence structure is long and meandering too - but not in a confused way; the effect is thoughtful. For example, on p.202-3, 'I got the address of authorities who might be consulted in a case like mine from the embassy of the Czech Republic, and then, immediately after arriving at Ruzyne airport on a day which was much too bright, almost over-exposed, a day, said Austerlitz, when people looked as ill and grey as if they were all chronic smokers not far from death, I took a taxi to the Karmelitska in the Lesser Quarter, where the state archives are housed in a very peculiar building going far back in time if not even, like so much in the city of Prague, standing outside time altogether.' I think what prevents this from being totally incomprehensible is the fact that that part of the sentence following the parenthesis is explicable without going back to see how the sentence began; the parentheses are long but you can safely lose track of them without losing the meaning.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The narrator in the story is an almost unimportant figure (male or female?) who meets a man called Austerlitz, and this is Austerlitz's story told by him but through the narrator (a sort of Dr Watson-Sherlock Holmes relationship), without the benefit of speech marks, so there are some strange features to it. For example, he frequently says 'they said' (or something similar) twice - e.g. 'None the less, said Vera, Austerlitz continued, Maximilian did not...' (p.236)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another strange but powerful feature is the photographs. The book is full of photographs - mostly of buildings and landscapes, but occasionally of family members. If the story is fiction, then who are the people in the photographs? The cover photograph, in particular, of the austere, autocratic little boy with the blonde curls and satin cavalier outfit, becomes more and more gripping as the story goes on.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's another book about the destruction and scattering of Jewish people in Eastern Europe from the 1930s. Austerlitz is Czech and, at the age of four, was put by his mother on a train out of the country, just before the Nazis entered. When he arrived in Britain, he was adopted by a Welsh minister and his wife, and had a somber, unhappy - if not materially deprived - childhood. Of his past, he remembers nothing at all, and it is only much later on (in his fifties or sixties?) as he travels around studying the architecture which is his area of academic expertise, that he begins to acknowledge how little he knows of his past, and how certain things - places, sights, styles of architecture - seem familiar and invoke emotional responses in him, but he has no idea why. So begins his search into the past, for his parents and the life they had before his evacuation. As I said, there's no conclusive end to the story - but then, presumably that is the case for many people in his position.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I love history, and particularly tantalising is history which is <i>just about</i> accessible through memory - the memories of parents and grandparents. I love books that, through the mining of such memories, seek to lay claim to ordinary people from the past.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">When I was looking at our family genealogy, it was really exciting to discover that one branch were, in the nineteenth century, ordinary poor people in the East End of London. 'The poor' in English history are this enormous anonymous crowd, often referred to, and often demonised by contemporaries. They're like a group of lost children among whom, to find your own, feels like you're putting right the wrongs of the past; reclaiming something; giving voice to people where none was heard before.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The situation of Jewish people in Europe in the 1930s feels like a particularly acute version of this. I have read a few books recently about people discovering what happened to their relatives during the Second World War, and amid the stories of the terrible things that happened, there feels something quite salvational about descendants connecting with ancestors. Even as a work of fiction, this book felt quite powerful. I don't know what the story of the photographs is, but it feels like Sebald found a photograph of a little Jewish boy from Czech - one of these ancestral orphans that no one has yet laid claim to - and wrote a back story for him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdP0-gSGieeYwvERdBv_ZJXEku3bCAU2306GD-E8Z6DlZ0ZsxvHE3H_x_oodC1l6qkF2NySkn40_MVJ-62bmWT8YFOR-IpFHAk1nMhBGB1gD9MvGGcd3aftXj_F_dHLwwd4kaL-DvJs_yq/s2048/IMG_2634.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdP0-gSGieeYwvERdBv_ZJXEku3bCAU2306GD-E8Z6DlZ0ZsxvHE3H_x_oodC1l6qkF2NySkn40_MVJ-62bmWT8YFOR-IpFHAk1nMhBGB1gD9MvGGcd3aftXj_F_dHLwwd4kaL-DvJs_yq/w480-h640/IMG_2634.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>On The Move: A Life</i>, by Oliver Sacks, Picador (2015).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another stonker! A few months ago, I read <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2021/01/oliver-sacks-ali-smith-and-yuval-noah.html">Sacks's book, <i>Uncle Tungsten</i></a>, an account of his childhood which I found rather too scientific for my brain, but utterly compelling in its more personal moments. In particular, he had a wonderfully large, eccentric, incredibly able and resilient family, which I would love to have read more about.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This book contains very little about Sacks's family, but it turns out that Sacks himself is a man I could happily read about all day. Furthermore, his work was fascinating, even to a committed non-scientist like myself. He had a wide range of interests within his professional career, but this book seemed to be dominated by his work at the Beth Abraham hospital in New York in the second half of the 1960s.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">When he started working at the hospital, Sacks discovered that it held around 80 individuals who were among the last survivors of the 'sleepy sickness' pandemic of the 1920s. The pandemic (topically), 'had killed many thousands outright, and those who had seemingly recovered often came down, sometimes decades later, with strange postencephalitic syndromes. Many were frozen in deep parkinsonian states, some stuck in catatonic postures - not unconscious but with their consciousness suspended at the point where the disease had closed in on certain parts of the brain.' (p.169) The Beth Abraham hospital had first opened as a facility for such patients, some of whom had been there, frozen, for thirty or forty years.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">One of Sacks's innovations was to trial these patients with L-dopa, a drug which had - just the previous year - been shown to be very effective in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. The outcome of this trial was dramatic and, for a few months, there were hopes that some of the patients would be able to leave the hospital, cured, as it were. By the time the summer of 1967 was over however, it had become clear that L-dopa was not going to be an unqualified success story. Not only were there side effects - very pronounced physical tics - but the results of treatment were also unpredictable: patients did not react the same way every time they took it. Furthermore, in the documentary which followed Sack's book on the subject (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JitTqUwVec&list=PLsGW2P688C713n79aqV0AVR-1tO-YsWzV&index=4&t=4s">it's on Youtube</a>; do watch it), it is clear that, after the initial excitement, the psychological effects on people of having lost large chunks of their lives and 'come to' in a world enormously different from the one they had known, not to mention the loss of family members, many of whom had broken down or moved on in the intervening decades, were sometimes just too heavy, too much, and people retreated back into catatonic states.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sacks's book (written with his patients support) seems to have been something new in the field of medical literature, and this was not appreciated by all his colleagues. None the less, it is this kind of writing that he became known for, and popular for, and this entire episode - indeed, the patients themselves - continued to be important in Sacks's life. There was a documentary, and a film with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, and although he was sacked following a strange, minor dispute over accommodation, he continued to visit his patients, and later returned to work there again. In some ways, it seems like those patients were his life's work. What came over particularly clearly in watching the documentary was how Sacks was both fascinated by this condition and its manifestations, <i>and </i>deeply compassionate and caring towards his patients.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">As noted above, whilst Sack's work definitely made the book a page-turner, he was himself a very appealing character: a keen traveller, motorcyclist and body-builder, and very good-looking. Also, gay, a fact which - although he seems to have been at peace with it - clearly affected his life considerably.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He writes with such a laid-back, sunny personality that he presents his mother's harsh reaction to finding out that he was gay in much the same way as other, more light-hearted, humorous anecdotes. When I was reading <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2021/03/barbara-ehrenreich-richard.html">Richard Meinertzhagen's autobiography</a>, I was unconvinced by the fondness he expressed for his mother, as an adult; his insistence that he had completely forgiven her for how vile she had been to him as a child. With Sacks, who was also very attached to his mother, I looked at it differently. Her expression of aversion to his sexuality seems to have been an isolated outburst, which didn't taint their subsequent relationship. Writing that now, it sounds unlikely to me all over again, but Sacks makes little enough of it in the book, and it's clear that his mother, and her stories, and her outlook on life, were very influential to him and close to his heart.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I don't want to harp on about the gay thing, but I feel like I ought to make the book review equivalent of a question mark in the margin, at his description of his first sexual experience. Feeling like he's left it quite late, a young twenty-something Sacks goes to Amsterdam to keep an appointment with a [female?] prostitute. He is very nervous, over-imbibes on Dutch courage, and passes out. The next morning, he wakes up in the bed of some strange man. As Sacks puts it, 'he had seen me lying dead drunk in the gutter, he said, had taken me home... and buggered me. "Was it nice?" I asked.' (Ellipsis in the original.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I had a sort of silent, modern 'wtf moment' here - particularly when the man goes on to admonish him for drinking to the extent that he passes out in the street: 'this is a very sad - even dangerous - thing to do.' (p.30) I don't think I've ever heard anyone indicate so overtly as Sacks does here that there are different rules for men who have sex with men, than for women who have sex with men. Wasn't this a sexual assault? Can the status of such an unambiguously non-consensual act sometimes be determined afterwards? ('Do I feel assaulted?') I can't imagine a woman reacting to this situation in the way Sacks did. To what extent was his reaction determined by the fact of his being a) a man, and b) gay? And maybe c) himself physically fit and perhaps unaware of the threat of male violence?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another thing that struck me reading this book was Sacks's resilience. As noted earlier, he seemed to have a sunny, self-confident, 'easy come easy go' personality. Yet he describes at least two occasions where he takes up research positions, something he apparently wasn't suited to, and becomes very unhappy, struggling with something like depression. He also insists that he is very shy (p.236) - although many popular, socially successful people seem to make this assertion at some point - and it was only as I was nearing the end of the book that I began to realise how much time he actually did spend in quite a solitary way; certainly not alone, but unattached to anyone in particular for long periods.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It seemed like another perspective on depression, as discussed in <i>The Noonday Demon</i>. Sacks does not seem to have had the same vulnerability to depression shown by the people interviewed in Solomon's book. Despite some occasionally very bad times, and a rather solitary life, he remained balanced, thoughtful, amused, incurably pleasant about it all! I suppose in someone else, it might be annoying, but I didn't find it so in Sacks.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-64788708410751046242021-03-02T17:56:00.038+00:002021-06-01T07:37:04.505+01:00Barbara Ehrenreich, Richard Meinertzhagen, and Andrew Solomon<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNU30cHZ4a0nXxZAVl9UdHSelfGaO24OgwGWQe9-56USiVzK0dnL66NCi7gKpqPco3xn6myeprDSTwXZAdmkAEQwHujcR77Pa3WGfQn5sEWF8WaEJHwKvcmbmLzvfT56XoaHCffGbT85d/s2048/IMG_2622.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNU30cHZ4a0nXxZAVl9UdHSelfGaO24OgwGWQe9-56USiVzK0dnL66NCi7gKpqPco3xn6myeprDSTwXZAdmkAEQwHujcR77Pa3WGfQn5sEWF8WaEJHwKvcmbmLzvfT56XoaHCffGbT85d/w480-h640/IMG_2622.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America</i>, by Barbara Ehrenreich, A Metropolitan/Owl Book (2002).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Barbara Ehrenreich does the whole George Orwell, <i>Down and Out in Paris and London</i> thing - casting off a life of relative comfort and security, and travelling to a new town to throw herself into the lower end of the job market and find out how people survive. She works as a waitress and housekeeper in Florida (two jobs are necessary if she is to afford to live in the cheapest accomodation), a cleaner and nursing home assistant in Maine, and at Wal-Mart in Minnesota (the way Wal-Mart schedules its shifts prevents committing to a second job).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Her conclusions (this was published 20 years ago) are that it is incredibly difficult, near-on impossible, for even the most hard-working, well-equipped person to stay afloat in America when they're poor. Poverty now isn't so much about people being unemployed, as people who are in work but paid too little to live on. Low wages are combined with a dearth of affordable housing and unionisation is resisted (even informally penalised). As a result, living and working conditions are rubbish and there is little chance of the labour force pushing for improvement or 'voting with their feet'.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It is a terrifyingly entrenched inequality. The oppressive atmosphere of the book is partly relieved by the knowledge that Ehrenreich herself is <i>not</i> stuck in this world; partly also by her sense of humour.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've done similar jobs to those described here, although never (yet) in such constrained circumstances, thankfully, and repeatedly her observations rang bells for me. Her description of the final straw when she was working as a waitress made me laugh - perhaps inappropriately; I'm sure it was anything but funny at the time. After a bad start to her shift, with a busy restaurant and lots of particularly picky customers, 'much of what happens next is lost in the fog of war. Jesus [the chef] starts going under. The little printer in front of him is spewing out orders faster than he can rip them off, much less produce the meals. A menacing restlessness rises from the tables, all of which are full. Even the invincible Ellen is ashen from stress.' (p.47) I remember those days.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">She records the anxiety of constant job searching and working with new people; the ridiculous application questionnaires ('do I work well with others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish obedience to orders'. (p.59) I completed a few of these; I failed them every time); the flattening effect of being reduced to a set of menial skills - one person among a million needy, interchangeable others.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Once ensconced, she notes the boredom of the menial job. 'I could use some amusement. I have been discovering a great truth about low-wage work and probably a lot of medium-wage work, too - that nothing happens, or rather the same thing always happens, which amounts, day after day, to nothing.' And 'how did I think I was going to survive in a factory, where each <i>minute</i> is identical to the next one, and not just each day?' (p.186) This isn't as whimsical as it may sound out of context. I remember working on assembly lines during college holidays. I was glad for the money, but the job was mind-numbingly boring, and after being on my feet all day, I had no energy to search for anything better. I can't think of anything I wouldn't rather do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ehrenreich also talks about the strange kind of mentality one comes to have in such situations. 'If you hump away at menial jobs 360-plus days a year, does some kind of repetitive injury of the spirit set in..? I can guess that one of the symptoms is a bad case of tunnel vision. Work fills the landscape; coworkers swell to the size of family members or serious foes. Slights loom large, and a reprimand can reverberate into the night.' (p.106) It affects the way you behave towards other people. After a minor but bad-tempered exchange with a new colleague, she says, 'I leave that night shaken... Am I turning mean here, and is that a normal response to the end of a nine-hour shift?... This is not me, at least not any version of me I'd like to spend much time with'. (p.168) I've left at least one job on the basis that it was turning me into something I didn't want to be - not just harder and more thoughtless, but small-minded - so this is a familiar sentiment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">As might be apparent, I loved this book - partly for the gritty, unglamorous, realness of it all - but also because I think Ehrenreich found a great stance to report from. I imagine that books actually <i>written</i> <i>by </i>people trapped in low wage jobs are uncommon, and would make difficult reading. Books <i>about</i> this kind of work, written from a privileged viewpoint, are often quite dry and tedious. Ehrenreich, whilst no doubt privileged herself (a point she frequently acknowledges and reflects on), goes all out to find a position which allows her to speak with some level of experience and therefore moral authority, whilst at the same time retaining a separation from her subject, and the objectivity with which to speak of it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlIjR-7sdB_xRttPXEXip2WUm4nH3fxaRL1WUcPzh9_vdviLyv4BX42y3JWaGgIJuu-CmbxquYTxCFPC8SiCoLSoUT8zsPE6vtwEmTnsUMvQ6sQAsaQj2vo9eenHuqh_0P88gVGAMw4tYR/s2048/IMG_2623.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlIjR-7sdB_xRttPXEXip2WUm4nH3fxaRL1WUcPzh9_vdviLyv4BX42y3JWaGgIJuu-CmbxquYTxCFPC8SiCoLSoUT8zsPE6vtwEmTnsUMvQ6sQAsaQj2vo9eenHuqh_0P88gVGAMw4tYR/w480-h640/IMG_2623.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Diary of a Black Sheep</i>, by Richard Meinertzhagen, Oliver & Boyd (1964).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Richard Meinertzhagen was a nephew of Beatrice Webb. I first met him in Barbara Caine's fabulous book, <i>Destined to be Wives: The Sisters of Beatrice Webb</i>. Theirs was a fascinating family, which had its share of tragedy - not least the troubled relationship between Richard and his mother - Webb's sister, Georgina. Georgina had married Daniel Meinertzhagen, a banker, and had ten children. They lived at Rutland Gate, in London's Knightsbridge, and at the gargantuan Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It does not seem to have been a happy marriage. Richard's father was quiet, hard-working, and apparently not particularly intellectual. His mother came from a more precociously academic family and she herself was quite a character. Meinertzhagen quotes from a letter she wrote to her 13 year old sister, Margaret, when she herself was 20: 'Now for an answer to your saucy, inappropriate and shabby little epistle, which arrived on my birthday. Your proverb was no proverb but only the invention of a diseased imagination... Allow me to assure you that I glory in a state of tall, picturesque angularity, and shall be seriously grieved when old age lowers me to your state of stumpy embonpoint. I shall truly then have had my day, and I hope my brain may not contract with my body.' (p.76)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Nonetheless, she must have had a lot on her plate with so many children and two such enormous properties to manage. Richard Meinertzhagen apparently spent his childhood longing for a maternal affection which was not forthcoming. Most damningly of all for Georgina, he was repeatedly beaten at boarding school and, amid all the terrible evidence of bruising, welted legs and blood-stained clothing, she tells him he should try to behave himself. (p.159-161)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But he survived and, beyond these horrors, his childhood was incredibly privileged - not least in that he had the run of Mottisfont Abbey. He and his siblings took full advantage of the enormous resources available to them. He insists, at the beginning of the book, that he never killed animals for sport; nonetheless, vast numbers of birds and animals die at his hands before the final page. After the horrors of Fonthill school, he went on to better experiences at Harrow, then dodged his father's attempts to recruit him into banking, and joined the army.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book is picturesque - often seemingly exhaustive in its collection of random childhood memories, and listed descriptions of country traditions, his tutors at Harrow, his parents' famous friends. Meinertzhagen paints a vivid, and in many ways affectionate, picture of an upper-class childhood in the late Victorian, early Edwardian eras.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Nonetheless, there is a rather strange side to it. He himself is an uncomfortable reminder of what Britain has been. The book was published in the early 1960s, and he clearly wished, in some respects, to show himself as a progressive - arguing, for example, that he'd never seen women as anything less than equal to men - and yet he was an imperialist, an admirer of Cecil Rhodes, and apparently found little to dispute in the eugenicist ideas that had been around for much of his life.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A while ago, <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2020/10/kazuo-ishiguro-alan-hollinghurst-and.html">I read <i>Treasure Island</i></a>, and I remember saying something silly to the effect that, despite the bloodiness of British imperialism, the utter lack of self-doubt involved produced an appealingly relaxed kind of prose. Perhaps that only works when writing adventure stories for boys - or perhaps in that era, the afore-mentioned lack of self-doubt was mitigated by the kind of dynamic, adventurous spirit that drove the Victorian age. After all, Victorian imperialists may have been arrogant, but <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2021/01/oliver-sacks-ali-smith-and-yuval-noah.html">as Yuval Noah Harari says</a> of exploring and conquering, the whole enterprise requires an admittance of ignorance at the outset. Meinertzhagen's writing has a similar kind of sturdy Britishness to Stevenson's, but lacks the appeal. Perhaps it is because he writes as an older man, perplexed at modern views and fashions, but refusing to concede that he might be stuck in the past. Part of this, and particularly jarring, is his discussion of Rhodes, and race. (p.215-16)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjva0Eh5cVT4t7VmcCPJz_lwHBvyQgjAwV2lAKxDgO8wvMd86zmH80tclMORc29B50OSQnWrzKxTSt-VKMVCyfsE8vIvu8Dq7VpvZjZewAvyZE5-ri9rKFKIpWlpz5CNCLEtIeLD-ZTXL6D/s2048/IMG_2624.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjva0Eh5cVT4t7VmcCPJz_lwHBvyQgjAwV2lAKxDgO8wvMd86zmH80tclMORc29B50OSQnWrzKxTSt-VKMVCyfsE8vIvu8Dq7VpvZjZewAvyZE5-ri9rKFKIpWlpz5CNCLEtIeLD-ZTXL6D/w480-h640/IMG_2624.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Noonday Demon: An Anatomy of Depression</i>, by Andrew Solomon, Vintage Books (2002).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I read Solomon's book <i>Far From The Tree</i> and really enjoyed the way he wrote. When I found out he had written a book about depression, I really wanted to read that too. I had depression about 20 years ago, when I was at university - or I thought I did. At the time, it was the worst thing I'd ever experienced and not something I thought I'd ever get out from under; there were [many] little tingles of recognition reading this book. On the other hand, I've never faced what Solomon and the people he meets here went through - I was never unable to get out of bed in the morning - so maybe my experience was mild; maybe depression is the wrong word for it. Be that as it may, the book resonated.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The first thing that struck me was the definition he gives of depression in the very first paragraph - I've never heard it put this way before - please excuse me an extended quote.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">'Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair. When it comes, it degrades one's self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection. It is the aloneness within us made manifest, and it destroys not only connection to others but also the ability to be peacefully alone with oneself. Love, though it is no prophylactic against depression, is what cushions the mind and protects it from itself. Medications and psychotherapy can renew that protection, making it easier to love and be loved, and that is why they work. In good spirits, some love themselves and some love others and some love work and some love God: any of these passions can furnish that vital sense of purpose that is the opposite of depression. Love forsakes us from time to time, and we forsake love. In depression, the meaninglessness of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaninglessness of life itself, becomes self-evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance.' (p.15)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In this book, depression is like some kind of growth (Solomon compares it to a vine - p.19), which may appear at first to have been triggered by external events, but which gradually takes on a life of its own (p.63) and comes back repeatedly, at increasingly closer intervals (p.56). The first experience of depression sets a precedent for the future. 'You are never the same,' Solomon says, 'once you have acquired the knowledge that there is no self that will not crumble.' (p.81)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Because of this recurring aspect, and the fact that depression is thought to cause physiological changes to the brain, going on and off medication is considered to be the wrong approach, because it allows gaps for depression to return and damage to occur. Most of Solomon's interviewees are on medication for life. I was in two minds over his stance on drugs (see also later discussion on recreational drugs). Although, in recounting his own experiences, he says he was initially reluctant to rely on chemical solutions, and he is wry on the excesses of pharmaceutical advertising (p.396), he is clearly a firm believer in the use of antidepressants, even in mild cases, and sometimes he comes across almost as an apologist for the pharmaceutical industry. Having said that, he certainly cites plenty of cases where prescription drugs seem to be the only thing that can drag people back to the land of the living. Of the antidepressants that ended his own breakdowns, he says, they were 'slow as dawn, shedding light bit by bit on my personality and letting it come back into the known and patterned world.' (p.119) And he does look at alternatives.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He does not shy away from offering up advice from his own experience either. 'The surest way out of depression,' he says in the first chapter, 'is to dislike it and not to let yourself grow accustomed to it.' (p.29) Then later, on facing another breakdown, 'here's what I knew that saved me: act fast; have a good doctor prepared to hear from you; know your own patterns really clearly; regulate sleep and eating no matter how odious the task may be; lift stresses at once; exercise; mobilise love.' (p.86) Easier said than done of course, but I suppose that is always the case with depression. He also writes about absent relatives as reasons to live: 'if I miss them and the past they made for and with me, the way to their absent love lies, I know, in living, in staying on.' (p.98-99)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are also good things to take away, both from the range of people he covers (apparently James Boswell had depressive episodes - p.309-10) and their individual stories. The woman, for example, who had been in Dachau concentration camp and seen her whole family die there, and who survived by focusing entirely on her hair. (p.109-9) There's someone else who writes about mental strategies people used to cope in concentration camps - was it Jeff Wise? (Note also that Solomon, like Edmund de Waal, references suicide in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.) There was another of Solomon's interviewees for whom having her depression named made all the difference - allowing her to see it as something 'other' and not just a personality flaw. 'To be given the idea of depression is to master a socially powerful linguistic tool that segregates and empowers the better self to which suffering people aspire.' (p.343)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">So he talks about what depression is, and about his own breakdowns and those of friends; he discusses treatments and alternative therapies - that's surely a book in itself. But he is nothing if not encyclopaedic, and there follow another eight chapters - e.g. on depression in particularly vulnerable social groups, among substance abusers, among people who are particularly economically disadvantaged, on suicide as a separate (but linked) problem, on depression through history, on the politics of treatment in the US.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I had two slight problems - first, with the chapter on history; it seemed <i>ahistorical</i> somehow. His view of the past is extremely dependent on the 'facts' as we know them today, and he didn't seem to see any problem with deeming history right or wrong, according to whether it was moving in the direction of the modern state of affairs. His conclusions on the work of Michel Foucault are illustrative: 'Foucault makes good reading, but the influence he has had is much crazier than the people who are his subject.' (p.320) As someone who didn't understand a word of Foucault (one day I will try again), I may not be in a position to criticise, but it did seem rather a sweeping judgment, which he does little to back up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My second issue concerned the chapter on addiction. I found his attitude to recreational drugs a little strange, although it might just be my conservatism (small 'c'). It seemed to me though, that he was unable to be objective about his own experiences and that this led him to underestimate the negative effects of drugs. At one point, he seemed to be perusing various illegal substances, advising depressed readers which ones to avoid. (p.233) Do not take cocaine if you are depressive, he says, before going on to declare his own adoration of it. (p.231) He talks of living in a squat in Russia for a while and drinking a quart of vodka a day: 'to have stuck to my U.S. drinking standards would have been not only rude but peculiar in these circles.' (p.227) Saying it would be rude not to drink so much sounds like a transparent attempt to justify your own decision to drink so much! There is also a strange bit where he says, 'the relatives of people who abuse stimulants have high rates of depression. This would seem to indicate that a genetic predisposition towards depression may precede use of cocaine and other stimulants.' (p.230) Or it may indicate that looking after people who abuse stimulants is exhausting, emotional - depressing even!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But these were minor, localised issues. For the most part, he combines very successfully his personal experiences with a more objective, journalistic stance.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book ends as it begun, on a personal note, with Solomon recounting how many of the book's interviewees got in touch - one of them from hospital - with messages of support when he became depressed near the end of writing it. He must surely have been in an unusual position, as a depressed person who had made a point of discussing his illness openly, and having so many depressive friends and acquaintances showing an interest. It was quite a tear-jerking moment.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-31637778791507053382021-02-09T18:33:00.014+00:002021-02-09T18:51:28.347+00:00Sidney Smith, Jean Manco and John Hersey<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFZeStR84HkCdhCCMW64l-CX6Jt1Etcp1nDG4LhSZ1wO1OUVoL6dHBqf-h_dzUIVRfKtIcFc29EnSVl1g6cl_A7G3_L-I-hnLqno6DZtTHKKAP_vCQdXwL5G1T0Oq6EaxLrCcy0YPWd5R/s2048/IMG_2570.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFZeStR84HkCdhCCMW64l-CX6Jt1Etcp1nDG4LhSZ1wO1OUVoL6dHBqf-h_dzUIVRfKtIcFc29EnSVl1g6cl_A7G3_L-I-hnLqno6DZtTHKKAP_vCQdXwL5G1T0Oq6EaxLrCcy0YPWd5R/w480-h640/IMG_2570.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Selected Letters of Sydney Smith</i>, ed. by Nowell C. Smith, Oxford University Press (1981). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I don't recall ever having read a volume of letters before. Less confessional than diaries, less plot-driven than a biography: they don't exactly reach out and grab you by the throat. On the other hand, they may give a better impression of a person, as he appeared to his contemporaries, than other forms of evidence. And they contain more of the minutiae of life, which is useful when you're studying people in unfamiliar contexts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It struck me, reading this, that I hadn't paid enough attention to letters when reading about the lives of women in the nineteenth century.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The trouble is the word 'selected' in the book's title: you are limited to what this particular editor found important, interesting, or suitable for publication. Of course, this is always the case in publishing historical texts. I have somewhere <i>Elizabeth Ham By Herself</i>, the autobiography of the early nineteenth century writer. In the introduction, the editor - Eric Gillett - wrote that 'it has been necessary to omit nearly fifty thousand words of almost maudlin self-pity and inconsequential gossip. Although I do not consider that what is printed here constitutes a first-rate autobiography, it is a book consistently readable, with some most graphic descriptions, sharply etched portraits, and unusual glimpses of life in England'. But what is inconsequential gossip to one person might be catnip to another: I'd love to know what he omitted.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the case of Sydney Smith, his editor is particularly impressed (and rightly so) with his political independence and his criticism of the church within which he was himself a minister. Smith was, furthermore, one of the founders of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, and continued to be seriously critical of its output long after moving on from its editorship. He also moved to Yorkshire when the law changes to require clergymen to live in their parishes, despite the fact that 'no clergyman had resided in Folston for 150 years, and the parsonage was a hovel. Smith's good-humoured acceptance of his fate - at a time when, fresh from his triumphs in Edinburgh, he was just beginning to take London by storm - seems a model of Christian humility.' (p.vii-viii) He does come across as having great integrity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I would like to have known more about what appears to have been a very happy marriage. I also enjoyed his sense of humour. 'Don't leave me in this odious state of innocence,' is his appeal for gossip. (p.100) And 'remember me to the Norton,' he writes to Lady Dufferin, referring to her sister, Lady Caroline. 'Tell her I am glad to be sheltered from her beauty by the insensibility of age; that I shall not live to see its decay, but die with that unfaded image before my eyes: but don't make a mistake, and deliver the message to –––––'. (p.211)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He was also prone to melancholy, and wrote to Lady Georgiana Morpeth with his 20 top tips for coping with low spirits. These included (i) 'live as well as you dare'; (ii) 'go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold'; (iii) 'amusing books'; (iv) 'short views of human life - not further than dinner or tea'; and (v) 'be as busy as you can'. I'll take those - cold showers aside - and overall, it is difficult not to like Sydney Smith. I'm not sure this selection of his letters makes the most thrilling reading, but perhaps - as noted above - it's just not in the nature of letter collections to be thrilling. They are instead mundane, but comfortably, interestingly so.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zV_STdpds7bPOt9NcZQU-EgAGvuBi_6KgAFqSwVtC_wHWxwch633Gtb9_Nx6zXSE9n_kAb2WqRzUbYqGVZIp9AH7gFb1s4xOnSf69cQkilWEuDL4HJ3j_a316ktaKuQK1__k70PuZISu/s2048/IMG_2571.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zV_STdpds7bPOt9NcZQU-EgAGvuBi_6KgAFqSwVtC_wHWxwch633Gtb9_Nx6zXSE9n_kAb2WqRzUbYqGVZIp9AH7gFb1s4xOnSf69cQkilWEuDL4HJ3j_a316ktaKuQK1__k70PuZISu/w480-h640/IMG_2571.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Origins of the Anglo-Saxons: Decoding the Ancestry of the English</i>, by Jean Manco, Thames & Hudson (2018).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This was a Christmas present. The history books I buy are usually concerned with the nineteenth century. Other than that, the Tudors have entertainment value; twentieth century history is useful in understanding what happens today; I love reading historical biographies and histories of certain bodies or concepts; the Anglo-Saxons... not quite so much. I suppose what I find interesting in history is what people felt, how they perceived things, how they interacted on a personal basis, and these things become more difficult to ascertain the further you go back.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Nonetheless, there were things I found interesting. I had no idea, for example, that there were ever Roman gladiatorial contests in Britan, and yet Manco discusses a cemetery uncovered in York: 'what is unusual about this one is the number of bodies that it contained that had been decapitated from behind at about the time of death, a pattern not found elsewhere in Roman Britain. Taken together with evidence of other injuries, including large carnivore bite marks on one individual, this looks like the last resting place of gladiators.' (p.123) Wouldn't that make a fantastic starting point for a school history class discussion?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On the same page, there's a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheTrimontiumTrust/posts/this-roman-figurine-of-a-gladiator-is-7cm-high-carved-from-bone-he-was-found-nea/1002418486884158/">photograph</a> of a really lovely bone figurine of a gladiator, found at Colchester, Essex - near where I live. He looks very casual with one knee in the air. I love historical dolls and figurines; maybe it's the teddy-bear maker in me; they say a lot about the way people see themselves.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There's a lot of information about the various groups that lived on the European mainland, and the trading of goods like amber and bronze, and how these goods found their way to Britain. In some ways, it covers similar ground to Yuval Noah Harari's book, <i>Sapiens - </i>and it <i>is</i> interesting - only his narrative took a biological and evolutionary perspective. Manco's is less driven. She has a lot to say about DNA which, try as I might (it sounds like it <i>should</i> be a <i>terribly</i> interesting subject), I can't stay awake for.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Nonetheless, I feel like I should know more about Anglo-Saxon Britain - and about Roman Britain, living near Colchester as I do. This book was definitely a kick in the right direction.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeFja1L_VuMEe3W78Cj5Ix3_oNW7Cd4GuQk9JjPDhO0aMKntJ7xu7-gsa0NHK-DlIVtDJgqWZHq8TDWZVzFTzWfRsR7IGxXFpYKTDKd6dGjbfx1HWpE6AnU2cwFAO5rs-FJRGOsgkerrt/s2048/IMG_2572.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeFja1L_VuMEe3W78Cj5Ix3_oNW7Cd4GuQk9JjPDhO0aMKntJ7xu7-gsa0NHK-DlIVtDJgqWZHq8TDWZVzFTzWfRsR7IGxXFpYKTDKd6dGjbfx1HWpE6AnU2cwFAO5rs-FJRGOsgkerrt/w480-h640/IMG_2572.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Hiroshima</i>, by John Hersey, Penguin Books (1985).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another novel experience. I knew very little about the bombing of Hiroshima before reading this book. In fact, I'm not sure I know much more having read it. It's a sort of micro-history, focusing on six individuals: where they were when the bomb went off, their injuries, how they behaved in its immediate aftermath and, when Hersey returns to the subject 40 years later, how it affected their lives in the long term.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's quite an intense read - an account of crisis management on the ground, as it were - without referencing the wider context. It's not so much about the politics, as the way particular people lived through the experience.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Hersey's writing is dispassionate and lacking in personal presence, which I suppose should be good qualities in a piece of reportage. I find it slightly troubling though: I prefer it when writers 'own up' to the methods they use to shape a narrative (and the way Hersey gathered his information is not mentioned once). Nonetheless, the effect is - at least initially - militarily spare, perhaps providing particular clarity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Does the book reveal anything about the kind of behaviour or thinking that works best in the aftermath of major disasters, when people are struggling with shock and confusion, personal injury, and uncertainty as to the safety of family members?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are two individuals in Hersey's book that stood out for me in this respect. Dr Terufumi Sasaki was one of the last doctors left standing at the Red Cross Hospital and was immediately faced with long, ever-growing queues of patients. The second individual was Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Methodist minister, who went about helping people and, in particular, ferrying them across the river to escape fires that broke out among the wreckage. Both men were themselves substantially uninjured, held public service roles at the time of the disaster, and had no small children to look after and limit their autonomy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's strange reading the last part of the book, which explains what happens to the six individuals subsequently. The two men who stand out in the first part continue their practical, high profile ways, but perhaps less sympathetically. Sasaki goes on to a number of private medical initiatives, gets very rich (having been fairly well-off anyway) and takes little interest in the physical after-effects of the bomb. At one point, he seems to seriously mis-diagnose the fractured vertibrae of Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge - another of Hersey's subjects. (p.152) Tanimoto becomes a sort of peace ambassador to the US, but is suspected of being more interested in self-promotion, and there is a baffling incident where he is found to have spent a significant sum, out of funds raised in America for the relief of Hiroshima orphans, on briefcases as gifts for the directors of the orphanages. (p.184)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, it's perhaps not a book about heroes, fallen or otherwise; in many respects it's about ordinary people, or ordinary lives (although odd references to the Emperor and the pursuit of 'total war' makes me question whether this is a society I would recognise as ordinary) blown apart in an instant. It feels very odd that I don't know more about it; that I'm only just now reading this; one would have though it would be basic and essential reading.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-66178090621805542982021-01-26T10:25:00.011+00:002021-02-09T18:53:24.049+00:00Joan Didion, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Barbara Pym<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp9A1S-Q_oju3SYuF_2m520gQs_yoC2u9_cgCxKxw0NXNG9XTyB_f8EEvPtpK4evE8QmXLElytvhX6aEo5oXAj5kHBAaIo8rfQd_1nGARr7wHwk0HNaoYKiuxcxDdXwoLZEqR-SceBUtyJ/s2048/IMG_2557.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp9A1S-Q_oju3SYuF_2m520gQs_yoC2u9_cgCxKxw0NXNG9XTyB_f8EEvPtpK4evE8QmXLElytvhX6aEo5oXAj5kHBAaIo8rfQd_1nGARr7wHwk0HNaoYKiuxcxDdXwoLZEqR-SceBUtyJ/w480-h640/IMG_2557.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Excuse the grubby cover: I think this book has been passed round a fair few people.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> This <i>should have been</i> absolutely awful to read - it's about the year following the death of Didion's husband, and how she copes. Apparently her daughter, who was seriously ill during the year covered by the book, died not long after it was published, which seems terribly harsh. One would hardly blame Didion if this were a miserable book.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's not though. Didion worked as a journalist, and she has a rational, analytical, <i>New Yorker-</i>magazine style of writing, which is very upbeat. This is really appealing anyway, whether the writer is male or female, but I find it particularly surprising in women writers. I always expect an extra layer of cynicism and self-consciousness from women, and Didion lacks this. She talks briefly about domesticity and its attractions in a way that seems to mark her out as being of a certain era, but her writing is unmarked by anxiety over the way she looks, her age, or weight, the way she conforms to contemporary ideas about women, the way people perceive her, or any awareness of vulnerability to harassment or condescension on the basis of her sex. I don't know whether she doesn't notice these things, or whether she simply choses not to write about them. I suppose you could argue that the latter would be problematic. Nonetheless, she is refreshing to read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">So I think the book is saved from being depressing by this journalistic style - but also by her investigative approach. She deals with the hospitalisations of both her husband and her daughter by researching the medical phenomena involved and discussing it in great detail. She also talks, sometimes amusingly, about her interactions with doctors, and the way she tries to smuggle her research past them - delicately describing her daughter as 'waterlogged' because she notices how the doctors stiffen when she uses the word 'edema'. (p.103) She buys scrubs to wear at her daughter's bedside in the ICU, and reflects wryly that it never occurred to her at the time that this 'could only be viewed as a suspicious violation of boundaries'. (p.106)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I really enjoyed it; I will definitely look out for more of her books.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGTBq6D8Kpgvy3d9xRA31IfbR3kosWfdF5xSREfalqHUxGHg4fww8IZwh4TPbtODCaTv9C3AlqNHdM_hs-5S6zjGciRraRdvugZa21O2wpMdNazrg9WDgh3Y21xMRAk3VOeP9-jlM6W3P/s2048/IMG_2558.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGTBq6D8Kpgvy3d9xRA31IfbR3kosWfdF5xSREfalqHUxGHg4fww8IZwh4TPbtODCaTv9C3AlqNHdM_hs-5S6zjGciRraRdvugZa21O2wpMdNazrg9WDgh3Y21xMRAk3VOeP9-jlM6W3P/w480-h640/IMG_2558.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The first part of this book - <i>An Inland Voyage</i> - reminded me a bit of <i>Three Men in a Boat </i>- a less commerical version; it was funny but not professionally so. Stevenson, for example, makes much of his personal difficulties in travelling: 'he is born a British subject [he refers to himself in the third person], yet he has never succeeded in persuading a single official of his nationality. He flatters himself he is indifferent honest; yet he is rarely known for anything better than a spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable means of livelihood but has been attributed to him in some heat of official or popular distrust'. (p.24) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He has a lovely turn of phrase - describing the sea as having 'a rude pistoling sort of odour, that takes you in the nostrils like snuff' (p.42), and describing his first meal after one stretch of the journey by saying, 'I made a God of my belly'! (p.93)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He is self-consciously English, self-consciously a 'gentleman', and yet in some ways seemed very modern in his politics - noting, for example, that the poor are more charitable than the rich. (p.36)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the second part -<i> Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes</i> - he goes on a walking tour through rural parts of France with a donkey called Modestine ("Proot!"). He describes her at one point, with his sleeping bag on her back, as 'a self-acting bedstead on four castors'. (p.143) It is a self-consciously humorous relationship that he portrays, but I did feel very, very sorry for the donkey. Despite insisting that, as an Englishman, he could never mistreat a female, and despite occasional expressions of wry affection, he really does treat her badly. Even when he is told that his own mismanagement of her load has been causing her great discomfort - that she's actually bleeding from it - he can still only complain about her. (p.170)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Although he seems, on the whole, to be fairly liberal and easy-going, his attitude to Modestine in some ways presages his attitude to women in general. On p.161, he describes two young women he passes on the road as 'a pair of impudent sly sluts', which is a bit harsh, although presumably the word 'slut' meant something slightly different then. Then there is his description of Clarisse, a waitress in one of the inns at which he stops. (p.204) He analyses her attractions in great detail and feels compelled to relay these to her in person - to which she reacts not at all. He reminds me of the curate cousin in <i>Pride & Prejudice, </i>who proposes to Elizabeth Bennett - pompous, sweeping, assuming his own advances will be welcome, ignoring the response, candidly enumerating her faults and grandly assuring himself that these can be improved upon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Something I did like about this second part of the book were his descriptions of sleeping rough. He shies away from this initially, but it is his ambition from the outset and eventually he is caught short and forced to camp out alone in the countryside. In all but one case (see p.166, 195, 221), it is a positive experience - surprisingly cosy, liberating, close to nature, and free from apprehension. He only fear is 'of discovery and the visit of jocular persons in the night' (p.210), although at one point a man passes on the road nearby where he lies, drunk and singing loudly, and the experience is not an unpleasant one. 'There is a romance,' he says, 'about all who are abroad in the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess their business.' (p.196) It's one of the few times in the book he shows any signs of being a writer of fantastic pirate stories. As I said, it is otherwise rather in the style of Jerome K. Jerome - the bumbling English traveller.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG5hi12Bje9dLuc30t1R_cP3lKA-oBIhL_dWAXfYZPD622HLErPfuMqABZng1EKoiVA-d9LRo_da_yjgXHgvxyCeRye2zKE4nmUazZHr4KDcKIX2Zl8oQKI5NPey5taTmoW7RL4KgXU55K/s2048/IMG_2559.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG5hi12Bje9dLuc30t1R_cP3lKA-oBIhL_dWAXfYZPD622HLErPfuMqABZng1EKoiVA-d9LRo_da_yjgXHgvxyCeRye2zKE4nmUazZHr4KDcKIX2Zl8oQKI5NPey5taTmoW7RL4KgXU55K/w480-h640/IMG_2559.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is <i>An Academic Question</i>, by Barbara Pym.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There is a bit in her introduction to <i>The Long View</i> by Elizabeth Jane Howard, where Hilary Mantel - talking about the modern re-evaluation of female writers who were underrated or patronised in their own day - says that Barbara Pym was 'neglected, rediscovered, consigned again to being a curiosity'. (p.xvi) In a piece which shows great admiration for Howard, Pym gets rather short shrift.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Undoubtedly this book is lighter and less challenging than Howard's, and Pym herself seems rather less <i>rock 'n' roll</i>. In this sense, you could argue that Howard is easier to advocate for. However, I enjoyed this book - and Pym's work in general - much more than <i>The Long View</i>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">What I like about Pym's writing - particularly when comparing it with Howard's - is that it really lends itself to the female reader. Her female protagonists are exemplary. I love their equilibrium, their self-assurance, their sunny imperviousness; the fact that <i>they don't care</i> what people think of them. Not that they are blind to how they appear to other people, but they can live with other people's poor opinion. It's not - also - that they don't care about people generally; all of Pym's protagonists I've come across are indeed 'excellent women' - cake-baking, flower-arranging, tombola-manning types - who do their community bit cheerfully and with a great deal of humour.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">They don't get hurt though, beyond their ability to deal with it. They suffer plenty of upsets - being pitied as spinster singletons, or unhappily married, cheated on, passed over for affairs, they have children they don't feel very maternal towards. None of these things make for unhappy or depressing stories though. Pym's women are robust and practical, wry and self-accepting in their flaws.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I suppose you could argue her stories are a bit 'one note', but I think it's a good note to stick on.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">None of which is to say anything about this particular book - <i>An Academic Question</i> - except that it's probably obvious that I liked it. It sounds, from the introduction, like a bit of a posthumous mish-mash, cobbled together from various drafts by her literary heirs. You can tell (and I'm not convinced she would have been pleased at the publication of efforts she was clearly unsatisfied with), but it was a good read - I read it in one sitting (not that I have much else to do) - and recogniseably substantially Pym's work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are little odd gem-like nuggets that stand out. I loved, for example, the relationship between Caroline and her daughter, Kate - not a close one, but warm nonetheless. 'One sometimes reads in Edwardian memoirs of a child retaining a romantic memory of its mother dressed to go out to a party, coming in to say goodnight. I wondered how Kate would remember me in my trouser suit which gave little scope for conventional glamour.' (p.6) Also her relationship with the women with whom she thinks her husband is having an affair. 'I imagined her in those days in the early sixties, young, handsome, eager... with all the potential of a distinguished career before her. And now? As she mounted the platform... a spontaneous impulse of generosity made me turn to Alan and whisper, 'Doesn't she look lovely!' He made no reply but did not take his eyes off her and I too found that the pleasure of looking at her made up in some way for the dullness of [her] lecture.' (p.77)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Excellent Women</i> is still my favourite of her books, but I'd highly recommend this one all the same.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-78953786326333270392021-01-17T16:58:00.016+00:002021-01-17T17:21:28.633+00:00Oliver Sacks, Ali Smith and Yuval Noah Harari<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPuIdf25iEMAHfWsN9M0Mcytsih_pJuVcqex0wWFkxKQbPcLb7QewJwo1IN4HZDB05Apicklfx341_uqkDeJwFv_cOWzxTOiY_csjGTxWlipwz9uRUa33gHiGwe6HsErRoF_-tQAtnVbe/s2048/IMG_2535.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPuIdf25iEMAHfWsN9M0Mcytsih_pJuVcqex0wWFkxKQbPcLb7QewJwo1IN4HZDB05Apicklfx341_uqkDeJwFv_cOWzxTOiY_csjGTxWlipwz9uRUa33gHiGwe6HsErRoF_-tQAtnVbe/w480-h640/IMG_2535.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I heard about this book on Radio 4's 'A Good Read' programme. I remember one of the guests, when asked whether they enjoyed it, saying no, not really - *deep sigh* - 'all that stuff about elements...' I'm not very good with science but I wanted to read this anyway because I'm interested in Oliver Sacks. <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat</i> has been on our bookshelf at home since I was a kid. Also, on the radio programme, they talked about Sack's horrible experiences at boarding school, which is a subject which seems to come up repeatedly in my reading, for some reason.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">They weren't exaggerating about the chemistry content. The majority of the book covers Sack's interest in chemistry - both how he was introduced to it as a child, and its historical development as a field of study. It wasn't exactly <i>inaccessible</i>, but I did find myself glazing over quite a lot. About three quarters of the way through, I finally started taking a more selective approach.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sacks has a fascinating family. Like Edmund de Waal, his ancestry is Russian and Jewish. There is an amazing photograph of his grandparents sitting on the lawn in the garden of their big house in Highbury New Park, looking very dignified and old-fashioned and surrounded by thirteen of their [eighteen] children. Sacks's grandfather seems to have been an incredibly clever man, with a long list of proficiencies, patents, credits to his name, and all his children - sons and daughters - went on to work. Sacks's mother became a surgeon - this must have been in the 1920s sometime - and of his aunts, two were teachers and two founded schools themselves. It all seems incredibly high-achieving - although Sacks writes about it as though it were entirely normal. It is interesting to reflect back on how British feminism, around the turn of the century, was affected by the influx of immigrant families who, for various reasons, may have taken a more generous approach to working women and the education of girls.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Unfortunately, the family content of the book is only tiny, and it seems partial and unfinished. For example, Sacks talks about his brother Michael who, as child, became psychotic. (p.186-6) The subject is not revisited, so we never find out what happened to him. However, Sacks has written lots of other books, including at least one that was autobiographical, so I shall definitely go on to read more.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi3R2tgKpWGzC9KXBQH-7bdOjjH_xsl2Fy-1Muz3kZzgd_Hx5B5p-RZAIfBmSpzpJeGD9XkKi8agtu0njM4r_O2TF0pTV4q46d51rVcsh_0DEp29c3z-6uOXZKAAC7croSvmipj6tucU18/s2048/IMG_2536.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi3R2tgKpWGzC9KXBQH-7bdOjjH_xsl2Fy-1Muz3kZzgd_Hx5B5p-RZAIfBmSpzpJeGD9XkKi8agtu0njM4r_O2TF0pTV4q46d51rVcsh_0DEp29c3z-6uOXZKAAC7croSvmipj6tucU18/w480-h640/IMG_2536.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is a book about a girl grieving for the death of her mother, and researching particular fifteenth century Italian paintings her mother liked and then, about a third of the way through, the narration is taken over by the Italian painter's... ghost? spirit? It's quite a strange idea.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It also took me a little while to get used to Smith's writing style - the lack of speech marks and other punctuation; the way she stops sometimes in the middle of a word (I'm still trying to work that one out); the expressive, sometimes very lengthy, parentheses; the cutting back and forth between moments in time; the use of real artworks, pop stars, cultural references. I think I came to like all this...?! The girl, the protagonist, is rather sad but her mother, through her memories, comes across as quite a character.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I liked also the fluidity of gender and sexuality in the book - although I found it a little strange how universal it was. It wasn't ascribed to just one person - it seemed to apply, in some form or another, to all of the female characters. I suppose in some respects the book is quite radical - not so much in it's inclusion of androgyny and different sexualities - but in the way it normalises them.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's a book which creates mysteries and declines to sort them out (paving the way for a sequel perhaps!?) - so we never find out what Lisa Goliard was up to - if anything. So too, George's truancy (at the age of 16, when she must have been facing GCSEs), her secret use of her mother's bank card, her relentless campaign of surveillance, all seem to suggest a rather pessimistic denouement, somewhere beyond the end of the book (like in <i>The God of Small Things</i>, where things can only go downhill from the last page), which was sort of treated as beside the point, but which I found quite difficult to ignore.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRP6AIoNOggc_MTZ80p6GNm3pMff6KTHH38Q2vJHXRAcWj3so9sFgpLJTBdGiBHbme6guaaZx6A1bpoQsi00bdpbDObJ-iwvdIzyfzTRJbkU1Rw3JBXDb6zavFlrVZq8-ZO-GpdfO7b4Gg/s2048/IMG_2537.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRP6AIoNOggc_MTZ80p6GNm3pMff6KTHH38Q2vJHXRAcWj3so9sFgpLJTBdGiBHbme6guaaZx6A1bpoQsi00bdpbDObJ-iwvdIzyfzTRJbkU1Rw3JBXDb6zavFlrVZq8-ZO-GpdfO7b4Gg/w480-h640/IMG_2537.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is a tremendously readable, fascinating book. I really enjoyed it, whilst being - at the same time - slightly suspicious of its size, its polish, its recommendations by Bill Gates and Barack Obama on the cover. The way he wrote reminded me a little of Steven Pinker and Matthew Sayed - not a scientist, but a modern academic who draws easily on science, and one with a theory to expound. It is clever, cosmopolitan, all-encompassing, but in some ways reads like he's never been challenged on these ideas in a public forum. He acknowledges debate and uncertainty, but it doesn't ruffle his narrative at all.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Harari writes about the imaginative capabilities of people and how our ability to imagine communities or social structures - things which, essentially, don't exist outside our imagination - was a significant part of what allowed us to start acting collectively, and therefore to excel as a species. I found him a little contradictory. He argues that imagined orders depend on myth and will collapse if significant numbers of people stop believing in the myth.. 'How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature.' (p.126) On the other hand, he acknowledges that we do discuss democracy as an ideal, rather than as an objective reality. 'We know that people are not equal biologically,' he imagines human rights advocates as saying. 'But if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.' (p.123-4) Well? Is democracy an imagined order which we insist is an objective reality, or is it 'just' an idea that we hope will deliver us a better society? It can't be both, surely.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He goes on to add that Hammurabi, ruler of the Babylonian empire around 1776 BC, 'might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: "I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society."' (p.124) It seems a bit far-fetched to me to suggest that an ancient king would have conceded an inherent equality between 'slaves' and 'superiors'.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was a little surprised to read an historian making such a clear division between subjective and objective realities. When I was at college, people were reluctant to concede that anybody, or any body of knowledge, could be completely objective. Harari seems to use science as his lynchpin of objectivity, without expressly acknowledging that science itself could be termed an imagined order - or a number of different imagined orders. For example, later on in the book (p.164-5), he dismisses ideas about natural and unnatural sexual behaviour as remnants of Christian theology. Surely, in doing so though, he is pushing up against one of the myths underpinning a particular imagined scientific order - just not the one that he subscribes to.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I liked his analysis of the Agricultural Revolution - 'history's biggest fraud' - wherein people moved from itinerant hunter/gatherer bands to settled, farming societies, and thereby tied themselves into a spiralling regime of ever longer hours and lower pay, and which they were unable to reverse once the population had exploded. There were just too many mouths to feed to go back to hunter/gathering. And the same thing happens today, he says. 'How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad.' (p.98)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">He has a good argument too about polytheistic religions, and how much more tolerant they were than the monotheistic variety. The Romans were polytheistic and happily tolerated the different gods of their subject peoples, so long as those people were prepared to include key Roman gods in their pantheon. The only god the Romans disliked was that of the Christians, who refused to accept the existence of any other. This led to the persecution and killing of 'a few thousand Christians' over the course of three centuries. This number is tiny in comparison to the number of Christians killed by other Christians 'to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.' (p.240)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Also very interesting (and maybe... post-revisionist?) is his stance on empire. I don't think I've heard anyone, in recent years, talking about the positives of imperialism. But this is what Harari does: he somehow manages, plausibly and without under-playing the violence or it's terrible legacy, to separate imperialism and racism and appraise them individually. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">For example, all the imperial activity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries - people (Europeans) sailing forth and seeking new lands to claim for themselves - required a major change in thinking from what had come before. It required an acknowledgment of the gaps on the map, and in one's own system of knowledge and belief; an admission of ignorance. Part of the reason that some countries - like China - did not participate in the 'conquering' of overseas territories, was because they made no such admission. (p.322-25) Similarly, when the Europeans landed in various parts of South America, the local people were unduly unalarmed. 'Had the Aztecs and Incas shown a bit more interest in the world surrounding them - and had they known what the Spaniards had done to their neighbours - they might have resisted the Spanish conquest more keenly and successfully.' (p.326)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Despite this, the catastrophic effects of colonial rule on local populations do not go undescribed. His account of what happens to native Tasmanians after the arrival of James Cook in the eighteenth century is awful. (p.310-12) Harari also points out that the battlefront has shifted today: 'assertions about the contrasting merits of diverse human groups are almost always couched in terms of historical differences between cultures rather than biological differences between races.' (p.338) As with racism though, such differences are nonetheless used to argue against according people equal treatment or fundamental rights.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">One more thing I should mention about this book, which I thought was rather strange - it seems to have turned me <i>vegan. </i>Somewhere in the middle, there are three pages on what happens to female cows, and to calves. I've definitely read all this stuff before, so I'm not quite sure why it's had such an effect on me this time. I'm wondering whether it's the lockdown. Veganism always seems so complicated - like, <i>well what the hell do you eat</i>, apart from beans and vegetables? Usually, I don't feel like I have the time or the energy for the kind of meal-planning required. After weeks sitting on the sofa, staring at a book or computer screen, I finally seem to have some enthusiasm for the task.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-59957838991131078462021-01-05T12:33:00.010+00:002021-01-05T12:39:00.716+00:00Christmas present reveal<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> Back when I made teddy bears, I gradually accumulated a big pile of mohair scraps; too big to throw away, too small to make a bear out of. This Christmas, stuck for a present for my sister and her family, I thought I'd try putting the scraps together to make a quilt. It actually turned out interesting (a little crazy, but not in a bad way), although it's probably more of a lap blanket than a quilt. These are the photos she sent me - with appreciative recipient. He does look a little grumpy in the first photo, but I think he takes it all back in the second!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvtloQSqRKT9v7bdmmb2uAP58FBGYTM3XP3HSkffSviumstHxnLHSa7kSJ64G0Z8gHmKBYtYRrCVh8UvvNzGqFYafoK4vjhtbo16MJ7EaOe90If2rgfZwEP1j-fm705QVyXzs0lgR_QBfD/s1280/Image-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="671" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvtloQSqRKT9v7bdmmb2uAP58FBGYTM3XP3HSkffSviumstHxnLHSa7kSJ64G0Z8gHmKBYtYRrCVh8UvvNzGqFYafoK4vjhtbo16MJ7EaOe90If2rgfZwEP1j-fm705QVyXzs0lgR_QBfD/w336-h640/Image-3.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriJ2pvp8B5prJNKJ5Q16m6hoA1Lcd-znZABN1B0Zxc6EcId6xG5EzvNmeuA_nDGcLxYTj21LDqnWfX9Fk8PxoGj5ppfRdmKYQzcg31CslRjtlPC1iIz2gB_rGIeBR-nBPYZhbeLcvSFmJ/s1280/Image-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="671" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriJ2pvp8B5prJNKJ5Q16m6hoA1Lcd-znZABN1B0Zxc6EcId6xG5EzvNmeuA_nDGcLxYTj21LDqnWfX9Fk8PxoGj5ppfRdmKYQzcg31CslRjtlPC1iIz2gB_rGIeBR-nBPYZhbeLcvSFmJ/w336-h640/Image-1.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I backed it with beautiful yellow fleece from <a href="https://www.fabworks.co.uk/">Fabworks</a>. I didn't use any interfacing or batting - which was probably a mistake because the mohair itself is woven into quite a thick, firm backing fabric, and the seams - where the patches are sewn together - are fairly prominent. You can clearly feel them through the fleece. But it was plenty warm, even without the batting. I edged it in a piece of dark purple duchess satin that we've had for ages. It was the first time I'd edged a blanket, or mitred a corner. The mitring went alright, but actually sewing the edging was a pain in the rear end - it just slipped all over the place; I had no control over it all. I'm hoping my sister does look too closely at the edging...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, for Christmas, my mother got me another big piece of the yellow fleece, and the Linden sweater pattern from <a href="https://grainlinestudio.com/">Grainline Studio</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyDzhAExSIz1TkDbPM27S4S8eFsivNmvNDSLMN3Re2TWv2U8k0CaCquJM50SFOW07OxTg2iH6rXg6exBa7LsvbPiPMWJflm8WXXEMCg3FyowsEVTPv_YwwiZYBqFum4L-wxvxW5irPUPwc/s2048/DSC_5274.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1360" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyDzhAExSIz1TkDbPM27S4S8eFsivNmvNDSLMN3Re2TWv2U8k0CaCquJM50SFOW07OxTg2iH6rXg6exBa7LsvbPiPMWJflm8WXXEMCg3FyowsEVTPv_YwwiZYBqFum4L-wxvxW5irPUPwc/w424-h640/DSC_5274.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I looked at the reviews online, and added an extra three inches onto the length. I think I would have made the neckline a little higher too, but I wasn't particularly sure what I was doing: I wanted to make it once to see what it was like, before I changed too much.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The results are shown below. I was actually really chuffed with it - particularly the cuffs and the hem, which I've never tried before. I'll definitely make it again. Probably with a higher neckline, and I feel like those diagonal seams which goes across from armpit to neckline (it's got raglan sleeves) could be altered slightly - it feels like there is a lot of fabric there - but I don't know. I wouldn't want to alter the loose, slouchy feel of it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yu4KeyR-ZWv88J7tKIDPlXeUFtxgcXHR_jp1SunqRtUQPR3Fh-uwyw8K_-SR9GfFedU4LPCvGZFLzsltAP8W80qYPqKPH-WI3HamxcgAS2KhXBy3lpM6EpiBqhzn58iLV_itv47yzZgB/s2048/DSC_5265.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1360" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yu4KeyR-ZWv88J7tKIDPlXeUFtxgcXHR_jp1SunqRtUQPR3Fh-uwyw8K_-SR9GfFedU4LPCvGZFLzsltAP8W80qYPqKPH-WI3HamxcgAS2KhXBy3lpM6EpiBqhzn58iLV_itv47yzZgB/w424-h640/DSC_5265.jpg" width="424" /></a></div></div></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrXFCqtLkdNt2ShCJ5gfYGFHj2qGcc-O84EN3ps0KEOV69gh20ZnbvdyN9QdOMitgB-nIl3UaLZheTX07kgJhYojkwEdg9-AWdvmApYpglEZB4bC8DmKYdJ0rL7WvPdPTF3Ly7i18SGNw/s2048/DSC_5267.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1360" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrXFCqtLkdNt2ShCJ5gfYGFHj2qGcc-O84EN3ps0KEOV69gh20ZnbvdyN9QdOMitgB-nIl3UaLZheTX07kgJhYojkwEdg9-AWdvmApYpglEZB4bC8DmKYdJ0rL7WvPdPTF3Ly7i18SGNw/w424-h640/DSC_5267.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xvkU_bVUWqrkAZHWq28YxjuHl8qgEnoxG-tXuIHGCpVtQpQwcN8ws_3tse4BhbFFy6tSeqL863NaJ3so1FS8hxUHbPol8VVbHaFxIDyGV7SpRJm1bExeOwO3qahMwKanzt3wNw4iHSA4/s2048/DSC_5268.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1360" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xvkU_bVUWqrkAZHWq28YxjuHl8qgEnoxG-tXuIHGCpVtQpQwcN8ws_3tse4BhbFFy6tSeqL863NaJ3so1FS8hxUHbPol8VVbHaFxIDyGV7SpRJm1bExeOwO3qahMwKanzt3wNw4iHSA4/w424-h640/DSC_5268.jpg" width="424" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-1531630861839063062021-01-02T13:46:00.012+00:002021-01-02T14:16:23.999+00:00Elizabeth Jane Howard, Edmund de Waal, and Anne Enright<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Happy New Year! I'm still here, still reading, still writing long boring reviews that no one reads! But what the hell, I'm enjoying it. This time round, it's <i>The Long View</i> by Elizabeth Jane Howard, <i>The Hare With the Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance</i> by Edmund de Waal, and <i>The Green Road</i> by Anne Enright.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm2jwaJQkmzc3dpFPAidSfs8wayrS2sGvdPVYWCuJ1tNAdIjoiP4CzecKFSR5rMGohgvhRGNyqoShbLt10O4lLw-x6ug3GAUDiC6sJDSkM-I07UF3EnjuoqZSIHhaxqvd2WErhou4c6A-K/s2048/IMG_2474.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm2jwaJQkmzc3dpFPAidSfs8wayrS2sGvdPVYWCuJ1tNAdIjoiP4CzecKFSR5rMGohgvhRGNyqoShbLt10O4lLw-x6ug3GAUDiC6sJDSkM-I07UF3EnjuoqZSIHhaxqvd2WErhou4c6A-K/w480-h640/IMG_2474.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I started off absolutely hating this book, and ended up thinking that actually I liked it in spite of myself. I hated it because it seems to be about a miserable woman, married to a horrible man, and without any will to change her situation. A long time ago, I had a period when I became disaffected with books and gave up reading altogether. At about the same time, I was becoming aware of feminist critiques of fiction, which saw something amiss and prejudicial in books that were about 'miserable women, married to horrible men', blah-blah-blah - so I tend now to connect the two. I associate my negative memories of reading with this terrible (and boring) fictional paradigm about women hurt by men.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In many respects, I stand by that first impression. There' s a long speech that the husband makes when, on their honeymoon, Antonia asks him why he married her. 'I married you... because you are going to be extremely beautiful, which means for me that you will be a pleasure to see, a delight to be with, and because, possessing you, I shall be envied by others... I married you because you are not a fool, because you have innate good taste, because you have a vast capacity for enjoyment, and because, if I was to marry at all, I wanted at least the possibility of perfection. You will not be perfect: but the amount that you fall short will be my fault - not yours - and that responsibility is more desirable to me than anything else. Being what you are, you have also the potentiality of utter failure: of being tragically destructive. You require a certain amount of protection not to become that. You are fortunate to have found somebody to take you as seriously as I have been doing... ' (p.278-79) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This sounds terribly controlling, even psychopathic, and I had high hopes that she would slap him smartly over both cheeks and tell him that she didn't need his protection, and she didn't need him to take <i>responsibility</i> for her failures and imperfections, thank you very much; that she was not perfect, and had no interest in trying to be, and that she didn't appreciate for being married for something so shallow as the way she looked. Instead, rather disappointingly, she says, 'But what do you want me to do... If only you would tell me what you want me to do, I would do it!' (p.279)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">At the beginning of the book, you see the way their marriage pans out (it is a marriage told backwards): she is the perfect hostess, distant from her children, unable to communicate with her husband; he is bored, having affairs. None of that seems particularly surprising or, indeed, original.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">However, the final part of the book looks at Antonia's life before she meets her husband. It moves to the Sussex countryside where she lives with her parents, who rub along reasonably pleasantly together but, as she finds, live very disparate lives. I love Howard's descriptions of the countryside. One evening, Antonia is late for one of her mother's dinner parties: 'she had changed hurriedly, knowing by the silence upstairs that everyone else had gone down. It was an early summer evening - the sun had just set, and the air was fraught with the gently evening grumble of birds. Bats leered about with amazing silence; and when she opened her window, she let in an indiscriminate flitter of moths. Daisies lay faintly on the lawn, still staring upwards to the end of the light - floating on the dark turf - extinguished, drowned out, one by one, as the mushroom shadows grew mounting out of the ground. It was the last time alone in her life.' (p.326) Not physically alone of course, but that evening she meets a man who is to misrepresent himself to her, bringing her love and desire and self-doubt, so after that night she does not experience solitude in the same peaceful, selfish way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The man she meets that night isn't her husband; he's a young Irishmen for whom she seems to fall for a lot of good reasons. He's charming and personable and attractive, they have similar interests, she can talk to him, he expands her horizons and offers her an opportunity for doing something with her life (which is currently set in a very Victorian, nursury-to-marriage course). Then, near the end (spoiler alert), he turns out to be married - again, hardly a surprise for any heroine of Victorian melodrama. She endures further shocking revelations about her parents' relationship, then she meets her cloyingly dastardly husband, effectively on the rebound from her first 'disappointment in love'.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Is there something sensitive and perceptive in all this that I am completely failing to see? The book certainly comes with great reviews; perhaps I am not the right person to appreciate it fully. As I said, I really enjoyed the last section, but then I did not particularly connect the girl she was then to the way she is described at later stages of her life. I do wish there had been something better in store for her - something happier, or at least more self-determined.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJ4s9hL-5aD5JFLOxxlmSlIhahmQMIjI7rs7xyMvvmKyLL8lYqimwTGsYodqnRHp2if0cYcxmsL8Bb4SAdoXFxK5lCoq6bD5YRfdBh8pkXnFEdi0AvrNVICjq1BnAmTeh6woWoSrvbxqC/s2048/IMG_2475.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJ4s9hL-5aD5JFLOxxlmSlIhahmQMIjI7rs7xyMvvmKyLL8lYqimwTGsYodqnRHp2if0cYcxmsL8Bb4SAdoXFxK5lCoq6bD5YRfdBh8pkXnFEdi0AvrNVICjq1BnAmTeh6woWoSrvbxqC/w480-h640/IMG_2475.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another family history book, like <i>Homegoing</i>, but this time structured around a valuable collection of netsuke - small, intricately-carved, Japanese objects. The netsuke are fascinating in themselves. De Waal relates a story told by Edmond de Goncourt about Japan. 'Amid this manually gifted populace,' he said, 'there would be amateur netsuke sculptors, who amuse themselves by sculpting a little masterpiece for themselves. One day, Mr Philippe Sichel approached a Japanese man sitting on his threshold, notching a netsuke that was in its last stages of completion. Mr Sichel asked him if he would like to sell it... when it was completed. The Japanese man started laughing, and ending up telling him that it would take approximately a further eighteen months'. (p.58) The creation of such detailed miniatures, apparently with little regard for time or profit, seems like the purest form of artistic expression.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">De Waal traces the path of this collection through his family. And it is an incredibly illustrious family. The Ephrussi, like the Rothschild family, were unbelievably, stonkingly rich: bankers by profession, Russian and Jewish in origin, but they had moved out to Vienna and Paris in the nineteenth century where they were, at one and the same time, both the most uppercrust of society, and often subject to the bitterest racial prejudice.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Reading about them, there is both predictability - in their archness, their lavishness, their dynastic sentiment - and, inevitably, some unexpected scenes. Researching the life of his great-grandmother, who's family had an estate in Czechoslovakia, de Waal writes, 'as I struggle to bring the two parts of her life together, I am also slightly aghast. My picture of Jewish life in <i>fin-de-siecle</i> Vienna is perfectly burnished, mostly consisting of Freud and vignettes of acerbic and intellectual talk in the cafes. I'm rather in love with my 'Vienna as crucible of the twentieth century' motif, as are man curators and academics... My image of the period certainly doesn't stretch to include Jewish deer-stalking or Jewish discussion of the merits of different gun-dogs for different game.' (p.141-42)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was so distracted by such social and intellectual elevation that I took my eye off the timeline. Suddenly, shockingly, Anschluss occurs, and de Waal describes it chillingly. His great-grandparents sit in the dark in their enormous palace in central Vienna, listening to the sounds of the brownshirts outside, screaming violent, anti-Jewish threats. The Jewish people in Austria have the ground rapidly cut away from beneath them: they are accused of political malfeasance, stripped of their rights, beaten and humiliated in the streets, their shops and houses smashed and looted. It seems like a city where suddenly every official is a Jobsworth, out to prove himself the most effective at unmanning the Jewish people. It becomes impossible to leave the city - impossible to do anything; you're not even allowed to sit on a park bench if you're Jewish.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">De Waal's great-grandparents are frozen with indecision, not wanting to leave their home, not knowing what to do. Their palace is taken from them, his business interests signed away, their huge quantities of antiques, books, and artworks catalogued, valued, crated up and shipped out. Eventually, they manage to get to Czechoslovakia, but of course they're not safe there either, and again search in vain for escape. De Waal's great-grandmother dies suddenly. No one uses the word 'suicide' but it seems clear to De Waal that this is what it was. On Kristallnacht, he says, 'a night of terror: 680 Jews commit suicide in Vienna: twenty-seven are murdered'. (p.267)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">At such a terrible time, the fate of the netsuke of course slips your mind but - without giving any spoilers - they are later discovered in the warmest, most wonderful circumstances. In spite of their monetary value, they clearly had great sentimental importance for the family, and although I can't say I was entirely sympathetic to the efforts of de Waal's grandmother to reclaim her family's enormous fortune after the war, it's clear that many of the lost items were mourned because of the memories they held of Viktor and Emmy Ephrussi. I guess I should add - after that last sentence - that it goes without saying that the forcible removal of people's property, treating them as though they had no rights, is a most despicable form of humiliation. De Waal writes of Jewish people during the Anschluss that 'they are beaten, of course; but they are also forbidden to shave or wash so that they look even more degenerate... it is important to address the old affront of Jews not looking like Jews. The process of stripping away your respectability, taking away your watch chain, or your shoes or your belt, so that you stumble to hold up your trousers with one hand, is a way of returning everyone to the shtetl, stripping you back to your essential character - wandering, unshaven, bowed with your possessions on your back.' (p.250-51) Apparently, unbelievably, in 1948, the new Austrian Republic gave an amnesty to 90% of Nazi Party members - 'nobody was called to account'. (p.284)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I think, after that - and despite the fascinating beginning - it sort of became a book about the war and the Holocaust for me. The next instalment of the story, where de Waal's great-uncle Iggie takes the netsuke back to Japan, is a bit of an anticlimax. However, right at the very end, de Waal visits Odessa in Russia, where the Ephrussi name apparently began, and this was intensely nostalgic. I suppose the central - certainly the most emotive - characters in this story were his great-grandparents, Viktor and Emmy, and Odessa threw light on Viktor's roots.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, as you might have guessed, I really enjoyed this book. It was interesting and funny and unexpected, and sometimes awful and terrifying as well.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiL3QO0YDNb4A9UdHWab-E25ZJYFCnsPnM9yypoQ_yF6wkpJ9qGhDgugouxsazPsMH-Ody3jxkF21kDeszKFN8Ez1WrU-il4h1DyY8OXk-r2c6Uy-NbIcmNWtmoQBsm61tkdYg6xN7tFjj/s2048/IMG_2476.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiL3QO0YDNb4A9UdHWab-E25ZJYFCnsPnM9yypoQ_yF6wkpJ9qGhDgugouxsazPsMH-Ody3jxkF21kDeszKFN8Ez1WrU-il4h1DyY8OXk-r2c6Uy-NbIcmNWtmoQBsm61tkdYg6xN7tFjj/w480-h640/IMG_2476.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I really enjoyed reading this. Anne Enright has a wonderful funny, frank, colloquial voice. The bit that really astounded me was the leap from 1980s Ireland, where the protagonist is Hanna, a young girl growing up with her siblings and her rather erratic mother (father present but keeps to himself), to New York in the early 90s, where young gay men are having sex with each other and dying of AIDs. That second chapter reminded my of Alan Hollinghurst's <i>The Line of Beauty</i>, because it covers similar ground. The contrast between the first two chapters was quite a shock though; a sort of violent swerve in direction. What promises to be a wry, but steely, Irish family drama is suddenly, not. Part of the dislocatory feeling, I think, comes from the fact that, although chapter two is about Hanna's brother, Dan, he is not the protagonist - he's a shadowy figure on the edge of the action - so there's no evidence of that small-town Irish outlook.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's one of those books where you can switch back and forward between characters fairly easily - there's no strong lead character, and no one unequivocally holding the moral high ground. There were still some I warmed to more than others, but I liked the way the characters appeared slightly different through each others' eyes. With Dan, obviously, it seems unlikely that his family would have recognised him from a description given by the people he hung out with in New York. With Constance also, she seems like a cheerful, capable woman with a genuinely happy marriage and affectionate children - but to her brothers she comes across as almost ridiculous, with her uncontrolled eating, 'her deliberate stupidity and her supermarket hair'. When Dan contemplates taking his boyfriend home for Christmas, his sister's reaction is part of what stops him. 'The problem, Dan realised, was that Constance would not love Ludo, as he loved Ludo. She just couldn't. She would not have the room.' (p.173) This foxed me for a while: was she so small-minded? Would I find her ridiculous? But I don't think so - I think it comes down to perspective, and it's always useful to be reminded that your own impressions of someone (or something) aren't universal.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The way the book is set out, Enright talks about each of the characters individually, and then brings them together for Christmas at the end. It's a feat that I often wondered how she was going to marriage - given the disparity of the characters. In the event, its elegantly done; there are no signs of authorial wrestling. In some respects, the characters revert to their childhood selves, which seems fairly true to life, but with an added distance created by time passed and their other lives away from home. There is a notable lack of contact between some of the characters (Constance and Emmet, for example, or Constance and Hanna) and an almost complete lack of reminiscing about their childhood relationships, which I would have thought would be key. Perhaps this lack of in-depth analysis is what makes the reunion seem so natural though; to have mapped out every angle would have been ruinous.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Finally, it's worth saying that it is quite a funny book. I probably place far too much emphasis on the importance of humour, but I find it a sort of instantaneous conduit of empathy in circumstances which otherwise may seem very alien. There's a rather epic description of Constance's Christmas supermarket dash (p.228-232) and I, somewhat callously, laughed at the description of their mother sobbing at the dinner table in chapter one (p.11-12), and of the young Hanna picking up medication for her Granny, 'feeling marked, singled out by destiny to be the purveyor of old lady's bottom cream, whilst Emmet was not to know their granny had a bottom, because Emmet was a boy.' (p.23)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I felt that the humour was reserved mostly for the Irish sections of the book, or at least, for those which took place in County Clare. Both Dan's and Emmet's sections were rather grim - partly due to circumstances - but they're also tragic characters. As an adult, Hanna - alcoholic and unenviably partnered - is also tragic and therefore unfunny. I found myself, as I read this book, linking humour with emotional connection and essential stability. Constance seemed to have this happy triumvirate; her siblings did not. Another character that <i>did</i> was Ludo, Dan's boyfriend. At one point, they have a discussion where Dan says that Ludo has no idea what his family have put him through. 'Ludo said that getting insulted was a full-time job. He said that he'd love to do it himself, but he didn't have a gap in his schedule, he needed his sleep, he loved his sleep, he did not want to spend the delicious hours of the night lying there, hating.' (p.174-75) Sage advice - and another reason why I enjoyed this book: it repeatedly reflected back on me and made me think about the question of how to live, and how to be happy.</div><br /> <p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-83208500415564217502020-12-15T15:36:00.010+00:002020-12-15T15:58:51.027+00:00Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Martin Amis<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggwDrNaO5u_7xjPtk1QwWvQek8XEiIeSj9ziEfvblElgpDq-33ZFZQPHxdsBZtBDxaKbsSMs6TVA-YlL9URlKCYR7FsNldkDnW69FcvFYTKqgITD7dauJhgV8hXlCQ5MHhLAWVyDJP3dXr/s2048/IMG_2462.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggwDrNaO5u_7xjPtk1QwWvQek8XEiIeSj9ziEfvblElgpDq-33ZFZQPHxdsBZtBDxaKbsSMs6TVA-YlL9URlKCYR7FsNldkDnW69FcvFYTKqgITD7dauJhgV8hXlCQ5MHhLAWVyDJP3dXr/w480-h640/IMG_2462.jpg" width="480" /></a></div></div><p style="text-align: center;">This reminded me of David Mitchell's <i>Cloud Atlas</i>, and <i>Homegoing</i> by Yaa Gyasi: each chapter focuses on a different character remote from the rest, and stands alone almost like a short story - and yet there are links between the stories. In this case, the links lacked the linear simplicity of <i>Cloud Atlas</i> or <i>Homegoing </i>however; I sometimes found them difficult to follow (not unlike life then). At one point, I decided just to keep reading, instead of tracing connections back and forth between chapters, and hopefully all would become clear. It didn't work - the connections were loose, faintly detailed; they didn't all come together at the end. Despite this, I wanted to know what they were. It's like hearing some piece of gossip: as an anonymous set of facts, it's of limited interest; it's different when you find out that it relates to someone you know.</p><p style="text-align: center;">It's difficult to say what this book is about. As I said, it's a series of connected stories. In each one, whatever the action level, something happens - not building towards an ultimate conclusion - but a moment in itself. For example, the first chapter concerns the kleptomania of one of the characters, and her being almost caught in the act. Chapter two is about chapter one's ex-boss: a music producer - middle-aged, divorced, trying out wacko cures for his low sex drive. Chapter three is chapter two as a teenager, but the focus is on one of his friends, who has what seems like a terribly unequal, exploitative relationship with an older man - again, a music producer. Chapter four is about the afore-mentioned music producer, older, still with a poor attitude to women, but with a young daughter about the same age as chapter three, and a young son who despises him. I guess, looking at it like this, there is a kind of give-and-take about the chapters: you see characters when they're young, and when they're old, and if they're not exactly paying for the actions of their younger selves, it's interesting to compare the two. So you could say that this book is about personal history - the way people deal with the spectre of their younger selves, the way they change.</p><p style="text-align: center;">I enjoyed the way Egan wrote, and looked forward to going back to this book every time. Although there was one character who seemed to appear more frequently than the rest, there was no single strong lead. I would usually find this off-putting, but not here for some reason. Egan also writes about things I would usually shy away from reading - exploitative relationships, loneliness - but it wasn't so awful; partly, I think, because these were things happening in the past, so you saw people passing through their bad moments, coming out the other side.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Another thing I found interesting was that Egan seems to purposefully avoid the powerful pull of nostalgia: that thing where a past life is looked back on, and the memory built up into something beautiful and fated, which reality could never actually match - like in Daphne Du Maurier's <i>Rebecca</i>. Egan treats past events in present-day terms: they are as grubby and underwhelming as those that occur later. The result is gentler and more fluid and again, prevents the focus from building up around any one character or relationship. It's a concertedly multi-focused book (but not very multi-cultural).</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrYVoUc54ujH7RrDVHLO2i3FZ3_uOtGPaE1mguzu7Z0oJFcrXJhPFcRJee1j0xnqeBn4ShcGJ-9Pyo9aq4306WPz2RfbQeRMGj6xfgvAPMJ6YFzT7_nRlid3BMR8Ll2qYKKVAnzN1D0vbL/s2048/IMG_2463.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrYVoUc54ujH7RrDVHLO2i3FZ3_uOtGPaE1mguzu7Z0oJFcrXJhPFcRJee1j0xnqeBn4ShcGJ-9Pyo9aq4306WPz2RfbQeRMGj6xfgvAPMJ6YFzT7_nRlid3BMR8Ll2qYKKVAnzN1D0vbL/w480-h640/IMG_2463.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is a cracking book - incredibly interesting. Elizabeth Kolbert is/was a staff writer for the <i>New Yorker</i>. She manages really well the feat of explaining science to non-scientists without either speaking over their heads, or treating them like fools. On p.71 for example, she describes 'the giant asteroid that ended the Cretaceous period and caused what may have been the worst day ever on planet earth. By the time the dust - in this case, literal as well as figurative - had settled, some three-quarters of all species had been wiped out.' Describing the day a giant asteroid hit as the worst day on earth feels like casting off the cool, objective (sometimes alienating) language of science, and viewing it through ordinary, every-day eyes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There's a great account of the way our understanding of the earth's history developed - particularly with the work of the French naturalist, Cuvier (the first of the catastrophists) who, at the end of the eighteenth century, basically invented the idea of extinction by examining fossilized bones and, instead of trying to link them to dissimilar modern creatures, made an enormous conceptual leap by positing that they belonged to a completely new species, which had died out a long time previously.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Later came Lyell and Darwin in the nineteenth century who ran with the idea of extinction, but, taking a uniformitarian approach, regarded it as a slow, evolutionary process which took enormous amounts of time. Much later still - and back to the catastrophist side - came Walter and Luis Alvarez who, in 1980, introduced the idea of an asteroid collision that killed off the dinosaurs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The process of paradigm change described here is fascinating. Kolbert paraphrases Thomas Kuhn, in his book <i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i>: 'data that did not fit the commonly accepted assumptions of a discipline would either be discounted or explained away for as long as possible. The more contradictions accumulated, the more convoluted the rationalisations became.' (p.93) When I studied history at university, I think I was asked to read a chapter of Kuhn's book, and I found it just as eye-opening back then. Ten years later, I saw a book for sale by Immanuel Kant, and I thought, 'that's him! That's the guy who's book I read in college and really liked!' I bought it, but couldn't get past the densely philosophical first page - I was terribly disappointed! It's a great relief to know that I haven't, in fact, become <i>less intelligent</i>, since I left university - albeit slightly miffing to realise that I never was actually intelligent enough to understand Kant.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Back in Kolbert's book, there's a terrible chapter about the extinction of the Great Auks. Gathered on a remote little island to breed, they seemed to end up as a convenient lunch station for ships travelling long distances and running short of supplies. These big, awkward, lumbering birds - like big Humboldt penguins, unable to fly - were simply herded on board in vast numbers, to be eaten en route, or confined in concrete pens to be killed later. There's an awful description of how we did away with the last breeding pair. It seems gratuitously violent to quote it out of context, but it certainly emphasises the cavalier attitude and horrifically brutal behaviour of people towards other living creatures.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Despite this, Kolbert's conclusion as a whole seems not to be directly critical of people. The problem, she suggests, is not our selfishness or propensity to violence, but the rate at which human beings are changing the environment. Other species - those facing extinction now - do not have the time to adapt. Furthermore, 'this capacity predates modernity, though, of course, modernity is its fullest expression. Indeed, this capacity is probably indistinguishable from the qualities that made us human to begin with: our restlessness, our creativity, our ability to cooperate to solve problems and complete complicated tasks. As soon as humans started using signs and symbols to represent the natural world, they pushed beyond the limits of that world.' (p.266) I understand this argument, but I wonder whether it lets us off the hook too easily: surely we could do to protect other species; surely our ability to do more is as integral to the equation as our restlessness and creativity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Kolbert's conclusion is ultimately pessimistic. The book has the air of a friendly warning about what is happening to other species: it is clear about the dangers whilst being unforthcoming on how the situation can be turned around.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GI29AbRlJV6U__QEBm8t7g8n8cDDl58A_Si534Ly2-ma7Z4gS6c1-ivhJKLctxaNsoUp_Y1nfR8NBON9qK0rUVsB_dm-mNbpyTfy5JhyphenhyphenHjvMwQulyRP3cy1w08Vdfg-PUQCVWi4X2OZw/s2048/IMG_2464.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GI29AbRlJV6U__QEBm8t7g8n8cDDl58A_Si534Ly2-ma7Z4gS6c1-ivhJKLctxaNsoUp_Y1nfR8NBON9qK0rUVsB_dm-mNbpyTfy5JhyphenhyphenHjvMwQulyRP3cy1w08Vdfg-PUQCVWi4X2OZw/w480-h640/IMG_2464.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">No.36 on the <i>Guardian</i>'s best books list: another really good book. It's a tricky one to categorise - it's autobiographical, but primarily focuses on Amis's relationship with his father. There are large areas that go undiscussed - his own marriages, for example, and his sister appears very seldom. Also, while he writes about one of his father's affairs in some detail - the one that led to his second marriage - I thought he made him appear like a two-women man (duogamous?) until two-thirds of the way through the book (when it's too late to dislike him), when he suddenly says that his father <i>loved adultery</i>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The book is not just about Kingsley Amis though. The author returns repeatedly to his cousin, Lucy Partingdon, who disappeared in 1973, and was later found to have been a victim of Fred West.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've read a fair few books about serial killers, and although I know it's often argued that such an interest is cheap and sensationalist, and exploitative in its own way, I've come to terms with it. I don't find it surprising that the boundaries of human behaviour, and what causes certain individuals to cross them, should be interesting. Having said that, I've never wanted to read about the Wests - perhaps because their crimes involved children. Amis seems to have read exhaustively on the subject - driven by his family connection and the need to know what happened to his cousin. There are several books he refers to which I would like to read - particularly those by West's surviving children.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Some of the best bits of this book were about Martin Amis's own route to becoming a writer. The book is indispersed with letters from his teenage self, written to his father and step-mother, concerning his reading and writing, and the money and accommodation concerns of student life. They have that familiar, self-conscious, jovial tone - the humour spelt out in capitals in every paragraph. Is it youth that does that, or is that the way writers of any age tend to start out? Whichever, it's reassuring to see that even writer's like Amis start off less than subtle.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I loved the way he talked about reading too. In one of the letters, he argues against his getting a teaching post in what, presumably, was a private boarding school, because he'd have no time to read. It would be far better, he wrote persuasively, to get an ordinary job and 'get on with my reading at a far more spanking space'. (p.56) Of course, he was studying English, so reading was everything. Nonetheless, reading seems to have retained that high level of importance for him later on. I suppose I am just envious: I had a strange (and very long) period in my life when I stopped reading altogether, but now the inclination seems to be coming back. I would love for it to be central again - but when you're an adult who's job doesn't require reading, can it ever be as central again as it was in childhood?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On the subject of his father, I'm going to have to seek out some of the books of Kingsley Amis. I find it strange that I've never read anything by him before. The quotes from his books were very funny, in a dry, understated, British sort of way. (And, he lived in a house called Lemmons.) I would also like to read something by Elizabeth Jane Howard (KA's second wife). I think I have one of her books - bought on a recommendation by someone else - and it has a terrible chick-lit-style cover. I dread to think of the number of books by female authors which I've been put off reading because of their covers.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, this is beautifully written - Amis is very engaging, with a wonderfully clear, straightforward style. And it's a book about novelists, full of literature and poetry. I love the fact that he uses footnotes, the lack of which is one of my major problems with modern non-fiction books. Although it's not important to the book, I would also like to know why the child in two of his photographs cannot be named 'for structural reasons'.</div><br /><br /><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-3767948297892826852020-12-01T20:19:00.017+00:002020-12-01T20:45:24.254+00:00Mrs Gaskell, Lawrence Sterne, and Primo Levi<p style="text-align: center;"> Well, so much for getting lots of reading done! I'm going back to work tomorrow and I have read just three books (one of 'em's pretty hefty though). I have had other things on my mind unfortunately - things which will be good blog subjects if they ever come off. Watch this space. Anyway, during the lockdown, I read <i>Cranford</i>, <i>Tristram Shandy</i>, and <i>Other People's Trades</i>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX4sQkzO7h6ybf5b-SRXbatdQJ_qzpsaz7KXYYodJsy4TSdVEr4zlyExFwaZSGJfeAiZ7rkxzWxclt8UKN27HDQXU095_LFQb1OYBFqCHDA_ucQuMtY-O4xy2giX9Z9U9jZ7xRZtBtK15G/s2048/IMG_2452.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX4sQkzO7h6ybf5b-SRXbatdQJ_qzpsaz7KXYYodJsy4TSdVEr4zlyExFwaZSGJfeAiZ7rkxzWxclt8UKN27HDQXU095_LFQb1OYBFqCHDA_ucQuMtY-O4xy2giX9Z9U9jZ7xRZtBtK15G/w640-h480/IMG_2452.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Cranford</i>, by Mrs. Gaskell.</p><p style="text-align: center;">I did like this! I had read excerpts from it in Frank Muir's <i>Oxford Book of Humorous Prose</i>, and then spotted it in a second-hand shop and grabbed it. It's a very gentle, but very funny book. I read Gaskell's <i>North and South</i> not so long ago, and that was quite idealistic and... morally driven, maybe (it certainly put me off reading any more of her books, until I saw the extract in Muir), so I wasn't expecting such nonchalance here.</p><p style="text-align: center;">It's a book about the lives of a group of women in a town called Cranford (and Cranford is mostly women), very concerned with propriety, and highly entertaining as a result. 'The name of these good people was Hoggins,' Mrs Gaskell writes of one household. 'Mr Hoggins was the Cranford doctor now; we disliked the name and considered it coarse; but, as Miss Jenkyns said, if he changed it to Piggins it would not be much better.' (p.95)</p><p style="text-align: center;">The concern with respectability does not seem to work to the women's disadvantage, vis-a-vis men, as it usually did in the nineteenth century (and since). It's not exactly a feminist book, but perhaps one could call it 'pro-female'. 'Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.' (p.18) Later one, one of the characters says 'My father was a man, and I know the sex pretty well.' (p.146)</p><p style="text-align: center;">Despite the humour, the first part of the book is a litany of upsetting, dramatical deaths: Captain Brown (killed by a train); the Captain's daughter (unspecified wasting disease); Mr Holbrook (another unspecified death - possibly to do with Paris and frogs being bad for the digestion); and Mrs Jenkyns (faded away after her son disappeared). So the story retains a certain tragic quality. However, apart from the humble demeanour of Miss Matty, there isn't much in the way of moralising.</p><p style="text-align: center;">I thought the book was very interesting in terms of historical detail. Gaskell talks of pattens - those strangely elevated, clog-like over-shoes, which women wore outside because their ordinary shoes were more like slippers. Also, 'calashes' get a mention: they are sort of outsized hoods, wired to fold back like an awning, designed apparently to cover any height of hairstyle, and not very becoming according to Gaskell. There is also mention of the St James's Chronicle, and the way - when you subscribed - you simply got your turn at reading the one copy in the village. (Judith Flanders talks about this in her book, <i>Consuming Passions</i>.)</p><p style="text-align: center;">Finally... <i>sesquipedalian</i>! It means long-winded, or using long words or, in relation to words themselves, polysyllabic. So, in using the word 'sesquipedalian', you would yourself actually be exemplifying the concept. (Note, Lawrence Sterne, in the next book, uses 'sesquipedality'.)</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman</i>, by Lawrence Sterne.</p><p style="text-align: center;">This is one of those books that, although I almost fell asleep on numerous occasions, was actually very good, and seems to be originator of many writing traditions and tropes. I'm not sure I'd recommend it casually but, if you are interested, absolutely do read this!</p><p style="text-align: center;">Again, it was excerpted by Muir, so I had seen the style and was expecting to like it, and I did, but if I came to it looking forward to finding out what it was actually about, I would probably have been disappointed. The story was quite loosely hung together - not about anything as such, not much plot to speak of, not particularly aptly titled - but it had a witty, charming narrator, a small but perfectly formed cast of characters, and some very funny individual sketches (the moment, for example, on p.286, where, out of the blue, a hot chestnut rolls off a table and drops into a man's breeches). I loved the portrayal of his parents relationship. The narrator's father, although not an unsympathetic character, is strongly opinionated, ostentatiously well-read, and can make for abrasive company - indeed, prides himself on being so. His brother-in-law - the narrator's Uncle Toby - deals with him with the utmost patience and equanimity, sinking into stoical pipe-smoking silence, or whistling 'Lilibulero' at times of provocation. The narrator's mother, on the other hand, takes a different tack. She seems to have a policy 'never to refuse her assent and consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it' - a policy which obviously infuriates her husband. 'She contented herself with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her - but no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years together - and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it.' (p.558) I suppose you could take that as evidence of a lack of intelligence, but it comes across as a deliberate tactic, used in dealings with a difficult husband.</p><p style="text-align: center;">It is these characters - Walter Shandy, his wife, and her brother Toby (and his servant, Trim) around whom the book centres. Tristram Shandy himself isn't born until a good way through the book, and even when he is, he doesn't feature very strongly in the story. At the one point where he suddenly does come into the foreground - in volume VII, which seems to describe part of his Grand Tour through Europe - everything got a bit surreal and free-floating. That might have been one of the bits where I nodded off.</p><p style="text-align: center;">But in spite of the fact that he takes virtually no part in the 'action' (such as it is), the presence of the writer is strongly felt - it's the best, most characteristic thing about the book. Christopher Ricks, in his introductory essay, describes it as 'self-conscious narration, with a comically intrusive writer' (p.xvi) (something that other writers before him had also experimented with apparently) and this is it precisely: it is the narrator's particular perspective of his family which provides the story.</p><p style="text-align: center;">There was much <i>periphrasis</i> in this book (and I cannot stand periphrasis)! This, Sterne's choice of word, refers to the use of indirect and circumlocutory speech or writing. The narrative is lengthy and verbose and the narrator easily distracted, with a strong tendency to go off at a tangent. In fact, he pauses occasionally to list his future tangents! It must have been difficult to criticise this though because Sterne addresses the issue directly, several times, and argues in favour. (According to the notes, quite a few writers did this in the 19th century.) On p.64 for example: 'Digressions, incontestably, are the sun-shine; - they are the life, the soul of reading;---take them out of this book for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them; - one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;--he steps forth like a bridegroom'. Any confusion that might result from repeated digression, he puts down to lack of attention on the part of the reader. On p.52, he orders one reader to go back and re-read the previous chapter, with more attention. In reading, he says, 'the mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the habitue of which made <i>Pliny</i> the younger affirm, "That he never read a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it."' So that's one argument in favour of sticking with boring books!</p><p style="text-align: center;">Another thing I liked about this was that I often found the humour quite opaque. Obviously its a funny book, but I wasn't sure if particular instances were supposed to be funny or not. For example, one of the few things that actually <i>happens </i>is the birth of the narrator, during which the local doctor inadvertently grasps the wrong part of the baby with the forceps, and flattens it. The flattened part, apparently, is his nose, which is a disaster because big noses are highly prized in the Shandy family. But then, Sterne writes an entire chapter (albeit the chapters are all very short) about how he doesn't want his readers to get the wrong idea and construe the word 'nose' mistakenly - as they might, for example, the word 'crevice'... 'I define a nose, as follows, - intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my definition. -For by the word <i>Nose</i>, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word <i>Nose </i>occurs, - I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.' (p.197)</p><p style="text-align: center;">So, after making such a production of it... was it the baby's <i>nose</i> that was flattened? At any rate, the other part of him that Sterne might have been referring to is later caught in a falling sash window, so maybe it makes no difference.</p><p style="text-align: center;">It is moments like this though, that I couldn't make out. Is Sterne being deliberately suggestive here; or was it inattention on my part; or is this ambiguity just something you get when reading centuries-old novels?</p><p style="text-align: center;">Anyway - read it. It is very long, rambling, boring in parts, can't keep to the point, and nothing happens, but the style, or the narrator's voice, is definitely worth the effort.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Other People's Trades</i>, by Primo Levi.</p><p style="text-align: center;">I saw this and bought it without knowing anything about it, except for having read another of Primo Levi's books. <i>If This Is A Man/A Truce</i> described his confinement in a Nazi concentration camp and, almost equally fascinating, his heady, slightly mad experience in the confusion of Europe after the war was over. On reading that book, I felt - much like I do with George Orwell - that I would be happy to read anything by this person. (But I do tend to get carried away when I like something.)</p><p style="text-align: center;">This book is a collection of short pieces Levi wrote for newspapers. Many of them are concerned with science or the natural world - beetles, butterflies, fleas, tadpoles, spiders, stars - not subjects that have ever set me on fire. It was clear though, that this wasn't his specialism (he was a chemist, I believe); the writing is appreciative and curious, but very gentle - so in style, as well as content, it seemed to lack punch somehow. Perhaps it's the age of the book that gives this impression, or maybe it's just one of those instances where newspaper columns don't convert well into book form. (I thought the same of E. M. Delafield.)</p><p style="text-align: center;">Perhaps I am 'typecasting' Levi on the basis of <i>If This Is A Man</i>, but the pieces I most enjoyed were about people, and humanity - for me, that's where he excels in writing. I really liked 'The Best Goods', which is about Eastern European Judaism and how deeply education is established in its cultural history. 'Ritual and Laughter' similarly, looked back at a sixteenth-century text on Jewish customs and its author's concealed amusement at the tricky implications of the orthodox religious interpretation. 'On Obscure Writing' is about how readers of incomprehensible books should not feel bad if they remain in the dark throughout - this is the fault of the writer, not the reader. And the first essay, 'My House', is a lovely portrait of the house where Levi lived from the day he was born - familiar but unsentimental, except for the memories it carried. (It made me realise that perhaps I tend to do the opposite - sentimentalising the house and disregarding the memories.)</p><p style="text-align: center;">There were then, definitely essays that chimed with me but, unfortunately, a large part of the book covered things outside my area of interest.</p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-39603379992178669702020-11-07T12:02:00.004+00:002020-11-07T12:12:18.238+00:00Lynne Truss, Alice Munro, and Claire Tomalin<p style="text-align: center;"> Good morning! Back into lockdown; back to reading practically full-time. It's alright for some, isn't it(!) I'm definitely feeling for those people who are not being furloughed and don't have anything to fall back on. I am counting myself very lucky, and keeping my fingers crossed that the restaurant I work for can keep going, and that I keep my job.</p><p style="text-align: center;">In the meantime, here are the next three books I've been reading... </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFXqFC6cZx-kZvHh1I3bRQ9MVG50KW1oa7u-gK-sRAvd4StuRcJXZirHdGoBTNpM3nW3oi7vG9pr05IYJiJh6ZVkUuXrlyOj6XVOej7v4OFVUfxMbT5KUb4wc02WaYs0uxn7DuzBOuCVg3/s2048/IMG_2427.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFXqFC6cZx-kZvHh1I3bRQ9MVG50KW1oa7u-gK-sRAvd4StuRcJXZirHdGoBTNpM3nW3oi7vG9pr05IYJiJh6ZVkUuXrlyOj6XVOej7v4OFVUfxMbT5KUb4wc02WaYs0uxn7DuzBOuCVg3/w480-h640/IMG_2427.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was a bit worried about this one. I don't remember ever having been taught punctuation at school. I suppose I must have been at some point, but in general I think its one of those things you pick up through reading. So the idea that there was a book of rules which might show that everything I think I know is wrong, was a little daunting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fortunately, it's not as bad as all that. There were some things that were new to me. I might as well be honest, and confess them here:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(1) When writing the time, the numbers should have a full stop in the middle - e.g. 7.30. Using a colon (as in 7:30) is the American way of doing it. (p.25)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(2) Writing about, for example, 'the person who's details are given in section 02' is incorrect. In this instance, the possessive form of 'whose' should be written without an apostrophe - as with the possessive form of 'its'. 'Who's' is a contraction of 'who is'. (p.53) I'm pretty sure I've always been aware that I didn't know what I was doing when writing 'who's' - so that's that sorted out. Now if only someone could tell me the difference between while and whilst!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(3) On p.86, Truss articulates a rule about commas, which I don't understand - although I think I probably abide by it inadvertantly. With lists of adjectives, she says, you use a comma where 'the modifying words are all modifying the same thing to the same degree' - as in, 'it was a dark, stormy night'. However, when talking about 'an endangered white rhino' or 'Australian red wines', you do not use a comma. 'This is because,' Truss writes, sounding rather woolly, 'in each of these cases, the adjectives do their job in joyful combination; they are not intended as a list. The rhino isn't endangered <i>and</i> white. The wines aren't Australian <i>and</i> red.' Hmmm...? Although I agree with the rule, I don't understand the explanation at all. I have a feeling the reason you don't use a comma in the example of the wine is because the thing that is being modifed by the adjective 'Australian' is, not just wine, but red wine. So the word 'red' is effectively being treated as part of the noun. I don't think that's the correct way to articulate it though.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(4) When talking about colon usage, Truss says 'there is the "Ah" type, when the colon reminds us there is probably more to the initial statement than has met the eye'. The examples she gives are, 'I loved Opal fruits as a child: no one else did', and 'You can do it: and you will do it'. (p.119) I can't imagine using a colon in either of those two circumstances (a semi-colon, maybe - omitting the 'and' in the second example).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">At any rate, for much of the rest of the book, the rules she relates were reasonably familiar and nothing to worry about.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's a very funny book. Truss writes with a sort of hyper-active humour anyway, but there are lots of examples of instances where erroneous punctuation has completely changed the meaning of a sentence ('go get him, surgeons!', p.82), or where simply omitting the punctuation altogether would be problematic (because extra-marital sex is quite different from extra marital sex, p.168-69).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Then there are the literary slurs - as when Truss invokes Shakespeare's phrase, 'I am too much i' the sun': 'a clear case of a writer employing a new-fangled punctuation mark entirely for the sake of it, and condemning countless generations of serious long-haired actors to adopt a knowing expression and say i' - as if this actually added anything to the meaning.' (p.38) Truman Capote apparently said of Jack Kerouac's efforts, 'That's not writing, it's typing' (p.191), which is funny even if it isn't specifically about punctuation, and George Bernard Shaw had some pithy things to say about people who disagreed with his opinion on the way titles should be printed. (p.187)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's a lovely novelty to have punctuation itself under the microscope; it makes one feel quite nostalgic and attached. I enjoyed the various descriptions of the function of punctuation (not something I've ever questioned before). For example, from the style book of one national newspaper (which one I've no idea; Truss is very hot on punctuation, but not at all interested in footnotes), it is described as 'a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling'. (p.7) Later on, she quotes Thomas McCormack as saying that the purpose of punctuation is 'to tango the reader into the pauses, inflections, continuities and connections that the spoken line would convey'. (p.202) I thought it was an interesting, charming little book, and I very much enjoyed reading it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And (P.S.), I particularly appreciated the information on how to type a dash (as opposed to a hypen) on an Apple laptop (it works)! – – –</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizC-GjhGwjoBFqrKVLqbQXRwm4z1cpAlxmdVQiXyjsVCySkgn57x2VSaqiu5kBBdhIgJozcorOy3O2YU0iNkl3vG_Z8jl11hQnEA4iMIX7g27BY1Epmcq8GDVo8JOVl6Hi-CwNKqNmwfOI/s2048/IMG_2428.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizC-GjhGwjoBFqrKVLqbQXRwm4z1cpAlxmdVQiXyjsVCySkgn57x2VSaqiu5kBBdhIgJozcorOy3O2YU0iNkl3vG_Z8jl11hQnEA4iMIX7g27BY1Epmcq8GDVo8JOVl6Hi-CwNKqNmwfOI/w480-h640/IMG_2428.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is the first time I've read any Alice Munro. The book is a collection of twenty-three short stories. I was thinking a little while ago about what makes a good short story. The ones I like are either those with a really neat, circular plot (like the adventures of Sherlock Holmes) where something is raised and then settled by the end, or those that - whilst lacking that sense of resolution - describe something really quite curious; hair-raising even. The curiosities in Munro's short stories are not individual eccentricities to find humour in (as in Frank Muir's definition of English humour); rather they concern relationships - mostly heterosexual or parent-child relationships.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And, far from being humorous, they are really quite miserable! There were definitely a few stories which I don't have anything more to say about. However, there was a series of three in the middle - 'Royal Beatings', 'Wild Swans' and 'The Beggar Maid' - which were particularly disturbing (in addition to being miserable), and two linked stories at the end - 'Carried Away' and 'Vandals' - which I also found rather chilling (and did I mention miserable?). I feel like these were right on the limits of the short story form though, if they could be called that at all, being linked chapters. 'The Progress of Love' though, and 'Differently' were both isolated short stories which I found just as affecting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Most of the stories are based in rural Canada in (I think) the 50s and 60s, and concerned particularly with poor communities, and the women in them. There is something subversive about the way Munro writes about women, and I have rewritten this paragraph ten times (and reserve the right to do so again) trying to describe what it is. Her stories suggest to me that traditional, moralistic, social ideas about women may restrict female behaviour a lot <i>less</i> than is sometimes assumed but, more seriously, may also create a dysfunctional mindset and problems that can last years down the line.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It was an interesting book anyway - not a happy one, certainly - but curious enough to be absorbing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4MKZX4g6Pp5BJy4Z04QvsVMD6hNt9zAki3-G3sqO-oTb2HQKIwBhNsXBJmWpJvQffXKXl2gqfKl8PNOkz4TACtroUwZD-l4o72xeIFpOaMIChOqhdUN55WrQavMBPUhzYuCaZiM0HALpL/s2048/IMG_2429.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4MKZX4g6Pp5BJy4Z04QvsVMD6hNt9zAki3-G3sqO-oTb2HQKIwBhNsXBJmWpJvQffXKXl2gqfKl8PNOkz4TACtroUwZD-l4o72xeIFpOaMIChOqhdUN55WrQavMBPUhzYuCaZiM0HALpL/w480-h640/IMG_2429.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Claire Tomalin's name has cropped up several times for me lately. Not so long again, I think she published a memoir of some sort which was well reviewed; and I recently read an interview with another writer who had enjoyed the Pepys biography. Years ago, studying A-Level history, I did my major piece of coursework on Mary Wollstonecraft, about whom Tomalin has also written a book. Annoyingly, whilst I felt that Wollstonecraft was someone I should be impressed and inspired by, I disliked both <i>A Vindication of the Rights of Women</i> (which is terribly convoluted) and Tomalin's biography which - I felt at the time anyway - portrayed Wollstonecraft as petulant, selfish, and thoroughly unlikeable.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Of Tomalin's current subject, Samuel Pepys, I knew only vaguely: a diarist who buried his Parmesan in the garden during the Great Fire of London, who died before the period of history in which I've always been the most interested, and - as someone reminded me recently - who was caricatured in the Goon Shows ('... hello Mrs Fitzsimmons!').</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Anyway, all this is just preparatory to saying that I liked the tone of this book immediately (the Wollstonecraft biography perhaps deserves a re-read): it was interested and scholarly, wide-ranging, well-contextualised, and non-judgemental without glossing over the problems of the subject (of which, more later).</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">What struck me first was its sweeping descriptions of both London, and specific, jaw-dropping, history-defining moments, which would usually leave me sceptical of such specificity, but which seem to work in such a relatively small, localised London as existed in the seventeenth century - surrounded by fields, navigated fastest by boat, served by an old Roman road. There is, on p.14, a description of how, one day in January 1642, Charles I ran out of the House of Commons in pursuit of five men - MPs who he wanted arrested. He was mobbed by a crowd and escaped, scared but unharmed. He and his family left London a few days later - the last time they would see it before the Civil War. It's the kind of story that brings history to life.</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Another thing that reminded me that there are things I enjoy about the early modern period was a passing comment Tomalin made - a quote from Christopher Hill emphasising the importance of the intellectual revolution which accompanied the Civil War, and pointing out that it is often difficult for us now to understand how people thought before that point. Steven Pinker, in <i>The Better Angels of Our Nature</i>, theorised about the invention of the printing press and how it may have changed the way people thought, promoting empathy and the idea of putting yourself in other people's shoes. The history of how people think is fascinating and I think I forget sometimes - in a general concern with ordinariness over the fancy, elite bits of history - that those headline-grabbing bits ('the history of great men') are responsible for a lot of paradigmatic shifts in thought.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I liked the structure of the book which - although broadly chronological - also treated its subject thematically. Particularly, I liked the fact that Tomalin has a chapter entitled 'Speeches and Stories' which seemed to be specifically for quoting interesting bits of the diary which don't fit in anywhere else. Having said that, there wasn't actually a whole lot of quotation in this book - which I found a little disappointing, since it has roused my interest in the diaries. I suppose I should read them myself - which brings me onto my next point...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">...which is that what puts me off actually reading the diary itself is Pepys's harassment of women throughout the book. Paradoxically, this was sometimes hilarious and sometimes mildly terrifying. On p.191, during a national crisis, after a rout by the Dutch navy, and when there was talk of Pepys being taken to the Tower, 'Pepys launched himself into some private sallies, on his cookmaid Nell and the Penn's maid Nan, and another attempt to get Pegg Penn on her own; in the office he fondled Mrs Daniel's belly'. That was the bit that made me laugh - the hopeful, indiscriminate nature of his amorousness, and the way it was undiminished by what was presumably a very stressful time for him in other ways.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">But of course, what appears comic from Pepys's perspective was unlikely to be amusing for the female servants in question. Doubtless, he had willing, consensual partners (although I don't recall any specific evidence to this effect, and I don't see why it should be assumed in an era where women didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter) but there seems to have been a long series of female subordinates (both of his household and those of others) who he routinely pressed his attentions on, and who either put up with it, or left their job - some never to be heard of again, others who he pursued to their next post. Pepys's behaviour is particularly unsettling with regard to Deborah Willet - the 17 year old he employed as a companion to his wife, Elizabeth (see chapter 19) - but, as Tomalin says, the case probably stands out because it's the only one of his 'affairs' that Elizabeth found out about.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">It is difficult at one and the same time to appreciate the brilliance of someone's achievements whilst, at the same time, acknowledging the revolting nature of their behaviour elsewhere. I suppose the temptation is to come down on one side or the other, which is probably a lazy way of thinking. I liked the way Tomalin dealt with the matter: despite her overwhelming admiration for his diary-writing, she does not minimise the less attractive parts of that document, examining and highlighting instances which make him appear creepy, predatory and sometimes, by today's standards, criminal.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I really enjoyed this book. I felt like it introduced me to a new literary and historical source which I had not previously known much about, and provided an incredibly appealing window onto seventeenth century politics and society.</div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-81794374589918999592020-10-21T19:32:00.017+01:002020-10-21T19:52:56.359+01:00Kazuo Ishiguro, Alan Hollinghurst, and Robert Louis Stevenson<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguvzoqKgWJDDfGa4cfNggLJ7isSG3IUt_FBvo0SQQ7DTSgFEpY_cfMAMJaxd88Ozy7MNwLnG5vSrjYeEhiLHeMYqFdZQ4NJc50oJwAv8_jQMiXq-OcsHBSiso0llBX6kq5mU_GApvDHj-X/s2048/IMG_2405.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguvzoqKgWJDDfGa4cfNggLJ7isSG3IUt_FBvo0SQQ7DTSgFEpY_cfMAMJaxd88Ozy7MNwLnG5vSrjYeEhiLHeMYqFdZQ4NJc50oJwAv8_jQMiXq-OcsHBSiso0llBX6kq5mU_GApvDHj-X/w480-h640/IMG_2405.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I didn't stop to write about this book immediately after finishing it, and I have a terrible memory so unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I don't have as much to say as usual. I did find the idea interesting - and I particularly liked the way the story was constructed. Right from the outset, there is clearly something up; an essential bit of information that the narrator is withholding. It is the slow revelation of this that I found gripping. I don't think I would have read this book if I had known it was science fiction, but that fact only becomes apparent well into the book - when it's far too late to put it down - and the science fiction part of it is not completely fantastical; it's not difficult to believe in.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In tone, this book reminds me of Rachel Cusk's <i>Outline</i>; unemotional, descriptive; very concerned with the exact details of personal interactions between people. I was reading some of the reviews of this book and I was surprised at the way the relationship between Kathy, Ruth and Tommy was perceived. I found the interaction between Kathy and Ruth incredibly... cagey, and competitive. Towards Tommy, Kathy seems protective, almost like an older sister. I was a bit surprised when, near the end, Ruth says, '"It should have been you two. I'm not pretending I didn't always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember."' (p.228) To me, there never seemed to be much of a spark between Kathy and Tommy. When they do finally get together as a couple, it's almost like they're going through the motions; it's all a bit mechanical. So I find all the references to a 'love triangle' or a 'menage a trois' a little over-heated.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are lots of references online to the film, and the story described doesn't seem quite as I remember it. I'm going to have to watch it. Maybe they changed some things - or perhaps I just have a terrible memory.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1h8oqxC27Ds0EQcWJtgF0inqzCalPLjA4mKaxyssCcgBvOesTd9Sevf_A9yX45LUTroGRrUtfkdni6mgTIxyRkSVFf-_VxdbWoGyMRWnUVX_f4_peLCy1wnsBFcsLitKLILWw-Ut8kC0L/s2048/IMG_2406.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1h8oqxC27Ds0EQcWJtgF0inqzCalPLjA4mKaxyssCcgBvOesTd9Sevf_A9yX45LUTroGRrUtfkdni6mgTIxyRkSVFf-_VxdbWoGyMRWnUVX_f4_peLCy1wnsBFcsLitKLILWw-Ut8kC0L/w480-h640/IMG_2406.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It took me a while to get into this one, but it did take off eventually. It's the story of a young gay man, Nick Guest, who moves into the family home of a university friend, whilst he is at college in London. The friend's father, Gerald Fedden, is a [fictional] Tory MP in Margaret Thatcher's government. Nick (I wonder if Hollinghurst named him 'Guest' because for much of the book he is a guest in someone else's home) pursues relationships, or sexual encounters, with various people, imbibes copious amounts of cocaine, and generally doesn't do much else: he is an 'aesthete', and apparently mostly decorative.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I found it a strange, disorienting kind of a book. On the one hand, as Nick rides along in the slipstream of Gerald's career, he doesn't really seem to be doing anything useful himself. On the other hand, the same could be said of many of the other characters, including Gerald. None of the principle characters appear to work particularly hard - there are lots of posh parties, expensive holidays, family money/connections, famous artwork, etcetera, but a definite lack of productivity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I'm not sure whether we're supposed to like these people, or even Nick himself. He seems incredibly shallow. When I first started the book and clocked the subject matter - London, rich people, the Tory party under Thatcher - it didn't seem to be my cup of tea. However, there were things which made Nick quite appealing. For example, Hollinghurst writes of him thinking of his own demeanour and wishing 'there was a way to distinguish shy from stuck-up - a muddle that had dogged him for years' (p.102); and where he says 'he didn't flinch at the girl's name for Leo, and he had sometimes laboured through whole conversations calling Polly Tompkins [a male college friend] 'she', but he'd never found it as necessary or hilarious as some people did.' (p.108-9) And when he describes how Nick sees the film <i>Scarface</i> for the first time: 'he saw that he was reacting like his mother, for whom any film on the telly with a sex scene or the word shit in it took on a nearly hostile presence.' (p.168)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">However, for much of the book, Nick seems to have a very strange sense of... entitlement; is that the word? Or perhaps it's better described as a lack of awareness, or concern, over the way his own behaviour impacts on others. Although he sweats over the prospect of getting caught, there never seems to be a point where he questions the wisdom of taking drugs in someone else's house (that of an MP, no less), or having sex in the communal garden of friends, or in the pool house of their holiday home. At the end of the book, when everything comes out, Gerald says to him something like, 'Remind me what you're doing here,' and it is a very good question, although perhaps aptly applied to all of them, not just Nick. So when Nick tries to justify himself by reference to Gerald (who's been caught having an affair), it seems both reasonable and a bit ridiculous.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Apart from this unsettling sort of duality of perspective, there were a few other things that struck me. His sexuality (a major factor in the story) was unexpected. The blurb on the back refers just to 'his first experience of romance', and 'a later affair, with a beautiful millionaire'. So that was a surprise - not a bad one - and it retained it's power to raise my eyebrows (and sometimes the hair on my head) throughout the book. Whatever else it was, it was quite educational.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The other thing was that I wasn't sure what to make of the family, with whom Nick stays. Gerald in particular seemed the archetypal Bullingdon Club alumni. But the wife, the son, the daughter, all seemed like types I've heard described many times before - they're all so rich that they don't care about anything very much, but the women are terribly tragic underneath it all. I wasn't sure whether they were stereotypes to be cynical of or whether this was a genuine sort of personal style at the time. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA66mmtilElLVXDQ0rdsjcWk0XvxdAvJ__eAppze1_yyQYH4C4zyCw-vLYE0fjYyt54Fhs7KlfoM0rqtcREUjKvqjwpzgeV7qPP00_veKmL3ZpSALtl_-VF4eJverpcdkep7Q6AP7sJg3K/s2048/IMG_2404.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA66mmtilElLVXDQ0rdsjcWk0XvxdAvJ__eAppze1_yyQYH4C4zyCw-vLYE0fjYyt54Fhs7KlfoM0rqtcREUjKvqjwpzgeV7qPP00_veKmL3ZpSALtl_-VF4eJverpcdkep7Q6AP7sJg3K/w480-h640/IMG_2404.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"> And finally... definitely my favourite of the three; I <i>loved</i> this book (and not just because it was a bargain at £2.00)!</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;">Obviously, it's not completely new to me - I've known about it since I was a child. I suppose I didn't read it, (a) because it's billed as an adventure story for boys (Stevenson himself, discussing it in the appendix, states that 'women were excluded' (p.193)); (b) because it's written by a Victorian and I find (or I <i>have found</i>) many Victorian novels quite difficult to read - in all their flowery prose. But I have been reading a lot in the past year, and I've come across a few people who rate Stevenson very highly. A little while ago, I read <i>Seashaken Houses</i>, by Tom Nancollas - all about lighthouses - (see <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2020/06/i-wanted-to-write-about-books-ive.html">this post</a>) and discovered that Stevenson came from a family of lighthouse builders, which kindled my interest in him. Of course, Stevenson himself bucked the family trend: he was tubercular and not physically suited to civil engineering, so he became a writer instead.</p><p style="text-align: center;">At any rate, if I was expecting something childish or boringly verbose, I soon found I was mistaken. In the first place, <i>Treasure Island</i>, whilst embodying many of my childhood ideas about pirates (indirectly, I suppose, it was probably the source of them) - parrots on shoulders, cutlasses held in teeth, drunkenness, bad language, violence, knotted headscarves, treasure chests, etc, etc - is probably one of the most dramatic books I've read. I love the bit where the 'hero' (a boy) is paddling after the ship, the <i>Hispaniola</i>, in his little coracle, and it fetches one way then the other, changing course every few moments. '"Clumsy fellows," said I; "they must still be drunk as owls."' (p.128) It turns out that there's no one in the driver's seat for the two pirates aboard have fought, and one is dead, the other unconscious. I wonder where 'drunk as owls' comes from; and I like the idea - perpetuated elsewhere - that pirates may actually be very bad sailors.</p><p style="text-align: center;">When the hero (Hawkins) realises that there's no one steering the boat, he decides to board it. Whilst he's onboard, the unconscious pirate, Israel Hands, comes to, and they talk, and cagily decide that working together to ground the ship would be in both their interests. In the instant they achieve this tricky manoeuvre however, Hawkins lets his guard down momentarily. 'I might have fallen without a struggle for my life, had not a sudden disquietude seized upon me, and made me turn my head. Perhaps I had heard a creak, or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye; perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but, sure enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, already halfway towards me, with the dirk in his right hand... We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes met...' (p.140)</p><p style="text-align: center;">Thrilling stuff! I don't really read thrillers, so perhaps this was just new terrain for me, but I don't think I've read another description of the fear of someone creeping up behind you - not for a long time anyway (probably not since I was a child, in fact). A little further on, Hawkins springs up 'into the mizzen shrouds' (whatever they might be), and Hands follows him, dirk between his teeth, groaning as he drags his wounded leg. When Hawkins threatens to shoot him, he stops, appears to reconsider - then suddenly flings the dirk at him, pinning him by the shoulder to the mast! It's all terribly exciting.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Regarding the tendency of the Victorians towards long-winded prose, <i>Treasure Island </i>reminded my of Arthur Conan Doyle and <i>Sherlock Holmes (</i>which was of course an exception to the general rule of Victorian windiness). The writing was very precise and controlled (although Stevenson does break into excitable nautical jargon at times), with only limited references to scenery. There's also a funny sort of... what I want to call (not very pithily) 'British armchair adventurousness' about it. The narrator writes as one who is himself in no imminent danger; also as one who is clear, complacent and unchallenged in his own values (an olde British kind of attitude? Surely no one's values go unchallenged nowadays). It's strange: there is much to regret in Britain's history of imperialism, but the arrogance of its practitioners produced some very dry, sturdy, and terribly appealing prose - much like this.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-82470506285352014962020-10-12T22:39:00.019+01:002021-01-02T11:26:53.506+00:00Karl Ove Knausgaard, Arundhati Roy, and Frank Muir<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've read some more books...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglshT07KKfTvlyiV9Fh22sJp0AXlJ8Ek1GpFE9ml_-Pam1uaPwWcvjLpPqK8XlIZOkNpzu5KvwDDY419IZvvbS9FQmXw_qAfg6x7YTSdjXNebESjxsKrLpCyi4PbBH72HpLu-GrTDVfHCt/s2048/IMG_2394.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglshT07KKfTvlyiV9Fh22sJp0AXlJ8Ek1GpFE9ml_-Pam1uaPwWcvjLpPqK8XlIZOkNpzu5KvwDDY419IZvvbS9FQmXw_qAfg6x7YTSdjXNebESjxsKrLpCyi4PbBH72HpLu-GrTDVfHCt/w480-h640/IMG_2394.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is another one from the <i>Guardian</i>'s best books list. I wasn't sure about it: as a book about his relationship with his father, Knausgaard certainly makes it quite gripping, although I was never quite sure why he was so scared of him. As a boy, he seemed to walk forever on egg shells. I kept expecting some terrible revelation of abuse, which never materialised. Something awful did happen to his father at the end of his life, and it's rather discomforting to thing that maybe that's what the book needed to make it interesting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Knausgaard's account of his teenage years I found a bit stuporous, a bit Adrian Mole (albeit with more libido) and he writes with irritating detail about the most mundane things - sitting down to peel an orange, picking up a guitar and strumming a few chords. Presumably these are the fictionalised parts of the book, but I'm not sure what they add. I suppose they could be said to provide context and build-up for what happens later, but I did find them a bit hard-going.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In talking about his adult self, although he has the same tendency to describe every movement precisely, I found him more sympathetic. I suppose he seems like the same personality type, if there is such a thing, as myself - socially inept and a bit depressive(!) He talks about the experience of travelling and staying with other people: 'at home in our flat everything was us, there was no distance; if I was troubled, the flat was also troubled. But here there was distance, here the surroundings had nothing to do with me and mine, and they could shield me from whatever was troublesome.' (p.287) I have felt the same way about some places I have lived (and I remember the late Sally Brompton writing about how, when she was depressed, it seemed to saturate the very fabric of the house), but for my own part, I find other people's troubles, however minor, almost as dismaying as my own.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On social interaction, Knausgaard claims to have gone beyond mere awkwardness, and come out the other side. He does however recount an incident from his childhood, where his grandmother asked his mother not to let him visit so often: 'since then I have begun to sense what it was that made my presence uncongenial. I was unable to dissemble, unable to play a role, and the scholarly earnestness I brought into the house was impossible to keep at arm's length in the long run, sooner or later even they would have to engage with it, and the resultant disequilibrium, as their banter never demanded anything at all of me, that was what must have made them ring my mother in the end.' (p.466-67) This sounds true, but also self-indulgent, like he's saying he was just <i>too genuine</i>!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I did like the way he wrote about his relationship with his brother. In his own (Knausgaard's) mind, his brother 'was not allowed to fail, he was not allowed to make a fool of himself, he was not allowed to show weakness. When, however, he did, and I was watching, shame-filled, the shame on his behalf still was not the crux; the crux was that he musn't notice, he musn't find out that I harboured such emotions... If he said something stupid or glib it did not change my attitude to him, I didn't judge him differently for that reason, so what went on inside me was based exclusively on the possibility that <i>he</i> might believe I was ashamed of him.' (p.369)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I wanted to write the above before I went Googling to find out what was in the other five volumes of autobiography, and what the critical reaction was to his work. The latter seems to have been mostly positive - particularly within Norway - and Knausgaard is hailed as having created a new, detailed, confessional way of writing (Elizabeth Wurtzel has been credited with the same). Perhaps not surprisingly, it seems that the publication of the book caused discord within his family. Reading around it gave me the impression that the whole thing was some kind of literary experiment, which is perhaps unfortunate given the results.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4V1AvRmokvLdkecUDE-FMXLYYlPeCUKAoSpftKl4dsTxkycF2IvuY9SfO013zqBv4zFUJ2m0zmTi_-V3oiG4rKI4sI9meB2clEg8-XvLB1CL1J5-zpk7ahx_qGvpYlLZqlqbtC3cTLAS9/s2048/IMG_2395.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4V1AvRmokvLdkecUDE-FMXLYYlPeCUKAoSpftKl4dsTxkycF2IvuY9SfO013zqBv4zFUJ2m0zmTi_-V3oiG4rKI4sI9meB2clEg8-XvLB1CL1J5-zpk7ahx_qGvpYlLZqlqbtC3cTLAS9/w480-h640/IMG_2395.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There were lots of things I <i>really</i> loved about this book - primary among them, Roy's wonderful, playful, inventive use of language. It reminded me a bit of <i>Their Eyes Were Watching God</i>, for its language, although this was more modern with a more complicated plot and non-linear structure.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I also loved it's humour. There's a wonderful moment where they go into the public toilets, and Rahel's mother suggests she balance in the air above the toilet to pee, because public toilets are dirty. But she's too small, so they all go in together and her mother and her great auntie hold her over the toilet. And then she can't go. (p.95) And another moment, where they're in the cinema watching <i>The Sound of Music</i>, and the nuns are singing 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?', and the little boy, Estha, can't help himself; he sings along loudly, causing everyone to turn angrily. 'There was a nun in the audience.' (p.100)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I found the way she describes the outlook of children, their interior world, very convincing. They go to the airport to meet the twins' uncle's daughter, who is around their age, and Ammu, their mother, gets annoyed with Estha because he omits to say 'how do you do'. The happy atmosphere is broken and Rahel 'unable to cope with see-sawing changes in her life, had ravelled herself like a sausage into the dirty airport curtain, and wouldn't unravel. A sausage with Bata sandals.' (p.146)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The bit where Ammu gets annoyed with the twins and speaks harshly to them are absolutely heart-rending - not just because we have a child's eye view, but because she says some really quite terrible things. '"D'you know what happens when you hurt people?'" Ammu says when Rahel speaks back to her. '"When you hurt people, they begin to love you less."' (p.112) Of course, Ammu herself is a divorcee - apparently an unenviable position in India at the time - and effectively living on the charity of a family that clearly takes social status and its intricacies quite seriously. So it's not really surprising that she finds her children a source of stress occasionally. Roy has a sympathetic backstory for everyone's bad behaviour (with the exception perhaps of Baby Kochamma, the grand-aunt), and the quote with which she prefaces the book is 'Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one', from John Berger, which would seem to indicate a desire to portray multiple viewpoints and to trace responsibility quite widely. Having said that, one could argue that there is one character who seems to bear most of the blame in the story.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The thing I found jarring I think, was the police brutality. There is a great multiplicity of violence at the end; not just physical violence, but relationships destroyed, bridges burned. Some of it seemed explicable in terms of the story - although no less shocking - as with the great aunt's behaviour towards the twins; the way that Ammu was treated when her transgression was discovered; and the terrible things she says to her children. However, the police brutality came out of the blue, so to speak. (Is it me, or were there red herring references to some kind of bus-related disaster?) Not that police brutality is unbelievable (particularly in the current climate) but because it is un-trailered here, it seems almost like a bare plot device - like a hurricane introduced in the final pages to efficiently achieve the intended conclusion.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was also a bit nonplussed by what happened to the twins at the end. The story focuses primarily on their childhoods; as adults, they seem like strangers (to the reader, I mean). I suppose their distance is partly an enforced one, as a result of what happened to them as children, but we don't really spend much time with them. And then, without giving anything more away, the last thing that happens: what is that meant to mean - a sort of final tragedy? I'm not sure how you can interpret it as anything else, but I found it difficult to see any way forward from there. They have a terrible novel and then, as it were, the back cover of the book slams on their fingers on their way out. It seems very harsh.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsjDD_l5kQ0JWoVtZW3T-75gQSbQf4iw0-CIdYC8JcwPwb3osaPvD1IMxrpw8-3wMf0tQbLl_ckFwZkaOAzQ_uEawjz6lHPQ4uMyxcDVdkZ3ACGv7SMbA290ZQRJe2ysTswXZWY8O1NLBB/s2048/IMG_2396.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsjDD_l5kQ0JWoVtZW3T-75gQSbQf4iw0-CIdYC8JcwPwb3osaPvD1IMxrpw8-3wMf0tQbLl_ckFwZkaOAzQ_uEawjz6lHPQ4uMyxcDVdkZ3ACGv7SMbA290ZQRJe2ysTswXZWY8O1NLBB/w480-h640/IMG_2396.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I spent a disconcerting amount of time whilst reading this book <i>not laughing</i>. I suppose it was inevitable with a book so encyclopaedic; the title raises expectations but humour, after all, is particular to people/countries/eras, and Muir introduces prose from all three. However, the book made me question my own [self-alleged] 'GSOH'. I'm a quiet person; I often wonder if people think I lack humour; certainly, being an introvert, it's one of those things which is often completely steam-rollered by stressful social interaction.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On the other hand, the book also helped me to put my finger on what I do find funny - silly, dignity-puncturing things particularly - no doubt a result of growing up on cassette tapes of The Goon Show. For example, S. J. Perelman's account of a man saying goodbye to his family at the station: 'The whistle shrilled and in a moment I was chugging out of Grand Central's dreaming spires followed only by the anguished cries of relatives who would now have to go to work. I had chugged only a few feet when I realised that I had left without the train, so I hat to run back and wait for it to start.' (p.610)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And the excerpts from Spike Milligan's novel, <i>Puckoon</i>, apart from including the most perfectly rendered Irish accent (in a book full of dubious accents), were wonderful - as in the following. 'Money! That was the trouble. Money! The Lord will provide, but to date he was behind with the payments. Money! Father Rudden had tried everything to raise funds, he even went to the bank. "Don't be a fool, Father!" said the manager, "Put that gun down!" Money! There was the occasion he'd promised to make fire fall from heaven. At the psychological moment the priest had mounted the pulpit and called loudly "I command fire to fall from heaven!" A painful silence followed. The priest seemed uneasy. He repeated his invocation much louder, "I COMMAND FIRE TO FALL FROM HEAVEN!" The sibilant voice of the verger came wafting hysterically from the loft. "Just a minute, Father, the cat's pissed on the matches!"...' (p.906)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Then from the notebooks of Samuel Butler, an anecdote about Charles Darwin at the London Zoological Gardens: 'Frank Darwin told me his father was once standing near the hippopotamus cage when a little boy and girl, aged four and five came up. The hippopotamus shut his eyes for a minute.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"That bird's dead," said the little girl; "come along."' (p.361)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And Max Beerbohm on the unfortunate clergyman who interrupted Samuel Johnson. Named by Boswell (and so known to posterity) as 'A CLERGYMAN, who name I do not recollect', his suggestion ("were not Dodds sermons addressed to the passions?") is tetchily dismissed by Johnson ("they were nothing, Sir, be they addressed to what they may"), and he is never to be heard of again. (p.450-451) Such is fame.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Muir wisely begins the book with, effectively, a disclaimer; a definition of humour which distinguishes it from <i>comedy</i> (defined as, not tragedy), <i>wit</i> (the brilliant, aristocratic and amusing), and <i>buffoonery</i> ('popular fun', the sole purpose of which is to induce laughter). <i>Humour</i>, he defines as the middle-class, uniquely English version of all these things - concerned with eccentricity and the oddities of human behaviour.; his working definition is 'an odd, embarrassing, or funny incident experienced or observed, and described later in a plain manner, which might or might not call for laughter.' (xxxii)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">So laughter is frequently uncalled-for in this book, and I admit to moments of drowsiness - early American frontier humour, for example, is apparently not my thing. What struck me particularly was the breadth of the material. Muir constructs an ambitious narrative of the history of humorous styles, a sort of tour from A to B, but he does not limit himself to known humorists - producing funny bits from wide range of sources - so it's almost like a more general tour of literature. For example, it includes prose from authors like Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Graham Greene - none of whom I've ever thought of as humorous writers, Hardy in particular. Having begun and abandoned <i>Tess of the D'Urbervilles</i> as a book which makes women in general seem terribly tragic, I didn't think he had much humour to offer. Not to women anyway. I'm looking at him in a different light however, after reading his account of the disgrace of the church orchestra. They fall asleep in the church gallery during the service, after taking a nip (or so) of alcohol to ward off the chill. They miss their cue for the evening hymn and, on being woken abruptly by a sharp 'pssst', and with the church being so dark, 'he thought he was at the party they had played at all the night before, and away he went, bow and fiddle, at "The Devil Among the Tailors", the favourite jig of our neighbourhood at that time. The rest of the band, being in the same state of mind and nothing doubting, followed their leader with all their strength, according to custom. They poured out that there tune till the lower base notes of "The Devil Among the Tailors" made the cobwebs in the roof shiver like ghosts; then Nicholas, seeing nobody moved, shouted out as he scraped (in his usual commanding way at dances when the folk didn't know the figures), "Top couples cross hands! And when I make the fiddle squeak at the end, every man kiss his pardner under the mistletoe!"' (p.340)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Of course, I now have a great list of things to seek out and read - for example, <i>Evelina</i> by Fanny Burney (which I have, but have never read), anything at all by Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb, <i>The Pickwick Papers</i>, Mrs Gaskell's <i>Cranford Saga</i>, O Henry's short stories, and Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Brigadier Gerard, Spike Milligan's novels (I hadn't even realised he wrote fiction), Graham Greene's <i>Travels With My Aunt</i> and collected short stories, all of P. G. Wodehouse, plus numerous pieces of journalism which may or may not be collected in book form.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It is difficult to know how to read this book. It is, as I said, encyclopaedic, but hardly a book you would access through the index. Perhaps the best way would be to read it loosely, skipping over the bits you don't find funny. They don't get any better - although invariably there is better to come, somewhere along the line.</div><br /> <p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-89488070964102076302020-09-29T20:35:00.006+01:002020-09-30T07:26:27.989+01:00Adele dress and Vogue 9336 jacket<p style="text-align: center;">Ooh - I am using the new Blogger interface! So far so good... When I tried to access the blog this evening, it told me I needed to update my browser (Safari). No Safari updates were available through the App Store. I tried installing a new operating system (just out of desperation) - which doesn't seem to have worked(?) - not sure! The only other possibility I could find was to install a different browser - at which point I discovered that I already had Google Chrome in My Applications. When I open Google Chrome, I don't seem to have any problems with the new Blogger interface.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Anyway. I am deeply ensconced in Frank Muir's <i>The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose</i>, and I've got a way to go (large book) so it'll be a while before I'm back writing about books. I thought instead, I'd post about some recent sewing projects - one [reasonably] successful; one not. To the latter first, I tried this pattern - which I think came with the <i>Simply Sewing </i>magazine...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlyM3oAh5y6CZ2k1FlYJ1CifyBHRH2KRY4sw3EEfyTabxC2dsAajrkwE0nr465mY20hnwiOaEQOBvz7vfH3mvtsEiErs81qs5F2bjuPo8MBkzLe5E-AAXp4SHxY8NqxyfzRRtEiv2su3X/s1204/DSC_5041.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlyM3oAh5y6CZ2k1FlYJ1CifyBHRH2KRY4sw3EEfyTabxC2dsAajrkwE0nr465mY20hnwiOaEQOBvz7vfH3mvtsEiErs81qs5F2bjuPo8MBkzLe5E-AAXp4SHxY8NqxyfzRRtEiv2su3X/w426-h640/DSC_5041.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I will spare you the pictures of what I made (in fact, the results were so depressing, I don't think I took any pictures). The dress looks so nice on the model, I didn't notice that the skirt part of it is of a design which doesn't usually do me any favours. Anything fitted at the top end but not at the bottom end always looks like a sack of potatoes on me. (I can only conclude my bottom end needs all the fitting help it can get.) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">However, I did like the bodice of the dress, which is a bit batwing-like in style, so I decided to see if i could extend the bodice and turn it into a t.shirt. It <i>moreorless</i> worked - after a few tries. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_DMBRkg2qDtsWKhDnds7WBYpaD_FC9b9o5EGFkXMErvBHPlb_zMygMh8FftlmokVQ5i-n2dkF_xsYubIz6flaXEp1nsTf1IXJxQDW35gXctFrfrjZTqwT57tvHSsLNodqpXSFmKryc4Nx/s1204/DSC_5002.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_DMBRkg2qDtsWKhDnds7WBYpaD_FC9b9o5EGFkXMErvBHPlb_zMygMh8FftlmokVQ5i-n2dkF_xsYubIz6flaXEp1nsTf1IXJxQDW35gXctFrfrjZTqwT57tvHSsLNodqpXSFmKryc4Nx/w426-h640/DSC_5002.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">It does feel a little weird: although it's not tight around the hips, it's closer fitting there than around the bodice, which feels upside down to me. I suppose I could have made it wider at the hips, but I didn't want to mess with the shape too much and lose the batwing thing. I also wasn't very keen on the neckline. It's quite wide, so it keeps teetering on the edge of one shoulder or the other. And if I'm not sitting poker-straight, it sort of blouses out. Every time time I look down, I'm looking at my own belly button through the open neckline of the top (very disconcerting).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Another unsuccessful aspect is the fabric. When I made the toile of the dress, I had cut the bodice out of a remnant of white cotton seersucker - which was absolutely lovely! But I didn't have enough of it to make a t.shirt. When I looked around for it online, it turns out white cotton seersucker is as rare as hen's teeth - and rather expensive - so I ended up buying a polyester/cotton mix, which is <i>not</i> the same. It is papery. And it itches. Or maybe that was just the general irritation I was feeling with the entire thing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Anyway, I'll launder it and send it off to the charity shop to see if anyone else likes it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My second project was a jacket. I've never liked wearing jackets - they make me feel wide - but, perhaps for that reason, I've always hoped I could find one I liked. This one - Vogue 9336 - looks a bit longer than usual, and quite fitted, so I thought maybe it would work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIaJdTRmIVEAUJu6zkNh31AhCIFXRjplbFPNDWBIvdyCmglTIj4lF6LuWL035ivukK1ZYcfg_aGV73_ZidXlwpTad0juGK7JTj_Z1F_GAxoHePNPjLJCLeBD39dQ4tQmj_vNO1xXUq2JVT/s1204/DSC_5044.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIaJdTRmIVEAUJu6zkNh31AhCIFXRjplbFPNDWBIvdyCmglTIj4lF6LuWL035ivukK1ZYcfg_aGV73_ZidXlwpTad0juGK7JTj_Z1F_GAxoHePNPjLJCLeBD39dQ4tQmj_vNO1xXUq2JVT/w426-h640/DSC_5044.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Turns out it's not all that long after all - maybe it's just my long torso. I guess I should have added a few inches to the length, like I usually do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAlfyuazG1GYTrndIXiFxttqfTFg2OzgFU0B2xhdsOEculgu3eniqhq5QTyggtumVQZlcHYhojMlAORfNuArkKPk3LxxTRVAkyRcVeIW62GO9yIWMDOAbIaIz0PTeUaPtlzbbKbZW8is9/s1204/DSC_5009.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAlfyuazG1GYTrndIXiFxttqfTFg2OzgFU0B2xhdsOEculgu3eniqhq5QTyggtumVQZlcHYhojMlAORfNuArkKPk3LxxTRVAkyRcVeIW62GO9yIWMDOAbIaIz0PTeUaPtlzbbKbZW8is9/w426-h640/DSC_5009.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I made the jacket out of the same fabric as the <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2020/08/cotton-twill-trousers.html">cream trousers</a> (which I still think are wonderful - albeit not flattering in photographs). It's a stretch cotton twill from <a href="https://www.fabworks.co.uk/">Fabworks</a>, and I highly recommend their customer service because when I found I didn't have quite enough fabric, and it was out of stock, they were wonderful, and prompt, and friendly, about finding me some more.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's lined in a blue stripe fabric which my mother inherited from someone. I think it's just a high thread-count cotton, but whatever, it's gorgeous. As with the <a href="http://bigfeetbears.blogspot.com/2020/07/banana-dress-style-1874.html">yellow dress</a> I made, I'd happily wear this inside out. I think it's just linings though... clothes with linings feel so much nicer. This jacket feels really substantial, almost like a coat.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLVYlhflMsL-6H453-lzma3cS0tjhNUehsBFZRqNjiUWjvHCrOiiPu9eBQdW92mRT2yyKVA3NuQ5lTDfQqFkZGG2P95HwfPIUN4XD4QpzPIgE9jf2nSU2Qthw8-r4m6fkzGPGV-dLQYFfj/s1204/DSC_5011.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLVYlhflMsL-6H453-lzma3cS0tjhNUehsBFZRqNjiUWjvHCrOiiPu9eBQdW92mRT2yyKVA3NuQ5lTDfQqFkZGG2P95HwfPIUN4XD4QpzPIgE9jf2nSU2Qthw8-r4m6fkzGPGV-dLQYFfj/w426-h640/DSC_5011.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I'm less certain about the jacket and trousers together(!) I guess people who wear suits do this all the time - same colour top and bottom - but it feels a bit 'double-denim' to me - a bit OTT.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiwMy9bZ-r_bozSc5mZ4z-dJs9clWJOG2cfdOea-iCLam0y33L26TKmS6BVlGHfIvRv4huiyclfWbO8q9OZX6RG4TP7nWeQBdtsTnMwMy8j8lULa1-5PXZ0TqbrY_xVrGQPryB0RlqkIHU/s1204/DSC_5022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiwMy9bZ-r_bozSc5mZ4z-dJs9clWJOG2cfdOea-iCLam0y33L26TKmS6BVlGHfIvRv4huiyclfWbO8q9OZX6RG4TP7nWeQBdtsTnMwMy8j8lULa1-5PXZ0TqbrY_xVrGQPryB0RlqkIHU/w426-h640/DSC_5022.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Anyway, the pattern is marked 'Easy' and it was quite simple to put together. The bits I found tricky were blind stitching the pockets (I gave up in the end); attaching the lining (it wasn't altogether clear which bit you left open for turning - although I guess if you've ever seen or been through the process before, you wouldn't need to be told); and the lapels, which are not quite as neat as they should be.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">As far as alterations went, I omitted the shoulder pads, and took a bit off the shoulders to compensate. I also took it in just a little at the back. I'm not quite sure whether that was the right thing to do or not: it is fairly close-fitting. I did it because it's a stretch fabric and when I made the trousers, I had to take them in a little. Anyway, the jacket feels perfectly comfortable.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTTkwKam6tM4DBmBWGZcRjSWxR3B3gOCxAKpLd87mL1g6ABno_wxZtaU3Gl-gCtvxl88v_yiClDyJbgBsNgTHd180tuOHJmyf7WiI2eOeE-BkAAPB1WjgilV3F_d2n3KXjYVKvYah1Ucyw/s1204/DSC_5032.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTTkwKam6tM4DBmBWGZcRjSWxR3B3gOCxAKpLd87mL1g6ABno_wxZtaU3Gl-gCtvxl88v_yiClDyJbgBsNgTHd180tuOHJmyf7WiI2eOeE-BkAAPB1WjgilV3F_d2n3KXjYVKvYah1Ucyw/w426-h640/DSC_5032.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2hr1_2jQK2D1g-uHkR0D47QWMqt1k_XIypDgFqB5YbHrUuJG4Hl5Ldi8_XdqwYGpTCGQqFfm7rPI9TA6xmkw4ZIn3yVDNhY559z1nlX3sR-QFZnng8lpZJOg2fVaxi7XaOL5qrSoCzE4_/s1204/DSC_5033.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2hr1_2jQK2D1g-uHkR0D47QWMqt1k_XIypDgFqB5YbHrUuJG4Hl5Ldi8_XdqwYGpTCGQqFfm7rPI9TA6xmkw4ZIn3yVDNhY559z1nlX3sR-QFZnng8lpZJOg2fVaxi7XaOL5qrSoCzE4_/w426-h640/DSC_5033.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Hopefully I will actually wear it sometime - although to be honest, the fact that I get it out and put it on every now and then makes me count it as a success. I may never have an occasion to wear a cream jacket, but at least I managed to make one that I'd want to wear.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9195980935735903234.post-45854502611766684952020-09-15T11:53:00.000+01:002020-09-15T11:56:57.382+01:00Ngozi Adichi, Emma Smith, and Marilynne Robinson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Well, it was nearly curtains for this blog. When I went to start this post, the 'revert to legacy blogger' link had disappeared, and the new Blogger interface doesn't seem to work for me at all - it gives me no way to add either images or text (just a title). Come on Blogger - sort it out.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFdeQuxYu9oCE-4gsf_CkdsIYY4E7Pl9Iz05LjpVnk0PXA4giT2SzhrbGjfqWTjkKbbySTML1fP2hhcxaXmBx5KfpzfEb9xqw-G2S8708dyQ9RGKnNb_QdrGOGjwH3VUt78PxUJR9xd1BE/s1600/IMG_2372.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFdeQuxYu9oCE-4gsf_CkdsIYY4E7Pl9Iz05LjpVnk0PXA4giT2SzhrbGjfqWTjkKbbySTML1fP2hhcxaXmBx5KfpzfEb9xqw-G2S8708dyQ9RGKnNb_QdrGOGjwH3VUt78PxUJR9xd1BE/s640/IMG_2372.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Half
of A Yellow Sun</span></i><span lang="EN-US">, by Ngozi Adichie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">Years ago, I read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wild Swans</i>, by Jung Chang. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I finished it quite incredulous that something
so enormous could have happened without my knowing antthing about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that I hadn’t heard of the Communist
Revolution in China, but I was completely unaware of what it involved for
ordinary people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember saying to my
mother, ‘it was terrible thing: they starved’, and she was like, ‘no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then she read the book: ‘Oh, yes they did.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">I felt much the same after reading this
book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose I am aware that Africa
has seen a lot of violence and civil war – and that it is, in large part, an inheritance
of white colonial rule, specifically that of the British – but I don’t know
anything at all about Nigeria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a
work of fiction, but it’s based in the real events of the Nigerian civil
war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent most of the book thinking
that Biafra was a fictional construct…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s ridiculous really, what I didn’t know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So this starts off as a story about a group
of people – based around twin sisters, Olanna and the rather cooler,
Kainene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t read anything into the
‘twin’ bit: it’s not a book which plays two sisters off against each
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was another book on which I
made no notes at all: I can’t say I liked the sisters at all times, but I was
completely drawn in by the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anyway, on the political front, Nigeria is
described as a country put together by the British, who encourage distrust and
discontent between the different groups subsumed within it on a sort of ‘divide
and rule’ basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point, Nigerians
in the North suddenly start attacking one particular group – the Igbo –
even where these people are their neighbours and friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
response to this, the predominantly Igbo area in the east of Nigeria breaks away, and forms a
separatist state – Biafra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Nigerians
try to bring them back, hence the civil war, eventually won by the Nigerians.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The books starts off describing the lives
and relationships of these sisters but becomes a very tense, in-depth account
of what happens to them throughout the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They come from an upper middle class family (a group I seem to have read
a lot about lately) but it doesn’t protect them against what are effectively
racist attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d highly recommend it
as an informative book about Nigeria, but actually, I liked the way Adichie
writes about people too – particularly women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s not, topically, a feminist book, but her female protagonists are
far from being stereotypes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has
written two nonfiction books – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dear
Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Should All Be Feminists</i> – both of
which I would like to read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1MJIQTpsheIQLvrATnUHzCFTMT2OpuJUoAJSVYovaawwefh4035Zif2SZ_2GhYafMPEmm3_Tc95A6IXb3qVA-3sCnIpmPHcjsfGTMbQ3rFe5cevxGit1LUov8pQI6qh7w1Hccwvfeu24/s1600/IMG_2371.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1MJIQTpsheIQLvrATnUHzCFTMT2OpuJUoAJSVYovaawwefh4035Zif2SZ_2GhYafMPEmm3_Tc95A6IXb3qVA-3sCnIpmPHcjsfGTMbQ3rFe5cevxGit1LUov8pQI6qh7w1Hccwvfeu24/s640/IMG_2371.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">This
is Shakespeare: How to Read the World’s Greatest Playwright</span></i><span lang="EN-US">, by Emma Smith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">I heard this recommended by Val McDermid on
Radio 4’s ‘A Good Read’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think perhaps I haven’t
read enough literary criticism to be able to appreciate it properly – and
perhaps, I haven’t seen enough of Shakespeare’s plays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having said that, some of the chapters I most
enjoyed concerned those plays I haven’t seen, or can barely remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i> (with the discovery of one school party
that actually, this isn’t really a play for children); and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1 Henry IV</i> (I’ve heard of Falstaff lots of times before but never
knew where he came from); <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Much Ado About
Nothing</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Measure for Measure</i>
(in both of which, Shakespeare seems to have something interesting to say about
women); <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anthony and Cleopatra</i> (with
moments of comedy amid the tragedy); and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coriolanus</i>
(‘Shakespeare’s terrifying depiction of a hero so battle-hardened that he can
scarcely operate in civilian society’ (p.271) – although it sounds like that
description might be more exciting than the play itself).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">I liked the fact that Smith pays particular
attention to the contemporary circumstances in which the plays were written and
performed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She says for example, on
p.69-70, that to contemporary audiences, originality in a play wasn’t
necessarily a good thing; indeed, they might have been quite suspicious of
such.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, people valued the rewriting
and reworking of stories, and liked to be able to recognize similarities to
other plays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another example, in her discussion of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anthony and Cleopatra</i>, she points out
that Cleopatra has a line where she bemoans the fact that she might be
represented in a play in the future by a boy – ‘I shall see some squeaking
Cleopatra boy my greatness I’th’ posture of a whore’ (p.261) – whereas, in
fact, in Shakespeare’s era, Cleopatra would have been played by a man, as would
all the roles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presumably this would
have invoked a slightly more humorous reaction than many modern performances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">In other ways too, the book provided
different perspectives on the plays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
her analysis of, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Midsummer Night’s
Dream</i>, for example, she suggests we have ‘neutered a much darker, sexier
play’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of Titania and Bottom – the guy
with the ass’s head, she says ‘Titania instructs her fairies… “lead him to my
bower”… So she can stroke his ears?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come
off it!’ (p.90).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I probably saw
one of the ‘schoolroom versions’ of this play when I was younger – I remember a
local, open-air production – but I don’t recall finding it shocking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was clearly just two people, one of them
wearing a paper mache donkey’s head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(A
failure of imagination on my part, perhaps, but I was only about ten years old.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">So too, she talks about different versions
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Macbeth</i> and how, in Shakespeare’s
original source material (collected by Raphael Hollinshed in 1578), the story
depicts a rough world where Duncan gains the throne by violence, and Macbeth
effectively does the same – and, is in fact, a good king himself until he too
is deposed by someone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
apparently a modern television adaption of the play from 1997, ‘Macbeth on the
Estate’, which shows the story from this point of view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shakespeare himself though, says Smith, was
required to show respect for King James I and the hereditary monarchy, and so
may well have been constrained from depicting such a dog-eat-dog system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(p.245-6)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">So yes – interesting, and funny, and
informative – and a prod to go and see more of Shakespeare’s plays, although
there’s a fat chance right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">(P.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And although it is supposed to apply especially to literature, I can
think of many occasions when the word ‘bathos’ would have been particularly apt
and useful, had I known it before now: ‘an effect of anticlimax created by an
unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous.’)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Gilead</span></i><span lang="EN-US">, by Marilynne Robinson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">I enjoyed this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some ways it’s quite a gentle book,
narrated by an old man, a preacher, much given to abstract contemplation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, it did build up quite an
air of menace somewhere in the middle. Be warned, if you haven't read this book and are planning to, you might not want to read this yet (spoiler alert).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The book is written in the form of a letter
that the narrator writes to his young son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They live in the town of Gilead, somewhere in the American mid-west
(Iowa?) on the edge of the prairie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
narrator’s father and grandfather were preachers in the same town before him,
and the town itself has a distinctive history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was, in origin, an abolitionist town, assisting people fleeing
slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrator’s grandfather
fought in the Civil War and, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at its
height, preached in a bloodstained shirt with a pistol in his belt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At any rate, evidently things changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some point, someone started a fire at the
Negro church, and the black population gradually left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrator regrets this, but does not make
much of it (just a small fire); but it comes to seem more significant later on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anyway, much is made of the narrator’s
history in the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Jack, the son
of his best friend – a man he grew up with – returns home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a sardonic, almost malign, character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He hangs around the narrator’s wife – who is
much younger than the narrator; closer to Jack’s age – and the narrator,
although clearly troubled by this in some way, just seems too old and tired to
be able to address the issue. There’s a long build up where he makes passing
references to something unpleasant Jack once did, and wonders whether he should
speak to his wife about it, and warn her of what this young man is capable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Eventually it transpires that he once got a
girl pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was obviously quite
young (at one point, the narrator describes her and her baby daughter as two
children) but there is a disconcerting (but probably historically accurate),
lack of emphasis on her age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone
was much more concerned by the fact that she was 'from the wrong side of the
tracks'.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">Although a difficult situation, this
doesn’t seem particularly unusual – but the sense of menace continues to
develop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way that Jack keeps coming
round to the narrator’s house; the way he calls him ‘papa’; the way he sits
next to the narrator’s wife in the congregation and smiles at him while he’s
preaching; the stories about the pranks and minor thefts he apparently
committed against the narrator as a boy – these all make it sound as if there
is some particular resentment between the two of them that the narrator does
not quite perceive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">At any rate, there is a denouement of
sorts, a final reckoning between them which seems redemptive for the narrator
himself, but at this point, the focus of the story shifted slightly for me: it
became about Jack himself – growing up as a misfit in what had clearly – from
revolutionary roots – become a conservative, and heavily religious, town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His early, troubled years tell on him, and he
never quite manages to find his way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, by the end of the book, although the narrator finds some level
of peace, Jack is still caught in the middle of a nightmare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a reader, you are sort of insulated from
this though, because you are obviously tied to the narrator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">I found it quite a picturesque book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both this and Robinson’s first book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Housekeeping</i>, have a very strong sense
of the vastness and wildness of large parts of America – not wild meaning 'unpopulated', necessarily, but rather in the sense of communities being isolated and
therefore unaccountable for their own prejudices and peculiaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">It is quite thoughtful too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrator is old, and contemplative –
having spend much of his life writing heart-felt sermons – and well-read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, he recommends Ludwig Feuerbach
(see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Essence of Christianity</i>) on
the subject of joy and (like Kate Atkinson) is a fan of John Donne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On p.166, he writes – in a sentence which
seems to be true not just of faith, but of other ways of understanding too –
that ‘people of any degree of religious sensitivity are always vulnerable to
the accusation that their consciousness or their understanding does not attain
to the highest standards of faith, because that is always true of
everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St Paul is eloquent on this
subject.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did laugh when he spoke
about waltzing, with his heart condition, and said ‘I have thought I might have
a book ready at hand to clutch if I begin to experience unusual pain, so that
it would have an especial recommendation from being found in my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That seemed theatrical, on consideration, and
it might have the perverse effect of burdening the book with unpleasant
association.’ (p.131)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">It struck me, reading this, that one of the
things that used to put me off novels (I spent a good ten years reading no fiction
at all) was a dislike of finding myself with an unreliable protagonist – one
who was implicated in the drama, but unable to see this; giving his own side of
the story, when the truth was rather different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Studying history, as I did, complicates this way of thinking by
emphasizing that everything is subjective and political.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think depression, anxiety, those kinds
of problems, make it personal again: one comes to feel as though your own subjectivity
disbars you from seeing things the way everyone else sees them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US">I thought that what made the protagonist’s
subjectivity bearable in this case was, firstly, that the drama through the
central part of the novel turns out to be a massive misdirection, and the
protagonist’s peculiar culpability illusory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Secondly, being old and thoughtful, he does not respond, except in
private print, to the sense of threat he feels from Jack, so the misconception
does minimal damage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Is this important?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me, I think yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The character of the protagonist manages to
be both troublesomely subjective and also very balanced and patient – outwardly
objective, you might say – at the same time, which I found that quite reassuring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278263117237058608noreply@blogger.com0