Didactic, Moi?!

‘Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the land

The only mouses stirring

Were those in our hands

Screens are aglowing and hard drives awhirring

Every household bar one in three on broadband

But narry a creature can be found stirring

Technology working alone not hand in hand

Happy for the child receiving a bicycle

But much more common to see a laptop

Let’s hope the old get a proper recycle

not just chucked anyhow a dustbin a-top

…. to be continued?

Well Christopher Hitchens passed away this morning and I loved the imagery that was conjured up of his tour of the bible belt with his book “God is not Great” and the ide aof him as a man who disliked sleeping “because he did not rate being unconscious” and that he had such a prodigious gift as a writer he could down a bottle of scotch and still be up bright and early the next morning and throw three thousand words up in the air and have them fall on the page in perfect and wonderful composition.

I am thinking about his friendship with Martin Amis which makes a deal of sense to me, I see them as of the same peer group.  Ironically or as luck would have it I am reading “Time’s Arrow” (when my BeBook is charged up), and this has the suprising premise of telling the tale of a life with time reversed, ro at least this is what I understand so far.  Amis has not wriitten a long volume, rather a lightweight for him, but it is going into minutiae of details such as ingestion in the bathroom and recomposition of food to one’s plate etc  which make for unusual reading.

I have yet to understand how the book as a whole hang’s together, but it is making a very different read to “ The Pregnant Widow”, which I received last Christmas and which was very much what I had expected of Amis (and quite good fun for a holiday read too).

YOUR SLEEP

At least I grasp

    the title

    Though the

    Pillow of verse

    Eludes me

A haiku it is not

Your skeep it is

Ineluctable

Yet

Silent.

(If that’s a pair of Haiku I’m a yak’s nephew!)

      Paul, for Annie December 2011

… with that of Nikki Giovanni….

MY SLEEP

I appreciate my sleep

    In sleep my conversation

    is witty

    My home is dusted

    My office work

    Is up to date

     The dog

    is even

    well bahved

    And food is on the table

    on time

But then

    when I’m asleep

    I don’t have you

    to chatter and confuse

My hungry heart

          Nikki Giovanni 2009

” The memories of long love gather like drifting snow, poignant as the mandarin ducks who float side by side in sleep.” ~ Lady Murasaki

So it came to pass that a poet called their anthology of poems “Bicycles” and of course this means I had to reserve it at the library… After a patient few weeks it arrived and I am thrilled to say I have “discovered” a new poet whom I very much admire.  It goes against a few of my prejudices to do so, but she is undeniably so full of life and it shows so well that all stereotypes and prejudices fly out the window before it.  This, it seems to me, is almost the test of good poetry.

Her name, if you do not already know it, is “Nikki Giovanni” and below is one of her works for you to judge for yourself

Balances

in life
one is always
balancing

like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers

or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence
or the funky honkies down the street

and lately i’ve begun wondering
if you’re trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night
and do things alone together

and i’ve begun

(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you


  Nikki Giovanni

So what of my prejudices that are happily overthrown?  One of them is her nationality, American.  The second is her “celebrity status” as she was the poet in residence or on the staff I think at “Virginia Tech” when they suffered one of those mass shooting “events” that seem to have become almost commonplace now.  Alongside that is her pride in her black American heritage and overcoming her ancestral past.

So far (I have not taken in as much of her work as I should like) it  seem love really is “her thing”, that and America and she sort of represents that in a way to me with her youthful take on many things.   I was sufficiently impressed by the dozen or so of these poems I have read that already “anything by Nikki Giovanni” is an item on my Christmas list and do not intend to rush through the rest, she is one of those poets one wishes to savour and “save up” the work of rather than tear through it and be left wanting more.

Before too long I am due to drop into Dulwich Books and meet Sheila and we are going to try and work out what went wroing with my attempting to purchase a number of Evolumes via the new “hive” network which is intending to enable the little guys an in…. what a shame not on speaking terms wth my uncle Ron, expand this entry but making a note now - and people reading this will just have to understand Nanowrimo comes first for November…. if you wish to read more on the subject please do visit wrightons.,net

and so it came to pass that I listened to “Starter for Ten” which really worked OK as an audio book, and then TRIED to read a free-jacked copy of “One Day” which has the fascinating property of missing parts out, this was fantastic as I got to avoid reading about the bicycle crash (saying no more as it would be a spoiler! Although I suspect everyone on the planet (bar me) has read it by now anyway it is such an alleged best seller)! I also listened to “Flud” which was an even more spectacular success as an audio book in my humble opinion. And now I have moved along to a reading aloud of the classic Brian O Nuallaian (AKA Flan O’Brien) work The Dalkey Archive to my partner, more of which soon. Brevity is due to flu, so we shall see if I can get well soon and update (comments make me heal faster!)

Baiscally I need to find a book by Henry Miller or Arthur Miller which was mainly biographical but heavily about his years in New Yorek and his relationship with bicycles as much as women…. I am going to use these wikilinks and then (eventually) update the post with the didactic, if you chance upon it before then and what I have said so far interests you then you may want to read on…

Dratted readmore markup not working here on didactic maybe should copy whole post to eclectic?

Shall I review Wheels of change as a cntrast to Bellas review - can I actually bring myself to read it though?

Well I did but this will now focus in on what I remember of the book as a sort of brain dump….

Blue spine/ background cover, published seventies?  Friends definitely in title almost sure by Henry Miller not Arthur, bicycle and other friends?  need to see if I can refine scroogling terms and consider lateral posts like the bella blog and cycling forums in oldies areas - someone else WILL have read this and know the book I am trying to track down (for Annie to read!)

don’t even mention Oxford commas! and what is weird now and surely cannot be is I am wondering was it Arthur Miller?

This was one of my holiday reading choices, and ended up being the one I continued to read and, recently, complete.  I really had no idea what to expect beyond the fact that I was aware the book had enjoyed a surge of popularity, which seemed akin to that of “Story of a dog in the nighttime” and made me wonder if there was a similar theme and the author might have experience of Aspergers or some similar condition.

DBC Pierre was a newcomer to writing in his forties, something I always find hopeful for a fresh and “grown up” work of literature.  I am really not sure if this is what I encountered or not though.  It is certainly a convincing account from the perspective of a teenager - and I can easily see why it has been compared with “Catcher in the Rye” (a highly unfortunate comparison for the author though!).

The protagonist of our story is, naturally, a fifteen year old called “Vernon Little”.  His middle name is actually Gregory, but there’s a certain amount of wordplay around that, as the title betrays.  We are left puzzling out how his life is shaped and the central event whcih had occured just before the novel opens, one where there has been a mass killing of his class mates, leaving the community in a peculiar state.  We are in no uncertainty that this was witnessed by Vernon, and that it was his “best friend”, Jesus, who committed the atrocity.  What we are never entirely sure of is if this is the truth of the matter, though I have to confess myself I was always “on his side”.

As the story progresses we see a rather tragic back story, and a mephisto like character is introduced, named Eulalio, or “Lally” for short.  He rapidly latches onto Vernon, who is not taken in and discovers what a fraud the man is, unlike the others and indeed the great American public, who are completely taken in by him as he hijacks the story and the media for his own ends, much to the cost of Vernon.

Ultimately the stakes are as high as can be imagined and ultimately good triumphs, but there is much to enjoy along the way if one likes to hear an evocative and poetic account from the vernacular (pardon the pun) of Mr Little’s story.

Having made a start on my holiday reading I can confirm that the “Season for Singing” e-book was an infuriating waste of time and money, thankfully little of both.  Having said that it did deal with a mother figure of sorts, albeit in a twee and chocolate box fashion.  How unlike the writing of Colm Toibin!

In the opener from the collection “Mothers and Sons” we very soon meet the most abominable mother, and before too long are confronted with the consequential pathology of her violent and criminal son.  I found this a compelling read and am ALMOST looking forward to the rest.  However, some of the passages most compelling are really truly horrific to contemplate and so I am really hoping the examples of sons and mothers become healthier ones!

Very soon I am not going to have to think about work too much, and certainly not go there, for three glorious weeks.  Whenever a holiday is approaching reading is always near the top of any list of pleasures I am anticipating.  There have even been a few posts on the subject.  I well remember doing a good deal of research on Dylan Thomas when we were taking a short break to Wales, near the setting of Milk Wood.  An Even earlier memory is hitch hiking all around Eire with a hardback copy of Joyce’s Ulysses tucked into the bottom of my ruck-sack.

In both those cases though there was no actual reading during the holiday (to this day reading Ulyses remains more ambition than reality, likely since it is such an aural book I have learned).  So it is with some trepidation that I share the works I have prepared for this holiday, after going through the now well practiced trials and tribulations of E-book purchase.

There is a collected anthology of Britains Best Loved poems (Manley Hopkins muchly featured) which I am taking to recite to my beloved and share that way.  There is an audio book copy of “Fry’s English Delight” to similarly share and help with any homeless pinings for the mother tongue while we are in France.   And for actual reading there are two well known authors’ works; “Vernon God Little” and “Mother’s and Son’s” (a collection of works by Colm Toibin).  I had high hopes for what seemed a bargain E-book download from an unknown auther called “A Season for Singing” but it turned out what it saved in cost it also saved in length, being an extremely brief work of some dozen pages!  Shall be more lively to that “trick” in future, probably a hazard of E-books.

So, there’s the “trailer” so to speak…. More on this subject soon, when I have cogitated and worked out what it is that goes on with Holiday Reading, or even *gasp* when I am reading/listening/sharing these works!  But don’t hold your breath, experience shows me the anticipation and plans do not always bear fruit in reading at leisure on a break, “The best laid plans….”!

A brief note to say that I shall be reverting this blog to focus strictly on the reading and lit crit side of writing and have aimed to split away the blogging data to ECLECTIC.ME where I am redesigning a blog using the latest Chyrp! platform instead of this, slightly broken one.  I hope any users who may come here and find their login broken wil take a look there and I shall eventually clear out this blog and older entries like this one such that only lit. crit. remains, until then thank you for your patience.

If you had a registered login at the site and it has gone then email me per “about” contact possibility…. Or comment on this post ….. I have also made default login type revert to GUEST, we will see what that does and maybe it will reduce the incidence of passing spambots too?

The comments system remains open to unregistered users for now, though seldom used.

Compare and contrast the following account of the same event as this posting on my blog (I am assuming my fellow rider will not mind me reproducing below her account!):-

Mission accomplished!  Paul and Annie are proud owners of  two wonderful medals for completing the London 2011 Nightrider challenge.

We set off from Crystal Palace just after 11pm on Saturday night and made it back just before 7am on Sunday morning for breakfast, having completed every centimeter of the  108.75 kilometre route around London (that’s nearly 70 miles in old money.

We had four breaks along the way where we were able to keep our energy up by scoffing bananas and chocolate frogs and other delicacies the organizers had for us.   We spent about 6 and three quarter hours in the saddle, but only five and three quarter of those actually moving as the many many traffic lights and junctions and  traffic hold ups added about an hour.  It was an evening of contrasts and a little drama when Annie’s handlebars   collapsed but Paul’s emergency stop meant that all was well and his tool kit  saved the night.

There are so many highlights of enjoyment and inspiration that we just can’t fit it all in here so we’ll share just  one part of the journey which was special  for both of us: finally the traffic had died down as we worked our way up the long climb to Alexandra Palace around 3am.  It was cold and clear and even Annie could sense the wonderful views.  We pedaled hard and passed many cyclists dismounting to walk  the last steep incline feeling rather smug with our fitness and preparation as tandems are not an advantage going up hill.  As we finished our hot drink  the rosy fingers of dawn appeared in the sky so we mounted our trusty bike again and left and began a magical descent through Highgate and Hampstead, swooshing through silent streets listening to the glory of the birdsong.  Unforgettable!

On the occasions we were not enjoying things, mad traffic, blaring horns, car stereos and scary drunken pedestrians, we were kept going by thoughts of all the support and encouragement we had from all of you, n not to mention your generous donations.  It meant such a lot to us and although we don’t have the final figure yet, it looks  as if with gift aid we could be approaching £1500 for our chosen charity Mind.   Please accept a heartfelt and sincere thank you from both of us.  We couldn’t have done it without you.

Best wishes, and if you haven’t yet, try a tandem one day!

It really interests me how these two pieces of writing, whilst relating the same events surely objectively idenatical (I was on the front and partner on the back, but we shared everything about the night really).  Yet I beliebe the version above to be far and away superior in terms of engaging the reader and, as my sister put it, you could lamost feel you were there.

I plan on looking at them side by side and seeing what I can learn!

First and foremost I have managed (finally!) to make time and get the new release of Chyrp! since it was revitalised and moved onwards from “benevolent dictatorship” to proper GITHUB open sourcing…. But I deviate.

What this means effectively, and the driving force behind it, is that nonesoblind.net has ALMOST gone live!  And at the same time in exact parallel I am moving to “eclectic.me” where I am of course able to beta test any changes Annie asks for.  However there the similarity lies, because the feathers and themes of the two blogs are likely to differ quite wildly and I (will be) very proud if the nonesoblind blog is (eventually) completely accessible.  On which note Chyrp! did not fare so badly as I feared, SO LONG as it is being used to post - the admin side is tough one to crack (and I shall not be trying, just feeding back to development community where it is weak).

If I have any readers with me so far they may be yawning at the geekery - and maybe I should make posts over on Mainframeguy’s geeky blogspot blog…. but I think I can only spread myself so thin.  What will happen is that I shall “winnow” every single post from here that is not lit. crit. - they shall all form the seed posts for eclectic.   It should have been ever thus.

AND NOW for the explanation of the title - I do not really think I am quite so handsome nor marvelous, but someone else does and has asked me to come up with an online pseudonym or “handle” for them to blog under….

And so I reveal my oh so cryptic ideas….

I think they could go by the name of: AERO (not to be confused with the Mac skin, or chocolate bar!  However it is something occasionally heard on a tandem as the Captain may warn the Stoker he is about to slipstream low over the bars (exposing the stoker to sudden and dramatic buffeting if they do not follow suit and the slipstreaming is lost)

And furthermore I have an idea for a possible name for our tandem - which is: TANTALUS

I am feeling a bit clever about that, and therein (maybe) the rub?  We’ll see, maybe a comment will reveal if it has been taken up?

for now - that is all - and if you come back and find the blog entirely literary, well you will know why and where to find anything different (Thinks.. if I didn’t want to be mistaken for a “Python nutter” I could make the strap line on my new blog “and now for something completely different…”!

and this one does both, at least for me because there is a mysterious and intermittent fault that is preventing me from posting!  Hence the long gap without any news from me, although I have read at least half a dozen books in the meanwhile…..

In extreme precis the five books I read then:-

“Stuart - a life backwards” was a bit harrowing but suprisingly human and life affirming

“The Help” was a great yarn and rivetting reading with great insight into the life of black people in the deep South a suprisingly short time ago.

“The Spell” was an extremely homo-erotic book, made somwhat barren somehow by the absence of women characters (I realise that sounds trite, but a camp man is just such a different thing!)

“A Celibate Season” was a great diverting little read, if somewhat dated and cliquey (and of course oh so Canadian!)

And last but not least “Whistling for Elephants” surprised me with it’s freshness and humour.  Made a great contrast alongside “celibate season” as far more modern, but with touches of the surrreal to enliven it - I would not have guessed Sandi Toiksvig had it in her!  Must keep an eye out for more fiction from her..

On which subject I recently dropped that book at a pub and it is labelled for Bookcrossing so given the success of my last bookdrop we will see if any email transpires from that one….

Onwards and upwards - I may be somewhat distracted from blogging even if the intermittent fault remains in abeyance because I am setting out to get an accessible blog up and running for my partner over here - watch this space!

I downloaded this book rather on impulse, but aware of how I had quite enjoyed reading “Saturday”.  I had a great deal of frustration in trying to get the darned Ebook to load and had to resort to reading it on my E-reader so it seems I shall need to keep this as a handy backup device to the BeBook which seems to have issues with DRM that the Sony does not, no doubt thanks to the on board wifi in the BeBook.

I have only just finished the book and it was a quick read.  Hard to take the book entirely seriously, and even harder to take our protagonist, Michael Beard, seriously.  I think it is a great trick that the author pulls off in placing us within the protagonists view that we can ALMOST get our heads around the outrageous way he behaves and ALMOST buy into his self-deceptions.  This is not quite as human and as forgiveable a man as Updike’s Rabit, but then Rabit was the subject of any number of novels and Beard is only of one short work.

The plot is told in chunks of continuous action but set at removes of ten year intervals.  This enables us to deal with a Nobel prize winning scientist who is having trouble coming to terms wth the rest of his life at a point when his actions are catching up with him, specifically the fallout of a disasterous attitude towards women, he is getting his “come uppance” some would say in the disolution of his fifth marriage.  Through the course of the rest of the work this is not the only fallout and, regretably, he is not the only victim.  Bu tthe twists in the plot are expertly managed and even though the ending is somewhat inevitable it is pulled off in a way that remains engaging.

As the noivel drew to a close I did get a nasty taste, but it felt sadly authentic to human nature and the real world.  There were elements of Tom Sharpe humour almost, but with Ian McEwans ability to make it all too believeable this was not funny, just tragic.  I think the only redemption was in the aspect of science, which perhaps is being held up as the true hero and one that transfigures and mere humanity and offers hope for progress where individual lives cannot.

Some little time ago I dipped back into E-book reading determined to make my BeBook Nova (complete with wi-fi and touch screen) work as well as the Sony Ereader had for me.  More of my experiences there later….

But the book I want to try and capture my thoughts on first is “Trespass” by Rose Tremain.  It has been a couple of weeks since I finished it now, time enough to have a settled view on the memory that remains and the way it reverberates with me.  The astounding thing pulled off by the author in her inimitable style is almost to make a house one of the characters, certainly it is totemic within the plot.  I would have to imagine Rose Tremain either being very familiar with Southern Rural France or having done exte3nsive research there, the atmosphere and isolation of some parts is portrayed to great effect.

But all the things I have spoken of so far are like the flesh and clothes of the novel.  The meat and bones are the people, of course, and specifically a brother and sister.  Sketched in the background is a mother idealised by her son and who in reality her daughter had to compensate for.  The effects this had in the adult life of the protagonists are revealed slowly whilst exploring a mirrored situation with a French brother and sister, although in this case there has clearly been a greater parental abuse, but one which is only revealed in all it’s horror as the story unfolds.

I am filled with admiration at the skill with which these themes are interwoven in a compelling tale, one which is begun with an incidental character and a trauma accurately painted - only now as I am writing can I see how this is like a “key” which is used to initially engage you and at the end bring together themes and paint them with colours that give one hope for the progress of humanity.

Even though I have said a great deal about the book none of this will spoil the plot or enjoyment you can get from this book - a very human piece and engaging with it.  Tragic but ultimately uplifting and all with the authority of a highly accomplished author, one of her best works I think, perhaps.

It certainly provided some compensation for the five or so hours I struggled to get it onto my BeBook… I know people rave about how easy their Kindle experiences have been, but of course with my preference for running Open Source and suchlike I have to say I have met nothing but frustration with Ebook purchasing.  The reading is great and so I shall persist, but my first Ebook to Bebook took SEVEN hours struggles (realising at the end that Windows HAS TO BE used).  The second took five, which I then thought would resolve matters since I seemed to have learned all I needed to know… and yet my third novel has just taken three hours to sort and what is more cannot be read at all on the BeBook but only on the Sony!

Enough of a rant - I must get to some fora and see what the significance and usage of the .epub and .acsm extensions is and if there is open source out there which can address this…..

Well at the weekend we had what was billed as quite the literary extravaganza; World Book Night and I was rather sad to miss the innaugural event, not for want of a desire to participate nor for lack of informaiton or opportunity, but simply because family life was too full, especially since I had my daughter with me that weekend.

Undaunted by this I decided to have my own personal Book Night last night, and to combine it with another of my passions, cycling.  Perhaps you have heard of Bookcrossing?  Well, my bicycle now proudly bears the bumper sticker “I brake for Wild Books”!.

By happenstance the other night I had picked out “The Woman and the Ape” by Peter Hoeg and co-authored by Barbara Haveland from my bookshelf when I was in want of something to read, only to discover that I had read it before, not only that but had started re-reading it once before too!!  So high time this particular volume was not on my bookshelf! and a good reason to “refresh” my membership of the bookcrossing fraternity.  As luck would have it I had already allocated this book it’s serial number and applied the sticker to the front inside cover, so it was good to go.

And so was I, with a bundle of energy to expend I flew over London and enjoyed a night crossing of the Thames, a quick dash through Soho towards the NorthWest side of town, where I hit the bottom of Haverstock Hill and could not resist that temptation, proceeding to climb the hill with enthusiasm.  If you are local to London and that area you will know it was quite a climb and took me all the way up from Swiss Cottage to the top of Hampstead…. Where I arrived at Whitestone Pond and discovered my cycling legs were not quite those of the young man who thought nothing of dashing down to Brighton for an evening by bicycle!  Not only that, it was a clear night and my toes were really feeling the chill.

So there I left the book, and you can read what happened next here!

It was really astounding when I got the email notifying me the book had not only been picked up, but a note made to the internet…. Why?  Because in my past bookcrossing life I must have logged about seventy books and “dropped” or “placed” at least forty of those with very meagre results in terms of reportback the book was found or read, maybe two or three, but of those a couple somewhat contrived (since avid BookCrossers will gather in officially sanctioned pubs etc.)

So all in all a happy event.  Strange to tell, but I remember vividly just how glorious a day it was the next day, and althogh I had only been by the pond under cover of complete darkness in my minds eye I have a really clear memory of “seeing” that book where I left it on the bench awash with glorious sunshine!  I think the message here is - if you want to be a “successful” book crosser with feedback pick your place and pick your moment….

It must now be a month since I finished reading Alone in Berlin, but I have been too busy to bother with the blog.  However I have manged to file a quick note of things that seem worthy of posting, and this is the oldest so I am picking it up now.  Althohgh it wil be dated March fifth I’m writing the post on the 22nd, but can stand by the memory jogging notes I wrote at the time:-

relentlessly depressing, everyone dies, graphic and awful violence

and attrocity.

Then again, what do you expect from a book written during the time of and under Nazi rule in Germany, not only that but in Berlin and with the subject matter of a protagonist trying to exist and resist at some level.

Interestingly written by someone who was there - his last work - he had a chequered history with psychiatric, drug, and prison casting huge shadows over his life and I can’t help feeling probably ultimately responsible for his premature death.

On a more hopeful note I pondered the parallels with the present events and turmoil in the middle east.  I wonder what great works of literature may be getting written which could shed light no some of the world changes underway now.

I am aware this book is enjoying one of those strange fashionable posthumous popularity trends, similar to that enjoyed by the “Suite Francais” of Nemirovsky and I wanted to set out here that anyone embarking on reading this book should be prepared for an extremely and unremittingly depressing read.  There really is no redemption and it is best to have awareness of that and of the bleakness and abhorrent nature of the subject material before embarking on the read!  I think perhaps all the more chilling because you could arguably say the same of a work like “Crime and Punishment”, but somehow this work does not have the excitement and detachment that is possible with that work.

I felt a sense of pleasure for the author when I read in the notes that he did finally feel he had created a novel in this work - that was something I could relate to and which I was pleased he managed to experience before his premature death.

I recently heard that Mark Twain’s autobiography has been published after making it a condition of his will that there be a hundred year interval before publication…. Now there is an author with confidence of his place in history!  I may actually read this, whereas most biography passes me by as not particularly interesting.  In this case there’s the ego and arrogance of the man (or so it seems to me) added to the historical aspect.  Given it’s American history this might add a certain something?  I have to admit it is also a book with which I’d like to “test” the library system here, to see if they have the book available at this point.

I suspect this may read like a diary, but I could be quite wrong on that score, and should reserve judgement.

I recently found myself making an impulse buy from a small selection of second hand books being sold for charity.  The book was hardback, but definitely low-brow…. entitled “Jennifer’s Diary” it is a work of perhaps what the Americans call “fan fiction”?  Perhaps it should be called “merchandising”?  Whatever the term; it is adapted as a written work from the scripting of “ The Archers” (a radio drama serial I happen to have had my times of addiction to!).

This as a written work has to rank very close to the top of the atrocious tree!  It is a large print book and a slim volume at that.  Yet still worth the donation to a good cause, if only for the simple fact that we learn the step-son of Jennifer we always thought to be “Rory” and of Irish descent, is actually called “Ruairi” which is, apparently, an alternative Gaelic spelling!

I shall, no doubt, post again as, when, and if I succeed in obtaining/reading the autobiography, but I assure you there will be no more comment on “Jennifer’s Diary”!  Life’s too short to devote any more precious reading time to that!

Addendum:  I now read the volume recently published is the first of three tomes and may not actually comprise an autobiography… but the testing of our library system remains an aim, if not the reading of the volume!

PS to Addendum!  I have been unable to find any record for “Mark Twain Autobiography” in the Lewisham Library search (no real surprise) but I have run out of time and got no further than this link which dates from July…. there must be more and anyone prepared to comment and help out deserves a reward - ask and you shall receive!

I am still slightly reeling emotionally after sending an email copied to all the members of the reading group I can remember (or have addresses for) talking about Christmas and next year’s reading list possibilities (hoping for J.P.Donleavy).

Then I heard from a fellow member that one of the most lovely members of the library staff died in August.  She had been ill for a little while apparently beforehand and although this must have overlapped with, maybe, some of the time she was there I had no inkling.  Nor had I heard anything of it from anyone else at the library or at the reading group…

But none of that matters really, it feels like nervous chatter.  What matters is that she was a lovely librarian, a sensitive and kind lady, someone who added a lot to my life with the library and I am certain for many others.  She will be missed and I do not know her personally enough to have much insight, but I sincerely hope it was peaceful at the end.  When I find out the condition or hospital/hospice which may have been involved then in absence of any instruction she may have left I shall make donation in her memory.

Normally, as you may be aware, I keep a limit on the personal nature of what features on this blog.  But since the theme is highly literary it does not seem I can ignore this and since the death has passed I am not sure what more I can do than recognise her absence and celebrate what she gave to mine and others lives - to the world.  At least she will not have to witness the cuts to the library service that seem imminent, cuts of some considerable severity no doubt .

Over the previous weekend I attended my first ever Quaker Meeting for marriage too - it was very special and I baked cake (along with five others!), breakfasted with everyone, worshipped, and witnessed along with perhaps sixty or seventy others (the certificate was HUGE!)… I say all of this because it makes the death a very stark contrast and at the same time brings into focus the Quaker advice to celebrate the life as you mourn the absence of a person.

And to top it off I have stopped smoking.  It is not so bad, I am confident of not relapsing to smoke again, but at the same time I am very conscious of how fragile life is, how easily we take our good health and lives for granted.

If I knew it would be appreciated at all I would dedicate this entry to the memory of the said Librarian.  But I think she would not like that.  Condolences to the comments would be most welcomed by myself though - that is just the sort of thing blogs are good for.  I shall even lay one in tribute myself, when I find a suitable poem (she liked poetry… I feel really sad about this…. but also hopeful that, so long as it was anonymous, she may have felt it was a good thing).

She will be missed and remembered by me and by others, she touched our lives and left them better for that.

There was time in my youth when I enjoyed nothing better than working my way through the works of J.P. Donleavy.  I read all he had written and then would savour his new writings as I came across them.  For some reason they all seemed better in paperback, ideally second hand.  The library was possible, but in those days this likely meant hardback.

But never mind the format or cover; how I enjoyed those books!  I even managed to like “The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners”  (not the easiest of titles to remember!).  This was found in a second hand bookshop and eagerly picked up, but turned out not to be a novel at all. I clearly remember some jokey sort of unusual guidance with line drawn and maybe whacky illustratuions here and there, not his usual writing at all.  I suspect rereading may make it appear puerile from my vague memories.

Not so “A Fairy Tale of New York”, which I have recently begun rereading, though reading out loud to my beloved.  I have only managed one chapter so far so shall not say too much more until further into the book.  But I am so relishing it all over again it is a real thrill!  And I do believe the reading out loud is so suited to the style of writing he has (even if I cannot manage a Bronx accent to save my life!).  If it is in audio book format I think this will be a real treat, soon enough we shall discover!

To be continued….

It has been a month or more since this was the libraries book for the month.  The blog post made by our very conscientious and accurate librarian summarises things extremely well, though this is a book which was very popular several years ago and many readers may already be familiar with the story of how it came to be published and why that was so many years after it was written.  No doubt all of these things are part of the works appeal.

I have to be honest and say that although I was rereading “Republic of Love” at the time and really enjoying doing so I cannot say the same for “Suite Francais”.  Whilst a few of the scenes in the book remained fresh in my mind they did not “hang together” as a story in the same way as Shields’ work did for me.  I put this down to the quality of the writing, and sorry to say it but I’m not entirely sure Nemirovsky manages to hit a high enough note for me to enjoy rereading her work.

However I did enjoy finding out in more detail about how her granddaughter came to publish the novel her grandmother had written - that must have been thrilling for her and I’d love to find out more of how she felt in doing so.  For my part, were such a thing to happen to me, I would feel very much in the shadow of my relative and if I had any desires to write myself I am not sure I would welcome this.  Happily for Ms Nemirovsky’s descendant I do not think this was the case for her.

As we said at the reading group- - we were all glad the book had come to publicationo and felt it was a story that should be told.

A month or so ago I read “Chicago” by Alaa Al Aswany and I really enjoyed it.  Beyond the quality of the writing which was especially effective in characterisation I enjoyed learning a good deal more about the city and it’s history in the opening part.  I had not realised how Chicago was affected by a fire early in it’s history and lasting effect on the culture and particular pride of the fire service there in being able to handle fires, especially in the towers for which the city is famous.

This and the Muslim culture, reflected no doubt in large part from the author’s own awareness and culture, resonated nicely with the modern world post 9/11 (which is topical now and was coming up at the time I read the book.

The plot and characters give particular insight to the politics of Muslims and what it is like to be a woman in that culture.  Relationships and their breakdown are explored with a degree of pathos quite unexpected.  There is a sad humour in the way one character handles a broken marriage made early in his life after leaving Egypt to make a new life - he relives his youth and even takes to wearing the clothes he had when he left, then going through a telephone directory to track down the love he left behind.  There are interesting insights into Egyptian expatriate life and the radical politics involved, which I had been completely unaware of - so ten out of ten to this book for showing me things I could learn from and broadening my horizons.

I was reminded of Armistead Maupin) the author who wrote a series of books set in San Fransisco popular during the nineties, especially amongst the gay community.  I have no idea if his books were serialised, but when I discovered that Alaa Al Aswany had written these and had them published in serial form I was completely unsurprised, having suspected as much when I read the novel.  Why is it that I invariably read these books in their complete form, and seldom am aware of their availability when they are being initially published as serials?  I wish I were it would be a new experience in reading!  Perhaps I shall seek one out soon, I feel there must be many published that way on the internet now.

Which brings me to the book recently selected by me at Reading Group - Phineas Finn ( by Anthony Trollope.  He is a more famous author who, like Dickens, published in his time in serial form.  I shall write of that soon, but the next post I make will be on “Suite Francais” which was the subject of the Reading Group this week.

PS having checked my wiki link for the author I was really quite surprised to discover the author is male!  Having commented on his insights into relationships and life as a muslim woman this is a credit to his skills and ability to write and characterise both men and women convincingly, I think.