dovegreyreader scribbles

Learning by heart...

...I wonder if you still can??

I don't mean all you bright young things who still have every grey cell you were born with, more those who may, like me, be of that 'certain' age when remembering why you've walked in the room can be enough of a challenge, but can you still learn poetry by heart??

Mention of Edward Thomas yesterday has me back in poetry mood, but how I'd love to be one of those people for whom a well-placed poetic quote trips off the tongue rather than just the words to Daydream Believer by the Monkees when I hear it on the radio.

It is being suggested that we will be learning some of our choir words by heart next season and I can only hope that weekly Tuesday evening repetition between September and May, along with the cue of musical accompaniment and standing next to someone who's got it pat will do the trick, because when it comes to poetry I seem to fail.

It's taken me about five years to remember my mobile number, I'm not feeling too optimistic, but I also remind myself of something I heard the other day and have not forgotten ... sort of, something about the fact that we are holding as much information in our heads in one day as our ancestors would have heard and held in a week... or was it two weeks.

I bought the Ted Hughes collection By Heart on cassette to play in the car when I was out and about health visiting, in the vain hope I'd learn poetry by repetition and some form of osmosis which seemed possible given Ted's instruction.

In his introduction Ted Hughes explains how we can overcome the problem by using a memory system that becomes easier the more frequently it is practised. The collected 101 poems are both personal favourites and particularly well-suited to the method Hughes demonstrates. Spanning four centuries, ranging from Shakespeare and Keats through to Auden and Heaney, By Heart offers the reader a 'mental gymnasium' in which the memory can be exercised and trained in the most pleasurable way.

But then I'd go and do a visit and my mental gynasium would be diverted, and I'd forget it all and that cassette's long gone the way of them all having unravelled itself in the machine and ended up in the bin.

So is there a method for doing something which came so readily in my youth that I could apply now??

Set the task of learning a Shakespeare soliloquy for school homework I'd usually leave it until I had boarded the 408 bus to school at Wallington Green on the morning of the written test. By Sutton High Street I'd got the gist, more friends would get on and we'd join forces and by the time the bus reached Cheam Village we were more or less fluent and had probably driven the other passengers insane, as well as appearing like embarrassing little know-it-alls in our straw boaters. There would be a minor panic when we would all suddenly realise that we'd need to get the start and end of each line right too, so some bright spark would make up a quick mnemonic using the first letters of each line.TCTATLTATS will keep you pondering for a while perhaps but we knew what we meant, and I can still recite FITTSHIA to this day, though fat lot of good that is now. TWTOANTDDT still spills out at odd moments.

Earliest memories are of nursery rhymes of course, still recommended by speech therapists as one of the best tools for speech and language development in young children. This being me I still have The Golden Book of Nursery Rhymes that I am clutching here in my toddler hand, though that smile belies the fact that I was probably about to deliver a glancing blow because my brother has the custard pan in his hand and is looking a bit too self-satisfied for my liking.

An ancient family tradition the scraping out of the custard pan, but this book may also be where that dread skill of marginalia had its origins, though I know we would have been in serious trouble for this desecration.

I've been thinking too about the books that turned me back onto poetry after too much studying seemed to have blunted the impact and I feel sure it was the Bloodaxe anthologies. I've had a copy of Staying Alive since it was first published and recently added the sequel Being Alive to my collection.

Once I'm familiar with that the latest one Being Human will be waiting for me.

But I digress... do you still have those poems you learned years ago fresh and to hand, or soliloquies, or Archimedes principle, and can you and do you still learn poetry by heart?

And if so what's your method?

And could someone please offer solace by confirming that they also know what follows  'Oh, I could hide 'neath the wings of the bluebird as she sings...'

 

 

Project :: Now All Roads Lead to France - The Last Years of Edward Thomas ~ Matthew Hollis

It is well-known that Now All Roads Lead to France The Last Years of Edward Thomas, by Matthew Hollis, has had a big tick next to it as one of the books I have been most looking forward to this year and, though not published until August, my proof copy arrived weeks ago.

Faber have very kindly offered to send more advance proof copies to six lucky dovegreyreaders so here is my plan for entry criteria for this one, which is something I don't usually do but this is going to be slightly different.

I wonder if any of you are up for little reading project and would like to read this (veeeeeery slowly) along with me over the next few months and perhaps follow a few literary diversions if the book suggests them??

And would you then like to come back and join in some discussion here, before contributing to dovegreyreader asks... and a chance to put our questions to Matthew Hollis and carry on that conversation in comments??

Having made a start I know we won't be disappointed, there will be plenty to talk about.

You may recall last year I was beguiled and somewhat smitten by Helen Thomas's autobiographical work Under Storm's Wing, creating the impression that all was sweetness and light for Family Thomas when of course the truth seems to be very much at variance with Helen's perspective. I had posted a poem on here on Remembrance Day and was given great pause for thought by Jeannette who elaborated on all this in comments ( Jeannette, your thoughts have stayed in my mind) suggesting reader beware, there are two sides to this story. I decided at that point to call a halt to Under Storm's Wing pending the arrival of this biography, but with the intention of returning to Helen's writing afterwards. sensing that to be better informed would make for an even more fascinating read.

Copies of Now All Roads Lead to France can go worldwide and all a bit of a new departure, but if it works perhaps we could do it more often if you were interested because it occurs to me, after my very excitable read of The Castrato and His Wife by Helen Berry last week, that it would be good to share some of the advance reading in this way, and in the lead up to publication if publishers were willing.

So names in comments if you would be interested in Team ET and we'll take it from there.

Dear London 2012...

Please take our money, it's yours if you want it...

Is anyone else waiting like never before in the hope that a vast amount of money will vanish from their bank account??

Has anyone got tickets yet??

 

Tales of Hirundines and Carassius auratus (aka Take That)

Good news on the nature front, our swallows having arrived early, shored up their residence on the verandah as usual and lo, not even the end of May and we found these.

 

We have a brood of chirruping babies hatched and as yet invisible, but with the subsequent feeding frenzy in progress, so we have to avoid this right outside the front door...

And remember last year, it won't be long before we see these peeking over the top again.



I love the year-in-year-outness of this, that strange and melancholy day when they gave us the spectacular and now traditional farewell aerobatic display before they sensibly left us to our coldest winter in years, and it only seems five minutes ago.

And then the excitement (we don't get out much) of that heart-lifting day when they return, and just how do they find their way 6000 miles back to us, apparently some nests have been reused for fifty years... this one has been on the go for about as long as those curtains now I come to think of it. Magic and surely time for two broods this year.

And on the piscatorial front, we have a granite trough, home for many years to a little shoal of goldfish. We always give them topical names which we change on a whim so some famous people have passed through those waters as fish, Charles and Camilla, Tony and Cherie (a very argumentative year that was), Posh and Becks have been back twice. It's always a miracle that none of them get lapped up by thirsty dogs but to our horror last winter, we ended up with a deep-frozen shoal. Usually they are as happy as larry neath their layer of ice, this time we hadn't realised it had gone so deep leaving just one lonely survivor, so we've added some new friends this week.

There was a bit of a stand-off and some staring out going on, but that was only Robbie who'd been a big fish in a little pond, getting used to having Gary, Jason, Mark and Howard sharing the limelight with him again. So Take That are in residence, we've taken a Shine to them and are Sure they're Back for Good...oh enough of that.

Spring Cleaning...

Happy Bank Holiday weekend (yet again) everyone. To explain for those outside the UK, none of us seemed to have worked a full week for ages now what with late Easter, Royal Weddings and then May Day, and now look, it's half term already, but even so I am a very long way behind with e mail replies (about 180 last time I looked) so my apologies to someone who wrote me a lovely one talking about books and the blog but also asking for a craft activity update.

It's been a bit lean to be honest, probably connected to hours in the day (lack of) and the fact that at this time of year I hardly watch any television which is my most profitable time for cracking on with some knitting or quilting. I am indebted to RevCheryl, a regular around these virtual parts, who very kindly shifted the burden of owning too much Noro & Rowan wool, that was not knitting itself into anything, from her house to mine. In return one day soon I will send her a knitted Archbishop (every Vicar should have one) and I have a RevCheryl box of books filling, but meanwhile I am now staring down the wool bounty and waiting for the return of Strictly when I will cast on and sit forth and knit.

Cheryl might want to look away now because she had already put in some marathon knitting hours, but I have enough trouble remembering where I'm up to with my own knitting let alone figuring things out with someone else's. So I had a massive frogging afternoon, a huge skein wind-up, a whopping great big dunk-it-all in the sink session and then an enormous dry-athon over the Aga...this isn't the half of it and now I'm poring the books for ideas.

I have been busy with a bit of spring cleaning though.

My mum was a stalwart of the winter-summer curtain swap. Down and in the wash went the winter ones, up went the summer ones having been carefully put away clean the previous autumn. I manage a very minute fraction of this with winter and summer curtains in the bedroom, and of course if only I'd bothered to put them away clean how much simpler it would all be, but no. Beyond that it was to my horror that I realised last year that several sets of curtains around the house had been up and untouched for a rather embarrassing amount of time... ten years worth of embarrassment to be truthful. I mean where does the time go, and the problem is I would normally have wearied of them and made new long before. I got fed up with the last lot (patterned) after about three years, but plain colours complement our surroundings and if you choose the right colour then that curtain-fatigue just doesn't set in.

But all the same ten years .. I can't believe a single one of you has curtains that have been up that long unwashed, so I set to on a mammoth laundrification. Far too expensive to get six sets of curtains dry cleaned and so three days later please don't ask how many acres of double width, triple-pleat headed curtain and lining I had de-hooked, ungathered, washed, hung on the line to dry and then ironed, re-gathered, re-hooked and hung, but it was obvious when it came to the re-hang I would discover Sod's Law of the Drape.

The ones you don't want to shrink are bound to...

The ones you really do want to shrink refuse to.

A year on I can verify that the Law of the Drop is also rubbish, when you want them to drop they will have none of it, when they have no need to they do so exponentially.

No plans to go through this again until 2020 (Deo Volente)

 

The Castrato and His Wife ~ Helen Berry

I thought it only fair to warn you that, come the autumn, we will be mostly talking about eunuchs on here and I'll agree that's not in our usual sphere of discussion.... and I was determined to avoid all use of pun and inuendo until I read that first line out to Bookhound and he remarked that in that case I'd got off to a really bad start.

You may certainly ask why eunuchs and I will tell you that it's because, despite all my new rules about keeping hands off proof copies until nearer publication date, I have just finished reading The Castrato and His Wife by Helen Berry, to be published by Oxford University Press...eventually...sorry in my haste to read it I've lost the blurb that came with it. I'll write more fully later in the year but just have to whet your appetites for this one, get it reserved at the library quick, even if you have not an ounce of interest in the subject, the story is quite incredible.

It's a gripping account of the life of the famous Italian castrato Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci, but also a foray into the social mores of the eighteenth century; a century which where fiction is concerned for some reason my eyes glaze over, but where accounts of real life wake me up again.

So who knew... well I certainly didn't and I have been completely mesmerised by a world of which I knew little though may have feigned a passing interest, perhaps hearing that only recording of the voice of a castrato on the radio, or thinking that I knew all eunuchs were about four foot tall because of seeing them on Carry On films, when in fact the opposite is true. The long bones carry on growing in the absence of the hormonal starting and stopping associated with puberty so castrati have disproportionately long limbs which make their heads look small, and barrel chests from all the vocal training (must guard against that when the next Vocal Harem choir season starts...good name for a choir in this context eh)

It's all involved a bit of an SRN brush up on the physiology of testosterone which with the pride of lions that reside here I should know all about, yet for some reason when I started to recount a few details to the chaps ...

'Do you know in the 1730s they used to wait for the man who castrated the pigs to visit so that he could...

and suddenly for some reason they were gone, vanished. Bookhound finding an excuse to go and play with his new windows, the Gamekeeper off to strim around his pheasant pens, so I haven't been able to share anything about this amazing book with anyone yet.

I won't go into too much detail now but with its themes of gender, passion, intrigue and obsession the book is riveting and makes you feel as ashamedly inquisitive as any eighteenth century nosey parker, especially when you get to the moment when Tenducci weds, and you realise that a Georgian version of Twitter would have been deafening with all this to talk about. The injunctions would have been flying around because there was a great deal of speculation about what may or may not have resided in Tenducci's breeches...and when you hear what may have done...well yes, knock me down with a feather etc.

In many ways and thankfully we can never truly know the quality of the castrati voice, but how I'd love to have heard Tenducci sing Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, I mean just imagine...

And imagine my surprise when I discovered that he actually sang on the stage of the original Theatre Royal, Haymarket, and even at a music festival in Plymouth.

Then I start digging around myself for more historical context to Tenducci's life because this was the era of Admiral Nelson, the Battle of Trafalgar loomed, Georgiana was marrying into the Bedford family and planning to build the little cottage orne up the lane at Endsleigh and lo there is mention that her mother the Duchess of Gordon was a patron of Tenducci.

Much more about the book when I get my hands on a finished copy later this year because I am now desperate to see the illustrations, portraits, letters, tickets etc but I know it will be yet another to add to my ever-increasing Best Books of 2011 list for sure....what a fabulous reading year this is.

But now I'm intrigued, I see Imogen Robertson's latest novel Anatomy of Murder has castrati as a theme but are there any others ???  I have it here waiting to read as soon as I've fought the Spanish campaign with Stella Tillyard and The Tides of War, and I'm also taking regular sojourns in late nineteenth century artistic Glasgow with Jane Harris and Gillespie and I, great books all.

How about you...good reads on the go??

 

At Last ~ Edward St Aubyn

'Patrick could not help thinking that this passion for saving all the children of the world was an unconscious admission that she could not save her own child. Poor Eleanor, how frightened she must have been. Patrick suddenly wanted to protect her.'

A telling moment in the single extraordinary day that is the subject of Edward St Aubyn's final book in this series, At Last, and a book which I feel sure will be among my best reads of 2011.

The stage is set at the crematorium where Patrick Melrose prepares to make his final farewell to his remaining parent. His mother Eleanor has died after a protracted decline in recent years, but not before she has continued to bequeath the family home and a great deal of her fortune to the rather whacky rebirthing sect in France.

Having mentioned reading books out of sequence it was only the most startling facts about Patrick Melrose's life from the previous books in the series that came back to me as I started reading At Last ... the hideously shameful nature of the childhood sexual abuse inflicted on Patrick by David, his doctor father, the powerlessness of his mother to protect him, Patrick's descent into drug addiction all catalogued in Some Hope. Then the seeming rehabilitation (with setbacks) that had taken place in Mother's Milk, but I think Edward St Aubyn plants sufficient detail here for lack of prior knowledge to be of no hindrance to the understanding of At Last.

So cometh the hour for Patrick Melrose to reflect on his life in his own comical style, and in a way that reminded me of the body language that purveys the mixed message ...sometimes the events are so awful, so distressing that comedy provides the safety net that allows for those events to be recounted.

And in the end who knew the real Eleanor Melrose? It would seem not even the confused and disempowered Eleanor herself, as slowly Edward St Aubyn reveals even more about her traumatic life with her husband David, as Patrick endeavours to make sense of the ultimate question: Quite why and how did his mother fail in her duty to protect her child, and in such a spectacular fashion?  

'What was it that has driven Eleanor to furnish children for her husband...?'

Sensitively and accurately rolled out is the impact on a child of those years of abuse. I'd say as accurate as any evidence-based research coupled with neurological findings that now firmly back up that impact.

Patrick's need to find substitutes for the protection, care and affection that is lacking in his life and that ongoing need translated into adulthood, when the substitutes are likely to become far more dangerous and damaging. In Patrick Melrose's case, Some Hope describes one of the most vivid and disturbingly compelling descents into addiction that I can ever recall reading, whilst in At Last yet more expansion on those neuroses. Perhaps the narrative now coming from the psychologically available mind of a man with increasing insight into his own condition, a man who seems to have been through his share of therapy and treatment...

'There were the good women who gave him the care he never had. They had to be tortured into letting him down, to show that they couldn't really be trusted. And then there were the bad women who saved time by being untrustworthy straight away..'

and Patrick's reasoning...

'He generally alternated between these two broad categories,enchanted by some variant which briefly masked the futility of defending the decaying fortess of his personality, whilst hoping it would obligingly rearrange itself into a temple of peace and fulfilment.'

And something so serious just becomes funnier and funnier...

'Hoping and moping, moping and hoping. With only a little detachment, his love life looked like a child's wind-up toy made to march again and again over the precipice of the kitchen table.'

Despite his best efforts, and proclaiming that his mother's death is the best thing that has happened to him since his father's, Patrick finds himself incapable of side-stepping the grief that he had worked so assiduously to avoid on the death of his father some year's previously. In fact this time around he is well and truly ambushed by his autonomic nervous system...

'His body was a graveyard of buried emotions...the nervous bladder, the spastic colon, the lower-back pain, the labile blood pressure...and the imperious insomnia...all pointed to an anxiety deep enough to disrupt hisn instincts and take control of the automatic processes of his body.'

But perhaps finally there is so much more loss to be mourned, the loss of that childhood innocence and the stability and resilience into adulthood that a secure, happy childhood can bring, but also the loss of a mother who he had never really understood until, freed from the constraints of his parents' continued existence, Patrick can now look at it more closely.

Finally the primeval instincts of Fight or Flight become Face Up To It; repression, as Patrick muses to himself, was a different kind of burial, and it is inevitable that whether he likes it or not, he is working towards something important as this day at the crematorium progresses. After a great deal of wonderfully funny but no less deeply disturbing and often unsayable agonising, perhaps that peace which passes all understanding has to come to Patrick Melrose in the form of forgiveness, a process elaborated on by Paul Gilbert in his really excellent book The Compassionate Mind..

'Forgiveness doesn't mean that you'll ever like the person you're forgiving, nor does it mean that the person is entitled to your forgiveness. It is purely about letting go of your anger because it's good for you.'

As Eleanor's coffin drifts towards its destiny to the echoes of Fly Me to the Moon, if Patrick can only somehow discover that ability to be compassionate towards himself, in a way that he is starting to feel towards his mother ...

'...he opened himself up to the feeling of utter helplessness and incoherence that he supposed he had spent his life trying to avoid, and waited for it to dismember him. What happened was not what he had expected....'

To extract quotes to demonstrate a point can be dangerously off-putting I know, but reading this again, and in the context of all that other reading, I suspect many people who know him may also have smiled and heaved a huge sigh of relief along with me for dear old Patrick Melrose and what happens next.

It is Nicholas Pratt, an old friend of Patrick's father, who attending the funeral comes up with perhaps the most chilling line in the entire book...

'What a pity David isn't here to enjoy his grandsons...'

The grandsons are much in evidence at the funeral and misgivings about the advanced and gifted nature of their speech and cognitive development that I recognised in Mother's Milk linger on in this novel too, but I forgive all in the face of a series that has given me so much literary enjoyment, and in the sure and certain knowledge that, for  all his shortcomings and struggles, Patrick Melrose is likely to do everything within his power to continue to break the cycle of abuse from which he may finally just have managed to extricate himself.

 

 

 

 

 

Edward St Aubyn

I've decided that occasionally there is merit in reading a series of books out of sequence, not something the order-loving me might do out of choice, but in the case of dovegreyreader v Edward St Aubyn this jury of one can now offer its verdict after five long reading years. But firstly this has involved fighting my way through the cobwebs, deliving right back into the rather  cluttered basement of the blog, and my very first attempt at a Bookerthon in 2006.

I memorably read the shortlisted Mother's Milk, the second in the series, for that Bookerthon and just didn't get it at all on first reading, in fact I had a right old moan..

Mother's Milk was an enjoyable but not for me a superlative read, as I followed Patrick's mid-life crisis over a period of several years through fatherhood, mistress-dom and an inheritance rapidly disappearing down the swanee as his ailing mother bequeaths the family silver to a very dodgy New Age set up.
The prose is without a doubt solid and at times striking, often stopping you dead and forcing you to read again to take it in (does that make it limpid? translucent? dense? the blurb said 'luminous and acidic') but it hasn't impressed me as a great read.

This was all sufficient to rouse the St Aubyn-ites out there.

Rhys, who has been a faithful follower of dovegreyreader scribbles since its early days (are you still there Rhys??) saved me from myself by adding this very perceptive suggestion to the comments...

Hello Lynne, I wondered if you have read a trilogy by E St A called Some Hope? I am a great fan of that work and found it truly moving and a thumping achievement.I wonder if whether you have/haven't influences your reading and understanding of this book.

Camilla at Picador then made contact and became the first publisher to send me a book, a copy of Some Hope, and how grateful I was then and remain now for that largesse shown by publishers.

So I read Some Hope a trilogy in itself and there was clearly some reshaping of  those early impressions required...

Never Mind recalls his childhood, riddled with emotional neglect and sexual abuse.Detail sparingly alluded to re. the latter, one incident tells you all you need to know and much more.You love poor Patrick to bits already.
Bad News moves on to Patrick's adolescence and a young adulthood fuelled by drug addiction,and on this subject, I have never read a more lucid account of such a confusing and harrowing existence. It was uncomfortable and gut-wrenching yet somehow compulsive reading. Be aware, Patrick has no truck with harm-minimisation in relation to drug use.
By the time you reach the final part, Some Hope, you are starting to worry deeply for Patrick, not least for the state of his liver and the existence or not of his nasal septum.There are two ways to read the words "some hope" and the emphasis could mean success or failure and you are desperately on side and rooting for him to sort himself out.

and then, very unusually for me I read Mother's Milk for a second time almost immediately, and how much more I gained from that second reading..

Patrick now married and the father of Robert and Thomas, spends his life trying to compensate for the dire inadequacies of his own childhood, but his wife Mary is busy doing likewise and trying to compensate for her own difficult beginnings. Mary needs to be needed, Patrick needs to be nurtured and tended constantly and once children come along the balance shifts precariously. Astute children are in place to spot and highlight all the flaws and they do.
Creaking along in the background is Patrick's mother, Eleanor, now in failing health but continuing to make demands on her son which he struggles to deal with.This is the mother who failed in one of  her most fundamental duties, that of protecting Patrick from his father.You only really know this from back story and the knowledge completely changed my reading of the book.

At this point I'm going to neatly sidestep any debates about whether Booker-listed novels should stand alone, or is prior knowledge essential, because I think that muddies the waters here, nor am I even going to try and second-guess the Booker this year, because in such a stellar tear foir the depth and breadth of eligible fiction I now realise this will be more about judge's preference than ever. And I want nothing to detract from Edward St Aubyn's three books which for me now take their place as a series worthy of the highest accolades.

Having finished the final book in the sequence At Last, and then given the book its requisite week of 'thinking' time before I settled down to write about it, when I finally did I had to corral a mind absolutely teeming with developing thoughts and awareness. At Last on here tomorrow but meanwhile I also hear that Mother's Milk is coming to the big screen, so if you haven't read these and you think they may be of your kidney then it would be well worth seeking them out... and don't be deterred by the subject matter (says she who may normally avoid books like this given even half the chance,)  I have no regrets whatsoever about meeting Patrick Melrose.

Offspringette @ The Auckland Writers and Readers Festival finally

Sunday 15^th May, 2011

So with some sadness, it's my last day in Auckland. To have the opportunity to meet and listen to so many inspiring writers had really invigorated me, and this morning was set to be no different. I had picked two last events to attend, and they would prove to be, for me, the most powerful.

Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish was born and raised in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Working and studying hard, as happily married man and father of seven, he grew to be a successful and respected fertility doctor based in the Gerner Institute at the Sheba hospital in Tel Aviv. In 2009, tragedy struck. His wife died of undiagnosed leukaemia, and three months later, two of his daughters and a niece were killed when a missile hit their bedroom during an Israeli incursion. A third daughter was killed when a second missile hit. A fourth daughter was left bleeding profusely, desperately injured.  In the melee, Abuelaish managed to call ambulances and even spoke heart-rending words to a TV journalist live on Channel 10 in Tel Aviv, as he cried for help. A more sad tale, I have yet to hear.

Yet through all this, Abuelaish has managed to overcome. To overcome his pain and his loss to write “I Shall Not Hate”, “a necessary lesson against hatred and revenge.” (Elie Wiesel).  Sitting through this hour-long discussion of his book, hosted by New Zealand Herald editor Tim Murphy, I was transfixed. Eloquent, and able to cut to the very heart of the matter of what it is to not only survive, but rebuild, Abuelaish described the days after the loss of a significant part of his family, the road to recovery and his feelings on the placement of blame for his suffering:

“I shall not use the same weapons as them, I will not. I will not fire bullets, I will send love.”

Not a dry eye in the house. The question and answer session was filled with kind welcomes from the Kiwis, and the sort of sensible, unabashed discussion of world issues that you want to hear at book events. Phenomenal.

Half an hour later, I was downstairs waiting for the second of my long-awaited events: Graphic Novels, Comics and Cartoons. Hosted by award winning cartoonist Adrian Kinnaird, fellow artists Ant Sang, Chris Slane, and Dylan Horrocks were joined by writer and comic book doctoral scholar Karen Healey in a fascinating discussion of their working processes, the industry and the future for the industry worldwide.

Ant Sang kindly took us, a keen audience comprising somewhat of comic geeks and art enthusiasts, through his latest graphic novel, “Shaolin Burning”, and it was a delight. Using a variety of cinematographic narrative models to base his planning around, all gloriously screened for us in fine detail on two big screens either side of the stage, we traced the interactions of his key protagonists through to the finished product. I could see more than a few adult men getting boyishly enthused by this, and predicted a huge line at the signing stall for this friendly, down-to-earth man with a passion for homebrewed comics. Sang even stated that if he ever had the chance again, he’d return to his roots by photocopying and hand-stapling his independent work. At this point, those adult men just about died and went to comics heaven.

Chris Slane’s and Matt Elliott’s “Nice Day For A War” is based on the experiences of one Kiwi soldier in the Great War.

Part graphic novel, part illustrated history, the whole book is rendered in glorious watercolours, and is based on the diaries of Elliott’s grandfather, Corporal Cyril Elliott. Filled with photographs, factual documents, and a desire to stick to the truth, the book is a thing of beauty, and hearing how Slane organised his work using a spreadsheet to keep track of things illustrated (see what I did there) how easy it is for artists now to blend the painting skills of old with the logistical tools of today.

(Mother interrupts again... as in life...to say that Offspringette was deeply moved to experience her first ANZAC Day in New Zealand this year, dawn to dusk memorials)

An institution in New Zealand, Dylan Horrocks’ seminal graphic novel “Hicksville” has practically become part of the literary canon here, and his descriptions of life as an artist in the male-led world of DC Comics were witty, insightful and more than connected with Healey’s version of events as the co-founder of Girl-wonder.org, a site dedicated to the promotion of the female role in the comic book world. The two had a wonderful discussion of the inner workings of the decision making process surrounding Batgirl and her various demises. The audience were loving it and so were the speakers, a great discussion, asking questions that needed to be asked. Well done to all involved, I count it as my favourite event – purely for selfish reasons though (dovegreyreader can attest to my comic book passion)!

After the event finished, I bumped into Matt who had been at the comics talk too, and eventually Deborah, who introduced me to some of her New Zealand book world colleagues. I had a good yarn with a good few people. That seems to be the way things go at AWRF, lots of people having a good ol’ gossipy chinwag about books. Really great to see so much discussion going on, and it is clear that the Kiwis really do love to talk about what they’re reading.

We left Matt with a flatload of dubious gaming sorts, lassoed Diane for the return journey, and headed back to the Bay and Napier after a quick tea stop, full of joy at a weekend well spent. Deb, I don’t know how she did it – survived on muesli bars and adrenaline mostly. I would like to thank the gods of fast food for providing me with the calories I needed to get through the day. I would like to thank Dovegreyreader (thanks mumsie!) for arranging the press pass through AWRF, and to all the organisers and publicists for helping me get around such a well set-up and managed event.

From start to finish, world class.

(and mother's thanks to daughter for making me feel as if I have been sitting right next to you enjoying all this too x)

Offspringette @ The Auckland Writers and Readers Festival again

Saturday 14^th May, 2011

After a good night’s sleep, I arose to a deep discussion surrounding the quality of the previous night’s play. Verdict – good but with room for improvement. Perhaps today would make it all better for my new found friends.

We had separate plans for the day, with Deborah hitting up A Wordy Day Out to meet and support Young Adult authors and following my right brain, I went to the Wordy Workshops, where I joined a Creativity Workshop led by Kathryn Burnett.

After getting lost copious times, I eventually ended up on a mezzanine level away from the main drag of the festival, in a room filled with long tables covered in white tablecloths, as we were perhaps there for a wedding reception, or some sort of ex-servicemen’s dinner. Fortunately for me, I was in the right place and sat down to await my mind being opened.

Sadly, I had forgotten the required sheets of paper we were asked to provide (I did get a press pass, I shouldn’t complain), so this is the point in the festival where my programme becomes completely filled with random turquoise scribbles (Lamy Safari, how you say…FTW?) of increasingly more and more bizarre rantings.

Kathryn led us through a series of mind opening exercises, designed to ensure we forgot our logical mind and just concentrated on the fun stuff of creating, without boundaries or thought. For the next two hours, we were stretched in all directions, following multiple ideas from a flash thought through to something that might almost have been useable.

What I learned from the whole experience was that writers have a tough time of it, and that coming up with a clear idea is a long process of trial and error. I came up with hundreds of thoughts and ideas in the time we had, and I learned a lot. A very worthwhile experience, but as I discovered afterwards, incredibly draining! How do these writers do it?

I arrived late back at the Centre, too late to catch the Antarctica talk by Jane Ussher and Steve Braunias. Fortunately though, I was in for a treat when I met with Deborah’s mentor, Tessa Duder and her partner and a friend. Imagine my joy when they all turned out to have superior Antarctic and shipping experience. The talk of dog teams, harsh polar life and the state of the American’s ice cream machine left me wide eyed and sparks flying around my mind. If there’s one thing I love, and my mother will confirm this, it is the promise of adventure. A fantastic way to wrap things up at the Festival’s second day.

After a trip to the supermarket, it was a gourmet four course dinner for us back at the apartment, one I struggled to finish. Cheese and crackers, more of the delicious pumpkin soup (I defy any fresher in the UK to make such fine soup from scratch), chicken kebabs and then sticky toffee puddings. I didn’t make it to pudding, I’m not sure if they did either. I barely managed to crawl back to my bed to the relative safety of my iPod and the dulcet tones of The Cure’s Robert Smith lulling me into a deep and satisfying slumber.

Final day tomorrow.

Offspringette @ The Auckland Writers and Readers Festival

So whilst I'm off playing in Fowey at the du Maurier Literary Festival ...and can I say that this festival just gets better and better, a really great and varied line up this year, I'm sending you all off on a trip to the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in the company of Offspringette. She's petite and she walks very fast so I hope you can all keep sight of her and keep up.

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival: Blog Journal

Offspringette Reporting!

Thursday 12^th May, 2011

Leaving Hawke’s Bay on a warm and sunny afternoon, I had high hopes for our escape from the country. Nestled into the soft leathery expansive front seat of the car being piloted by one of New Zealand’s most fascinating children’s authors, Deborah Burnside, I felt sure that this, dear readers, was going to be a winner.

In the back, also nestled, amongst carefully wrapped parcels of chicken sandwiches complimented by a home grown avocado relish, was Diane Hebley, a long-standing member of New Zealand’s literary community and a proponent of writing for young people.

The conversation flowed in all directions, and as we made our way along the Thermal Explorer Highway, some 400km of chipseal road, I got the sense that I was on rather an intellectual road trip. Even the toilet breaks felt learned.

At Taupo, Deb suggested we took the opportunity to see the Huka Falls in daylight, and what a massively fast and aggressive-moving body of water it was. Standing on the bridge overlooking the Falls, I was reminded of the time I’d spent visiting the Kayaker in Canada, and how he might laugh at these and say “Pffft. Easy!” I wouldn’t find it easy, I’d find it terrifying. But that is why he goes down rivers and I skate up mountains.

Arriving in Auckland to the centrally-placed apartment Deborah and her husband Robert rent for their talented computer animation student son Matthew, I was struck by how clever Auckland feels. All these tall buildings, polished and clean and full of brains. Oh, and how much I wanted to dive bomb off the balcony into the lengths pool four floors below my feet.

Charging up my iPod Touch (a tracking device provided by dovegreyreader), now containing the AWRF ‘app’, a handy portable way to follow the programme of events (I still carried the paper one with me anyway), I hit the hay, to the sounds of the Auckland student body whooping it up on what must have been another discount drinks night.

The question is, is AWRF ready for the Offspringette?

Friday 13^th May, 2011

Friday dawned early for me as I spent the night tracking the progress of a friend across the Pacific on said iPod. Very exciting and interesting that I can do all these things with this device, but incredibly sleep depriving for one who is interested in everything. With a busy first day of the festival ahead, it was tough luck for me, as Deborah knocked on my door at the strike of 7am to enquire regarding a cup of tea. 

I should let you know at this point that I met Deborah and discovered her incredible story at roller derby. I say this because it was exactly the roller derby that led to our slow aching progress to the Aotea Centre. Deborah has damaged her knee, and I too am carrying an injury, from this game of female stock car racing on rollerskates. Proudly we strode with our war wounds, discussing the events we might like to see.

After a brief visit to pick up tickets and write my own access all areas pass, our first stop was the festival’s first morning event in the main theatre: a talk by Carolyn Burke on her Edith Piaf biography, “No Regrets”.  On a stage decked out with palms, carefully thought out lighting and a bronze and orange colour scheme with a big screen behind her to broadcast to the masses, Burke embarked on transporting us back to Piaf’s era, full of the sound of street song, and smoky Champs-Elysees caberet.

Tracking the rise and fall and rise and end of one France’s most colourful musical characters, the presentation we were treated to, a mix of readings, sounds and finally video, left me with the feeling that Burke had really fallen in love with this project. And it was clear by the size of the signings queue and the busy throng around her book at the festival stall, that this had rubbed off on the audicence. Bravo. First event down, success!

(Mother interrupts here to say to daughter, do you remember we saw Edith Piaf's grave in Pere Lechaise cemetery on that trip to Paris...or were you too busy looking for Jim Morrison??)

Deborah and Diane then travelled to see Madhur Jaffery’s talk on Climbing The Mango Trees and I wish I’d been with them as apparently it was fantastic and they could have listened to her all day. Jaffrey’s compelling voice came out not only in her readings but also in her conversation with writer Alexa Johnston. I know of Jaffery from her cookery work, but she has led quite the life, and I’m sure anyone interested would find her book a great read.

I took the time between events to get a feel for the festival as it geared up for the weekend. Two large bookstalls on the upper and lower levels, coffee stands, seated areas, free wi-fi (yes!), and generally very friendly people everywhere. Especially near the outside cafe, which I felt was a little too pricey for my tastes, hence my needing to duck out to procure cheap and faster alternatives.

Then it was straight back into a session in the lower room with three of New Zealand’s South Island female writers: Laurence Fearnley (The Hut Builder), Emma Neale (Fosterling) and Charlotte Randall (Hokitika Town). The discussion centred around the male characters central to the plot in each novel, and the ways in which the authors set about bringing out their individual motivations. Fearnley’s reading of Boden stood out for me, a shy young butcher from a small 1940’s Central Otago town who goes on to become a famous poet was enthralling, as she wore a warm hat to set the scene during a snowy section of the story. Very interesting discussion followed, and I’d urge you to check out each book to find out more.

With a couple of hours to spare I sat and took in my surroundings again, now changed with an increased frequency of human motion, hubbub and general literary enthusiasm for all things papery and wordy. I supposed my dear mum would have been in heaven right now, and I was too in a way. I haven’t felt intellectually nourished in this way since I came to New Zealand.

Despite being the perfect candidate for many roles, I have struggled to find work here. This trip has been a journey of the mind and soul for me. After finishing a teacher training course on a high, it left me burning for adventure – and progress – and I really feel that I have, in this beautiful place, been allowed to achieve all my goals incredibly quickly, except…the job. Sitting in the comfy leather chairs in the Aotea’s lobby, I realised that I’m actually a citizen of the world at the moment, and that’s a pretty envious position. I could go anywhere, do anything, and I want to. Help me out, world?

We finished the afternoon off with An Hour With Gail Jones, an Australian author who has a wonderful sweet voice that compels you to listen to whatever it is she has to say. And what she has to say is quite simply fantastic in its scope and breadth. How that woman manages to describe a single second in time in such detail is beyond me, and we listened, enthralled. Her most recent book Five Bells describes the intertwining movements of 4 (or maybe 5) characters on a single day at Sydney’s Circular Quay and from the reading Jones gave, you’re in for a powerful read.

Capping off the day in style, I chased after Deb as she confidently strode through lines of traffic waving her crutch as an excuse to get through to a sandwich bar on the other side of the street. We had nary 10 minutes before the next presentation, and her suggestions to the sandwich maker went unheeded, causing much hilarity when she tried to suggest he speed up.

Taking said sandwiches under cover of handbag into the main theatre (dovegreyreader would surely approve), we sat at the back and munched our way through a Kim Hill (NZ radio personality) hosted discussion with New York Times Science Editor Barbara Strauch on “Secrets Of The Brain”. It was laugh out loud (or splutter sandwich out loud for us) funny, and we learned that the key to our brain’s survival was exercise.

Justly proud of ourselves, we marched all the way home, where I promptly passed out early, leaving Deborah and Matt to take a trip to the theatre. I did however take the opportunity to quaff down some pumpkin soup that was laid on for me. She’s taught that boy well.

The Doll - Short Stories ~ Daphne du Maurier

The du Maurier literary festival is always a sparkling event, one that lifts the spirits as the first of the season.

Perhaps it's the way the weather often drifts seamlessly from spring to early summer mid-festival, though this year we've been and done that twice and back again already down in the South West, or perhaps it's that welcome glimpse of the sea as you approach the town.

But every so often the festival dazzles a little more with the launch of a new book by or about Daphne du Maurier, a few years ago Justine Picardie's Daphne, this year a new collection of Daphne's short stories The Doll, making the Virago collection of Daphne du Maurier books now in print a sight to gladden the heart.

So getting in the Fowey mood (pronounced Foy for anyone not from these parts) I picked up my copy of The Doll and have been reading several a day for the last week or so in readiness for total du Maurier immersion this weekend.

The story behind this collection has been well-covered in the press here but it is lovely and worth repeating. Every trip to Fowey for us (it's about 45mins away) involves me popping my head around the door for a chat with Ann Willmore who runs Bookends, the town's secondhand bookshop (Mr Ann runs the town's other bookshop, Bookends Too, selling new books.)

I've mentioned Ann here before I know but there is absolutely nothing she doesn't know about Daphne du Maurier having been a collector and diligant researcher of information about her life and work for many years. I'm sure all you indie book owners out there offer a warm welcome to anyone who walks into your shop but there is nothing to beat Ann's open and smiling greeting and we settle down for a natter about the 'latest.' It is Ann who has tracked down some of the stories in this collection, many of them after years of painstaking effort, and discovered in obscure anthologies and magazines. When you are prepared to pay £70 for a 1932 copy of the Illustrated London News because it contains a Daphne story, it's clear you are dedicated to the cause and that astonishing story Happy Valley features on this collection. Read it and think of Daphne's discovery of Menabilly and see the foreshadowing of Manderly and Rebecca, it really is remarkable.

I had quite  forgotten what a brilliant practitioner of the art of the short story Daphne du Maurier is, having focused on catching up with her novels and more biographical books in recent years, but this collection fair took my breath away. All seem to have been written when Daphne was in her very early twenties and living in the 1920s, themes of entrapment and obsession move in tandem with those of vanity and hypocrisy whilst jealousy, infatuation and possession pervade. As I read I sensed a young and very fertile imagination ready and waiting to break through the boundaries that a privileged upbringing had chained so firmly in place around her life. A mind ready to rebel, to break the mould and do things differently.

In the event the young Daphne fought for, and won, a degree of freedom by living when she could in Fowey.

Far from the constraints of life in the Hampstead home and the claustrophobic company of her possessive father Gerald, and the mother with whom she was always at odds Daphne was free to write. Nowhere is that mother-daughter tension clearer than in the short story Tame Cat reminding me of Irene Nemirovsky's themes in Jezebel; the jealous and unforgiving mother with the fading looks and her scheming lover who insinuates his way into the naive and hapless daughter's affections. This is entrapment writ large and, as so often in this collection, a perfect delineation of the limitations set on women's lives, lives circumscribed by tradition and habit and bound by the lack of choice about their own destiny.

But Daphne interestingly walks a mile or two in some very different shoes here as well...who was it who said if you walk a mile in someone's shoes at least you are far enough away when they discover that you've stolen them??

Sorry, that's of no relevance, except the young Daphne transports herself into lives seemingly far removed from hers, there is lust and murder here along with prostitution and then there is the doll of the title story. The constant companion of the gifted female violinist, a male doll whom she introduces as Julius, and which she finds infinitely preferable to the real thing. There is destitution in these stories too, something Daphne can have known little about in her day to day life but in many ways perhaps she was more like her character Mazie than she cared to realize. As Mazie yearns for a different and better life and for freedom from the constraints of the present it's but a short step to understanding that this may have been Daphne's dream too. So a collection that may unwittingly reveal even more about an author I have come to know and love, and a very welcome addition to the oeuvre.

Ann's personal story, recounted in an interview in the Western Morning News recently, is also something of a dream come true... captivated by Daphne du Maurier and a regular visitor to Fowey for many years from the family home in St Albans, Ann and Mr Ann ( he's actually David and he's lovely too) chucked in jobs and sold up, moving down and buying Bookends when the business came up for sale eight years ago. Sadly I've met a lot of very grumpy booksellers in my time but Ann and David are life's happy people who have turned a hobby and a dream into a viable and enjoyable business which you sense gives them much pleasure, and it shows... no wonder Ann always has a beaming smile on her face when you walk in the door.

 

Flare Path ~ Terence Rattigan

Well, who knew that Sienna Miller was such an accomplished actor??

I certainly didn't having only really clocked her as a rather glamorous 'it' girl who always seemed to be in the news for everything other than turning in superb stage performances. I think I was probably expecting a bit of a ditzy blond role for her, not the serious leading lady in Terence Rattigan's 1942 play Flare Path, which Bookhound and I went to see while we were in London recently. That'll teach me to curb my pre-conceived judgements won't it.

It was all very lastminutedotcom, off to London and I whizzed a quick e mail over to the Westend Whingers...we were thinking of going to see Blithe Spirit but they'd panned it so what would they recommend..kill to see Flare Path came back the instant reply (thanks Andrew) it's getting well deserved 5* reviews and comes with an unreserved recommend. We dashed onto the website and took out a mortgage on the last two tickets in the Royal Circle at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket whilst reminding ourselves to go to the right Theatre Royal (not the Drury Lane one) on the night.

Don't you just love the old London theatres. The Little Theatre in the Hay originally built on the site of an old inn, The King's Head in 1720 for the sum of £1500, and Henry Fielding's audacious satires are performed there to great acclaim. Surely the inn named in the aftermath of the execution of King Charles 1st just across the way in Whitehall in 1649?

 The current Theatre Royal  designed by renowned Regency architect John Nash and built at a cost of £20,000 in 1820. The place just oozes charm, character and history; a tiny foyer, plush little dark, flock-papered staircases and low ceilings, and to think it opened with a performance of Sheridan's The Rivals. Gaslight arrives in 1843 along with an orchestra pit, a fifteen-year old Ellen Terry performs in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1863. A string of famous actors have graced this stage since; in recent years, Lauren Bacall, Alec Guiness and a bevvy of Redgraves, Christopher Reeve, Ben Kingsley, Peter O'Toole, Jack Lemmon, the list is endless and now Sienna Miller.

I love that moment when we settle into our seats and get our bearings too. We sit and look at the stage for a while and wonder what will be revealed, and I've suddenly changed my mind and do need a packet of jelly babies and a programme, and slowly the theatre fills up around us, and we're almost at the end of the row so we stand up and sit down many times over. We wait for the preternaturally very tallest person to sit right in front of me and when that happens (which it did)  Bookhound, who always has the smallest person in front of him, swaps seats with me. We arrange the jelly babies so the packet doesn't make a noise and that's us poised ready for curtain up.

Directed by Trevor Nunn the action in Flare Path centres on the Falcon Hotel situated near to an RAF airbase in Lincolnshire. Teddy, a young bomber pilot, is meeting up with his actress wife Patricia who has arrived for a brief stay from London. When hearthrob filmstar Peter Kyle arrives unexpectedly we are the first to see his romantic involvement with Patricia, whilst Teddy seems to be the last... but in fact does the naively boyish and hapless Teddy perhaps know more than he can bear to face up to? Surrounding characters include other pilots, including a wonderful Polish Count who has married a local girl who know finds herself a Countess, a typically stern hotel keeper and others various. When the flight crew are called out on a night bombing raid those left behind  must re-examine their lives and their loyalties and when some return the appalling emotional cost on their lives starts to play out.

The special effects were minimal but spectacular when they happened. As the characters watched through the window as the Wellington bombers took off, one by one the film-footage planes appeared in the distance above the stage, loomed closer and closer and louder and louder and we almost felt obliged to duck in the Royal Circle as they seemed to fly over head.

Sienna Miller meanwhile, accomplished and divine as Patricia, it's all in the deportment, and am I allowed to show my age and say you could hear every word she said, clear as a bell...well you could hear the others too, but Sienna really held the stage along with superb performances from Harry Hadden-Paton as Teddy and Sheridan Smith as Doris, Countess Skriczevinsky...Clive Wood as Squadron Leader Swanson (better known as Gloria) had us smiling as did Mark Dexter's wonderfully funny Polish Count. Whilst James Purefoy's louchly slick filmstar is about to learn some new truths and his transformation on stage incredibly moving.

Terence Rattigan had joined the RAF in 1940 having become a celebrated playwright but one suffering from writer's block. Whilst his psychiatrist suggested he needed a dose of discipline and advised he joined the war effort, Rattigan's decision to become a tail gunner, the most dangerous seat in the plane, seemed like a fairly drastic remedy. It paid off and soon restored his ability and his willingness to write and with no shortage of subjects surrounding him from which to choose. Flare Path was written during active service and sent by Rattigan to his parents with the request that they get it noticed which they duly did and it opened in 1942. An instant success playing for 670 performances to a public well- attuned to the sorrows and stresses of war, even Winston Churchill saw it and commented thus..

'I was very moved by this play.It is a masterpiece of understatement. But we are rather good at that aren't we?'

Well we saw it almost seventy years later and decided it was still brilliant.

 

 

We Had It So Good ~ Linda Grant

The moral of this story... I mean as in the story of my reading of Linda Grant's latest novel We Had It So Good, is don't start reading the proof copy within minutes of its arrival and some three months before publication date because you can't possibly wait any longer.

Next, don't be bowled over by it but somehow not get around to sitting down and writing about it there and then.

So Christmas came and went and I had that piece to do for The Reader, and then it was January and publication date for the novel and I thought, I'll hang on and let the hype subside, it'll be Orange long-listed so I'll jump in then...and to my complete surprise, verging on horror, We Had It So Good, my sure-fire Orange was nowhere to be seen.  And I remain mystified about that omission, but onwards and upwards, it's the du Maurier Festival this week and I'll be in Fowey for Friday and Saturday's events which, if I can get on the road early enough will include Linda Grant talking about her novel at 10am on Friday morning.

The time scale for We Had it So Good is mine, these are the baby-boomers those of us born between 1946 and 1964, the post-war 'demographic bulge' , the supposed 'shockwave' who remodeled society as they moved through it according to that most unreliable of sources Wikipedia. I'm not sure I did a lot of remodelling being more prone to sitting soaking my aching feet whilst everyone else get on with and I did my nurse training, but reading We Had it So Good has been a revelation.

Stephen is a Rhodes scholar, Jewish, a Vietnam draft dodger who works his passage to the UK on board a cruise ship and claims to have met fellow Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton on the way. From a working class family in California, Stephen realises he has landed on another planet, Oxford, a 'private members club' an alien world of which he has little understanding. He somehow falls into a marriage with a fellow student, the very English Andrea, and the novel charts their life together via neatly oscillating perspectives, Stephen's, Andrea's, Grace the university friend with the 'baggage' and the shocking secret. I'm rarely that shocked, but on this occasion, and to Linda Grant's credit, I was...completely.

Grace is she who warns, seeming like a cypher for the ills of the generation. Then there are the children Max and Marianne, well-placed to pass judgement on their parents as they grow into their adult personae, Max as a magician, Marianne as a photographer. Two interestingly juxtaposed professions, one about deception and the trick of the eye, the other a lens focusing on capturing the accuracy and an account of a particular moment, clever vehicles for Linda Grant to explore what pickings may be left for the new generation.

To read We Had it So Good (and I've now read it twice) is to indulge in a sort of retrospective bildungsroman where I could imagine a little part for myself too because I was there. It's a reconcililation of the past and the present, the 'what might have been' with the 'what is' and with wonderfully recognisable archetypes clutching both their inherent and their acquired anxieties. The humble beginnings, the growing and unexpected kudos of the Islington address, though not quite so salubrious when Stephen and Andrea bought in 1981 (still justifiably blue and following on from the Old Kent Road on the Monopoly board in the early 1980s), Stephen's job at the BBC, Andrea's profession as a psychotherapist. The anxieties of expectation frequently unmet and unachieved with a bar set invisibly high by a generation hell-bent on progress. Theories that the evolution of the human brain has wired it to cope more effectively with scarcity  than abundance feel entirely relevant here, and it is the difficulties of dealing with that abundance, coupled with a sense of 'betterness' that creates so much of the angst for Stephen and Andrea, and when it comes to Stephen's final and devastating realisation (which I won't reveal)  I was reminded of April and Frank in Revolutionary Road..

When Stephen's father, at the age of ninety, and wearing a pair of bright orange Crocs, decides to make the trip from the US to Europe and Poland to trace his roots, the anticipated interrogation of the past that Stephen expects and has perhaps been unwittingly seeking (and that I as a reader thought I had readily mapped out in my mind,)  is surprisingly and deftly subverted by Linda Grant, it all defies the predictable and I loved this book for many, many reasons but for that one especially.

There is so much more, but not a word more, because you definitely need to just pick up We Had it So Good and be carried along by it, read it, go with the flow but don't miss it. Every page holds a little gem, a priceless moment in the company of Linda's Grant's wry and witty sense of humour, or an insightful observation and understanding about human nature that makes you sit up and take notice. If you are a baby boomer you will also love this book for the plethora of timely references to things we have all known and loved. I was heard to exclaim things like...

'Blimey loon pants...remember those..'

and

'Oh yes, rent £8 a week.'

and I'll bet some of you will remember doing this...

'While Stephen slept she slit the outside seams of his jeans from hem to the knee and cut triangles from the green velvet dress and sewed them in. His Levis had turned into flares. In the morning he awoke and stumbled into his trousers. He looked down and saw his feet disappearing below the flapping fabric...'

 

 

 

 

The Vocal Harem Annual Gala Concert ~ Saturday May 14th 2011

Forgive the shameless advertising, but it's almost upon us and we are hoping to be in good voice and on song for this Saturday evening's Vocal Harem Annual Gala Concert, 7.30pm in Tavistock Parish Church. A non-auditioning community choir and the culmination of a winter of schlepping out in rain, sleet and snow every Tuesday evening since last September, and under the tutelage of our musical director Rosemary Turner and our rehearsal accompanist Jaemus Downing.

Final rehearsal in the afternoon with our performance accompanist Mary Mazur Park, but first the hilarious task of organising ninety of us into seating on the tiered platform. And we'll have a grumble about being squashed and not being able to see Rosemary properly... because we're always in trouble for 'not watching' and all thus ensuring the gradual elevation of her conductor's plinth to the point where it will most likely give her vertigo. Then we have to sort out how we stay in seating order whilst filing in from the Church Centre on the other side of the main road, taking our seats in a sedate and orderly fashion rather than looking like a rabble about to do battle.

We will be looking resplendent in our black with gaily coloured scarves (moi cerise) as will our elite band of accompanying Sultans in their black with gaily coloured ties (Bookhound jade). The Sultans all partners of Vocal Harem members who have plucked up the courage to sing and who add in a very welcome bass and tenor line to several songs...try singing The Toreador's Song without them.

Lots of new numbers in this year's programme as well as a few old favourites and several that, if we get them right, promise to be magical.

Howard Goodall's Lead, Kindly Light, from his Eternal Light: A Requiem, sends the right sort of shivers down the spine. John Henry Newman's Victorian text is achingly beautiful...

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

and originally sung to the hymn tune Alberta composed by William Harris as he crossed the Canadian province by train in the 1920s. Howard Goodall's twenty-first century arrangement utterly complements the words and he says this in the frontispiece to the sheet music

'Why is this Victorian text still so powerful...the perfect expression of the comfort of compassionate faith, filled as it is with human fragility and the doubt that we know Newman was grappling with at this stage of his life... I wanted my 'Lead, Kindly Light' to evoke the turbulent waters of the sea, serving as a reminder of the fact that its words were written by a man who believed himself to be confronted with the possibility of death, stranded as he was at sea and critically ill, and also of the metaphor of troubled waters, for anyone who has looked despair in the face, sought and found a kindly light to lead them on.'

I have read that countless times as we've sat and hummed our line whilst the attention has been on the altos perfecting theirs, and then that amazing evening when the basses and tenors joined us, added in their parts and suddenly the whole comes together...and your spine tingles with the power of four part harmony singing. Believer or not I feel those words still have that power to move... especially the way we sing 'em.

Other favourites for me, Catch a Falling Star, the first song I remember learning and singing along to the radio (was it Perry Como?) with my mum when I was about four, and of course the wonderful Bring Me Sunshine. There's some Chopin and Ivor Novello too and plenty more, and this year, just to be sure I don't sing the wrong line in the heat of the moment I have resorted to a great deal of...er...this.

Our guests will be the Loveny Male Voice Choir and if you live within a one hundred mile radius of Tavistock, if not two hundred, nay if you are a resident of the British Isles, then surely if you set off now you could get there in time?

Tickets a whopping £5 on the door, you'll be sorry to miss it.

 

 

 

 

Held By the Sea ~ Jane Darke

I'm not quite sure how the very local as well as national publicity for all things Nick Darke has passed me by, but somehow it had. I'd seen the name, read the details of Nick's life as a playwright and film maker, his beach-combing life in North Cornwall, his untimely death from cancer at the age of fifty-six back in 2005 and this after making such a good recovery from a debilitating stroke. I'd read details about his film The Wrecking Season which has been televised, as has his wife artist Jane Darke's film about the death of her husband The Art of Catching Lobsters.

In the end it was the arrival of the Souvenir Press catalogue that prompted me because therein details of a book by Jane Darke, Held By the Sea, an account of her grief and the task of rebuilding her life and finding her own identity whilst living in a county that had been her husband's by birthright but not Jane's.

 

It is Souvenir Press's sixtieth anniversary year in 2011, which seems like an enormous achievement for an independent publisher, and having met Ernest Hecht on several occasions I can almost hear him saying these words from his foreword in the current catalogue...

 

' Fun is crucial to independent publishing longevity, which translates into making sure that every new list provides surprises for the reader - the moment an independent ceases to surprise the probability of ending in a greedy congolmerates belly is high!'

In the next sentence Ernest might offer me mock sympathy for the plight of Plymouth Argyle (our nearest football team and recently in receivership, anyone with £10 to spare could probably put in a bid) whilst I never miss a little chance to remember some terrible Arsenal faux pas (their Carling Cup final defeat is my latest weapon) in ready exchange.

But Ernest's list at Souvenir Press has long been a source for me of some of the most valuable cradle to grave books so useful in my working day, from infant massage and natural childbirth, to loss and bereavement, books on depression, counselling, helpful listening, disability, death and dying. Ernest publishes and very kindly sends me the lot, and so whilst it was a lovely surprise to turn the page and see Jane Darke's book advertised, I was not in the least surprised to hear that Ernest, having seen The Art of Catching Lobsters on television, had then asked Jane to write it.

Jane begins with an account of the days immediately following Nick's death in June 2005, the shock has set in and she is planning his funeral from their beachside home. The service will take place on the beach, a friend is in the garden making Nick's coffin out of found materials and three teams of eight are assembled to take on the task of carrying the coffin, by means of oars slotted into rope handles, from the beach to Nick's eventual resting place in the nearby churchyard.

I have to repeat in full the wonderful Cornish Lord's Prayer by Simon Parker that was said at Nick's funeral, the capitals all denoting places in Cornwall...

Chyandour Trebartha
Looe art in St Keverne
Porthallow be thy Rame
Thy Kingsand Come-to-Good
Thy Withiel be Dunheved
In St Erth as it is in Porthleven
Geevor us St Day our Gribben Head
And Relubbus our Tresparrets
As we St Ive Trevose Gugh Trespearne Relubbus
But Trelever us from St Eval
For Constantine is the Ding Dong
Pendower and the Cury
St Clether St Clether
Land's End

For a wordsmith and a true Cornishman what a fitting send off.

But once the funeral is over and life returns to its day to day rhythm for others, Jane's work of grieving must begin, and I am going to make a very favourable comparison between Held by the Sea and Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking Joan grieved in a city whilst Jane mourns with the sea constantly in her sights.
This is the sea that has always been the provider in her life with Nick. It has a permanence and a predictability with its tides whilst creating an ever-changing landscape on the beach, but the sea also provides much more. Like Jane's grief it is unstoppable yet somehow it anchors her as she remembers happy times with Nick, fishing and catching lobsters, exploring the coastal caves and swimming, There is solace and comfort here, a living organic connection with a shared past, a stability in the face of overwhelming sorrow and sadness. And then there's the wrecking, that shared love of what the rest of us might call beachcombing, but which to Nick and Jane is much more serious and in the blood..

'I stride out, waterproofs flapping. Delicately pick along a strand line for tiny seeds from the other side of the Atlantic...there are always surprises that can't be missed...'

The chance arrival of some bounty, a cargo of cedar wood floats ashore and provides them with a ceiling and staircase, there is the huge collection of lobster pot tags traced back to the fisherman off the coast of Maine, USA.

Jane finds her own level in this new and unasked for world and adopts her own coping strategies.  The regular support of her GP proves essential, as does music, exercise, being out and close to the natural world, making lists, crying, and those listening friends, the ones who I regularly suggest to those who are bereaved are like gold dust if you have them. People who will be there and listen unconditionally and not judge or tell someone how to grieve... and again I am reminded of that really lovely book I shared my thoughts on here a few years ago, Don't Let Them Tell You How to Grieve by Gina Claye. And if you think all this has the potential to be a little mawkish, rest assured this is a beautifully written and perfectly constructed book offering just the right combination of details about illness interspersed with past memories and present insights that offer a really holistic and balanced account of what it means to lose someone you love.

Jane also identified for me some common denominators of mourning... the times of year where just the light and the smells can bring back the memories, the Christmas toast to 'absent friends', we have one of those moments too, the fact that a great deal of the anguish of grief is about the fear of the unknown and that after a full year a person knows perhaps a little more clearly what to expect. 

But still that excruciating sense of loss...

'This hole in my world caused me physical pain, a contraction in my chest, or in my stomach, like I'd been scooped out just below my ribs, I put my hands there to hold myself together.'

Anyone who knows the beaches of North Cornwall will know that they are possessed of a special kind of light, well-recognised by the Newlyn artists, difficult to describe but unforgettable once you have experienced it, and somehow I sensed that 'light' reflected in the pages of Held by the Sea. There is grace here along with that life-saving glimmer of hope for anyone feeling that pain of loss, perhaps sometimes it's about knowing that you are not alone.

 

 

Jane Darke will be speaking about Held by the Sea at the du Maurier literary festival on Monday 16th May at 11.45am.

Pictures courtesy of Phil Harding who very graciously gives permission for use of his photographs in return for acknowledgement.

 

 

 

 

and another thing...

Congratulations to Elizabeth Speller whose book The Return of Captain John Emmett was named as one of the Richard and Judy Summer reads today. Given that it's been very top secrethushhush etc and what with the Bring Me Sunshine/ Royal Wedding thing, I'm a bit worried I may be going all telepathic.

Also on the list another dovegreyreader favourite, Natasha Solomons,with her latest book The Novel in the Viola,  Mr Rosenblum's List one of last year's lovely reads and a much deserved reward for Natasha who worked tirelessly to find Mr Rosenblum his audience.

Congratulations to everyone else listed too, a great selection of titles.

 

 

We're on our way to the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival...

Well not us exactly, but there will be some long-distance literary festival coverage on here eventually because, having been tasked with discovering literary New Zealand, Offspringette has not been slacking. Today picking up the dovegreyreader press pass and heading to the Auckland Writer's & Readers Festival on our behalf, and thanks to author Deborah Burnside who invited her along for the ride and is providing a roof (probably with walls and a door)

I'm almost very excited at what I'll be missing and knowing that Offspringette will be experiencing it instead, if that makes sense.

 

Vintage thinking...

Lots of well-deserved plaudits around the blogosphere for the Vintage Classics Day held at Foyles in London last Saturday, so there must have been lots of bloggers in the room and I only managed to catch up properly with Kimbofo which could mean I really am way out of the blogosphere literary loop these days. And whilst I was doing that Bookhound was out and about doing cultural London and making friends with stray cats in Covent Garden... this one quite mistook him for 'that bloke out of Abba' and they did a little rendition of Money, Money.

I don't have the time or the inclination to get navel-gazey or uber-analytical about blogging, nor am I prone to blog-introspection or stats-anxiety. Feeling detached isn't about being haughty either (it has been suggested) it's about time (not enough) and distance (too far) and the day job (too busy) I suppose, but writing this is as normal as eating porridge (practice nurse please note) for breakfast in my life, ploughing my own furrow down here in Devon and more importantly than anything else, carrying on loving the reading.

It was good to meet up for tea and cake (practice nurse please ignore) with the Vintage team the day before and talk through some books that I am really looking forward to later this year especially Bird Brain by Guy Kennaway, man gets shot and is reincarnated as pheasant with added bonus of more brain than the average game fowl... what's not to love for this hunting, shooting, gamekeeper's household. We also talked around the ethos of reading for pleasure that still pervades chez dovegrey and always will. Sorry still no plans to waste time looking for what I don't like about a book when writing about what I do makes me want to sing, and for that be thankful there is no 'sound' on here. I sometimes close a book and realise that I just can't wait to write about it once my thinking week is up.

So apart from the pure pleasure of some literary talk in Foyles and the aroma of freshly printed books wafting around, who'd have thought that one of the outcomes of the day would have me pondering why I am suddenly doing all this at this time in my life. It was something that Rose Tremain said as she talked about Eugenie Grandet, by Balzac, her choice of novel for the Orange Inheritance series, and as luck would have it, the only Balzac I have read, and also her most recent novel Trespass, which as more luck would have it, I have also read.

Rose Tremain talked with sincerity about that moment that may or may not happen in your life, when you properly come of age, perhaps in your fifties or early sixties when you suddenly see the shape of your life sufficiently well to be able to frame it and reframe it. Time to make assessments, transform, make reparations, value what you have, change directions, perhaps do those things you always meant to have done, and most of me had a very hard job to stop the rest of me leaping to my feet and declaring to the affirmative that I knew and had experienced my own version of that very self-same moment.

I probably should have just knuckled down and written a novel five years ago when it happened and then spent the last five years trying to get it published before shoving it in the loft for the mice, but that takes a certain confidence in your own abilities which I didn't possess, and though we have the mice I started dovegreyreader scribbles instead, sensing that I had suddenly had more pieces of the lifetime of reading and experience jigsaw in place than ever before. Asked why she wrote, Rose Tremain replied that despite knowing that it may be an honourable but doomed profession to embark on, she would be insane if she couldn't write and perhaps writing is also a way of living life twice over.

A little later in the day Sebastian Faulks recounted his arrival at the 50th birthday and the sudden realisation that is was time to play a few shots, to worry less about the snark and just get on with it all. He also made a very sobering observation, that in twenty years it may not be possible for people to make a living solely out of writing, adding that no one has a God-given right to make a living from writing books.

I suddenly realised that I'd go barking (more so than usual) if I couldn't come here and write too, and though that may not make me a 'writer' in the true sense of published author, it feels like enough of one to be going on with...30,000 words a month has to be called something. Blogging gives those of us who have always wanted to write, but never entertained the idea of being paid for it, the platform to do that, and with the added bonus of that immediacy and instant two-way dialogue with all of you. The process still comes in for an awful lot of flack and criticism with added sniping, along with accusations of social inadequacy and a friendless lives etc but most of us are certainly moving in the real world too, so no pretensions or delusions of grandeur (I have children who make that an impossibility) and I'll keep the day job too, because I have a funny feeling the two are mutually compatible, if not essential in maintaining that balance and informing each other.

So my thanks again to Vintage for the day and Rose Tremain for that insight, and if you are coming to the du Maurier literary festival in Fowey, and perhaps stopping by at my event there...dovegreyreader in conversation on Friday May 20th at 2.15pm, perhaps we can talk some more about it all there.

 

 

and the winners are...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

29  Katie
35  Ann P
78  Sarah C
22  Ceri
69  EB
15  Pia C

Timestamp: 2011-05-09 21:41:38 UTC

Congratulations to the six winners of a copy of Elizabeth Speller's The Return of Captain John Emmett, Tess not overly involved in the process it has to be said, but if you could send your addresses to me at dovegreyreader at gmail.com a nice book will plop through your letterbox eventually.

Team Tolstoy - Troika Stop Seven

'A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win...'

I feel as if I've been dragged through a battlefield backwards this month and consider myself lucky to have emerged the other side of the Battle of Borodino relatively unscathed, not least because this was Team Tolstoy's longest month of reading so far and, if I'm honest the thing seemed to be scuffing its heels a bit in getting to the action... I'm wondering how everyone else has fared?

If ever I needed determination to win and stay on the troika it was this month, lots of other great reads in progress and initially finding myself longing for Tolstoy's drawing rooms rather than all this plein air stuff. Fearing that I may run out of steam and having tackled this in dribs and drabs, I took myself off to a quiet corner one afternoon to launch a major assault on Volume III. Settling down at 2.30pm I emerged at 6pm, ragged and a couple of naps later thinking well that was a-m-azing. I sometimes think, if I had time I'd probably enjoy going back to the beginning of each month's section and reading it again, once doesn't ever seem enough for War and Peace, subsequent readings seem likely to reveal even more.

But here we are about to enter the theatre of war and the Russians don't seem in the least bit bothered, Alpatych and Ferapontov sipping tea and discussing the price of corn, the crops and the weather whilst Napoloen is making his way steadily in the direction of Smolensk. Meanwhile in Moscow salon life remains unchanged as Anna Pavlovna and Helene maintain their respective gatherings, where the only challenge seems to be deciding which side you are batting for before you hit a six and drop a clanger... and then as quickly being able to swap to bowling when the winds of power change direction.

Tolstoy exercises his phD in hindsight to the limits as he explores the preamble and the aftermath of Napoleon's invasion whilst I was also unsurprised to see him weaving in a little peasant uprising among the fearless serfs who literally had nothing to lose, and how he cleverly demonstrates that the seeds of future discontent are being sown.

Poor Maria has to cope with the death of her father Prince Bolkonsky...lots to talk about there, including Nikolai to the rescue and love is in definitely in the air, and of course we think there may be more bad news on the way though nothing is certain about brother Andrei's fate at the end of this month's section is it? I doubt he'll survive with half his stomach hanging out so we may have more sadness to come for Maria. The Maude footnotes inform me that canon law prohibited marriage between brothers and sisters-in-law so had Andrei married Natasha, that would have prevented Nikolai from marrying Maria, hmm, but then there's Sonia...

I was quite relieved to see Pierre when he finally arrived and bless him, wandering around the night before the battle thinking he'd watch it from a quite little vantage point but bumbling into the epicentre of the battle zone.

The art of war seemed more like the farce of war, this is primitive and chaotic and Tolstoy seemed to give free rein to his disgust at the planning and preparations. I'm not sure I had ever given much thought to the idea that a battlefield site was chosen beforehand, I suspect I had thought the battle just took place where the two advancing sides happened to bump into each other, whether that be Culloden or Borodino, so the premeditation about a suitable place to slaughter each other came as quite a surprise.

Andrei's stirring pre-battle outburst felt a bit Henry IVth in reverse, rather than rousing the troops to battle he seemed to be reflecting on the folly of it all, brilliant writing ...

War is not being nice to each other, it's the vilest thing in human life and we ought to understand that and not play at war. It's a terrible necessity and we should be strict about it and take it seriously...it's not a plaything...the aim of war is murder, the weapons of war are spying and treachery...the destruction of people, looting their property...

and so it goes on, as plainly, through Andrei, Tolstoy mediates all his anger and despair about war.

Never forgetting that Tolstoyian nod to humour either, and what is Napoleon doing on the morning of the battle?

'The Emperor Napoloen was still in his bedroom, finishing his toilet. With much snorting and harrumphing he twisted this way and that, offering first his fat back and his flabby hairy chest to the flesh-brush wielded by a valet who was rubbing him down.'

So the biggest military engagement of his career, Russia in his grasp and Napoleon is exfoliating.

The man deserves to lose and when he eventually does...well it's more of an impasse, the Russians hold firm against all the odds and doubtless because they were 'absolutely determined to win' whilst the French, routed and depleted can only retreat. But for all his nicely buffed up exterior even I felt a pang of sympathy for the Emperor's complete humiliation as the scale of the defeat and the loss of life became apparent to him, though Tolstoy spares no mercy in his scathing assessment of Napoloen.

And then there's the episode of Anatole's leg,and we have little idea how complete Andrei's gastro-intestinal system may be so grief and tears to come next month I suspect.

So yet again a complete turn around...it happens every time, I head to the pages just a little reluctantly and emerge enthused as Tolstoy seems so capable of getting inside the head of any character he chooses buy had it not been for Team Tolstoy I may just have surrendered and missed yet more superlative writing. I'm not sure how many of us are still in the fight but we're definitely on the home run now with just four months out of twelve to go so how are you all doing... I hope you have survived the battle though we've yet to win the war and turn the final page of course.

 

Back here on June 9th to discuss :: Volume III Part 3 Chs 1-34 (about 120 pages) and beginning,
' For the human mind absolute continuity of motion is inconceivable...'

 

 

Catching up...

Just back in the door after a fantabulous weekend in London, warm coat-less weather and many thanks to Random House and especially the Vintage Classics team for the invitation to the Vintage Classics day at Foyles on Saturday. I don't need much encouragement to go and sit in Foyles for a day and listen to the likes of Rose Tremain, Lionel Shriver and Sebastian Faulks talking about books (Lionel about Revolutionary Road ) and writing, so much more about the events soon, especially Rose Tremain who made some very insightful observations about life and getting (a little) older which really rang true for me.

Bookhound came along to carry my extensive amount of luggage, and did galleries and bookshops while I imbibed a welcome dose of literary-ness and inhaled the scent of books, and we were also able to drink in London on foot together too, staying as we were just ten minutes walk from Westminster Abbey and but a few minutes from Tate Britain. In London by happenstance for the one Friday a month that the gallery is open until 10pm.

Last time I went to Tate Britain everything I wanted to see was in storage so a relief this visit to find a room housing the gems of the collection ready and waiting for our perusal, just something about seeing the real thing isn't there.

And Bookhound decided that this family...

would welcome an addition...

and accepted the blessing of the Father's hand with good grace.

And we went to the theatre too, much more about Flare Path the 1941 Terence Rattigan play starring Sienna Miller to follow, but I'll tell you that the play completely lived up to the 5* reviews it is getting at the moment, we loved it and my thanks to the Westend Whingers for the very last-minute recommend.

OK brace everyone, it's almost Team Tolstoy time.

 

 

Giffords Circus do...

.. well what are Giffords Circus doing??

OH OH OH....You'll never guess...

War & Peace at the Circus!!!

and my thanks to Chino Odimba for writing to tell me about it. The circus will be touring the South West around Gloucester this summer which has to be a little excursion for Bookhound and I, and perhaps you'll catch it near you too.

So with the Team Tolstoy troika stopping over on here tomorrow I thought the circus coming to town would be just the thing to get us in the mood for our Battle of Borodino discussions. I hope you've all emerged unscathed...

The circus has always been associated with romance, but now Giffords Circus will be bringing an epic sweep to their romantic inclinations with new show, “War and Peace at The Circus”, inspired by Tolstoy's classic Russian novel, which has been exquisitely re-imagined for a family audience.

World-renowned acrobats, musicians, jugglers, dancers, learned geese, tumbling pigeons, clowns and runaways will roll out as part of the new show on 19th May 2011.

There will be new costumes, new choreography, new artistes, and an original score. Star acts include a welcome return for: “the brilliant Tweedy, a circus clown and true genius” (Sunday Telegraph); Ethiopian juggling sensations Bibi and Bichu; and some brand new acts;  aerial ribbon stunts from Natalia Demjen, who plays the violin all the while with acrobatic elan; the Pavlov Troupe,  Russian gymnasts who defy physics; and, from the famous Moulin Rouge, the handstand tap duo Pat Bradford and Kate Smythe.

The show is produced by Nell and Toti Gifford, written and directed by the versatile Russian director Irina Brown whose previous work includes War and Peace at the Scottish Opera. It features music by composer Sarah Llewellyn and lyrics by the prolific lyricist - and star of Kit and the Widow - Kit Hesketh Harvey. The critically acclaimed Fleur Darkin is the show's choreographer.

‘War and Peace at the Circus’ is another opportunity for Giffords Circus to show off their brilliant and critically acclaimed theatricality and seductive, glamorous take on the traditional village green circus.

As with every tour, Giffords Circus will travel across much the South West with the show, bringing families and communities together to share in this magical circus experience. The tour will start on Thursday 19th May 2011 in Gloucester, travelling through Hay Festival, Cheltenham, Broadway, Tackley, Stadhampton, Lechlade, Barrington, Frampton-on-Severn, Minchinhampton, Marlborough; and ends in Cirencester’s Stratton Meadows on Sunday 11th September 2011.

Giffords Circus was created in 2000 by Nell and Toti Gifford. Their intention was to create a small traditional circus company that would bring the magic of circus back to British audiences. Since then the pair have been touring with a troupe of performance artists, musicians, horses and traditional home-made wagons producing unique circus shows loved by all the family, young and old.

Giffords Circus is now recognised as an “absolutely essential British summer experience”. In October 2010, Nell won the inaugural Groucho Club Maverick Award for her “contemporary and visionary” approach to circus performance.

An acrobatic violinist, a handstand tap duo, juggling and gymnasts... I can't wait it's going to be amazing, take a look at the website and click on links, bless our Tolstoy, what on earth would he have made of it all.

 

April walking...

Has anyone, apart from the genuinely genetically Nordic among you who probably do it without even trying, tried this Nordic walking thing??

    Invented in the 1930s to help the skiers keep fit when there was no snow, and after a couple of weeks walking respite nursing a bit of a flimsy back and rubbish knees I am back out and about but with some walking aids in the shape of two long walking poles, which I'm calling Nordic though they are not the proper job. I had seen a Nordic walking course advertised locally so I looked it up and decided that perhaps I could avoid the Nordic bit but make sensible use of the poles which apparently take the strain off the knees, tone the bingo wings and generally seem like an all round good idea.

    I dug out the old extendable Brasher walking poles circa Swiss Alpine excursion 2002, and legendary for being borrowed for a photoshoot by a group of Japanese tourists at the top of the Jungfrau. Bookhound and I looking the part for a bit of snowy high-altitude mountain-top walking in July, whilst the scantily-clad tourists had dashed outside for a photo and asked to borrow the poles so it would look as if they were really meant to be doing something serious, when in fact they'd been sitting in the cafe writing postcards. Of course we obliged and took the photos for them too.

    Anyway, I thought these would do, except they wouldn't because the tightening washers have split and the poles kept collapsing at unexpected moments. So spotting a pair of Craghopper poles reduced from £60 to £12 seemed like a good enough bargain and I'm up and away with the whole thing now. It is a bit like that sensation you have when you swim with flippers on and think you'd probably be able to cross the channel in about half an hour, and I fair flew around one of my uphill-down-valley routes recently and couldn't quite believe the difference. Instead of putting my back into the uphill slog this is all about the arms assisting, and though I don't think I've got the Nordic technique right at all, with the poles adjusted to the right height, I'm happy enough with my version.

    Trekking through a 'new-to-me-this-winter' wood that looked a bit sparse a few weeks ago, it's obvious that if I go back now it's going to be a sea of bluebells, and moments after I took this picture a fox ran in front of me, stopped and stared and darted off again. Justification for the pang of guilt I always feel at not taking a dog with me, setting off from home with those big eyes watching me as I walk past the kennel, but knowing I would see nothing with a dog snuffling up ahead of me.


Could it be two cold winters are making some flowers more prolific this spring? We've certainly never seen quite such a profusion of Devon violets in the hedgerows and I'll be back to capture those bluebells soon.

I'm always a little nervous about traversing fields of cows, because you do hear of people being trampled (even though the Gamekeeper tells me I must just stand my ground and not run) so I was a little daunted to find a route now considered my own personal walking territory, and one that's been uninhabited all winter, now has residents.

    This is all public footpath so I have to cross that little footbridge over the stream, skirt the lower left boundary of this field, try not to fall into that vast and very deep badger sett on the way up and hop over a stile into the woodland just around that bend which then takes me onto the Gamekeeper's estate and I just hope he's not out shooting pigeons and hits this dove by mistake...no he wouldn't, he's very careful and I do check first.

    Spotting signs that this was a dairy herd, I was encouraged and worked on the principle that they go nowhere fast and even I could go faster if needs be. Plus I'll be going nowhere this summer if I don't pluck up the courage to go through the stock occasionally. If I'm honest, far worse-a prospect was turning round and walking home up the incredibly steep wooded hill I'd just come down, the way ahead is still about four miles from home but gentler.

As you can see, 'not bothered' was the order of the day and I hopped over the stile feeling quite relieved.

Along the way a wild flower that I hadn't seen around here before and now diagnosed as a Wood Anemone, I think, but I'll await your confirmation.

 

Faber Museums @ Night competition...

More bounty because it's time for that annual opportunity to win yourself a visit to the Faber archive in the basement of their plush London offices in Bloomsbury as part of their Museums At Night competition. Last year's event a great success and I'm mentioning it again this year because you have just a couple of days left to enter the competition (closing date Sunday May 8th) and score a chance of winning one of those five places.

I can't recommend the Faber archive experience highly enough, Bookhound and I have both spent some time there (right next to the British Museum)... me to furtively stroke the Ted Hughes books, Bookhound to talk much more sensibly about all things archival with Faber archivist, Robert Brown, but I can report that the sight of all those familiar cover designs is manna to the book-lover's soul.

The evening itself will be next Friday May 13th at 6.30pm and will include a poetry reading by Jo Shapcott, winner of this year's Costa Prize for her collection Of Mutability.... oh you very lucky winners.

I have been reading Of Mutability through this year as part of my endeavour to keep poetry high on my list of reading priorities and will write much more about it eventually. The trouble (if you could call it that) with reading and then writing about a poetry collection on here is the time it takes to finish one, especially if firstly and foremost I am to enjoy it, and then to do it justice with slow and repeated readings before gathering some thoughts about it...

'By turns grave and playful, arresting and witty, the poems in Of Mutability celebrate each waking moment as though it might be the last, and in so doing restore wonder to the smallest of encounters.'

I can't think of a better reason to read poetry can you, and here Jo Shapcott tells at a slant her own encounter and journey through a serious illness. At a slant because that illness is only ever hinted at, never quite mentioned yet still somehow an ever-present shadow that sometimes must be faced, at other times deflected...

'Look down these days to see your feet
mistrust the pavement and your blood tests
turn the doctor's expression grave.

Look up to catch eclipses, gold leaf, comets,
angels, chandeliers, out of the corner of your eye,
join them if you like, learn astrophysics, or
learn folksong, human sacrifice, mortality...'

A thing of beauty this collection, so good luck all who enter and here's the entry form, if you win you are in for a jolly Faber-sized treat you lucky things.

 

 

The Return of Captain John Emmett ~ Elizabeth Speller

Casting around for suitable book-snapping locations I remembered one of old Rocky's favoured summer's evening perches...


In fact he needed much assistance to assume what we fondly called his Olga Korbut beam pose in his latter years and would sit on the gate like a lemon until someone came to lift him off. So in the absence of our old chum I perched my current reading there instead.


I have had The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller on the shelf for over a year and when the sequel The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton arrived and then, realising I may be able to catch Elizabeth Speller talking at this year's du Maurier festival, it was high time to get cracking.

You may also see the proof copy of the forthcoming biography of Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis perched there too... keep your eyes peeled on here next week because I have a very exciting and interesting proposal to put to you about that one.

As alluded to on Monday with reference to Antony Quinn's novel Half of the Human Race, I can only imagine that it must be increasingly difficult to wring much more original fiction from the Great War. Yet still the books keep arriving and still I never tire of the subject, though perhaps the more I read the harder it becomes to impress me, and that may be why I left The Return of Captain John Emmett unread for so long. I wasn't sure this was going to be any different but my mistake and how delighted I am to have been proved wrong so if you are in search of a really good read, want some smooth-flowing writing and a book that looks as if it will be part of a series, you might want to add this one to the list.

The book opens in 1920 with the arrival in the UK, and the train journey from Dover to London, of the coffin bearing the body of the Unknown Warrior to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey... a tomb so much in evidence at last week's Royal Wedding. Looking on as the train passes is war veteran Laurence Bartram, and intentionally or otherwise, a clever choice of name from Elizabeth Speller, because I doubt I'm the only reader who will be subliminally reminded of war poet Laurence Binyon and his poem For the Fallen..

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Powerful ready-to-think associations.
Laurence's wife and child have died whilst he was away fighting in the trenches and he is now living in a little flat in Gt Ormond Street, leading a lonely, rather melancholy and slightly directionless life as a writer of a book he never seems likely to complete, and with the occasional distraction of the companionship of old schoolfriend and fellow war veteran Charles Carfax

'to whom nothing need be explained.'

It is a letter from Mary, the sister of an old friend, John Emmett, that starts the trail of discovery as Mary recounts John's recent suicide despite surviving the war. Desperate for more details about the brother she has lost, Mary and Laurence meet and it is quickly apparent that events surrounding John's death whilst an in-patient in a nursing home may not be as they seem. What follows rightly lived up to the blurb as a 'gripping mystery and an elegy to the private tragedies of the Great War' as John and friend Charles, in a sort of loosely Holmes and Watson-like pairing, start some sleuthing, uncovering traumatic wartime events surrounding the execution of an officer all leading to feuds and vendettas, as well as the work of a group of wartime poets who have all published under pseudonyms for fear of accusations of treason.

Some of the facts that Elizabeth Speller weaves in were quite startling. For example it had never really occurred to me that the grandfathers of many of those young lads in the trenches would have been veterans of the Crimean and Boer wars. Nor had I realised that of the 340 or more British soliders shot for cowardice or desertion only three were officers, whilst the German army shot less than fifty of their own troops. Incorporating the tragically botched execution of one of those officers into the story and the subsequent distress it caused those involved exemplified yet another new perspective on the Great War for me.

But it was not only those new perspectives that hit the mark because the re-working of the classic themes that emerge in much Great War writing work anew here too and this despite their familiarity. Not least the disparity of justice dependent on social class and those very class inequalities that this war took a good hard swipe at. These in tandem with the deeply traumatizing events, not dwelt on mawkishly by Elizabeth Speller yet evident and ever-present, as were the long term personal sequelae of this war.

There was a revelatory moment too, about the corruption of innocence, the blight and tainted memory that marked all who had knowledge of those traumas and how much of the post-war silence of the veterans was about preserving and protecting the 'innocence' of their families and friends. I'm sure many of you will have had family members like ours... Bookhound's grandfather lived to be over a hundred and yet never spoke another word about the Battle of the Somme which he had fought in with the West Kents.

How much misunderstanding and anguish that silence must have caused in those post-war years can only be imagined, again I hadn't really thought much about it, but Elizabeth Speller illuminates it all in a conversation between Mary and Laurence, as they discuss the gaps and silences between men and women...

'But the price is that you'll always be alone...and a whole generation of women are excluded. Redundant. Irrelevant...perhaps Mrs Byers has lots of things she'd like to tell him. Of fear and loneliness and never knowing who was coming back or in what shape. Sitting. Waiting. Perhaps you should ask us whether we'd like to know. We're women not children.'

The true heartbreak, and the consequences of so much of what with hindsight we now know was a great deal of misunderstanding about the impact of war on the men who fought it, all plays out in the final pages of this very enjoyable read. All enough to send me ferreting to find out what else Elizabeth Speller may have written and I discover a memoir The Sunlight on the Garden, just my sort of read, more about that soon.

Now, since our old prize draw cat has made an appearance today scroll down for gifts.

 

 

 

Prize draw copies of The Return of Captain John Emmett ~ Elizabeth Speller

No prize draw at dovegreyreader complete without a picture of a cat, here's Tess, Rocky's very meek and gentle sister, also sixteen and his complete opposite in every way, and you may recall the one that got me into very deep water at the vets that time...

So having thoroughly enjoyed The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller, Virago have kindly agreed to send a copy to six lucky winners worldwide. Names in comments below if you think you might enjoy this one and we'll do the random number thing and announce winners after the weekend.

Ink-wellness...

I don't think we've had a pen, ink and paper conversation for ages so it's time, and it was a panic message from Offspringette that forced me to visit one of my favourite websites and look at ink. Not a Lamy pen cartridge to be had in New Zealand apparently and with stocks running low things were getting serious.

We are Lami Safari girls and proud of it, Offspringette has the special edition lime and orange ones, I have bog standard royal blue and red (one is never enough) and a Lamy Al-Star which sadly doesn't feel nearly as warm and comfortable in my hand as the £13 Safari.. and as I add that link I see the special edition for 2011 is a beautiful shade of Aquamarine, one now seems to be on its way to Devon to join my little flock.

Offspringette and I both use the pens constantly, mine are faithful friends with their 1.1 italic nibs and along with my Moleskine Ruled Reporter Notebook now veterans of several seasons of litfest note taking. They don't leak, they are as smooth as butter to write with and somehow the width of the barrel allows you to hold the pen in a very relaxed fashion which averts cramp... because I don't know about you but I type so much these days I could forget how to write if I didn't bother and then have to remember to do it.

I don't really need any excuse to drool over a page of inks either especially when splattered with words like 'Anniversary' and 'Eternal' and 'Special Reserve' which makes this selection seem good enough to drink, so I ordered the requisite to be sent direct to New Zealand and that was the Easter gift for Offspringette sorted, and much better for her than chocolate we both agreed. Then I lingered covetously over the page wondering whether my life would remain incomplete until I had a bottle of Herbin scented or Monteverdi or Caran D'Ache...or what about that Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink, I mean 1670 was probably a vintage year, surely I needed one of those. I don't recall buying a bottle of ink for ages, it was about time....look, I'm nearly running out.

In the end I cast my eyes around knowing full well that I have more ink than I can possibly use in several lifetimes so I moved across to the paper department because you can never have enough of that either. I do write old-fashioned letters to one or two of you (and you very kindly write back) and one of the features of Offspringette's year away is to be the lost art of letter-writing between us which we plan to recapture and improve upon.

I have hunted high and wide for some decent airmail paper, something nicer than the old Basildon Bond and to no avail. I wonder if it's out of fashion, if not verging on extinction given the inexorable rise of the e mail?

I used to have some wonderful onion skin paper (I think) but haven't been able to source any at all. In the end I have settled for some ClaireFontaine Triomphe with matching tissue-lined envelopes because if there's one thing I'm a bit partial to it's a tissue-lined envelope, this paper beautifully silky smooth to write on and probably costs twice as much to post.

I've held off a new notebook but it won't be long.

Now if there's one thing I know for sure about all this, it's not just me...

 

Revolutionary Road ~ Richard Yates

I knew I could rely on all of you, thank you for all the suffragette reading suggestions yesterday, and thank you too for ensuring that I picked up Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates after that Orange Inheritance/Vintage Classics post a few weeks ago. Quite coincidentally someone had chosen it as their 1950s theme read for last month's Endsleigh Salon and advocated for the book with a passion, so powerful messages coming from all directions that here was a book not to miss.

What I can't quite understand is how I've missed it this far along and why haven't I really heard much about or read anything by Richard Yates??

The Orange Inheritance edition has an eye-opening introduction from Lionel Shriver who chose this book for the series as a book to pass on to the next generation, and given a 'gasp' moment in Revolutionary Road that almost matches her own in We Need to Talk About Kevin, it all seems like an apposite choice.

What follows is a brilliant evocation of post-war America through the lives of 'It' couple, Connecticut-based Frank and April Wheeler and their two children. Frank is commuting daily to a mundane office job in New York which he'd do with his eyes shut if he did it at all, as it is he goes through the motions but does very little, whilst April is the archetypal stay-at-home mum. But this is the superior couple, with delusions of being grander than their contemporaries and when April suggests that she and Frank and the children up-sticks and move to France this seems like the ultimate in sophisticated gestures. The plan is a thoroughly modern one for the times, April will work and support the family whilst Frank can have some downtime to 'discover' himself 

Coming from two entirely different backgrounds and childhoods April and Frank bring very different qualities to their marriage and their parenting. Frank secure but repressed, April from a broken home and a disjointed childhood, insecure and with very few anchors to hold her on a steady course. With little resilience, April is a boat very easily rocked and sadly Frank, so wrapped up in his own ego, only too capable of doing so. Meanwhile the children remain shadowy, like all good children of the 1950s largely seen and not heard unless it is within the arc of their parents' displeasure.

By suggesting it as a destination for his couple Richard Yates is making the ultimate statement that mainland Europe is still where it's all at, seeming in many ways to be buying into that sense of Parisian exclusivity so redolent of the times. In spite of the war, Paris still has that bohemian and Hemingway-esque feel about it, whilst post-war rural Connecticut feels as staid and predictable as rural Devon probably was, whilst New York seems as mundane as ...as... well let's say Slough and see if anyone out there wants to defend Slough against such a scurrilous suggestion. Settled though discontent lives will be thrown into many degrees of turmoil, and life will become even more turbulent before the final page and that's that on plot because there is too much to give away here. 

Into the narrative Richard Yates places a series of supporting characters who provide the warp and weft of the book. The friends, Shep and Milly Campbell, conservative and predictable, the perfect foil for the Wheelers to play out their need to be different, and then the neighbours, Mr and Mrs Givings and their son John. John an in-patient in a local psychiatric facility and a regular visitor to the Wheeler's home when he is allowed out on day visits. And here Richard Yates explores the very essence of sanity... figuring out who is sane and who is not and who has the right to decide kept me very well-exercised as I read, John is the antagonist, the truth-teller, uninhibited by custom or politeness and to Frank and April's acute discomfort, capable of seeing through the opaqueness of surface layers to the clarity of what lies beneath and unafraid of saying the unsayable.

This seems on the surface like a post-war America in complete contrast to a post-war Britain yet on reflection I'm not so sure the distinction is that evident. Britain bruised and battered by the war, America perhaps less so for not having suffered any mainland damage, an untouchable nation brimming with confidence and ambition and ready for risk which all allowed me ponder simplistically about the two opposing effects of post-war life.

Does it make you risk-averse, as perhaps here in Britain, where most people felt lucky to have survived the Blitz, making them less likely to do anything to jeopardise their future safety and security. Conversely in America was the need to take risks more prevalent, along the lines of well we survived that we can survive anything life throws at us so let's go out there and find it??

For me the joy of the read was not knowing how this was going to pan out. Would April and Frank go to Europe or wouldn't they?
If they did how would they fare?
If they didn't how would they fare?
Many of you will know what happens but for the handful that don't best prepare yourselves for one of the saddest endings a book could possibly hold.

I must be the only person on the planet who hasn't watched the film of Revolutionary Road, and though I gather it is entirely faithful to the book I'm not sure I want to see it at the moment. For now the book feels entirely fulfilled unto itself in my imagination and in no need of any visual assistance... a really superb read and as to reading more Richard Yates... I'll await your suggestions again.

 

 

Half of the Human Race ~ Anthony Quinn

Yet another Bank Holiday, but I'll be working so it won't seem like one and after all the wedding kerfuffle time to get back to books I think. If you look over here >>>> there's a side bar entitled 'Thinking and writing, on here soon' listing the queue of books which are now waiting to make an appearance and the list is getting longer.

I had to set aside Half of the Human Race by Anthony Quinn to re-read Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of the World Book Night reads for Radio 4's A Good Read, and in the process overcome what felt like a paradigm cultural shift from England in turmoil at the start of the twentieth century to Nigeria in turmoil some sixty years later. Except in the end, perhaps the shift wasn't quite so seismic because Anthony Quinn and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are still both dealing with the frailties and the dissents of humankind. Flipped from one zeitgeist to another through the pages of a book and I will admit I was loath to put Half of the Human Race down for several reasons; not least because I was enjoying it so much at the time, but also because I wasn't sure if that enjoyment might be short-lived, and when I came back to it what if the book had somehow lost its momentum with a heavy dose of African civil war inbetween.

This often happens, I start a book which I am loving, get unavoidably diverted elsewhere and when I return I just can't see what I had loved in it at all. I can't recall the characters or why I was bothered about them, I've lost the details of the plot, who is married to who, who's killed who, the enthusiasm has gone and so often can't be recaptured and I kick myself. To add to the potential confusion I had four books on the go at the time with female leads called either Connie (this book and Lasting Damage by Sophie Hannah) or Cora ( The London Train by Tessa Hadley and My Last Duchess by Daisy Goodwin) so it could all have gone horribly wrong.

To up the anti Half of the Human Race is also 350 pages of closely spaced typeface that, with the more usual fiction spacing I notice these days, could easily have been stretched to a 500 pager by the publisher... and I can't decide whether that would have been for the better or for the worse, but these 350 pages, even with the break, have taken me several weeks to read.

In the end I did eventually pick the book up again and can tell you that it copes admirably with being forced into a book of two halves because I was very quickly back into the Edwardian world of Connie Callaway, a free-thinking, cigarette-smoking young woman from a middle-class London family whose intentions to train as a surgeon have been thwarted by the unexpected death of her father. Suddenly the prosperous family must downsize in order to be able to afford to send the only son to university, whilst Connie must surrender her ambitions and settle for a job in a bookshop. This all sufficient to light the blue touch paper in Connie's soul, and for those around her to take cover as she takes her disaffections to the suffragist movement and has to decide quite how far she is prepared to rebel for the cause.

But the world chosen as a counterpoint to all this is an unlikely one because Anthony Quinn sets Connie's world against the rather louch and leisurely, male-orientated world of cricket, and for all its chauvinist leanings Connie is a huge cricket fan and very knowledgeable about it all too. Any woman who had a good grasp of silly mid on in 1911 must have been considered different and unusual, and perhaps it was this that helped stamp Connie's character so indelibly in my mind.

Cricket, that genteel world, the bastion of fair play, keeping to the rules and gentlemanly conduct and of course there is bound to be a beau or two hovering around the stumps or lurking in the pavilion and Anthony Quinn dutifully provides them with the well-to-do but with-a-lot-to-learn Will Maitland, and his batting partner the legendary test batsman Andrew Tamberlain, "The Great Tam".

Any book that reaches 1914 and still has a hundred pages of close-set type to go is hardly going to avoid the Great War and whilst Connie's values and principles have been fired in the crucible of female suffrage, Will's have yet to be tested in the maelstrom of the trenches, whilst Tam's are to be severely tested in other ways. It was at this point that I again thought I might lose interest because if I'm honest it was Connie's story that had gripped me the more and, though the direction of the plot is clearly telegraphed, Antony Quinn does save the day with some slightly different and interesting times for both Will and Tam which in the end didn't spoil my enjoyment of a cracking good story.

Anthony Quinn illustrates well myriad social forces at work, the turmoil of the age and in the end, with the suffrage cause in abeyance at the onset of war, perhaps the blunt reality that for all the efforts of the suffragettes it was ultimately man's folly against man coupled with the capability shown by women to step up to the plate that won them the day and the vote.

Sometimes, these days, it's a blisteringly good old plot-driven, engrossing story that I want so I am very glad that this one held fast in the reading schedule and I will certainly now read Anthony Quinn's first novel The Rescue Man which had passed me by.

And now I'm trying to think of other novels that deal with female suffrage and not a single one comes to mind...surely there must be more? Help me out.