Such a beautiful read as Threads - The Delicate Life of John Craske, the latest book from Julia Blackburn, deserves nothing but the highest standards of presentation, and it is the quality of this book in my hand that stood out before I had even opened the first page. A weighty book suggesting good quality paper, and the dimensions that all Julia's books are published in, slightly squarer than the average with stitch-bound smooth matte pages that offer a photograph in the clearest possible form. Follow the links for my thoughts on The Three of Us and Thin Paths, excellent books to have, to hold and to read both, and these things do still matter and were duly noted because it all makes the book a pleasure to pick up and despite loving my Kindle I still need that feel of a treasure of a book in my hands.
Very few facts are known about the life of John Craske, a Norfolk fisherman born in 1881 who became seriously ill during the First World War and for the rest of his life (he died in 1943) fell in an out of what are described as stupours. Known to have diabetes there is still some uncertainty about the real cause of John Craske's stupours, but what becomes very clear is that he had an angel of a wife in Laura who cared for him for better and definitely for worse if not worst. The stupour that lasted three years would certainly have tested lesser saints. During the more lucid phases of his illness John Craske took up both painting and embroidery of the sea, boats and coastline and it is this work that forms the main focus of the book.
'The stitches are words on a page that cannot be read, the notations of a silent song...'
And Threads is a book that is as much about the back of those stitches as the front; the unseen and its intention to remain so often the more revealing.
I was taught needlework at school that was supposed to be as neat on the back as it was on the front which was all enough for me to rebel hopelessly ever thereafter...the reverse of anything I make would probably reveal a shocking story of knots, frayed edges, mis-pressed seams and heaven knows what.
But how to invest a seemingly ordinary life, about which so little is known, with sufficient interest to sustain the reader...
As I read I was thinking about the title. It takes the notion of threads and stretches it very cleverly along the entire length of its meaning, and so many occurred to me along the way...
a filament..
a group of filaments twisted together
a slender stream...
something continuous, drawn out...
a line of reasoning, a train of thought...
a tenuous or feeble support...
losing the thread...
hanging on to life by a thread...
It's almost impossible not to use every metaphor going...about weaving and stitching and patching lives together into a whole, because delicately spun into the pages of Threads are the strands of Julia Blackburn's own life as she is writing. This is biography with a difference, and it is a difference that works because with so little known of the original story invisible threads must be used...probably, maybe, unsure, impression...all words that Julia Blackburn uses to qualify before she imagines what may have been happening to John Craske, whilst knowing what is happening to Herman, the love of her own life.
'There is something so mysterious about life going on about its business on the other side of our sight under the surface of the sea. And then you pull it through the dividing line that separates one world from the other...'
Julia's husband Herman dies before the the book is finished adding another layer of meditation on the 'nature of time and the fact of mortality.' It became, for me, a deeply moving read not only because of circumstances this year but because I met Herman some years ago and will never forget it...
The world that also comes alive is that of Norfolk. Cromer, Sheringham, Blakeney (where I was supposed to be but couldn't be this spring, but have now visited vicariously) as Julia Blackburn follows all the tantalising loose ends in the hope they will lead her to more insights into John Craske's life. Julia meets someone who knew someone who knew the Craskes, tracks down old letters and documents and along the way picks up other threads...Einstein staying in Norfolk, the discovery of the latter-day charity Fine Cell Work to name but two as she explores the whole idea of men and needlework.
John Craske was less of a planner, more a sew-as-you-go man, often struggling to afford the materials he needed, and though largely unknown in his day Sylvia Townsend Warner and her partner Valentine Ackland were huge fans, bought some of his work and endeavoured to spread the word. Julia Blackburn has curated an exhibition of John Craske's work to coincide with the publication of Threads which is now about to move to the Aldeburgh Festival until June 28th, and I can only imagine, having read the book, really worth a visit...
This rare exhibition of his work has been co-curated by Aldeburgh Music and Norwich University of the Arts, and will show our own substantial collection alongside other pieces loaned from across the UK, including four recently discovered miniature paintings and his masterpiece, the tapestry The Evacuation of Dunkirk, on loan from Norfolk Museums Service. One patch of sky within this tapestry remained unfinished when Craske died in 1943. The display of this work falls on the 75th anniversary of the evacuation.
There aren't many books on my shelf that I know for sure I will read again, and I want that before I invest these days, but each of Julia Blackburn's book are keepers and re-readers. Threads is one of those books wherein the last page somehow led me back to the first, and with a real urge to start the journey over again and anew.
Recent Comments