Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist

This is a very slim volume. And the subject not exactly inspiring. I mean, who wants to read about the murderer who was pardoned in order that Jesus of Nazareth got to die in his place? We all know the story surely. After all, there’s not much to say about the robber and murderer, Barabbas.

However, Par Largerkvist manages to retell the tale in the simplest terms, with his fictional take on the fate of Barabbas written in such a way that one could believe it is all a true story. The novel is a spare tale, pared down to great effect.

Originally published in Sweden in 1950, it was published in the USA, by Random House Inc in 1951. Reprinted by Vintage Books in 1989, this book has become a classic. It’s been on the reading list of many an American university student since then, our book group host among them.

Lagerkvist was a poet and thinker, playwright and writer. Barabbas is a tale of morality. A parable. The characters show spiritual torment, questions about Man and his destiny are posed, and overall we are asked to ponder the meaning of this great drama.

The crisis of faith is the big question in this novel. There is faith (in this case a belief in God) and its opposite, doubt. Without faith in God (something to give our life meaning and direction) it can be difficult to know the difference between Right and Wrong. But a belief in God is difficult to prove.

Barabbas, on his way to be crucified, is aquitted: he is thereby condemned to godlessness. He then has a relationship with a poor disabled outcast. He shows signs of love and care – in spite of himself – when he buries her. But Barabbas soon resorts to his former life of murder and pillage.

Because of this he is caught; chained to another slave in a mine he learns that the name carved on his companion’s slave disc - Christos Iesus - is that of the man’s true master, his Saviour. Barabbas realises that this Saviour is the man who died in his place. He asks the slave to carve it on his disc. He says he wants to believe.

The slave is rescued by a sympathetic Roman and in turn saves Barabbas by insisting that his companion must accompany him. But, later, when this slave is asked (on pain of death) to denounce Jesus he refuses. But Barabbas does not support him: he denounces faith in Jesus. The slave is hanged. Because he does not support the slave, Barabbas is not condemned to die: he is saved again.

The character Barabbas never undergoes an illuminating conversion. The fact that he is a murderer - and the portrayal of him so believable - such a thing would not actually ring true. But Lagerkvist does have us thinking that Barabbas wanted to believe.

Barabbas does not believe, but neither does he disbelieve. Barabbas, in his own warped and misguided way, finishes up by doing all he can to help the Saviour when he rises again. Or does he just get the wrong end of the stick? You will have to decide for yourself: the book is a poser, the ending enigmatic.

So pack this book in your hand luggage: its a perfect size and length for holiday travel. It will add a little gravitas if you only have Aga Sagas or Chick Lit packed but if you're weighed down with fat biographies it may even seem like light relief!

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father

Obama is the son of a white American mother, a black Kenyan father. He comes from two different worlds and feels comfortable in neither. With his mother and her parents (white folks) he is accepted and accepting but when he first goes to school in Hawaii he feels out of place. In Origins, the first part of Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, he describes his early life.

Obama makes a point of aligning himself with the black population, the brotherhood, the dispossessed and disenchanted. He describes many white people as having a life “bought off the rack or found in a magazine”. Throughout the book he is trying to come to terms with being a Black American.

In the second part – after he has gained his degree at university – he goes to Chicago. He works as an organizer helping communities help themselves. He learns that to get people organized he has to plug into their self-interest. For example, a woman’s worries about her son’s safety might be the impetus needed to get her involved in a programme to make the community safer.

It is the beginning of his political career. He learns how to get people motivated, and about “individual advancement and collective decline”. As a student his friend told him “It’s not about you, it’s about people who need your help” and he learns the truth of this in Chicago. He finally relaxes into his skin and finds the people around him accept him for himself: not for whom he thinks he should be.

Finally, Obama comes to realise that he does not have to be part of the brotherhood, at the same level as everyone else in his sphere. He can further his studies and offer more to communities by doing so. The reader gets a glimpse of where Obama’s presidential speeches were nurtured, where such phrases as “the audacity of hope” were hatched.

He applies for Harvard and in the meantime visits Kenya and his father’s family there. In this third part of the book, Kenya, he is trying to find his roots. By trying to understand his dead father, and attempting to uncover his father’s motives and aspirations, he hopes to understand himself.

The life and family he experiences in Kenya opens his eyes to the fact that Africa is not his spiritual home. He is black, yes, but he is American. His sister, Auma, is a soul-mate, but some of his wider Kenyan family are as grasping as others are generous. They too are human. But his family and their life in Kenya does make him more committed to black empowerment.

Whilst in Kenya, to help find his true self, he searches for those things that had inspired his father: the dreams from his father. But he discovers that his father was not the paragon he thought. And by the end of his holiday in Kenya Obama is no longer in thrall to the romance of Africa, nor in the shadow of his father but accepting of himself and his American inheritance. He returns to law school, becomes the first black President of Harvard in 1995, and the rest is history.

This is a fictionalized autobiography – some of us liked the style, others would have preferred a factual account. But I can quite understand why he made it more chatty. To make the book more accessible, more alive, less the heavy hand of facts and incidents.

This version of his autobiography was first published 2004. At 442 pages the book is way too long. The first part, Origins, is fine. The middle section, Chicago, is three times as long as it needs. Much is repetitive - apart from sister Auma’s visit - and a lot of it boringly so. The section, Keyna, is twice as long as it should be. It’s a good book but, cut in length, it would be so much better.

But it is fascinating to see the seeds of Obama’s political awareness. Throughout the book – as throughout his life it seems - he asks philosophical questions and looks for practical answers. He has lofty principles and great aspirations. He talks about big issues: Community, Freedom, Hope. He has faith is in “participatory democracy” and he has “faith in other people”. If just some small part of these concepts and aspirations come to pass, we shall all be glad of his dreams.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Calender Girls and Critics

Don’t believe everything your read - critics don’t always get it right. The reviews for the play, Calendar Girls, were not enthusiastic. I suspect that some of the time critics – whether food, theatre or book critics – write negative reviews because they feel they have to justify themselves. I guess it can become tedious: watching yet another play, reading ones twenty-fourth book this month, eating out…again.

Perhaps they figure that there are only so many superlatives and so much praise that any reader wants to hear. They feel the need to be edgy, perhaps contentious. The press do love to shock, to stir things up. To get a reaction.

Of course I like to read reviews before I see an exhibition, go to a show or visit a restaurant. And they are often illuminating. But, as long as they are not thoroughly damning, I take them with a pinch of salt. I have learnt that critics don’t always get it right. And this goes for the reviews I read about the Calendar Girls, newly opened in the West End.

The reviews were either condescending or dismissive. We already had the tickets. Lynda Bellingham, Sian Phillips and Patricia Hodge were the lead roles. A first rate cast. Surely they would not want to in something second rate. We were going, it would be an outing, it would be alright on the night.

And guess what? It was. In fact it was good and it was funny, well scripted and well acted. So how come the reviews were less than complimentary. Well, I think it has something to do with sex. This was a play about women, with a (nearly) all female cast, and jokes that appeal to women. And women of a certain age at that.

Now, what young male critic would get that? All the poor reviews I read were written by male critics. And most – like many in the youth obsessed media – were probably only half way to their three score years and ten. Now, how many of them could appreciate a joke about the nitty gritty of women’s lives.

Two of the reviewers wrote that once the actresses had got their kit off there wasn’t much left to the play. For them that was obviously the raison d’etre of the play. That was to miss much that they probably thought derisive.

The play is based on the book. The story – as you probably all know – is about a group of Women’s Institute ladies. The husband of one of them dies of cancer, and they decide to raise funds for research. The calendar, on which they pose tastefully nude, raises a great deal of money and makes them famous.

But the play is as much about morals as anything – nothing to do with nakedness – that success can go to ones head, that jealousy is destructive and fame and fortune don’t equate to happiness. And that appearances are not everything, but life and the support of friends is all. And the message of the play works because it’s not preachy, or glum.

There’s a bit of pathos in the second act, yes, but like the best of messages it all goes down best with a good swig of humour. But obviously not the sort of humour appreciated by a jaded or sophisticated critic. Fortunately there are enough WI members and mature wives out there to appreciate the gentle jokes and connect in some way with the wider message. That alone should make Calendar Girls critic proof.

Silence is Golden but Time is Short

It’s getting harder to find the time to write my blog. I started by writing every week. I decided that I’d do pieces with some meat – similar to the sort of pieces I do for publications – rather than just a paragraph. Now that I’m finding it hard to find the time to do them I wonder if I made the right decision.

Of course I can always change – adapt - which is what I probably will do but strangely enough it’s not the length of the blog that’s the problem. I think I would still have trouble if my blog was just a paragraph or even that stream of consciousness, just an-aside-sort-of-thing like a twitter.

Now there is something I definitely don’t have time for. Mostly because I’m not glued to my mobile phone. I am still trying hard not to rely on my mobile – I continue to do that old fashioned thing of using it just for emergencies, messages, appointments and liaising. I hardly ever use it unless use includes one of these.

This seems to be contrary to every other person under the age of thirty and almost every business body under the age of forty. The mobile phone is always there, in the car, on a quiet country walk, on holiday, at work, on the bus or in the train. We have all been bored and sometimes disbelieving about the “Hello, I’m on the train” conversation but this is now small beer.

One friend who travels regularly to work by train tells me that she is now privy to the lurid details of one of her fellow mobile phone toting passenger’s love life. The girl gets on her phone immediately she’s in the carriage and fills in her friends with all the details of her last passionate encounter. With sort of nitty gritty that would make a Lolita blush.

One would imagine that she would wait until somewhere private before baring all (!) but modesty, privacy and discretion seem to be defunct now we can speak to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Anyway, it seems the mobile phone is an extension of many an arm. It is positively scary that so many hardly seem capable of going anywhere without it. And I don’t want to go down that slippery path. And you know why? Because I love silence.

Silence: what bliss, no noise, a chance to think. I’m sure lots of people love silence but to do anything creative there’s just got to be some peace and quiet. Or, as the prodigal once said aged seven, ‘I need a piece of quiet’. Like many a child’s amusing malapropism it became a family phrase. Used whenever appropriate because, apart from the nostalgic sentimentality of it, it just happens to be right on the button.

I need a piece of quiet to work. There’s got to be room to think. There’s got to be big white spaces for ideas to pop up into. Silence is golden, golden. My ability to come up with fresh and original, deep or insightful ideas is impaired if I’m surrounded by chatter or clatter.

Apart from that commodity which is in such short supply it’s not the amount I aim to write for my blog that’s the stumbling block. It is simply the time to get the backside on the seat, time to get the mind in gear and time spent when I could be writing my book. And there’s the nub, or the rub in the words of the bard. Every minute writing my blog is time I could be writing my book.

When I started the blog I had finished my novel, it was about to be published in paperback, I still had things to do, talks to give, places to go all associated with it. So I thought a blog would be just the thing to keep my writing going. And that’s the trouble. It did, but it also stopped me starting the real thing.

And now I am into the book full swing. I still do design work so only have a limited ‘writing space’. Next time I write my blog I’ll explain how it’s going but at the moment, sorry, I just don’t have the time.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS Hope you like the still and silent picture

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

This is not a book I would have chosen. I mean, who in their right mind would choose to read (which surely one does for pleasure) ‘The True Story of a Child Soldier’? Okay, Okay; sometimes we do want to read a book in order to be more informed about an issue.

Which is the reason our groupie said she chose this book. She said it deals with a subject about which everyone should be more aware. I don’t know about you, but I have a very fervid imagination. I can imagine only too clearly what atrocities there are going on in those African states. I can imagine how killing fellow beings can numb the senses and dehumanize the perpetrator of crimes. I feel incensed by both government and guerrilla fighters’ treatment of children and women. Appalled that the world lets this all continue.

So, what are we members of this book group for? I for one appreciate that it encourages me to read books I would otherwise not consider. I cannot therefore demur. This groupie is a younger member of the group - bright and socially aware. We bow to her awareness. We read the book about a child soldier in Sierra Leone in spite of the less than inviting subject.

I struggle through it. And so it seems did everyone else including our young groupie. The writing is not good. And it is a harrowing subject. We know that the author is young and not educated in prose but.... And does it seem that perhaps someone else had a hand in it? And then there is a lot of walking in this book. He walked, and he walked, and he walked. And he killed. And he was saved.

Ishmael is obviously an intelligent, articulate child who suffered horribly. But he had (has even now as an adult) the ability to survive. Everything in the story is testament to this. He had (has) a great capacity for love. He wants to belong, to be part of a normal environment, to live and grow. That should give hope.

But it was interesting that all of us had the same response to the book. It’s not often that we are in such agreement. We all hated the subject, we were not impressed with the style and we all found it odd in many ways. BUT. But we were glad that we had read it. We learned things. Things that even over-active imaginations don’t supply.

That children were conscripted to fight by the army as well as the guerrillas. Drugs were (are) widely used to numb the children mentally so they can commit the crimes. But also to keep the children awake with their adrenalin pumping so they are in a state of arousal. They need to be in order that they can run at a moment’s notice and kill at command. And, of course, by keeping them addicted the perpetrators keep them dependent.

We know that child soldiers have little choice but to fight. Many have lost their families and their ability to survive. They are used and abused. But from this story we learn that amongst all this horror, there are some caring individuals (and some aid) that makes a real difference to the rehabilitation of a few. More importantly, we learn that it is possible to rehabilitate child soldiers.

We also learn from our groupie that Sierra Leone was where the first slaves were sent to America – because they knew how to plant tobacco. It is the second poorest country in the world. That diamonds are now the main source of wealth and that the corruption surrounding this wealth accounts for much of the fighting. Those powerful foreign governments have contributed to this power struggle.

And we think about the shocking fact that there are over a quarter of a million children fighting in the world. If all these wars were in some major way associated with oil, we in the West would have waged a war by now to overthrow the leaders that carry out these atrocities and the resulting carnage. And the resulting destruction of societies.

Our groupie was right. This story reminds us above all that we in the ‘civilized’ West do not do enough to change these things: that we still have a Long Way to Go.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

ENJOY by Alan Bennett

It is always an event seeing a show in the West End. London is a city with such a buzz: it’s cosmopolitan, busy, beautiful (some say ‘like the Curate’s egg’) and varied. I can’t say that theatre land is particularly beautiful but the sheer choice of shows is amazing.

So it was with pleasure (in spite of mixed reviews) that I joined a group of friends to see Alan Bennett’s play, Enjoy. First produced in 1980, the play didn’t do that well, but of course since then Bennett has become a household name, a national treasure.

Set in the 1970’s, the elderly Connie and her husband, Wilf, live in one of the last remaining houses due for demolition in a northern town. Wilf looks forward to the new maisonette they are due to move to, his wife does not. A young woman from the Council arrives to observe them and assess their quality of life. They have an idealised opinion of their daughter (whom hubby idolises) and a son whom Wilf has disowned (but wife adores) and who has not been seen for years.

The play’s first act could be described as ‘gently’ amusing. Pleasant, Bennett quips and northern truisms, but a little lacking in sparkle. Still, the audience had the expectation that this was a play that was going to evolve into something interesting. Then the second act descended into pure farce, the subject matter thoroughly suited to its middle-aged matinee audience. The fact that it was very funny was due to a great extent to the superb acting and relief from the rather flat first act.

Unfortunately, Linda, the daughter, arrives at this stage (no pun intended) – nothing wrong with her acting but it would have been so much better had the character not been seen in the flesh. The audience were quite aware that she was no shorthand typist but a prostitute: the character added nothing to the play, the slapstick/farcical sex scenes were thoroughly embarrassing in their naff-ness, her hint that her father had abused her incongruous and gratuitous. The play would have been improved if she had simply been imagined – and all the more powerful for it.

But Bennett does show what a fantasy life some people live, and to what lengths they will go to fit into their role. Although, as the play neared the end, the tone of the piece became positively morbid. It was as if Bennett couldn’t quite decide what he wanted the play to be. Not the ’stream of consciousness’ monologue of his we have come to love but part monologue(s), part farce, part heavy message. It seems as if he was bent on ticking all the boxes – homosexual son, doting mother, bullying father, abused daughter, hoodwinked aged parents, violent yoof, etc.

What made it, nevertheless, a memorable event was Alison Steadman’s superb acting as Connie. She managed to carry the whole thing. But (to quote a critic)'the poignancy of her character – one of a woman descending into dementia – was camouflaged by poking fun at her affliction'. The grumpy brutal character of Wilf is well acted – but what a part to have to play. The only time the audience have any sympathy for him is when he says how he would have liked to hold his sons hand when he was a boy.

There are twists and turns in the plot – some thoroughly expected, others not – but what started as a kitchen sink drama, progressed to farce and ended up as tragedy – left the audience feeling a bit, well, uncomfortable. And cheated. It was billed as great comedy. We – the audience – were not quite sure what had happened. As the play took a heavy and macabre turn after the farce it left us feeling as if a freight train has just come thundering out of a toytown tunnel.

But, if nothing else, it made me see Bennett, the writer, in a more realistic light. This play was written at the start of his writing career, and to see his later work (such as Talking Heads, The History Boys etc) makes one realise how much some writers can grow and blossom. So I’m taking an optimistic view of the thing – and hope we can all enjoy such improvement.

Ghosting - A Double Life by Jenny Erdal

Funny business, ghost writing. Okay, there are some people who have a story to tell but can’t put it into reasonable English. A ghost writer does it for them. They either take the credit or come clean and admit that they didn’t actually write it themselves.

But what do you think of a celebrity who has no story to tell but gets someone else to make up a story and write a novel for them? And what do you make of a writer who is employed by the celebrity to write the novel in secret but finally spills the beans?

Read Ghosting by Jenny Erdal and you will find out. Erdal can write, no doubt about it. Her English is good, her style fine, her little bon mots amusing. She explains in graphic detail her relationship with Naim Attallah – whom she calls Tiger to minimize the likelihood of libel I suspect – who was a Quartet Books publisher of enormous celebrity for many years.


The descriptions of him – a larger than life, highly colourful Asian character – have him down to a T. He brooked no disagreement from his staff, surrounded himself with a bevy of beautiful society girls, ate and spoiled himself to excess and was generally a demanding, uneducated but amusing and charismatic chap. Erdal, on the other hand, describes herself as almost the exact opposite.

She was from an emotionally restrained, working class Scottish family. She disliked her parents, her husband left her, she was clever but unable to succeed at what she wanted. She gives the impression that life held little pleasure for her bar her children and working for Tiger. She asked for little and got it.

In fact she was attractive, bright, went to university where she read languages, was married with three beautiful children. This all sounds pretty good. But I suspect it was the working for Tiger that did for her: he was demanding as an employer but it was an interesting job. Then her husband left her. Tiger was supportive. She had to keep working. She was sucked into a seductive world of glamour, excitement, luxury, intrigue and power.

Unfortunately a great deal of the book concentrates either on how clever she is – she peppers her prose with quotations and examples of her learning but I suspect she’s trying to compensate for being a ghost writer – or how mean everyone else is. For example she paints her parents as unkind and narrow minded.

Any writer who wishes can describe their relationship with their parents and show the reader that they were unkind and narrow minded. But what I would hope to be shown is how that experience has moulded the writer. And I should like the writer to show me, the reader, how the parents may have come to be that way. I like some understanding and illumination to shine through. Not to do so makes the writer look as bitter as the parents she despises.

So I guess that is my first beef with the book. My second is that, if she hated writing for Tiger then why did she go on doing it? And why did she volunteer the smut she purports to disdain. By this stage in her life she no longer needed the employment - her children had grown, she had remarried and husband number two wanted her to stop. But still she went on. And then when Tiger finally fell from the heights, when he could no longer pay her, only then did she leave. And write her expose.

Erdal was not manipulated by her employer, Tiger, as she tries to suggest. It seems to me that it was a symbiotic relationship. Each used the other: Tiger got a willing accomplice, someone who could write far better than he could, someone who could be bought; Erdal got paid, annual holidays in the south of France, luxurious hotel rooms and wonderful meals, frisson and power.

Ghosting is a very well written book, one that shows us the seamier side of ghost writing, but it was not, in the end, a very satisfying read for me.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Simone de Beauvoir and Rachida Dati : a co-incidental pair.

Co-incidence is a funny old thing: when it happens we think it is magical but I suppose – if you are a mathematician – it is only a matter of odds. For example, here’s my latest little co-incidence. Years after struggling with Simone de Beauvoir’s dense book, The Second Sex, I found a slim volume of hers on my bookshelf that I had never read (put off, no doubt, by the earlier struggle).

Well, I picked up A Very Easy Death – possibly had the subject on my mind as the anniversary of my father’s death is about to be - and a very easy read it turned out to be. Quite unassuming and virtually without incident – if you don’t count the death of her mother– it raised subtle questions about relationships with ones parents that gave me pause for thought.

Then blow me down, only a few pages off finishing it I hear a Radio 4 programme all about Simone de Beauvoir: 2009 is the 60th anniversary of the publication of The Second Sex. The gist of the message enshrined in its pages is that women are not simply adjuncts to men.

Now, this might be assumed as quite obviously the case today, but SdB (somehow it’s inconceivable to call her Simone) was from a bourgeois Catholic background, living in a period – in France – when a woman’s place was definitely in the home and her time fully for the benefit of her husband.


She was against obligatory motherhood, advised women not to live solely as a housewife and, in the book, described women’s sexuality: her views caused, as you might expect, quite a stir. SdB had enrolled herself at the Sorbonne and studied philosophy: here she met Jean-Paul Sartre and their passionate partnership – and intellectual harmony - lasted for decades. SdB, like Sartre, espoused personal freedom and this included their sexual life.

She was at the time - and has been since – labelled a feminist by some, not a true feminist by others. On the one hand she felt strongly that “one is not born a woman, one becomes one” (a winner with the feminist and nurture-not-nature view). On the other, she was a victim of all those emotions (jealousy being one) that women fall prey to whatever their views: she was hurt by Sarte’s sexual affairs. Nevertheless, in spite occasional forays into other men’s beds, she was always ‘his woman’. Not a winner with the full-on feminists.

But SdB’s feminism was always – in its simplest form - towards gender equality. Now, here’s another co-incidence: 60 years on. In the press this week we were treated to the headline news that Rachida Dati, the unmarried French Justice Minister, has returned to work only five days after giving birth to her daughter.

She has since been alternatively praised and pilloried: the feminists argue that she is just acting like any one of her bread-winning, ambitious male colleagues and why not. The opposite camp argue that she has not done any favours for her gender: that her decision is not only an unnatural action but one that puts at risk their hard fought-for maternity leave.

Now, I’ll come clean: from choice I stopped work to have my children and did not consider the role to be second-class. Indeed, I considered myself lucky to be able to make that choice, not least because I had a husband to pay the mortgage. Unlike the unmarried, un-partnered, Ms Dati. Surely, she is just a very modern Simone de Beauvoir: gender equality is her aim and personal freedom her choice.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS Having enjoyed A Very Easy Death I have now dug out (you can see how old the books are by the covers!)the two volumes of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography. The titles are challenging in themselves.

Gweilo, A memoir of a Hong Kong childhood

Martin Booth's autobiography, Gweilo, was written at the end of his life and covers three years of his young life in Hong Kong. For research, he relied on memory and a scrap book as well as visits to Hong Kong as an adult.

Not that this is a problem, but the groupie who chose and presented Gweilo probably had a lack of objectivity with regard to this autobiography: as a child she too had travelled on a liner on her way to an exotic new life abroad. She too had been allowed an enormous amount of freedom, of the sort that parents today would shudder at the thought of. So many of the experiences in this autobiography echoed those of her own childhood.

But she chose the book because she felt we would all enjoy it. And we did: it’s an easy and enjoyable enough read. Another of our group has lived in Hong Kong and was delighted with Booth’s descriptions of places. And for those of us who have only visited it is also possible to recognize many of the places that crop up in the book. There is an authenticity to the descriptions of Hong Kong: the places totally believable and colourful.

Many of the stories recounted in the memoir must be apocryphal – they feel it anyway – and quite obviously he could not possibly recall the conversations he writes about. But this brings us to the whole question of ‘what is memoir?’ In his case it is a construct: a reconstruction of a period (1940’s/50’s), its mores, the culture of Hong Kong, its atmosphere and family relationships.

The style of the autobiography is a bit of a hybrid: it veers between travelogue and memoir. He may have chosen style this to beef up the landscape and life in Hong Kong for his readers. I understand that in his other novels he includes facts for the reader so perhaps this is just his way.

I’m aware too, from my father’s descriptions, that Booth’s depiction of the boat journey across the oceans was spot on. And he conveys very well the sense of freedom that all children in the Colonies (and in Britain at that time) enjoyed. His descriptions of places in Hong Kong are colourful and lively, and he manages to get across the magic and excitement of his childhood there.

And Booth captures the moment too: there is a description of his visit to an opium den in the Forbidden City that is an experience that could never happen now. As such it encapsulates a period in the history of Hong Kong that is quite unique. Being British, and in the Services, gave those who were posted there an elevated sense of their own importance and this was true of his father.

His father may well have been pompous and a bully but the one thing in the book that I did not like was his biased portrayal of him. The young Booth was totally in thrall to his mother: she was his hero. His mother was Peter Pan, his father Captain Hook. He admired her - and not without reason - as he portrays her as a woman ahead of her time. But, like many war-time babies, he had spent his early years alone with his mother, his father’s return an unwelcome one.

He shows us a mother who derided her husband, and championed her son. And his character assassination of his father sits uncomfortably on the page. I should have hoped that at stage he wrote the book, and having experienced fatherhood himself, he might have shown us a little more insight into their relationship or at least let the reader make up their own mind about his parents and their relationships.

Gweilo is, after all, as much a book about his parent’s marriage as about his childhood exploits in Hong Kong. As such it captures the time perfectly, as well as the excitement of a childhood spent in an outpost of the British Empire. A good book to buy if you’re planning to visit Hong Kong or want to reminisce about your time spent there.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo

It’s not often that one goes to the theatre and runs out of superlatives to describe a play. This is what happened to me last week. Our book group went to see War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo, which is on at the National Theatre, and we were blown away by the production.

Michael Morpurgo wrote the book, War Horse, for children and adults. He had wanted to write about the madness and carnage of the First World War (1914-1918) and the part that horses had played in it. And the sad fate that became most of the horses in France and Flanders.

The story is told through the eyes of a horse, Joey, who is reared on a Devon farm by a young farm lad, Albert. His father sells the horse to the army and Joey is shipped out to Belgium. There he plays his part in the war as a British cavalry horse that is captured by the Germans and used to pull guns and ambulances.

Albert joins up to find Joey but it seems that both he and Joey will meet a sticky end. However, in the style of all good fairytales, the baddies get their come uppence and everything comes right in the end. We had a group of eleven year olds in front of us and they were transfixed but the eighteen years old behind us (who fidgeted more!) were just as complimentary in their appreciation of the play.

The acting doesn’t stand out particularly but the adaptation and direction of the piece is excellent and the design of the set is absolutely stunning. The story moves very quickly from one scene to another and the devices used (lighting, videos, revolving stage, rolling or rising constructions) are brilliant. It is a visual treat that will hold the interest of not only children but theatre phobics too.

The horses are life size puppets made of jointed wire and steel made by the Handspring Puppet Company, a South African company of marionette makers. This makes sense to me because wire work animals and models are quite an art in Africa. The large puppets are manipulated internally and externally and the nuances, movements and character that the puppeteers manage to imbue them with during the performance is very clever. Their movements are so lifelike, subtle and moving that it is quite enthralling.

A war artist sketches during some of the scenes and moving images are projected on to the backdrop that are reminiscent us of the work of the First World War artists such as Paul Nash. Poems and songs in the play remind us of the First World War poets too. My blog of 11 November 2007 covered the poetry and prose relating to the war: if you like Vera Brittain, AE Houseman etc then just go to the archive for 2007 on your right to read the blog about them. War Horse was particularly moving for us as it was so close to Remembrance Day.

Morpurgo has written over 100 stories, most of them for children, several of which have been made into films. I haven't read any of them but I shall also now read his novel, A Wide Wide Sea. This book is also aimed at children and adults, the story inspired by the fate of the children shipped out to Australia after the Second World War, and the neglect and abuse some of them suffered. The novel is very well thought of and I shall read it as soon as I have the time. But first I shall read War Horse: the play was a real inspiration. We need to be reminded that war ravages not only countries and cultures but every living thing.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Shakespeare's Sonnets & Simon Callow

Simon Callow was performing Shakespeare’s sonnets at the Tonbridge Arts festival. Simon Callow, on locally, how could we pass this up. “Shakespeare’s sonnets contain some of the most famous lines in the English language and yet nothing is known of the story behind them” reads the blurb.

In presenting this one man show, Master/Mistress of my Passion, Callow tries to show the audience that in fact Shakespeare’s sonnets tell a tale – they are a narrative that charts Bill’s infatuation with the ideal of beauty.

Apparently, Shakespeare met and admired Mary Sidney, the Earl of Pembroke’s mother and whilst at her pad saw a painting of her son, William Herbert, and was mesmerised. This boy came to personify the ideal of beauty to Shakespeare although he had yet to meet him. And this is where the sonnets start.

These are poems that praise the beauty and disposition of his young idol and are passionate poems of unrequited love:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Shakespeare, the poet, is not the same as Shakespeare, the playwright. In the latter he is the writer of brilliant and entertaining plays that explore character. In the former, he is a philosopher investigating the question of Time and its effect. “Time triumphs over flesh, and Love over all”

Callow was quick to point out that Shakspeare’s crush was not a homeoerotic one but solely a passion for beauty. Eventually he met the beautiful young man who was not very impressed with Bill’s ardour and admiration. Young Herbert did not reciprocate the passion Shakespeare felt and Bill was miffed.

Slowly Shakespeare’s passion waned although one is hard pushed to tell from the contents of the sonnets. At the time, he had a mistress and some of the sonnets are addressed to her. Like many poems of the day the content was often very bawdy and, if we could have followed them a little more slowly, we might have been a little more shocked. Finally, Simon says, Bill and Will became good friends. Although, to me, Bill still seemed a little struck.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Simon’s reading of the sonnets were interspersed with madrigals sung by Quintus. These obviously suited the period but also gave the audience a break from the intensity of Callow’s rendition. With two bass, two sopranos, one counter tenor, one tenor and one contra-tenor it was quite a large group who sang the fugues quite beautifully without musical accompaniment. A lute player also performed at intervals although we found this rather tedious.

To really understand and appreciate the sonnets it needs a great deal of scholarship, attention and experience. To hear Shakespeare’s sonnets rendered so theatrically – in true Shakespearian actor style – meant that they were a little difficult to absorb. To have followed the written word would have helped or, if we had known what homework to do, we could have read them beforehand and got our ear in. It meant that much of it went over our heads.

In fact, our group of ten found the entire programme a little long. I suspect that many of us were remembering Callow’s excellent show on the life of Dickens. It had been on in the West End and the costume and content was really quite splendid. This show, it was felt, was but a pale imitation.

But Simon Callow did get me thinking: here was a reason to read the sonnets again armed with a little more knowledge about their background. And to have a man of Callow’s fame and ability, here, in the sticks, spouting Shakespeare: we would have been Philistines not to go.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The Girls by Lori Lansens

The groupie who chose The Girls for our September book group meeting said she did so because the novel is, in her opinion, an amazing feat of imagination. And very well written too. Like the subject or not, there can be few who dispute either of these statements.

Rose and Ruby are born naturally but emerged joined at the head. Their teenage mother – who must have been in a terrible state after such a birth – disappears and the saintly nurse, Lovey, who delivered them, wins guardianship. With her Slovakian husband, Stash, she raises them on her Ontario farm to live as independent and normal a life as is possible.

A potential reader could be forgiven for wondering:
a. Who wants to read about craniopagus twins
b. Do I want to read what can only be a heart-rending and possibly mawkish story
c. Can such an extraordinary tale end in anything but grief.
I know I thought these things.

But Lori Lansens manages to pull it off: the story begins when the girls are 29 years old, and Rose (the clever one) about to start her autobiography. She convinces Ruby (the pretty one) to write her side of the story too and this is the way the novel is structured: Rose’s romantic chapters interspersed now and then with Ruby’s down-to-earth ones.

The twins share a major artery and can never be separated. Rose has to carry her sister on her hip making Ruby appear to be more reliant on Rose than vice versa. But Lansens manages to convey how much the girls rely on each other - spiritually as well as physically - and how both have to compromise to survive life as a conjoined twin. Eventually, the weaker of the twins emerges as the stronger.

The theme of the novel could be seen to be all about connections and dependency: that of Rose and Ruby is of course obvious but there is also their dependency and connection to Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash, and theirs for each other; their neighbour Mrs Merkel and her lost son Larry, Stash and his lost family in Slovakia, their ‘cousin’ Nick and the girls.

Lansens throws in some surprising – and not altogether successful extras – Rose has a child and Stash takes the family to a weird family gathering in Slovakia; Mrs Merkel and Stash have an affair. And when the character Nick – a useless ex-con – undergoes a complete character change when he begins to care for the twins it seems a rather obvious tale of rehabilitation.

But Lansens manages to convey that Rose and Ruby, with their separate brains, personalities, interests and views are like any pair of sisters could be. And what she also convinces us of is the deep love they have for each other, for their adoptive parents, the parents love for the girls and the deep feelings they all have of belonging and caring for the landscape they live in.

Soon we are convinced that the lives of these conjoined twins are lives that have been worth the living, that pity is not part of it and that humour, love and achievement is. It is, finally, a difficult book to put down.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Favourite Books

It’s August; holiday time. Our book group doesn’t meet in the school summer holidays. This is historical. In fact, as our children are no longer young, we can actually sometimes manage to finish a book at a sitting even though they are at home. We don’t really need that break any more. So when one groupie invited us all for a social evening – albeit with a literary theme - we were all up for it. And everyone did their homework.

The suggestion was that we all note down our favourite books. I was one of those who was actually up against it time-wise and so cheated by reading out my blog (The 3 R’s: reading, reading and re-reading) of February 2007. Strangely – or perhaps not - most people mirrored my views. Nearly everyone chose books that reflected different stages in their lives.

Enid Blyton came out as a clear winner in the childhood choice: today it would be Rowling for much the same reasons. They were books with a clear structure, a story that was full of excitement with a good moral underlying it all. Many said that it was the Enid Blyton books that got them reading: the plots are sequential – not too many time shifts - so it’s not necessary to re-read great sections every time the story is picked up again.

A few of the same books cropped up as ones we enjoyed as teenagers: The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mocking Bird for example. And then most of us seemed to have enjoyed books such as The Great Gatsby and Gone With the Wind, and easily digestible books such as those by the Mitfords, Laurie Lee or H E Bates.

I was surprised, though, at how many of us chose Thomas Hardy as a favourite author. So many people immediately dismiss his works as too lengthy and descriptive. Perhaps it’s because Hardy was often the exam choice when we were at school and maybe because we had to read the whole book we got a taste for it.

On the other hand, no-one mentioned Dickens: another author who often gets a bad press as ‘difficult’ to read. Nothing could be further from the truth. His novels are a doddle, amusing and colourful. George Elliot, on the other hand, cropped up in several groupies’ choices.

Overall, Midnight’s Children – which had been one of our book group choices - was the clear favourite. Others that several groupies chose were My Name is Asher Lev, The God of Small Things, Wuthering Heights, anything by Margaret Attwood or Jane Austen.

For re-reading Dorothy Dunnant was mentioned by a few, as was The Alexandria Quartet, Music & Silence by Rose Tremain and The Mill Stone by Margaret Drabble. Latterly – so it must be an age thing – several groupies are enjoying biographies: two we’ve read in the group - Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire and Samuel Pepys – were both mentioned by more than one member.

It was a very interesting exercise and a great way to remind each other of books we had loved, those that we should read and those we intend to: a very successful evening altogether.

The Death of Vishnu, by Manil Suri

One of our book groupies has been to India and fallen in love with it. Now, back in grey skied England, she enjoys books about India instead, revelling in their colourful, magical quality. And The Death of Vishnu- her choice - certainly gets that across.

Vishnu – in this case no God – is homeless and lives on a landing of a small block of flats. He relies on the owners – four families – to keep him alive in return for errands. Unfortunately, they are not very successful because he lies dying on the landing. As he lies comatose he relives, as in a dream, his past: his mother, his lover and his life.

In alternating chapters of the book we are introduced to the families and how they interact with each other, and how they react to Vishnu in his dying state. Apparently, in Indian mythology, the God Vishnu is there to establish order when there is friction: in this story the man Vishnu – or rather his imminent demise – creates disorder where there is friction.

The inhabitants of the apartments represent a microcosm of life in Mumbai: Hindu and Muslim living in close proximity to each other, with all those unable to afford a flat living wherever they can, doing whatever they can to survive.

Mrs Asrani and Mrs Pathak share a kitchen but this close-proximity causes tension. They are arch rivals and vie for one-upmanship but their efforts are doomed. Both have ineffectual, hen-pecked husbands who constantly have to subjugate their finer feelings to agree with the petty demands of their wives. These are comedy characters, and although Sunil illuminates the small time mentality of these people and their lives it is difficult to empathise with them.

Their respective offspring, looking for romance and escape, rashly decide to elope. Their disappearance causes much speculation and leads to the most interesting part – and denouement - of the book. Mr Jamal, the boy’s father, is a Muslim but has a Hindu vision. This religious awakening leaves him more oblivious than ever to his wife’s feelings, which eventually has serious results.

The Death of Vishnu was not badly written but the characters were stereotypical caricatures that did not develop: it read like a TV sitcom. No-one felt any warmth towards the characters and many felt this was because they were not well drawn. However, the novel did give the reader a glimpse of how the different castes and religions rub along in India and, to its credit, ‘politics’ were refreshingly missing.

It was the dream sequence chapters – steadily more surreal and lurid as the book progressed – that annoyed many of the book group. They were rambling – as many dreams are of course – and some thought too odd to bear any resemblance to what Vishnu’s life could have been. Fortunately, those who did quite enjoy this aspect of the book reassured our host – who was feeling a little unsure of the wisdom of her choice - that the book had been worth reading!

The Death of Vishnu had certainly been wildly hyped: it is a poor man’s Midnight Children, a pale God of Small Things. Perhaps in Manil Suri’s next novel he will manage to balance creativity with believability and pull it off. I hope so.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance: not a book that I would ever have considered picking up, let alone reading. The groupie who suggested Better is a doctor, and an American one at that: ah, we thought, this book will be very medical, very deep. But that is the great thing about book groups; members are encouraged to read out of their comfort zone, often with a pleasant result.

Atul Gawende is a surgeon in one of Boston’s leading hospitals – no ordinary surgeon I might add. He also has a degree in PPE from Balliol, is an assistant professor at Harvard School of Public Health, a staff writer on The New Yorker and a writer of two books to date. This,his second, is based on some essays that he originally wrote for the New Yorker.

He’s arranged the essays into a book of three parts: Diligence, Doing Right and Ingenuity. It is a warm, easy to digest, interesting read in which the author is not ashamed to admit to his own mistakes. And the overall message is: how can doctors do better? What does it take to go from being good, to being better. Indeed, how can we all do better at whatever it is we attempt.


Each of Gawende’s chapters focuses on a particular area of medicine and one in which change - sometimes of the most minor - can make the difference between correct and incorrect diagnosis, average and excellent treatment, life and death. In the first part, Diligence, he starts with a chapter entitled ‘On Washing Hands’ and shows that just how well it is followed can impact of the worldwide hospital problem of MRSA.

In the next chapter, ‘The Mop Up’, he looks at vaccination programmes and how this has had world changing results, but that when it is not carried out the effect can be fatal. In these chapters, as in all the following ones, Gawande does not preach, nor does he patronize, but instead he deconstructs the reasoning behind these practices and shows how the issues are often more complex than it might seem on the surface. Everywhere he finds paradox, conundrums, quandaries, heroism and dedication.

In the second part, Doing Right, there is a chapter ‘On Fighting’ and how it is necessary to fight for your patient when everything around the doctor tells him that he has done all he can. I guess it could be called ‘going that extra mile’. His style for each chapter begins with a short story, usually open-ended. He then goes off at a tangent with a human tale or other. Finally, at the end of the chapter, he draws all the threads of his tale together and often leaves the reader with a question, philosophical poser or bon mot.

‘The Score’ is a chapter in part three, entitled Ingenuity, in which Gawende relates the story of a multi-talented female doctor who, in 1933, was thwarted in her attempt to be accepted as a surgeon because of her sex. She went on to devise a test that is still used today to score the condition of a new born baby. Ingenuity, the reader can see, applies to us all no matter what job we do.

The chapter, ‘The Bell Curve’, describes the treatment of cystic fibrosis: he explains the graph – the bell curve - that shows the results of all the centers treating it in the USA. He explains that no matter how the treatments improve there will always be a bell curve which shows the average outcome of treatment. However, at the end of this long and interesting essay he concludes that the average may always be there but that is always room to raise the bar and for every one to try and be above average.

All of us in the book group enjoyed the book, everyone finished it, and it made us question how we do things, if we are happy to be average, if we do go that extra mile and try to be better as often as we should. Our French groupie described is as a ‘very American’ book – which it is – but a very good one. I shall read it again, if for nothing else, to remind me to try harder and to wash my hands that bit longer and that bit better.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

May Day

A merry dance around a Maypole decorated with coloured ribbons, handkerchiefs and flags; A May Queen dressed all in white, her head crowned with flowers; bowers of birch and blossoming May branches: these are the acceptable remains of the pagan Anglo-Saxon festival of May Day. We will draw a veil over the centuries when loose living men and maids cavorted all night in the woodland and courtiers and their consorts banqueted in arbours and made merry.

In 1889 May Day became Labour Day in Socialist France - in Russia much the same – and many of the traditions of May Day became subsumed. England – unlike France and Russia - had no peasants. Countrymen were not disenfranchised and could own land and somehow Labour Day and May Day festivals managed to remain separate. But in England May Day simply faded as a widespread festival as the traditional May Poles and village Greens disappeared.

It was the pre-Raphaelites who revived May Day, interested as they were in rustic traditions and festivals. William Morris believed that an honest and capable craftsman could produce an item that was not only useful but beautiful too using basic materials such as wood, iron, stone and clay. He was always pleased to find a link between the countryman and his skills, the simplicity of rural life and its sacred and magical rituals.

And Tennyson in his poem, The May Queen, celebrated the tradition:

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

But it was Ruskin who did the most to revive the customs by reintroducing them to his pupils. In Oxford today there a still May Day rituals as there are in many market towns and villages throughout England. The dance, Strip the Willow, must surely be associated with May Day, Morris Men and Maypole dancers still perform on May Day and May Carols are still sometimes sung.

The superstition that it is unlucky to bring the May blossom into the house is rooted perhaps in the idea that the tree was sacred and still holds sway amongst some country folk today. But flowers still remain central to the idea of May Day everywhere. One lovely aspect of 1st May in France is the wearing of a Lily of the Valley: nothing could be sweeter than that or a more pleasing token of spring.

In England the flowers that were traditionally associated with May Day, as garlands or for decorating our houses, are still part of our landscape. The heady scent of lilac blooms fill our gardens, the purple haze of bluebells cover woodland floors and delicate blossom decorates the apple boughs of the orchard.

Only the simple cowslip – that flower of the meadow in May – is no longer as widespread as fifty years ago. Cowslips were traditionally made into May garlands and balls. They could be cut and tied into a bunch with ribbon and finally used to top a stripped willow-wand. Alternatively they might have been used for a hanging garland in the form of a globe, a crown or a spiral. These hark back to Celtic rituals, Saxon pageants and the festivals of Roman Britain with their goddess of flowers, Flora.

One ancient pageant was the Battle of Winter and Summer: flowers and dancing represented summer and chased winter out of the fields. And it is still true,I'm glad to say, that May chases Winter away.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

It was my turn to choose what we would read for our book group: I'm usually the one who chooses a classic so by popular demand I did so again. Last time I chose Wilkie Collins', A Woman in White: a resounding success. Before that, George Elliot, Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens had all gone down well. But this time, Charlotte Bronte's Villette, was not such a wow. In fact it was a resounding thumbs down.

The story begins when 14 year old Lucy Snowe is staying with her godmother, Mrs Bretton, and her son, Graham. A widower's little daughter, Paulina, also comes to stay. Lucy returns to her family – we are told nothing of them but there are hints at sadness and loss – and eight years later has to earn her own living. This eventually leads to her becoming a teacher for a manipulative character, Madame Beck, at Pensionnat de Demoiselles in Villette.

Here she meets a strong minded but inspirational professor, M.Paul Emmanuel, with whom she has a difficult relationship. When ill she is befriended by the school doctor, who takes her to his mother's house to recover. The mother is Mrs Bretton, the doctor, her son, Graham, whom Lucy has loved since a child. The grown Paulina turns up in Brussels and she and the doctor fall in love. Resigned to this, Lucy begins to appreciate M.Paul, firstly for his intellect, secondly for his kindness to her. Finally she falls in love with him.

Villette was written as three volumes when Charlotte, lonely and dispirited, was still heartbroken at the recent deaths of her brother and two sisters, Emily and Anne; she was also suffering from debilitating illness. Encouraged by her editor – whom she was very fond of and used as the inspiration for the doctor - she finished the third volume in record time, and it was published in 1853.

It's impossible to read this novel and not draw parallels between the lives of Lucy Snowe and Charlotte Bronte. In 1842 Charlotte, mourning the loss of her beloved aunt, went to teach at a school in Brussles run by M. and Mme.Heger. She admired M.Heger for his intellect and his kind encouragement of her writing and she eventually fell passionately in love with him.

Everyone in our book group thought the first few chapters of Villette were fine, the last few the best of the book. It was the thirty odd chapters in between that were the problem. They trudged through them, they struggled, they gritted their teeth. But they didn't enjoy.

Unfortunately, they all found it simply too wordy: I have to give them that it is far too long. Bronte pads out the story and, like other authors of the time – more so than Austen, as much as Hardy – goes into long descriptions of character, place or opinion that modern authors don’t, can't do. Then the reader was trying to fill time, revel in introspection and search for stimulation. Whereas now we squeeze reading into the little time we have available.

And the groupies didn't like Lucy Snowe. Certainly she isn't a character one warms to: I have to give them that as well. She is stubborn, contrary, contained, perverse and parsimonious. But, come on guys, the novel slowly shows us that she is also passionate, rebellious, sensitive, observant and intelligent. Yes, she's a complex character: real people are difficult to pigeonhole, they are complex. Who said characters in a book can't be complicated too. But I guess that the reaction of the groupies shows that it's a difficult trick to pull off.

It's well documented that the perceived flaw of this novel is that Bronte fails to give the reason for Lucy Snowe's sadness, her hinted loss and quite apparent loneliness; whereas in Jane Eyre the reader is acquainted with Jane's background. Certainly the groupies thought it a major flaw: they felt cheated because they expected to find out the reason at some stage in the novel.

Too many co-incidences; not much of a story; unbelievable characters; obvious devices; a rushed ending – oh, dear, one criticism after another. But, surely, they could see some merit in the novel. No? But in Villette there are flashes of brilliant observation, a rich and powerful use of language, amazing character studies, wit and wry humour and truly wonderful descriptions of passion and pain.

Lucy Snowe is a character as strong as any modern heroine, one who will not "exist in another's existence", one who fights to be independent, who feels that no matter how unimportant a person, everyone deserves to be loved and to love. I grant it's twenty years since I last read Villette, and it may be another twenty till I read it again, but, read it again I will.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Lark Rise to Candleford

Sunday night is one of my television nights mainly because I look forward to watching an historical literary adaptation for the small screen. Lark Rise to Candleford fitted the bill, in a gentle, easy to watch, curl up with a cup of cocoa and suspend belief sort of way. But it's finished.

This long series followed on from Cranford which kept those of us who enjoy such stuff making sure we bagged the sofa for Sunday evening. Cranford it was not: see my blog archive 2007, posted on 30th December. In the televised Cranford there was real depth of characterisation, humour and the sense that true social change was taking place as the story unfolded.

Flora Thompson's, Lark Rise to Candleford, is a very different creature from Elizabeth Gaskell's novel. Flora Jane Timms (1876-1947) was born in the small village of Juniper Hill (the fictional Lark Rise) on the Oxfordshire border and left school at fourteen - as was usual - to work in the post office in the village of Fringford (later depicted as Candleford Green). She married in 1903 and moved to Hampshire where she and her husband ran a post office.

Lark Rise to Candleford is a semi autobiographical trilogy based on her Oxfordshire childhood and three communities, a hamlet, a nearby village and a town. The first story, Lark Rise, was published in 1939, followed by Over to Candleford (1941) and finally Candleford Green in 1943. These were re-issued as one volume Lark Rise to Candleford in 1945.

The books all describe village life throughout the year and the events depicted in them mirror much of Flora's experience. The central character is Laura Timmins, and the story starts when she leaves her hamlet of Lark Rise to work in the post office of the larger Candleford. Every television episode had its own little drama and on the whole these stood on their own. In the book the trilogy finishes when Laura leaves to sample life in the outside world, but the TV adaption has the post mistress fulfil this ambition. In fact this is what Flora herself set out to do.

As a record of ordinary rural life her books are an excellent record – do you remember Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady? Well in this respect they are very similar. But, although in Flora's novels we do see characters riding the newfangled bicycle, we are hardly aware how much the railway transformed transport and the relationship between village and town (it’s a shocking event when this occurs in Cranford).

Nor should the reader or viewer look to these novels to portray complete historical accuracy. Although we are very aware how the telegraph impacted on communications, we are little aware of the mass migration of rural workers to the cities. In Gaskell's novels, however, this sort of social change is always apparent and often the basis of the story.

The stories in Lark Rise to Candleford are set in the last years of the nineteenth century and Flora was over 60 years old when she wrote them. She, too, possibly saw that time through rose-tinted spectacles. They are gentle reminiscences of a time and way of life long past. And I, for one, will miss this sentimental, nostalgic series that was so easy on the ear and eye; that and having the sofa to myself.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

From Russia with knobs on

The Royal Academy's main exhibition, From Russia, is truly amazing but if you've not been yet there's only about two and a half weeks left to scoot up to London to see it. However, to do it justice give yourself all day; do half before lunch and the rest afterwards otherwise its so overwhelming you'll be knackered. And another interesting fact, it's the exhibition that nearly never was, and might never be again.

The Russian museums, worried that some of their wonderful collection of French and Russian master paintings dating between 1870 and 1925 might be the confiscated by alleged owners, got cold feet and refused to lend their paintings. Fortunately for us diplomacy - and the pragmatic decision to safeguard the works from claims – worked and this fantastic collection can be seen in all its glory.


The first room of the exhibition shows the influence of French art in Russia and some superb paintings. I particularly like the full length portraits by Russian artists – they reminded me of Singer Sargent's work – and a wonderful large work, 17 October 1905 by Ilya Repin, of a crowd celebrating the concessions achieved by the uprising against the Romonov regime. The painting is so cheerful - lots of red in it - that the jubilant mood of the crowd is palpable.

Late in the 1890's two very astute, keen and wealthy Russian collectors – Shchukin and Morozov – began to assemble wonderful collections of French art. They started acquiring Impressionist paintings: on exhibition are Monet's haystack and poppy field, Renoir's portraits and social groups and several of Cezanne's vibrant landscapes.

And both men were patrons of the Avant-Garde; some wonderful examples of Van Gogh and Gaugin's glowing paintings of life and landscapes in Tahiti. But their tastes were eclectic, they also liked Denis, Bonnard and the more colourful Derain. Then – what boldness and taste they had – they collected many Matisse and Shchukin was even confident enough to commission some.

Apparently, after commissioning Dance I by Matisse in 1909 he was so worried about the reaction to the painting – that primeval dance, those vivid, alive, roughly outlined figures nearly escaping their frame, that shocking colour – that he nearly cancelled it. Fortunately for us he kept his nerve and the painting came to inspire not only the Russian painters of the time but hundreds since.

At one time Shchukin owned 37 works by Matisse and – his next coup – over 50 paintings by Picasso. His collection covered Picasso's Blue and Rose periods and those inspired by African woodcarving, one of which is on exhibition, as well as Cubist paintings. How amazing it must have been to visit their salons where these were hung. Unfortunately the First World War put paid to their collecting.

Wow, this exhibition is amazing, so much great work to see: I kept thinking that there couldn't be much more. No, I was wrong, another room! Sergei Diaghilev – the founder of Ballets Russes – was a famous impresario of the visual arts and not only introduced French art to Russia but Russian culture to Paris. There's a wonderful, vibrant, full-length painting that shows him in his two roles, one in evening dress, the other in a performer's costume. And I like the 1906 portrait of him by Bakst, where he has such an amused look on his face.

So we learn that Russian artists studied in Paris and were inspired by French artists: Korovin's Paris, 1912, so similar but so much more austere than Pisarro's earlier painting, Paris certainly proves the inspiration angle but is not such a good example that by 1910 they'd begun to experiment and develop their own style. Boy, I thought this must be nearly the end but had to sit down bit, rest the old brain let alone the feet. Then off again into the next room...what more? Neo-Primitivism, inspired by the simplicity of Russian woodcuts and folk art, then Cubo-Futurism – a combination of the fragmented French Cubist style and the movement and dynamism of the Italian Futurists - contributed to this new found confidence.

Now, by this time I'd definitely decided that there couldn't possibly be any more to see but, no, wrong again: rooms full with Russian artist's innovative works from Abstraction to Constructivism. But by now I was reeling. Whew, sighted the exit and made straight for the café and while I got my strength back mulled over the scale of the exhibition, the richness, quality and variety of the works: have decided that I'll just have to come back and do it all again, bit by bit.....with lots of coffee breaks or, better still, lunch.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Candles and Eggs

The name Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon's Goddess of Spring, Eastre: the Rites of Spring, renewal and fertility, were celebrated by pagan peoples such as Norsemen to whom this meant the season of the growing sun. For all, bonfires and the candle – light - were important parts of the custom.

Throughout Europe Easter fires were lit on top of mountains, and new fire kindled – by rubbing sticks together – representing the pagan practice of honouring the strength of the Sun, longer days, shorter nights, rebirth and fertility.

For early Christians the Paschal Moon (from the Greek Pascha, Passover), the full moon of the Passover, seems to have set when Mary Magdalene entered the Garden in darkness but the Resurrection was revealed to her at sunrise. So these devout men spent the night before Easter day deep in prayer, illuminated only by the moon. Other men, believing the light would come, walked through the fields or climbed hills to see the Sun Dance.

For some reason many of us associate candles with Christmas time and the end of it, Candlemas, but in fact the candle is a more important symbol at Easter. In centuries past, on Easter Eve, the church was unlit until the candle was kindled by flint and steel. Then all other candles were lit from it to light the building.

The Paschal candle – which is always of beeswax, the purest wax – came to represent Christ, the Light of the World. In the Middle Ages in England this candle, obelisk in shape, was to lifted to "within a man's length of the roof", where it was lit by "a fine convenience" – an early match?

In some churches today the church is still left in darkness whilst a bonfire is lit outside to symbolise the coming light; the priest blesses the new fire, the symbol of Christ's Resurrection, and lights a candle from the new fire. This Paschal candle is then taken into the church from which the congregation light their candles. This Easter vigil includes a blessing of water as a sign of purification and water from the font is sprinkled over worshippers gathered there.

But way before this, in medieval England, on Easter morning households would strike new fire in the darkness –'need fire' as they called it – believing that the straw would not catch unless all fires and lights were put out first.

The yew in the churchyard was a symbol of life and it is the English or Irish yew that is the one true evergreen of Easter: the symbolic green of eternal life. And, apart from green, only the white of Resurrection is seen on the altar: narcissi, arum lilies, blackthorn or hellebore perhaps.

The swift and mysterious hare was thought to be sacred to Eastre – it would seem I have a thing about hares – and the hare was thought to lay eggs which it left in the grass for children to find. Today the hare's place has been taken by the Easter Bunny – a plebby upstart – but children still love searching for the eggs hidden in the garden and enjoy eating them just as much!

The egg was an object of wonder and the source of new life to primitive people and eaten whether it be that of the thrush, the pigeon, duck, chicken or goose. And from before Edward I's time, these Easter eggs - life's emblem - would be boiled in dye, which left them a beautiful blue, rose red or marbled green, and eaten for breakfast on Easter morning. If time could be afforded, a design could be scratched on the eggs with a steel pin.

When religious fasting was the norm – and the eating of eggs not allowed - the end of it, Easter, was a time to celebrate and eat all those other good things that had been denied. Throughout villages and in the manor houses of medieval England lamb and veal, capons, ducks, beer and bread, spiced cakes, custards and pies were prepared with care and eaten with joy and relish: Easter, then as now, was a time to eat eggs and rejoice in the light.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

Hey, what's this, it's snowing here! That's not part of the deal, this is Easter not Christmas, I was looking forward to the sun.