Too sleepy for full update, so here is my day in bullet points:
– morning… tired and cold
– teabreak – mmm, tea. Fine invention.
– meet Our Vicar’s Wife for lunch, lovely
– worky worky work
– friends come over
– aubergine and mozarella rolls (mmm)
– Sound of Music: Songs Only Option
– Children in Need for a bit (gosh, Boyzone haven’t aged)
– bed…
This week’s BTT is something we’ve covered a while ago, but I’ll throw it out there again. For those who were baffled last week, apologies for the incorrect hyperlink on ‘Booking Through Thursday’ – just pop along to www.btt2.wordpress.com. Every week they pose a bookish question for those of us who have run out of insp
iration by Thursday, and then I encourage all of you to ponder it yourself. This week:
…how many of us write notes in our books. Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?
Well, we came across this perilous question in my review of Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris, I think, which can be read here. And you may remember that I am VEHEMENTLY against writing in books, or defacing them in any manner. The library trainees recently went on a training session about boxes and foam pads (it’s like a rollercoaster, I tell you) which included the speaker tearing pages out of a book as a shock tactic. Although the book was destined to be thrown away anyhow, it was still painful… an actual physical pain, running through my body, and quite a loud involuntary gasp. Shared, I’m proud to say, by those either side of me. Anyway – books are not notebooks, they should be treated with dignity.
Having said that…. this is where the hypocrisy comes in. My name is Simon and I am a Footprint Leaver. Very occasionally. Though a repeat offender, I must confess. The worst instance is my Collected Works of Shakespeare – reading this, while being shaken around on Filipino Jeepneys, I had to scrawl notes (always in pencil, mind) or remember nothing when I started writing essays months later. Nor could I keep a notebook – the quotations would take an age to write out, and while I could jag a line on a rickety journey, legible writing was beyond my capability. 
What is amusing is the type of notes I make in the books, when not simply underlining. I write things, for the most part, not as analysis, but pointers. I.e. when I later write an essay on a certain topic, I’ll be able to locate all the relevant passages. Which leads to such erudite pronouncements as ‘death’ alongside deaths, or ‘time’ by the use of the word ‘time’. As Our Vicar’s Wife’s teacher used to say – “If you are the cream of the intelligentsia, Heaven help the skimmed milk”.
Howsabout yourself? I promise I won’t shout if you perennially leave footprints…
I’ve talked so much about Tove Jansson’s Fair Play, without actually saying anything, that many of you will probably think Book Group was months ago. Well, I’ve just come back from it, and nine other people who had read Jansson’s book over the past six weeks. So here is my opinion of Fair Play, and what the group thought of it, so pile in with your feedback too, please! The cartoon is recycled, and not as appropriate to the topic for today, but I like it as an image of the bookish blogging community, and it’ll appear whenever I report back from my terrestrial Book Group.
I’ll start off a little defensively – I don’t think Fair Play was as good as Tove Jansson’s other works, those I’ve read anyway. Have a look at A Winter Book and The Summer Book by searching in the blog searcher, if you like – short stories and a sort of vignettey-novel respectively. Having said that, Fair Play was still a delight. Marketted as a novel, it is in fact a series of short stories/ideas/vignettes/snapshots featuring the same characters. Jonna and Mari live on the same, small Scandanavian island, artist and writer, and… well, that’s about it. Jonna rearranges Mari’s pictures; a girl obsessed with Mari’s mother comes to visit; they discuss their
fathers; they watch an old film; edit one of Mari’s stories, and so forth. Each chapter has a small incident occur, and Jansson wraps her delicious prose around it. By the end she has provided a beautiful portrait of an unconventional couple, co-dependent and close rather than affectionate. Jansson doesn’t allow the narrative to become twee, but she does give beauty. This was especially true on my re-read (the first time in many years I have re-read a novel immediately) where I could just wallow in the prose.
So, what did the Book Group think? I must confess, I was worried whilst I was reading it. Plot is quite far down on my list of priorities when evaluating a book, but I know that’s not the case for a lot of people – Jansson’s novels are either viewed as beautiful writing, or just fairly pointless. One guy definitely took the latter view – just couldn’t see the point, engage with the characters, or be bothered to read on. A few others agreed to a lesser extent. That’s fine – I deliberately suggested one I hadn’t read already, so that I wouldn’t be too sensitive about people’s reactions. Most of the group found the writing to be very good, the novel to be gentle and evocative, and the characters intriguing, if slightly distant from a depiction of ‘love’, which the introduction suggested. Nobody loved it, desperate to read more (if only they’d started with The Summer Book!) but a few said they would if they came across some.
So, not a failure, not a success – but people were happy to have read something they wouldn’t otherwise have come across, and that is, after all, one of the main reasons that people join Book Groups.
Over to you! As far as I know, Curzon and Carole have read Fair Play – and of course anyone else is welcome to join in. Thoughts?
As an addendum to the previous post… strangely, my Blogger homepage tells me I’ve written 150 posts (as declared yesterday)… but the little drop-down bit in the left column says 145 (146 including this one, I suppose). What’s happened to the other five? Where are they? What are they? Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.
Before I start this post – Fair Play Book Group meeting tomorrow, and thus my opinion of it, and whether or not the group agreed… and hopefully all of you will chime in with what you thought!
150th post today, and somehow that puts me in mind of Canada. Don’t ask, cos I don’t know. There is something about Canada that I can’t put my finger on – maybe because, like Britain, it often seems to play second fiddle to the US? Because they have two languages? Because of that lovely maple leaf? I don’t know. Whatever it is, it makes me feel I’ve missed out on Canadian literature. It remains an almost wholly untapped mine for me. In fact, the sum total of my Canadian reading (so far as I know) is Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, and lots and lots of the inimitable Stephen Leacock. There’ll be more of him at some later date, as I just know you’ll love him – like a Canadian PG Wodehouse, if any comparison is possible for an author who is really only Leacockian. Anyway, yes, Ondaatje and Leacock – that’s it. No Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, L. M. Montgomery, Alice Munro… ok, I’m out. Whoever else there is, I haven’t read ’em.
This all snowballed when I came across Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel. In my unliterary sort of way, it was news of a film adaptation which reached me first. Fancied seeing it when it came out, so went off in search of the novel… lo and behold, Lynne mentioned it at dovegreyreader. Having CRUELLY made me go and find a copy myself, I pulled some library strings and have a copy in front of me now. A cou
ple review books first, methinks, but Margaret Laurence is going to become my next dip into Canadian waters.
So, dear Transatlantic readers (and any others, of course) – where’s best to start with Canadian lit? In my perverse way, I’d rather avoid the Famous Ones listed above – I’d prefer someone fairly big in Canada, but who is a Best Kept Secret. Or someone who’s not even big in Canada, but comes with a recommendation tied to them. Any ideas?
Not the whole Birthday Books list just yet, but shall tease you with the biggest one of the lot, to whet the appetite. I knew this one was coming, as I’d not-too-subtly suggested it as a present option from my library colleagues Lucy and Clare, who have become very good friends in the two months I’ve known them. Both bookish types, and great fun as well.
So, it was without surprise, but with great delight, that I unwrapped The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley. They’d also sneaked in another book – more on that when you get the full rundown – today is just about Nancy and co. My previous acquiantance with the sisters consists only of The Pursuit of Love, and 10, Curzon Street: Letters Between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill. Even so, they’ve been on the horizon for most of my life, and I was keen to get my mitts on this beautiful collection of letters.
Haven’t finished (come on, my birthday was only a few days ago!) – in fact, only read the introduction so far, but that was enough to make me want to post about it. Charlotte Mosley explains that the book only represents a small fragment of the extant letters – and only three ‘links’ between sisters are unrepresented at all by surviving letters. My A Level Maths has to be dusted off here – if there are six sisters, each of whom can write to each other… call sisters ‘x’… carry one… divide by the number you first thought of… I think that gives 30 possible letter-routes (taking, say Diana-to-Pamela as distinct from Pamela-to-Diana) and thus 27 combinations covered in the book. Phew! What an amazing collection. Might be a bit tricky to keep track of who’s who, writing to whom, what their relationship is (in terms of temperament – obviously they’re all sisters), but thankfully there are mini-biogs and symbols in a family tree for each of them. The symbols are quite amusing, actually – while Nancy gets a ink-stand and quill, Jessica has her life summarised by a hammer and sickle. Reminds me of The Carbon Copy’s version of Scissor, Rock, Paper, entitled Hammer, Sickle, Stalin.
Anyway, where was I?
With so many letters from which to choose, chances are the most pertinent and entertaining will be here. There’s something to be said for comprehensive editions, but they can be a bit difficult to wade through – for instance, Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary was much more palatable than Volume One of the unedited thing. I’ll let you know more choice excerpts as I read through – I think this is going to be one I read a small portion from at the end of the day, and may take me til next birthday to finish – so shall just finish with one.
‘I had letters from you & the Lady [Nancy] & Henderson [Jessica] today, wouldn’t it be dread if one had a)no sisters b)sisters who didn’t write.’ [Deborah to Diana]
For you and us both, Debs!
A very fun day had by all today – to celebrate my birthday, and my friend Mel’s birthday, we took 15 people off on a Road Trip. Except this trip was by train. We went to Goring, a pretty village in Oxfordshire, had a little ramble and ate an excellent meal in The Bull. This pub was actually in Streatley, over the river, and thus in another county. Gosh, did we travel. Always nice to be in the countryside – though I was slightly chastised for one thing. On an outing with many friends, in part a celebration of my birthday, I still brought a book in my bag… well, for emergencies! Anything could have happened.
Will let you know the scrummy books I got for my birthday another night. Still a few more to wing their way in, actually – I do like protracted birthdays.
Booking Through Thursday has been absent here for a while, but fills in the mental gap today –
Would you say that you read about the same amount now as when you were younger? More? Less? Why?
Well, even with a birthday having just gone by, I don’t think I could describe myself as old… so I’m going to have to compare to when I was reading children’s books, I suppose. Ironically, I remember finding it quite difficult, learning to read – well, in comparison to The Carbon Copy, anyway. That’s the thing with twins – even a tiny bit of difference is magnified, so the fact that it took me a few weeks longer felt like quite a big issue. Hasn’t held me back too much in the reading stakes.
Let’s see. I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t love reading, when I didn’t have a book on the go. During University I read fairly few books outside the remit of my course, but that was time constraint rather than anything else. As I develop my reading tastes, especially since I started blogging, the tbr pile gets steadily higher and higher. I remember the days when I couldn’t think of anything to read next – so I’d just read the same book again. Right now, I’ve probably got enough to last me until retirement. My book-obsession has only got worse – I would never go anywhere without a book in my bag, usually two, for emergencies. As a child, that probably wasn’t such an issue. SO, I think I read more now than when I was younger, but it’s all relative…
How about you? Has there been a period in your life when you’ve read more or less than normal? Tell us why!
Thank you all so much for your kind birthday wishes! It’s been a fun day, with lots of cake, and not a lot of Proper Food. Oh well, plenty of time for that on the other 365 days of the year. Since November 7th is quite a momentous day in my year, thought I’d repeat what I experimented with here, and see what I was reading On This Day throughout the past few years.
In 2007… at the moment I am reading a book for reviewing, so shall let you know as soon as I can what it is, and what I thought…
In 2006… Rereading one of my favourite novels, Mrs Dalloway by, of course, Virginia Woolf. Partly a birthday treat (!), partly because I was writing my thesis on Woolf.
In 2005… A Book Group read, though a postal group rather than a ‘terrestrial’ one (should tell you about that sometime…) – The Long Afternoon by Giles Waterfield, which is very, very good. Shall probably be appearing on the 50 Books… before long. You’re warned!
In 2004… The Critic as Artist by Oscar Wilde. Check me out. Was actually researching my first-term essay on Wilde and the Morality of Repetition….!
In 2003… Twas another Book Group read, earthbound this time; Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris, and thus far the only Joanne Harris novel I’ve read, though she has been lurking around my reading horizons ever since. Maybe time for another?
In 2002… The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, which are witty and well written, as well as being thought-provoking and incisive. All of which makes it sound like I wasn’t imminently to embark on a Harry Potter reading spree…
In 2001… Having devoured the brilliant series beginning with ‘The L-Shaped Room’, I was reading One More River by Lynne Reid Banks. My main recollection is that this has a donkey named Eeyore…
Quite a short post today, just one bit of info to impart.
Assuming that most people will read this ‘tomorrow’ (i.e. 7th November) – although I don’t understand time differences at all – I shall be all subtle and wish The Carbon
Copy a very Happy Birthday. See what you can deduce from that…. ! The picture is the wonderful birthday cake Our Vicar’s Wife made last year.
And a good opportunity to say how nice it is to have you all stop by. With the exceptions of the few unpleasant ‘anonymous’ comments (why bother commenting? why read the blog at all, one wonders?) you’re a lovely, lovely bunch of people and it’s a pleasure to know you’ll pop along and share some bookish chat. Currently getting around 110-130 ‘unique users’ a day, according to StatCounter, and each and every one is very welcome. Hope you’ve found something to enjoy and to read whilst you’ve been here!