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Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Happy Weekend, one and all – I am rising after almost twelve hours asleep, which will hopefully throw off the remainder of the cold I’ve had for a bit now. It does mean that I haven’t been reading much of late – even though I’m in the middle of one or two really good books – but there should be enough going on in the back of my head to cobble together a book, a blog post, and a link!

1.) The blog post – is the new(ish) site called Austen Authors, and more particularly the post by/about SiaB-favourite Diana Birchall. The site collects together lots of people who have written about Austen, or in the style of Austen. It would be too catty for my taste to call Diana’s sequel Mrs. Darcy’s Dilemma a rose among thorns, but… let’s just say her novel is inspired by Austen’s prose, and not Colin Firth’s wet shirt…

2.) The link – is to the South Asian Literature Festival, which is taking place between 15th-31st October, in London to start off, and then the rest of the UK. I know less about South Asian literature than most of you, I suspect, but I might well try and make it along to a session or two, time permitting.

3.) The book – is the forthcoming (on October 14th) autobiography by the very-much-loved Judi Dench, And Furthermore. I’m sometimes a little exasperated by celebrities who think that being famous = having writing ability, and who knows whether or not Dame J can hold her own as a prose stylist, but I think I would love this book whatever she wrote. With some people, I am besotted to the point of blindness…

Just Kidding

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It’s no secret that I love the Bloomsbury Group reprints – many of which are crowded eagerly on my tbrvvs (to be read very, very soon) shelf – but today I’m going to talk about the only one I hadn’t previously read from the first batch of six. All my reviews of Bloomsbury Group reprints can be read here, and the latest to add to the fold is Wolf Mankowitz’s A Kid For Two Farthings. (Fact fans: Mankowitz was born on the same day I was, albeit sixty-one years earlier.)

It’s the shortest one so far, I think, coming in at 128pp. of fairly big type, and it’s not set in the 1930s domestic world which perhaps defines the series in my mind. Instead, this is 1950s and the East End of London. We see this world through the eyes of Joe, age six. Rather than Lady B., china tea cups, and bring-and-buy sales, we see a boxer desperate to afford an engagement ring for his girl; a poor mother longing to join her husband in Africa; and this sort of scene, picked more or less at random to give a glimpse of Joe’s surroundings:
Near Alf’s stall there was a jellied-eel stand with a big enamel bowl of grey jellied eels, small bowls for portions, a large pile of lumps of bread, and three bottles of vinegar. There was also orange-and-black winkles in little tubs, and large pink whelks. People stood around shaking vinegar on to their eels and scooping them up with bread. A ltitle thin man in a white muffler served them and sometimes dropped a large piece of eel on the ground. Behind the stand a very fat man with a striped apron and an Anthony Eden hat waved a ladle in his hand and shouted, “Best eels, fresh jellied; buy ’em and try ’em.” Over the stand a red, white and blue banner flapped. “The Eel King,” it said. The King himself never served.
What is so wonderful about the setting Mankowitz creates is that it doesn’t fall into one of two familiar traps. It’s not salt-of-the-earth, honest-‘umble-poor (thank you Mr. Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell) nor is it aiming to shock with its gritty realism and the gratuitously unpleasant (thank you Irving Welsh et al). I have never lived in the East End of London in the 1950s, but Mankowitz has – and was born in Spitalfields in 1924. (Incidentally, for a great and incredibly varied blog on Spitalfields, see Spitalfields Life). As such, his portrait in A Kid For Two Farthings is certainly fond, but not saccharine.

And ‘saccharine’ might be a word on the tip of your tongue when you read the first sentence: ‘It was thanks to Mr. Kandinsky that Joe knew a unicorn when he saw one.’ For Joe spots one at the market, and persuades Mr. Kandinsky to help him buy it. What nobody tells Joe, of course, is that his unicorn is simply a slightly deformed kid (i.e. young goat). He’s a six year old, and they don’t disillusion him – which makes him all the more certain that the unicorn’s horn will magically grant his wishes, and those of the people around him. His wishes – naturally – tie in with the everyday romantic troubles, professional anxieties, and recreational competitions that his mother and his neighbours undergo. Gradually everything falls into place…

So there are definitely fairy-tale elements to A Kid For Two Farthings, but it is Mankowitz’s observational humour – always kind, mind, never mocking – and his refusal to deny his characters their flaws, that stop the novella being too sweet. The lives of the characters are too ordinary and empathetic for that. Instead, it is affectionate and affecting – something of a treasure, and one to re-read. It may not have the instant appeal that Joyce Dennys’ Henrietta books had for me, but I can still recognise a gem that I am delighted Bloomsbury chose to reprint.

Books to get Stuck into:

The Harp in the South – Ruth Park : my favourite Australian novel, and one I read before the days of blogging, we’re in 1948 and in a slum on the other side of the world, but again amongst a flawed, realistic, and affecting family and their neighbours. Sometimes humourous, sometimes sad, always captivating.

Pulling No Punches

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Ok, now that my internet is behaving most of the time, I’ll explain why I asked about Punch – and thanks for all your interesting responses. I recently re-read A.A. Milne’s book Once a Week (1914). It’s in a series of books by Milne that Methuen published, mostly collections of sketches and essays which had previously appeared in Punch. Although Punch ran from 1841-1992, and again from 1996-2002, in my mind it is completely associated with the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s – when A.A. Milne was assistant editor, for instance. All my knowledge of Punch comes from Ann Thwaite’s brilliant biography A.A. Milne: His Life and Milne’s own autobiography It’s Too Late Now.

Which is why I wanted to ask you all what came to mind when you thought of Punch – and was interested to hear the differing answers. Cartoons obviously came up – and yes, you were all right that the cartoon I posted gave rise to the expression ‘curate’s egg’. It was drawn by George du Maurier, grandfather of Daphne, and is an expression/joke I’ve always found inexplicably popular. To me, it’s just not that funny. BUT, having said that, I absolutely don’t agree that certain humour is dated or of its time. Certain humour appeals to certain people, and that’s that, really. Perhaps more of those people were around in the 1910s, or whichever decade you choose, but – well, put it this way: I’d hate for anyone to think in 2060 that everyone in 2010 found Frankie Boyle funny. Just as I find him farcically unamusing now, so I find the whimsical humour of 1910s’ Punch delightful.

But Punch had quite an odd status. It was incredibly popular in its heyday, and in some ways represented the tone of the time, but even then was looked down on by many. Here’s an excerpt from Civilisation (1929) by Clive Bell (husband of Vanessa Bell – i.e. Virginia Woolf’s brother-in-law):
And obviously an Englishman who cares for beauty, truth, or knowledge, may find himself more in sympathy with a Frenchman, German, or Chinaman who shares his tastes than with a compatriot who shares those of Punch and John Bull.Q.D. Leavis – the country’s most famous snob after Margot Leadbetter – put it like this in Fiction and the Reading Public (1932):
For the crude power of the bestseller the literary novelists substitute a more civilised tone; the temperature of their writing is slightly below instead of a good deal above normal; they deal in the right kind of humour (the Punch kind), and are the best fellows in the world.And yet it was Punch magazine which came up with this rather scathing definition of the middlebrow: ‘It consists of people who are hoping that some day they will get used to the stuff they ought to like.’ (1925)

Which is all a rather convoluted way of saying that Punch doesn’t – and didn’t – really conform to any one type, or position in the national consciousness! I hope you don’t mind a meander through various books like this – it’s the bit of my research which I thought might be least dull to share.

And all this is an introduction to Once A Week by A.A. Milne! About which I am not going to say all that much about it, because the tone of Punch is more or less the same as the tone of this collection. If you love the sort of whimsy that skirts around Diary of a Nobody, or that is a very toned down Wodehouse, or… well, a grown-up Winnie-the-Pooh perhaps – then you’ll love this. It’s a collection of stories and sketches about people having fun together – arguing over cricket, or who has to order the coal. Lots of silliness, nothing too serious ever encroaching. Rereading it this time – and I read all Milne’s Punch books back in 2001 – I can see how it might wear thin for some people. The lighthearted way which the characters treat even the infancy of their child is perhaps a step too saccharine – but, on the whole, this is the sort of humour I will happily dive into.

Is it escapism? Perhaps – but I don’t really believe there is such a thing. I don’t think gritty realism is actually any more real than people being daft in a holiday cottage. It reminds me of an A.A. Milne quotation I somewhat overuse:
People are always telling me I should write about Real Life – preferably in a public house or brothel, where Life is notoriously more Real than elsewhere.If you fancy a taste of life that is real, but rather more fun and whimsical than most portrayals of it, then I think A.A. Milne’s superbly-crafted stories and sketches can scarcely be beaten. You can even read it online here. Just one word of warning – Once A Week could be considered a curate’s egg.

Punch

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Oh dear, my sleep patterns are all over the place. It’s 2.20am, and I went to bed at 8.30pm, now unable to get back to sleep after waking up very thirsty. The reading I’ve been doing on Freudianism (most recently, the say-what-you’re-thinking What is Psychoanalysis? by SomebodyOrOther Corriat) tells me that one of the most basic wish-fulfilment dreams is dreaming of water/drinking when you are thirsty. To the best of my recollection, I was dreaming of the cast of Emmerdale – analyse that, Sigmund.

So, I’m writing because I’m awake (and, incidentally, quite hungry – what is the social acceptability of eating a sandwich at 2.20am?) but I did want to ask you lot a question, in preparation for a forthcoming review. That sounds very organised, doesn’t it? It isn’t really; it’s rather more a delaying tactic – but it would be lovely if you could answer it none the less.

What do you associate with Punch magazine? What are your thoughts when you hear of it? Which adjectives would you use to describe it?


For a bonus mark, and not related to the review I hope to write soon, what well-known phrase derived from the caption accompanying this image in Punch?

Writing the question reminds me that I once bought some fairly large old copies of Punch, but I haven’t the smallest idea where they are – I have a feeling they didn’t survive the house-move in 2005.

Great – so do let me know, and all will become clear. If you’re lucky, I might even tell you a Punch related joke, shamelessly stolen from my brother. And now I’m going to eat a sandwich, because I imagine that somewhere in the world it is lunchtime…

All My Sons

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This is one of those posts I feel a little guilty about writing, because I’m gong to eulogise about a play which is no longer available to see… this probably won’t bother those of you who are anyhow unavailable to get to London, but I’m sorry to tease those of you who could do… because my friends Becca and Cath and I went to see the last performance of All My Sons.


I’ll start by saying that was the best thing I’ve ever seen in the theatre. I don’t have the encyclopaedic experience of theatre which some can boast – prohibitive ticket prices mean that I’m most likely to be found at RSC performances, since they have cheap tickets for young-uns. Still, I do go when I can, and was determined to see All My Sons… when I discovered Jemima Rooper was in it. She has followed me throughout my life, appearing in many of my favourite programmes – The Famous Five when I was a child; As If when I was a teenager; Lost in Austen while I’m in my twenties. What will come next, one wonders… it is certainly fitting that she has appeared in my favourite theatre experience.

All My Sons is a 1947 play by American playwright Arthur Miller, and somehow my first encounter with him. Almost everyone else seems to have read or seen The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, but Oxford’s non-American syllabus and happenstance have led to me not really knowing anything about Miller. Well, he isn’t a bucketful of laughs – it’s one of those criticism-of-the-American-Dream pieces which seemed to abound after WW2. But Miller covers a very sensitive area for the post-war world. It gradually emerges that the central man (Joe, played phenomenally by David Suchet) and his neighbour had been arrested for shipping broken aeroplane parts out to the air force – leading to the death of 21 men. Joe was acquitted; Steve was not, and is currently in jail.

Steve’s daughter Ann (the lovely Jemima Rooper) has come to stay with Joe’s family. Miller uses the technique seen in plays like The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Arthur Pindero and The Great Broxopp by A.A. Milne, where a character is described and awaited by all and sundry before they actually appear on the scene, so Ann’s entrance is built up no end. She had been the sweetheart of Larry, Joe and Kate’s (Zoe Wanamaker) son who was lost in the war. She is now romantically involved with their other son, Chris (Stephen Campbell Moore), but they’re afraid to reveal this – because in Kate’s mind, Larry is still coming home.

This is the central emotional thread of the play, and must have been even more poignant in 1947 – coming (or refusing to come) to terms with the almost certain death of a son, when a body has never been found. The guilt of those who survived, or those who profitted by the war – and everyone trying to piece life back together. Then there is the question of what is and what is not honourable in wartime – and the relative importance of family and country. It’s all in there.

Miller’s structure could probably be quite easily dissected. He is a fan of the set piece, or the dramatic twist, and these push All My Sons through its various scenarios. But there is so much more than plot on offer – the emotional journeys of each character are beautifully drawn, and were brilliantly realised by an astonishingly good cast. The play was advertised as having David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker in its lead roles – and, indeed, if David Suchet doesn’t win all manner of awards then it would be a travesty; having only seen him as Poirot, I was not aware of his range – but this is definitely an ensemble piece. The four central actors have fairly equal amounts of material, and worked so well together that I don’t think I ever want to see the play again – it could never live up to this precedent.


Of course, I am biased in Jemima Rooper’s direction, and it was thrilling to see on stage an actress I love so much. But everyone was strikingly good – both halves of the play were pacy and gripping, and that is said by someone with quite a short attention sp— sorry, what were we talking about? (A-ha-ha.) It certainly wasn’t cheap, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything – although the nature of plays, unlike books or films, is transitory, I will cling on to the memories I have of All My Sons – it has become the benchmark against which I will measure future visits to the theatre.

Oh, and it wasn’t just me – Cath and Becca loved it, and the audience gave it a standing ovation. (See also Michael Billington’s appreciative Guardian review.) I’m sorry that the chance has passed to see this performance, but perhaps one of the filmed versions is worth seeing…?

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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You’ll be pleased to know that my internet is behaving itself this weekend – even if my body is not, as I seem to have caught the cold which is going around my house. So yesterday I did very little indeed, conserving my energy for going to London later today to see Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, which should be fun. Also fun (notice that seamless transition?) are links, books, and blog posts…

1.) The blog post – is from author Tom Lappin. Some of you might remember when I wrote about his novel Parties ages and ages ago – and a very good novel it was too. Anyway, Tom emailed this week to say that he’s writing a blog which is kind of the novel which (in Parties) Beatrice writes about Richard. All very meta, and probably enjoyable too – click here for more.

2.) The link – Legend Press and The Reading Agency have joined forces to give away up to a thousand copies of five novels to reading groups – click here for more. Reading groups are up there with whiskers on kittens (KITTENS!) and brown paper packages tied up with string – i.e., they’re one of my favourite things, and anything done to support them by publishers is fantastic in my eyes. (Hmm… maybe a blog post is brewing there – watch this space.)

3.) The book – is Justine Picardie’s biography of Coco Chanel, called Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. I haven’t seen the recent films about her, and don’t know much about the woman – nor do I often read biographies of anyone except authors, but I think I might well make an exception and immerse myself in this one later…

A new family member…

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Sorry for the delay in posts recently – for reasons best known to itself, my internet is not working properly in the evenings at the moment. That’s not quite true – occasionally it will make a mammoth effort and load a page, but generally it is so slow that the page times out before anything has appeared on the screen. This only happens in the evenings… which is of course blogging time. The internet is very useful sometimes – I wouldn’t have met you lot without it! – but it does unleash that incomparable rage when things don’t go right. Because I never know how to fix it. I rarely get angry, but computers have caused me more fist-shaking, foot-stomping, voice-raising than anything else. ARGH!

So, at half midnight, it starts working – too late for me to write the review I was planning, but not too late to show you the new addition to my home in Somerset… I’ll soon be visiting little Sherpa, but Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife are welcoming her at the moment – and have sent me a photo or two to be going on with:

Cows

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A quick post today, as I want to curl up in bed with Wait for Me! As part of the Bloggers’ Meet-Up, a few of us went around the Ashmolean (which, shamefully, I had not been to for almost six years). I headed straight for the paintings, because I’ve got to confess I’m not cultured enough to be all that interested in pots and things… but I do love art galleries.

This is probably my favourite painting on display:


I first encountered Stanley Spencer on the cover of Barbara Comyns’ novel Who Was Changed and Who was Dead (see that image here), and he is now one of my favourite artists. I love the surreal domesticity he paints – similar to the sort of novels I love, in that respect. Since I know so little about art history, or art really, I can’t explain what I love about this image – but I do love it, so thought I’d share it with you!

One Bad Turn…

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A few of you commented on my mention on The Turn of the Screw the other day, and I’m afraid this is confession time. I’m well aware that this almost certainly a case of wrong reader/wrong time, rather than wrong book, but… it didn’t work for me at all.

I’d seen the production at Christmas (partly filmed in the graveyard of my church in Somerset, doncha know); I’d seen another production about a decade ago. I’m reading lots of fantasy theory books at the moment, and it keeps being mentioned as a famously ambiguous text. Simon, I said to myself, get over your dislike of Henry James (based entirely on one interminable ‘short’ story) and get The Turn of the Screw off the shelf.

So I did. The plot is well known. A governess is hired to look after a man’s niece and nephew, Flora and Miles, the latter of whom has recently been expelled from school. The uncle puts her in charge, with only one stipulation: he is on no account to be disturbed. But it’s the governess who is disturbed – she starts to see mysterious figures wandering the grounds, who don’t seem to be seen by any other members of the household. And she learns that the previous governess, Miss Jessel, and her lover Peter Quint, had died under curious circumstances… events come together to convince the governess that the figures she sees are their ghosts, and she suspects the children may not be as unaware and innocent as they seem… Even writing that synopsis, I am intrigued – I’m imagining it in the hands of Shirley Jackson, and am enthralled. I daresay she owes a lot to James. But…

The novella is one of those stories-within-a-story, and is framed by an unnamed narrator reading a manuscript account to a friend. This is just the first of the techniques which put the reader as a distance – the most strident being James’ complex style. The tangle of his sentences means that the reader – or at least this reader – clambers along the surface of the text, never dipping below the words on the page to the caverns of images they should produce.
The day was grey enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, and it enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognise, on a chair near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but to become aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking straight in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; it was all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had already appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won’t say greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same – he was the same, and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the window, though the dining-room was on the ground-floor, not going down to the terrace on which he stood. I picked that section more or less at random, but it is actually one of the few moments which actually made an impression on me – but even now, re-reading it, his sentences are so convoluted and intricate that I am barely able to rescue a picture from the effort of disentangling his syntax. It’s not because I’m unused to 19th century books – I’ve read a lot in the past, and quite a few recently. It’s definitely James.

Is this all deliberate? Is it worthwhile? Did The Turn of the Screw flounder for me because I was so tired when I read it? I can admire James – I can certainly admire the imagination which structured the ambiguity of the novella’s conclusion, but I cannot love or enjoy him. Worse, a lot of the time I can barely understand him. Please, counsel for the defence, step forward and tell me what I’m missing?