Books on Film

StuckinaBook All 6 Comments

I think I just made a Duran Duran reference in my post title, but I’m not wholly sure…

Thursday, and time for me to kick back from creative thought, and just copy the good people of Booking Through Thursday – and, of course, invite you to do likewise.

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

I think we’ve talked about that here in the past, though not certain – it is one of those questions which comes up perenially. Quite a while ago, I picked out all the DVDs I owned which were adaptations of literature or connected to literature in some way – quite a few, was the answer.

I resolutely believe that books are simply better than films, if the book came first – even if I enjoy the film more, or think it has better creative artists behind it, it remains a derivative and thus subordinate. True, you can point at Shakespeare and disprove me, as he had barely an original plot line, but still…

What do I like for in a book and what in a film? I’m happy if a film shows me one level; one story. Beauty is a nice bonus, but it is rather too easy – even the worst director can film a meadow and it will look beautiful. It takes a great writer to make that same meadow appear for the reader, in all its beauty, and not simply a word. So, from a book, I look for an interesting plot – but, more importantly, a individual and captivating style. Some depth of thought, some longevity. I probably won’t read it in one go (as I would watch a film in one go) and so I want something I can live alongside, rather than compartmentalise into an evening…

Demanding, aren’t I? Howsabout you?

Welly-Throwing

StuckinaBook All , , 5 Comments

Today’s title is one of the suggestions I’ve had, in the face of Readers’ Block (or, since I’m just one person, Reader’s Block) – I *think* I did do welly-throwing – or welly-wanging – at a village fete once, but I’m probably not ready to take it up as an Olympic sport just yet. So I’ll carry on trying to shift the block, and get back to my normal Stuck position. Annoyingly, a headache has been added to the mix. On the bright side, today I completed my European Computer Driving Licence, which can be stuck squarely onto my CV, though it would be an exaggeration to say I yet understood Access or the finer workings of Excel. Part of the amusement of the course was trying to unlearn everything since about 1998, when the test was made. Formating a floppy disk, anyone?

The book I’m currently reading bits of here and there is The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee, which I bought when meeting online friends in London. It’s ‘a memoir, a history’ of Buzbee’s life with books – working in a bookshop, working as a publisher’s sales rep, just generally living and loving books – and interspersed with this is the history of books and booksellers. What a lot of times the word ‘book’ was in that sentence – what’s the opposite of aversion therapy? The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop isn’t overly sentimental, since Buzbee has had to understand the commodity aspect of books, but he speaks with a voice which every booklover will recognise and respond to:

When I walk into a bookstore, any bookstore, first thing in the morning, I’m flooded with a sense of hushed excitement. I shouldn’t feel this way. I’ve spent most of my adult life working in bookstores, either as a bookseller or a publisher’s sales rep, and even though I no longer work in the business, as an incurable reader I find myself in a bookstore at least five times a week. Shouldn’t I be blase about it all by now? In the quiet of such a morning, however, the store’s displays stacked squarely and its shelves tidy and promising, I know that this is no mere shop. When a bookstore opens its doors, the rest of the world enters, too, the days’ weather and the day’s news, the streams of customers, and of course the boxes of books and the many other worlds they contain – books of facts and truths, books newly written and those first read centuries before, books of great relevance and of absolute banality. Standing in the middle of this confluence, I can’t help but feel the possibility of the universe unfolding a little, once upon a time.

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is materially beautiful, with deckled edges and thick paper, but much more significant is the kindred spirit you’ll find inside. If anything can make me remember how much I love books, this should do it.

Working my way back…

StuckinaBook All 3 Comments

Thanks everyone! You’ve really encouraged me, and showed me the right thing to do when in the midst of readers’ block. First of all, I’m ignoring all the books I should be reading (sorry people who’ve sent books for review, they will be read, but this is a medical emergency) and… out comes the Provincial Lady. I wanted to turn to this a few days ago, but thought I couldn’t sidetrack myself from the review books – and then realised how silly it was that reading had become a chore. So, a couple of days are going to be taken out, and EM Delafield is coming with me.

I wrote about this collection of four books quite a while ago, and it is still a worthy contender for my favourite book. Funny on every page, warm, witty, touching and a book into which I can really sink my toes (as opposed to my teeth). Like a long bath, and Step One on defeating The Block.

Bear with me…
And, by the by, yesterday’s inspiring post was no.300!

Brevity

StuckinaBook All 12 Comments

…won’t be the soul of wit today, I’m afraid. My evening is being spent practising for my ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) and by ‘practicing’ I mean ‘learning’. Most of it has been fairly simple, but now I’m trying to learn about Access, which I’ve never used, and have no clear idea what it is.

Not much reading happening at the moment, either. Have four books on the go, none of them making much headway… it’s very rare that I get ‘readers’ block’, but that is what it feels like at the moment… Anyone else get this? Reading doesn’t get anywhere, and you become amazed that you ever managed to read so many thousands of words on hundreds of pages… Very un-Stuck-in-a-Book, and not something I get often, but right now I’m not feeling at all bookish. Oh dear!

Remedies, please….

50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About

StuckinaBook All , 14 Comments

It’s been a while since I added to the ongoing, no-particular-order list of 50 Books I think you’d love, but would be unlikely to see on 3 for 2 tables or even in bookshops at all. It’s a list of potential gems, but also gives you a good idea of the sort of books most at home here at Stuck-in-a-Book.

Today’s entrant was part of a Postal Book Group I’m in, where we pick a book and send it to the next person in the list. Every two months we post a book along, and at the end of the year get back our book with a notebook of comments. Fun, and provides such wonderful books as (drumroll, please) The Long Afternoon by Giles Waterfield. So, thank you Angela for bringing it to my attention.

The Long Afternoon (published in 2000) isn’t a riveting title, is it, but does work on two levels – it is the long afternoon of Henry and Helen Williamson’s marriage, in the long afternoon approaching the First World War, and between the wars, for the Brits too old to fight who took up residence on the Riviera. That is where this novel takes place – the first chapter opens in November 1912, in Lou Paradou, with Helen Williamson enthusiastically looking over a house with an estate agent.

Henry smiled so sweetly, and with such affection, and waved at her and left the carriage and called to her, “Jolly nice place, darling!” It was easy from this distance to communicate with someone below, however far they might seem. She called back, “Darling, I think it’s lovely,” and then, remembering the agent who though he said he did not speak English certainly must understand it, added, “I mean there are problems but it is very pleasant,” and felt absurd for having used such a limiting English word. Not just pleasant but exquisite, sheltered, pure…

It is from this beautiful home, with a third person narration still suffused by Helen’s uncertain personality, that we see the onset of the First World War and, later, the Second. The cracks show in the faux-English community on the Riviera, and the lives of soldiers overlap and challenge the Williamsons’ luxury.

More subtly, The Long Afternoon is a psychological portrait of Helen Williamson – who spends one day a week in bed, for the sake of her nerves – and as the novel progresses we hear more and more from her children and their Scottish governess, throwing complicating light upon her presentation of herself.

Giles Waterfield’s first novel is a gentle examination of large-scale tragedies and small-scale frailties – this is no simple dismissal of the indolent of the wars, but a beautiful and elegant portrayal of a very real couple in destructively surreal surroundings. The Long Afternoon is impossible not to admire, and difficult not to love.

Food…

StuckinaBook All 7 Comments

Wow! Well done everyone, that was a truly impressive list of food-related book titles.

Some of my particular favourites, from your suggestions:

The Best Thing That Can Happen To A Croissant – Pablo Tusset
Everything on a Waffle – Polly Horvarth
Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche – Bruce Feirstein
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg – Giles Milton
Fax Me A Bagel – Sharon Kahn
Crooked Cucumber – David Chadwick
An Embarrassment of Mangoes – Ann Vanderhoof
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons – Lorna Landvik

but my favourite has to be I Have A Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes by Jaclyn Moriarty, so thank you Evie!


Looking through the books I have in Oxford (about a tenth of the ones I have in total) I could only muster four foody titles, some of which have been mentioned already:

Jam and Genius – Angela Milne (niece of AA, articles from Punch)
Tea Is So Intoxicating – Mary Essex (bought because of the title, and good fun – each chapter is prefixed by a tea-related saying, such as ‘cold tea may be endured, but not cold looks’)
Tea With Mr. Rochester – Frances Towers (yes, that is Mr. Jane Eyre)
Few Eggs and No Oranges – Vere Hodgson

Devouring Books

StuckinaBook All 27 Comments

A quick, fun challenge for today’s post – all to do with food. Don’t think I’ve done this before… I’m looking for books with food in the title – try scanning your bookshelves, and there’ll probably be a few. Googling would be easy, so let’s not. Prize (in the form of non-material accolation) to go to the person whose title includes the most unusual food!

A few to kick you off:
Five Quarters of the Orange – Joanne Harris
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

N.B. Yours doesn’t have to have ‘orange’ in the title…
See what you can do!

Halfway to Venus

StuckinaBook All , 7 Comments

Halfway to Venus sounds like a Science Fiction novel… but when the Venus in question is of the de Milo variety, things become clear. I don’t know how to introduce this non-fiction book, as… well, it is about living with one arm, and the history of amputation in literature and reality. But Sarah Anderson, the author, says how much she hates to be thought of as “the woman with one arm” – and Halfway to Venus shouldn’t simply be labelled “the book by the woman with one arm”.

Sarah Anderson (pictured below, in a photograph by John Swannell) had synovial sarcoma, a variety of cancer, as a child – which led her to have her left arm amputated at the age of ten. ‘I recall feeling that if I could only put into words how much I didn’t want this to happen, they would have to listen to me; and the fact that I obviously hadn’t been eloquent enough I saw as some kind of failure on my part.’ Anderson’s coping strategy, she writes, was not mentioning it; assuming others couldn’t notice. Amazingly, Sarah was 19 before she asked her parents, “What happened to my arm?” The central strand of Halfway to Venus narrates her experiences whilst growing up, and also career-wise and relationship-wise – from the travel bookshop which proved inspiration for Notting Hill to potential ‘acrotomophiles’, who are attracted to ‘amputees’. In fact, much of Anderson’s examination is not herself, but others – a refrain throughout is that other people are the major issue; trying to anticipate their reactions, but resenting having to be the one to smooth things along.

This, as I said, is the central thread – but Halfway to Venus is so much more. I was a little uncertain about reading the book, lest it be simply misery lit. of the variety which pervades all bookshops, but nothing could be further from the truth. Anderson embarks upon a fascinating and very readable history of amputation, lack of limbs, and the arm and hand as considered through time. As long ago as AD 80, Quintilian wrote ‘other portions of the body merely help the speaker, whereas the hands may almost be said to speak’ So many facts leapt from the page – did you know, for instance, that nine out of ten people can’t identify their own hand from a selection of photographs?
Woven alongside Anderson’s autobiographical narrative, and this anatomical history, are excerpts from many other books, mostly autobiographical, concerning life without certain limbs or hands or feet. These offer a rich collection of viewpoints – and, unsurprisingly, those writing them are as different from each other as any other selection of people. Anderson’s own feelings towards her amputated arm aren’t clear cut either – sometimes she writes that she hates any reference being made; at other times she appreciates the directness of Americans she met. She enjoys participating in a One-Armed Dove Hunt (!!), but usually avoids any such grouping. A few things baffled me – she, and many others, consider prosphetics as trying to ‘be something you’re not’. I wear glasses – further down the spectrum, but still a prosphetic, in as much as it gives my eyes sight they wouldn’t have in my unaided state. Where can the line be drawn?

It is to Anderson’s credit that Halfway to Venus brings out so many questions and reflections and reactions. A very honest book of autobiography, it is also a fascinating compedium, and with an engaging writing style which is all too often omitted from well-researched non-fiction.

Before I go, must just mention a new blog – Oxford-reader – as you can see, from the same hallowed city as Stuck-in-a-Book, and with many of the same tastes. Do go along and toast her addition to the blogosphere.

Well-Tempered

StuckinaBook All , 8 Comments

It is inevitable that any book where a pupil and teacher have a dalliance will be compared to Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal. William Coles’ novel The Well-Tempered Clavier wouldn’t suffer in such a comparison – but it is rather more. Notes on a Scandal meets Othello, if you will. Let me explain.

Set in the most famous school in England, Eton (which the author attended as a pupil), The Well-Tempered Clavier sees seventeen-year-old Kim fall in love with his piano teacher, India. This simple love story is the central thread through an engaging and revealing narrative of Eton life – the customs and vocabularly; the friendships between boys and the near absence of girls (I didn’t realise before that masters’ daughters were allowed to attend). Oddly, something which really impressed me in Coles’ writing was how he gave the impression of heat – the stifling temperatures, especially under the layers of Eton uniform, was described so evocatively that I needed to fan myself while reading… But The Well-Tempered Clavier is never less than compelling. Documenting the Eton life from within, as it were, gives those of us who attended their local comprehensive a fascinating glimpse, without treating the boys like zoo animals. Having been to Oxford, goodness knows I understand what it’s like to have my home and place of work treated as a tourist attraction… but nothing like Eton. Personally, I can’t think of anything crueler than sending a child to boarding school, especially from the age of six, and can’t think of any situation, other than an orphan’s, where it could be thought the best option. I wonder whether any of you attended one? Or, even if not, what you think?

Anyway, that’s an aside. So why the title to Coles’ novel? Kim first hears India while she is playing from Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’, a selection of Preludes and Fugues for piano which range from approachable to impossible. Each chapter of the novel is subtitled by one of the Preludes, and in some way relates to it – usually Kim is playing it, or hears India playing. Since I have a copy of the piano music, I thought I’d play along with the chapters, which is a nice way to do it. If you can’t play the piano, try playing a CD or something, while reading the appropriate chapters. I was just very grateful that Coles hadn’t used Fugues for chapter headings… much more difficult.

Comparisons with Notes on a Scandal aren’t really just. There is nothing needy or sordid or demoralising about the nature of Kim and India’s relationship. It is a beautiful romance, in the true sense of the word ‘romance’, which takes only a frisson from the fact that they’re pupil/teacher. More sex than you might like in a book, but it is certainly secondary to the romance and genuine love. Sadly, this is where Othello steps in. The comparison is made quite overtly – Kim’s class are reading Othello, and Kim has more than a little in common with The Moor of Venice himself. An ineluctable jealousy stalks him – even his self-awareness cannot prevent it corrupting his relationships, and it looks as though it might infect even his reciprocated love for India…

The Well-Tempered Clavier is a beautiful book, managing to use a simple narrative voice without a consequently bland style – honesty, beauty, and passion pervade the novel, but so do humour, youthfulness and energy. Do go and get a copy, and pick up a Bach CD while you’re there.

Daubing

StuckinaBook All 14 Comments

I’ve been amusing myself over the past few days with a little bit of painting – one in acrylic, my old favourite, and one in oils. I haven’t painted in oils before, so it was something of an experiment…

Since I have nothing else to write about today, I thought I’d share the results with you:Woman against Orange Background (acrylic)


Tea At Four O’Clock (oils)