2000s

Pottering About

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I must start by saying that there will be spoilers in this post, so anybody who hasn’t yet read that Harry and Hermione were really the same person all along…. heehee… ok, that one’s a lie, but don’t read on if you want to keep everything else secret.

I had intended to talk about some of my other holiday reads, but they will have to wait as Mr. Potter et al get their appraisal first. I suppose the best way for me to sum up my response to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is that it is my least favourite book in the series, and that I loved it. Yes, nothing to approach Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as my favourite (and also the first one I read), but still a compulsive dash through the hundreds of pages. It felt very strange to come to the end of a eight year journey, knowing that I’d never read new accounts of Harry again – unless, of course, I learn Chinese and read ‘Harry Potter and the Large Funnel’, which I believe is in the offing.

Any more specific response? Well, I felt the absence of Hogwarts keenly. In amongst the admirable good/evil battle, and Harry busy discovering himself and his past, I’d always loved the school atmosphere, and the lessons and teachers we were treated to. Couldn’t you just imagine Maggie Smith reading the latest book, and thinking “Shan’t bank on that film to cover the weekly shop”? The omission of Quidditch I could cope with happily, but McGonagall, Trelawney, Sprout and Flitwick were sadly underused. In their place came endless wandering through fields to rival the first Lord of the Rings film. In fact, the whole Deathly Hallows plot felt rather unnecessary – but perhaps that was only because, like most people, my mind was wholly fixated on “who dies?!” and I didn’t allow enough of my attention to be caught by the matters of the book itself, rather than the series.

Oh, the deaths. Rowling cleverly killed off characters of increasing importance, through the last few books. I mean, who cared at all when Cedric died? But Sirius… and then Dumbledore. Must confess, I kept expecting him to come back to life… more on that later. We were similarly eased in with HP7 – Hedwig was sad, as was Mad-Eye, but nothing to whip out the Kleenex for. Dobby, on the other hand… and by the time we got to Fred, I was positively inconsolable. Mostly because the twin thing is a little too close to home.

Onto Albus. What WAS that half-dead/half-alive thing? “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” was rather a clever line, but didn’t make the whole scene less confusing. Any thoughts?

All in all, a satisfying end to a brilliant series – my thoughts about the books as a whole, and Rowling’s ability, were mentioned a while ago – and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shouldn’t just be remembered for the deaths it contains.

Being away from the blogging world for the Launch Day, I’ve no idea about the general consensus…???

7 Books You Will Have Heard About And Have Probably Read (Most Of)

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Never let it be said that I am out of touch with the populus. In a year where I’ve read more Middle English than your average preteen, I’ve also just finished a book nearly all of ’em will have read. Yup, having reached page 766, have completed my third read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The film’s coming out soon, and I wanted to refresh my memory…

In the early days, when JK Rowling was producing one of the series a year, Harry Potter was the same age as me. I’ve had the opportunity to overtake him now, but even so, I wasn’t there from the outset. The first time our paths crossed was when I helped out on the school’s Carnegie Prize Panel (which didn’t have any effect on the actual procedure, but was rather fun) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter III) was one of the choices. This was when Harry was big, but not huge. And I was hooked – part of me wanted to loath the book, but… no, I was hooked. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has read any of the series, and still dislikes it.

So what is it about JKR’s writing? Well, if I knew that, I’d probably be a millionaire by now. But we did have a lecture on Harry Potter at Oxford once, in the first week that I was at university, and the lecturer pointed out that JKR rarely used descriptive language, or anything which veered from the action-action-action. This, said Dr. Purkiss (herself, with her son Michael, an author under the pseudonym Tobias Druitt), was either incredibly clever writing, or incredibly bad writing. True, take any chunk of prose and Virginia Woolf it ain’t – but Rowling’s ability to make you read on is unparalleled. Who would have thought children would willingly read 700+ pages? And I read it over a single weekend, so that I wouldn’t have the ending spoilt by friends at school on Monday. Perhaps I’m not the best example of someone who needed persuasion to read, but you get the idea.

So. Where do my musings point? Nowhere, to be honest, except to demonstrate myself not quite the literary snob I might seem, and to hope lots of others hold up their hands in solidarity. No reason why one can’t enjoy Woolf and wizards; Shakespeare and Sirius Black; Austen and Aurors… you get the picture. Speaking of pictures, there must be a thousand sketches I could have done to accompany a post on Harry Potter. But I’m tired… so I’ve copied this one, which is hopefully the way things are heading for the next generation. Fingers crossed.

Unreckoned Responsibility

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Poor Maggie O’Farrell. Little did she know, in penning The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, that the weight of the last 50 years of literature was on her shoulders. As I detailed in a previous post, I regard modern literature with some suspicion, preferring the tried and true waters of 1900-1950. Against my better judgement, perhaps, I went to borders and purchased The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, based entirely on the review given by Lynne over on dovegreyreader. Waiting inside was not merely a novel, but the determining factors in whether or not I’d continue to give 2007 a chance, in the literary stakes.

Verdict : let’s not rule out the 21st century just yet.

Without giving too much away, O’Farrell’s novel documents the release of Esme Lennox from a psychiatric unit, into the care of great-niece Iris, who didn’t know Esme existed. The novel flits between this present day scenario, and the past events, focalised either through narrative, Esme’s recollections, or the uncertain memories of Kitty, Esme’s sister, now in hospital with Alzheimer’s.

It is the last of these methods which I found most demonstrated O’Farrell’s talent – the driftings of imprecise thoughts are presented so realistically, offering, in these sections, a discourse neither unified nor wholly disjointed. The clues are all there, and amalgamate towards a final comprehension of the history leading to Esme’s incarceration. Though intelligently written, one of the things I’d have to put in the ‘cons’ column is this reliance upon detective-fictionesque build up of clues, red herrings, and so forth. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is about so much more than deducing the ending, that this structure undermined the content a little. Esme is a wonderful character, as is Kitty – Iris is never quite as satisfactory, probably because of the inevitable, but ultimately unsatisfying, inclusions of love interests. Luke could have been cut from the novel without any great loss, though Elle might not have contributed their comment to the back of my paperback. Oh, and I still don’t like the use of present tense in novels. When did that come in? Probably before I was born. But I don’t want any of these quibbles to detract from the fact that this is a hugely enjoyable, cleverly written work.


So… on which path will my reading now embark? A happy compromise, methinks. There’s little sense in only reading books out in the past few months, when there is such a heritage of literature to be explored – but I suppose being alive doesn’t necessarily equate with being unreadable, where authors are concerned(!)

50 Books… but this one you WON’T read…

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8. Scar Tissue – Ruth Mary Hills

First of all, apologies to those of you whose experience of yesterday’s post was a blur of pictures dotted all over the place. That apology might extend to every post – I’ve discovered that screen definition, or some such, will alter things like where photos are positioned. Consequently, some of you will have seen my self-erasure in straight lines… some like a manic collage. Sorry!

And back to books, after a couple of days in other territories. Today’s book is a little misleading – yes, I’ve nominated it for my ’50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About’, but in actual fact, I don’t expect any of you to read this. I’d be surprised if you did.

Do you want to know why?

Well, try Googling “Ruth Mary Hills”, the author. Remember the quotation marks, so that you only get the results where her name has been written in full. I’ll give you a moment whilst you do that, and I’ll just dust a bookshelf and sweep some crumbs under the rug.

Done?

Right. Unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ve come away from a total of ‘no’ results. Fear not, I haven’t made up this book, and used my limitless powers in PhotoShop to create that photo. It’s just that Scar Tissue: theological and other poems is limited to a print run of 75 copies. It’s not in the Bodleian. I can’t even find an address for the Amaté Press, who published it. I had no idea it was this exclusive when I picked it up in Blackwells, and liked the look of it. It’s a beautiful book; very white, clean, lovely font inside – all these things made me buy it. And now I’ve read the poetry inside, I can declare it an all-round success. I’ve typed out my favourite poem at the bottom (N.B. cannot find contact details for the author – but will, of course, remove if required) – but, as I said, I don’t expect anyone to read this.

So what is the point of this entry? Well, the Book You Must Read is not Scar Tissue, but what I shall now refer to as A Ruth Mary Hills, or an RMH. Hope that doesn’t mean anything nefarious. An RMH is a book only you know about, and which no-one else really has an opportunity of hearing about. Your copy is the only loanable one; you have an exclusive relationship with this work. Maybe it’s something a friend or relative has written; something you’ve written yourself; or, like my RMH, one just happened upon accidentally. I love reading books which aren’t wildly well-known, but an RMH takes that one step further – and gives you a great, unique relationship with the novel, poetry or whatever it is. I don’t usually sign up to Reception Theory, but in this case…

So, my question is – what’s your RMH? Do you have one yet?

Revelation

The Christ child came to me
In mystic mode
As if to warm
A heart stone cold

I knew not whence or how
The sudden flame
That burnt and glowed
Within my frame

Yet on the way betwixt home and town
A wondrous love was in me known

Forlorn and mean
And quite alone,
Mere skin and bone,
Was I to whom
This love was shown

50 Books…

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7. Watching the English – Kate Fox

Just to prove that a book needn’t be/be about literature in order to interest me. Fox’s book is pop-anthropological, though with a staggering amount of research, and manages to be both highly informative and incredibly funny.

Her objective is to discover what it is that characterises the English. Here’s the catch – she’s English herself. And a lot of the experiments she conducts involves breaking every tenet of Englishness, to find out how this goes down with those around her. Generally, not well. She even jumps queues.

Fox looks at pretty much every aspect fo Englishness that she you can think of – starting, of course, with ‘Weather-Speak’ (no, we aren’t obsessed by the weather – we’re obsessed with avoiding personal interaction), and covering gender, dialect, clothing, driving, holidays, furniture, sport, food, offices, pets, tea, whether to say serviette or napkin… all heavily laced with that most important of all English traits: ‘The Importance of Not Being Earnest’. What makes this book successful is how funny Fox is – in the self-aware, self-deprecating, laughing-at-nothing-in-particular way that enables English people to have even the slightest amount of social interaction.

Now, I’ve only ever lived in England – I’ve covered most of the West side, having gone from Merseyside to Worcestershire to Somerset, but certainly haven’t been in any other culture for a particularly long time. When reading this, I kept thinking “well, yes, of course – that makes sense”, wondering how the book could be received by non-Brits. Until I got to the section on Pubs. I very rarely go into pubs, and certainly don’t count myself a ‘regular’ – so reading this section opened a whole new world to me, and must be like most of the rest of the book, for unEnglish people. Instead of “well, yes, of course” I started uttering “Do they? Really? How absurd”. But, while Fox never justifies our more stupid habits, she does make them seem extremely endearing. Like a small animal which hasn’t quite learnt the most sensible way of getting around.

My favourite section is on queueing (or ‘lining up’ if you’re American, I believe). Is anything more English? Or more outrageous if contravened? But it is apparently a matter of wonderment for foreigners, the way in which we can deal with multiple tills, several toilets, the bus turning up at the wrong spot, a pub counter, a wake – an appropriate queue for every occasion. I love the bit where Fox talks about a ‘one person queue’ – it is so true. If I am alone at a bus stop, I will stand by the pole, facing the right direction, as though an invisible queue were behind me, and threatening to take my place.

You’ll love this book if you’re English – but it is also a wonderful tome of information and amusing trivia for our weird little nation, if you’re not.

Dear Diary…

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I don’t know about you, but I always feel in some sort of quandry when reading someone else’s diaries. I mean published ones, of course – I would never commit such a violation as to read a friend’s diary or journal… but why do we make the distinction here? Because the author is dead? Because they are a stranger? Because they are famous? Hmm… You see, the difficult thing is, I love reading diaries of people – and letters, especially if a book has the correspondence between both, er, correspondents. For some in this ilk, look out for the letters of Joyce Grenfell and Virginia Graham; or Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill. You see, there I go already, recommending things I’m not *quite* sure I feel comfortable reading.

I’ve kept a journal since 2001 – they are all spread out in that picture up there. Now, I would hate, hate, hate for anyone to read them – and I imagine anyone else would hate, hate, hate to be put through the experience. I was 15 when I started writing them, remember. I love this quotation from Richmal Crompton’s novel ‘The Gypsy’s Baby’, she even got the name right: “Simon was at the age when he imagined that everyone around him took an intense and generally malevolent interest in his doings.” Well, that was me, I daresay.

So why am I content to read the diaries of, say, Virginia Woolf? Partly because they’re brilliant pieces of writing, but what IS it that makes the diaires of lesser beings so interesting? Just curiosity? A couple of years ago an Oxfam worker discovered the diary of Ilene Powell, from 1925, and published it (see pic). It was incredibly mundane, with tiny scraps of entries – about two days’ output for a regular, angsty teenager. So why was it so interesting?

Well, all of this soul-searching had to be followed with some sort of book recommendation, didn’t it? Having questioned the practice of reading diaries, I am going to flag up The Assassin’s Cloak (not to be confused with Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, as I did for a while). For every day of the year, the editors have selected entries from ‘the world’s greatest diarists’. All the invasive fun of diary-reading, plus the excitement of serendipity, as you see that Pepys was eating an egg on the same day as Vita Sackville-West centuries later. Ok, I made that one up – but there are all sorts of interesting comparisons. The usual suspects, such as Pepys, are featured – but all periods are covered, and The Provincial Lady even gets a look-in. The only dull ones are those from self-important politicians and/or celebrities, publishing their own highly-edited diaries, citing how many famous people they have met. I’m a few weeks behind, but this is an ideal day-by-day companion, but also good to flick through. For instance, on my birthday Maurice Collis was listening to Lady Astor talk about Stalin; Anthony Powell was assuring Frank Longford that he wasn’t used in A Dance To The Music of Time; Jean Cocteau was musing upon the lure of the radio.

I suppose blogging is the new diary-writing – though they should retain their very different approaches. Unless you fancy a list of famous people I have met…

Oh yes… any recommendations?
Hypocrite, me!?

50 Books…

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3. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank – Thad Carhart

There is thus far an imbalance towards modern literature on my ’50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About’ list, which probably won’t continue… but today’s entry is chosen because I’m rather hoping the suggestee might materialise in the near future…

A very dear friend of mine, Barbara-from-Ludlow, lent a copy of this book to me in 2004, and I adored it. It achieved what twelve years of piano lessons had not done; I fell in love with the piano. That all rather subsided when I failed my next grade, but time is a great healer – and now I am back to celebrate Carhart’s work!

On first reading, I thought this was a novel – but closer inspection reveaks that it is in fact (!) non-fiction – but of the sort which teeters on the edge. The best kind, in my opinion. Quite unusually, the ‘blurb’ on the back is accurate, and thus you shall be treated to it in full:

T.E. Carhart, an American living in Paris, is intrigued by a piano repair shop hidden down a street near his apartment. When he finally gains admittance to the secretive world of the atelier, he finds himself in an enormous glass-roofed workshop filled with dozens of pianos. His love affair with this most magical of instruments and its music is reawakened. Packed with delicate cameos of Parisians and reflections on how pianos work and their glorious history, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is an atmospheric and absorbing journey to an older way of life.

Hmm… tails off a little in the truth stakes towards the end. Delicate cameos? Beg pardon? And I must confess ‘their glorious history’ is packed into one rather dull chapter which I skipped over. But aside from that, this is a beautiful novel, very much a ‘love affair’ with the instrument. Do check out Cornflower’s comments on this book, around the 7th March 2007. I does rather look like I’m stealing her blog wholesale… honest I’m not, guv!

Having said that, the discussion she started re:music lessons rings a bell. I had a nice teacher – Miss Lylah Goodwin, whose most unintentionally brilliant and far-reaching act MUST be lending me Miss Hargraves; more on soooon – but I HATED practising and lessons for a very, very long time. Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife, never ones to overindulge their offspring, proved resistance futile, and I only stopped just before I came to university. Luckily, by then I liked it (my parents were RIGHT? Really?) and this very afternoon I took myself off to one of Magdalen’s piano rooms, to hammer out a bit of Bach. Lovely revision break,

I shall add a disclaimer for this book: don’t read it if you can’t play the piano and really, really wish you could. It’ll only frustrate you. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not excellent at the ivories by any stretch of the imagination – but if piano-playing is a deepset ambition which has never been fulfilled, this book can only wrankle. Otherwise, you’ll love it!

N.B. The cartoon may make no sense to American visitors. Google HSBC and NatWest. It may also make no sense to those with a more sophisticated sense of humour than I…