tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45125165230186279662024-03-06T08:59:57.003+00:00The Book TrunkThis site is dedicated to my grandmother, who ran away from her Norwegian home in 1915 and arrived in England with nothing but a trunk full of books.Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.comBlogger341125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-11697572932110588932016-03-08T13:39:00.003+00:002016-03-08T16:36:09.875+00:00<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Book Trunk has moved to Wordpress and is now thebooktrunkblog, at </span></span></b><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/">https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/</a></u></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Well, I seem to have had another of those huge gaps when I haven't written anything for ages and, as usual, I can't offer any explanation, except life got in the way. I think for months and months I concentrated so hard on losing weight for our Elder Daughter's wedding, that I didn't have any energy for anything else! Anyway, the Wedding has been and gone, and just before that we had Younger Daughter's Graduation (her second!), and before that was New Year, and Christmas, and all sorts of other things.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">And I thought it was an ideal time for a fresh start and a new look, so I've moved to WordPress, because I've always struggled with Blogger, especially when it comes to uploading photos - you'll now find me at<strong> </strong><span style="color: #0000ee; font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/">https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/</a></u></b></span>. My new 'home' is a trifle fluid at the moment, while I sort out exactly what I want to do, and what I want the blog to look like, but please pop over, take a look, and leave a comment. </span>Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-77203608835409936362015-10-02T15:53:00.001+01:002015-10-02T15:53:39.112+01:00The 1924 Club<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPqOv825CZtlAJWofq-B8rshvk9Xdb9hKrGeCa_rw2tJH-qJJ8yrruxiWCXQR_1eJmrXy-9UPBksSIBkpVgbF65ubKhCgMo21O2WfncBzrCkmvUTUoThnQnvCWIUJAJgaioziRmgSXP4/s1600/1924+club.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPqOv825CZtlAJWofq-B8rshvk9Xdb9hKrGeCa_rw2tJH-qJJ8yrruxiWCXQR_1eJmrXy-9UPBksSIBkpVgbF65ubKhCgMo21O2WfncBzrCkmvUTUoThnQnvCWIUJAJgaioziRmgSXP4/s1600/1924+club.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
been a while since I wrote anything here, but I seem to have been busy doing
all sorts of other things, and never did get round to post reviews on some of
the bools I read for All Virago, All August. My track record on joining in
challenges and read-alongs is not very good I’m afraid – I always seem to fall
by the wayside. However, that doesn't deter me and, like many other bloggers, I can’t resist The 1924 Club,
jointly organised by Simon at <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/the-1924-club/"><span style="color: blue;">Stuck in a Book</span></a> and Karen
at <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/introducing-the-1924-club/comment-page-1/#comment-12214"><span style="color: blue;">Kaggsy's
Bookish Ramblings</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">They want us all to spend a week in October reviewing
books published in 1924, and they say we can include posts which have already appeared,
as well as ‘new’ reads. My first reaction was one of sheer horror, because I
cannot recollect when any of the books I’ve read were written or published. But
when I looked at some of the suggested titles, and the ideas listed by other
bloggers, I realised I’ve already written about some books from 1924 (Pink Sugar,
by O Douglas, for example). And a quick rootle through the shelves revealed
Winifred Holtby’s The Crowded Street (which I’ve read) along with The Rector’s
Daughter, by FM Mayor (which I haven’t) and Margaret Kennedy’s The Constant
Nymph (ditto). </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">So<span style="color: #111111;"> I should have something to write about between October
19 and 31, which is when The 1924 Club takes place.</span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
idea, according to Simon and Karen, is to get everyone reading from a
particular year. “It could have been many different years, really,” explains
Simon on his blog. “But 1924 seemed to have a lot of significant works
published, as well as generally being an interesting time. If the project is a
success, we can repeat it in the future with other years.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">You’ll
find all the details you need at Simon and Karen’s blogs (just click on the
links above). They will issue posts so you can link your reviews, and a final
round-up, so each participant can see what everyone else has read.</span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-89376416848872883622015-08-19T10:27:00.001+01:002015-08-19T12:39:59.199+01:00Frost in May<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8BF7nR44TSH0yeP0EnldOsurbzc63hC1hmaNbSGup0168w4EQBWc5r76IYNScVcUY_JnE693kv1Eos2iaj-eZMDXoqCwzvBquY8ERWGq3jeIa-Fw2KK1Hxu_qxAdLPdD2dxvWHoSKVao/s1600/DSCN2601.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8BF7nR44TSH0yeP0EnldOsurbzc63hC1hmaNbSGup0168w4EQBWc5r76IYNScVcUY_JnE693kv1Eos2iaj-eZMDXoqCwzvBquY8ERWGq3jeIa-Fw2KK1Hxu_qxAdLPdD2dxvWHoSKVao/s320/DSCN2601.JPG" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Virago Modern Classic Number 1: This is <br />
the 1991 edition, with an introduction by <br />
Elizabeth Bowen. The cover shows a detail<br />
from Girl and Flowers by Dod Procter.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Antonia White’s Frost in
May</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">, as
I’m sure everyone knows, was the very first Virago Modern Classic, published in
1978 after being out of print for many years. I’m not sure why it has passed me
by until now; for some reason I think I was under the impression I’d read it
long ago. But I must have confused it with something else - I would definitely
have remembered this, because it made me so angry.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Written
in 1933, it’s a fictionalised account of White’s own childhood, telling the
story of Nanda Grey’s time at a repressive Catholic school. Her fall from
grace, and the way her spirit is finally broken make for painful reading. And
these days the rules governing the girls’ daily lives would probably be
regarded as an abuse of human rights. Is
this an accurate portrayal of a convent school I wonder? Did nuns really treat their
pupils like this? How could they be so cruel in the name of religion? What
about compassion? And whatever happened to the idea of a loving, forgiving God?
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
not that the nuns at the Convent of the Five Wounds are physically cruel to
their young charges: they play psychological mind games which seems somehow
worse. And there’s a kind of drip-feed brainwashing because everything in the
school relates to God – even the rooms have religious names, and there are pictures
and statues, and edifying (but often horribly gruesome) stories about saints
and sinners. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
nuns, who see themselves as instruments of God, demand unquestioning obedience
to themselves, to the school, and to God. And they have very odd ideas about education.
Mother Radcliffe, the Mistress of Discipline, explains:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">We work
to-day to turn out, not accomplished young women, nor agreeable wives, but
soldiers of Christ, accustomed to hardship and ridicule and ingratitude</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
Nanda (short for Fernanda) is nine when she arrives at the exclusive girls’
boarding school. She is ‘one of those children who cannot help behaving well’.
She wants to please, to fit in, but she is too good, which makes the nuns suspicious.
t’s surprising how quickly she adapts: when her parents visit at the end of the
first week she already feels ‘unpicked and resewn and made over to a different
pattern’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
there’s a lot of making over to be done. There are all kinds of regulations.
There are no <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV6z6T82Vasf9izTbhoopax-MfJXixx-_x8ewEB3C7ddktBMPdSY0j9fQa8omI_BEE-ID2cDERM5NfZOnw07HcXNKJC-ylwOnpJvNMNtnb5xh5wSO8k7FHHzNYEf6kgrIF89yaFMV3B4g/s1600/Antonia+White.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV6z6T82Vasf9izTbhoopax-MfJXixx-_x8ewEB3C7ddktBMPdSY0j9fQa8omI_BEE-ID2cDERM5NfZOnw07HcXNKJC-ylwOnpJvNMNtnb5xh5wSO8k7FHHzNYEf6kgrIF89yaFMV3B4g/s320/Antonia+White.jpg" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Author Antonia White.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
mirrors, the girls must never be naked, and they sleep flat on
their backs, with hands crossed on their breast, so if the Lord calls them in
the night they are ready! Close friendships are forbidden, so girls cannot go
about in pairs. Letters to and from home are vetted, and the girls are watched
all the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">At
night the girls opt to show their piety by placing stockings in the form of a
cross on top of their neatly folded uniforms. And they indulge in small
mortifications, like washing in cold water, and putting salt instead of sugar
on their rhubarb, or stones in their shoes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lessons,
like the girls, must bend to the will of God. Most story books are deemed
unsuitable (unless written by Catholics); science is a dubious area, because
most scientists are wrong; poetry is fine for the glory of God – but not for
personal enjoyment. But poetry and passionate friendships arouse feelings in
Nanda that her religion cannot provide. Even her First Communion, eagerly
awaited as the biggest day in her life, proves a disappointment. Nevertheless,
her faith doesn’t waver:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">She accepted
the Catholic Church whole-heartedly and tried hard to mould herself into the
proper shape of a young Catholic girl. […] She could never, she knew, break
away without a sense of mutilation. In her four years at Lippington it had
grown into every fibre of her nature; she could not eat or sleep or read or
play without relating every action to her secret life as a Christian and a
Catholic. She rejoiced in it and
rebelled against it</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">That
seems to reflect the experience of many Catholic writers – perhaps it’s that
tension which enables them to be creative?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Despite
her efforts to fit in, Nanda has an independent streak, which sets her on a
collision course, and when she is finally sent away, on her 14th birthday,
Mother Radcliffe tells her:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Every will
must be broken completely and re-set before it can be at one with God’s will.
And there is no other way. That is what true education, as we see it here at Lippington,
means</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">There
are all kinds of things I haven’t mentioned: the girls themselves, who are all
utterly believable; the constant ringing of bells; curtseying; gloves; the
smell of beeswax and incense; cabbage drowned in vinegar, and the sense of
being shut away in an enclosed community which becomes more real than the world
outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmP1oT1zZeCN8XAbZ0cDm3RkUYF8xpe-KI8TW_7ak9h4xhmcfBtXNfhLe-_eEwOWv1HBGzKzrbW8FhA7iyxoSsY6y_UAS7gr4tC0TuofkZzOTBQAyjuT_yY6Esr5HaAJG2Z0Rb30NOQBE/s1600/DSCN2603+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmP1oT1zZeCN8XAbZ0cDm3RkUYF8xpe-KI8TW_7ak9h4xhmcfBtXNfhLe-_eEwOWv1HBGzKzrbW8FhA7iyxoSsY6y_UAS7gr4tC0TuofkZzOTBQAyjuT_yY6Esr5HaAJG2Z0Rb30NOQBE/s320/DSCN2603+%25282%2529.JPG" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Virago non-fiction:There's Something About <br />
A Convent Girl, published in 1991. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">After
finishing Frost in May, I re-read <b>There’s
Something About A Convent Girl</b>, a Virago anthology edited by Jackie Bennet
and Rosemary Forgan, because it makes an interesting companion piece, containing a
brief history of convent schools, and varied recollections from former pupils.
Some contributors, like Maeve Binchy and, surprisingly, Germaine Greer seem to have happy
memories of their schooldays. Others, like playwright Mary O’Malley (author of
Once A Catholic), hated the humiliations, the lack of kindness, the bigotry,
and the feelings of guilt about sex and life in general.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Her
view of convent school life echoes that of Virago founder Carmen Callil, who says
she can never forgive the nuns at her convent for the way she was treated. She’s
particularly scathing about the view of the Catholic Church on suffering,
especially in relation to women, and she gives a moving account of her feelings
when she first read Frost in May: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I was
absolutely suffused with misery and agony and fury as I read it because I
identified with it so much. It told what I felt to be my own story. Not that it
was my own story, but the suffering it conveyed and the feeling of mindless
repression that the child couldn’t deal with because the child couldn’t
understand what was going on and what the reasons were. I felt so strongly
about it I actually invented Virago Modern Classics to enable me to publish
that book. The world had to read the book again.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
think she’s right, and I’d urge anyone to read it, because Frost in May is beautifully
written, with some wonderful characters, and it’s as valid and relevant now as
it was when Callil reprinted it, and when Frost wrote it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-48562017320197426612015-08-16T11:03:00.001+01:002015-08-16T15:02:53.194+01:00Book Buying in London!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4m8Ae_XxSzySCDsL7yyB0lH158c0LQQF639R33lygm-zKxoN7wyWk_iB15x4347znshxy9QoMOD1ZKvStHXqTKVIP466XzaUXoHFosnqhTEKwjKTIb-KCdAhO731JHld_CBTumJXQ0I/s1600/DSCN2447.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4m8Ae_XxSzySCDsL7yyB0lH158c0LQQF639R33lygm-zKxoN7wyWk_iB15x4347znshxy9QoMOD1ZKvStHXqTKVIP466XzaUXoHFosnqhTEKwjKTIb-KCdAhO731JHld_CBTumJXQ0I/s320/DSCN2447.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Book boxes outside Any Amount of Books.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been to London for a couple of days visiting my Younger Daughter, and although
I didn’t make it as far as Persephone, we spent a happy afternoon exploring
bookshops in Charing Cross Road. I guess their main business must be from the
rare books – collectibles, first editions, curios and so on, and they’re fun to
gaze at, but way out of my price league. However, there are shelves full of
second-hand paperbacks (slightly more expensive than the average charity shop,
but the choice is much better). I was very restrained, since trekking around
London carrying lots of books is not a happy experience, and I had to travel
back home on the train, with my backpack full of clothes and stuff, and didn’t
want to struggle with </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">too
much</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">additional luggage!</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivo_VhlpSqrF6EnizvgdrMeGmF7I6Wm4-GX1z5n3hAf3vJAWmVVK-s608AHmsJ_QhWxtg1LB60Ldul1hVFLEPpZ2Cvjo1DBdM-mhChyphenhyphenNwH6YILVRssShfZHTetshleFnIqUfdtlyPoRjk/s1600/DSCN2448+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivo_VhlpSqrF6EnizvgdrMeGmF7I6Wm4-GX1z5n3hAf3vJAWmVVK-s608AHmsJ_QhWxtg1LB60Ldul1hVFLEPpZ2Cvjo1DBdM-mhChyphenhyphenNwH6YILVRssShfZHTetshleFnIqUfdtlyPoRjk/s320/DSCN2448+%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Window shopping! Outside Henry Pordes - inside is wonderful, a real <br />
Aladdin's Cave for book lovers </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
Any Amount Of Books (which really does live up to its name) there were lots of irresistible
green spines, and I pounced on A Woman of my Age, because I’m on a bit of a Nina
Bawden thing at the moment. This one is about Elizabeth and Richard, on holiday
in Morrocco, and Elizabeth’s account of ‘the desert her life has become’ is
reflected in the barren landscape. The blurb on the back goes on to say the
novel is about marriage, families, expectations and betrayals, and is written
with poise, with and charm. Has anyone read it? Does the description match the
book?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYvgWuhvH8_iRF4vWPCnYt0OuBHdvOybj-wHW2a5_R5bcykgH4TgGPQMsgwotEpo72XLmOXzjAf1vkxezvzQyv23B-lpw5ppZrtUXTQ9IbkVWo8zcXs3TcuclXHb1bygDuQRPxdS40_JU/s1600/DSCN2517.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYvgWuhvH8_iRF4vWPCnYt0OuBHdvOybj-wHW2a5_R5bcykgH4TgGPQMsgwotEpo72XLmOXzjAf1vkxezvzQyv23B-lpw5ppZrtUXTQ9IbkVWo8zcXs3TcuclXHb1bygDuQRPxdS40_JU/s320/DSCN2517.JPG" width="216" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
I found Pirates at Play, by Violet Trefusis, which I bought it because it has a
fabulous cover - a portrait of Nancy Cunard by Guevara – and I know this is not
a good reason for buying a book, but I loved Hunt the Slipper, and I’m sure I
will like this, which is described as a romantic comedy set in the ‘frenetic,
fantastical Twenties’.</span></div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFtRmUBMSPrZfoZGyFYT0JJ2Hy3heEHKvftl0TxluNdMWgp3o7nLfcdv7hbkf_KePxabTdgW9QuEHXWCIeJyqdcFN0g7wn875UqZBDbgam4mnsaUE_PEQu6puWOcSDSd6A3wKO1-ia010/s1600/DSCN2514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFtRmUBMSPrZfoZGyFYT0JJ2Hy3heEHKvftl0TxluNdMWgp3o7nLfcdv7hbkf_KePxabTdgW9QuEHXWCIeJyqdcFN0g7wn875UqZBDbgam4mnsaUE_PEQu6puWOcSDSd6A3wKO1-ia010/s320/DSCN2514.JPG" width="224" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Henry
Pordes Books was fabulous, a real treasure trove, with even more old Viragos (and lots of other books
as well, but I’m collecting VMCs). Anyway, I succumbed to this:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxJXfZcqggoIlMGz1XvJi6hmMe5k_herXi0DqDyPbrpTRJE4pLU6fPlsT0s9zFCCpFk8Z72NY8hARD6cnjOlG04kvASL0KBpuiOQNhqM6JlWAlAyC8HFkmpkU3AvpPborhsUG3hyphenhyphen8EfA/s1600/DSCN2498.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxJXfZcqggoIlMGz1XvJi6hmMe5k_herXi0DqDyPbrpTRJE4pLU6fPlsT0s9zFCCpFk8Z72NY8hARD6cnjOlG04kvASL0KBpuiOQNhqM6JlWAlAyC8HFkmpkU3AvpPborhsUG3hyphenhyphen8EfA/s320/DSCN2498.JPG" width="223" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">It
replaces my 1974 edition of Winifred Holtby’s South Riding, which I bought new all
those years ago after watching the TV drama starring Dorothy Tutin as Sarah
Burton – does anyone else remember seeing it? It was kind of timely, since I hunted for the book to re-read after
reading The Land of Green Ginger, and found it when I started reorganising my
bookshelves. But, like so many of the books printed during the 1970s, it has
not worn well, and now looks like this:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmaeS_wNi8H2jCnsvpw_KfapLs3lHxHu6xhM2hSp4tt_i8gb12gLK7gR8AkbJCLWZY-eO5djZwcUOzc677wOr_uaBiRMnV2jw6dMz5KisK4YPxMgrPA4GTk55fi1By9jndPFUSHiH37TE/s1600/DSCN2511.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmaeS_wNi8H2jCnsvpw_KfapLs3lHxHu6xhM2hSp4tt_i8gb12gLK7gR8AkbJCLWZY-eO5djZwcUOzc677wOr_uaBiRMnV2jw6dMz5KisK4YPxMgrPA4GTk55fi1By9jndPFUSHiH37TE/s320/DSCN2511.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
had great difficulty tearing myself away from Henry Pordes – I could have spent
a great deal of money in there (if I’d had a great deal of money, and if
carrying purchases home was not a problem). But I limited myself to two
volumes, and after much thought selected The Getting of Wisdom, by Henry Handel
Richardson, an author I’d not come across before. I read a bit in the shop, and
thought I might enjoy it, and I liked the cover, and it has an introduction by
Germaine Greer! Apparently Henry Handel Richardson was really Ethel Florence
Lindesay Richardson, and this novel is about Laura Rambotham and her life in a
Melbourne boarding school.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYgUOfr5GiRPB8IKmXv8P8166JpiAcdNHD4ekrp6FVgyVyv5M3joFc3JTPB_DULkUtNt3HAd9rSevGHzORlzKc57fqlasyDrIFNTMPFzaiXLVcdKahRyMSJQ16_yMLsDixR8Usw2V_5rk/s1600/DSCN2499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYgUOfr5GiRPB8IKmXv8P8166JpiAcdNHD4ekrp6FVgyVyv5M3joFc3JTPB_DULkUtNt3HAd9rSevGHzORlzKc57fqlasyDrIFNTMPFzaiXLVcdKahRyMSJQ16_yMLsDixR8Usw2V_5rk/s320/DSCN2499.JPG" width="224" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">And,
as something completely different, my daughter and her boyfriend took me to
Gosh!, the comic bookshop in Soho, which is very bright and cheerful, and unlike
any other bookshop I’ve ever been in, two floors full of comics and graphic
novels and such like – definitely not a genre I know anything about, but
interesting nevertheless. And there are kids’ books, and arts books, but I don’t
think there’s much you’d find in a traditional bookshop – the books all
seem to be different, edgier somehow. Anyway, I couldn’t resist this, which is
a bit of an extravagance, but it makes me happy!</span></div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXpUgAWZdN3NMLXRZAsCpeo-O_h39bnlpdkn9I5cOeEtiGNvJgB1EnRpE-g-oaFBNke_rIPJ6CT3Upw3X2iL93RUhovL5kWuMl4zEtYKSOkEh0ujVrDe2H_0OEQ8NAx30R-cg6kWDy_c/s1600/DSCN2523.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXpUgAWZdN3NMLXRZAsCpeo-O_h39bnlpdkn9I5cOeEtiGNvJgB1EnRpE-g-oaFBNke_rIPJ6CT3Upw3X2iL93RUhovL5kWuMl4zEtYKSOkEh0ujVrDe2H_0OEQ8NAx30R-cg6kWDy_c/s320/DSCN2523.JPG" width="247" /></a></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-35844893112066082762015-08-13T07:58:00.002+01:002015-08-13T07:58:39.503+01:00Time To Tidy The Shelves...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaKC2p50z-xVaBfqMUfpubGUHBrH4NKrb5Y145qUROgZtsNgWcGKbeDEP7mXE3N28LbG1XCdUTuFTApciyOVfEJw98EWi3IUNpCM4hiUJnYaAECbS4tGuuzjDYwSFP8gOmLLJOyNZufw8/s1600/DSCN2416+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaKC2p50z-xVaBfqMUfpubGUHBrH4NKrb5Y145qUROgZtsNgWcGKbeDEP7mXE3N28LbG1XCdUTuFTApciyOVfEJw98EWi3IUNpCM4hiUJnYaAECbS4tGuuzjDYwSFP8gOmLLJOyNZufw8/s400/DSCN2416+%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">LibraryThing
and Viragoing for August has gone to my head I think. Have started trying to
tidy bookshelves – not something I attempt all that often! Now have two rows of
Viragos and Persephones, which may not look a lot, but they’re double stacked, so there's a complete row of green Viragos behind the grey Persephones.
(all my books are double stacked – no room otherwise). Who thinks I shuld put
these in alphabetical order?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-84916764169315626732015-08-11T09:17:00.003+01:002015-08-11T13:29:56.547+01:00The Land of Green Ginger<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Another
Virago for LibrayThing’s </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="https://www.librarything.com/topic/193336"><span style="color: #2288bb;">All Virago All August</span></a>
challenge. And I think this one will do nicely for the <a href="http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/whats-in-a-name-2015-sign-up-post/"><span style="color: #2288bb;">What’s
in a Name</span></a> challenge over at The Worm Hole – it’s my entry for a book with
the letters ‘ing’ in the title. And it fits the bill for Yorkshire, for <strong>Reading England 2015</strong> (which you can find over at <a href="http://beholdthestars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/reading-england-2015.html"><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Behold the Stars</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">).</span></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span> </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2KUzfhtpHE9KX76OUGRsDF3Qs5nZd8ambx3SMytq3epxA071nfDneAF2kEgH6Go8qebXJTXL3h0oFFNCIl-q4rljQC-oBRQN-T4Yuv2gBpCa26ojfzNp20diKQ_glBuF5KUYi4daTUNE/s1600/DSCN2407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2KUzfhtpHE9KX76OUGRsDF3Qs5nZd8ambx3SMytq3epxA071nfDneAF2kEgH6Go8qebXJTXL3h0oFFNCIl-q4rljQC-oBRQN-T4Yuv2gBpCa26ojfzNp20diKQ_glBuF5KUYi4daTUNE/s320/DSCN2407.JPG" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Land of Green Ginger, by Winifred Holtby.<br />
Not, alas the 1983 Virago, but a 2012 edition, <br />
with a Yorkshire Dales British Railways Poster<br />
on the cover, which I quite like.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
As
a</span> small child Joanna Burton is entranced when she passes a street called The
Land of Green Ginger. Her aunts hustle her on, but the name conjures up
something magical for Joanna:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">To be
offered such gifts of fortune, to seek Commercial Lane and to find – the day
before Christmas Eve and by lamplight too – the Land of Green Ginger, dark, narrow,
mysterious road to Heaven, to Fairy Land, to anywhere, anywhere, even to South
Africa, which was the goal of all men’s longing, where Father lived in a
rondavel…</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
heroine of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Winifred Holtby’s The Land of
Green Ginger</b> spends a lot of time yearning for far-flung, fabulous lands.
She is born in South Africa, but her mother dies, and her missionary father
cannot care for a baby, so she’s sent back home to England to be raised by her maiden
aunts in Yorkshire.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">She
is highly imaginative, drawing her knowledge of life from books (she’s in love
with Walter Raleigh and the Scarlet Pimpernel), and she dreams of travelling
the world to see strange, exotic places. But in 1914, aged 18, she falls in
love with Teddy Leigh who tells her he has been given the world to wear as a
golden ball. At this point I started thinking of Milton, but it was a golden
chain which linked Earth to Heaven – but the golden ball was in the fairy tale
about the Frog Prince, and it seems that Teddy is paying tribute to Joanna, who
is golden haired, tall, and ‘grandly portioned’.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Teddy Leigh
drew towards her happiness and health as a chilled traveller draws towards a
fire. She seemed so young, so strong, so sure that life was good. He, who
snatched sudden joys from an uncertain world, looked at her with envious
longing. She seemed as strong and stablished as a golden tower.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It
is her vitality, her love of life that attracts him - but in the end those are
the qualities he comes to hate the most. For Teddy is a kind of Frog Prince in
reverse, who can never be rescued by a kiss. Handsome, charming, debonair, he
has TB, but Army medics have passed him as fit for active service and he is off
to join his unit, and feels he has been handed life as a golden ball.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">He
and Joanna marry, and a daughter is duly born nine months after their brief honeymoon.
His visit home on a gunnery course results in a second daughter, and eventually
in June 1918 the combination of gas and consumption proves too much and he is
invalided out and ends up at the Yorkshire Military Sanatorium, where the true
nature of his illness is finally revealed to Joanna (but not by Teddy – he
never mentions it to her).</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unable
to return to Cambridge and continue studying for the ministry, he uses an Army
pay-out to buy Scatterthwaite, a run-down, isolated farm (at the time it was
believed open-air life helped consumptives). However, he and Joanna have no
money, no experience and no aptitude for farming. “Small debts prospered as did
nothing else on the land,” Holtby tells us.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Teddy,
faced with his broken dreams and broken health, is querulous, selfish and
demanding. Joanna struggles to make ends meet as she tries to care for him and run
the farm. Eventually, to protect the children from infection, sends them to her
aunts. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8W_Xmj8kkfwv9r7sYMVqaHCvBk17eZh14BghKbOqqnJVdkrjuvHTSdP08zQKQTkZWGAnoabg8i7D7kDuQGzh1pd7uIKlzf8wias_8mXYjUlF-3uf2HHjiZWopjKezB9jts7GBLNZbpdY/s1600/The+Land+of+Green+Ginger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8W_Xmj8kkfwv9r7sYMVqaHCvBk17eZh14BghKbOqqnJVdkrjuvHTSdP08zQKQTkZWGAnoabg8i7D7kDuQGzh1pd7uIKlzf8wias_8mXYjUlF-3uf2HHjiZWopjKezB9jts7GBLNZbpdY/s320/The+Land+of+Green+Ginger.jpg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Virago 1983 edition - I'd love this edition,but<br />
can I justify two copies of the same book, even if <br />
it is a Virago?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Growing
shabbier and shabbier, she develops a reputation for oddness – she’s viewed as a
bad housekeeper, a bad mother (because she sent her children away), and a bad
farmer. As the local curate observes, she looks strange (she is wearing green
stockings on the day he calls). And her behaviour is even more peculiar, for
she never says or does what you expect. She’s an unsettling sort of person. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Things
get worse when local landowner Sir Wentworth Marshall employs a group of Finns
to establish a forestry project. Local villagers resent the foreigners, and tensions
build. But the real trouble comes when the interpreter, Hungarian Paul Szermai,
comes to lodge with Joanna and Teddy. Joanna has already glimpsed Szermai in
the woods, envisioning him as Tam Lin from the old ballad, or a fairy tale eldritch
knight. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no foundation for the
ensuing scandal, but their friendship is misinterpreted - even Teddy suspects
them of having an affair – and the story moves inexorably towards what should
be a final tragic conclusion.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
won’t reveal what happens, but somehow Joanna finds herself again, and sets off
with her children to pursue her dream. Life is a good bargain, she tells Sir
Wentworth. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I mean,
imagine what it would be like if you were dead, and you looked up and saw people
acquiescing in life, and treating it like a poor thing, and saying, “You can’t
have the best of both worlds,” as a kind of reason for getting the best of
none. Wouldn’t you feel cheated? I should. I’d think, “Here am I who’d give
anything, anything to be alive again and there they are treating life like a
bad bargain.” Why, it’s the best bargain. It’s the only bargain worth buying if
you really live.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Joanna’s
struggle to find fulfilment is played out in the aftermath of WWI, and though
she is uninterested in politics and social change, things like employment
problems and the peace movement are there in the background. They are never intrusive,
but I think they inform much of Holtby’s work. I don't know that enjoyable is necessarily the right word to describe it. Compelling would be nearer the mark. But it's well worth reading - I'd recommend it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">*In
case you wonder, The Land of Green Ginger is a real street in Hull (Holtby’s
inspiration for Kingsport in novel), and is believed to have got its name
because in Tudor times it was the place where green ginger, a conserve of
ginger and lemon juice, was sold or made. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span> </div>
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Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-86234290095390084522015-08-08T08:15:00.003+01:002015-08-08T11:33:53.514+01:00Tears, Lies - and Ice Cream!<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVReNcALQXUZl3kdtO1HwgGoVSh1e13QFOK55XB6FM_3F_8BGZ8NVXfmpA205y5tD96QEkSg6JTgTD2rh9_g-sLOJRARSuLdfNUatZED2IlRXYbM_FMhy25SMlSXl5LPwUylZ-heYRNbs/s1600/DSCN2401.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVReNcALQXUZl3kdtO1HwgGoVSh1e13QFOK55XB6FM_3F_8BGZ8NVXfmpA205y5tD96QEkSg6JTgTD2rh9_g-sLOJRARSuLdfNUatZED2IlRXYbM_FMhy25SMlSXl5LPwUylZ-heYRNbs/s320/DSCN2401.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My 1990 edition of A Little Love, A little Learning. The <br />
cover shows Weisse Vase Mit Heidekraut by Oskar Moll.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The year
Aunt Hat came to us, my main ambition – apart from rescuing someone from
drowning, or winning the Victoria Cross – was to go down to Jock’s Icecream
Parlour in the main street of Monks Ford and eat as many Knickerbocker Glories
as I could pray for. Ellen, our mother, said this was a pretty limited ambition
for a girl of 12 and that I ought to have learned by now that icecreams made me
sick. Boyd said that was why I wanted them: it was a clear example of a man’s
reach needing to exceed his grasp, what else is heaven for?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">If
an intro grabs me (and this one did – it’s right up there with I Capture The
Castle) I can’t put a novel down. Imagine me, if you will, sat on the floor in
the Back Room of the Oxfam Bookshop, surrounded by boxes and bags, all stuffed
with books that must be sorted, priced and stacked on shelves… But I’ve been
sidetracked because I spotted a Virago edition of <b>Nina Bawden’s</b>, <b>A Little
Love, A Little Learning</b>, and I opened it (just to have a quick look you
understand), and once I started reading I couldn’t stop! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">That
was some weeks back, and I didn’t get round to writing about it, but I notice
the Virago Modern Classics Group on LibraryThing is running its traditional <a href="https://www.librarything.com/topic/193336">All Virago All August</a>
challenge, so this seems an apt moment to post my thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A
Little Love, A Little Learning is a brilliant book. I loved it. And if you’ve
never read any of Bawden’s work for adults (she seems to best known as a
children’s author) it’s probably a good place to start. It is 1953, Coronation
Year, and we are in Monks Ford, a small, suburban town on the banks of a Thames
tributary, about 25 miles from London. Factory hands have jobs in Slough, while
office workers commute to London. It’s a perfectly drawn picture of lower middle-class
life, with all its values and social mores, in that particular location, at
that particular time, and Bawden captures the feelings of uncertainty and ‘not-belonging’
that can over-ride everything else when you’re young.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our
narrator is 12-year-old Kate, poised on the threshold of adolescence, trying to
make sense of the world around her, her feelings, and her changing body. She lives
with her sisters, Poll (7), who is going to be Elizabeth I in the Coronation
Pageant, but would rather be Henry VIII, and Joanna, who is almost 18 and worries
about getting old. Their mother, Ellen, loves them, but finds it hard to
express her feelings. For her life is a serious business, and she has sterner
ideas about bringing up children than most mothers. Their stepfather Boyd, the
local doctor, is wise, kindly, loving and sensible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
many ways he and Ellen are surprisingly modern for their time. For example, they
believe in telling the girls the truth, especially with things like the correct
medical terminology for parts of body, and the facts of life - but they conceal
their own pasts, which impact on the present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, the past comes to light, and tensions surface as Kate and Joanna struggle with
the process of growing up. No longer children, but definitely not adults, they
are surprisingly mature and understanding about some things, but unable to cope
with their own feelings or those of other people. Facts are half understood,
and they fail to grasp the consequences of their actions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Boyd’s
abilities as a doctor and his standing in the community come under scrutiny when
he inherits money from an elderly, reclusive woman who knew him long ago when
she was a spirited young woman and he was a lonely child – a situation fuelled
by Kate's lies. And the tale of
Ellen’s life with the girls’ vanished father and her relationship with Boyd
(which breaks the social codes of the day) is revealed when her old friend Aunt
Hat comes to stay, so Joanna tracks their father down and invites him to visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Aunt
Hat, ‘as soft and sweet as cake’, has undergone a hysterectomy and has been attacked
by her husband, who is now awaiting trial for assaulting her stepson from a previous
marriage. Unlike Boyd and Ellen, she doesn’t hide her past – she almost revels
in it. To all intents and purposes she still loves her violent husband and
excuses his behaviour. Kate and Joanna are aware that ‘she doesn’t always see
things as they are, but as she would like them to be’. She, and other
characters, modify the truth to suit their vision of the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">This
difference between what you feel and what you think you feel, between life as it is and life as we would like it to be, runs
through the novel, raising questions about truth and illusion, delusion and lies. And there are issues about the nature of relationships,
between friends, between husbands and wives, between parents and children.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
themes may be serious, but the book is funny, and sad and touching. Boyd, Ellen, Joanna, Kate and Poll pull through and emerge a little sadder
perhaps, but stronger and wiser, than before, still a family, but with more self-knowledge, and
more awareness of the things that matter in life. Kate, especially, develops an
understanding of Boyd and what he has done for them over the years.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">He had given
us everything, without asking, and we had given him nothing; he had looked
after us, and we had grown, taking his youth with us; he taught us things,
played with us, held bowls for us to be sick in, and we had done nothing back.
We had not even thought of him, we had lied, deceived, and between us brought
him to the edge of ruin and disgrace, but we had not even thought of him now:
we had been sitting drinking tea and eating chocolate cake.</span></i><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1uwFVbffi8mD6m6l3fjiwGvCm0ILEgVmDfggNkov2VCqDdUSeftc4dqzTHj6SJulyNGscmG5i9u9ILK_OY6BW-JwJZOvfqXJ7sZvCXee7t2NdHDcMmmtZyW3tCq-KnPvciruwAUNvdg/s1600/DSCN2404+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1uwFVbffi8mD6m6l3fjiwGvCm0ILEgVmDfggNkov2VCqDdUSeftc4dqzTHj6SJulyNGscmG5i9u9ILK_OY6BW-JwJZOvfqXJ7sZvCXee7t2NdHDcMmmtZyW3tCq-KnPvciruwAUNvdg/s320/DSCN2404+%25282%2529.JPG" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I couldn't resist this picture of an ice cream sundae from my mother's <br />
Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium, published in 1954 -<br />
at that time knickerbocker glories in a café or ice cream parlour <br />
were a much more exotic treat!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-80487210616363928872015-07-22T12:41:00.001+01:002015-07-22T12:41:43.928+01:00A Doomed Love Affair
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I’ve never read any <b>Elizabeth Bowen</b> before,
and I didn’t quite know what to expect from <b>The House in Paris</b>, with its
themes of love, sex, betrayal, growing up and the search for identity. To be
honest, after reading it I’m still not totally sure how I feel about it. It’s
one of those books that left me a bit cold really, because somehow I didn’t
quite connect with it or relate to any of the characters. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t hate it, but I certainly didn’t love
it. It was an ‘almost’ book that I almost liked, but not quite. Even so, I can
appreciate the quality of the writing, the restraint and subtlety, the
observations of those quiet moments which seem so understated you almost miss them,
but you know they’re pivotal, that something has shifted, and things will never
be the same again. It’s kind of oblique - nothing is ever spelled out, motives
are never clear, and even the ending is ambiguous. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgoaLiArYzhe_zzcAcKgTpdleFh272bpWld5a8S-qAl61P1_aP2X5HliPkRH-2hrn8WmWon0BkSx8dPrSFAHsD38_VJ9Gx4k9Jak8FzMq4oNJh7jKSyHFgHuXLxXZMu6E7pMXFLLrQjsg/s1600/The+House+in+Pars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgoaLiArYzhe_zzcAcKgTpdleFh272bpWld5a8S-qAl61P1_aP2X5HliPkRH-2hrn8WmWon0BkSx8dPrSFAHsD38_VJ9Gx4k9Jak8FzMq4oNJh7jKSyHFgHuXLxXZMu6E7pMXFLLrQjsg/s320/The+House+in+Pars.jpg" width="203" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A 1976 Penguin edition of The /house in Paris.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In the first section two children are spending the
day in a house in Paris. Henrietta, aged 11, is between trains, en route from
London to her grandmother in the south of France. Leopold, two years younger,
living in Italy with his adoptive American family, is awaiting the mother he
has never met… but she never arrives. They are in the charge of Miss Naomi
Fisher, half English and half French, dominated by her bedridden mother.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Then we move back in time and the tragic events of
the past slowly unfold as the tensions builds. The Fishers once ran a small
‘finishing’ establishment for wealthy American and English girls, including
Karen Michaelis, who became friendly with Naomi. The two meet again when Naomi travels
to England with her fiancé Max, a charming young man who has a very odd relationship
with her mother. In Paris Karen disliked and feared him. Now she is besotted
with him, and he with her. They see each other twice more – once when Karen
goes to Boulogne for a meal with him, and again when they spend a night
together in England. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">When Karen discovers
her pregnancy she turns to Naomi for help so the birth can be kept secret, and
her son handed to others who will care for him. Afterwards she marries Ray, the
man she was originally engaged to.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Finally, we’re back in the present, when Ray
arrives in place of his fragile wife (and without her knowledge) and provides some
kind of resolution for poor, lonely Leopold.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">All the characters seem lonely and disconnected,
searching for a love that they never find, <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp5wikcPU3jxNIy1znt4baXQD1e6v8ScKxZ8LqtZr5GVGbxbS7YRy5_q2h41gSkToA0tV1qbNgVrQEOiPAm_AM_IE1nWqkvgY0rTEc863SVBcrLxTNuVHfx6cReplt9_T3X-f905Ek13A/s1600/200px-Elizabeth_Bowen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp5wikcPU3jxNIy1znt4baXQD1e6v8ScKxZ8LqtZr5GVGbxbS7YRy5_q2h41gSkToA0tV1qbNgVrQEOiPAm_AM_IE1nWqkvgY0rTEc863SVBcrLxTNuVHfx6cReplt9_T3X-f905Ek13A/s320/200px-Elizabeth_Bowen.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Author Elizabeth Bowen.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
trying to establish their own
identity in a world they cannot understand. Adults and children alike are cruel
to each other, with words rather than deeds. Even the Parisian house feels
suffocating, ill at ease with the people who live in it and the city around it.
</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">That feeling, I think, emanates from Madame Fisher,
as clever, manipulative and malicious as ever she was. It is she who tells Max
that Karen loves him, precipitating the action that follows. Was it a ploy to
prise Naomi and Max apart, to keep him in her power, knowing that despite their
passionate natures any permanent relationship between Max and Karen is
impossible? But even she can’t have predicted the outcome of the doomed affair
and the way Max reacts to the pressures on him.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Karen is hard to read. Is she ashamed of her
behaviour all those years ago? Does she regret giving her child away? Whatever
she felt then, she is unable to acknowledge Leopold now. Her reaction to her pregnancy
has to be seen in the context of the time. The book must have seemed shocking
when it was published in 1935, portraying a woman who pursued her sexual
desires and had a child out of wedlock.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Only Henrietta has no connection with the past. She
is an onlooker, there because her grandmother is acquainted with Naomi, and knows
nothing of the tragedy (which left me feeling emotionally drained). Nevertheless,
the day’s events leave their mark on her.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Today was to do much to disintegrate Henrietta’s character, which, built
up by herself, for herself, out of admonitions and axioms, (under the growing
stress of: If I am Henrietta, then what is Henrietta?) was a mosaic of all
possible kinds of prejudice.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Leopold is intelligent, spoilt, self-centred, misunderstood,
but he is not unloved – he is loved too much, by the wrong people, and yearns
for his real mother. There’s a chance of him growing up well and happy if he
sticks with Ray. And I know other reviewers believe Karen will join her son and
her husband, but that wasn’t my interpretation. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">*Linked to </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/paris-in-july-this-weeks-posts-and.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2288bb;">Paris in July</span></a> and the <a href="http://wordsandpeace.com/2014/12/01/french-bingo-2015-reading-challenge/#comment-29517"><span style="color: #2288bb;">French
Bingo Reading Challenge 2015</span></a>.</span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-33400062097539595262015-07-19T15:27:00.002+01:002015-07-22T17:19:04.046+01:00The Wine of Solitude<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4rq1pGioVH9CDJnIlfXN0JAxxEsa5tZzQpTJs-ALgZEJnv0NiU5hX658b3HsJaBhWdmjN10J7PoHKHh98X_prDOmFomuHdkcHb19Id21RutvOpRoPejEE9BSMfXprvMIHMUEDhedlNs/s1600/wine+of+solititde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4rq1pGioVH9CDJnIlfXN0JAxxEsa5tZzQpTJs-ALgZEJnv0NiU5hX658b3HsJaBhWdmjN10J7PoHKHh98X_prDOmFomuHdkcHb19Id21RutvOpRoPejEE9BSMfXprvMIHMUEDhedlNs/s320/wine+of+solititde.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wine of Solitude, published in 1935,<br />
translated into English by Sandra Smith in 2011,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The
Wine of Solitude</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> is a sad sort of book, and although it ends on a
note of hope that feeling of sadness remains, because we know author <b>Irene Nemirovsky </b>died in Auschwitz, and
it’s all the more poignant since she based the story of Hélène Karol on her own
lonely, unhappy childhood, and her troubled relationship with her mother. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Hélène lives in the Ukraine, with Boris, her
passionate, distant father, Bella, her beautiful, uncaring mother, and Mademoiselle
Rose, her French governess, who is the only person to love the child. Bored
Bella has other interests. With her claw-like nails and her thin, red mouth (like
a line of blood), she dreams of Paris, where she can be alone and free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Looking after the house and her child filled her with horror. She was
only happy in a hotel, in a room, with a bed and a trunk, in Paris […]<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">To hold a man tightly in her arms when she didn’t even know his name, or
where he came from, a man she would never see again, that and that alone gave
her the sharp thrill of pleasure she desired. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Hélène also dreams of being free in Paris – free to
be a normal child, untrammelled by the restrictions of her oppressive
middle-class environment and her unhappy home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Her penniless mother married her Jewish father
because she knew he would make money. And so he does – though whether from his
business interests or his gambling gains it’s hard to tell. For years he’s on a
roll. He makes millions. The family move to St Petersburg, get caught up in WWI
and the Revolution, escape to Finland, and move to Paris. Life is a mad whirligig
of dinners, dances and parties. Boris Karol decks his wife with expensive
jewellery and fabulous frocks, but somehow there is a sense of impermanence,
and they have no real friends, just a circle of hangers-on.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeuVjlG9ohHw5UqFYrjyr3fMSHUAoc_Qp28ylq46qdJku5h3lcj6Jibg8xtmXXyx9zrfeaTEljQ2cn_l3X51vuVI7CCK4FcxC-Xwn8WacllSXGVa9SQlq7D8pJgDm9zHOyEXWuzZ8d-78/s1600/Irene-Dad-Peintre-image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeuVjlG9ohHw5UqFYrjyr3fMSHUAoc_Qp28ylq46qdJku5h3lcj6Jibg8xtmXXyx9zrfeaTEljQ2cn_l3X51vuVI7CCK4FcxC-Xwn8WacllSXGVa9SQlq7D8pJgDm9zHOyEXWuzZ8d-78/s320/Irene-Dad-Peintre-image.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Irene Nemiroskvy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then there’s Max, Bella’s lover, 15 years her
junior, living the good life on Karol money. And what of Hélène, who loves her
father and hates her mother, but is neglected by both? Friendless, she stands
apart from the world, watching and listening. In Russia she begins to write
about what she sees and hears, which provokes a terrible row with her mother. In
Finland she falls in love, a brief, tender episode.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And in Paris she sets out to make Max falls in love
with her. As she changes from child to woman she exults in her power, but never
softens her hatred for him and her mother. Even so, she becomes fascinated by him.
At this point it would have been all too easy to let Hélène pay her mother back
for all the years of cruelty and neglect by marrying Max. But Nemirovsky is far
too good a writer for that, and in a stroke of sheer genius she allows Hélène to
exact a far more terrible revenge by rejecting Max and dismissing him from
their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Bella is a monster, obsessed with keeping her youth
and her looks, her life ruled by diets and beauty treatments. She needs money
(and plenty of it) but I don’t think she needs love. She’s driven by lust
rather than love – as long as she has a young lover she feels young and alive, like
some kind of evil fairy from a folk tale, sucking the life out of her lovers so
she can extend her own her own youth. Her husband adores her, and will admit no
faults: if he does, his world will come crashing down. He has no eyes for
anyone else, not even his daughter. He’s as disinterested in her as Bella is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">According to the blurb on the back, the book has
been been described as an end-of-innocence story, but I’m not sure I agree. Hélène
is never under any illusions about the adults in her life. What she lacks is
self-knowledge. But gradually she becomes painfully aware that she has
inherited character traits from the mother she hates, as well as the father she
adores. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">By the end of the novel she is able to walks out of
her old life and into the new, head held high, unafraid, because she is young
and full of hope, for the future, and the difficulties of her odd childhood
have strengthened her and made her what she is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But the final sentence stays in the mind, because
it must have seemed so uplifting when it was first published in 1935, and
no-one knew of the horrors that lay ahead:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">She stood up and at that very moment the clouds parted , between the
pillars of the Arc de Triomphe, blue sky appeared to light her way.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This
is another contribution for </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/paris-in-july-this-weeks-posts-and.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Paris in July</span></a> and the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://wordsandpeace.com/2014/12/01/french-bingo-2015-reading-challenge/#comment-29517"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">French Bingo
Reading Challenge 2015</span></a> for Square E2 (Translated from the French)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-83679719343188689852015-07-17T08:59:00.000+01:002015-07-18T07:45:47.717+01:00French Connections<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wM-sxxCPTgB4xqn0OD_20zUGCSxyPFkGkxv4NvekS9C2OF5CjcPbK93f9opqqBPQNyBz7VUHb7wMHvPkrGcKchSPVpX1sKW2nSwBomFJEi-h-60eC0xMDzuaUX29sOkCmyOt2q1EZLI/s1600/my+eiffel+tower.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wM-sxxCPTgB4xqn0OD_20zUGCSxyPFkGkxv4NvekS9C2OF5CjcPbK93f9opqqBPQNyBz7VUHb7wMHvPkrGcKchSPVpX1sKW2nSwBomFJEi-h-60eC0xMDzuaUX29sOkCmyOt2q1EZLI/s400/my+eiffel+tower.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paris! The Eiffel Tower is an instantly recognisable image of the city, and this <br />
photo (which I took a few years back) conjures up memories of happy holidays.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">OK people, I’m still in French mode for </span><b><span style="background: white; color: #0563c1; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.co.uk/">Paris in July</a></span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">, so let's start with a photo of the Eiffel Tower I took when I was last there. I look at this and it conjures up happy memories of some wonderful holidays in Paris. Anyway, enough of the past, now it's time
for a little frivolity, in the shape of a wonderful colouring book: <b>Tomislav Tomic’s A Walk Through Paris</b>.
It’s got a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the front, and the inside is like a
concertina, with eight panels opening out into a long panorama of the city’s iconic landmarks, and ladies and gentlemen in Victorian costume strolling along the boulevards. When you look closely there are all kinds of things going on, like a daring young man looping the
loop in his flying machine, a balloonist up above the city, a man rowing on the Seine, and another on a
penny farthing. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">On the other side of the picture are individual vignettes of the buildings, with brief details about their history, and there’s even a space for you to produce your own artwork.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Apparently
Tomic is a renowned Croatian illustrator, and the book stresses that there are
no rules. It's your's, to colour in as you choose, using whatever medium
you want – pencils, crayons, inks, felt tips…
Or you can leave it blank, and just enjoy looking at it, which is all I’ve done so far, because
I’m scared to make start, b</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">ut I’ve got my pencils ready, and a mug of fresh coffee, and I’m going to make a start. I’ll report on progress
at the end of the month!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s
also a little section explaining why colouring is good for you (adults as well
as children!). There’s been a lot of publicity recently about the current craze
for colouring books for adults, which some people see as a money-making gimmick. Others say it would be better to draw or paint your own pictures, but we’re
not all that artistic. Personally I
think they’re fun. And if you enjoy doing them, and they give you a sense of
satisfaction why not? Among other things, colouring is supposed to boost your ability
to concentrate, help you relax, and increase your self-esteem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway, I promised I would write a few notes about Paris
in July and the other French book challenges I've signed up for, with an outline of my Reading Plan.So here goes. Paris in July, now in its sixth year (it's a couple of years since I've joined in) is hosted by Tamara at Thyme for Tea, and offers scope for all kinds of
activities. You can read books (from any genre, fact or fiction), or watch a
film, cook a meal, listen to music, walk round an art gallery – anything at
all, as long as there’s a French connection, which is why I thought I’d include
the colouring book. I spotted it a few weeks back when a friend and I thought
we’d try out the café at John Lewis, which does an excellent honey and lavender
cake… not French, but delicious nevertheless! At that stage I hadn't really thought of embarking on a 'virtual' trip to Paris, but there's a certain serendipity at work there I think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
I’ve got a DVD of Marion Cotillard playing Edith Piaf, which I shall watch
(again) and cry over (again) because Piaf had such an amazing voice, and led
such a sad life. Then, of course, there’s a selection of books, some of which I’ve
read during the past couple of weeks, but not written about yet, so whether
I’ll get round to everything I don’t know. I’ve got plenty of choice!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve
already reviewed Emile Zola’s </span><a href="http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/revolution-and-markets-in-paris.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Fat and Thin</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, and I’ve still got to
write about The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen (which was on the TBR pile), and I spotted some </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Irene Nemirovsky novels in Oxfam, including </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Wine of Solitude, which is ideal for Paris in July (serendipity again), and back in June I found Tigers are Better-Looking, a collection of short stories by
Jean Rhys.(see what I mean about serendipity?) Then I got Edward Rosland’s play Cyrano
de Bergerac, because I heard it on Radio 4 last month. And I’ve been dipping in and out
of Paris Metro Tales: A Stop-by-Stop Guide, by Ruth Paget, which is packed with
fascinating snippets about the stations and how they got their names. I love
anything like that, but I don’t think it’s something I could read from cover to
cover!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In addition I've acquired Paris and the Parisians, Frances Trollope’s account of her
travels in early 19th century, and Balzac’s Pere Goriot, both of which I’ve always
wanted to read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I must admit that when
I looked at my French Collection I was a bit taken aback, because it seems to be dominated by classics and
literary fiction – not a live author anywhere, which probably reflects the state
of my book shelves! Anyway, I felt I should include something a little more contemporary,
so I snapped up a charity shop copy of The Confectioner’s Tale, by Laura Madeleine, because I liked the cover, and it’s set in Paris, and
features a confectionery shop, and the blurb makes it sound quite delightful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGotrNCeE6EBs4IhyphenhyphenMrzZwUPbVB0lk9-nezaUVjsnF_0WE27kxEb0I9m1jn2zFe93aK4if9iqnI8UTcmWli29rOqVDSgJEy_BP_G3o0dBAeWMfj2ehNA6O3PlBMpwnHz5tVl4M1GkuNI8/s1600/french-bingo-2015-logo2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGotrNCeE6EBs4IhyphenhyphenMrzZwUPbVB0lk9-nezaUVjsnF_0WE27kxEb0I9m1jn2zFe93aK4if9iqnI8UTcmWli29rOqVDSgJEy_BP_G3o0dBAeWMfj2ehNA6O3PlBMpwnHz5tVl4M1GkuNI8/s200/french-bingo-2015-logo2.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">And at that point I got a bit carried away by the whole French thing, because I discovered the </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://wordsandpeace.com/2014/12/01/french-bingo-2015-reading-challenge/#comment-29517">French
Bingo Reading Challenge</a></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> organised by Emma at</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Words and Peace, which started at the
beginning of the year, and finishes in December, so it’s already half-way
through, and it’s a bit late to join in. But it looks such fun, and I think
most of my books would qualify for this (not the colouring book though!), so I decided to take part. I
keep saying I will read some foreign authors, and not doing anything about it, so
this seems opportunity to explore French writers over the next six months, and it will test my ingenuity trying to find books to match the various categories.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are 25 categories, including a romance set in France, a book by a French
author before 1800, a book with the Eiffel Tower on the cover, and if one
volume meets the criteria for several different classifications that’s fine
(but I think it would be good to read as many different things as possible). If
you can’t manage to complete the whole card it doesn’t matter, you can bag
a row or column of the various classes, or just snaffle an odd title here and
there, as and when you please and see where the game takes you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb1LL-PPgkfH63uwn7B_FJDt_sEds4RJHdtGTkp_hBdK9RjHKx8VntALQ0UR4vfjAdym_mh_0khnwvo1veN6QixSGIgI-0m0dZJ23EZl8N_GyPCSgLwELLiSoxJIkrRVHbcZtcYMHCmVI/s1600/french-bingo-2015-card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb1LL-PPgkfH63uwn7B_FJDt_sEds4RJHdtGTkp_hBdK9RjHKx8VntALQ0UR4vfjAdym_mh_0khnwvo1veN6QixSGIgI-0m0dZJ23EZl8N_GyPCSgLwELLiSoxJIkrRVHbcZtcYMHCmVI/s400/french-bingo-2015-card.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyRXRWzuwUnwBAkyoHfBKy4rHGpcJtdBAv-LvKeM3SDKRAOIsX2JdJbH9ZjjWHQzu5LoDuRnoVFAfSMRCDvG_JNy0L7S07fx5VP84yXj3WIFymkMakTo7WdZepQLwdkxQfs_YEd_Dvua8/s1600/Dreaming+of+France+Meme+Eiffel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyRXRWzuwUnwBAkyoHfBKy4rHGpcJtdBAv-LvKeM3SDKRAOIsX2JdJbH9ZjjWHQzu5LoDuRnoVFAfSMRCDvG_JNy0L7S07fx5VP84yXj3WIFymkMakTo7WdZepQLwdkxQfs_YEd_Dvua8/s200/Dreaming+of+France+Meme+Eiffel.jpg" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I also found </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://paulita-ponderings.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/dreaming-of-france-paris-he-said.html">Dreaming
of France</a></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">, which is a weekly meme run by Paulette at An Accidental Blog.
You don’t have to post something every week (I think that might be a bit daunting), but you can link in when you have
something suitable and, as with Paris in July, it’s not limited to books, because
it extols the glories of France and the French, which means I can include my lovely
colouring book!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">So there you are, three lovely links to French themed challenges, which provide a bit of fun, and an incentive for me to read something different! And one of the nice things about them is that I can see what other people are reading, and pick some ideas, which will be useful for the French Bingo.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8VpWzWRuEYtw8HmpSUvKAxF_yqZvl7JCMS66cuwLj0MM7wqbMjVa5MTVV-F5KCaY-C_wQ2aJeaVNUVrkPSsAIIvSbQpFKtk5VUnQYezJzDRsEnJhctZ9i_VjOXQvf6s3ugHkNZzaRP8/s1600/Paris+in+July+6+-+jeanie%2527s+tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8VpWzWRuEYtw8HmpSUvKAxF_yqZvl7JCMS66cuwLj0MM7wqbMjVa5MTVV-F5KCaY-C_wQ2aJeaVNUVrkPSsAIIvSbQpFKtk5VUnQYezJzDRsEnJhctZ9i_VjOXQvf6s3ugHkNZzaRP8/s200/Paris+in+July+6+-+jeanie%2527s+tower.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-86199766968705611992015-07-14T23:16:00.001+01:002015-07-15T09:37:53.210+01:00Revolution and Markets in Paris<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
love Paris, but it’s a while since I’ve been there and, sadly, I’m unlikely to
make it this year either, so I’m making do with a ‘virtual’ trip to the city,
thanks to </span><a href="http://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.co.uk/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">Paris in July</span></span></b></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, a month-long celebration of all things French
being organised by Tamara over at her Thyme for Tea blog. As usual I’m behind-hand,
even though I signed up in advance, and I’ve actually read several of the
books, but haven’t got round to writing anything!</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiscnduXb7cY393JaZgoKoRX9plmM6f9WbNl7iviREAwdilB1o_UWERZbmzrz1B9yk7WhPeQTmOe9u-Edmrw2S_NvP8GK6uKZfJ-QZKTsagT-Tcdpy9nNlDaopDIgrplq8l2K_7qvHFGpM/s1600/cezanne+zola.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiscnduXb7cY393JaZgoKoRX9plmM6f9WbNl7iviREAwdilB1o_UWERZbmzrz1B9yk7WhPeQTmOe9u-Edmrw2S_NvP8GK6uKZfJ-QZKTsagT-Tcdpy9nNlDaopDIgrplq8l2K_7qvHFGpM/s320/cezanne+zola.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Alexis reading to Emile Zola, painted by Cezanne in 869/70.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">So
here goes. First up is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Emile Zola</b>,
who I read as a teenager, ploughing my way through Nana and Germinal because he
was a Great Socialist Hero and a Man of Principle. But I didn’t like the books,
and I’ve avoided him ever since. However, Paris in July seems an ideal
opportunity to revisit Zola, so I’ve opted for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Fat and The Thin</b> or, to give it the French title, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Le Ventre de Paris</b> which, apparently,
means <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Belly of Paris</b>. And before
anyone asks, no, I’m not reading this in French – my failed ‘O’ Level may equip
me to order a meal and black coffee, or ask for directions, but there’s no way
it’s up to the task of reading a book!</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">T</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">he novel is set in and around the great food
market of Les Halles during the middle of the 19th century, in the days of the
Second Empire, when France was ruled by Napoleon III. It follows the fate of
Florent, who was arrested by mistake after a failed coup against the Emperor in
1851, and imprisoned at Cayenne, in Guinea. Seven years later he escapes and
makes his way back to Paris, and it is at this point that the story begins. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju62JJ1ir5m6s6nEDMY9it4b3pIw0raTslN5kX9U0CUqu7R_hvtyEr8V2c3gCsuEM59-YLfmC9BxHcEyjL3YKUaeZC-DZ_c90mbH1A2K5eQ2KTjrhXpszQ5IJdWlbBBV_s9nqMlHAk1Mg/s1600/historic+les+halles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju62JJ1ir5m6s6nEDMY9it4b3pIw0raTslN5kX9U0CUqu7R_hvtyEr8V2c3gCsuEM59-YLfmC9BxHcEyjL3YKUaeZC-DZ_c90mbH1A2K5eQ2KTjrhXpszQ5IJdWlbBBV_s9nqMlHAk1Mg/s320/historic+les+halles.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Historical photo of Les Halles from <span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.parisenimages.fr/en/"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt windowtext; color: #743399; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Paris en images</span></a></span>, courtesy of </span><br />
<a href="https://parisianfields.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/baltards-children/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Parisian Fields</span></a> </td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Florent finds shelter with his
prosperous step-brother Quenu and Quenu’s wife Lisa. They pass him off as a
distant relative, and reluctantly he accepts a position as inspector at the
fish market and (less reluctantly) makes friends with a small group of like-minded
socialists who spend their evenings discussing politics. They plot and scheme
against the government, and one of them acquires a gun, while Florent makes red
armbands. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Their uprising is doomed from
the start - there is government manipulation, and agents provocateurs are at
work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the end it’s human nature
that brings Florent down. Idealistic and naïve, he fails to grasp that people
don’t want to be free. They’re happy as they are, they’re deeply suspicious of
anything (or anyone) new or different, and they don’t want their lives upset
and they’ll do anything to protect their well-being.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Old scores are paid off, new
rivalries are played out, and actions are governed by greed, petty jealousies,
and spite. Rumour and gossip abound. Revenge and treachery are afoot. Even the
would-be revolutionaries worry about their status, and as Florent becomes
important previous leader leaves. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Florent unwittingly becomes a
focal point for people’s fears and unrest. All their resentments and hatreds
seem to focus on him, and there’s an unacknowledged conspiracy against him, as
if he is in some way responsible for all the ills of society. By the time he is
caught and sent back to Cayenne there’s a sense that he is a scapegoat,
punished so others can thrive and enjoy themselves. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicooXBsXIq1jdtZy0SO-3a6r5GDVdT3mpEuLDpxHTQ9kVeO9V4dmRYe3jxAcgVHK_fLZR-iYF_X8B8NiPSvvZuQEnLQliIPtlUlcg0KxMQKpn_tEcc5tkqusGBjwm-XDDUM_1GqPCv7sA/s1600/postcard-Les-halles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicooXBsXIq1jdtZy0SO-3a6r5GDVdT3mpEuLDpxHTQ9kVeO9V4dmRYe3jxAcgVHK_fLZR-iYF_X8B8NiPSvvZuQEnLQliIPtlUlcg0KxMQKpn_tEcc5tkqusGBjwm-XDDUM_1GqPCv7sA/s320/postcard-Les-halles.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An old postcard showing market women in Les Halles. From </span><br />
<a href="http://www.aparisguide.com/leshalles/"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.aparisguide.com/leshalles</span>/</span></span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">He’s definitely not a hero in
the conventional sense (it’s fair to say there are no heroes or heroines in
this novel) and he’s a very unlikely revolutionary. He’s ineffectual, a thinker
rather than a doer, a sensitive man who finds it difficult to make friends. He’s
had a hard life, but he makes hard work of it, if that makes sense. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There’s a cast of wonderful
(if unlikable) characters, like placid, self-satisfied, passionless Lisa Quenu,
constrained by her corsets and her outlook on life. Set against her is the
tempestuous fish girl Louise, unrestrained in behaviour and appearance. And
there are market traders and shopkeepers, malicious gossipy old women, street
urchins, and a host of others, all brought vividly to life. Standing apart from
all is Claude Lantier, the artist who befriends Florent, and warns him about
the battle between the Fat and Thin, the haves and the have-nots. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The real hero of the book (if there
is one) is the market of Les Halles. There are glorious descriptions of the huge
wrought iron and glass pavilions a</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">nd the vegetables, fish, meat and cheese piled high in market stalls and
shops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s very sumptuous, very
sensual, very enticing, but very overpowering. There’s a surfeit of riches. You
feel sated reading about it, sickened by the excess. When Florent comes back to
Paris he is starving in the midst of all this. He remains thin, and is
abstemious about what he eats, so the theme of hunger and gluttony, poverty and
riches, fat and thin is maintained throughout the novel.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Zola writes about the:</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">… luxuriant fullness of the
bundles of artichokes, the delicate green of the lettuces, the rosy coral of
the carrots, and dull ivory of the turnips…</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Or what about this description
of a butcher’s shop:</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There was a wealth of rich,
luscious, melting things. Down below, quite close to the window, jars of
preserved sausage-meat were interspersed with jars of mustard. Above them were
some small, plumped, boned hams. Golden with their dressings of toasted
bread-crumbs, and adorned at the knuckles with green rosettes… </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">And I love his account of the
hot soup seller:</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Along the covered way women
were now selling hot soup and coffee. At one corner of the foot-pavement a large
circle of customers clustered round a vendor of cabbage soup. The bright tin
caldron, full of broth, was steaming over a little low stove, through the holes
of which came the pale glow of the embers. From a napkin-lined basket the woman
took some thin slices of bread and dropped them into yellow cups; then with a
ladle she filled the cups with liquor.</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR9EXdrjqLWC8imi-xw0AlI_YdHdprzYXyp_j48ZI-V_vgCiN7yyE0VDzftEEsNWbIhH18bKxmD0HWJnbYnrPa5w1U5bDiPwfcWs1yIaVmUol9fYzxdabmrEjx4wgex0vMa5ic9BTNEe8/s1600/leshalles+soup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR9EXdrjqLWC8imi-xw0AlI_YdHdprzYXyp_j48ZI-V_vgCiN7yyE0VDzftEEsNWbIhH18bKxmD0HWJnbYnrPa5w1U5bDiPwfcWs1yIaVmUol9fYzxdabmrEjx4wgex0vMa5ic9BTNEe8/s320/leshalles+soup.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A soup stall in Les Halles - customers used the cups, and handed them back<br />
for the next person. I downloaded this and lost the reference.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">But there’s something faintly
sinister about the richness, and Quenu’s kitchen made me feel positively queasy
with its:</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">…perfect battery of deep
copper saucepans, and swelling funnels, racks of knives and choppers, rows of
larding-pins and needles – a perfect world of greasy things. In spite of the
extreme cleanliness, grease was paramount; it oozed forth from between the blue
and white tiles on the walls, glistened on the red tiles of the flooring, gave
a greying glitter to the stove, and polished the edges of the chopping-block
with the transparent sheen of varnished oak…</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As you read on you become
aware of what lies beneath the surface: the rotting vegetable, the slaughtered
animals, the blood dripping and running through the market – symbolic, perhaps,
of how Zola saw the government.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The novel was worth persevering
with. It was interesting and, on the whole. I enjoyed it, although there were
times when I was overwhelmed by the long descriptive passages (not something
which usually bothers me – it’s one of the things I love about Dickens). Some
episodes didn’t seem to add anything to the story. But I will read more of Zola’s
work.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This made me realise how
woefully ignorant I am about French history. I did discover there really was a
coup against Napoleon III in 1851. Reprisals were very harsh indeed, and
hundreds of people were transported to penal colonies in South America, where
conditions were notoriously bad.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Napoleon III was responsible for the
way Paris looks today. He ordered the massive rebuilding programme undertaken
by Baron Haussmann, and the market (designed by Victor Baltard and constructed
in the 1850s) was part of the modernisation.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">But if there was a Napoleon
III there must have been a Napoleon II, so who was he, and what happened to
him? And how come the French, having staged a revolution and established a
republic, abandoned ‘</span><span class="tgc"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">liberté</span></span><span class="tgc"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">égalité</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">fraternité’</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <span lang="EN">and ended up with an emperor? And
how did the country become a republic again? I need a decent book on French
history…</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq3NrLR2XMIFE_zxdpuQCYcu65O59X7Wo4FuCHM9HGwfXELKG_MrzeNK_fX-_dK8PPiN4JFC3llca9NOLOE2UYuWPbQXfI3sTpVceDXcDnViYCypV2RXXizUAC9cVj4Y-UvS_LwGHRKps/s1600/Paris+July+6+pink+balloons+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq3NrLR2XMIFE_zxdpuQCYcu65O59X7Wo4FuCHM9HGwfXELKG_MrzeNK_fX-_dK8PPiN4JFC3llca9NOLOE2UYuWPbQXfI3sTpVceDXcDnViYCypV2RXXizUAC9cVj4Y-UvS_LwGHRKps/s200/Paris+July+6+pink+balloons+.jpg" width="171" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_VU_QYH1AOFgYy-KfhXuHRgELpnjPk7fwsvyl7dIoiEXw526ZwLJuJKMpNYQx98xdOpiVsvGUiNGdkFw0kyTo15BLdMM6eBLeYh-nLIHdql29j2MacXEm8TNN0dLHcvJch5ukGO_gAI/s1600/Dreaming+of+France+Meme+Eiffel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_VU_QYH1AOFgYy-KfhXuHRgELpnjPk7fwsvyl7dIoiEXw526ZwLJuJKMpNYQx98xdOpiVsvGUiNGdkFw0kyTo15BLdMM6eBLeYh-nLIHdql29j2MacXEm8TNN0dLHcvJch5ukGO_gAI/s200/Dreaming+of+France+Meme+Eiffel.jpg" width="150" /></a>PS: Just came across a French Bingo Reading Challenge 2015 at <a href="http://wordsandpeace.com/2014/12/01/french-bingo-2015-reading-challenge/#comment-29517" target="_blank">Words and Peace</a>, It looks interesting, so I'm giving that a go as well! There are 25 ideas for books with a French link, so I've marked this off for 'part of a series'. And I reckon it qualifies for Paulette's weekly meme, Dreaming of France, at <a href="http://paulita-ponderings.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">An Accidental Blog</a> - though I'm not sure how long I can sustain my 'French Connection'! I'll post a bit about all three challenges, and what I'm hoping to read, later in the week. (Edited July 15, 2015).<br />
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Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-22444249945530792682015-07-09T19:34:00.000+01:002015-07-09T19:45:25.397+01:00I'm in Shiny New Books!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHCUKSM4LAvX_V4Uo9_DG8esZtiF2GmFOqpzMxXnePevNhv04K0PLInaE2OkkGBA5x9YDqBkZAuBanZ-GFykjU_WNU283ALyU_Ldafsjk7TF3JL1wd_5P7yobYn1rV0zJi4zZTKRBZE20/s1600/SNB-logo-small-e1393871908245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHCUKSM4LAvX_V4Uo9_DG8esZtiF2GmFOqpzMxXnePevNhv04K0PLInaE2OkkGBA5x9YDqBkZAuBanZ-GFykjU_WNU283ALyU_Ldafsjk7TF3JL1wd_5P7yobYn1rV0zJi4zZTKRBZE20/s320/SNB-logo-small-e1393871908245.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Woo
hoo! I am so excited because those nice people at <a href="http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/" target="_blank">Shiny New Books</a> have used one
of my reviews in their summer edition. They’ve featured a shortened version of
the piece I wrote about </span><span class="a-size-large"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif;">The Moor:
Lives Landscape Literature</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, by <b>William
Atkins</b>. I was thrilled when <a href="http://harrietdevine.typepad.com/harriet_devines_blog/" target="_blank">Harriet</a>, who edits the non-fiction
contributions, said they would like to use it to coincide with the paperback
being issued – and then I forgot all about it. So it was a wonderful surprise when
I got back from a somewhat fraught day at the Oxfam Bookshop and found the
latest SNB is out – and here is the link to my review. <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/non-fiction-issue-6/the-moor-lives-landscape-literature-by-william-atkins/" target="_blank">http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/<wbr></wbr>non-fiction-issue-6/the-moor-<wbr></wbr>lives-landscape-literature-by-<wbr></wbr>william-atkins/</a></span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are, of course, lots of other fantastic reviews on a huge range of books, as
well as interviews with authors, articles about book prizes, and details of the
latest Shiny Book Club title, so do take a look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Finally, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
must say a big thank you to Harriet, Annabel, Victoria and Simon for inviting
me to join them for this issue. And I can’t resist using this picture from the
SNB header, because the cat looks like our old pet Smudge, who was a real
character, and liked to sit on whatever book I was trying read.</span></div>
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Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-44275561210314559532015-07-03T01:00:00.000+01:002015-07-03T01:00:02.594+01:00Pulp Fiction - Classic Covers!<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While trawling around the internet I came across these…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Classic novels and plays with pulp fiction covers!!! They’re
not necessarily to my taste (I lust after those wonderful old Virago Modern Classics,
with the dark green spines and paintings on the covers) but they are great fun.
They’re bright, brash, colourful, lurid, gaudy, garish… even the edges of the
pages are coloured.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This <a href="http://www.pulptheclassics.com/index1.php?imprint=8">Pulp! The Classics</a>
collection is a new imprint from Oldcastle Books. According to the
website, it ‘gives the nation's favourite classic novels original retro
covers in a pulp fiction style - with a dash of wry humour’. The designs seem
to owe a huge debt to popular culture, and the marketing blurb in the online
catalogue is perfectly in keeping with the pulp fiction theme – and is an
absolute hoot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How about this for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis
Carroll (due out in September):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This
cupcake as OFF HER HEAD! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What
HAS happened to little Alice? Taking 'shrooms, hanging out with hookah smoking ne'er
do wells and being dragged to court. That's gonna be one hell of a hangover! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Or this enticing account of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (think
James Dean and you’ll get the picture). <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Actually
I quite like the idea of the monster as a disaffected biker!</span></div>
<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This
Kid was born on the wrong side of the Lab...<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Frankenstein’s
monster is on the rampage; terrorising the locals, unleashing murderous hell…
and reading novels in his spare time. Can his petrified creator stop this reign
of horror before his girlfriend gets the chop.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The front of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde includes a figure who bears an uncanny resemblance to rock
star Alice Cooper (though it could equally well be said that Alice Cooper bears
an uncanny resemblance to a character from a horror story), and another who I
guess is Ozzy Osbourne. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Romeo and Juliet are ‘Too wild to live, too young to die’;
Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">busty</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> blonde babe with a bottle of booze and a
heart set on revenge, and Scrooge is a somewhat crazed Alastair Sim – a suitable
tribute I feel, since he played the miser in the 1951 film.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This
cat was a drag... till a midnight wake-up call.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Christmas?!
What a load of Humbug. Mistletoe and Wine just don't do it for Scrooge; he's a
workaholic miser with an attitude problem. If he doesn't change his ways, he'll
end up with no friends and Tiny Tim won't last the year. Let's hope some spooky
night-time visitors can put the jingle back in his bells! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then there’s Darcy, who’s escaped the constraints of life in Georgian
England and stares out at us with piercing eyes and a cigarette dangling from
his lips. And summing up Pride and Prejudice the publishers tell us:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Mrs
Bennet is on a mission to marry off her five daughters to rich men.<br />
Enter, Mr Charles Bingley and his rather fit friend, Darcy. Love, loathing
and bittersweet romance follow…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even Jane Austen couldn’t argue with that statement. It pretty
much says it all and, surprisingly, it’s actually quite accurate. In fact, all
the book blurbs are cleverly written, encapsulating a few salient facts in very
few words, using modern, slangy idiom. And, before you ask, the books appear to
contain the original, unabridged texts. It’s just the packaging which is
different – and perhaps that will attract new readers who might be put off by a
more conventional and reverential approach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvZV6WLs1s8FHZ7TYykzPfACMWAQ8AVuNJVJgBcjFgmujmugWPDVYOHpLJrbP9Sxp9PxN0mnYrzjJWhw32EfVaZNAqzDbAL3i5e32GO8HQAQQrEYxvrmac2tr_VfiOZjUnEAu3CKpusM/s1600/pupl+p+and+p.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvZV6WLs1s8FHZ7TYykzPfACMWAQ8AVuNJVJgBcjFgmujmugWPDVYOHpLJrbP9Sxp9PxN0mnYrzjJWhw32EfVaZNAqzDbAL3i5e32GO8HQAQQrEYxvrmac2tr_VfiOZjUnEAu3CKpusM/s320/pupl+p+and+p.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So what does anyone else think? Do you like them? Do you
think they might attract more readers? Or do you think covers should have
images more directly linked to the story?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-12281542655271816742015-06-26T01:00:00.000+01:002015-06-26T01:00:05.951+01:00Cures For 'Gardening Hands'<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s
June, and the year is half gone, so I think it’s time we took another look at <b>Mrs CW Earle</b> and discover what advice
she has on offer for the month in her 1897 lifestyle guide, <b>Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden</b> (you
can see my original post <a href="http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/spring-bulbs-marmalade-sulphur-and-soup.html">here</a>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgAK9vjH2FgQbT3oqRvX6FzpF0t2_rLDp6FucW5x4NqlFFQkJLNIAYiBtnWhdpr5W7LLnoLpqVcQZy3rI3wzw2mtn2FDh_eWN1VpJZyXq2lsQ5MLBIKwbw1WzKlZ3yBaUo_npMjOsaEL0/s1600/1914-wheeler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgAK9vjH2FgQbT3oqRvX6FzpF0t2_rLDp6FucW5x4NqlFFQkJLNIAYiBtnWhdpr5W7LLnoLpqVcQZy3rI3wzw2mtn2FDh_eWN1VpJZyXq2lsQ5MLBIKwbw1WzKlZ3yBaUo_npMjOsaEL0/s320/1914-wheeler.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the late 19th and early 20th centuries glycerine was regarded<br />
as something of a wonder cure for skin ailments, and to keep <br />
hands and skin soft. This advert dates from 1914.<br />
(<a href="http://www.cosmeticsandskin.com/efe/glycerine-creams.php" target="_blank">Pic from Cosmetics and Skin</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">She
starts with her thoughts on looking after your hands. She tells us:</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It must
admitted that one of the great drawbacks of gardening and weeding is the state
into which the hands and fingers get. Unfortunately, one’s hands belong not
only to oneself, but to the family, who do not scruple to tell the gardening
amateur that her appearance is ‘revolting’.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
advocates constant washing of the hands, and recommends the ‘never-failing’ use
of Vaseline to keep them smooth and soft. Actually, I’m not at all sure I’d
want to smear my hands with Vaseline, because it’s horribly thick and sticky, and
it wouldn’t be absorbed into the skin nice and quickly, like modern hand
creams. Surely you’d leave sticky, greasy marks on everything you touched.
Anyway, Mrs E offers an alternative which, she says, is even better – a mixture
of glycerine and starch, kept ready on the washstand after washing and before
drying the hands. I assume the starch would have been the old-fashioned laundry
stuff, presumably in plentiful supply when the book was first published.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
also informs us that old dog-skin or kid gloves are better for weeding and many
other tasks than ‘so-called’ garden gloves. And housemaids’ gloves, made from
wash-leather, and available at any village shop, were ‘invaluable’ for ‘many
purposes’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wash-leather,
I think, was what we used to call ‘shammy’ (or chamois) leather when I was a
child. I seem to remember it was yell</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">ow, good for cleaning windows, and polishing
metal, and could be used wet or dry, and washed and dried when it was dirty. In
Victorian and Edwardian times housemaids wore wash-leather gloves, so I
guess they were a precursor of today’s rubber gloves. Presumably they
offered some protection for the hands, and also ensured maids didn’t leave
grubby fingerprints on furnishings and surfaces!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6mBnU0oWhr9nOqHRzpBC-suM38AqtJlKReDBqaUpCjzdGoxvo1JcRfR1VGFlXKSmEI2GpnvKSa6oFBISJMvNvHezlAQoLUbTI-sK67qRs5QAcRGjxMckXChPTfbJwNCDqUrILI0_UGE/s1600/strawberries-main+bbc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6mBnU0oWhr9nOqHRzpBC-suM38AqtJlKReDBqaUpCjzdGoxvo1JcRfR1VGFlXKSmEI2GpnvKSa6oFBISJMvNvHezlAQoLUbTI-sK67qRs5QAcRGjxMckXChPTfbJwNCDqUrILI0_UGE/s320/strawberries-main+bbc.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you followed Mrs Earle's advice, you'll have a good crop of<br />strawberries ready just in time for Wimbledon. Sadly, I didn't, so <br />I'll have to buy some to eat while I watch tennis on TV!<br />(Pic from<a href="http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/ingredient-focus-strawberries" target="_blank"> BBC Good Food</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Anyway,
June in the garden means strawberries, and
Mrs E explains:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For many
years this fruit was poison to me; now it gives me pleasure to think that I
live almost entirely upon it for some weeks in the summer, eating it three
times a day, and very little else, according to the practice of Linnaeus, as
quoted in March’<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In growing
strawberries, everything depends on making some new rows every year; layering
the runners early, too, makes a great difference in the young plants the next
year</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
also mentions that Dainty Dishes (her cookery ‘Bible’) has instructions for
old-fashioned ‘receipts’ for strawberry jam – but, alas, she doesn’t share them
with us! </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">However,
she gives us a selection of other recipes. Apparently, a mayonnaise soufflé of
crab is ‘rather out of the common’ or a summer luncheon. It’s very much of its
time, involving buttered paper inside the liner of a dish, seasoned crab,
whipped aspic jelly, mayonnaise sauce, fried breadcrumbs and an icebox.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
never fear, there’s a ‘less complicated’ luncheon dish (does anyone still
prepare ‘luncheon’ dishes I wonder):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Take some
ripe tomatoes, equal-sized; cur a round hole and scoop out a portion of the middle,
fill in with cold minced chicken and Mayonnaise sauce, put some aspic in the dish,
and serve the tomatoes on pieces of fried bread, cold. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Life,
as Shirley Conran said, is too short to stuff a mushroom, and I reckon the same
thing could be said for tomatoes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwUYWnekcGsoczdVZstiT23l1Q76UPK3P1cxlSa7Ot0oi1VBcmcejHRwcgc0b9-uL7aoBM02HDrtoh13h-k1dTvzC7QNnwAxdnkF_DUW9kqO06kGOLVdYad59FQEu51fB6YVIxRxEHPxk/s1600/cucumbers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwUYWnekcGsoczdVZstiT23l1Q76UPK3P1cxlSa7Ot0oi1VBcmcejHRwcgc0b9-uL7aoBM02HDrtoh13h-k1dTvzC7QNnwAxdnkF_DUW9kqO06kGOLVdYad59FQEu51fB6YVIxRxEHPxk/s320/cucumbers.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cucumbers: Has anyone ever tried cooking them?<br />(Pic from Wikipedia)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
addition Mrs Earle instructs us in the art of making chutney, cooking crisp
cauliflower - and cooking cucumber, which sounds odd, since we eat it raw in
salads. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Here
you’ll find three different methods for serving cucumber hot, and I suppose it’s
not really any different to cooking marrow or courgettes, just a little more
watery perhaps. I’ve ignored her first two suggestions, but here’s the ‘receipt’
for the third:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A third way
is to take a large old cucumber, peel it, cut of the two ends, and boil it very
lightly. When done, make an incision down the middle, not quite to the two
ends, scoop out the seeds, and fill the hollow with a light stuffing of suet,
herbs, breadcrumbs, and egg. Serve it whole, like a roly-poly, with a yellow
Dutch sauce around it.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’d
never come across yellow Dutch sauce, but it turns out to be hollandaise sauce,
so the clue was there in the name. I’m tempted to try it, but with a different
stuffing, but I’m worried the cucumber might disintegrate!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-41718300057522879102015-06-24T11:10:00.001+01:002015-06-24T11:11:50.044+01:00More Oxfam Goodies<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Just
look what I found in the Oxfam shop! This…</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
this… I do love book hunting, especially when I strike literary gold!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9lsWAT1RSXggzC0W-Ikcr4gHZJfyVQ1_afytAiriyCCRZY2fREqSVcCV0MErZLvzc7AYakZpdv996_raa2L7XAWi73-6_O98Vo9OSnXtV3FJouxe20SiDXjwApZv5ElWiR0EleuyqEA/s1600/DSCN1805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9lsWAT1RSXggzC0W-Ikcr4gHZJfyVQ1_afytAiriyCCRZY2fREqSVcCV0MErZLvzc7AYakZpdv996_raa2L7XAWi73-6_O98Vo9OSnXtV3FJouxe20SiDXjwApZv5ElWiR0EleuyqEA/s320/DSCN1805.JPG" width="204" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve
been looking out for a copy of <b>Nicola
Beauman’s</b> <b>A Very Great Profession</b>
for quite some time, so when I spotted this 1983 Virago edition how could I
resist? Basically, it’s a study of middle-class women between the wars, as
portrayed in novels of the time. By and large the authors featured are
middle-class women, writing about the world they knew. Many have been forgotten
for decades, while others have undergone something of a resurgence in recent
years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Beauman,
of course, went on to found Persephone Books, which now publishes her book, but
it was the Virago edition I wanted. There’s something immensely satisfying
about those dark green spines…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m
really looking forward to reading this. I think it’s a fascinating subject, and
from a quick glance it seems that the seeds of the Persephone ethos are there
in this book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
women in the novels explored by Beauman in A Very Great Profession may feel
frustrated and constrained by the narrowness of their lives, but they’re a
world away from those created by <b>Jean Rhys.
</b> Her heroines (if one can call them
that) always seem to be cast adrift, buffeted by fate, unable to summon the
will or the energy to change things.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She’s
not what I would call a happy writer, and I’m not sure her work is enjoyable in
the conventional sense – her stories are bleak, and there seem to be no happy
endings, but I love the way she writes, and I’ve been hunting for some of her
short stories for ages and ages and ages, so you can imagine how thrilled I was
to find <b>Tigers are Better-Looking. </b>It<b> </b>contains eight short stories first
published in 1939, as well as a selection from a collection originally issued
in 1927 as The Left Bank, and I can't wait to start reading - only I have several books on the go at the moment. I would love to be able to read one book at a time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-88714187931633617982015-06-10T22:07:00.001+01:002015-06-10T22:18:42.305+01:00The Runaways - Not A Runaway Success!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8q1cmglfOB3QfpARzM4rrfKsPLFOz8aX4qWPmoD9JQ_5MsKQtdqhH1W8eMxKeBOnBr-KuYgW6XlH6qdHdMz43pC_mosRVwJsVRRTNMR1LEMvkCmdkwtnjo95irsMK5IuwqR5SfdQdkU/s1600/The+Runaways.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8q1cmglfOB3QfpARzM4rrfKsPLFOz8aX4qWPmoD9JQ_5MsKQtdqhH1W8eMxKeBOnBr-KuYgW6XlH6qdHdMz43pC_mosRVwJsVRRTNMR1LEMvkCmdkwtnjo95irsMK5IuwqR5SfdQdkU/s320/The+Runaways.jpg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Runaways, by Elizabeth Goudge: so sweet<br />
it should come with a government health warning.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Right,
back to<b> The Runaways</b>, by <b>Elizabeth Goudge</b>, as I promised some
time ago in my post on <a href="http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/swans-snow-and-talking-mole.html">Edith
Nesbit’s The House of Arden</a>. Let me start by saying I feel as if I’m the
only person in the world who doesn’t like this book. It irritated me beyond
measure, and had I been reading a real book (instead of the Kindle) I would
have hurled it across room. So, if you’re a fan, and you don’t want to be upset,
you’d better stop reading this review right now!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">First
printed as Linnets and Valerians in 1964, The Runaways (the American title has
been used for the UK reprint) was republished by Hesperus Press last year after
winning the company’s Uncover a Children’s Classic Competition. According to
Amazon:</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This charming, magical
story from award-winning author Elizabeth Goudge beautifully depicts early
twentieth century English country life while conjuring an air of magical
adventure. Written by the author who inspired JK Rowling, it is full of vivid
characters, battles between good and evil and wonderful spell-binding moments. </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sadly,
this is not quite how I see the book (I wish I did – I really wanted to like
it), but I include this comment in the interests of fair play.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
four Linnet children, Robert, Nan, Timothy and Betsy, and their dog Absolom are
living with their grandmother because their father is abroad with his regiment
and their mother is dead (absent parents again!) However, Grandmama has very
strong ideas about the way children (and dogs) should behave – and equally
strong views on how they should be disciplined when they don’t come up to
scratch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLN2ReF_hCeGQsDt_0RrSGzFC7o7SnlBS9pPcd3NGTfEoE7Nyj0Zj_FhcOi1VpeY1dIV5kLLOsSa1QPlhS4huyCOLsqAyPebg4LFVCW_2KNr3XT5obAJqaJybiefXJ8MXfDann5DR8JE/s1600/Joseph_Crawhall_-_The_Governess_Cart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLN2ReF_hCeGQsDt_0RrSGzFC7o7SnlBS9pPcd3NGTfEoE7Nyj0Zj_FhcOi1VpeY1dIV5kLLOsSa1QPlhS4huyCOLsqAyPebg4LFVCW_2KNr3XT5obAJqaJybiefXJ8MXfDann5DR8JE/s320/Joseph_Crawhall_-_The_Governess_Cart.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Governess Cart, by Joseph Crawhall. This is the kind<br />
of cart the children take when they run away.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">So
the children run away. They borrow a pony and trap outside a pub (this is 1912),
eat the groceries under the seat, and end up at a fairy tale kind of house
owned by a curmudgeonly old man who turns out to be their long lost Uncle
Ambrose, estranged from the family. Although he purports to hate children (and
dogs), he decides to look after them. Their new life seems idyllic, if a little
odd. Apart from lessons, each morning they do pretty much what they like, but
they soon discover all is not well in the village.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
lord of the manor is missing, presumed dead. An explorer who went all over the
world digging up vanished cities, he eventually vanished himself, 27 years ago
- three years after his young son was lost. Since then Lady Alicia, his grief-stricken
wife has become a recluse who only ventures out at night, and the old house and
gardens are going to rack and ruin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then
there’s Daft Davie, who cannot speak and lives in a cave on Lion Tor where he
has painted a beautiful picture on the rocks… a picture that is oddly similar
to Lady Alicia’s tapestry. And there’s Emma Cobley, the strange old woman who runs
the Post and General Stores, and has a cat that changes size. There is magic afoot, and the children must overcome
evil if the wrongs of the past are to be righted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5GCWTe96QX_sqtFRZQg83f5wLXGFF8SjGCNKrlgkM_-eyBaTgKq8s5O20tTVi9SHJzkZZCsihD6eR8ItDbZHfC-1As_VuFwAIzwZ52XwCcNWClsubyBUlnyn3ll5djgq9Yc2513MPEN0/s1600/Linets+and+Valerians+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5GCWTe96QX_sqtFRZQg83f5wLXGFF8SjGCNKrlgkM_-eyBaTgKq8s5O20tTVi9SHJzkZZCsihD6eR8ItDbZHfC-1As_VuFwAIzwZ52XwCcNWClsubyBUlnyn3ll5djgq9Yc2513MPEN0/s320/Linets+and+Valerians+1.png" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An earlier version of the book, <br />
published under its original title.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Along
the way they encounter bad dreams, a book of spells and queer, knobbly, little figures
carved from mandrake roots and stuck with rusty pins. Set against these are charms
to ward off evil, protective bees, who must be spoken to, and a pet owl (who
isn’t a patch on Archimedes).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
there are quirky characters, who remain just that – characters, not people. I
couldn’t even bring myself to like Uncle Ambrose’s servant Ezra, with his
wooden leg and its carved, painted bee. As for the cuckoo clock in the sink, the
cat and kittens on the draining board, and the copper saucepans on the floor,
they all seemed too self-consciously quaint and wacky. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
theory The Runaways ticked all the right boxes, but it just didn’t do it for
me. Somehow I couldn’t believe in the characters or the story. And, as with The
House of Arden, I do wonder if I would have liked it more if I had come across
it as a child. But I love many of the books I read for the first time with my
daughters when they were young, so I don’t think age is necessarily a barrier
when it comes to enjoying children’s books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway,
it’s all too picture perfect for me, and very predictable, with no sense of real
danger, no threat, nothing sinister, so the there’s never any doubt about the
happy ending. And yes, I know I usually love happy endings, but this one is way
over the top, and the whole book is anodyne, and twee beyond belief. It should
come with a government health warning. Not only is it tooth-rottingly
saccharine, it will turn your brain to mush. Diana Wynne Jones (who I may have
mentioned before) could have done the whole thing much, much better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
it wasn’t all bad. There were some lovely descriptions of the Dartmoor
countryside, like this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The path,
with steps here and there, descended steeply among them and as they came down
they could see over the wall of the stableyard and see the river and the bridge
and the stretch of the moor beyond. The road down which they had driven last
night was looped like a ribbon round the shoulder of a hill that was blue and green
with bluebells and bracken. Stone walls divided the wilderness into fields into
which sheep were feeding, and cows and a few ponies.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">They sat
down under a flame-coloured rhododendron and gazed, with the sun on their
faces, and then they shut their eyes and listened. They could hear the voice of
the little river as it tumbled over the stones in its shallow bed, the sheep
bleating, the humming of the bees...<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And,
shallow though it may be of me, I loved the food! Ezra produces the kind of dishes
that were part of my own childhood: steak and onion, liver and bacon, treacle
tart, baked apples with raisins inside, junket, and muffins with strawberry
jam. Proper muffins that is. Not these new-fangled American cakes, top heavy
with swirls of gooey, sickly icing, but good old-fashioned English muffins,
made with a yeast dough, toasted and eaten hot, lavishly spread with butter and
jam. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz4BhGPMwTeZ3aWeLuQ2fuyMPXsui40zSFrY2-UUKDO-oRpKl3tpMV4Y28ZWsXZ7z8QiSnFX7-eY0kTieFcmVV0OdduR13bNGMnU6TxUJneHoEBlKIreMkb0Y4SRmtYai9WL7QxFZy-Gs/s1600/recipe-image-legacy-id--1273608_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz4BhGPMwTeZ3aWeLuQ2fuyMPXsui40zSFrY2-UUKDO-oRpKl3tpMV4Y28ZWsXZ7z8QiSnFX7-eY0kTieFcmVV0OdduR13bNGMnU6TxUJneHoEBlKIreMkb0Y4SRmtYai9WL7QxFZy-Gs/s320/recipe-image-legacy-id--1273608_7.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These little iced cakes are the right colour, although the don't <br />
have cherries on top, but crystalised flowers were often <br />
used on cakes on cakes in 1912, when this novel was set.<br />
(Pic from <a href="http://at%20lady%20alicia%E2%80%99s%20there%20is%20afternoon%20tea%2C%20with%20queen%20cakes%20for%20tea%2C%20though%20i%20think%20these%20are%20what%20i%E2%80%99ve%20always%20called%20fairy%20cakes%20%E2%80%93%20delicate%20little%20sponges%2C%20topped%20with%20a%20thin%20layer%20of%20glace%20icing.%20queen%20cakes%2C%20i%20think%2C%20were%20little%20sponge%20cakes%20with%20currants%20in%2C%20and%20no%20icing./" target="_blank">BBC Good Food</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">At Lady Alicia’s there is afternoon tea, with queen cakes for tea, though these seem to be what I’ve always called fairy cakes – delicate little sponges, topped with a thin layer of glace icing. Queen cakes, I think, are little sponge cakes with currants in, and no icing. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whatever the cakes are
called, they sound delicious:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Upon
entering the room, Robert had seen out of the corner of his eye a silver tray
upon a side table with its delicate cups and saucers of flowered china and a
plate of little cakes. The spillikin players had evidently finished their tea
some while ago, but there were a few cakes left, iced in pink, white and green
with half a cherry on the top of each.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Spillikins, if you’ve never come across it, is a
game, where you tip sticks out, and remove them one at a time, without
disturbing the others in the pile. Like
this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipFYWYyASgsnFeqInx2dK99qBVOQIFj4bPIRL-TrghuoPUYwAeFmJyxIMPaYw9XDEpKwCN4re39X5WQ95TkUgzbCM-NJCVGey2U66fSsP_Y8YJbqg0Grr_hZ1GrkvJ3A055fVyTb68KyE/s1600/spillikins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipFYWYyASgsnFeqInx2dK99qBVOQIFj4bPIRL-TrghuoPUYwAeFmJyxIMPaYw9XDEpKwCN4re39X5WQ95TkUgzbCM-NJCVGey2U66fSsP_Y8YJbqg0Grr_hZ1GrkvJ3A055fVyTb68KyE/s320/spillikins.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spillikins calls for a steady hand.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">PS: Since there are two sides to every story, and
lots of people absolutely love this book, I thought it only right that I should
include a link to a positive post, so here’s a delightful review from </span><a href="http://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-runaways-by-elizabeth-goudge.html"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Geranium Cat’s Bookshelf</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-57369192434679844112015-06-09T10:15:00.001+01:002015-06-09T10:18:09.422+01:00In Which I Discover A Podcast!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/tea-or-books-1/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-R5XHLt_zi9Q5pY9oysBvsgTlV7ZYu3c6WRhW9nC_FzEOh0wlGtcnX5_jLMo7FcHZHxf-vdnMttOe9nhcDSToyOqp1ZsXDcEbHzTpDd5pK6s0VlkQsimM6qqGWT2XHBHjtieqc0IpMDk/s320/tea-or-books.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
short and sweet post for anyone who hasn’t already come across the wonderful
Simon T at <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/">Stuck in a Book</a> and the
equally excellent Rachel at <a href="https://bookssnob.wordpress.com/">Book Snob</a>
(though I’m sure most of you have). The pair of them have just come up with a lovely
new venture – a podcast! Oldies like me may throw their hands up in horror (I
wondered if my technical skills were up to coping with this), but they’ve made
it dead simple to play (or operate, or access, or whatever the right word is).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s
called ‘Tea or Books’, and in each session they will be talking about two
book-related topics. The first episode, which you’ll find <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/tea-or-books-1/">here</a>, tackles the issue
of books in translation versus books written in English but set abroad, and the
old argument on who is the better writer - Emily or Charlotte Bronte. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
listened whilst drinking a cup of tea – who says you can’t have tea and books! It
was lovely to hear them, and their debate was as interesting and thought provoking
as I expected. You can join in the discussion by leaving a comment, just as
usual, but sadly my listening skills have dwindled since I finished work, and
each time I thought of something I wanted to say Simon and Rachel had moved on
to another point and I lost the thread! However, it’s easy to stop the podcast
and replay a section, so it’s not really any different to re-reading text,
although I need to be a little more organised gathering my thoughts.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway,
that’s quite enough of me wittering on – go take a look!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-65096822475576239312015-06-07T14:23:00.000+01:002015-06-07T14:53:12.333+01:00An Irrelevant Woman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6d5ZeCs4x9bty52gSlA3xHEgZTTiWzZV95G6if42k96xu9qY9j80s-eJYyA07PoaF0ReDLozq2SuyLdLjSka6hR0BPsMcO__m3P1QNuZvE-eMC20avHjshunkDVthzRmROxoGLV9-Dk/s1600/maryhocking4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6d5ZeCs4x9bty52gSlA3xHEgZTTiWzZV95G6if42k96xu9qY9j80s-eJYyA07PoaF0ReDLozq2SuyLdLjSka6hR0BPsMcO__m3P1QNuZvE-eMC20avHjshunkDVthzRmROxoGLV9-Dk/s320/maryhocking4.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Janet did
not know which way to move or what to do. ‘God,’ she prayed, ‘help me! Please,
please help me!’ She put out a hand and stirred among the grapefruit for some
clue which might indicate her next move. One grapefruit toppled, then another,
then the whole pile avalanched onto the floor.
Janet sat among them, talking to the shadow … She clenched one hand around a grapefruit and
drummed it on the ground.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Janet
Saunders, a sensible, respectable, middle-aged wife and mother is in the
supermarket experiencing some kind of breakdown, the exact nature of which is
never explained. But the cause, and the lack of a definitive diagnosis don’t
matter. What is important in <b>Mary
Hocking’s </b>novel <b>An Irrelevant Woman</b>
is Janet’s descent into illness, and the way she and her family cope with the
situation. And if that sounds grim, it really isn’t. Much of it is very
humorous, and I thought the exploration of mental illness was sensitively
handled, as are the relationships between the various characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Janet’s
illness progresses from almost imperceptible beginnings, although when we first
meet her there are signs that all is not well:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A look of
uncertainty came over her face which, for no apparent reason, changed rapidly
to one of dismay. And worse. In this unguarded moment the woman’s face betrayed
the naked terror which might be occasioned by coming without warning, in a
nameless place, to the edge of a precipice; or by being confronted in one’s own
household with a forgotten, long-locked door behind which may lie ultimate
chaos, a rotting human corpse, or an equally defunct mouse. The woman opened
the oven door and peered inside. Whatever she saw did little to reassure her
and after a moment, during which she made no attempt to touch, or indeed to
examine, anything, she closed the door and remained crouched forward, dark head
bent.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are small changes at first; individually they could be laughed off, but taken
altogether they give cause for concern. Janet can’t remember things, she’s
tired and quiet, but when she does speak she is spikier than usual. When the
family arrive for Sunday lunch she forgets to roast the potatoes. And one
evening she sits in the garden late at night, refusing to go inside even though
thunder is rolling in the distance and it is growing cold and dark.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
the weeks go by her behaviour becomes more bizarre. She has her face painted at
a fair, and then there is that incident in the local supermarket. She is,
presumably, suffering from a form of depression. Her world loses its colour and
sparkle and is reduced to a charcoal sketch. Trying to explain how she feels tells
one of her sons: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s the
darkness. It starts on top of my head and works its way right down through me.
It’s worst of all when it gets to my stomach.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Janet
isn’t herself – she isn’t the self her family know and love. She is, as one of
her children says, slipping. Slipping away from her accustomed role as mother
and wife, slipping away from her own identity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQGElAvIubTz8A8TWMkN9nU6P4aPZu2EksWFyTfJ2-KC6Sp_ap5CRAn8yV926t7SUGJGh_-iNAkf8u64rL6bSE7hosk-4TtnEI7qwKvgkgvHUsEspJwEsmOPzOKzrCdk45PBk4sF8MsE/s1600/an+irelevant+woman.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQGElAvIubTz8A8TWMkN9nU6P4aPZu2EksWFyTfJ2-KC6Sp_ap5CRAn8yV926t7SUGJGh_-iNAkf8u64rL6bSE7hosk-4TtnEI7qwKvgkgvHUsEspJwEsmOPzOKzrCdk45PBk4sF8MsE/s320/an+irelevant+woman.png" width="210" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now
in her fifties. Janet doesn’t work. Her talents are for caring and nurturing
making life as easy as possible for her husband Murdoch (an acclaimed writer
whose ‘gift’ fails to win commercial success) and their four children,
Stephanie, Hugh, Malcolm and Katrina, who have all grown up and left home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
would be easy to see her as a victim of ‘empty nest syndrome’ but there is more
to it than that. She has let go of her children, and can’t understand why they
won’t let go of her. She asks: “Why do they talk about me, criticising analysing,
yet still demanding the old comforts be available whenever they need them?” She
feels her skills are no longer valued, her children want to refashion her, and
her husband behaves as though nothing has changed. She sees herself as a series
of ‘nots’, passive, accepting and unmotivated - an irrelevant woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Murdoch
doesn’t want her to be ‘messed about with’, and a somewhat unorthodox
psychiatrist recommends that Janet‘s illness should be left to run its course,
so there are no drugs, and no proper counselling sessions, and she is left to
heal herself which, amazingly, she does. I have to admit I found her miraculous
overnight cure utterly unbelievable, but this is a novel, and anything is
possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
shift in the dynamics of the couple’s relationship was interesting. Murdoch, facing
his own mid-life crisis as his precious gift for writing disappears, relishes
the transformation from ‘cared for’ to carer. In the end I think Janet’s
illness changes him more than her. Their final choice about the direction their
life will take doesn’t really open up new opportunities for her – it merely
enables her to continue using the skills she has, building on her existing
role, albeit in a different environment, but it is what she wants. And her
illness strengthens the bond between them: they are no longer him and her,
following the separate roles. They are a couple, working together, enjoying
each other’s company, tackling problems as they arise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
life also changes for the children, who seem somehow to be adrift in the world
outside home, and have always returned, expecting to find it the same, enabling
them to gather strength to face the trials of life, but now they must find
their own way. I worried about the children. Have they been over-protected so
they cannot cope with life – or not protected enough from living in the shadow
of their ‘gifted’ father?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are questions here about the relationship between children and parents, husband
and wife, family and friends, and about the roles adopted by people, the way
they see themselves, and the way others perceive them. I viewed Janet as a
slightly old-fashioned figure, more like a woman from the 1950s than the
late-1980s setting of the novel. Then she has this conversation with her elder
daughter, and it turned everything upside down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Men have always been jealous that it is the
woman who bears the child. She is the fruitful one – they call it passivity.
That is why I never envied Murdoch his gift. Why I always wanted him to have
every opportunity to exercise his creativity. Nothing compared to mine, but
some recompense. I was so sorry for him shut up all day over dry old bits of
paper.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stephanie said shakily, ‘I think you are a
little mad.’<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">‘Am I?’ She registered Stephanie now. ‘I
brought you into the world. Don’t you think you are of more value than your
father’s book?’<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hocking, who is very much a
forgotten novelist, has been compared to Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor, and
I can see why. She is not quite in the same league perhaps, but there is the
same precision in her writing - lovely well balanced, flowing sentences, with
never a word out of place. And, like them, she never quite lets us get fully
into minds of her characters. She remains slightly detached, an observer,
showing them at a particular moment in time with no judgments, no back
stories, and no explanations about their behaviour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’d never heard of Mary Hocking
until Alison at </span><a href="https://heavenali.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Heavenali</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> wrote
about her, and I find it hard to understand how such a good and popular writer
can have fallen out of favour and been forgotten in such a short period of time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Anyway, Alison has been running a
Mary Hocking Week over at her blog, and I meant to join in and post this early
in the week, as well as another piece on the Fairley family trilogy, but I
haven’t quite finished that, although I’m enjoying it just as much. So,, as
usual, I’m a little late, but the Week ends today, so I’m OK to post my
thoughts on An Irrelvant Woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-11083295797660122502015-05-28T08:12:00.001+01:002015-05-28T09:06:28.251+01:00A Literary Map of London<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ccGLo2IQZEbJ4KihgtBdd2ZbKS4mapW0oVFJ6wT34QW8XujLfpuwCo81B77qrF_qevFuMSpcdRewBzLcIlKhQ1mVgN0_n3UmzFxcz1mfSRqIWtM9POkWVQ_FYWW1Z2MeVPASXkQkxfE/s1600/Literary+Map+of+London.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ccGLo2IQZEbJ4KihgtBdd2ZbKS4mapW0oVFJ6wT34QW8XujLfpuwCo81B77qrF_qevFuMSpcdRewBzLcIlKhQ1mVgN0_n3UmzFxcz1mfSRqIWtM9POkWVQ_FYWW1Z2MeVPASXkQkxfE/s400/Literary+Map+of+London.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now for something completely different. This
literary map of London turned up from one or other of my Facebook friends, and I
think it is fantastic, and I love the way it uses names to build up a picture
of the city, so I thought I’d share it here – I just hope I don’t run into any
copyright problems. According to the blurb on </span><a href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-literary-map-of-london-is-just-beautiful--gJ5cpthyEx"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">The Independent</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> site I copied it from,
the map is ‘both a snapshot of London’s literary history and beautiful in its
own right’. I’m sure no one would argue with that.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Apparently,
more than 250 novels were ‘mined’ in order to make the Literary London Map, and
each name is placed on the part of the city they’re associated with. Initially
I thought it was only made with characters from books, but looking closely I
spotted Aphra Behn and Ben Jonson, so it seems authors rub shoulders with their
creations. If I had cash to spare, which I don’t, I would buy it. As it is I
shall content myself with looking at it online and seeing how many names I can
find (and how many I know!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
from the </span><a href="http://www.literarylondonartprints.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Literary London Art
Collection</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">,
where an explanatory note states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Literary
London is a collection of art celebrating the capital's rich literary heritage.
Bringing to life the army of fictional characters who were born here. From the
dreamers and dandies to the eerily eccentric and downright dangerous. Not just
the living, but also the walking dead. All the winged and many-legged creatures
who've been immortalised in the pages of novels. And who continue to inhabit
and delight imaginations the world over. The larger than life personalities
conceived by an equally eclectic horde of authors obsessed with London's every
nook and cranny, its bawdy taverns and refined townhouses, as well as the
cities notorious underbelly, its clinks and courts of law.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Literary
London is an art collection from </span><a href="http://runforthehillslondon.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Run For The Hills</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, conceived and created by
London-based artist </span><a href="http://www.dexterspandex.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Dex</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in collaboration with
Interior Designer </span><a href="http://www.annaburles.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Anna Burles</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, the duo who produced the
map of literary London. </span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-85606796707446890732015-05-25T22:23:00.000+01:002015-05-26T08:23:08.816+01:00Of Pies and Penguins...<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Simple
Simon met a Pieman,</em></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Going
to the fair;</em></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Says
Simple Simon to the Pieman,</em></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Let
me taste your ware.</em></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Says
the Pieman to Simple Simon,</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Show
me first your penny;</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Says
Simple Simon to the Pieman,</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Indeed
I have not any.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p></o:p><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
Everyone knows the old nursery
rhyme, but how many people are aware that hot (and cold) penny pies were a kind
of early take-away, or ‘food on the move’, long before the advent of crisps,
sandwiches, burgers, chips and so on. </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The ‘itinerant trade in pies
is one of the most ancient of the street callings of London’ says <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Henry Mayhew</b> in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Of Street Piemen</b>, which is one of those rather lovely Little Black
Classics produced to celebrate Penguin’s 80th birthday (Number 26 if we’re
being precise).</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2eR6qWvyD45Bd1fHxy2WXQVdHD9Vbwkp8m71QKV4D9Ol4f9CTZk9KTMeMGD4dufi19eDzl8wdwldYd2uLjQ3YHpT-gw_NVTlytfr-c1R0UFndp5_yWK-ebxr3NFVmBfgiwu8lMhvyiM/s1600/Simple+Simon+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2eR6qWvyD45Bd1fHxy2WXQVdHD9Vbwkp8m71QKV4D9Ol4f9CTZk9KTMeMGD4dufi19eDzl8wdwldYd2uLjQ3YHpT-gw_NVTlytfr-c1R0UFndp5_yWK-ebxr3NFVmBfgiwu8lMhvyiM/s400/Simple+Simon+3.jpg" width="301" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Anne
Anderson's illustration from an edition of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Mother Goose published in 1926. I like this because</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">it shows the construction of the hot pie can.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">It contains eight extracts
from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">London Labour and the London Poor</b>,
an investigation published in the middle of the 19th century, and I thought
these pieces were absolutely fascinating, and surprisingly readable. This is
the real ‘Dickensian’ London and Mayhew tells it like it is, letting his
interviewees speak for themselves, so their voices travel down to us loud and
clear.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I’ve always imagined the
pieman with a tray of pies <span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">balanced
on his head, or </span>slung round his neck, like an illustration in a
nursery rhyme book, and some did do this, but according to Mayhew in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Of Street Pieman</b> (the collection is
named after this piece): </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">They go along with their
pie-cans on their arms, crying, ‘Pies all ‘ot! Eel, beef, or mutton pies! Penny
pies, all ‘ot, all ‘ot!” …. The pies are kept hot by a charcoal fire beneath,
and there is a partition in the body of the can to separate the hot and the
cold pies. The ‘can’ has two tin drawers, one at the bottom where the hot trays
are kept, and above these are the cold pies. As fast as the hot dainties are
sold, their place is supplied by the cold from the upper drawer.</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Pies were savoury or sweet (made
of fruit in season), and were usually baked by the sellers, about five dozen at
a time, with half an ounce of meat in each, which is not a lot – about half a
chipolata sausage.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“People, when I go into
houses,’” said one man, “often begin crying ‘Mee-yow,’ or ‘Bow-wow-wow!’ at me,
but there’s nothing of that kind now. Meat, you see, is so cheap.”</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The meat came from the same
parts that sausage-makers used – the bits known as ‘stickings’. Gravy, kept in
an oil-can, was made from a little salt and ‘water browned’ (please don’t ask
me how you brown water because I don’t know). Customers poked a hole in their
pie and poured the gravy in, just as we might squeeze mustard or tomato ketchup
onto food at hot dog stands.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsT7dH_saGow1FP6AMAob27xBLwM2Wysv9o7-z4bqOoUaJKCQMttUPag1RhH6-b8qJd4MDCHy2ETLmke1x-qdH_TffJoPqjns9Zss4nU6KcSl8xVVTD4RiQN0NMdymAi-aYwJyffbnuqI/s1600/mayhew-11+pieman.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsT7dH_saGow1FP6AMAob27xBLwM2Wysv9o7-z4bqOoUaJKCQMttUPag1RhH6-b8qJd4MDCHy2ETLmke1x-qdH_TffJoPqjns9Zss4nU6KcSl8xVVTD4RiQN0NMdymAi-aYwJyffbnuqI/s400/mayhew-11+pieman.gif" width="266" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Coster Girl and Boy Tossing the Pieman. (Illustration for London Labour </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">and the
London Poor, from </span><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/mayhew/mayhew-street-characters.htm"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">http://www.victorianlondon.org/</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">)</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Personally, I think the pies
sound most unappetising, particularly the mince-meat ones, which contained apple,
sugar, currants and ‘critlings’ - the solid residue left after boiling pig fat in
water to make lard. Piemen made their own pastry, but Mayhew doesn’t tell us
whether they produced their own lard and critlings. Anyway, back to those
mince-meat pies, which also needed ‘a good bit of spice’ to flavour the
critlings, and plenty of treacle to make the mince-meat look rich. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Since there were no fridges,
and pies could be hanging around for days, and were constantly warmed up, I wonder
just how safe they were to eat. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The piemen grumbled to Mayhew
about the new penny pie shops taking their trade, and said much of their income
now came from ‘Tossing the Pieman’. Customers tossed a coin, and got a pie for
free if they won. If they lost the pieman received the penny – and kept his
pie</span>. </span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The two orphaned flower girls
whose tale is told elsewhere in the book, didn’t even have a penny to spend on
a pie to share between them. They lived on bread and tea, and sometimes ‘a
fresh herring of a night’, but were proud to boast they didn’t owe anyone
anything, and had never pawned anything – because they had nothing
worth pawning.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx8hBKQL9PDqnuSsc4H62ZZFhOtUO5MXDKSJEAfDq2AnsCkaiY-m3M99TfL3SQCKk-fckVWr5ItwxArmrla0Ngwsh5jVjxy2NWDZ54ZTG4_FgfEAfz0c1nxEtUcpwO21F3H7OFSvfKO9s/s1600/mayhew-28+bird+seller.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx8hBKQL9PDqnuSsc4H62ZZFhOtUO5MXDKSJEAfDq2AnsCkaiY-m3M99TfL3SQCKk-fckVWr5ItwxArmrla0Ngwsh5jVjxy2NWDZ54ZTG4_FgfEAfz0c1nxEtUcpwO21F3H7OFSvfKO9s/s400/mayhew-28+bird+seller.gif" width="272" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">The
Crippled Bird-Seller: Mayhew’s bird-seller wasn’t crippled, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">but he must have
looked a little like this .</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"> (Illustration for London Labour and the London Poor,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">
from </span><a href="http://ww/"><span style="color: blue;"></span></a><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/">http://ww</a></span><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><a href="http://www.victorianlondon.org/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">w.victorianlondon.org/</span></a></a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">)</span></a></a></a></a></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A seller of live birds made a
better living, but the description of how birds are caught is quite shocking. It
involves a net laid on the ground in fields, and a caged bird singing to lure
linnets, sparrows, larks and finches. What did people do with all those birds?
Keep them as pets? Or eat them?</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">These people struggle to make
a living, but they seem happy enough, accept their lot in life, and make the
best of what they have. Their livelihoods are precarious, but in their way, they’re
entrepreneurs, proud of what they do, beholden to no-one.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">But Mayhew didn’t just
interview London’s poor; he also looked at the places where they lived, worked
and played. There’s a report, or essay, on the city’s vibrant street markets,
another on the Port of London, and a damming account of the bawdy entertainment
(and equally bawdy audience) at a ‘penny gaff’, a kind of ‘pop-up’ theatre.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjog-KXnddXUHGJ9D0k0RP1u5vuh7bSCpJTRZwCeFgiwtaheZ0ZcNQwCTBcXvdJLDvqTFhlmj6YHe9aGJs6mdoZuSlRiQlXPril_0Q-Xi1XKv3wsa42jcxN7NncmNOpropSb-swgHx3j-0/s1600/hot+air+balloon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjog-KXnddXUHGJ9D0k0RP1u5vuh7bSCpJTRZwCeFgiwtaheZ0ZcNQwCTBcXvdJLDvqTFhlmj6YHe9aGJs6mdoZuSlRiQlXPril_0Q-Xi1XKv3wsa42jcxN7NncmNOpropSb-swgHx3j-0/s400/hot+air+balloon.jpg" width="325" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Eager Reception circa 1850 (round about the time Mayhew took his balloon flight): </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">A crowd of onlookers greet the arrival of the
hot-air balloon 'Crystal Palace'. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">(Pic from Hulton Archive/Getty Images)</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The sights, sounds and smells
of a half-hour train journey to Clapham Common (then in the countryside, with a
‘little rustic station’) are recounted with great relish, and there’s an enchanting
narrative of a balloon flight high above ‘The Great Metropolis’. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The houses directly underneath
us looked like the tiny wooden things out of a child’s box of toys, and the
streets as if they were ruts in the ground: and we could hear the hum of the
voices rising from every spot we passed over, faint as the buzzing of so many
bees.</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">It could have been written
today, rather than some 150 years ago – the language, and the thoughts
expressed haven’t changed at all. And as he goes ‘sailing along almost among
the stars’ taking ‘an angel’s view’ of London, Mayhew reflects on human nature
and concludes that it is good to forget ‘the petty jealousies and
heart-burnings, small ambition and vain parade of ‘polite’ society and feel,
for once, tranquil as a babe in a cot’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQdikQl5HUdHtMeg_17Tx9QKkSNE-EOrjio4UqecGFAA53Kfmz5C4sj5w5hw8VaNCYkCi6aJtfLI42G5vk94J9fEzJHXkLAO1capUHJwb_p3lxSo7T-rMUVmY8GMYQWhW5LOPw3h5C98/s1600/Of+street+Piemen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQdikQl5HUdHtMeg_17Tx9QKkSNE-EOrjio4UqecGFAA53Kfmz5C4sj5w5hw8VaNCYkCi6aJtfLI42G5vk94J9fEzJHXkLAO1capUHJwb_p3lxSo7T-rMUVmY8GMYQWhW5LOPw3h5C98/s1600/Of+street+Piemen.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">PS: Blogger has gone doolally on this post, and is doing weird things with the spacing and font, and won't be corrected, so apologies if it looks odd... </span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-63862840524992622752015-05-19T01:00:00.000+01:002015-05-19T01:00:03.089+01:00Swans, Snow and a Talking Mole<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnmTQInvYeu-UKdMubwfI9BeCGuez6TRg3M0mH43MJ_Da8-v_jjQaTKttlhFxQiEC30Jum3QjJaO5h7wvM0-kiOPleqhoGYo3bIqdhe6Caucli4uRN-Fb4RixvyedkwYBRvow7_Vs8Sfo/s1600/arden7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnmTQInvYeu-UKdMubwfI9BeCGuez6TRg3M0mH43MJ_Da8-v_jjQaTKttlhFxQiEC30Jum3QjJaO5h7wvM0-kiOPleqhoGYo3bIqdhe6Caucli4uRN-Fb4RixvyedkwYBRvow7_Vs8Sfo/s320/arden7.jpg" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edred and Elfrida walking down the street before <br />
their adventures begin.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Oh
Lordy, I must be getting old. Or growing up or something. That’s three
children’s ‘classics’ I’ve read recently, and I hated all of them, even though
they ticked all the right boxes. Which is odd when you consider my weakness for
children’s literature.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">First
up is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Edith Nesbit</b>. I’ve always
loved The Railway Children, and the Bastable stories, and Five Children and It
and its two follow-ups, so I thought I’d love <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The House of Arden, </b>which just shows how wrong you can be. I know
there are lots of people out there who really rate this book, but it didn’t do
anything for me, except make me cross.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Brother
and sister Edred and Elfrida Arden live with their aunt, who lets lodgings,
which is ‘one of the most unpleasant ways to make a living’. They’ve got no
money, their mother is dead, and their father has disappeared on an exploration
to South America, accompanied by the aunt’s fiancé. Strange how many children’s
books feature absent parents, either one, or the other, or both. Obviously this
enables children to go off and have adventures, but I do wonder if there’s some
deeper significance.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Anyway,
it turns out that Edred is heir of the Ardens, so they move to their ancestral
home, a crumbling castle which luckily includes a habitable (but run-down) house.
To restore the fortunes of family and castle Edred and Elfrida must find the
Arden treasure, hidden away centuries ago. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiifEMwMTgoreq5A-BE1j54OpaYuvVMi-IPlg-ZLV9hvStlxOLtoMATLeIKOK3DA-JtAIOS-DV50I2KI98Yi8eoi0HutK5tDQqqN2IMe3USFFLzFSvOTAfK76B9D-ze5r6TNOKzaQgjlB4/s1600/arden+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiifEMwMTgoreq5A-BE1j54OpaYuvVMi-IPlg-ZLV9hvStlxOLtoMATLeIKOK3DA-JtAIOS-DV50I2KI98Yi8eoi0HutK5tDQqqN2IMe3USFFLzFSvOTAfK76B9D-ze5r6TNOKzaQgjlB4/s320/arden+1.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prisoners in the Tower: Edred meets Sir Walter Raleigh <br />
while they are both imprisoned in the Tower of London.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Helped
by pigeons they don garments found in old chests and are transported back in
time to periods matching the clothes. And wherever they go in time there are
two children who look just like them, and are their ages, with their names, and
they become those children.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">This
was what I really, really hated about this book. I couldn’t get my head round
the way they travelled through time taking over other children’s lives, like
some kind of cosmic hijackers. It’s Quantum Leap a century earlier, but unlike
Dr Sam Baker they not allowed to change history. Personally, I thought it was
really spooky. And in case you wonder what happens to the other children (well,
I certainly did) they pop off and hang around somewhere else until they can return.
And they don’t notice anything is happening because they’re not special like
Edred and Elfrida… </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
don’t get me started on the magical talking mole (the White Mouldiwarp from the
Badge of Arden). Or the magical clocks which appear, made of daisies and such
like. Or the magical swans pulling a magical carriage made of magical
snowflakes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Actually,
the magical elements in this book really annoyed me because, on the whole, they’re
twee and fluffy and pretty, and pulled out of nowhere, like a rabbit from a
hat. Children trapped on top of a tower in a snowstorm? No problem, let’s
conjure up a swan drawn snow-carriage to rescue them. Why swans and snow?
Because all things white obey the Mouldiwarp. Well that’s OK I suppose, and after
all it’s not really so very different from Cinderella going to the ball in a
pumpkin coach pulled by mice-horses, and I’ve no problem with that. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybB3rPsG104MAzdQTQcrimjN0ykTovBqw_rJnYDJ6uw9OGdWS1PCwNv-MARB9Vod7fDdm9P36ypHHens3AVSGCK41tZRBp-_6pdOGhsRgk2Nvo1azGfpWIYPEVH5VyrCxgGKKDA4VNW4/s1600/arden6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybB3rPsG104MAzdQTQcrimjN0ykTovBqw_rJnYDJ6uw9OGdWS1PCwNv-MARB9Vod7fDdm9P36ypHHens3AVSGCK41tZRBp-_6pdOGhsRgk2Nvo1azGfpWIYPEVH5VyrCxgGKKDA4VNW4/s320/arden6.jpg" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Time traveller: Elfrida in the Georgian era.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">So
why don’t I like this? I’ve tried to analyse my response, and I’m really not
sure, but I think it has to with the fact that I feel magic should be grounded
in some kind of reality or mythology, if that makes sense. Authors like Diana
Wynne Jones, JRR Tolkien and Ursula le Guin created characters who wield
enormous magical powers, which they use only in dire need. There is an emphasis
on balance, a sense that there is a cost to be paid for using magic, because it
can upset the equilibrium of the world, and have unforeseen consequences. They
have a responsibility to use their powers wisely, and they don’t magic
something out of nothing, or change the essential nature of something. If they
are not to be perverted to the dark good magicians must abide by some kind of
rules or guidelines. Even in fairy tales magic can be a dangerous business, and
you may not always get what you wish for. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
final chapter (which involves a lot of magic) is one of the daftest and most
unbelievable things I’ve ever read. And there is, of course, a happy ending,
which has nothing to do with the treasure, and includes a repetition (or
recycling, if I’m being kind) of the most famous lines in The Railway Children,
which is sloppy writing, and I would have expected better from Nesbit. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Actually,
this post hasn’t gone in the direction I planned. I was going to write a few
concise paragraphs on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The House of Arden</b>,
and a little bit more on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Elizabeth
Goudge’s The Runaways</b>, which I also hated, but that will have to wait for
another day. And I didn’t mention Richard Arden, a mysterious boy from the past
who knows about Edred and Elfrida’s time. However, his tale is revealed in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Harding’s Luck</b>, the follow-up to The
House of Arden and deserves post of its own. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">*<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The illustrations are by Harold Robert Millar</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the original 1908 edition of the
book.</i></span> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UtZ33hM2Z0JJUaCYXZ9xkIrZTHENpX_4iDUdIEox9j071HXhIKi5bV-tTI5OtXrapoj1g6l22Qog8jzthVeqvslj3AmGDPcco315BK-FshwlOdQKD3G7607qj3bOwFiIWot8vbBKXVY/s1600/the+house+of+arden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UtZ33hM2Z0JJUaCYXZ9xkIrZTHENpX_4iDUdIEox9j071HXhIKi5bV-tTI5OtXrapoj1g6l22Qog8jzthVeqvslj3AmGDPcco315BK-FshwlOdQKD3G7607qj3bOwFiIWot8vbBKXVY/s200/the+house+of+arden.jpg" width="140" /></a></span> </div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-15167084768430916152015-05-16T01:00:00.000+01:002015-05-16T01:00:07.589+01:00Girl in the Dark
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Imagine
yourself forced to live in total darkness. Not the normal curtains-pulled sort
of night-time darkness, but total, impenetrable blackness, so dark that you
must feel your way around. That’s what happened to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anna Lindsey </b>(a pseudonym) when she developed a severe sensitivity
to all forms of light, natural and artificial. Exposure to light, however small
or dim, caused excruciating pain, as if her skin were being burned by a
blowtorch. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Girl in the Dark</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is her account of how
life changed. It’s not a misery memoir. Although Lindsey admits she gets
depressed – and has even, on occasions, thought of suicide – generally she
remains upbeat, and her book is both uplifting and life affirming. She is no
longer angry about her condition, and she has stopped seeking reasons or
answers. She explains: “‘Why me?’ is the question of an idiot. The sensible
person says simply, ‘Why not?’”</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMvHw5VDlOBU380N2mfyra6XQfM61KQEUdwtBcEM-gjKgyJG70gcYQzhCRa9JKg0ISOIFs_xtFQPYXQTNuyNazb5PzhNpfBWf9guxb2xRhhungi5ZBNGNrFnw6ulk04KHsUkw7PMnVSpU/s1600/girl+in+the+dark.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMvHw5VDlOBU380N2mfyra6XQfM61KQEUdwtBcEM-gjKgyJG70gcYQzhCRa9JKg0ISOIFs_xtFQPYXQTNuyNazb5PzhNpfBWf9guxb2xRhhungi5ZBNGNrFnw6ulk04KHsUkw7PMnVSpU/s320/girl+in+the+dark.png" width="219" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Girl In The Dark: Anna Lindsey's beautiful, moving<br />
account of living with a severe sensitivity to light.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">As
her photosensitivity worsened, her world contracted to a single blacked-out
room in the house of her boyfriend (now her husband). “It is extraordinarily
difficult to black out a room,” she tells us. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“First I
line the curtains with blackout material, a heavy, plasticky fabric, strange
flesh-like magnolia in colour, not actually black. But the light slips in
easily, up and over the gap between the rail and the wall, and at the bottom
through the loops made by the hanging folds.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“So I add a
blackout roller blind, inside the window alcove. But the light creeps in around
the sides, and shimmies through the slit at the top.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“So I tackle
the panes themselves. I cut sheets of cooking foil, press them against the
glass, tape them to the window frames. But the foil wrinkles and rips, refuses
to lie flat. Gaps persist around the edges, pinpricks and tears across the
middle.”</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eventually,
with curtains, blind, layer upon layer of foil and tape, and a rolled towel
along the crack at the bottom of the door, she has blackness. But even that is
not enough. To protect her skin from light rays that cannot be seen, but can still
be felt, she must cover herself from head to toe in an assortment of garments,
discovering through trial and error that some materials and styles are a more
effective barrier than others.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
room is small, but when she is first in the dark she often gets lost, for ‘the
darkness can cause disorientation that is total, and terrifying’. She develops strategies
to cope and listens to audio books and Radio 4 – plays, readings, debates,
current affairs but, to start with at any rate, not music. At the beginning music
‘unhinges’ her, reminds her of what she has lost.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
she plays word games in her mind, sometimes on her own, sometimes with visitors.
Most tricky is the word grid, five squares by five, forming five letter words
down and across - difficult enough when you have pen, paper and light, but well
nigh impossible without them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">During
the 10-year period covered by the book Lindsey has periods of remission when
she is able to emerge from her room and venture to other heavily veiled parts
of the house. In semi-darkness she cooks and reads, and is even able to creep outside
in the dark. There are some memorable moments, like a night-time walk in the
garden in the falling rain. She tells us:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“From the
crown of my hat to the toes of my boots, an indescribable thrill runs through
me. I stand poised at the edge of the lawn, and my starved senses open to this
delicious, half-forgotten joy...</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I let myself
be soaked. Like a young plant, I let myself be watered well in. It is as though
I am being kissed by the world, welcomed back to life.”</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu5Voo2Fm3dX_Tavfkc9vkdF0PTzVSX47uFJ9Sn4Tyw1Y9lE4iyKL4wKBxHo6G49mKczM0Jw_tqes6LRU5mac8HbucGtGg3YDIiDBWTctTUV0h6DvIYncN26M6xJ_wl1xZL-hjFjlHViY/s1600/mottisfont+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu5Voo2Fm3dX_Tavfkc9vkdF0PTzVSX47uFJ9Sn4Tyw1Y9lE4iyKL4wKBxHo6G49mKczM0Jw_tqes6LRU5mac8HbucGtGg3YDIiDBWTctTUV0h6DvIYncN26M6xJ_wl1xZL-hjFjlHViY/s320/mottisfont+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roses at Montisfont. (Pic from<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/#q=mottisfont" target="_blank"> National Trust</a> website)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
on another occasion Mottisfont, a National Trust property near her home,
arranges an extra-late midsummer opening so she and her husband can visit the
walled rose garden. As they go through the door the smell ‘wallops’ them in the
face.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“It is as
though we have passed from air to some new substance, formed of a thousand
interlocking scents that twist languorously about each other, like invisible
smoke.”</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
a magical interlude and as they leave she says:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“…on the
inside of my eyelids I carry with me the imprint of glorious flowers, and in my
nostrils, the ghosts of their perfume.”</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
a shadowy sort of existence, and timings become all important during her good
spells: her life is ruled by sunsets and sunrises. A photographic light meter
helps track the amount of light she can tolerate. For example, f1 is almost
dark; f4 is more or less when street lights come on; f8 is the sun just above
horizon on a clear day. Light levels at noon are f200 plus, which she cannot
cope with. She is, she says, ‘nibbling at the edges of the day’. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sadly,
these periods of remission are all too brief, and she is always forced to
retreat back to the sanctuary of her dark room. She looks back on them,
grateful for the respite, but never lets herself hope for more, because she is
unsure they will ever be repeated.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Girl
in the Dark is very moving, and very lyrical. Lindsey writes with great warmth
and lucidity, and is able to consider her consider her situation and analyse
her feelings in way which reveals more general truths about humanity. It made me
laugh and cry - moments of high drama and intense sadness and despair are juxtaposed
alongside interludes full of joy, and almost farcical episodes, for Lindsey retains her sense of humour,
and is well aware how ludicrous her life can seem. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Reading
it took me on an emotional journey which left me exhausted, and I cannot begin
to envisage what it must be like for Lindsey to live like this. Yet she seems
to have achieved a degree of serenity, a feeling that what will be will be, and
she is thankful for small pleasures in life. I was left with the feeling that
we should all put a higher value on things we take for granted, like the feel
of rain, the smell of a flower, the warmth of the sun – and having enough light
to sit and read a book.</span></div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-67741849678704408672015-05-12T19:40:00.001+01:002015-05-17T08:31:06.335+01:00The Gipsy in the Parlour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqvzfotXXac79kDjce8wMZblU4djjQWuMRAMV0LqL493jdt4rbPj9vi2tCNSfEBRchRXhEfbM6IFISLNtfUEloR8dAMrzxNWrsMsjEil1S2XURqBr1nGObcY04r6gprKv06AyVnbogLM/s1600/Gipsy+in+the+Parlour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqvzfotXXac79kDjce8wMZblU4djjQWuMRAMV0LqL493jdt4rbPj9vi2tCNSfEBRchRXhEfbM6IFISLNtfUEloR8dAMrzxNWrsMsjEil1S2XURqBr1nGObcY04r6gprKv06AyVnbogLM/s320/Gipsy+in+the+Parlour.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the heat
of a spacious August noon, in the great summer of 1870, the three famous
Sylvester women waited in their parlour to receive and make welcome the fourth.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
three famous Sylvester women – Charlotte, Grace and Rachel – are sisters-in-law
who married (and tamed) three of the wild Sylvester brothers. They are big and
blonde, hard-working and warm-hearted, and they are about to meet the youngest
brother’s bride-to-be. But Miss Fanny Davis, is not a bit like them. And her
arrival brings discord and change, threatening the happiness and well-being of
the farm…</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Gipsy in the Parlour</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is written with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Margery Sharp’s</b> usual light touch, but I
think it’s a little darker than </span><a href="http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/camiknickers-and-evening-dresses.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">The Nutmeg Tree</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">. The story is related by
an unnamed narrator, looking back on her lonely childhood, when she spent
idyllic summers with her Sylvester relatives on their Devon farm. The book
covers two years of her life, and three visits to the farm. Our narrator is 11
when Fanny Davies comes to wed the youngest brother, and she tells us:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I marvelled
how my uncle Stephen, used to the splendid Sylvester women, could have fallen
in love with such a thin, pale, dusky little gypsy.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fanny
is:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">…small, very
slender, rather limply dressed in black or grey, on her head a small black
straw hat. There was an air of the town about her; and of something else which,
I (coming out from behind my aunts), couldn’t immediately define.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">That
undefined ‘something else’ is slightly worrying, a hint perhaps that things are
not quite right. And what is she doing down by the crab apple tree in the
middle of the night? And her voice may be sweet and musical, but it is ‘wooing’,
as if casting a spell over her listeners. She certainly bedazzles our narrator,
making ‘a ‘little friend’ of her, gaining her trust with sweets and
endearments. But she doesn’t take any part in family life, and she doesn’t help
around the farm or the house. She does absolutely nothing. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
when our narrator returns to the following year she learns there has been no
wedding, for Fanny has been struck down by a mysterious malady - a ‘decline’,
the aunts explain. Our narrator is puzzled by the sudden illness, but says:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<em><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It wasn’t at that time,
particularly uncommon. Ladies lay in declines all up and down the country…</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">She
is relieved to see Fanny doesn’t look ill:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">She had
always appeared both weakly and genteel - the two essential conditions one
couldn’t go into a decline without. (No common person went into one. Common
persons couldn’t afford to. Also, there needed to be a sofa. No sofa, no
decline.)</span></i><em><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Was
the young narrator perceptive enough (and cynical enough) to make that comment I
wonder? Or is it an adult reflection, composed with the benefit of hindsight?
Anyway, there is Fanny, firmly ensconced on a new sofa in the parlour, using
the lustre-ware from the china cabinet, picking at the daintiest food, her
every need attended tot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sunny room
(the aunts’ pride and joy) is dimmed and silent: even the clock has been
stopped, because its chimes’ bruise’ Fanny’s nerves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the aunts have curbed their natural
ebullience and speak in hushed whispers as they creep about their home. The
harmony of the house is broken, the Sylvester women are no longer in total
accord with each other, and there is grey in Aunt Charlotte’s hair. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixm-i092lAxf70taEqMUsgRjz6DYgC7lFaozcFyCExhyphenhyphenTWrfX3ilMe7RJOiOE4KQphB-yeace8VL1orEeacv2vjeX_hChae9kY8s-2d1ekaAu-m7rvcinrVzN-kuncuOKYIb069g4JvT4/s1600/gipsy+in+parlour+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixm-i092lAxf70taEqMUsgRjz6DYgC7lFaozcFyCExhyphenhyphenTWrfX3ilMe7RJOiOE4KQphB-yeace8VL1orEeacv2vjeX_hChae9kY8s-2d1ekaAu-m7rvcinrVzN-kuncuOKYIb069g4JvT4/s320/gipsy+in+parlour+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Back
home in London the narrator receives a note from Fanny, with a letter for
Cousin Charles (Aunt Charlotte’s estranged son). Believing Fanny is trying to
heal the rift, our narrator delivers the letter herself and finds Charlie
working as a chucker-out at Jackson’s Economical Saloon. She becomes friendly
with his lady friend, Clara Blow, who runs the establishment, and is as big,
capable and warm-hearted as the Sylvester women. Charlie, according to Clara,
is pining for the farm - but something (or someone) is preventing his return…</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our
narrator, whose experience of life and love is derived largely from romantic
novelettes borrowed from the succession of cooks at her parents’ home, decides
that Charlie must marry Clara and return to the farm. And she wants to cure
Fanny. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
a shame to reveal what happens on the next trip to Devon, but Fanny, as we
suspected, has a cunning plan and when this is exposed Aunt Charlotte whisks
her off to London for a showdown with Charlie. Actually, whisks is the wrong
word, because preparations for the trip take five days. Aunt Charlotte travels
with her own food, so the aunts bake pasties and cakes, and she packs eggs and
a tea-caddy (for breakfasts) – imagine how a modern hotel if you did that! Then
there are her clothes:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">All the
flowers were cut from her best bonnet, steamed and re-attached, the strings
were treated similarly, also ironed. Her skirt and bodice were sponged with
vinegar. Her underlinen required no attention at all, the store was so great
and so immaculate we had to pick out the best, two of each, and one dozen
cambric handkerchiefs, still bearing her maiden cypher. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fanny
is not so splendid. She possesses the dress she stands up in, two limp dresses
more, and a peacock silk ball-gown. Her underlinen is ‘charitably’ ignored by
everyone. She has no mantle, only a shawl, and her black straw hat is too far gone
to steam into better shape.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">What
Fanny does have is the ability to seize an opportunity, but it’s her
manipulative powers which give the novel a dark edge. She rules the household,
while seeming to be weak, defenceless and passive, so the aunts must bend their
will to her and subdue their real nature. And in an odd way they are complicit
in this situation. They are aware of what is happening, but they go along with
it. They won’t turn Fanny out or treat her badly because she is Stephen’s
betrothed, and they don’t want to bring shame on the Sylvester name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
loved this. I like Sharp’s writing style, amusing and light-hearted with (if
you’ll excuse the pun) a sharp edge. Her descriptions of people (even the minor
characters) are very astute. And while the ultimate outcome may be in little
doubt – Aunt Charlotte, after all, is a force to be reckoned with – there’s
enough tension to keep you reading to the very last page. <span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">All
in all it was a very satisfying read.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">PS: I'm just wondering I could link this to the Reading England Challenge, over at <a href="http://beholdthestars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/reading-england-2015.html"><span style="color: blue;">Behold the Stars</span></a>. The aim is to travel England
reading, and read at least one classic book per however many counties of
England you decide to read. I think this counts, since it is set largely in
Devon. But to be honest, much as I like Margery Sharp I don't really think she counts as a classic, so maybe not.</span></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdc_-ROw3uEnX-8o42Xef8Z42nvdefnvrfcmMBH9fRVVEGgLwMIqyvWrUnwvnZFUoz73LgPvD8W5VEo1Q8yZD-ynNWYKltQLYyBSxvU4rJkn46E-2ynsOwmVNagir4Q7fqGvp8DVU_X9w/s1600/reading+england+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdc_-ROw3uEnX-8o42Xef8Z42nvdefnvrfcmMBH9fRVVEGgLwMIqyvWrUnwvnZFUoz73LgPvD8W5VEo1Q8yZD-ynNWYKltQLYyBSxvU4rJkn46E-2ynsOwmVNagir4Q7fqGvp8DVU_X9w/s200/reading+england+1.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span>Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-90927075422946989932015-04-29T01:00:00.000+01:002015-04-29T07:36:04.229+01:00 Nostalgia Rules - OK!<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A day trip to London last week
resulted in the acquisition of just one book, which is pretty unusual for me –
normally I return home aching in every limb after staggering around with a
backpack stuffed full of books, and heaving it on and off the train. Anyway, I
was very restrained this time around, and just bought this, from a
vintage toy stall in Greenwich Market, and it was only £1, which is an absolute
bargain.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1f3SrTcYL28ykVk0KUFsnYusWwOrd02l00ozWpleB-v9F9BdJIHamDFFFW4rDmp7hyphenhyphenOmp-T9QE17A0_bLiX8UXMU8INnQmH5jiy7Sw3YbN1Azp_EoHJa9s8Omk49mXy3l_3CMa2luZU/s1600/DSCN1420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1f3SrTcYL28ykVk0KUFsnYusWwOrd02l00ozWpleB-v9F9BdJIHamDFFFW4rDmp7hyphenhyphenOmp-T9QE17A0_bLiX8UXMU8INnQmH5jiy7Sw3YbN1Azp_EoHJa9s8Omk49mXy3l_3CMa2luZU/s1600/DSCN1420.JPG" height="320" width="225" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Apparently, <b>The Ladybird
Book of London </b>has now been updated, with additional pictures, but this is
an original (retro, as my younger daughter would say) in remarkably good
condition, although it is missing the dust-jacket, which had a picture of
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament - the same image was printed on the board
covers of later editions, and which also appears inside the book.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMD1mX5xU3Ej3Wcc299y5L26xvdDGNGsOMrbe97y3AkmjPjeF9y6-IARSPj_KNFtNTyXIUmHadfs7I0KbeFpfE74U9KNxvd-2ryfESqz7-TbluKxJ36nIBUINj_BSsEiQpC2g0PDdv8sU/s1600/ladybird+book+of+london.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMD1mX5xU3Ej3Wcc299y5L26xvdDGNGsOMrbe97y3AkmjPjeF9y6-IARSPj_KNFtNTyXIUmHadfs7I0KbeFpfE74U9KNxvd-2ryfESqz7-TbluKxJ36nIBUINj_BSsEiQpC2g0PDdv8sU/s1600/ladybird+book+of+london.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">According to a note inside,
this was ‘First published in 1961’, but Ladybirds are notoriously difficult to
date, so it's not necessarily a first edition. However, the company
stopped publishing books with dust-jackets in 1965, when coloured illustrations
were printed directly on to the board covers, so that narrows the sating field
a bit!</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Not only do I remember this
book from my childhood, I also recall visiting most of the places featured – we
were a short train ride from London, and had relatives there, so we ‘went to
town’ quite a bit. OK, I know I’m wallowing in nostalgia, and this a
self-indulgent post, but as far as I’m concerned <b>The
Ladybird Book of London</b> is a real classic, with 24 illustrations showing
London’s best-known sights as they were when I was small, and I love it! </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The information still holds
good, and illustrator John Berry focuses very much on the subject of each
picture, so you don't see much traffic, or many other buildings. I suppose
they're rather idealised images, but it does mean he places are
recognisable, despite London’s changing skyline and altered streetscapes.
And only one attraction has disappeared - the wonderful Planetarium
next to Madame Tussaud's has closed, but the building survives, providing a
home for a Marvel Superheroes 4D display. It would be interesting to go round with a camera, and take shots from the same angles as Berry's paintings.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">One thing which has altered
quite dramatically since the book was published is the River Thames. It appears
in several pictures, generally as a busy waterway, packed with cargo ships and
barges, but it really doesn't look like that any more. The closure of the docks
has completely transformed the Thames, and these days <span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">great stretches of the river are empty, and </span>the main traffic
seems to be commercial pleasure craft. I hadn't grasped the scale of the
change until I looked at this book. I suppose changes don't happen overnight -
they creep up on you unawares, over a period of time, so slowly that you hardly
notice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4tLztv1NDjcQWoUzMkQr598z8K74RhlVD6S661Ftz79wbbaTPPVebcodPE0VsdW6tgXIPLqfd5P-V5h52jeTeSGstU6iZqvfVbe08wt6MknAm4cNDuGgmhtchtP3wgI1Qgg8usehyjbU/s1600/DSCN1428.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4tLztv1NDjcQWoUzMkQr598z8K74RhlVD6S661Ftz79wbbaTPPVebcodPE0VsdW6tgXIPLqfd5P-V5h52jeTeSGstU6iZqvfVbe08wt6MknAm4cNDuGgmhtchtP3wgI1Qgg8usehyjbU/s1600/DSCN1428.JPG" height="320" width="203" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Then... John Berry's portrayal of the Cutty Sark.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span> <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Si</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">nce we’re talking boats, I’m pleased to see the Cutty Sark draws tourists to Greenwich just as it has always
done. There’s a new visitor centre on what was once the quayside and the
surrounding area has been landscaped, but the view of the ship’s masts standing
proud against the sky is the same.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IkSn2sBbluulrqieYLbrsNq0g2wBBSP-r1axy2feGpHjN5P4I19QzFVSR5mIu8EvKXQKmufFnjWNpZXyQNgeXbbdc4aOgDqV6Sl5Oz-OI1PGAPPFolUMnpesWo7dyFbOFwY28iY8YJ8/s1600/DSCN1340+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IkSn2sBbluulrqieYLbrsNq0g2wBBSP-r1axy2feGpHjN5P4I19QzFVSR5mIu8EvKXQKmufFnjWNpZXyQNgeXbbdc4aOgDqV6Sl5Oz-OI1PGAPPFolUMnpesWo7dyFbOFwY28iY8YJ8/s1600/DSCN1340+(2).JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now... My portrayal of the Cutty Sark, taken last week. It was painstakingly restored after a<br />
devastating fire in 2007. You can say the Visitor Centre, behind the plants, stretching along <br />
the quay in front of the ship. The view hasn't changed a lot, but it's more commercial now.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">And there are still ducks,
geese and swans on the lake at St James’s Park, as well as pelicans - a Russian
Ambassador gave some to Charles II way back in the 17th century, and they’ve
been breeding ever since. You can feed the birds, or enjoy a picnic, or read a
book under the shade of a tree, or just sit and watch the world go by. London’s
parks are fantastic, and this is one of the nicest, as lovely now as it was 55
years ago when <b>The Ladybird Book of London</b> was first published, and you
can still find spots which offer a vista with few intrusions from the modern
world.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyQw80qzSeSJcSuqg6KnXg9u1XikFAhpKx94a_Iv5Eb_kVG7j5YGpvHF3s5nF9cuKcbqSukarP3GefwPYsmCwL5aEFf8Qdest7E8-kjeYHeFsfWYdR02aBiwa299bB3dyrd-ddJplydk/s1600/DSCN1427+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyQw80qzSeSJcSuqg6KnXg9u1XikFAhpKx94a_Iv5Eb_kVG7j5YGpvHF3s5nF9cuKcbqSukarP3GefwPYsmCwL5aEFf8Qdest7E8-kjeYHeFsfWYdR02aBiwa299bB3dyrd-ddJplydk/s1600/DSCN1427+(2).JPG" height="320" width="216" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An unchanging scene in St James's Park. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Trafalgar Square also remains
pretty similar, although the empty fourth plinth is now used as temporary
exhibition space for artworks, which is a great improvement, and you’re not
allowed to paddle in the fountains, which is a shame. And, of course, the
streets around the square are full of tall modern buildings.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There’s a good map on the
front papers, which is clear enough to use - the lay-out of the main streets
can’t have altered that much! But the Tube map on the end papers is probably a
museum piece, printed long before the creation of the Jubilee Line, the
Docklands Light Railway, and the Piccadilly Line extension to Heathrow
Airport. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">And the airport (referred to
as London Airport) merits an entry, looking like a child’s model – surprisingly
small for what is described as one of the largest and busiest airports in the
world. And it boasted a public enclosure where people could watch ‘airliners’
arriving and taking off, as well as pony rides, a miniature railway and a
sandpit! The author tells us: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The authorities of the airport are pleased to see us, and they have
arranged everything for our pleasure and interest.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Really? This makes it sound as
if air travel was an enjoyable experience, and the airport was so nice that
people flocked there for days out, like some kind of theme park, and I’m not at
all sure that was the case. Perhaps people who lived further away had a
different perspective, but we lived nearby and were used to planes flying
overhead (I think they were seen as a bit of nuisance). Lots of local residents
worked at Heathrow, and people went there to catch planes, or collect
relatives, but I don’t remember anyone going there just for fun. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLCHxDdpWWZXpD5Nbi8pDK6M_ntjZx2X8eAfSpIm-NF7KwHfMaapV9UXretvaP9o06xgCqWUcyU4ShLIWT-LL-JAy9C1RNr8YFTiHwjAosZtihvuLpdWI7PpuAXReDQH3pX5RtiISqREo/s1600/DSCN1432+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLCHxDdpWWZXpD5Nbi8pDK6M_ntjZx2X8eAfSpIm-NF7KwHfMaapV9UXretvaP9o06xgCqWUcyU4ShLIWT-LL-JAy9C1RNr8YFTiHwjAosZtihvuLpdWI7PpuAXReDQH3pX5RtiISqREo/s1600/DSCN1432+(2).JPG" height="320" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Does anyone remember Heathrow looking like this?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The book was written by John
Lewesdon, but I can’t find any information about him. However, Ladybird used
teachers, historians and other experts in addition to well-known authors, and
some writers were only involved with one book, so perhaps Lewesdon was one of
these. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The paintings are by John
Berry (1920-2009), one of the company’s chief illustrators for some 20 years. A
former war artist, he was an acclaimed portrait painter, but also worked as an
illustrator, and in advertising - he provided the tiger for Esso’s iconic ‘Put
a Tiger in your tank ‘campaign. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizVHHoogQqcBRCPPhYGIImVMz2unMnipkdeW3EpwghoSsqm5nFd3Q4Cy3AzOu1rqAtfIeyHSxzRuDHPkA27t5e6NbucXRjgO3FTl3kE-kvoQGOKqp5CLHsc42dHKBLyOx6I23OOfrmw7M/s1600/john_berry_1551996f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizVHHoogQqcBRCPPhYGIImVMz2unMnipkdeW3EpwghoSsqm5nFd3Q4Cy3AzOu1rqAtfIeyHSxzRuDHPkA27t5e6NbucXRjgO3FTl3kE-kvoQGOKqp5CLHsc42dHKBLyOx6I23OOfrmw7M/s1600/john_berry_1551996f.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of an artist: John Berry, who illustrated <br />
The Ladybird Book of London</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span> </div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4512516523018627966.post-30511834006825419662015-04-27T08:37:00.000+01:002015-04-27T08:37:05.964+01:00Patricia Brent, Spinster<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Think Fairy Tales… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Love at First Sight… And Obstacles
Overcome… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Rags to Riches… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Happy Ever After… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Patricia
Brent, Spinster</b>, by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Herbert George Jenkins</b>,
is all these, and is one of the most delightful books I’ve read this year. If
you liked </span><a href="http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/miss-petigrew-lives-for-day.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: blue;">Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> you will love this – it’s every bit as </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">funny and
light-hearted, and features an equally unobtrusive, overlooked heroine who
metamorphoses into a stunning, sophisticated beauty with a mind of her own. And,
of course, it has a lovely, happy ending. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Once again I owe thanks for a new discovery to
Simon at Stuck in a Book, who wrote a lovely review </span><a href="http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/patricia-brent-spinster-herbert-jenkins.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> but, as usual, I’m a little late to the party, because
other people posted pieces about this months and months ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh88LPja3tnHSwdVXrAmtVBt0e4N1gPtt-2UObSzY8XPFdGHcHvvhUeDElerdteoRFlC3c5uQ4mndyNpbU9pPU-80nTpOrWUil047n5tffdWw7yk-m59sIk9ziDslUo9GGfN5hyXsrjTGk/s1600/p+brent.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh88LPja3tnHSwdVXrAmtVBt0e4N1gPtt-2UObSzY8XPFdGHcHvvhUeDElerdteoRFlC3c5uQ4mndyNpbU9pPU-80nTpOrWUil047n5tffdWw7yk-m59sIk9ziDslUo9GGfN5hyXsrjTGk/s1600/p+brent.png" height="320" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a 1919 cover I stole from Simon at Stuck in a Book, <br />
so I hope he doesn't mind. Personally, I think it looks<br />
rather sinister with all those eyes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Anyway,
I digress. Orphaned Patricia, secretary to a rising MP (who is unlikely to rise
very far), is an impoverished "paying guest" at the Galvin House
Residential Hotel, where the boarders, the landlady, and the building itself
are all down on their luck. One day she overhears two of her elderly fellow
"guests" pitying her because she doesn’t have ‘a nice young man’ to
take her out. Hitherto, whatever she may have thought about the inquisitive residents
and their pretentious gentility, Patricia has always remained polite. But she’s
24, lonely, and bored - and at this point something inside snaps.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So
she tells everyone she will not be there for dinner the following evening
because she is dining at the Quadrant Grill-room with her fiancé! To satisfy
the boarders’ curiosity, she invents an Army major named Brown, who is home on
leave from France (the book is set in 1918, before the end of the First World
War). And she explains that no, she doesn’t have an engagement ring because she
hates ‘badges of servitude’!</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
next night she dresses with care and sets out to dine - on her own. But, to her
horror, on arrival at the posh restaurant she finds three Galvin Houseites have
turned up to spy on her. Rendered reckless at the thought of the humiliation she
must endure if her lie is exposed, she approaches a young staff-officer sitting
on his own, and asks him to help by ‘playing up’, and he happily obliges.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Needless
to say, the young man - Lt Col Lord Peter Bowen, DSO (how fortuitous that his
name is so similar to the make-believe boyfriend!) – falls in love with
Patricia, and she is equally smitten, but won’t admit it. 22She’s determined
not to succumb to Lord Peter’s charms: he may offer an escape from her dreary
life, but she is much too proud to marry a wealthy man when she is poor. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyWK3hZuOUasLkLg-W7JIj_Dit39oy-x3t6IVGW2j4ypuRqNMlLzypUNW4_XekyrZB4SNXujrcO6iQ9_S8JThdvQsKOpXy3IQO-aCfhb3HLVPI7jk8VPoeYDJUoEB8N92WNDz1kn8s7ds/s1600/patricia+brent+spinster.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyWK3hZuOUasLkLg-W7JIj_Dit39oy-x3t6IVGW2j4ypuRqNMlLzypUNW4_XekyrZB4SNXujrcO6iQ9_S8JThdvQsKOpXy3IQO-aCfhb3HLVPI7jk8VPoeYDJUoEB8N92WNDz1kn8s7ds/s1600/patricia+brent+spinster.png" height="320" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking at this 1970s cover you'd never know the <br />
book is set in 1918! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As
Lord Peter pursues Patricia, and she tries to keep him at a distance, a kind of
sparring partnership develops between them, reminiscent of the relationship
between Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. But there are complications because
Patricia’s original story means everyone thinks she and Lord Peter are
already<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>engaged… And life becomes even
more awkward with a visit from sour, interfering Aunt Adelaide (her sole surviving
relative)!</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As
the novel progresses Patricia finds her voice. At the start you think she’s
rather quiet and dowdy, but she’s neither. She’s intelligent, articulate,
witty, very independent, and quite modern really, so it’s a bit of a shock when
she turns to mush as Peter finally kisses her and she realises she loves him. Now
I know things were different when this was written, but I refuse to believe any
woman ever fainted when kissed.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">But
that’s a small quibble, because this is such an enjoyable romantic comedy – and
there’s a comedy of manners going on as well, because Jenkins is a more astute
observer of social distinctions than you might expect. At Galvin House for
example, residents are desperately trying to maintain some kind of social
position and keep up appearances, for appearances are everything.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">At Galvin House
manners were things that were worn, like a gardenia or a patent hook-and-eye.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There’s
a social hierarchy that must be observed, with rules about precedent and
conduct, dress codes, table etiquette and so on. The account of the residents’
preparations when Lord Peter comes to dinner is hilarious. And it’s interesting
to see how their attitude towards Patricia changes as soon as they think she is
engaged to a lord. But their vulnerability is revealed during a night-time
bombing raid.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There
are some wonderful characters. I particularly like Mr Triggs, father of the
MP’s aspirational wife. Now retired, he’s risen from humble beginnings to make
a fortune in the building trade, but remains down to earth, shrewd and kindly,
equally at ease in all levels of society. But it’s his clothes that make him
memorable, rather than anything he does or says. Take this for example:</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Triggs stood before her,
florid and happy. He was wearing a new black and white check suit, a white
waistcoat, and a red tie, while in his hand he carried a white felt top-hat
with a black band... and over his black boots he wore a pair of immaculate
white spats.</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Isn’t
that a splendid image? Actually, Jenkins is brilliant at describing clothes. Here’s
Patricia dressing for that first evening with a non-existent fiancé:</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">With great
deliberation Patricia selected a black charmeuse costume that Miss Wangle had
already confided to the whole of Calvin House was at least two and a half
inches too short; but as Patricia had explained to Mrs Hamilton, if you possess
exquisitely fitting patent boots that come high up the leg, it’s a sin for the
skirt to be too long. She selected a black velvet hat with a large white
water-lily on the upper brim. </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“You look bad enough
for a vicar’s daughter,’ she said, surveying herself in the mirror as she
fastened a bunch of red carnations in her belt. “White at the wrists and on the
hat, yes, it looks most improper.”</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
final touch to the ensemble is a gold wristlet watch fastened over one of her
white gloves.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mI9zNeFAiZe1h2yFf4Kb8Q9AM8Wfh3apzwQtAgZG-0kQSaVk0MGesSMoKAWhFrvh0PHF-yrJugJubbhP9UtsADvNUl9FOzVAF90MunZ2vsENRVsNqGW0c9RyWBpkk3YmNL9abLOJGL4/s1600/From+Delineator+May+1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mI9zNeFAiZe1h2yFf4Kb8Q9AM8Wfh3apzwQtAgZG-0kQSaVk0MGesSMoKAWhFrvh0PHF-yrJugJubbhP9UtsADvNUl9FOzVAF90MunZ2vsENRVsNqGW0c9RyWBpkk3YmNL9abLOJGL4/s1600/From+Delineator+May+1918.jpg" height="320" width="243" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I imagine Patricia's dress looking a little like the pink <br />
one on the left, but in black, with some white trimming, <br />
and red flowers at the waist. From Delineator May 1918</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A
costume was usually a two-piece outfit, but charmeuse puzzled me. I thought it
might be a fashionable style, but it turned out to be very fine, satiny
material, which drapes and clings, so perhaps this was one of those rather shapeless,
floaty outfits that were so popular at the time, with a kind of longish jacket
layered over a skirt that came above the ankle, but well below the knee.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg10u6-Rz4iH4IQDUSPib0lbsmNThz3iSzXwGsmtUFb4itv2xmFtEegGnXbKQRFizE02Lfzq4drwKmR2WNDgkrGuWBx0r1gITBldJap18zW2Q3O2-8aNgua0Vc_QjL9WJt9srirNMtRvo/s1600/750867cf3c4a5e1bba80cab79725a155.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg10u6-Rz4iH4IQDUSPib0lbsmNThz3iSzXwGsmtUFb4itv2xmFtEegGnXbKQRFizE02Lfzq4drwKmR2WNDgkrGuWBx0r1gITBldJap18zW2Q3O2-8aNgua0Vc_QjL9WJt9srirNMtRvo/s1600/750867cf3c4a5e1bba80cab79725a155.jpg" height="320" width="219" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Or there's this, also from 1918, which is less floaty,<br />
and a bit more classy perhaps, and the white cuffs<br />
and neckline are rather nice.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">And
those patent boots must have been highly desirable, because in 1918 questions were
raised in Parliament following an Army Council Order the previous year which
effectively banned the sale and manufacture of women’s boots, presumably to
free up materials and workers for the armed forces.</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I should point out that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Patricia Brent, Spinster</b> was originally published by in 1918, and re-issues
were available as late as the 1970s, but print editions are hard to find.
However, it is available as Ebook from <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33353"><span style="color: blue;">Project Gutenberg</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Pe-zmhUtJnsskiwv9srDMsnpRaLFHoyjauAFIMKgNn-NFgax249P2POKUwys_MWOu5Kxczi0b7OsULGcJ0O4s7YNevPtgITcWxKcouuT4r5paXbloquQVtb0L3INDPCVaJB76V7xtY8/s1600/Boots+1918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Pe-zmhUtJnsskiwv9srDMsnpRaLFHoyjauAFIMKgNn-NFgax249P2POKUwys_MWOu5Kxczi0b7OsULGcJ0O4s7YNevPtgITcWxKcouuT4r5paXbloquQVtb0L3INDPCVaJB76V7xtY8/s1600/Boots+1918.jpg" height="200" width="161" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">High, shiny, black boots! These were made in America in 1918, <br />
and I think they look pretty stylish, so perhaps Patricia wore <br />
something similar. <u><span style="color: #0066cc;">Found on collections.lacma.org </span></u></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Christine Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09814026435889782750noreply@blogger.com6