Peas, Bears, Birds and Stars...

Pea tendrils sweeping the air for lattices.
(Pic from Anglia Farmer).

Peas are clocky children who become spoony adults. Once they grow long-limbed, they start to teeter, because they possess more self than they can support. Then they grow madly wending tendrils to sweep the air for lattices – just as marionettes will grow marionette cords to sweep the air for marionetteers. Yearning begets yearning: the pea plant yearns for a lattice, so it grows tendrils – then every tendril too yearns for a lattice. Yearning draws tendrils out of the spindly green pea-shoot only to find itself compounded, elephantine. 

I just love that image of teetering pea plants, and the idea of them possessing ‘more self than they can support’, which could apply equally to humankind. It’s a perfect description of teenagers, desperately trying to come to terms with the new ‘me’, bewildered by their size and appearance as they shed their childhood skin and head for adulthood. And quite apart from the physical aspect, what about the emotional implications of possessing too much ‘self’? There’s an identity crisis here I fear, just as there is if you have too little ‘self’.

And that comparison with marionettes is so apt. On a first reading I thought, how odd, but when I considered it I realised it was spot on, and it will make anyone old enough to remember string puppets see that the way pea plants grow and stretch out their curling, quavery tendrils really is very like the tottery movements of marionettes, and the way their limbs waver and tremble.

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The passage comes from Things That Are, Encounters with Plants, Stars and Animals, by Amy Leach, which held me so enthralled when I came across it in a bookshop that I ended up sitting on the floor so I could read it. Then, of course, since I couldn’t stay there until I’d finished, I had to buy it. Budgetary restrictions mean I don’t often buy brand new hardback books, so when I do it has to be something pretty special that I really, really want, and that is what this is. 

It’s a series of essays on Life, the Universe and Everything (divided into two sections, Things of Earth, and Things of Heaven), in which Leach reflects on the natural world and makes observations which, as I said earlier, could just as easily be applied to people. She’s not at all introspective, and certainly isn’t preachy. She may be examining individual creatures, plants or stars, but she takes a broad view as she meanders from topic to topic, reaching out from one thought to another to another, making her comments, drawing conclusions, but leaving readers free to make their own minds up and imbue the subject in hand with any meaning they choose.

Leach rejoices in the quirky and unusual, in little known facts. Back to the peas again, did you know the tiny plant produces two minute matching leaves every four and a half days, regular as clockwork, until it reaches that point where it starts to topple under its own weight and height, and starts producing those stretching tendrils.

Then there are other plants, like the mouse-eared cress, which suddenly go ‘batty-bat; and send their shoots burrowing down into the ground, while their roots rise up into the air (a phenomenon known as gravitropic mutation), which prompts Leach consider, among other things, losing one’s way, lilies, water lettuce, a hippopotamus, lotus plants and seeds, and what it feels like to lie dormant for a thousand years. See what I mean about one thing leading to another?

And how about the blackpoll warbler, just four inches long, weighing a third of an ounce (that’s forty-eight to the pound) that does not winter on earth at all. Instead, it flies 2,000 miles from Nova Scotia to Venezuela, then back again (another 2,000 miles) pursuing the sun from season to season. Leach writes:

We winter, we summer, we winter, we summer; while the warbler flies from summer to summer to summer to summer.

The tiny blackpoll warbler chases the sun so it never has
to face a winter.

Some of the tales are so fantastical you wonder if they can be possibly be true, but they are. Initially I kept looking things up, then decided Leach is obviously correct, and ended just taking her word for it: truth, after all, is stranger than fiction. It’s not only the snippets of bizarre information that sent me scuttling off to do some research, for Leach is as fond of odd words as she is of odd facts, and a decent dictionary is a huge help, along with an encyclopedia.

But she uses words and language like a poet, with lists, descriptions and stories that cry out to be read aloud, creating images that make you look at things in a new way. Take her account of the constellation Ursa Major which, she says, is sometimes mistaken for a ladle or a prawn, although personally, I think it looks like a saucepan. Anyway, she tells us:

The big starry bear is trailed by a little starry bear, about the same size as an autumn cub padding around on plantigrade paws. Late autumn is when Earth bears and their children run out of fresh apples and honey, when they might come across a heap of fermented apples, and devour them, and lose their bearings. Bears on the ground are the most sweepable bears off their feet.

Who else would draw such an analogy between the Great Bear and the Little Bear shining high in the sky, and a mother bear and its cub down on the Earth below? And what a wonderful picture it evokes, of a bear gorging on fallen apples, which are beginning to rot, giving off that winey smell they develop, and being toppled by the alcohol, losing their bearings, teetering like the pea plants, or losing their way, like the mouse-eared cress. And, in case you wonder, yes, bears do eat fermented apples, and yes, they do get drunk as a result… 

Bookmark bears...  I love these Earth Bears with their
Starry Bear kites linking Heaven and Earth. (Big Bear, Little Bear by Kristiana Parn for Oxfam)

I must mention that the book is published by Canongate, because that’s the company which produces that lovely series where modern authors retell old myths, including The Penelopeiad, Margaret Atwood’s slender but superb account of the story of Odysseus’ wife Penelope, and her maids.

October's Book Stack...

Well, this year seems to have gone very quickly, and we’re into October already, so here’s a picture from the 15th century Book of Hours known as Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, showing people ploughing and sowing, because I love the rich colours, and the detail. Ahead there's Hallowe’en to look forward to, a visit from Elder Daughter and her Boyfriend and, of course, the clocks go back – and what better way to spend a dark, winter night than to curl up in a comfy chair with a good book!

So I’m sitting here writing out a Book List for the next few weeks, and looking back at September. The Brickbat Award for the Worst Read of the month went to Mr Petre, by Hilaire Belloc, while the Bouquet for Best Read had to be Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper, and I still think this is should be re-issued so lots more people can enjoy it.

On the whole I didn’t do too badly with my September Book Stack, but it went a bit awry towards the end. I didn’t quite finish Amy Leach’s  Things That Are, Encounters with Plants, Stars and Animals, but I’ve read it all now, and hope to post up a review on Friday. And I didn’t quite complete Hunt the Slipper by Violet Trefusis, but I’m almost there, and so far I think it’s fantastic. So that only leaves one book that I have yet to make a start on:  The Edwardians, by Vita Sackville-West.

But I did read my prize copy of Rosamunde Pilcher’s Carousel while travelling to London and back to meet my Younger Daughter, and very enjoyable it was. Not the greatest literature in the world, but easy, undemanding reading. And I made a start on Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, having plucked up courage and decided to join the team read over at dovegreyreader. Which all goes to show that lists, like resolutions, are made to be ignored!

Sitting waiting to be opened is Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel, which I spotted in the library and pounced on before anyone else could beat me to it – I’ve been waiting ages and ages for this and, having read and loved Wolf Hall, I can’t wait to begin and see how Thomas Cromwell is weathering the storm as Henry falls out of love with Anne Boleyn and becomes even more obsessed with the need for a legitimate male heir. This is another chunkster, and it’s a good job I can tackle A Suitable Boy in bite-sized pieces, because I am not sure I would want to read two ‘doorstep’ books together!

Still in historic mode, I picked up a second-hand edition of Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s novel The King’s Grey Mare, about Elizabeth Woodville, who is probably better known these days as Philippa Gregory’s White Queen. I must admit I gave up on the TV adaptation after the first episode, and I wasn’t overly impressed with Gregory’s book, but I’m curious to see how this compares.

And there’s the Arthur Quiller-Couch’s essays On Reading, kindly sent by Pam at Travellin' Penguin, and for light relief I’ve got two Mary Stewart novels on the TBR pile, Thornyhold, and This Rough Magic.

In addition I’m still working myway  through a selection of Short Stories for Sundays, investigating my favourite Gardening books, and following Vere Hodgson as the Second World War continues, food shortages get worse, and the news from Europe looks bleaker than ever. So you can see, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy – in fact, I’m sure the Book Stack will keep me going well beyond the end of October!

A Disappointing View of Childhood

Who remembers reading Ballet Shoes, White Boots, Curtain Up, The Painted Garden, The Circus is coming, and all those other wonderful Noel Streatfeild books? I still read them with as much enjoyment as I did when I was a child, but I’ve never got round to trying any of her adult fiction. So, when I saw A Vicarage Family (A Biography of Myself, it says on the front), I had to have it. This is a Fontana Lion published in 1984), so I imagine it’s aimed at children, and it’s written in the third person singular, which makes it read like a novel, especially as names have been changed. Noel Streatfeild herself becomes Victoria Strangeway, the middle sister of three girls, the plain one, the non-conformist rebel who is always in trouble.

The sisters, their brother Dick, and their cousin John (who spent much of his time living with them) seem to have had a very odd upbringing indeed. Their vicar father was very austere, unconcerned with home comforts or what he considered to be fripperies – I get the impression that more uncomfortable things were, the better he liked it. Perhaps he felt it proved how strong his faith was. He had a strong sense of duty and responsibility to his parishioners, and very strict standards, not just for himself, but for the children as well, and there were punishments for quite minor transgressions. In many ways his wife seems to have been as unworldly as he was, caring nothing for her appearance, or the importance of creating a beautiful home. A lot of the time she appears quite cold and hard-hearted, but has obviously been traumatised by the death of a child, at a point before this memoir starts. Despite all this the children are obviously loved, and they adore their parents, especially their father.

Religion obviously permeates every aspect of their lives. The only person I can think of whose childhood is in any way similar is Jeanette Winterson. Just as she produced craft work based on stories from the Bible, so Victoria/Noel, her sisters Isobel and Louise, brother Dick and cousin John, name their rocking Nebuchadnezzar!

Adherence to their father’s religious principles causes social problems and makes them feel people will laugh and ostracise them for being different. It’s impossible not to feel sympathy when they attend a children’s party during Lent, when they are only allowed to eat bread and butter. At the party they find the bread and butter is liberally sprinkled with hundreds and thousands; so, not wishing to appear rude, Vicky and her older sister Isobel eat it… lots of it! And their younger sister Louise succumbs to a sugar rose from the cake, then acts as if she’s committed a mortal sin, though I’m not sure if she really feels contrition, or is just play-acting, enjoying the drama, and looking for sympathy. Back home they confess to having broken their Lenten fast, and have to do penance by reading the first nine verses of Matthew IV, where the Devil tempts Jesus during his fast in the desert.

And their mismatched outworn, outgrown, clothes cause the girls just as much anguish. Isobel wears cast-offs from a cousin whose wealthy mother has exquisite taste – but what suits the cousin doesn’t necessarily suit Isobel. And the copies of her clothes, made up by a local dressmaker using cheap material, are a disaster. But neither the girl’s mother nor their father can see anything wrong with their clothes.

We follow the family through their move to Eastbourne, accompany them on holidays, trips to relatives, and school, and we get to meet their family, friends, servants, and the stalwart Miss Herbert, who is part governess, part nanny, part maid, part vicar’s secretary, and part home help.

Noel Streatfeild

Actually, I found this slightly disappointing. Like Christopher Milne’s The Enchanted Places, it offers glimpses into a bygone way of life (Streatfeild was born in 1895, and her memoir takes us up to the death of Cousin John in the early days of WW1). However, unlike Milne she doesn’t provide much insight into the way people felt and thought, and there are no reflections on life, the universe and everything, no sense of an older person coming to terms with their younger self. It’s a much more straight forward narrative, but what does come across – and what I found interesting - is the way Streatfeild’s drew on those childhood experiences for her writing. All those ‘underdog’ children, the plain, gawky girls, the outsiders, who lack feminine wiles, girlish charms and womanly accomplishments obviously have their origin in the young Noel’s childhood and the way she saw herself. They’re rags to riches stories, where a ‘Plain Jane’ child turns out to be the one with talent, or the one who finds true happiness, doing what they want to do.

It would have been nice to see some pictures of Streatfeild and her family, but as changes their names I suppose this was not possible, because it would have revealed their identities. Overall, I was disappointed with this book. I didn’t dislike it, but I felt something was lacking, and couldn’t put my finger on what that something was. I think it has to do with the fact that is not quite an autobiography, and not quite a novel: it falls somewhere between the two, and doesn’t quite come off. 

Short Story Sunday: Wartime Again...

Sunday morning is here again, so I shall try to gather my thoughts and decipher my notes and come up with a few brief comments on some tales from The Persephone Book of Short Stories. Actually, I visited my Younger Daughter in London on Thursday and planned on calling at the shop and treating myself to a couple of volumes when, but I left the address at home! However, I’m planning a mini-tour round the Bloomsbury area on a future visit (I like to have something to look forward to), and I might get Cheerful Weather for a Wedding, and A Writer’s Diary, neither of which is a short story, and that is what this post is supposed to be about. So here goes… Three from the early 1940s…

It All begins Again, by Helen Hull, published in 1941, was not one of my favourites. Set in America (just before the US joined WW2) it centres on Mary Bristol, now in her mid-seventies, widowed, and recovering from illness. Despite having made a decision never to live with any of her children, she agrees to spend the summer with her daughter Vera, son-in-law Clem at their country house. Mary is reluctant to fall in with Vera’s plan, but lacks the strength to offer any opposition.

Vera was like that, insistent and unsubtle in projecting upon someone else the necessity for doing what she herself wished. Mary liked showing her up, and perhaps one reason she didn’t want to live with her daughter was that she knew she’d have to hold her tongue. It was one thing to catch Vera up in an afternoon call, when Vera could take her injured feelings home and forget them in some new scheme. But under one roof!

That doesn’t augur well for the future, does it? A happy family life would not appear to be on the cards at all. And what kind of relationship does Mary have with Vera? What kind of mother likes to show her daughter up?

As news of the war in Europe filters through Mary remembers other times and other conflicts. She recalls her childhood, when he father returned from a Southern jail, sick and shattered by his experiences fighting in the Civil War. She thinks about her husband Will, and Tom, their elder son, who died after WW1, ‘the neat surgery job done on his interior after Verdun being inadequate for many years of service’. And she listens to her grandchildren, Hilda and Bill, both engaged in conflicts with their parents as they try to select their own paths through life and love.

In some ways Mary reminded me of Lady Slane in Vita Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent, perhaps it’s simply because they are both elderly women who don’t really like their grown-up children much, reflecting on the past. But I didn’t find Mary a very sympathetic character (I think it was that early comment about liking to show her daughter up that put me off), and the tone is darker and bleaker. Mary takes a wider view of humanity than Lady Slane does, and she doesn’t like what she sees. She’s not looking to recapture the girl she once was, or to achieve personal peace, harmony and a balance in life – she’s searching for answers to the chaos around her, and her bitterness and despair shows through. There's a sense of disillusionment here I think.

A land where a man can be free, and his children after him, she thought. Free? We have thought the world was run for us, that we could go on turning always in those narrow, petty, selfish cells. We are losing them again, peace freedom. We had the only as a promise. My father, my sons, and now these children. They have lost them, having no dream to hold them safe, to strive to keep them. They are blind and empty, passionless…

Defeat, by Kay Boyle, was written in the same year as It All begins Again,but  is much more to my taste. We’re in Europe, watching French soldiers making their way home after the fall of France.

They had found their way back from different places, by different means, some on bicycle, some by bus, some over the mountains on foot, coming home to the Alpes-Maritime from Rennes, or from Clermont-Ferrand, or from Lyons, or from any part of France, and looking as incongruous to modern defeat as survivors of the Confederate Army might have looked, transplanted to this year and place (with their spurs still on and their soft-brimmed, dust-whitened hats), limping wanly back, half dazed and not yet having managed to get the story of what happened straight. Only, this time, they were the men of that tragically unarmed and undirected force which had been the French Army once but was no longer, returning to what orators might call reconstruction but which they knew could never be the same.

Isn’t that a haunting scene? And doesn’t it paint the image so clearly? Boyle tells you everything you need to know about the general situation, then moves seamlessly into the way it affects individuals. Here we have two escaping soldiers, who meet with great kindness from a courageous young schoolmistress with French flags and red, white and blue bunting – an act of defiance against the Nazi Occupation. She gives the fresh clothing, and food, and they agree that ‘a country isn’t defeated as long as its women aren’t’. There is more kindness at a farm, where the duo eat bread and soup, and enjoy a glass of red wine before being shown to the attic where they can sleep.

Then, in a small town, on July the Fourteenth - the French national holiday – grim reality intrudes, and you suddenly realise that not all women were as brave as the schoolmistress, and that many people did what they could to survive, even if it meant fraternising with the enemy. After his return home one of the soldiers describes what happened, and is surprisingly charitable as he tries to make sense of events. But he has tears in eyes as he thinks about it.

I loved this story. It was sad and reflective, offering a very personal view of life in France in the early days of Occupation. And I found it especially interesting read alongside Vere Hodgson’s wartime diaries, Few Eggs, and No Oranges, and the comments she makes about the Fall of France, and the Vichy Government, and General de Gaulle, and the Occupation. I must find a decent history about war-time France, and try to find out a little more.

Finally, I can’t forget Mollie Panter-Downes’ Good Evening, Mrs Craven,  written in 1942, which features in a collection of her short stories published under this title (also produced by Persephone), which I reviewed here, and I think every single one of the tales is an absolute gem: the author’s prose and characterisation are faultless. You can tell I’m a huge fan of Mollie Panter-Downes, and if you read nothing else in The Persephone Book of Short Stories, you should read this one. It is quite, quite perfect. Better still, buy the MPD collection, then you can read them all!

A Bookish Gift, all the Way from Australia!

A parcel from Australia!

Woo hoo! The postman arrived a couple of days ago with a package for me, all the way from Australia, and a lovely picture of a possum on the stamp! And inside the padded envelope were two parcels, beautifully wrapped in old maps, with a little note from Pam, who lives in Tasmania, and runs the excellent Travellin’ Penguin blog, where she not only writes about the books she reads, but also about her searches for vintage Penguins, and her travels on her motorbike. I love looking at her photographs and reading about her adventures – finding out about other countries is one of the great joys of blogging, especially as I’m not much of a traveller. I’ve learned more about Australia from Pam and other Aussie bloggers than ever I did at school! 

Books unwrapped... the little dogs on each one are like post-it
notes, perfect to use for notes as you read.

Anyway, one little parcel contained a copy of The Carousel, by Rosamunde Pilcher, whom I’ve never read, but I was the winner in Pam’s prize draw for this book, which was a lovely surprise, because I rarely win anything. She did tell me I was the winner, but I didn't realise she was also sending a 1947 edition The Art of Reading, by Arthur Quiller-Couch, because I had expressed an interest in it. Wasn’t that kind of her? And it was so thoughtful of her to wrap them individually – it was like a birthday or Christmas!

'm looking forward to reading both these, but I resisted the temptation to sratr either of them immediately, because I’m off on a day trip to London to visit my younger daughter, and I’ve slipped the books into my bag so I have things to read on the train there and back, and while I’m hanging around waiting if there are any delays (and there usually are). So thank you Pam for the gift of books!