Happy Birthday To Me - and Browning!

Robert Browning as a young man.

Today is my birthday, an anniversary I share with poet Robert Browning, who is 200 today, but seems to have been forgotten in all the brouhaha surrounding Charles Dickens (by the way, Edward Lear, famed for his limericks and nonsense poems, is also 200 in another few days – on May 12 – and he too has been overlooked).  Now I may not have had a poem read to me, although I live in hopes of this happening, and I didn’t get tea and breakfast in bed, which is my idea of luxury, but The Man of The House, who plays in a local folk band, did serenade me with a tuneful rendition of Happy Birthday, which I think is pretty romantic. And he bought me a fruit cake and a pair of binoculars! Before that Younger Daughter rang and sang, and before that Elder Daughter, en route to a very early shift at the hospital, sent a text message.

Anyway, back to Browning, who seems to have fallen out of fashion, which is a shame. I don’t like everything he wrote, but I am fond of much his poetry, and can never resist the fairy-tale love story of his elopement and with Elizabeth Barrett, whose work is better known. I must admit I know very little about him, apart from the fact that he married her, they lived in Italy, and had a son, so I was surprised to find he was 33 when they met in 1845 – somehow I imagined him much younger than that, and although I knew she was older I didn’t realise she was 39 at the time.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The couple had corresponded for some months before that first meeting - Browning wrote to Elizabeth after reading and admiring her work. They fell in love and defied her father (who didn’t want any of his children to get married) and were wed when they ran away together in 1846, setting up home in Pisa, and then in Florence, at the Casa Guidi, which is now owned by  Eton College and used as a study centre for the boys. But it is open to the public at certain times, and is also leased to the Landmark Trust and rented out as a holiday home for a few weeks each year, which sounds as if it would be absolutely fabulous, but is probably well outside my price range. Just think though, what an enchanting holiday you could have, visiting art galleries thinking about Browning sitting under a hot Florentine sun, yearning for an English spring, with a pale sun and rain-washed skies. I love Home Thoughts From Abroad, with its emphasis on the fact that April is ‘there’ in England, but is not present in Italy: the use of that word ‘there’ rather than ‘here’ conveys so much, so simply.

Casa Giuidi

 Browning, born at Camberwell in 1812, was the son of a Bank of England clerk who was something of a bibliophile, with a collection of more than 6,000 books. His mother was a gifted musician, and he was considered to be something of a child prodigy, writing his first book of poetry (which was never published) before the age of 12.  He admired Shelley and the Romantic poets, and as a young man he travelled to Russia and Italy with a diplomatic mission. However, he decided to dedicate his life to poetry rather than seeking formal work. I gather his parents tried to persuade him to earn a living in a more conventional way, but they must have been happy to support him, because his father sponsored publication of his poems, and he lived at home until his marriage.

Browning when he was older

After some early work sank without trace, his poems were applauded by people like Carlyle and Wordsworth, and his circle of friends included Dickens and actor manager William Charles Macready, but he failed to achieve widespread popularity.  It was only when he returned to England after his wife’s death that he began to win acclaim. During that period he travelled widely, although he never returned to the apartment where he lived with Elizabeth. In April 1889 he was recorded on an Edison cylinder phonograph, reciting part of How They Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent, and he died in December that year, at his son’s home in Venice. His grave can be seen next to that of Tennyson, in Poets Corner, in Westminster Abbey.

Browning's grave

The style of his poems varies tremendously, from seemingly simple verses with structured rhyme and metre, to complex dramatic monologues where the traditional tools of poetic language are absent or altered, enabling him to focus on story and personality and to reveal a character in a very subtle fashion. In My Last Duchess, for example, the sense and meaning of the poem is carried across the lines so you hardly realise it’s written in rhyming couplets – and you’re a good way through before you understand that this clever, urbane, sophisticated narrator, who loves beauty in all its forms, has actually killed the woman in the painting.

An Arthur Rackham illustration for Browning's
poem showing the Pied Piper leading the
 children of Hamelin away

Then there’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which may be much simpler, but demands to be read aloud, captivating us with is strong rhythms and rhymes in an almost dizzying fashion. This is the bit I like the best:

Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

But my favourite is Meeting at Night, which I’m sure grew out of the difficult courtship he had with Elizabeth. It makes me imagine two lovers, parted by circumstances, having a secret meeting despite trials and tribulations – but others people may read something  different into it.

The grey sea and the long black land; 

And the yellow half-moon large and low; 

And the startled little waves that leap 

In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 

As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; 

Three fields to cross till a farm appears; 

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch 

And blue spurt of a lighted match, 

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, 

Than the two hearts beating each to each! 

How to Roast a Pig - by Burning the House Down!

Well, it is Sunday, the day when many people enjoy a traditional roast dinner and I have been reading Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig, which tells how a rather gormless ancient Chinese lad discovered roast pork – by accidently burning his house down, with the pigs in it, then licking his fingers to soothe the pain when he burnt them as he touched one of the bodies!

Lamb, who claims to have read about this in an old manuscript, says that until that point people  ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, but while Bo-bo, the son of a swine-herd (he is a ‘great lubberly boy, which is a fantastic description I think) is wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of the family house:

... an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?--not from the burnt cottage--he had smelt that smell before--indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted--_crackling_!

The pig that tasted so delicious he gorges himself on handfuls of scorched skin and fesh, to the horror of his father, who considers that eating burnt pig is most unnatural. Bo-bo persuades his father to try this new food, and the older man is equally enthusiastic, but warns that their roast pork must remain a secret – otherwise, he fears, their neighbours may stone them for thinking they can improve on the meat provided by God. Eventually, of course, the story gets out because people notice that the cottage burns down more frequently than ever. There was ‘nothing but fires from this time forward’, says Lamb.

There is a court case, and things look grim, but the foreman of the jury wants to take a look at the cooked pig, so he handles it, burns his fingers, licks them... and the rest, to coin a phrase, is history. Soon everyone is setting fire to their home at regular intervals – until they realise they can roast a pig without destroying the house in the process.

I was going to including a picture of a whole roast pig with
this post, but it looked so revolting I've used this picture of young
Tamworth pigs, from Wikipedia.

In the second part of this essay Lamb discusses the best method of cooking pig, which should always be young, and should never be served with onions.

There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, _crackling_, as it is well called--the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance--with the adhesive oleaginous--O call it not fat--but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it--the tender blossoming of fat--fat cropped in the bud--taken in the shoot--in the first innocence--the cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food--the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna--or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance.

Lamb is best known for his essays, on a variety of subjects: chimney sweeps, Quakers, weddings, witches, newspapers, actors – you name it, he wrote about it. But he also

wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as essays and newspaper articles, frequently using the pseudonym Elia. His poetry has not stood the test of time, but His Tales from Shakespeare, written for children in collaboration with his sister Mary, became a classic, while his retelling of The Adventures of Ulysses is as stirring a version of Homer’s tale as you are likely to find. He is very verbose (too much so for modern taste I suspect), but once you get used his style he is great fun, with a strong sense of humour and a lively curiosity in the world around him and a desire for social and political reform.

He was born in 1775, and went to school with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Later he worked as a clerk for the East India Company, but he wrote for journals and newspapers, and knew many of the great 18th century writers.

Both he and his sister Mary had mental problems, and in 1796 she stabbed their mother o death. Lamb became responsible for her safety and for a time Lamb paid for her to be kept secure in a private madhouse, but she was released ino his care and they shared a house, working together on many literary projects until his death in 1834.

A Dissertion Upon Roast Pig and other works by Charles Lamb are available onine at http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/34791/

This was posted for the Essay Reading Challenge being run by CarrieK at Books and Movies here. 

Sore Feet and Saturday Snapshots

I was going to write a book review, but we went to Birmingham to meet my younger daughter and her boyfriend for lunch, and spent the day wandering around the Rag Market, walking along the canal, and mooching around the city’s Museum and Gallery, where we visited the Staffordshire Hoard, which we have seen before, but was well worth another look - the intricate work on these tiny pieces of gold is just incredible. 

By the time we got home I was so tired, and my feet hurt because I wore new shoes (there is a moral in everything, as the Duchess told Alice, and the moral of this is that one should never wear new shoes when walking around a city). Anyway, I never got round to writing anything properly, so here are some Saturday Snapshots, some of which were taken today, and some on my last visit, when the weather was still sunny, and there were lovely reflections in the water.    

 Birmingham is supposed to have more canals than Venice, but I am not sure if this is actually true, or merely some kind of urban myth. At any rate,  the  Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Brindley Place and the Gas Street Basin (where it meets the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line) is one of the nicest spots in the city, and one of the few places which seems to have kept its character and from development.

 There are boats, and bridges, and tunnels, and some of the old buildings (including the WBC Company's headquarters) are still there. They may have been revamped, and turned into eating places, but at least they have been preserved and are being used. And there's a surprising amount of wildlife on the water and alongside it, including this Canada goose and two tiny goslings, which we spotted on the opposite bank, and you can just make them out in the photo, if you squint a bit - I need a much better camera I think.

This was printed on a  wall - I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment,
 but it made me laugh.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog http://athomewithbooks.net/

Blooming Wonderful Bloomsbury!

YAY! I now have my very own copy of Miss Hargreaves (which I reviewed here), because it is such a wonderful book, and how can I read it again unless I have it on a shelf, within easy reach whenever I want it... besides, it is my birthday next week, and I deserve a treat... and it was very cheap. I ordered it through Abebooks on Saturday night, and it arrived this morning, in mint condition – either the previous owner had never read it or else they were a very careful reader, unlike me. I regret to say that my books are always dog-eared, with broken spines. Even worse, I sometimes scribble notes on them and I have been known to turn down the corner of a page if I can’t find a suitable bookmark (by which I mean a bus ticket, receipt, letter, length of wool or something similar).

I really adore these books in The Bloomsbury Group. I’m not sure how many there are – ten I think – all ‘lost’ classics from the early 2oth century, and all suggested by readers. Whether Bloomsbury Publishing have plans to produce more I don’t know, but I think they should: it’s a collection that’s well worth expanding. The novels are all interesting (though I didn’t like Mrs Harris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico), and they are beautifully produced, with lovely understated period designs on the front (not a headless woman or view through a door in sight, thank goodness). Best of all, each has an Ex Libris page so I can inscribe name, in my very best handwriting, in my latest acquisition. It’s also quite refreshing that there are  brief notes on authors, but no introductions, prefaces, afterwords, notes etc (although a couple include forewords by the writer, explaining how they first came to be published).

Anyway, browsing through the library, I came across three other titles from The Bloomsbury Group, which I had't read, so here’s a little bit about them.

A Kid For Two Farthings, by Wolf Mankowitz, is a kind of fairy tale. Written in 1953, it’s set in London’s East End, in the heart of the Jewish community (where Mankowitz himself was brought up). Six-year-old Joe’s father is in Africa and his mother works trimming hats, so he spends his days with old Mr Kandinksy the trouser maker and his assistant Shmule. Entranced by the old man’s stories, Joe wants a unicorn, so he goes to the animal market and returns with a little, white unicorn, which he believes will bring good luck and make his dreams come true.

He builds Africana a ramshackle shelter in the yard, but despite his efforts the creature fails to thrive – hardly surprising since it is really a sickly, deformed, baby goat, with budding horns which grow so close together they look like one. But Joe’s belief in the magical powers of the ailing kid remains steady. In the end, his faith is justified because, amazingly, dreams do come true: Mr Kandinksy will get a steam press to improve his business and his health; Shmule wins his wrestling matches and will marry his girlfriend (without the engagement ring she yearns for), and Joe and his mother will be reunited with Joe’s father.

It’s a touching little story, simply told, and Mankowitz paints a wonderful picture of the East End, but it’s the people who bring the novel to life: warm, wise, loving, they all need a little magic in their lives as they struggle to make ends meet, but they’re never too busy to talk to a lonely boy trying to make sense of the world around him. And all of them, even the minor characters, like the shop girls and wrestlers, are drawn with care, so each emerges as an individual who could never mistaken for anyone else.

The world portrayed in EF Benson’s Mrs Ames couldn’t be more different. The town is packed with upper middle-class families, who may be keeping up appearances as they are less wealthy than previously, but they still have cooks, parlour maids, gardeners and chauffeurs. Social position is everything, and Benson has a wonderful time taking a pop at the snobbery, pretensions and hypocrisy which are rife in this insular society.

Gossip makes the day go round. Take Mrs Altham who ‘often professed superior distaste for gossip, but when she met her friends going in and out of shops, it was but civil and reasonable that she should have a few moments’ chat with them’. While the women shop and gossip, the men relax over drinks and papers at their club, but they are as avid for local news as their wives. Social gatherings are important, but times are hard, and leftovers from an evening repast are recycled into a new menu for lunch the following day – with different guests attending.

The eponymous Mrs Ames (Amy) is Queen Bee: she dictates style and taste, through her connections with the local landed gentry. She is not, however, a stylish woman, for she looks ‘something like a small, good-looking toad... she was small for a woman, but good-looking for a toad’. She keeps a tight grip on her position and has seen off all contenders. But that changes when she invites husbands to dine without their wives, and wives without their husbands, for among the guests is Millicent Evans, the pretty, blonde wife of the doctor. When Millie steals Mr Ames’ heart and organises a fancy dress ball, it seems Mrs Ames could lose her husband and her social crown...

It may sound petty and silly, but it is a beautifully written comedy of manners, and I was interested with the Suffragette storyline. Even if the issue is not taken seriously it was very topical when the book was written in 1912.

Mrs Tim of the Regiment, by DE Stevenson, was a joy from beginning to end. Mrs Tim is Hester Christie, wife of an Army officer, who keeps a diary recording the trials, tribulations and triumphs of  daily life. She’s another of those self-deprecating English women who cope so humorously with domestic disaster, family, friends, tradesmen and servants.  I knew I was going to enjoy this when I read the first entry: “Tim wakes up very peevish after last night’s celebrations in Mess (how strange the after effects of enjoyment on the human frame!).” His aunt Ethel is due to arrive, but he won’t help with preparations. “He can’t think of food in any form this morning, as his head is like a boiler room, and what on earth are the children doing – there might be half a dozen of them from the noise.”

It’s as good a description of a hangover as you are likely to find. The observations on family life have a ring of truth, probably because Stevenson, an Army wife, adapted her own diaries to give a friend’s daughter an idea of what lay ahead when she married an officer, and was urged to publish her work in 1932.

The book follows Hester’s struggles to move the family to a new home when Tim is posted to Scotland and her holiday in the Highlands. Along the way we meet her children, Betty and Bryan; her friend Mrs Loudon, and her husband’s colleagues, including Jack and his new we race, and Tony Morley, a wealthy senior officer who refuses to take life seriously and appears to develop a passion for Hester – but who turns out to be a good friend for the whole family. 

A Spark Without Sparkle

Well, Muriel Spark Reading Week is over, and it seems the only novel unread and unblogged (which may not be a word, but never mind) is The Mandelbaum Gate, which I did actually pick up at the beginning of the week and start reading, but I gave up because I just couldn’t get on with it. However, in the interests of fair play, I picked it up again last night and have persevered. I did get to the end, but only because I skipped quite large sections, and I can see why it has been languishing on the bookshelf for years, and why I’ve never managed to stick with it in the past – none of which is much of a recommendation.

For a start, it is longer than Spark’s other work – a full-length novel – and her wonderful wit and spikiness is mostly missing. I think her style is best suited to short novellas where the action, such as it is, is very contained. Perhaps it’s difficult to sustain that kind of spare, tight writing over a longer work, or perhaps Spark just wanted to try something a little different. Whatever the reason, if I had read this without knowing who the author was, I would never have guessed it was by Muriel Spark, and it certainly wouldn't be a good choice for  first read.

Anyway, here, as briefly as I can, is a synopsis. Freddy Hamilton, who works for the British Consulate in the Israeli section of Jerusalem, meets teacher Barbara Vaughan, a half-Jewish Catholic convert who wants to embark on a pilgrimage to visit Christian shrines in Jordan, despite the fact that her Jewish blood could put her in danger in Arab territory.

 Barbara disappears, and Freddy loses his memory, and no-one is who they seem to be. There are spies, lies and double dealings everywhere, and nothing can be taken at face value. In fact, duality and the nature of identity are themes running through the book. Jerusalem itself is a divided city; Barbara with her dual heritage of Jew and Gentile must decide her own identity, and many other characters must decide who they are, and where their loyalties lie.

There are various side-plots, which didn’t really add much to the story, and a lot about religion and the nature of faith, which felt preachy – Spark has explored religious issues far more subtly elsewhere. I’ve read quite a number of her other novels and loved them, so this was a huge, huge disappointment. It all seemed a bit laboured, and I failed to engage with the characters or care about the plot.

By the way, for those who don’t know (and I didn’t), the Mandelbaum Gate was the checkpoint between the Israeli and Jordanian sectors in Jerusalem, and was dismantled in 1967, two years after Spark’s novel was published.

The Mandelbaum Gate in 1955

Muriel Spark Reading Week was organised by Simon at Stuck in a Book (http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.co.uk) and Harriet at Harriet Devine's Blog (http://harrietdevine.typepad.com) .  You can see a complete list of linked posts on their blogs.