The Yorkshire Dales on a sunny day. Orchids, curlews, lambs etc etc. Looking out over the dale from a high field above West Witton – Castle Bolton to the NW, Preston under Scar to the N, West Witton below. Patches of hawthorn, barns with red doors. Peace.
So many books, so little time. Some potted comments.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. An amazing achievement – present tense throughout, and through the eyes of the Tudor politician, Thomas Cromwell. It creates an utterly believable milieu, though which the great and the good, and some of the great and the bad, strut and plot. And Cromwell is a complex character, who develops his political skills as the book proceeds. I thought of Le Carre ’s spies on the one hand and the busy Samuel Pepys, a century later than this Cromwell, on the other.
The Fall of the King by Johannes V. Jensen. Set in almost exactly the same period as Wolf Hall, this is the story of the Danish King Christian II, famously unable to make up his mind (Hamlet ?) as told through the tale of one of his bodyguard, Mikkel, whose life brings him intermittently and then more permanently in contact with the king. Overall, this is on of the most pessimistic books I have ever read – human beings are all doomed to fall, whether they be peasants or kings.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Compared to the doings of Renaissance kings, the action in this novel is wholly domestic – how a young Irish girl, initially with no independence, at the whim of family and townsfolk, once she is sent to New York, begins to develop a mind of her own (slowly, though) and, after returning to Ireland on a visit, where mother and community try to keep her there, returns to her secret husband in Brooklyn, though it’s touch and go until the last minute. Some readers think she should have stayed in Ireland.
The Russia House by John LeCarre. I haven’t finished this yet, but what he does, he does so well. And here as in a number of his books, a sort of contempt for the CIA and the US way of doing things, their paranoia.
Northern Broadsides and the Canterbury Tales. The amazing versatility of this theatre troupe in the service of one of the great story-tellers of the Middle Ages. A selection of pilgrims plus a rather naive poet who scribbles busily as they tell their tales. Actors constantly change from pilgrims to characters in the Tales, and even to different pilgrims as they near Canterbury. There’s comedy, and pathos, and bawdy. It’s so difficult to do bawdy on stage without just producing something vulgar but here it was played straight – almost just as Chaucer wrote it, with no extra unnecessary suggestiveness for the wised-up 21st century audience. Language a modernised Middle English – you had to listen, but if you did it all made sense.
This play is just brilliant. So many chances to be maudlin, sentimental, to dilute the suffering of humans by concentrating on the suffering of animals – but none of those pits fallen into. Presenting WWI through the story of the horses who were shipped out for the cavalry only serves to bring out the human tragedy even more – in the attitude of individuals on both sides towards the animals they have brought into the horrors of 20th century warfare – the fate of the cavalry faced by machine guns; the use of horses to drag supplies and guns through the mud; people who asserted their humanity by the way they treated animals. Life-size horse puppets each animated by 3 puppeteers. One of the most moving moments was when one horse died, and the puppeteers left it, its animating spirit fading into the wings. In a way, the only thing that jarred was the happy ending, when boy and horse were re-united and returned home. It probably didn’t happen like that.
No, not that stretch of cold water between Sweden and the various half-starved states on the Eastern side but a splendid restaurant just by Southwark Tube on Blackfriars Road. An extremely comprehensive vodka bar, excellent and well-cooked food, nicely presented in modest portions without it being a rip-off, and jazz on a Sunday evening. What more could anyone want ?
Long time no see – almost not since it was 2d to get in through the turnstiles. Bluebells, mostly, but rhododendrons too, and azaleas.
Then along the river path to Richmond – at least a dozen herons on the bank or dozing in trees.
A reminiscent stop opposite old Isleworth and “The London Apprentice”, scene of many a lunchtime pint back in the late 60s early 70s.
The tide was in at Richmond, so we had to paddle a bit- just where I used to ride my bike through the water when I was a kid.
Oh lord, what shall we say about London ? Staying in the heart of Bloomsbury with a view over the private garden behind Bedford Place,
and then, raising one’s eyes, the dome over the British Museum Reading Room and swooping beside it, over and over, the ersatz bird of prey to discourage the pigeons. And hard by, the London Revue of Books bookshop (and coffee parlour), small enough to feel intimate, large enough to have a wonderful selection – poetry particularly good. And Lambs Conduit Street - two splendid pubs
The Lamb
and the shop and office of Persephone books with their piles and stacks of dull grey and white covers mingled with the flash of their exuberant end-papers, bookmarks, postcards. (Persephone doesn’t believe in fluorescent light – daylight and pools of brilliance from table and standard lamps – must be wonderful, if hard on the eyes, on a winter’s afternoon).
Buses, of course, taking us through the early evening rain to south of the river, and back in the dark across the spangled river; to Clapham through the magic names of Battersea and Latchmere; from Richmond through the dull suburbs of Sheen and Putney (though depositing us in the multicultural maelstrom of Clapham on a Saturday evening from which our initial escape bus was prevented by a collision with a suicidally opened car door – no casulaties); and lurching through the narrow streets of the City to Petticoat Lane.
And some trains – the new station at Hoxton first glimpsed with surprise from the neat historic gardens of the Geffrye Museum; from Hoxton’s platforms the high level line on its classic Victorian brick arches curving towards the Gherkin and its attendant temples;the surprise that the Oyster card would take us to Kew.
Petticoat Lane like any rubbish cheap-jack market anywhere in the country but a few hundred yards away the elegance and upmarket variety of Spitalfields Market – delicious food and crafts and hardly a burger or present for Auntie Nell on display, though some quality kitsch.
And the nice women at Oska who provided me with a chair and a free coffee while my partner tried on clothes.
A hymn to the city.
They were there, in Castle Howard woods, but a sheen rather than a sheet. Perhaps a week too early. But primroses and violets and celandine and dogs’ mercury. Ploughed fields a rich reddish brown, stubble from last year still in autumnal colours. May blossom rioting in the hedges, besieged by bees. Birdsong constantly, but the birds small flitting through the branches, mostly hidden. And we were on the bus home before the rain came.
Norwegian female sax player – for this concert soprano sax. Her own compositions – influenced clearly by her origins in Norway and contemporary Norwegian jazz, but also more widely by European jazz. Excellent backing but perhaps not as well sound-balanced at the Venue as it could have been. Listening afterwards to the CD I found it more subtle. But overall really excellent quartet playing, and beautiful pieces.
I couldn’t get the film, which I last saw about 20 years ago, out of my mind, which was a shame, as I’m sure the production at York Theatre Royal was really quite a good revival. And timely, since as a nation we’re stuck in Afghanistan. Somehow the come on everybody it’s a music hall didn’t quite work here – it seemed contrived.Some good moments – particularly the dance of the shell-shocked.Maybe it’s me. Maybe I have read so much about WW1, been to the battlefields in Flanders; I feel the reality behind the laughter so acutely that I anticipate the descent from laughter into horror.