Boston, Lincs 1943

Much veg, no Greens 

On finishing a great book

I’m still in the grip of Babel Tower.  I want to read another like it, but, at the same time shy away from anything as emotionally taxing. I remember the same feeling on finishing Anna Karenina.  So I’m toying with the idea of reading Durrell’s Alexandra Quartet, for its rich, precise language, but tempted by Angela Carter – for the language and the very different landscape; wondering about rereading hectic Midnight’s Children; and at the same time mulling over Cormac McCarthy’s bleak spare text.  I don’t want to be entertained, but immersed.

On finishing Babel Tower **Spoiler alert**

Rather unexpectedly, I came to question the believability of Frederica. Her naivety started to irritate about halfway through – her behaviour and lack of circumspection, and when developments that inevitable from the outset did in fact develop, it was plain exasperating.  I’m now puzzled about whether the reasons for my reaction are anachronistic; or whether the character herself lacks realism because constructed symbolically.  The revelation that she’d been tracked by a private detective wouldn’t have come as a surprise even without the rather obvious indications that she was being followed.  

On the other hand, the ending also made me retrospectively angry for Frederica’s treatment by the establishment. Perhaps the crux of  the novel is the judge’s comment:

The higher education of women has in many ways, I have observed, been very hard upon both men and women.  It has encouraged skills and raised expectations which society as it is at present constituted is incapable of of fulfilling or satisfying - – skills and expectations perhaps incompatible with the fulfilled life of wife and mother. (pp. 518-19).

I want to sort out exactly how this strand links to the other court case in the text.

Technorati Tags: A S Byatt,Babel Tower

Still Byatt

This week has passed quickly, despite long spells when time seemed to stagnate.  Very tired most days, and what ought to have taken at most a day has often taken three. 

Still reading Babel Tower and still awed and delighted by Byatt’s command of language,of literature, of ideas. Mostly awed by the erudition of her characters – and envious too of the kind of education that spawns the familiarity and depth of understanding and involvement with literature that characterises Frederica: ‘Frederica is an intellectual, driven by curiosity, by a pleasure in coherence, by making connections’ (p. 379).  I wonder how often the term ‘connection’ and cognates is used in this book. (The significance of ‘only connect’ (‘Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die’ (Howard’s End, ch 22)).

Babel Tower is so rich – it’s bulging with huge themes and issues.  It needs to be read again, and probably reread several times.  I can’t seem to hold it all in my head enough to comment on it as a whole.

I’m reading the Byatt's novels in the wrong order, however, so may well end up rereading Babel Tower after I’ve read The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life.

Wifi

Caffeinated owl chart

 

The perfect accessory

(Stolen from @HistoryInPics Twitter feed)

Still Byatt

Byatt’s writing appeals so much, in part, because it’s so precise.  On occasion I come across unfamiliar words, for example, and there’s something very pleasurable in reaching for a dictionary – in needing to read for a dictionary in order to do more than check spellings – to find meanings or pronunciation for example.  Babel Tower exercises in this way. It is also intriguing to read because of the many different styles of writing used.  I envy  the confidence of authors who do this.   

More Byatt

Having finished a little Byatt, I decide to read a big one: Babel Tower. I think I must have begun reading this one before as the first few pages were familiar.  I think I must have been too tired to read it, last time – unable to cope with three beginnings.  This time I can’t put it down. 

It’s reminiscent of reading Iris Murdoch: complex characters  but slightly too idealised to be believable yet  still compelling.

Reading short stories

I read Angela Carter, Bloody Chamber last week; now I’m reading AS Byatt, Little Black Book of Stories.  Short stories require a different state of mind from novels.  From time to time, I have to stop reading and ‘recover’ – that’s the most appropriate term I can think of to describe the whatever I need to do.  It’s a combination of stopping to rest and coming up for air but also embraces applauding and standing quite still in astonishment.  Every word counts in a short story.  Sometimes, if something doesn’t quite work, the weight of this demand shows – creakiness is subtle yet also more apparent than in a novel. There are moments when it seems an author has striven too hard and achieved precision at the cost of balance, or voice, or  pace.  But the masters – the Carters and Byatts – rarely do this.  Byatt’s ‘The Stone Woman’ is richly precise, and the language so voluptuous that on, first reading, I worried she’d wobble.  She doesn’t of course.

A Wednesday

 

It’s teeming with rain.  The garden smells wonderful - earthy yet fresh.  The sky overcast but light. It's a beautiful and I want to be in it; outdoors, this day, has more allure than blue skies and hot sun.  

And I also want to be indoors and at the desk.  Much to do today - much reading of students' research chapters, and, because I like to do at least an hour a day on my own work, reading for my research.  Today's work-for-me: a novel.  Not taxing but still work - I have such a privileged lifestyle.

Later, I'll walk with dogs.  Last night I walked for an hour at midnight.  The roads quiet; pavements empty; and every so often, a cloud of scent from may, or laurels.  An urban walk with the magic of the country.

On strength and stillness

A thought recurs so frequently that I think I may need to explore it.  It always comes up while practising yoga  and it’s something to do with the various aspects of the self (my self – myself?) that I exercise during my yoga practice; aspects which I become aware of either at different points in the practice or on different days. It’s something to do with balance and balancing, with the strength that’s needed to balance (something we only seem to reacquaint ourselves with when unwell; when standing or sitting upright becomes too taxing and we admit defeat and go to bed).  But it’s also to do with the confidence - self belief, really – needed for some poses. I know I can stand on my head, unsupported, but a hand injury prevented me from headstands, recently, and now I find I’m held back mostly by fear, despite knowing that the easiest way to balance ‘that way up’ is to ‘just do it’; and that the easiest way to maintain balance is to stop concentrating on balancing ... which, for me, is a state of mind requiring self-belief that itself is maintained by practice  …

The yin/yang symbol suddenly has a little more significance - depth.

This morning, these ideas became involved with thoughts that have occurred when teaching.   Not teaching yoga, but teaching English.  Different students need different kinds of support.  For some, the most pressing  issue is confidence – and my work: to find ways to help them take the plunge – to step away from their notion  of what they are ‘expected’ to do, and instead to follow up their own ideas when approaching a text; for others, the opposite is the case – encouraging them to look at others’  ideas to  help them refine their own, to help them see that others merit acknowledgement for the work they have done, to help them see that one doesn’t need to start from scratch, but  may build on others’ ideas, or follow another’s route into a text.  At the bottom of all this the need to help students see that they aren’t entering a competition but a conversation – a dialogue.  And that ultimately, it’s all journey, because there will always be some new aspect, perspective or priority to work on.

Which is how I feel about yoga.  I can become stronger and I can focus on that; but I can also become, and so focus on becoming, more supple; and I can focus on what I am learning myself and on what others have said they have learnt about themselves; equally, I can focus on what I have learnt about a pose, or an element of a pose and on what others have learnt from, or noticed about that pose. 

It’s all dialogue and no competition.  And on some days I struggle to be strong enough to keep conversing; and on others, to be still enough to stop competing.

Women are ...

Cervantes + Picasso: a sublime duo

Pablo Picasso, Don Quixote, sketch, 1955 

Beware Windows upgrades!

'Upgrade to Office 2016' - what an innocuous phrase; what hellish consequences.  I duly upgraded, and found I couldn't access Onenote 2013, only Onenote 2010. I’d spent much of yesterday filing 'stuff’ in Onenote, couldn't face doing it all again, so decided I'd revert to Office 2013.   I tried using widgets and gadgets; following instructions such as 'download this' and 'delete that'; and after 4 hours not only couldn't access Onenote 2013, but also couldn't open any Word documents.

I restored the system - twice.  No joy.  

This called for an extreme solution.  I wiped all versions of Office from the hard drive disc, reinstalled Office 365 (with Office 2013 apps), and, hardly daring to breath, tried clicking Word icon - and everything there was accessible; then tried clicking the Onenote  icon - and everything there was accessible - AND without the need to log on to some cloud or other. (Clouds are not useful with an internet connection as sluggish as mine.)

I relaxed.

And settled down to write what I set out to write some hours earlier, only to find I needed to disable some fancy widget to stop the cursor driving me mad by flailing along behind my typing ~~~~

I hate - simply hate Windows upgrades!!!!

Robert O. Lenkiewicz (1941-2002) Dr Ted Nesling reading 'Essays and Treaties on Several Subjects' by D. Hume (Project 20) oil on canvas 119 x 88cm

Rockwell, Gossip

Equity

 

Austen, Biography and biopics

Austen Leigh’s biography of his ‘dear aunt Jane’ raises questions about the value of biographical accounts of writers.  Austen Leigh’s Memoir maintains the stance on Jane Austen found in Henry Austen’s earlier short ‘Biographical Notice’, and so continues what has termed the family’s 'tradition of protective sanctimoniousness’.  The net result is an account of Austen which is difficult to meld with the author suggested by her novels, and certainly doesn’t sit well with Austen as letter-writer.  What, then, is learnt from Austen Leigh’s biography?  More generally, what can a biography of a writer add to the study of their work generally?

Becoming Jane, like Miss Austen Regrets, casts Jane Austen as the heroine of her own life, and attempts to locate her writing in that context.  Both films portray Austen as a modern figure.  Does this approach add anything which couldn’t be achieved by a standard documentary?

Austen, Unfinished works

I think of Lady Susan as the female counterpart of rakes such as Wickham and Willoughby – and perhaps, too, she can be considered as an older version of Mary Crawford.  The duplicity of the widow is revealed in her first two letters and, I  think, can be summed up in her comment, in Letter 17 to Mrs Johnson, that ‘Consideration and esteem as surely follow command of language, as admiration waits on beauty’ (p. 64).   How does Lady Susan uses language to engender ‘consideration and esteem’ (and protect her reputation)?  The derelict father is a common character in Austen’s works, but the mother or mother figure also tend to be significant – and lacking.  Lady Susan is one of the most malignant of Austen’s mother figures.  In what ways would she have been seen by contemporary readers to have failed Frederica?  Lady Susan has at least three lovers including the married Manwaring.  Adultery also features in Austen’s other novels.  In a letter to Cassandra, she claimed to ‘have a very good eye at an Adultress’ (Letter to Cassandra, May 1801).  Why might Austen have addressed the issue? 

The Watsons introduces several of the themes that Jane Austen explores elsewhere, but the social setting differs from those in her published work.  What differences in social stratification occur in The Watsons?  Emma has been considered too perfect.  However, there seem to be aspects of her character which recall Elizabeth Bennet – one wonders how Austen intended to flesh out the plotline she outlined to Cassandra. 

Sanditon makes me laugh aloud every time I read it.  The hypochondriacs are depicted in such wonderfully ludicrous detail.  The text has been described as harking back to the burlesque of Austen’s juvenilia, but it also carries the strain of social criticism seen in Persuasion, in its portrayal of the involvement of the gentry in commercial enterprise – and Mr Parker, it seems, is as much an ‘imaginist’ as Emma.

An oddness!

Looking at my bookshelf on Goodreads, you can tell from the titles alone (indeed the covers alone) when each semester started and ended!  Since I tend not to list 'work books', rather oddly, from the 'semester books' I appear to have spent 2 weeks reading almost exclusively chick lit. (Not so good for one's CV!) 

Alaa al-Aswany, The Automobile Club of Egypt

I finished Alaa al-Aswany, The Automobile Club of Egypt, yesterday.  I enjoyed it very much.  Unlike some reviewers I was intrigued by the series of beginnings, and applauded the lack of closure at the end.  However, like some reviewers, I missed the energy of The Yacoubian Building and wonder how much of the spirit of the text has been lost in translation.  (I notice Hickling's review in the Guardian (26 December 2015: bit.ly/1VLwcWy) lays the blame squarely at the feet of 'Russell Harris's deathly translation'.)  This is a great pity for many reasons, not least because I hoped it would complement Naguib Mahfouz's magnificent Cairo Trilogy.

Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

I've just finished Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive. I was disappointed - probably because expectations had been raised by the reviews, both professional and personal.  I'm not sure what the book is supposed to be. As a memoir it is too preachy; as a self-help book, too shallow.  Self- applause, perhaps?   Then again, who would dare to given the book a bad review, given the knowledge that it might tip the author into depression?   Well I would, I suppose, because that snippet of information irritated me.  

As did the zeal-of-the-newly-converted perspective on yoga and the raking around for quotations from famous-thinkers-and-fellow sufferers (despite the disclaimers).  

So I thought it was just an OK book.

But perhaps this is because I don't suffer from depression - or maybe I should be more circumspect (and circumspection is surely one of the lessons Haig is keen to impart), and state I haven't yet suffered depression.

Would I recommend this book? No I don't think so.  Not like I'd recommend Mark Epstein's Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness, or Irina Tweedie, The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience of Liberation Through the Teachings of a Sufi Master, or Tim Parks, Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing, or ...

Austen, Juvenilia

When reading the juvenilia, I’m always astonished by just how familiar the young Jane Austen must have been with so many forms of contemporary literature, in order to write such exuberant parodies.  While much of the humour can be described as burlesque, the juvenilia also reveal Austen’s delight in lampooning mannered society, found throughout her published work – the meal in the ‘The Visit’ is a case in point.  I’m also struck by Austen’s inventive uses of register throughout this early work.  Is it possible to identify general similarities and differences between Austen’s early writing and her published work? 

Bride and Prejudice seems to capture some of the exuberance of the juvenilia.  I was surprised that Pride and Prejudice could be adapted to fit the Bollywood formula.  How much collateral damage is there? And does the resultant exploration of contemporary cultural prejudice work? 

Austen, Creative Responses

Paula Morris’s ‘Premises’ relocates Austen’s plotlines in the modern-day content of movie moguls.  The text seems to imply both that Austen’s novels are all variations of a single theme; and that each of Austen’s plotlines is unsuitable as the basis of a film script.  How does the story draw on themes and concerns found in Austen’s texts?  

Kipling’s ‘The Janeites’ responds in a very different way to Austen’s works.  It seems to me to function on several different levels –for example, as a tribute to values found in Austen’s texts; and as a paean to the common man.  What is the significance of the two contexts in the text – that is of the Western Front during WW1, and a Masonic hall?  What does Kipling’s choice of protagonist  suggest?

Lost in Austen  has been described as ‘enormously good-natured fun’ with ‘a distinct whiff of commercial calculation’ (James Walton, Telegraph, 4 September 2008), ‘a parody of a pastiche of a mockery of a sham’ (Giles Coren, The Times, 26 November 2008) and ‘a rich intertextual document’ which comments on ‘love, kindness, trust, female friendship, feminine desire, and personal and social anxiety’ (Louise Kaplan, ‘Completely without sense’, Persuasions On-line, 30 (20) (2010). I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I’m not sure how far it can be said to ‘work’ as a transformation of Austen.  Is it just ‘good-natured fun?  Or do you, like Kaplan, believe it merits consideration for its intertextuality?

Warming up

Sun pouring though my study window; sharp shadows from the fig tree speckling piles of notebooks; dogs sprawling in a pool of sunshine; a window full of blue sky and bare, broadleaf trees.   

Woodpigeons calling; gulls wheeling  - quiet not silent, calm not still.

Words form slowly, this morning.  Oozing.

It’s tempting to sit back and let them form at their own pace,
but I need a flow. 

Austen, Persuasion

 

Persuasion is the only novel in which Austen gives specific dates for the action: 1806, when Anne Elliott and Frederick Wentworth initially met; and 1814-15 when Wentworth returns during the temporary period of peace in the conflict between Britain and with France. Are there differences between Austen’s treatment of the effects of war in Persuasion and its treatment in her earlier novels? How are the two time periods used?

Sir Walter has been described as the worst of Austen’s ‘failing father figures’. His obsession with how things look is referred to repeatedly throughout the novel, and other characters’ attitudes towards appearances are dealt with in some detail. What does this suggest about Austen’s perspective on her society?

The BBC adaptation emphasises the effects of Sir Walter's profligate lifestyle on others: his daughters, the servants at Kellynch, his lawyer, and his daughter. Which aspect of the novel seems to inform this adaptation?

May Day + 1

The thought was: to start the day with some warm-up scribbling;  but it’s 6.15 pm and I’ve just got here so to speak.  Not that I’ve done nothing until now.  I’ve been marking(markingmarking) in an attempt to clear the decks for a fortnight of student-free writing.  I’m about 2/3 through the current batch of submissions, which because very small, I’ll finish tonight.  No doubt tomorrow will begin with a deal of displacement activity as I settle back into my own work – much desk tidying, filing, and so forth.  I’ll probably also map out a timetable of sorts.  But as long as it’s all devoted to MY work I’ll feel a little less panic stricken than I do at the moment.

Weather has helped keep me at the desk today. It’s been bitterly cold all day: sometimes cold and sunny, sometimes cold and wet, but always cold.  It’s cold and sunny, now, but a huge mass of rain cloud is slinking in from the east.  The view from the front is weather past and present - blue sky and white fluffy clouds; from the back is weather future: much rain and, given the temperature drop, possibly snow. In MAY! One year, when I was an undergrad, I was as brown as a berry when I sat my exams, having spent most of May revising outside in the sun.  So far this year I’ve spent a couple of afternoons in the garden, reading, wearing a sun hat and sun specs plus a scarf, heavy jacket and fingerless mittens...   

Tomorrow I have to go to Edinburgh for a meeting; on Wednesday I have a meeting here. Then – oh then – nothing very much for a fortnight.  Lovely! Lovelylovelylovely!!!

The university is quiet – well my building is anyway, no doubt the library and computer suites are brimming with revising students.  Corridors are light, bright, quiet and completely empty.  I always feel most like an academic at this time of year.  Odd.  You’d think that teaching would have that effect, but it doesn’t.  I enjoy teaching  enormously, but prefer being able to work to my own timetable ~~~

Austen, Northanger Abbey

 

Northanger Abbey always makes me wonder how it was received, given its publication followed Austen’s mature, and very much more controlled, novels. What gives the text unity; exactly how does the action in Bath lead to the developments at Northanger Abbey? Who is the villain of the text?

Issues in the adaptation of Emma for the screen included the need to accommodate the fact that much of the ‘action’ in the novel centres on the inaccuracy Emma’s interpretation of others’ behaviour. Northanger Abbey presents similar difficulties for adaptation to screen. Does the fact that the text is deeply embedded in the literature of the time increase the difficulty of adaptation for a 21st century audience; or is there enough cultural common ground to smooth over this potential obstacle?

Catherine is the youngest and most naive of Austen's heroines, and she, like Emma, has to learn to see things differently - to be schooled in understanding the world as it is, not as she imagines it. How does Austen do this? How does she educate the reader, too?

May Day

Perhaps more appropriately ‘mayday’. Not yet sure.

Dogs all snoozing so it’s quiet and unusually calm. 

Weather? Unpleasant: cold, damp and disappointingly unseasonal – no gardening today despite plans to ‘tidy up’ outside. 

Plan B? A vague notion in the direction of heaving the house out of the dysentery zone. 

Aspirations: um …

Obligations?  Too many to think about.

Deadlines? Ditto.