Silence

 No, I don't mean my shocking lack of consistency in writing blogs. (I have ideas, which I have even jotted down somewhere. It doesn't help if I don't develop those ideas. It doesn't help if I am not sure where I wrote down the ideas. I give myself credit for persistence if nothing else). 

This is about grief. 

My Dad died in January. Suddenly and rather brutally. Violently actually. There was no one else involved, but he slipped on ice and hit his head. Very badly. He and I disagreed about many things important to both of us, but he was my Dad and for his weird political ideas he was an amazing Dad. Nothing like death to make one realise that. I am also so grateful that we had a good Christmas together where there were no political discussions. Also while he gave the rest of the family cryptocurrency as a gift, he didn't give to me, and that moment I will cherish. For the first time in my life I actually felt as though he knew me. So anyway, I am mourning him, and I feel a lot. I am the female version of him in that sense. 

I recently bought a book of poetry about grief and it is lovely. Not every poem speaks to me of course. 

This one did though. My world is definitely quieter without my Dad. 

Rest well, Daddy.

 

   (blogger's own photo)  

Silence

by D.H. Lawrence

Since I lost you, I am silence-haunted; 

    Sounds wave their little wings 

A moment, then in weariness settle 

     On the flood that soundless swings. 

 

Whether the people in the street 

    Like pattering-ripples go by, 

Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs 

     With a loud, hoarse sigh: 

 

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light 

    Over the dead-black river, 

Or last night’s echoings 

     Make the daybreak shiver: 

 

I feel the silence waiting 

    To sip them all up again,

In its last completeness drinking

    Down the noise of men.

Young, Kevin. The Art of Losing (p. 15). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

A poem to start the year

I ended 2019 with a poem, and I find myself starting 2020 with one too. Yes, it is a bit lazy, but that might also depend on one's goals.

I am currently reading The Black Poets by Dudley Randall and this is one by the editor, which has an important message (as all good poems should, having said which, see the HML principle).

Black Poet, White Critic 
by Dudley Randall

A critic advises
not to write on controversial subjects
like freedom or murder,
but to treat universal themes
and timeless symbols
like the white unicorn.

A white unicorn?

Was wondering if I should comment on the poem, but realised that would be whitesplaining.

So will leave the poem to speak for itself.

FIVE THINGS: Mrs Olifant's Salem Chapel

A favourite adage of mine is: so many books, so little time. Which is to say life is too short to spend on a book you are not enjoying. And yet, I persisted with this one. It was very hard work. Harder work than reading any novel should be. I cannot recall ever having rolled my eyes as I finished a book before.


Indeed, you may wonder, why did I finish the book if it was so difficult to finish. Simple answer: my reading challenge for the year. The past three years I have set myself reading challenges which consist of a long list of criteria on which I base my reading choices. This has actually been helpful as I own far too many books (see Umberto Eco's notion of the anti-library) and it has been all too often overwhelming simply to choose which book to read. So the reading challenge was the reason I exercised what felt like a lot of determination to finish this book.

I am doubly annoyed as this is the second, 'greenback' Virago as I call them, in a row which I have not enjoyed, The last one, I did not even bother to finish. The main cause then was an annoying character.

However, for what it's worth, my five things on this book, not all bad (although mostly):

1. The plot was unexpected, I must admit that. The story did not go at all as I expected. There was a twist, and some intrigue. that was surprising and initially I did enjoy the book. Alas, that did not last.

2. As I noted in another blogpost - it was rather pleasing when this novel was mentioned in another novel I happened to be reading. Clearly a classic and certainly a favourite of many (as a quick perusal of the Goodreads ratings indicated). Fair enough. I nevertheless invoke what I call the Hobsbawm Mona Lisa principle. Not everything appeals or speaks to everyone. It happens.

3. It felt as though it took quite a lot of determination on my part to finish this book. I did so to satisfy the criteria in my reading challenge to read two books published prior to the 20th century. This is the first of those two books this year. Truth is I am not particularly fond of such classics, though am at times pleasantly surprised. Result is that my list of classics read is very, very short. I have caught up with several Jane Austen books the last few years, but on Dickens, Thomas Hardy and the such I am short. I have only read a George Eliot novella. I think I will nevertheless rather stick to such better known authors going forward. Or put another way: no more of Mrs. Olifant's books for me.

4. The only character I found remotely interesting was Mrs. Hilyard/Mildmay. The rest were superficial fluff and simply uninteresting. The main character, Arthur Vincent was simply exasperating. He is one of the most self-occupied pathetic characters I have come across for a while Even the annoying Angel in Elizabeth Taylor's book with the same name had more substance to her, as unlikable as she was. Too many characters were too lost in their own preoccupations to be able to any basic social skills. All the rest were too shallow to be of any interest at all.

5. The ending, was then just to perfect, wrapped up in a bow. Yuck.

In fact, I refuse to spend another second on this book. Disappointing, and like a bad taste in one's mouth, I really need to find something good to read. If I am unlucky, I doubt I will have the determination to finish reading yet another book which is not worth the time.

Fortunately I am already (as I usually have several books I read at the same time) reading the charming Bridge of birds by Barry Hughart. Now I need to clear my palate, in a manner of speaking and pick that one up. Onwards and upwards.

The Hobsbawm-Mona Lisa principle. Or just a bad book?

It is hard to judge how critical one is. I have at least long since decided that life is too short for books that are too enjoyable. Books may be so for a variety of reasons. Mostly if I simply struggle to get into the story, as it were, and that persists, then I give up. There are too many books left to be read to waste time on that which requires more energy than it provides. Reading should definitely be a net gain in terms of returns.

Sometimes I think it is simply because not every book can (or should) "speak" to the reader. This is the point at which I invoke what I have titled above as the "Hobsbawm-Mona Lisa principle". It stands to reason that given my personal beliefs, the writings of the leftist historian Eric Hobsbawm should be right up my alley, as they say. I do however find him a bit difficult to read. I did however manage to read his autobiography Interesting Times. In that book he writes the following upon viewing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre: "But she did not speak my language". I thought that brilliant. In a few words he captured a feeling I also had felt when I finally saw the Mona Lisa myself. Not to mention a sense I had when viewing or reading many famous works of art or books. At that moment it somehow became permissible to just not enjoy everything that everyone else does. You enjoy what you enjoy, period.

So that is a principle I also adhere to when reading books. It is not a reflection on the book in question, it is simply one of those things.

This is of course, not to imply that there are no badly written books. There are many reasons why I may struggle to get into a book or otherwise decide to put it aside. I am at the moment struggling to get into a novel, and to my chagrin put aside C.J. Cherryh's Fortress of Eagles. That had absolutely no relation to anything of the above, it is one of the books I have abandoned that I am quite sure I will try again. The timing was simply off,  that also happens.

However, to the book in question for this post - Charles Todd's Wing of fire. Putting aside my annoyance that a mother and son writing team write under the name of the son, this is the second book featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge. (Perhaps also wondering why USians must write series based in a country they do not live in. Did no soldiers from the US suffer from shell shock? I digress and concede that I might be surprised if this does not make me appear more critical than I clearly would like to). I managed to read the first book, and I think it was fine. I was not a particular fan of "Hamish" I recalled as soon as I started reading this one, but the entire concept, of a historical crime set in the twentieth century should be one that I enjoy. Except that I did not enjoy this. Hamish aside, it was just poorly written. Not the language (there are editors for that), but the story. Already in chapter four there is a character who in the one instant is trying to bully and intimidate Inspector Rutledge into giving up an investigation and yet in the next is accusing his step-sister, one of the deceased of a triple murder! Furthermore the aforementioned Inspector Rutledge seems to accept this rant at face value, only pausing to point out the lack of evidence for his accusations. At no point does it occur to him to question why this man has no qualms about accusing someone, in two cases a mere child of seemingly cold-blooded murder, and this on a fairly thin basis. This followed by the unmitigated admiration for a titled widow simply oozed precisely USian stereotypes of the UK during that time.

Now that my own rant is complete, I would add that I did read the first novel in a series by the same author(s) featuring one Bess Crawford, which I rather enjoyed. I suspect (assume/hope) the author(s) have in fact matured in the course of their writings - the latter book was after all published some thirteen years after the first Inspector Rutledge, and eleven after Wings of Fire. I have nevertheless decided to abandon Inspector Rutledge forthwith. Which is a bit of a pity. Perhaps I will reconsider. Time will tell. Either way, in this case, it feels like a combination of the Hobsbawm-Mona Lisa principle (perhaps henceforth the HML principle?) and that the book was just not well written. Or I am becoming more critical, and not necessarily in a bad way.