Edith Sitwell

As a child, I remember seeing her name on books, along with those of her brothers Sacheverel and Osbert, but I didn't read them.
Today we listened to a CD of English songs, and some of the songs have words by Edith Sitwell. They're playful and witty, and have whetted my appetite to find more about her, and the rest of the family.

Madam Mouse trots,
Gray in the black night!
Madam Mouse trots:
Furred is the light.
The elephant-trunks
Trumpet from the sea....
Gray in the black night
The mouse trots free.
Hoarse as a dog's bark
The heavy leaves are furled....
The cat's in his cradle,
All's well with the World!

Paul Verlaine's version:

Dame souris trotte
Noire dans le gris du soir ,
Dame souris trotte ,
Grise dans le noir .

On sonne la cloche :
Dormez les bons prisonniers ,
On sonne la cloche ,
Faut que vous dormiez .

Un nuage passe ,
Il fait noir comme en un four ,
Un nuage passe ,
Tiens le petit jour !

Dame souris trotte ,
Rose dans les rayons bleus ,
Dame souris trotte ,
Debout paresseux !

Quite different, but clearly the first two lines inspired her poem.

Quentins - Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy is an ideal feelgood read - she has lively believable characters who get themselves into some remarkable tangles, emotional and financial in this book. All ends extremely well here, after adventures which take the main character, Ella, to Spain and New York.

Ella's ill-fated affair with a married man, a confidence trickster who reduces her parents and others to penury and then fakes his own death is the main plot. Ella finally confronts her conscience on this when she discovers he is still alive, and he claims his feelings for her were genuine.

She has learned from her mistakes. I guess this is one of the factors that contributes to the books making me feel good.

It's woven around the story of how a run down cafe becomes one of the top restaurants in Dublin. Plans to film the story are the motor for Ella's trip to NYC, but they are eventually abandoned because the owners and everyone else involved prefer not to face the disruption that fame would bring.

The Old Curiosity Shop - the book

I have started reading this, and find I have to allow myself to slow down and take in the scenes.
I normally tear through books, but with Dickens I can't. I have to read slowly and accept that there'll be side-tracks and cameos, and odd characters who are there for the sake of it, and as part of the background.

If I don't read it in this way, I miss the humour and I lose the plot. So I'm making myself take it at a much gentler pace.

Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride

A little light relief from the more serious reading?


Gruesome crime writing, involving two main plotlines - one a local celeb footballer who rapes and disfigures women, and the other involving sadomasochism. All set in Aberdeen, with strongly drawn police characters. Logan McRae, his girlfriend Jackie Watson and their superiors Insch, a fat guy constantly eating and trying to lose half his body weight, while directing G & S in his spare time, and Steel a lesbian tough gal. Not to forget 'Spanky' Rickards, who provides a useful insight and intro into the bondage scene. Dark humour too.


I read this one in a couple of days.

Reading The Old Curisoity Shop

I have begun to read The Old Curisoity Shop. I always have to slow down a bit to read Dickens. My first question is - who is the 'I' character in the book?

But Dickens then removes him anyway, and does the 19th Century ominscient author - nothing surprising about that - it's just no longer fashionable, I guess.

Quilp is even more obnoxious in the book than he was in the TV adaptation - his treatment of Mrs Quilp in particular. I am unsure how she got herself into the invidious position.

Affluenza by Oliver James

Is this too sweeping as a crit of modern American style capitalism? Decsribed by James as 'Selfish Capitalism'.
His thesis - in modern US influenced societies too many of us are infected by the 'affluenza virus', measuring everything in terms of material acquisitions, and aspiring to the lifestyle of the wealthiest. This aspiration is encouraged by TV programmes where most people are wealthy highly successful celebrities, and further fostered by the offer of instant fame and riches through such programmes as X-factor, Big Brother etc where 'ordinary' people can access the life-style of the super-rich - and what's more we all think 'we deserve it'.
As a result too many of us spend our time feeling thoroughly depressed, since we haven't got these trappings and possessions. We are then vulnerable to the blandishments of the advertisers, who, through the products they encourage us to buy, lead us to believe we will gain the life-style.
He contrasts the Anglo world with Denmark, which, he claims, is far less under the influence of aspirations to excessive affluence.
I have only begun reading this today. More to follow, no doubt.

As a postscript to this post - I haven't finished reading it yet. I feel he is trying too hard to fit the ideas around the meataphor of an illness, with his talk of virus and immunity etc.
He makes an interesting point that those who 'suffer' from it are more likely to take things as they are as 'given' and unchangeable - for example sexual roles are more polarised. Maybe I should read it earlier in the day. To be fair he gives a lot of examples from lots of different countries.

Simone de Beauvoir 1908- 1986

Simone de Beauvoir was born on January 9th, 1908.
Do a Guardian quiz on her life and work:

One of her best-known books is The Second Sex, published in 1947. In this she examines the role of women, and claims that many of the social differences between the sexes arise from nurture rather than nature.
She is also, ironically for a feminist, known as the life-long companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philospher.
Some things she said which appeal to me:
'Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.'
'When in doubt, always say yes to life.'

The photograph below comes from an article in the Guardian:


In 2006 a footbridge over the River Seine was named after her. It leads to the Bibliotheque Nationale.



I saw Simone
I tried to write this from the perspective of myself aged 21 or 22, not very self-confident, too inlcined to hero-worship.
I have edited it slightly today, from the first version written in March 2005.


In 1969
I saw her
in the Bib Nat
wearing the turban
she favoured.

Small,
insignificant,
making notes.

She was there,
writing
and
I was there,
reading
what she wrote
years before.

Did I get up
from my place
and go to her?


Hello, you won’t know me.
I wanted to be you
when I grew up.

No. I sat still,
looked sideways.

What could I say
that she hadn’t heard
A million times before?


I left her alone
with her work
and fame
undisturbed.