Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Fear Index - Robert Harris

Well, it took me two days to read this, so. . .

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Black Swan

Mixed feelings about his film, but I watched from start to finish, on TV, without floating to sleep.  Just noting it down today - will say more later.

Very much the dark side of the ballet world.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Twopence to Cross the Mersey - Helen Forrester

Tough times, and a lively tale well-told, of the days before the Welfare State, and the lengths people were forced to when unemployed.  As the blurb says, there's no wallowing in self-pity, though there is anger, as Helen was forced to look after her siblings and neglect the schooling which she loved.

Helen Forrester died last November, and it was through reading her obituary that I decided to get hold of the book.  Worth a read, for itself, as well as to remind us of how we take our current safety nets for granted.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Way

Though I didn't really watch - was doing something else in the same room, while others watched.  But it caught my interest when I realised it was about the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the setting for a different film La Voie Lactée, directed by Luis Buñuel in the 1960s.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Tosca - from NY Met - on TV

Miserable and compelling.  This production was controversial, indeed booed on the opening night, partly because it was such a contrast to the lavish Zeffirelli production of Tosca, which had been performed at the Met for some time. The scenery was much less elaborate.  Bondy's production also shocked by exposing a breast on the Madonna, and introducing three prostitutes into the scene in Act Two where the evil and lecherous Secret Police Chief, Scappia, is planning how to seduce Tosca and kill off her lover the painter, Cavaradossi.

As usual I was like the open-eyed kid watching, loving every minute of the story, and found the settings superb.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

A Streetcar named Desire - Tennessee Williams - Elia Kazan

The 1951 film, in black and white, with Brando as Stanley Kowalski, Vivien Leigh as Blanche Dubois and Kim Hunter as Stella.


Blanche Dubois is an ageing Southern Belle who’s been sacked from her job as a teacher for having an affair with a 17-year-old student, after her husband has committed suicide, and the family estates have been 'lost'.  She continues to live out her fantasies, attempting to seduce any potential suitors.
She arrives in New Orleans, where her sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski live in an apartment in the French Quarter.

There’s a marked contrast between Blanche’s pseudo-refinement and Kowalski’s coarseness and domination of Stella.  Stanley discovers some of the secrets of Blanche’s past, and brings this into the open, resulting in her having a nervous breakdown. In the end Stanley has her committed to a mental institution.
Stella leaves Stanley, and the final scene has him desperately calling her name.


Claustrophobic – almost all the scenes take place inside the apartment, where it’s impossible to escape from the others, or from the neighbours.  Iconic scenes  - gambling and drinking, domestic rows and reconciliations, Blanche’s attempts to ‘keep up appearances’.  

A note from wikipedia about the title:
The Desire Line ran from 1920 to 1948, at the height of streetcar use in New Orleans. The route ran down Bourbon, through the Quarter, to Desire Street in the Bywater district, and back up to Canal. Blanche's route in the play — "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at — Elysian Fields!" — is allegorical, taking advantage of New Orleans colorful street names.The Desire Line ran from 1920 to 1948, at the height of streetcar use in New Orleans. The route ran down Bourbon, through the Quarter, to Desire Street in the Bywater district, and back up to Canal. Blanche's route in the play — "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at — Elysian Fields!" — is allegorical, taking advantage of New Orleans colorful street names.


One thing I hadn't realised was that the Almodóvar film All About my Mother was influenced by the dialogue of some of the supporting characters in Streetcar.

Tamar - Mal Peet

Just finished this one - a story in two time frames - the present day, from the point of view of the teenage Tamar, who receives a box of clues and coded messages from her grandfather.  He has just committed suicide, but clearly intends her to find the box and solve the mystery.  The other story involves another Tamar, a man who was involved in the Dutch resistance to the Nazis in the 1940s.

Tangled relationships, the unravelling of the story and its consequences for Tamar, her father and her future make this a really absorbing read, and I learned a lot about the realities of World War II in Holland.

Peter Reading

I note the death of Peter Reading - who sounds interesting, but whose poetry I have not read.

Monday, November 28, 2011

The Return - Victoria Hislop

(I finished this book by Nov 24th.)

The way this book starts it could be chick-lit - two friends go to Granada for a holiday, one to forget her latest romance, and the other to escape from her stale marriage for a while.  They go away for a course in dancing - salsa, and later flamenco.   For the first quarter of the book, we get 21st century local colour,  and some hints of why Sonia may be particularly interested in Granada.

Then we get the stories of people who lived through the Civil War and the times of Franco.  Well-written, and hard to put down - ok there may be some implausibilities in the plotlines, but the book gives a real picture of what it must be like to live in a civil war, and under a dictatorship. It left me with the thought that such things can go from feeling quite impossible, to happening before people realise.

It's only within the last decade or so that Spain has tried to come to terms more openly with some of the aftermath of the Civil War, and the Franco regime which followed, with the Law of Historical Memory of 2006-7.  Though that has also involved controversy.

Life:An Exploded Diagram, Mal Peet

Supposedly a Young Adult book.  A coming of age story, about Clem Ackroyd, a working class grammar school boy living in Norfolk,  who falls in love with the daughter of the local landowner. In parallel we follow his development as an artist/ illustrator, and the story of his parents/ grandparents is there as background.

Alongside this the Cuban missile crisis of 1963 threatens to end the world.

I'm still not entirely convinced about the ending, but I read the book at great speed, and never felt it was talking down to a YA audience.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Craig Ogden - guitar - Gretton Village Hall

We first saw a concert by Craig Ogden in Uppingham, a couple of years ago, and were delighted to find him performing just down the road!   Varied, entertaining programme - from Albeniz to modern compositions by William Lovelady and Gary Ryan, from a piece in 11/8 time, by Serbian, Miroslav Tadic,  to an arrangement of Over the Rainbow, with Django Reinhardt's Nuages as an encore.

All interwoven with anecdotes, technical info about the guitar and how a guitarist keeps his fingernails in tip-top condition.

Brilliant.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Ballet Cymru - Under Milk Wood

At Stamford.  Lovely performance and characterisations.   The backdrops and the music were excellent, the dances conveyed the humour and sadness, and Gwyn Vaughan Jones as the narrator was very impressive.

I had doubts about a ballet interpretation of this work before we went, but none whatsoever once it had started.


Music: Thomas Hewitt Jones
Choreography: Darius James
Costume Design: Yvonne Greenleaf
First Voice: Gwyn Vaughan Jones
Paintings for projections: Jeremy Thomas

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Guernica - by Dave Boling

I recently read Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom, and it re-awakened my interest in the period of the Spanish Civil War and just afterwards.

This book, written by a Chicago journalist married to the descendant of Basque immigrants, brought a lot of local colour and knowledge of the area and its history to life.  The characters are presented in a sort of rural idyll - with their own quirks, such as the seasick fisherman Miguel,  the blustering Justo who has had to bring up his brothers after his mother's death and his father's disintegration, Miren, the magical dancer who wins Miguel's heart, blind Alaia, brought up in the convent, but finding independence, with the help Miren's friendship, the sale of home made soap and by becoming a kind of prostitute with a heart of gold.

Some of the tension comes from knowing that the bombing will happen, and not knowing how it will affect the families involved.

Afterwards we see the characters re-adjusting to life without those who died, and some of them become more involved in the politics of resistance.

I was not so keen on the interwoven threads about the Red Baron  planning the bombing raid, and about Picasso and the painting.

But all in all a very engaging book, with an ending that gives room for hope.

From the New Statesman
Peter HainHeart-rending yet enthralling, Guernica (Picador, £7.99) by Dave Boling is the story of the ordinary residents of Guernica whose lives and community were destroyed in 1937 by Nazi bombing, with the full support of Franco's Fascists. Where Picasso's painting so vividly captured the hellfire of the town's destruction, this book fills in the humanity. The characters, the culture and the landscape are all lovingly described, in direct contrast to the cold and clinical destruction of 1,500 inhabitants of a town that was central to the Basque identity.

Other reviews of this book can be found here
and
here

Friday, November 18, 2011

Up - Pixar Disney animation

The animation is so good you almost forget about it. Great effects, with the flying house supported by helium balloons, some dizzy heights and impossible swinging around on the end of ropes.






And the message, live your dreams, but don't get stuck in the same one for ever?  And heroes can turn out to be villains too.

Albert Herring on TV

Performed in Rouen. 2009.

Based on a Conte by Guy de Maupassant - 'Le Rosier de Madame Husson'.
Very funny, but of course with serious undertones. Much lighter than Peter Grimes.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

A novel set in a near future, where the world is ruled by the corporations and their security corps - CorpSeCorps.  There are dissidents called God's Gardeners who live as 'green' a life as possible, and while they have no answers, they do ask a few questions.  Then we have the pleeblands - the equivalent of our 'sink estates'.

This is the same place and time as 'Oryx and Crake' - but from a different point of view.  Most of humanity is wiped out by a plague, and The Year of the Flood takes place just before and after this event.  

More later


Friday, November 11, 2011

Il Viaggio a Reims - Rossini (on TV)

A recording of the production at the Chatelet in Paris,  a combined effort of the Kirov Opera and Théâtre du Châtelet

Had me googling to remind myself of the history I "studied" years ago.  This one-act opera was written to celebrate the coronation of Charles X of France in 1824.  The monarchy was briefly restored after the Revolutionary years, and Napoleon.

Some very entertaining singing and acting - particularly the Contessa de Folleville (great name) in her extravagant costumes.  No wonder we could hardly follow the plot, though - there isn't much of one - a crowd of European aristos trying to get to Reims for the coronation, and the problems they have.

(I may add more later.)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Die Fledermaus on TV

This was the 1990 performance at Covent Garden, on New Years Eve, where Joan Sutherland made her last public appearance in the party scene - in fact she, Pavarotti and Marilyn Horne almost hi-jacked the opera. ;-)

Alas no subtitles.  They would have helped, even though the singing was in English.  An odd one - with a lot of talking , which did help to understand the story - which basically involves a lot of flirting and deception and confusion of identities all round.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

La Traviata in Northampton

Excellent evening in Derngate Theatre.  La Traviata performed by the Ukrainian National Opera of Kharkiv.

The evening went by at high speed and was thoroughly entertaining.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Winter in Madrid - CJ Sansom

I looked for this a couple of times last week after a friend mentioned Sansom's historical detective stories featuring Shardlake.  I couldn't find it. I wondered if I'd given it away.  Then, as usual, it turned up, just when I'd stopped searching.  So I'm reading it again.

I find myself involved with the characters in the way I used to be when much younger.

I finished it. The ending is sad in several ways, plus an odd twist at the end.   I find Sansom's writing impressive.


Guardian interview with the author


Friday, October 14, 2011

Peter Grimes - Britten

NY Met Opera from 2008, televised.

Brilliant scenery, totally in tune with the dark story-line and the powerful music.  Based on the Net-drying sheds at Hastings .

Review in New York Times

More on Peter Grimes as a character from the Independent 2004

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

John Clare

A recent walk from Helpston has made me wish to read a little more of this 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'.    But where the hell have I put that book?

The book has turned up, so I'll read some of the poems in the next few weeks.

More later.

Jane Eyre - with Charlotte Gaisbourg

Gainsbourg makes a fine adult Jane, but the action feels very compressed.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Opera on TV - Tales of Hoffmann

More details later - great visuals in the production we saw.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Concert on TV - Gustavo Dudamel - Ana Maria Martinez - Waldbühne


  • Chávez: Symphony No. 2 Sinfonía india
  • De Falla: Siete canciones españolas
  • Revueltas: Sensemayá
  • Villa-Lobos: Bachianas brasileiras No. 5
  • Ginastera: Estancia, Ballett Suite Op. 8a
  • Márquez: Danzón No. 2
Great atmosphere all round. Very theatrical.  Magnificent 'amphitheatre'.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Hansel and Gretel

This was a recording from the New York Met seen on TV.  We started watching towards the end of scene 1, just before Mother arrives home to scold the children, and watched through to the end.


An absorbing and very dark fairytale, with, of course, a happy ending.  Great scenery and stage effects - quite Alice in Wonderland in places, especially the fantasy banquet scene with the chefs and the butler-fish.  I wasn't sure whether they were evil or good.


Odd to hear opera in English - good to have subtitles even so! 


Here's a link to  a 2007 review of the production http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/arts/music/26gret.html

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue - Lynn Knight

I caught this on Radio 4 early on August 3rd - I guess it was the mention of Chesterfield and in particular Whittington Moor which caught my ear. So, I ordered it.

It turns out Lynn Knight used to be an editor at Virago, too, and has written some women's history books

I think anyone would find the social and personal history interesting - Lynn concentrates on the three adopted children, her great-grandfather, Dick, her great-aunt Eva, and her own mother, Cora.  Around their tales, she includes a lot of local history.


For me, the book has a particular resonance, since my father's family lived in Chesterfield, and the Whittington area at that.  She talks about Pearson's Pottery, where my grandfather and uncle still worked when I was a child, and Shentall's grocer's - the yard was very close to Queen Street where my father and his brothers and sisters grew up.



Wednesday, August 3, 2011

A Winter's Tale at Tolethorpe

As usual a very enjoyable performance by Stamford Theatre company in their outdoor theatre at Tolethorpe Hall..  Some good set pieces - sword dance and morris dancing,  Especially liked ... as Paulina, ...as Autolycus, and ... as the young shepherd.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Don Giovanni - film from Glyndebourne

I hadn't realised how much humour this opera contains. Brilliant show, apart from one thing - it's a shame they had to break the atmosphere up with interviews at the beginning of the second half of the film - we went back, all ready and eager to be plunged into the story again - and lo! analysis and explanation . . . I thought these guys were supposed to know about dramatic tension.

Jean-Claude Izzo and food

A book about him and his relationship to Marseilles, its food etc.
Love death and basil - the Marseillais cooking of Jean-Claude Izzo, by Pierpaolo Pracca.


It includes lots of recipes (in Italian) at the end of the book.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

An absorbing book - with shades of magical realism in the way Obreht uses myths and stories to illuminate the narrator's  own more down-to-earth approach to life in the Balkans just after the wars of the 1990s.

Another book in which the relationship between grandchild and grandparent is vital.

more to come

Saturday, June 25, 2011

La Maison sans Racines - Andrée Chedid

Andrée Chedid died in Paris in March 2011, aged 90.  She was essentially a French writer, though her family is originally Lebanese, and Egyptian.  She herself was born in Egypt, brought up to speak English and French and Arabic, but lived in France from 1946.  
This novel is set just before the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon in 1975, and is written around a single incident - two young women, one Christian, one Muslim wearing a yellow scarf to symbolise hope, meet in the centre of a square. A shot rings out - one of them falls to the ground, and Kalya, a grandmother, approaches the two of them.   Intertwined with this key incident, which is told in short two  or three page bursts, are two longer stories, which give it a factual and emotional context.  The first, set in 1932, concerns a holiday Kalya spent as a child with her grandmother Nouza.  In the second, Kalya, herself now a grandmother who lives in Paris, is spending a holiday in Beirut with her own (nine-year-old?) grand-daughter, Sybil, who lives in New York.  


A mix of cultures, times and lives that encompasses much of the twentieth century Middle East, but through the close family relationships, and filtered through the cultures of the West as well.


The ending is shocking, but logical, and the book ends with a symbol of hope - the scarf floating.


(still in progress)

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord - Louis de Bernières

A strange book - social criticism, politics, magical realism - I may have to read it again before making any more comments. Late night drifting doesn't really do it justice.

I've just checked it out on Wikipedia (link in title of this post) and discovered that it is the second of a trilogy. One of the risks of picking up a book second-hand and just reading it!  I hadn't realised Bernieres had lived in Colombia.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Les Valseuses

I'm afraid I didn't watch more than the first few minutes, in spite of the big names - Depardieu, Jeanne Moreau among them.
Made in the 70s it shows two obnoxious young blokes causing mayhem - stealing cars, mistreating women etc.  Supposedly very subversive according to some, but a bit too unpleasant to watch.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Outnumbered

I always start watching this and think I'll stop after ten minutes, but carry on regardless. One of the funniest sitcom things I've seen recently.

Until the episode where the obligatory suspicion of a drunken kiss took over for a little too long...

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Carmen in Leeds



I should have written about this in February when we saw it!  A very enjoyable experience, although some of the reviews I read afterwards were less than overwhelming!  It was set in Seville, Ohio - though that didn't matter, and did explain the soldiers' costumes.  Sung in French, of course...but still felt pretty Hispanic to me.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Shelters of Stone - Jean Auel

Good in parts, repetitive in parts - especially the mystical sequences and the song of the Earth's Mother.

I enjoyed the earlier ones, this was ok, but I've read many poor reader reviews of her latest - Land of Painted Caves - and I'm afraid they have put me off buying it.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

What's this book?

Another book I read while away in the New Forest.

Starts with a girl about ten (?) running away from home in London, so that she can't be evacuated to the countryside during WW2.  She meets a young man called Sam (?).  Her grandfather (William) was a famous actor in a nearby theatre.  She is raised by her grandfather and his Scottish sister -in-law, after her mother's death.  The mother  committed suicide in front of a bus after apparently being deserted by an Italian boyfriend.  It later turns out that he didn't know she was pregnant. He appears later on, is from Florence.[I think he brings her a present he has made - though I could be confusing this with another book - Glassblower of Murano?]

She's unimpressed at the time, but later goes to Italy.   Oh yes, he dies in a convent - she sees him not long before his death.

There's also a woman who makes costumes who is a surrogate mother, and acts as a fairy godmother financing her studies, under the pretence of money from the girl's father.

For  a while she is involved with a suave successful actor, who can't cope with real life, and has lost himself in the characters he plays.

The protagonist ends up as a scenery painter, and costume designer, and works with Sam.  Romance, of course.

All very bitty and I can't recall author, character names, title, publisher...anything!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

A binge on thrillers

Erin Hart - Haunted Ground
Peter Robinson - The Summer that Never Was (an Alan Banks story)
Kathy Reichs - Cross Bones

Reading for a week in a holiday cottage - much enjoyed.  And, may be a coincidence, but each of these books worked on a double time-scale.

The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliffe

Another older children's book, about a Roman legionary who takes it on himself to investigate the fate of his father's legion, the Ninth, and to recover its standard.  He is injured, and although no longer an active soldier, he continues his quest. Along with this the book shows his relationship with various British natives - one of whom is his slave - he sets him free -  and another of whom becomes his wife.

It gave an extra dimension to our visit to the Roman Villa at Rockbourne , Hampshire,  in early May.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

'Mumlit' after 'chicklit'

Interesting comments too - are relationships all about who does the housework once kids are on the scene?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Oh la la - Parisian music evening

At Gretton Village Hall, courtesy of Northants Touring Arts.
A selection of French and English songs - Piaf, Henri Salvador and others, plus some jazz. Instrumentalists - violin, guitar and double bass were excellent. Singer a bit too gimmicky, and not close enough to the originals for my taste, especially in Les Amants d'un Jour , La Vie en Rose.   Would have been good if she'd included Milord.

However, pleasant and entertaining evening, and very close at hand. CD is good.

A previous event of Estonian music was more exciting and involving - Ro:ToRo

Enchanted Glass - Diana Wynne-Jones

An older children's fantasy novel, with magic interlaced with reality.  I read this after an article on her recent death. Thoroughly enjoyable as a light read with enough depth to hold my attention.

Mothers and Daughters - Kate Long

As usual, entertaining, not heavy going, but intelligent and well-written with a good story and dealing with some serious issues along the way.

Does this count as mumlit or even granlit? ;-)  See blog post link for 7th April.

Friday, March 18, 2011

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Noonan (Tressell)

Published in 1914, three years after its author's death from TB. Grim tale about capitalism and the lives of a group of painters and decorators working on the restoration of a house. They are the 'philanthropists' - giving selflessy of the products of their labour for the benefit of the 'Idlers' who exploit them, and cream off the wealth.

March 18th - I am still ploughing slowly through this, with its discussion of capitalism and socialism...

April 6th ...must get back to this...

May 18th ...still not finished this...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Stephen Leather

I downloaded his 'The Basement' but really hated it - in fact I have read only the first couple of chapters. Sadistic misogynistic main character.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Larsson, Nesbo, Indridason

I'm having a binge on Scandinavian crime books - had to hurry through some of the gory violent bits in the 'Girl' trilogy, and in Nesbo's Snowman but have found all of them so far as absorbing as previous crimi-binges (Cornwell, Nicci French, Kathy Reichs etc).

I have downloaded some classics on my Kindle - but these crimis are first choice just now.