Hello, kittens. How have you all been? Me? Oh, I’m within reason. Not brilliant, but not lying about in untidy whining heaps neither. I have, however, been dragged all over the British Isles, showing my somewhat puffy face to assorted friends and relations, in a kind of irony extravaganza of funerals and weddings. But being ‘unwell’, I had the best get-out clause to spend an awful lot of time not helping in the kitchen (my standard role), and reading instead. And, oh, my word, but I loved it. So, as I did nothing else of interest, I thought I’d bore you all with my somewhat fuzzy-brained opining on the material I got through [Could you sound more pompous? - Ed].
Books I actually finished:
Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. Dear old Richard Dawkins, he does harangue a reader so – slightly tiresome if you agreed with him in the first place. And probably even more so if you didn’t. Dawkins’ basic premise is probably best explained in his own preface:
‘My title is from Keats, who believed that Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colours. Keats could hardly have been more wrong, and my aim is to guide all who are tempted by a similar view towards the opposite conclusion.’ (p. x).
And in fact, Dawkins’ description of the real working of rainbows, of how we each stand in the very centre of our own personal rainbow that no one else can share, indeed, that our left eye and right eye cannot share, constantly renewing itself as we gaze at it, knocks Keats’ whining into a cocked hat. But Keats spent time as a medical student at the beginning of the 19th Century. If Dawkins had had to endure that great pinnacle of science, complete with blood, suffering, and almost inevitable death, he too might feel a little anti-Newton and pro ‘Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.’ Less screaming, you see.
Consciousness and the Novel by David Lodge. The sad thing is, I can’t remember much about the contents of this book. This is not David Lodge’s fault, he is a fine and enjoyable writer, and I have a distinct memory of sitting curled up by a window that looked out over a drizzle-cloaked Scottish glen and thinking I was thoroughly enjoying the chapter on Henry James. But what he said about Henry James exactly, I can’t recall, as I have had the attention span of a concussed budgerigar this Easter, and I’ve had to give the book back to the library, and in any case the blasted thing is out of print.
River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins. Obviously, being scolded for my perceived inability to grasp the true wonder of science is not so very unpleasant after all. Again, Richard, dear heart, I agree with you. And yes, the thought that the maternal line of every single human being can be traced back to one woman from Africa is mind-expandingly wonderful (only the maternal line, don’t get carried away, and pause to consider how few people actually are in your line of matrilineal descent (half your parents, a quarter of your grandparents, an eighth of your great-grandparents, a sixteenth of your great-great-grandparents…)). Also, did you know bees use gravity as a substitute for sunlight, when dancing food maps for each other? How cool is that?
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susannah Clarke, illustrated by Charles Vess. I read her first novel, the vast and extraordinary Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, several years ago. I adored its combination of genteel, homage-to-Austen comedy of manners and eye-widening depth of fairy strangeness. Probably better spelt ‘faërie’ strangeness, considering just how gothic these very un-winged and un-miniature fairies are. So I have been very much looking forward to any more of the same. The short stories in this collection are inevitably slighter, but Ms Clarke has been more at liberty to exercise her somewhat dry sense of of the ridiculous. The result was thoroughly enjoyable, and the book itself – I own the charming grey and pink illustrated hard-back – is a very pretty thing in and of itself. I am particularly charmed by the picture of Mary Queen of Scots glowering over her needle-work.
Books I got part way through, and am still guddling about in the innards of:
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. I was given this for Christmas, and like the good lapsed Catholic that I sometimes am, I have been Saving It For a Special Occasion (my mother does this with toiletries and chocolates until both have congealed into fuzzy beige slurry that smells of ponds). At the moment I am still slowly reading the introduction. Pathetic.
The Practice of Writing by David Lodge. As you can see, I enjoyed the other book enough to give him another go. And this one practically counts as work, as, after all, I am practicing writing, oh yes [and one day you might actually do some]. So far, I am merely being afflicted with the uneasy feeling that I haven’t read enough Graham Greene.
Trillion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove. Now this I am thoroughly enjoying, huge rambling woolly rhinocerous of a book that it is. Aldiss has earned the right to be gloriously opinionated, but doesn’t let this get in the way of telling the history of Science Fiction as the most rumbunctious adventure. And alas Mount ToBeRead has grown a few more spurs and glaciers. For example, I must read Voyage to Arcturus right now. Which means I will have to buy it, as no library I belong to deigns to stock a copy. Philistinic bastards.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry (4th Edition). When I was an undergraduate, I longed for a copy of this with the passion of a thousand burning suns. But I was poor. I was, in fact, living on textured vegetable protein, ooh, yummy. So I’d stare at it in the bookshop until I’d nearly melted a hole in the cellophane wrap (Yes, it was a campus bookshop. They’re used to students doing their homework next to the Lit Crit shelves). Of course, now there’s a shiny 5th edition, but I got hold of the true desiderata. And do you know what? While I am grateful for the translations of the Anglo-Saxon verse, I would have preferred all the Anglo-Saxon verse as well. Because I am a raving anal-retentive pedant. And I can pronounce Anglo-Saxon. [Understand, not so much]. On the other hand, it has that enviably lovely little thing by the barely-adult AE Houseman: ‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/ Is hung with bloom along the bough.’ Have you seen the parks and gardens in London at the moment? Nice find.
So. That’s what I have been up to. [Very tedious, yes?]
