Random Jottings

Swan's Way

 

Jane's Fame - Claire Harman

The full title of this book is Jane's Fame - How Jane Austen conquered the World and it is hard for modern readers to realise there was a time when Jane Austen was out of print and nobody was particularly interested in her after her death, though of course she has always had her supporters and admirers, Sir Walter Scott being one and Tennyson another ('Don't talk to me of the Duke of Monmouth. Show me where Louisa Musgrove fell!')  Enter any bookshop in the land and there are shelves full of various editions of Jane's books, some with tie in TV covers (I loathe them), some with pastel chick lit type covers (I loathe them) and some super cool modern covers (I loathe them), the collected works in omnibus editions,  DVDs, talking books and on it goes. Hard to realise a time when this was not the case.

Claire Harman's book tracks the growth of the Fame of Jane.  The first part of this biography is fairly familiar ground about her family and her life and for those of us who are Jane lovers there is nothing new to discover,  the interesting bit starts as we learn how the current Jane Industry grew slowly after her death and reached the global phenomenon it is now.

Admirers writing to members of the family would often be sent a piece of her writing, an autograph, a lock of her hair as requested, there was no sense of keeping all this in one place. Indeed, in her will Jane parceled out her various manuscripts and letters to disparate members of the family obviously attaching no future importance or interest to her work.  When the Jane Austen society was eventually founded and Chawton restored and became the Mecca for all Jane pilgrims, the members  had their work cut out to track everything down and restore it to her home for all visitors and fans to see.

I found Claire Harman's book fascinating  and full of unknown, (well to me anyway) facts. I gather that during Jane's lifetime there were pirated editions of Emma in America and French translations of Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park, none of which she was likely to have heard about. One translator, Isabelle de Montolieu was a popular novelist in her own right and it was her name, rather than Austen's (in much smaller type of the title page) that was meant to attract readers.  I rather like the sound of La Nouvelle Emma, La Famille Eliot and Raison et Sensibilitie,  they have a certain air about them don't you think?  It seems that Jane was also read in Russia and it has been suggested that Puskhkin might have read Pride and Prejudice as the similarities between this work and his Eugene Onegin have convinced critics that he must have read it.  This gave me pause to ponder.  OK Eugene Onegin is a regular Darcy, haughty and proud who rejects Tatyana because of the 'inferiority of her connections'  but in the poem and the opera it is she who makes the running and is rejected, not the other way round as in P&P, and at the end of the book, when he realises he truly loves her, she has married another and sends him away.  There is no real similarity in the story at all only in the character of Eugene Onegin himself.  His friend Lensky, a poet, is a sub fusc Bingley but he ends up killing him in a duel.  So I am slightly puzzled by this assertion.  All interesting stuff though.

This post, if I am not careful, is going to turn into a DId you Know That which is what makes this book such fun to read.  Did you Know That James Fennimore (Last of the Mohicans) Cooper wrote a novel called Precaution which was published in America only two years after Persuasion.  Apparently he was challenged to writing such a novel by his wife when he had been reading an English novel and said it was so vapid he could do better himself.    The similarities between the two books are most marked and, according to Cooper who many years later was very embarrassed by it, explained that he had never intended Precaution for publication and it had 'many defects in plot style and arrangement'.  This is going on my list of books to Keep an Eye out For as it sounds a bit of a hoot.

OK well I am going to stop now as otherwise I shall be transcribing huge chunks of this vastly entertaining book for your edification and delight and as there are so many Trivial Pursuit bits of information in it, this could last for ever (and that is not meant to be a disparaging sentence). 

Claire Harman explores the adaptations and the films and of course, reference is made to the BBC Pride and Prejudice of ten years ago (gosh seems like yesterday) and the Wet Shirt moment which has become so much an accepted part of Pride and Prejudice that readers coming to the book for the first time after watching the Andrew Davies dramatisation, were sorely disappointed to find that it was not in the actual book. Such is the power of television.

Wonderful though it is that Jane is now famous world wide,  one sometimes feels that her six novels and other unfinished and junior works have been milked for all they are worth and that we are in danger of devaluing the currency that is Austen.  There have been prequels and sequels and while I am not turning my nose up at these, I have read many of them with enjoyment (some are dire - I think those by Emma Tennant are poor while some are, quite frankly, on the edge of the pornographic. I don't really need to know what Darcy and Lizzie got up to in bed or that Jane and Bingley had a copy of the Kama Sutra -  I kid you not), and the best among them are done with love and add to the story (those by Jane Aiken falling into this category), surely enough should be enough?

I am inserting a link to a post by Diana Birchall, who produced a sequel to Pride and Prejudice called Mrs Darcy's Dilemma, which I think is one of the best in this genre and read with great enjoyment and reviewed here.  The author has recently written on her own blog about the saturation of all things Austen and she also wonders whether enough is enough. Check out what she has to say here and also look at the pictures of her gorgeous cats.

Claire Harman has written an immensely readable and fascinating book and one wonders what Jane herself would have made of all of this.  I am sure she would have had something acerbic and witty to say about the folly of it all. Let's face it "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other"....

The Swan Family

Lovely quiet day today and this afternoon, armed with bread crumbs and a digital camera, I went in search of the new Swan Family at Bourne Mill, just round the corner from where I live.  They were in hiding so I had to walk round the far side of the lake and I sat down very still and waited and out they came and I managed to get some lovely pictures:

 

Getting ready for their afternoon swim

 

Off we go with mum

 

Father keeping a watchful eye

 

and off we go on our own

The Best of Times - Penny Vincenzi

"Like a glass of champagne, bubbly, moreish and you don't want it to end"

"The literary equivalent of a huge box of beautiful hand made chocolate truffles, a total indulgence"

The above are two quotes on the back of the new Penny Vincenzi novel, The Best of Times.  While I agree that yes her books are moreish and lovely and you don't want them to end, I cannot help  but feel that this is all rather condescending.   Another quote on the inside jacket says that she is 'the doyenne of the blockbuster'

Can't argue with what is said but I do feel that not enough critical thought is given to each PV book as it is published.  She has now written some fourteen novels, all of which I have read with various levels of enjoyment.  She wrote a simply wonderful trilogy about the Lytton Family and the publishing house they founded in the 1920s, bringing the story up to the present day, and it was quite brilliant, beautifully written and a real page turner.

Her latest novel begins with a bad motorway crash, a crash which changes the course of the lives of many of those involved. Jonathan, a successful, handsome, married surgeon returning from a visit to his mistress and in a place where he has no business to be; Georgia a young actress on her way to London for an audition for a part that could make her career; Toby the bridegroom, along with his best man, again one of them with a secret that places them on the motorway when they should be somewhere else; Mary, a widow travelling to the airport to meet her first love and then there is William, a young farmer who witnesses the crash.

We have the prelude to it all, getting to know the different characters and why they are all heading for this particular stretch of the motorway at this time, then the crash itself, and then the aftermath when relationships are tested and secrets and lies are exposed.

I am aware that this sounds like a publisher's blurb and all a tad facile, but I assure you it isn't.  You really care about the characters and what happens to them and, yes perhaps the ending is a little too neat and tidy with happiness all round for those who deserve it, but it is a very satisfying read and, as usual, will be dismissed by most 'serious' readers.  I wrote about Penny Vincenzi some two years ago now in my post here, and I had a lot of comments from those who agreed with me and who enjoyed her books.  I do hope that in 2009 a lot more of you will read this post and give her books a whirl.

I think she is terrific.

Not a Happy Bunny...

Regular Random Readers may remember that earlier in the year (Mother's Day weekend to be precise), my daughter and I were going to see Dame Judi Dench in Madame de Sade in London.  My daughter had bought these tickets a year earlier as a special present for me and so, while I have every sympathy with Dame J and am absolutely certain she did not do it on purpose, to find out while en route to London that she had sprained her ankle and was out of the show was incredibly irritating and frustrating. 

I have been out all day today and came home to find an email from the Royal Opera House apologising for the fact that Juan Diego Flores has withdrawn from the particular performance of the Barber of Seville for which I have booked as 'he has realised he does not have time to rest his voice between performances and to do the role justice'.  Well, pardon me but if you have booked to do a series of opera performances in a row, the thought does cross my mind that he might have thought of this earlier.  OK, Simon Keenlyside is still there, singing Figaro, and I am sure he will be brilliant (saw him last year in Don Carlos and he was great), but the main reason for booking for this performance and paying for an expensive seat was mainly for JDF so to say I am very very very cross is putting it mildy.  I have witten to the Opera House asking will I be entitled to a small refund on my ticke as I know full well the prices were hiked purely because this gentelman was in it so I don't see why I should have to pay extra for an artist's fee that is not going to be paid.  I know what the answer will be...........

Now, in a few weeks time I am going to see Oliver with Rowan Atkinson as Fagin.  Fingers crossed he does not fall over and sprain his ankle or contract some dreadful lurgy.  Then of course we have Tosca coming up with the Mighty Bryn.  Will he make it?  And yes I know, that when you book in advance for a live performance you take risks but I am really fed up by this news.

Oh and to cap it all, though on a slightly less intellectual level, I was delighted to see that House is back, Series Five, to which I have become addicted as you all know by now.  Yippee I cry. Oh no I rejoiced too soon.  Channel Five which used to show it has decided not to any more and yes, it has now gone to Sky, which I do not have as I live in a block of flats and the management are too lazy to get it organised though I have been haranguing them for yonks.  So that is that.

I AM SERIOUSLY HACKED OFF.

Maiden's Trip - Emma Smith

One of my favourite books of last year was The Great Western Beach by Emma Smith, a memoir of her childhood living by the sea.  I simply loved it as you will see if you check out my review here.

So I was delighted when Bloomsbury sent me Maiden's Trip by the same author  and this arrived last week and was read immediately and straight through and, once again, I loved every single word.

In 1943 Emma Smith signed on with the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to make use of boats lying idle.  Emma, with companions Nanette and Charity set off with a boat full of steel and sailed it up the canals to  Birmingham.  All of them were eighteen and had led very sheltered lives and had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.  They learned how to handle a pair of 72 foot long canal boats, how to navigate hazardous locks in the rain, how to splice ropes, bail out bilge water and keep the engine going.  They lived off kedgeree and fried bread and jam and got more and more dirty and tougher as the weeks went by so that by the time of their return journey where their cargo was coal, they were experienced and wiser women.

This book is a joy from start to finish.  Emma Smith's writing style is just so clean and concise, readable and yet full of depth and insight.  Just look at this description of taking the boats through one of the long low tunnels where all is dark: "Each of us longed in a queer strained way to be free of this suffocating womb of rotting bricks; each of us nursed a primitive fear....after forty minutes of prayer we were free.  No bigger than the head of a pin we saw the farther opening.  As it grew and grew, reflection making a full round circle of it......we slid out into a sweet daylight amazed to find it snowing for we had forgotten the weather and, in our pitchy black, thought of day as golden and leafy with birds singing"

I have been on several canal boat holidays and, while the hardships are pretty non-existent, I have passed through such a tunnel where, in the old days, the crew would lie flat on their backs on the top of the barge and walk it through with their feet on the roof of the tunnel, and I well recall the relief of getting out of the darkness.  I also remember working the locks and the panic that set in when I was at the wheel and the water poured in behind us to raise us up to the next level and the realisation that the boat was being hurled forward and would crash into the lock gates.  I slammed the boat into reverse which held us in the middle of the lock so that we were in the right position to exit and remember the release of tension when we sailed serenely out into the smooth water.  By the time I had done this several times I began to get the hang of it and guided the barge the rest of the week with great aplomb each time we reached a lock.

One day while the boat is moored the three girls go to the local baths as they are simply filthy:

"The bath attendant gave us each a towel and a small cake of soap and led us to three adjoining cubicles. Here she unlocked the taps and filled the mammoth baths with steam water.  Then she left us.  We stripped our filthy garments off and wallowed up into our necks.  It was marvellous.

Hi! shouted Emma,

What's the matter?

There's a man looking at me through the window"

Later, on another stop they visit a bookshop "Book shops have an international personality, a calming reflective personality, uninfluenced by place or time or fashion, even by wars.  That musty smell, how rich it is.  We lingered for nearly an hour and we might have been anywhere in the world. An old man pottered about in the background and though he took no notice of us, we sensed we were welcome"

I could not resist putting that paragraph into this review.  After reading the Great Western Beach last year, I decided I liked Emma Smith, she was my kind of person, and after reading this particular paragraph I am even more sure of this.

The three girls argue, get irritable and sniffy with each other, fall out, make up and over the period of their journey bind themselves together.  One of the crew, Charity, cracks her head against a low bridge and has to abandon the trip and a lugubrious Wilfred, a vague acquaintance, takes her place. He teaches them poker "So with hatches tight shut and the red an white check curtain drawn across the port hole and the stove a furnace we took our first lessons in poker.....jersey by jersey we relieved ourselves of the overpowering heat and even in shirt sleeves sweated the dirt out of us in streams. Whisky we remembered afterwards as a dim accompaniment, but only the cards were alive and we were in a coma"

A crack on the head does not stop Charity rejoining the boat as she is determined to finish the trip which they do in great style. Emma Smith says that it must have been an amazing imposition for the canal people when these ignorant young girls were foisted on them and yet, apart from the odd run in with a barge trying to push in and take advantage of their inexperience, they met with nothing but friendliness and understanding.

I hadn't the faintest idea that a scheme such as this existed in the Second world War and this was a real eye opener for me.  Having been on the canals myself, ok in much more comfort I know, I found the descriptions of the boat and their problems with steering and getting the boat stuck on the mud (yes I did that too) and having to be hauled off brought back happy memories.  Of course, I was just playing at being a canal boat captain, Emma, Nanette and Charity were working damned hard and sweating blood and being soaked to the skin, but these memories did help me empathize with them and feel a kinship.  Particularly when you are steering the boat and it is simply tipping it down and you are handed cups of tea at regular intervals and you drink it with water dripping off the rim of your sou'wester hat and, yes, thoroughly enjoying yourself.

"Never before, she thought have I felt so able, has my body worked with such understanding of itself and she remarked herself at every move, appraising the pull, the balance the neat spring that evolved like a dance pattern in obedience to the tune of her mind.  Never again, she thought, will I breathe so purely an air medicined with country snow and sappy boughs....now was a crystal, sparkling as a crystal, as hard and clear and actual...now was infinite. Now, thought Emma with tingling arms, was enough, enough"

I started and began last year's review of the Great Western Beach by saying I loved this book. I am now going to end this review exactly the same.

I loved this book.

Turkish Delight

 

I had three of the pistachio sweets near the front of the photo and Kathryn went for the chocolate ones near the front.  They were absolutely gorgeous and we generally made total pigs of ourselves.

Keeping it in the Family

Quiet day today, a good friend called in for coffee this morning, gossip and catch up, showing off my new kitchen, then this afternoon after reading the paper and having a snooze, decided to do a bit of 'proper' cooking for a change now that I have a decent oven, so an asparagus and cream cheese quiche, casseroled pork chops with peppers and red onions, and rhubarb fool. So good to have room to actually roll out the pastry without having to pile up pots and pans in a corner and the new cooker is, so far, coming up trumps.  So feel very pleased with myself and as I am also feeling a bit lazy all the post you are going to get today is a blurb about a new book being published in the autumn  and in case you are wondering why I am doing so, the author James Mather is my son in law.  He has been working on this for the last three years as well as training to be a barrister and I am very much looking forward to seeing the finished product.  As a mother in law with a blog, he has promised me a copy.

Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World - James Mather (author)

Long before they came as occupiers, the British were drawn to the Middle East by the fabled riches of its trade and the enlightened tolerance of its people. The Pashas, merchants and travelers from Europe, discovered an Islamic world that was alluring, dynamic, and diverse. Ranging across two and a half centuries and through the great cities of Istanbul, Aleppo, and Alexandria, James Mather tells the forgotten story of the men of the Levant Company who sought their fortunes in the Ottoman Empire. Their trade brought to the region not only merchants but also ambassadors and envoys, pilgrims and chaplains, families and servants, aristocratic tourists and roving antiquarians. Unlike the nabobs who gathered their fortunes in Bengal, they both respected and learned from the culture they encountered, and their lives provide a fascinating insight into the meeting of East and West before the age of European imperialism. Intriguing, intimate, and original, "Pashas" brings to life an extraordinary tale of faraway visitors beguiled by a mysterious world of Islam.

About the Author
James Mather was educated at Cambridge University and at Harvard, where he was a Kennedy scholar. He is now a commercial barrister in London.

I feel very proud to see his name on the Amazon website and the request to pre-order. No jacket illustration yet as that is still being thrashed out at Yale University Press and I eagerly await the final decision.

Have read some smashing books over the last few days and more of them in the coming week. At the moment I am enjoying watching Martin Clunes and his programme on the islands around Britain, a charming programme and St Michael's Mount coming up soon which I have always found an enchanting place.

So a relaxing day and I hope everyone else has had a good Sunday too.

 

Istanbul Jottings

Well I now have a gorgeous new kitchen and peace and tranquility reign once more In Castle Random and I am sitting here with cup of tea to hand and deciding that it is time I inflicted my views on my Istanbul trip on you all.

Busy busy busy city, absolutely huge.  I gather that once Turkey becomes a fully fledged member of the EU Istanbul will be the largest capital city, knocking London and any others off their perch and viewing just a tiny bit of it from a boat sailing up the Bosporus, I could well believe it.

We were fortunate in the location of our wonderful hotel, the Empress Zoe, which had been recommended to me by various friends, the location of which was well nigh perfect, being five minutes from the Blue Mosque, Haghia Sophie and the Topkapi Palace.   The rooms are all very individual with dark wood and painted walls and the reception area has a lethal spiral staircase to be negotiated in order to reach our room.   We were warned about this, but when I saw the actuality my heart sank.  Still, needs must and by the end of our stay I was scampering, well, staggering, up and down quite happily.  My daughter, Kathryn, managed them much better than me....

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

This was the hotel garden where we were able to eat our breakfast in the morning.

Hotel cats in abundance and staff very friendly. Recommended.

   

Blue Mosque first on list and stunning inside as expected with the blue tiles giving the building its popular name.  Took our shoes off on entering and given a plastic bag to put them in and on way out passed over a large door mat which said in large letters Please Do Not put your shoes back on Here. Immediately tripped over a tourist who was putting his shoes back on Here ....

   

While the Haghia Sophia was also gorgeous the visit of the day for my daughter and I was the Topkapi Palace.  Sun was shining and grounds were full of visitors sitting, sleeping, eating their lunch and just generally enjoying chilling out.  Because it was such a good day this meant that when we visited each part of the palace the crowds were spread out and you never felt hemmed in. 

 

As the grounds were also filled with the most glorious tulips (some so dark they looked black) the whole experience was not quite as hairy as I am sure it would have been the next day when it tipped down.   The highlight was the visit to the harem which I have already mentioned briefly on Random and, while it was beautiful and fascinating, the thought that the women inside never ever stepped outside the walls surrounding them, made a shiver run down my spine.

  

 

One of the most fascinating places visited while were in the city was the Yerebetan Saray (the Basilica Cistern) a vast underground water storage system.  Begun by Constantine, it was expanded by Justinian in 532 to ensure that Constantinople was always supplied with water.  It languished in obscurity for years but was restored in the 19th century by the current Sultan and also in the 1950s.  There is a story that a writer who came to Istanbul to conduct research on Byzantine, was told that people living around the Hagia Sophia were getting water with buckets they hung down in well holes, even catching fish.  The gentleman in question, one P Guylius, entered the cistern via a staircase in the courtyard of a house and found the cistern which he wrote about in his travel books.  Eventually restoration work took place in the 1980s and it is now a popular tourist attactcion.  It is very spooky and atmospheric and I gather from the literature that it is also used as a venue for film locations.  I spotted a mention that From Russia with Love, the James Bond move made in 1963 had been filmed here and I immediately remembered a boat sequence and recognised the columns.  My daughter, Kathryn, informed me that a recent movie with Clive Owen, International, is filmed around Istanbul and uses this location also so that now goes on my DVD to see list.

  

The spookiness of it all is highlighted by the upside and sideways heads of Medusa carved at the foot of one of the columns, placed thus so that you do not look into her eyes and turn into stone.  I could only have wished that fate on some of the pushing and shoving tourists around me who were all jostling and shouting and trying to get a good shot....

I waited until they had all gone.

More of Istanbul another day.  Enough for now.

The Deadline Murders - Ron Morgans

Ron Morgans recently sent me the above book, the first in a series of Fox and Farraday Mysteries.  Ron lives on the Mediterranean and the plots of his books are inspired by his years as an award winning photojournalist (as Piers Morgan has given a byline on the front of this book, I am assuming that the Mirror was one of the papers he worked for).  His female lead character, the feisty Henrietta Fox, is also a photographer and a member of the paparazzo and presumably her exploits as a member of the notorious photographers will certainly have a solid background. 

Henrietta (or Henri as she is named throughout the book) is attending the Farnborough Air Show when the story opens.  She is bored rigid and is ready to pack it all in and leave when she focuses her camera on an incoming plane and sees it crash in front of her.  It is a Chinese plane built by the Sumxu Aviation Corporation and when her pictures make the front pages she is approached by Cass Farraday who has been commissioned by his editor to investigate five deaths of reporters across Europe, all of whom have visited China and have come home with an exotic lop eared Suxmu cat, considered extinct for 300 years.  Each time a reporter is murdered, so is the cat whose mutilated body is found at the crime scene.

Henriette and Cass set off to China to meet the mysterious Mr Zhong, head of the Sumxu Corporation, who also gives Henrietta a cat as a present.  And then, the fun begins....

This book has a punchy, fast moving style, rather Grisham like in places, particularly with the emphasis on what I call 'labels'. Henri shoots with a Nikon, wears Dolce and Gabbana while Cass drives a Morgan.  As I said, a bit Grisham like in this respect, and that is not an insult in case you are wondering.   The writing is in a tight, no time wasted journalistic speed with Cass and Henri arriving in China and becoming involved in a deadly chase by men who want to kill them, taking refuge on a Chinese barge, and getting away the the skin of their teeth.  The final scenes in Britain's Air Traffic control centre with a deadly implanted virus wiping out all the technology and leaving hundreds of planes in the air, including one containing Her Maj, is very tight and exciting and very very filmic.

I really enjoyed this book. Great fun, great read and, as I have said above, pacy and speedy so that once you start reading you are carried along to the last page.  There are two others in this series, Kill Chase and The Emerald Killers and I look forward to reading these as well.