Castles and Towers

Last year we made a Gingerbread Rapunzel Tower, and for the last couple of weeks I had been searching for an idea for something different to do with the gingerbread; you can find some pretty impressive constructions when you go googling. Initially it was going to be a proper castle with crenellations and everything, but the plan was getting a bit large and complicated, so the idea was born to make a ruin instead. It is based partly on memories of  Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire which we visited frequently when the children were small.

The find-a-penny collection this year has amounted to a grand total of £46.91, quite an increase on last year's total. It may very well go into something much more sensible this year, like the Premium Bonds, because we are saving up for Creature to do a drama foundation course.

The People of Forever are not Afraid

'The People of Forever are Not Afraid' by Shani Boianjiu was long listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction this year (since renamed the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction) which is probably how I came across it. It is the story of Lea, Yael and Avishag, their childhood friendship and their baptism of fire into adulthood via their stint in the Israeli army. It is told pretty much stream-of-consciousness from each of their different perspectives. The whole book has a somewhat surreal quality to it, both in their childhood and their time in the army. They all live in this town that seems to exist solely for workers at a factory that makes parts for another factory that makes planes, and the whole of their teenage years are coloured by the anticipation of having to go into the army. And once they are in the army the overriding experience is one of utter tedium and meaninglessness. It's another of those stories that gives you an experience so alien that it is hard to take it in or make any sense of it. I let it wash over me and tried just to listen to the voices of the three girls. It is to a certain extent about how they try to cling on to some sense of themselves as human beings in an environment that is specifically designed to destroy their humanity. They come out the other end of the experience, but they are not the same. 

Here Lea, I think, is stationed at a checkpoint at a border with one of the occupied territories:

"I also had to make sure they weren't carrying weapons or about to explode their bodies. We were there to notice what the government wanted us to, dangers, but I would still only notice what I happened to notice. This was because I couldn't realise I was a soldier. I thought I was still a person." (p. 56)

I think it helped that I studied the Middle East as part of my degree so the historical background to the political situation was not totally unfamiliar; although it is obviously set quite recently there is no attempt to explain what is going on at any point, so some understanding of the history of the state of Israel might be a useful starting point if you want to make any sense of this tale. Certainly quite a challenging read and not for the faint hearted.

Christmas 2013 - Reading Roundup

Wishing a Happy Christmas to all my followers and random visitors. This has been a rubbish year craft-wise but I seem to have had several books on the go at any one time, but then Coursera has eaten into my time as well, so that's my excuse for what seems like a reduced total this year. Four are books of poetry; ten are non-fiction with seven of those being biographical-ish; only nine are audiobooks (compared with thirteen last year); twenty by men, leaving thirty seven by women. I have not included my April A to Z Challenge that was reviews of children's books but you can check them out with this link. I think there has been some good reading though and the favourites this year would definitely be Care of Wooden Floors and The Tiger's Wife. 

1. Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
2. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
3. When I am playing with my cat ... by Saul Frampton
4. Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
5. A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates
6. District and Circle by Seamus Heaney
7. A Scattering by Christopher Reid
8. Howard's End by E.M. Forster
9. Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith
10. Lost and Found by Tom Winter
11. Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
12. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
13. Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville
14. The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
15. Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett
16. Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles
17. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
18. Nemesis by Philip Roth
19. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
20. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
21. The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski
22. Y by Marjorie Celona
23. If I told You Once by Judy Budnitz
24. This isn't the sort of thing that happens to someone like you by Jon McGregor
25. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
26. The Touchstone by Edith Wharton
27. The Swimmer by Roma Tearne
28. The Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy
29. Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
30. The Father by Sharon Olds
31. Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
32. Wise Children by Angela Carter
33. Austerlitz by W.G. Seabald
34. The man who mistook his wife for a hat by Oliver Sacks
35. After the Fire, a still small voice by Evie Wyld
36. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolley
37. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
38. New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani
39. When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson
40. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
41. A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didon
42. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
44. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté
45. A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
46. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
47. I Feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephron
48. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
49. Kissing The Witch by Emma Donoghue
50. Unless by Carol Sheilds
51. Mr Lynch's Holiday by Catherine O'Flynn
52. Sartre's Sink by Mark Crick
53. Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
54. The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn
55. Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope
56. Sick Notes by Gwendoline Riley
57. The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

Bookish Christmas tree and all that

I have spent yet another day delivering Christmas cards to the 'wrong' address, or I should say the 'right' address, but not the one on the front of the envelope. It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't know where their friends live. But this evening we are finally getting festive and our Christmas tree this year has been made of books, this way we save a tree being pointlessly chopped down and can spend the £30 on more books instead.

Tish has been making this most fabulous santa sleigh with a knitted santa and three reindeer and a pile of tiny presents.

I have been knitting too; I started this sweater back in the summer when there was the offer of a move to management and I needed some 'smart' clothes. Since the Royal Mail selloff fiasco however that's all gone down the toilet been put on indefinite hold so there was no urgency to finish it. The pattern is called Corrina and it has been done with some more lovely wool silk from Kingcraig Fabrics. 

These are the Squirrel mitts from Fair Isle Style by Mary Jane Mucklestone that Julie and I invested in together. They are so lovely and snug but now I am just going to be too worried about loosing them to wear them out. 

The Emperor's Children

Claire Messud's book 'The Emperor's Children' was long listed for the Booker back whenever and it certainly tackles many issues surrounding social whatnots in modern affluent America. The twists and turns of the plot kept me listening through the 16 tapes (the library still has some books on tape though I believe they are being phased out) almost because rather than in spite of the fact none of the characters are very likeable. Marina, Danielle and Julius, despite their expensive education and their privileged backgrounds are struggling to make their mark on the world. Danielle is briefly smitten by Ludovick Seeley, a magazine editor, but he is naturally more taken with her beautiful friend Marina. Julius falls for his handsome (and rich) boss and they seem to quickly form an intense though somewhat superficial relationship, that just as rapidly unravels when Julius' proclivity for casual sex gets the better of him. Danielle is then seduced by Murray, Marina's father, a much respected writer and intellectual; apparently a regular occurrence for him, giving in to self indulgence and self-gratification that his wife turns a blind eye to, while she thinks she has found her soul mate. Crashing into their lives comes firstly cousin Booty, escaping shallow formal education for the inspiration of his idol Uncle Murray, an idealism that is soon to be shattered, and secondly the events of September 11th 2001. While not specifically, I felt, a novel about the effects of the attacks it is obviously something that has impacted greatly on the way American's view themselves and their society, but I don't really feel qualified to comment on what that impact is. I felt that for the characters in the story it was all still very personal, rather than political, how it affected their individual lives, it didn't seem to cause any of them to look or think outside their own narrow concerns. That's all really, she seems to be much admired for her astute social observations and analysis but I found the people shallow and on occasion their behaviour was a trifle clichéd. While I found the story engaging and the characters believable I don't think I cared enough about any of them. Shrug and move on to better things.

Sick Notes

'Sick Notes' by Gwendoline Riley was picked up in a charity shop, probably simply because she is a local writer. It is the story of Esther who has come back, we know not where from, to a flat in Manchester that she shares with her friend Donna. Pretty much she mooches around for a few months, sleeps with a few people, gets drunk a lot, stares at the ceiling, hides under the grubby duvet and doesn't really know what to do with the rest of her life. And then it ends. She does mention having a bath at one point but the book left me with an urgent need to wash my hands, which is possibly the most unusual reaction I have had to a piece of literature. 

This description from a brief stint at a boarding school where she meets Donna sets the tone somehow:
"At mealtimes we carried our food in moulded trays to large round tables. We poured glasses of squash from a huge jug. It was unwieldy, loosing its centre of gravity in those small hands and short arms, so the drinks as always sloshing out, sticking the paper cloth to the Formica then dripping over the table lip onto our laps. Whenever I spilt I heard my mum saying, 'You've never understood liquids, have you?' " (p.25) 

And from there we move to a description of her mother's hoarding habit, her obsessive inability to throw anything away:
"One afternoon when I was skipping school I was making myself a cup of tea and I threw out a carton of sour milk. While the fridge door was open I found myself going though all the shelves in there, dropping jars of furry jam, a cracked block of cheese, my brother's half-finished turkey steak (that she'd put in a jiffy bag a week ago) into the bin too. I emptied the rotting contents of a stack of plastic tubs, and then from one cupboard I threw out a dozen empty jam jars, a box of pellet-dry raisins and a bag of grub infested flour." (p.34)

Everywhere just has this feeling of neglect, even squalor, as if people are only passing through, not stopping long, so it's not worth their trouble to take any care. This is the bar, where Donna works (and this seems to be describing the scene shown in the front cover image):
"I take my drink to one of the empty tables near the back of the room; lean back then lay back on it. I feel its viscid surface velcroing my coat. I lie completely still, with my mug on my chest, listening to my breathing and staring up at a tight tangle of wires falling through a hole in the patchy plaster. A sickly yellow glows in two enormous, leaded glass light shades which hang askew on gold chains." (p.43-4)

And the room she lives in:
"My room is a barren tip. The boxes are still stacked in the corners, the bare duvet is on the floor by the record player and there are half-full mugs and scraps of scrawled-on paper everywhere.
'As you can see: I'm currently - riding the crest of a slump,' I say. 'Excuse the ...'
I sweep a hand around the carnage, but he isn't looking anywhere except at me. There are unfinished books everywhere: resting open on my bed like pitched roofs, like dead birds. He picks one up as he sits down next to me." (p.93)

And then on the bus:
"Upstairs on the bus I sit in the last empty double seat. The thin air is dank and there's a breathy grey film on the windows. There's the smell of worn-out mint gum and of sweet shampoo, from the girl in front of me who is combing her wet blonde hair out over and over. I watch her and I don't think of anything. Then I watch a puddle of spilt drink in the aisle elongating with the acceleration, licking at a screwed-up sweet wrapper as the bus heaves itself away from a stop." (p.117)

I partly enjoyed the book because as she wanders she recites places and streets that are so familiar so I can visualise her environment: Market Street, Oldham Street, Hulme Asda, Central Library, the Arndale, Victoria Station, Piccadilly Gardens. It wasn't until I was browsing for quotes when I came across the reason why it is entitled Sick Notes; she refers to writing sick notes for herself for the last two years of school, and it occurred to me that the story of this interlude in her life is a kind of sick note, a made up excuse to avoid getting on with the serious business of living. I think this is why there is such a thing as Young Adult fiction, because, although I liked the book, it is such a long time since I have had things and people to be responsible for that I cannot recall what it is like to have *nothing* to do, no demands on your time and no one to consider but yourself. It was as if I was reading the thoughts of another species. 

The book is wonderfully astute and full of little details of observation that make it very immediate. I'll give you two tiny sentences that counteract the grubbiness of all the other quotes:
"When I crouch down to tie a lace that's trailing through old puddles I see how the setting sun is making sparks of the hairs on my ankles." (p.139)
"I'm reading the graffiti on the bench, fitting my thumbnail in the lines of the runic romances." (p.169)

So, what is it all about? I'm not really sure, but it did inspire me to take maybe a 'sick day' sometime, to do nothing, to wander aimlessly and see where it takes me. But the middle aged me needs a day without rain.

Homage to Wendy Cope

Some poets are pretentious
but Wendy's not one to drone
she likes to keep us entertained
with insights all her own.

One man failed to bring her flowers
and took the corkscrew from her flat
but she doesn't really mourn him
at least no more than she does the cat

She knows she needs to sober up
she tries with good intent
but yoga and the swimming pool
lead only to lament.

There's the snoring and the arguing
but as a man he's barely to blame
and he is her favourite poet
so she loves him all the same.

She likes to widen her appeal
with cricket and football
but returns almost inevitably 
to complaints about the rain fall.

Then she can be much more lyrical
with chestnut trees and cold bus stops,
Houseman, Eliot and Wordsworth,

and Nanna's wooly socks.

A poet's life is pretty rough
both in the country and in town
they don't get paid much money
and their poems often get turned down.

Wendy Cope's 'Serious Concerns' has been the final book in my 2013 TBR Pile Challenge, which I mostly read aloud in bed. I get the impression that rhyme is not as popular as it once was amongst poets but it certainly is her forte, and she has pithy insights on many aspects of the human condition. Her love poems lurch between chilly indifference and joyful obsession, as if there is no happy medium. I guess I like her partly because she is obviously a pragmatist, and failing that a stiff drink will deal with most of life's difficulties. 

All that is left on my challenge pile is Margaret Atwood's 'The Blind Assassin', which I may still get around to. The only one I ditched was 'The Slap' by Christos Tsiolkas. I was so overwhelmed by the vast number of characters he introduced in the first few pages that I couldn't recall who was who, and there were some really awful parents who I just knew were going to irritate me. I was disappointed as I had been looking forward to the story. Already itching to get started on next year's pile, but will probably also be joining in again with the TBR Triple Dog Dare, which runs from January to April and also restricts reading to books you already have in your stack.