It's nothing new

It was a dark and stormy day, and the rain came down in torrents; there were wolves in the mountains and bears ...

And then I decided I would actually finish the blog post I started a month ago ...

I recently found a 'reviewing round-up' post from 2018, so it seems I don't have to feel bad about my reviewing neglect because I have been doing it for years. Maybe it's my imagination that I ever wrote long thoughtful reflections on my reading choices.

I have to take Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin back to the library, it is now more than a fortnight overdue ... at least they don't issue fines any more, but that might have poked me into action sooner. Really loved this book. I have not read anything 'old' for ages, Giovanni's Room was first published in 1956. It is about a young man, struggling with his independence and his sexuality, but living a rather irresponsible life in Paris, supported by his father. He is engaged to Hella but meets Giovanni in a bar and begins what he thinks of as a summer fling with him, only to become more embroiled than he anticipated. It is quite torturous in fact, how he talks himself round in circles, unable to take responsibility for anything or make any real decisions. I did not like him much but I felt his suffering.

Here, talking about another brief entanglement:

"My father's attitude was that this was but an inevitable phase of my growing up and he affected to take it lightly. But beneath is jocular, boys-together air, he was at a loss, he was frightened. Perhaps he had supposed that my growing up would bring us closer together - whereas, now that he was trying to find out something about me, I was in full flight from him. I did not want him to know me. I did not want anyone to know me. And then, again, I was undergoing with my father what the very young inevitably undergo with their elders: I was beginning to judge him. And the very harshness of this judgement, which broke my heart, revealed, though I could not have said it then, how much I loved him, how that love, along with my innocence, was dying." (p.14)

'Our Sister Killjoy' by Ama Ata Aidoo was the book club book for October. A reissue from 1977 I wanted to like it, because it was interesting experimental fiction in it's time but it was only ok.

'The Witches of El Paso' by Luis Jaramillo was the book club book for November. I did enjoy this more; I didn't realise till I looked that the author is a man, because it was a book populated by excellent women. 

'Take Nothing With You' by Patrick Gale was a delight, because everything he writes is a delight, about a young boy playing the cello, living in an old people's home and growing up gay in a boring seaside town. 

"Death was a regular caller at the old people's home, of course, especially in the spring, when the turning-down of central heating and opening of windows seemed to make the residents' birdlike grip on their perches less tenacious. Eustace had observed that, far from upsetting the survivors, death was as much a provoker of excitement as a visit from a minor royal or the winning of a premium-bond prize. A funeral was an excursion of sorts, with all the fuss and novelty that entailed, and there was always a tea party afterwards, at which his father served sherry, which went down very swiftly and made everyone a bit noisy and even less steady on their feet." (p.98)

'The Wonder' by Emma Donoghue was unexpected. A nurse travels to Ireland to oversee a young girl who is apparently surviving without food. The church wants to declare a miracle, but she is sure the whole thing is a scam. Things take an unexpected turn as she gets to know and become fond of Anna, getting to the bottom of what is going on and finding an interesting solution.

After Michael Longley died earlier this year I looked him up, there were several obituaries and I had not heard of him. His name on the back of an envelope sat in my backpack since then, and I finally tracked down this one, 'The Ghost Orchid". Lots of academic references and lovely imagery, making for a mixed bag of ones I loved and ones I did not understand.

Here, have the title poem;

The Ghost Orchid

Added to its few remaining sites will be the stanza

I compose about leaves like fakes of skin, a colour

Dithering between pink and yellow, and then the root

That grows like coral among the shadows and leaf-litter.

Just touching the petals bruises them into darkness.

Stay safe. Be kind. Get a flu jab.