The Best Book in the House and other stories

Ian Bostridge's Schubert's Winter Journey (Faber) has obviated the necessity of the long thought-about but never attempted series here on 'The Best Book in the House'. I've just finished it and it is exactly that.
What I had envisaged was a set of categories - Fiction, Poetry, Biography, Sport, Science, Music, Art, etc. - from which I'd select, say, three titles in each from the several books I have (it's probably not 2000 but might be over 1500) to make up a longlist and then somehow winnow it down to a shortlist and then one. Titles like Joyce's Dubliners, the copy of Touch signed for me by Thom Gunn in Cambridge in 1979, Mozart's letters, maybe one of Don Paterson's brilliant books on poetry, would have been contenders while the best biography, Hermione Lee's Virginia Woolf, isn't actually in the house. But now it's all unnecessary.
Bostridge transcends his subject matter throughout. Winterreise is a starting point, with each poem set out in German and English, before he goes well beyond the songs into context, history, wide-ranging associations and a profound understanding of some valuable, liberal ideas. He is much more than a singer and I am compelled to buy one of his recordings now to set beside the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Don't be put off by the highbrow idea of a book about a Schubert song cycle, it is much more than that and I can hardly recommend it highly enough.  
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And it is, of course, here that you (however few of you there are) come for book recommendations. I only read the ones I think I'll like and it is the anatomy of my own minor obsession. It's better to come here than subscribe to the TLS, which this week reviews three books mentioned here some time ago. And they do it so bloody 'properly', don't they.
The Emma Smith This is Shakespeare, the story of Faber & Faber and Jane Yeh's Discipline were all given due consideration here soon after they appeared, which is the beauty of the internet. I thought the idea of reading such a journal of much-vaunted augustness was to find out which books to read but it seems to be operating in reverse. I think it's got to go.
I'll miss the crossword, the thoughts of Sean O'Brien in his Freelance column and impressing myself when I get more than half of the crossword filled in but it's not as good as it thinks it is. I'm not convinced Gramophone is worth my while in perpetuity either but that's not Gramophone's fault.
I like a magazine. I still somehow miss The Listener from the 1970's, but not its crossword. But I don't think there is a magazine that does what I want. Book reviews, a few poems, essays, entertainment, no axe to grind, crossword, chess column. Looks like I'll have to write it myself.
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The Tour de France, which I hadn't envisaged being anything special this year, has provided two extra-ordinary days in the Alps. Yesterday was one of the greatest days of bike racing I've ever seen, notwithstanding the WTTA 12 Hours of 1994-96, while today's was potentially building to something similar when it had to be stopped due to freak weather. Very unfair on the brave Julian Alaphilippe, who will always be able to say he was still defending his yellow jersey when robbed of it; maybe it did G a favour and put a limit on his losses but who can say.
Freak weather. I've been most grateful for today's milder conditions having sweltered this week. I hope the climate change deniers will finally shut up. It is industry, capitalism and Donald Trump that cause our discomfort although, yes, we started it with our industrial revolution. We started most things but now we are not in a position to stop them.
We blunder into these situations relentlessly. I do, really, want to shut up about Boris Johnson but how can one. On top of his tax cuts, he promises a spend, spend, spend programme that would shame a Labour governnement's borrowing requirement. And they never though of promising to make Britain a paradise on Earth.
Maths is not his strong point. Beyond narcissism, not universally acknowledged as a virtue, not much is.
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What one needs is a bit of,
Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason  

That is Keats, attractively offering a way of getting by. Boris certainly doesn't trouble himself with too many facts and, in a way, we could credit him with 'negative capability' but not in a good way.
It is one of many enlightening themes encompassed by Ian Bostridge and it stirred up a 40 year old idea.
Reckoning my time better spent on dissertations rather then waiting for exams at university, I readily took that option whenever available and proposed to write about 'negative capability' rather than do Romantic Literature. It was considered not suitable for an undergraduate 15000 words so I went to C17th Literature and did Marvell instead but I think there's 15000 words to do on it. My long-considered retirement might present an opportunity once the Shakespeare booklet is written and hidden on a memory stick.

Britain Trump

And there was me thinking I'd packed up writing poems.

Needs must. 

Britain Trump

they call him Britain Trump,

          The President of the United States of America

When one incompetent scoundrel

Endorses another,

Alarms go off, a warning bell

Tells us to take cover.

All afternoon a news blackout

Was imposed where I live.

I dare not look. This lazy lout

That I’ll never forgive

For simply being what he is,

Who said he wasn’t fit

In one of his better speeches,

Is still, somehow, now it.

Isata Kanneh-Mason, Romance

Isata Kanneh-Mason, Romance, the piano music of Clara Schumann (Decca)

This album arrived just in time. Rather than watch the blundering buffoon wallow in his own self-aggrandisement, I took a moment to consider joining the Liberal Democrats and then took refuge in this beautiful music.
Isata is not just Sheku's sister and was never going to be. And Clara Schumann isn't just more Chopin or Mendelssohn although if it said so on the label, it would fool me.
The Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 7 was begun by Clara aged 13 and first performed aged 16. Isata is 23 and Romanticism is perhaps a young person's thing, before they have the chance to become jaded. But it was Romanticism that became jaded eventually. While still lyrical and caressing in the hands of Schubert, Mendelssohn and the Schumanns it was gorgeous and is always welcome when I'm on holiday from the baroque.
The concerto, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, is the opening flourish- dramatic and possibly strident in places. She arrives confident and fully formed. But it's not flash, not even for the sake of it. It seems to me Isata best moments are in quiet reflection, or in relating the Schumanns' thoughts when they are thus. It might be that first impressions, although I'm on my fourth already, make the transcriptions of Robert's Widmung, that may or may not quote Ave Maria, and Mondnacht marginal stand-outs but the album benefits from being played as a whole and it is lovely throughout, not least in the 3 Romances for violin and piano, op.22 with Elena Urioste a marvellous companion to follow and interact with.
We are left with the Piano Sonata in  G minor, thoughtful and playful, so that all there is to do is listen to it all again. It will be some time before this is filed on the shelves and it might be longer than I thought before I return to homeground with music of earlier periods. If I were still in the business of nominating the year's best in poetry, books and music, this would be at least shortlist material, luminous, informative and not a trace of gender politics correctness in sight.
Goodness gracious. It's things like this make you realize why you do it.   

Never blotted a line

I came across this in a pile of papers this morning, the first and only draft of Windy Miller.

Once in a blue moon it happens like that. The idea comes fully formed and you only have to aim the biro at the paper and it writes it out for you. And they are often the best ones, not compromised by adjustments, fiddling, revisions and workshoppery. I can think of two others that happened to me and would be interested to know which, if any, arrived thus for others.

However grateful I was for it, when I sent it to About Larkin, they chose the one I sent with it. I believe that happens, too.

I wonder how much the university libraries will bid each other up to for possession of it.
Do I hear the price of a large gin and tonic?
No, I don't.

Oh, Recent Reading, What Would You Say

Despite the best efforts of every newspaper and magazine with their Summer Reading features, I do sometimes arrive at a period of time off with nothing new to read. It’s not a problem per se as upstairs, never mind downstairs, has plenty of books to re-read notwithstanding the daunting prospect of resuming Proust after 37 years.

I didn’t have that syndrome this time. I have a few non-new release titles to mention and further on hand. The major bugbear this time is the connection being down, including telephone, so not only can I not access all the e-mails that have flooded in from friends and the great and good, I’m typing this into Word and will copy it onto the internet later so that you, one of the precious few elite who come here to read, can see it.

Catching up with my Sebastian Faulks backlog I borrowed, rather than begged or stole, Paris Echo although it will have to be bought to maintain that vaguely completist set of the ‘proper’ novels. It became as moving as his blub normally claims him to be in its later stages. Having read that a criticism of McEwan is that he mentions wine too often and thus betrays his class status, one does wonder if Camus is more authentic on France, the war there and Algerian immigrants. It’s a worry but need not be if the fiction convinces. I’m not one to insist on authenticity or any individual’s right to write about whatever they decided but if it doesn’t entirely convince, doubts can creep in.

Not for the first time, Sebastian uses the device of a character looking back via archive material. But that story, again in a way we are accustomed to, is woven into other strands, some of which are sexier than one might feel like writing oneself but that’s another area that he’s not been afraid of. While unquestionably adept at producing highly readable novels he has in common with McEwan that sometimes one or two things beg the question and diligent research might not always be adequate compensation for knowing first-hand.

One couldn’t accuse John Francome’s Born Lucky of that. There is no one I’d rather read on the subject of ‘being a jockey’ but this is a book that surprises in the same way that ‘what it was like in the 70’s’ comes as a surprise to younger generations of comedians who appear on telly to raise their eyebrows and be astonished at what levels of now unacceptable sexism and racism used to pass for humour. I bow only to those who have ridden horses in my admiration of Francome’s horse riding and thought I’d also like his laconic wit but the acceptable quotient of laddishness, with is increased by the Smith-Eccles co-efficient whenever a story involves his mate, is exceeded when driving on the public highway. I don’t mind his bare-faced cheek to the stewards and his admissions of cheating are at least more honest than the abstruse arguments offered by Lance Armstrong but we have surely now moved on from larking about in motor vehicles. I don’t think even Clarkson or the Hamster would approve of all of such behaviour by now. You rode Border Incident, Swindon boy, and should be grateful.

You wouldn’t find Ian Bostridge celebrating laddishness. His Schubert’s Winter Journey, the ‘anatomy of an obsession’ with Winterreise is a stout book, investigating and making all kinds of connections from the song cycle through Schubert himself, the poetry of Muller and  the themes therein in an entirely convincing and compelling way. It is what the best art makes one do and Ian Bostridge does it tremendously well. It puts the songs in context, at the dreamiest, most self-indulgent height of Romanticism, with contemporary thought and politics as well as making connections far beyond. Wearing its wide learning very comfortably, it makes both the book and the music it describes resonate gorgeously and ought to take its place among the frontrunners (and where have I heard that word far too often in recent weeks) if I ever embarked on the series of articles most portentously aimed at deciding ‘The Best Book in the House’.

And still to come are the biography of Lou Reed by Anthony DeCurtis. Lou, of course, my fondly imagined soulmate who worked in a hit factory, which must be the best job in the world, to setting the template for every worthwhile definition of ‘cool’ with the Velvet Underground. You can’t leave a book like that in a charity shop that only wants £1 for it.

And it would be unbecoming of me if I didn’t follow up a recommendation for Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann. A few of my very favourite things (Patrick Hamilton, The Magnetic Fields) have come from recommendations from trusted friends. I wasn’t averse to following up this tip because I remembered Thomas Mann from several decades ago as the author of short novels. Top marks to my friendly postlady for managing to get these 500 pages through the letterbox. We will find out how trusted this recommender is once I’ve battled through it.

Oh, World Cup, What Would You Say

It's never straightforward when England win a world cup.
The Association Football in 1966 remains a murky business in some conspiratorial places. The 2003 Rugby Union was won by a perfectly legitimate last kick of the game, not that I'd noticed the game having any comprehensible rules. The cricket in 2019 was also perfectly legitimate although ostensibly unfair, the rules of cricket in such esoteric circumstances needing to be consulted carefully.  (Footnote- one might also note that the Wimbledon Men's Final happening at the same time was awarded to Djokovic, who won 23 games and 3 tie-breaks compared to Federer's 30 games. So there was no need for tie-breaks.)

It is the six runs awarded to England from the boundary resulting from overthrows that has raised doubts, notwithstanding the arbitrariness that in the event of a tied super over, the side who scored the most boundaries are deemed the winners. And neitherwithstanding that New Zealand lost 8 wickets whereas England were all out, which is surely better and was once how it was.
It has been suggested, by New Zealand, that only five runs should have been awarded because the batsmen hadn't crossed when the fielder released the ball for that ill-fated run out attempt. They must wish they'd never tried. But let's have a look at the law.

19.8 Overthrow or wilful act of fielder
If the boundary results from an overthrow or from the wilful act of a fielder, the runs scored shall be
          any runs for penalties awarded to either side
and     the allowance for the boundary
and     the runs completed by the batsmen, together with the run in progress if they had
          already crossed at the instant of the throw or act.

Oh, I see. 'If the boundary results from an overthrow'. But it didn't result from the overthrow, which a top professional side like New Zealand had covered by a fielder 'backing up' on the opposite side of the stumps. It resulted from the subsequent, accidental impact with Stokes's bat that diverted it to an unprotected area of the boundary.
That was very hard luck on New Zealand. The super over, the wide, the six, the three yards short on the second run attempted on the last ball should all have been unnecessary but you need a bit of luck in running and England got all of theirs in one enormous lump when the match, and the world cup, had really eluded them.
But even that is not the point these days. We had the thrills, possibly the greatest game of cricket ever played with the most unlikely finish and everybody had a good time. It was a nice day, plenty of cash was spent and regarded as well spent. Who wins isn't really the point. As it says of the scorer in the poem, The Summer Game, 

                                  For his
is the drudgery of knowing
who, if anyone, won and why  

Overwhelming

I can't say I'm impressed with the definition of 'overwhelming' in Google Dictionary but the synonyms are interesting-
 

overwhelming

/əʊvəˈwɛlmɪŋ/

adjective

very great in amount.

very large, profuse, enormous, immense, inordinate, massive, huge, formidable, stupendous, prodigious, fantastic, staggering, shattering, devastating, sweeping

The College Chump last night went unchallenged as he said the 52-48% referendum result had been overwhelming although that was the very margin cited by his Leaver croney, Mr. Farage, as meaning the argument wasn't over if he had, as he thought, lost by that amount. But why would one challenge him. Whenever questioned about the quicksand of blather he skates across, he only continues talking about what he wants to talk about, which is mainly harrumph, content-free phrases and hand gestures. For someone of such reputed classical scholarship, his grasp of his own language is partial. Please don't let him be Prime Minister. A Chump at Oxford. Oh, yes, I remember now. Laurel and Hardy.

Poetry Now

I found this, quoted by Tim Love at Litrefs Articles, from Stephen Burt, so it's likely to be right,

"Young poets now tend not to believe that the poetry they publish in books and journals can disclose organic preverbal truths, invigorate broad movements for social justice ... When these ethical spiritual, political, and historical ambitions fall away, what is left is entertainment and craft or, to put it in another way, technique and fun ... The sestina thus fits a poetics of diminished, regretful, comic, self-skepticism."

I'm also very interested in The Incredible Sestinas Anthology,  edited by Daniel Nester, 2013, which is likely to have got itself ordered before the evening is out.
The regularly trumpeted 'poetry booms' usually mean something fashionable like The Mersey Sound, performance poetry or a shouty, bad-tempered lady, not Amazon selling out of John Donne books. We are surely not living in a Golden Age, not even by C20th standards, which doesn't mean that the type of poetry described above, that I recognize as a point well made, is all there is, only that it is one thing that remains viable.
It can't be all there is because poetry can do whatever it likes. By all means do sincerity or something profound but if it's only similar to what went before ot's going to be little more than derivative.
All it has to be is any good.