My least favourite sporting event of the year is not the silly horse racing team game at Ascot in August, the Shergar Cup, nor is it any car racing, none of the football, the T20 cricket, all overhyped box office products of little consequence that they may be - it is the Ryder Cup.
I remember how desperate they were to make it competitive that they had to bring Europe in to help the UK out, since when it has been sold to those who do as they are told as something of awesome significance. But, no, golf's bad enough without reducing it to this tedium. It means avoiding Radio 5 all weekend, which isn't that hard to do, and hoping it doesn't intrude into the Danny Baker Show.
It only demonstrates to me that if you want to sell something badly enough, there are usually people dumb enough to buy it. As if it's worth keeping Oliver Kamm's relentlessly repetitive grammar column in The Times on Saturday because market research tells them it is a contributory factor in making some people buy the paper because reading him makes them feel clever. (It worked on me for a little while).
--
Which is seconded by our old mate, Jacob. That was a consummate performance on Question Time, attentive, well-organized, polite and impressive. So much so that one hardly noticed, among the two other yobs representing the more bullish gender, Rod Liddle and the Labour stalwart, that his main argument for Leave is to benefit his extensive portfolio of worldwide investment funds which, in the midst of that brouhaha, he was able to confess with impunity.
He is very good at what he does. He might say he doesn't want to unseat the Prime Minister, only to change her mind on one thing. I'm the same with him. I'd like somebody that good to lead a centrist, Roy Jenkins-type revival, so I've only got to change his mind about virtually everything, plus perhaps his hairstyle, and we'll be fine.
--
Another weekend, another long lie down. In fact the first for three weeks, and thus overdue. I mean, doing things and going places is all very well but it eventually doesn't compare with indolence, that one can learn to grow into.
It is so glamorous and tempting that I wonder what would happen if I didn't write anything. No more poems, not the Red Herring book, perhaps not even this. Would it be possible to read a book, attend a concert or listen to a new record without wanting to say something about it. It would be difficult and I might not even bother to think anything about them if I didn't. It seems a bit Buddhist, or some such thing, but might be worth a try.
Meanwhile, the distracted process continues whereby one isn't committed enough to one book (The Waves) before another turns up that one would prefer to read (Jane Glover's Handel in London), which is betting without the few weeks' worth of things put by. It becomes a sort of flow, opting to allow the choicest words to flow over one for the sake of it, not worrying too much what they mean but knowing, to one's deep satisfaction, that one isn't going to have to review it for the TLS, with such informed erudition, but just let it happen.
It's a new biography of Housman, that Amazon have at £11.50, not £25, for 500 pages, they have in there this week. Can't they shift it, I wonder. On the other hand, does Housman deserve to be the next poet whose biography I read when I haven't read one of Tennyson yet.
But I have an idea that it might be possible for the onset of age to bring with it a glimpse of the peace that passeth all understanding, and that might be something worth having.
Friday, 28 September 2018
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Richard Williams - Landings
Richard Williams, Landings (Dempsey & Windle)
One great advantage of publishing a first collection in one's fifties is that there is still everything to select from so it comes as no surprise that Richard Williams's first book doesn't look like a debut and hits the ground very sure-footedly. It's a bit hard to believe that it is his first collection but maybe the point is that the point isn't to stack up titles and ISBN numbers in a back catalogue or curriculum vitae and simply write, take part and do it. Richard has for some time been a much-admired contributor to a poetry community in Portsmouth that few similar places have.
That is one way in which we differ. Another is that, not being native to the city, Richard has whole-heartedly adopted it and regards it as his proper home, whereas I'm not able to do that. But, having worked with him on a poetry project a couple of years ago, I know we don't 'differ' as such, only as far as he's a 'top bloke' whereas I'm reluctant to be anything of the sort.
He also has a tremendous, very independent publisher, committed to doing what they believe in and, having met them on Thursday, irrepressible. One is very grateful that such people should be living at this hour.
But, oh, yes, there is some writing to say about. In 56 pages, plus two photographs, Landings covers a lot of ground without ever losing a consistent, recognizable tone or doing the same thing twice.
There are fine 'page' poems but, if anything, having now heard several 'in performance', Richard isn't overly besotted with formal constraints and those that work best are those that work 'live' in what one like me might call the acceptable face of performance poetry.
There are prose poems, which immediately present a difficulty for one whose definition of poetry is 'writing where the author decides where the lines end rather than the typesetter'. But prose poems were originally largely a French thing, thus chic and sophisticated, and anybody who tries to define poetry will sooner rather than later be subverted by work that doesn't comply with their definition. So, it's writing, isn't it, and we should worry less about such arcane niceties because I don't think Richard does.
Early doors we have a gob-stopper as trope or extended metaphor which I'm not aware even John Donne ever did; more intimately,
An argument that can't be undone,
that time has knotted into a scar
as much a tattoo as any ink
are apparently understated but powerful lines that look very natural and could have come easily, which the best lines usually do; You is also tender but it's difficult to decide whether or not the extended meditations, as in the title poem, aren't more successful.
We are taken from the very local to the vastness of space travel, from the grass roots of 'proper' football to a very decent lament for where a series of wrong turnings have led us. Because Richard hasn't lost much of his early political faith.
His reading in the Square Tower on Thursday was a gathering of a variety of what might have once been called 'free thinkers' but by now, circumstances being what they are, with all the 'make-believe authenticity' we are surrounded by, have become almost re-disenfranchised. And what is there to do about it beyond record it meaningfully. I don't know either.
Press on regardless. Don't go away. Keep Hope Alive.
I don't envisage any 'difficult second album' syndrome afflicting Richard Williams, whenever he cares to consider the option.
One great advantage of publishing a first collection in one's fifties is that there is still everything to select from so it comes as no surprise that Richard Williams's first book doesn't look like a debut and hits the ground very sure-footedly. It's a bit hard to believe that it is his first collection but maybe the point is that the point isn't to stack up titles and ISBN numbers in a back catalogue or curriculum vitae and simply write, take part and do it. Richard has for some time been a much-admired contributor to a poetry community in Portsmouth that few similar places have.That is one way in which we differ. Another is that, not being native to the city, Richard has whole-heartedly adopted it and regards it as his proper home, whereas I'm not able to do that. But, having worked with him on a poetry project a couple of years ago, I know we don't 'differ' as such, only as far as he's a 'top bloke' whereas I'm reluctant to be anything of the sort.
He also has a tremendous, very independent publisher, committed to doing what they believe in and, having met them on Thursday, irrepressible. One is very grateful that such people should be living at this hour.
But, oh, yes, there is some writing to say about. In 56 pages, plus two photographs, Landings covers a lot of ground without ever losing a consistent, recognizable tone or doing the same thing twice.
There are fine 'page' poems but, if anything, having now heard several 'in performance', Richard isn't overly besotted with formal constraints and those that work best are those that work 'live' in what one like me might call the acceptable face of performance poetry.
There are prose poems, which immediately present a difficulty for one whose definition of poetry is 'writing where the author decides where the lines end rather than the typesetter'. But prose poems were originally largely a French thing, thus chic and sophisticated, and anybody who tries to define poetry will sooner rather than later be subverted by work that doesn't comply with their definition. So, it's writing, isn't it, and we should worry less about such arcane niceties because I don't think Richard does.
Early doors we have a gob-stopper as trope or extended metaphor which I'm not aware even John Donne ever did; more intimately,
An argument that can't be undone,
that time has knotted into a scar
as much a tattoo as any ink
are apparently understated but powerful lines that look very natural and could have come easily, which the best lines usually do; You is also tender but it's difficult to decide whether or not the extended meditations, as in the title poem, aren't more successful.
We are taken from the very local to the vastness of space travel, from the grass roots of 'proper' football to a very decent lament for where a series of wrong turnings have led us. Because Richard hasn't lost much of his early political faith.
His reading in the Square Tower on Thursday was a gathering of a variety of what might have once been called 'free thinkers' but by now, circumstances being what they are, with all the 'make-believe authenticity' we are surrounded by, have become almost re-disenfranchised. And what is there to do about it beyond record it meaningfully. I don't know either.
Press on regardless. Don't go away. Keep Hope Alive.
I don't envisage any 'difficult second album' syndrome afflicting Richard Williams, whenever he cares to consider the option.
Natalie Clein at Wigmore Hall
Natalie Clain, with Yeol Eum Son, Wigmore Hall, Sept 23
The final event in my bespoke, self-curated September festival was fittingly a favourite artist in the favourite venue with the big name topping the bill of the last two weeks of specially selected gigs. And it will last longest in the memory, good though all the others were.
Natalie has made Bloch something of a personal project, his music being in her own DNA, she says. And maybe, it turns out, mine too.
The Suite from Jewish Life is drenched in the melancholy of that culture, those thousands of years of mournful yearning, whether that be due to the endless wait for the messiah or a character trait born of wandering, rootless after the fall of Jerusalem, through stetl and ghetto, disapora and persecution. But it is moving, deeply felt stuff as long as we don't allow in self-pity on too large a scale.
Natalie's well-thought-out programme possibly began with its high point and receded gradually from it but that was not to be regretted. Bloch's Suite no.1 for solo cello had more dance rhtyhms in it, perhaps recalling the Bach Suites although it is to easy to compare much solo cello music with those cornerstones of the repertoire and it is not to be encouraged.
Yeol Eum Son was back for Vaughan Williams's Six Studies in English Folksong, much more than an accompanist and on occasion rivalling Natalie for our attention. The old maestro of Down Ampney was here as much an elegist for the English pastoral as Bloch is for the Old Testament faith. There was no need to bring pre-conceived ideas of those lost idylls to inform one's listening, with which Vaughan Williams had imbued each piece. Essentially songs without words, some songs are often better like that, music being more versatile without texts to direct our interpretation or offer overly specific meaning.
Frank Bridge's Cello Sonata in D minor was bigger, more expansive and, guessing a bit here, musically more complex and a fine thing but thus not quite as readily placeable as Bloch or Vaughan Williams. It is a bit of a surprise to find that it is the earliest piece of these, and Bridge pre-deceased the other two, but it is the least 'nostalgic' work, too, less backward-looking. If Natalie missed a note or two, I'm not that concerned and always think of Tasmin Little talking about one coherent performance being better than a technical perfect one. The cello is the richest and most gorgeous of musical instruments and never sounded better than in her hands in Fairford Church several years ago.
If she happens to find herself discussed here (some artists do, but she might have more to do than look herself up), I'd be delighted to be reminded of the cellist she made reference to as 'strong', among other things, to put her alongside Rostropovich, Casals, Isserlis, Yo Yo Ma, Tortellier and all in yet another field that one could devote one's whole time to were it not for everything else.
So, it was a visit that exceeded all expectations after I'd waited for a delayed coach at Portsmouth's Ferry Terminal with much foreboding about if the trip was worth it. Of course it was, not just for the concert but for the latest and long overdue use of my friend's ever sympathetic hospitality. I think next time we might need to cover 1974 in more detail, a brief run through the Ablative Absolute and debate which was Medicine Head's best record. And after all that, presumably as a reward for regaling them all evening with some wine-fuelled stories from my wide repertoire, a fine blend of Peter Ustinov, Ken Dodd and Brian Clough, I came away with the spectacular bonus of Jane Glover's new book on Handel in London ahead of my birthday next month. When you've known someone for 47 years, and understood each other very well, one knows a suitable present to buy. I hope he enjoys Mud's Greatest Hits in January.
The final event in my bespoke, self-curated September festival was fittingly a favourite artist in the favourite venue with the big name topping the bill of the last two weeks of specially selected gigs. And it will last longest in the memory, good though all the others were.
Natalie has made Bloch something of a personal project, his music being in her own DNA, she says. And maybe, it turns out, mine too.
The Suite from Jewish Life is drenched in the melancholy of that culture, those thousands of years of mournful yearning, whether that be due to the endless wait for the messiah or a character trait born of wandering, rootless after the fall of Jerusalem, through stetl and ghetto, disapora and persecution. But it is moving, deeply felt stuff as long as we don't allow in self-pity on too large a scale.
Natalie's well-thought-out programme possibly began with its high point and receded gradually from it but that was not to be regretted. Bloch's Suite no.1 for solo cello had more dance rhtyhms in it, perhaps recalling the Bach Suites although it is to easy to compare much solo cello music with those cornerstones of the repertoire and it is not to be encouraged.
Yeol Eum Son was back for Vaughan Williams's Six Studies in English Folksong, much more than an accompanist and on occasion rivalling Natalie for our attention. The old maestro of Down Ampney was here as much an elegist for the English pastoral as Bloch is for the Old Testament faith. There was no need to bring pre-conceived ideas of those lost idylls to inform one's listening, with which Vaughan Williams had imbued each piece. Essentially songs without words, some songs are often better like that, music being more versatile without texts to direct our interpretation or offer overly specific meaning.
Frank Bridge's Cello Sonata in D minor was bigger, more expansive and, guessing a bit here, musically more complex and a fine thing but thus not quite as readily placeable as Bloch or Vaughan Williams. It is a bit of a surprise to find that it is the earliest piece of these, and Bridge pre-deceased the other two, but it is the least 'nostalgic' work, too, less backward-looking. If Natalie missed a note or two, I'm not that concerned and always think of Tasmin Little talking about one coherent performance being better than a technical perfect one. The cello is the richest and most gorgeous of musical instruments and never sounded better than in her hands in Fairford Church several years ago.
If she happens to find herself discussed here (some artists do, but she might have more to do than look herself up), I'd be delighted to be reminded of the cellist she made reference to as 'strong', among other things, to put her alongside Rostropovich, Casals, Isserlis, Yo Yo Ma, Tortellier and all in yet another field that one could devote one's whole time to were it not for everything else.
So, it was a visit that exceeded all expectations after I'd waited for a delayed coach at Portsmouth's Ferry Terminal with much foreboding about if the trip was worth it. Of course it was, not just for the concert but for the latest and long overdue use of my friend's ever sympathetic hospitality. I think next time we might need to cover 1974 in more detail, a brief run through the Ablative Absolute and debate which was Medicine Head's best record. And after all that, presumably as a reward for regaling them all evening with some wine-fuelled stories from my wide repertoire, a fine blend of Peter Ustinov, Ken Dodd and Brian Clough, I came away with the spectacular bonus of Jane Glover's new book on Handel in London ahead of my birthday next month. When you've known someone for 47 years, and understood each other very well, one knows a suitable present to buy. I hope he enjoys Mud's Greatest Hits in January.
Thursday, 20 September 2018
Portsmouth Lunchtime Live ! with James Lloyd Thomas
James Lloyd Thomas, organ, Portsmouth Cathedral, Sept 20th
On the south coast of England on a windswept afternoon, not far from the agitated sea, a man is playing Pachelbel to a meagre audience in the largely unadorned interior of the cathedral. And it matters that he is.
The stately unfolding of the Ciacona in F, having embroidered itself probably more intricately than its famous sibling, returns to its reflective beginnings. For James Lloyd Thomas's programme is 'A Variety of Variations'
Franck's Choral no.2 varies considerably and its logic is less easy to follow although it bursts into demonstrative action after feeling its way a little uncertainly.
The serene modulations of Jeham Alain's Variations sur un theme de Clement Jannequin explored some of the organ's more delicate resources and one could make out its C16th template, whether Jannequin was responsible for it or not. I'm glad I checked. I thought Jannequin was earlier than that.
Anton Heiller - and we were rewarded with some esoteric names today- provided another collage of effects in Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, woodwind, flute and recorder evoking the cuckoo, amongst other things, in what might have been the BBC Radiophonic workshop rather than woodland, before piling in full bore at the end in a riot of organ pipes. And then Henrik Andriessen's Thema met Variatas rounded us off in portentous style, showing that not all such grannd organ work has to be specifically about God even if organs tend to make music sound as if it is.
It is a shame my two weeks of self-curated festival is coming to an end because one could get used to it although it becomes almost like full-time work.
Before the weekend trip to Wigmore Hall for Natalie Clein, I fitted in an additional event, hearing that Portsmouth poet, Richard Williams, was presenting a new collection in the Square Tower (review of his Landings to follow soon). Supported by several of the great and good of the thriving local poetry community, he put in a good shift with a variety of poems that ranged from 'page' to 'performance', football and local history to politics and lyricism. A big added bonus was a second half of music from Crossing the Line, fine musicians all three (briefly four) of them with their set of C20th Americana.
You sometimes need to know where to look, or be lucky enough to have these things pointed out, but there is plenty going on. Many of these stalwarts want to make the world a better place but they are fragmented whereas the forces for bad are somehow more concerted even if retaining the luxury of indulging their own ambitions at the same time. But they already do make the world far better than it would be without them.
On the south coast of England on a windswept afternoon, not far from the agitated sea, a man is playing Pachelbel to a meagre audience in the largely unadorned interior of the cathedral. And it matters that he is.
The stately unfolding of the Ciacona in F, having embroidered itself probably more intricately than its famous sibling, returns to its reflective beginnings. For James Lloyd Thomas's programme is 'A Variety of Variations'
Franck's Choral no.2 varies considerably and its logic is less easy to follow although it bursts into demonstrative action after feeling its way a little uncertainly.
The serene modulations of Jeham Alain's Variations sur un theme de Clement Jannequin explored some of the organ's more delicate resources and one could make out its C16th template, whether Jannequin was responsible for it or not. I'm glad I checked. I thought Jannequin was earlier than that.
Anton Heiller - and we were rewarded with some esoteric names today- provided another collage of effects in Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, woodwind, flute and recorder evoking the cuckoo, amongst other things, in what might have been the BBC Radiophonic workshop rather than woodland, before piling in full bore at the end in a riot of organ pipes. And then Henrik Andriessen's Thema met Variatas rounded us off in portentous style, showing that not all such grannd organ work has to be specifically about God even if organs tend to make music sound as if it is.
It is a shame my two weeks of self-curated festival is coming to an end because one could get used to it although it becomes almost like full-time work.
Before the weekend trip to Wigmore Hall for Natalie Clein, I fitted in an additional event, hearing that Portsmouth poet, Richard Williams, was presenting a new collection in the Square Tower (review of his Landings to follow soon). Supported by several of the great and good of the thriving local poetry community, he put in a good shift with a variety of poems that ranged from 'page' to 'performance', football and local history to politics and lyricism. A big added bonus was a second half of music from Crossing the Line, fine musicians all three (briefly four) of them with their set of C20th Americana.
You sometimes need to know where to look, or be lucky enough to have these things pointed out, but there is plenty going on. Many of these stalwarts want to make the world a better place but they are fragmented whereas the forces for bad are somehow more concerted even if retaining the luxury of indulging their own ambitions at the same time. But they already do make the world far better than it would be without them.
Wednesday, 19 September 2018
Elizabeth Jennings by Dana Greene
Dana Greene, Elizabeth Jennings, The Inward War (Oxford University)
By using her 'gift' she hammered her losses into art.
is how Dana Greene sums up the work of Elizabeth Jennings.
And in her Epilogue she extends this central theme of her biography explaining how Jennings had lived for poetry, which she saw as a sacrament, her purpose, 'necessary for life itself' as a healing agent and a way of resolving, however temporarily sometimes, the 'inward war' she felt between a number of conflicting elements.
Not all of Greene's points are specific to Jennings's case. That she invented an imaginary friend in childhood, felt inferior to her sister and became overly dependent on others early on are not unique and don't on their own explain a nature that Greene reveals as 'needy', a reliance on others for emotional and financial support as well as the spiritual need for her religious faith. It is also news to me to see Edward Thomas listed alongside Sylvia Plath and Hart Crane as suicides. And the point that she was included in Larkin's Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse as one of the women poets that made up only one tenth of the poets in it should not be construed as misogyny on Larkin's part but in line with similar female representation cited elsewhere at that time.
One needs to interpret this life aware that the evidence on offer can be read as one sees fit.
It does, however, provide considerable background that one will inevitably take back to the poems that is likely to shade our reading of them differently. I, for one, was unaware of nearly all of this story and had regarded Elizabeth Jennings as a highly competent, quietly thoughtful and well-organized poet. The fact that she was the only woman included in The Movement of the 1950's, along with any number of other reasons why she didn't fit, and didn't think she fitted, with them is less significant when one considers that none of the others did, either, there was no 'Movement' and it only benefitted some of the lesser lights associated with it for the reflected glory they might have gained.
The 'inward war' consisted of such difficulties as her Roman Catholicism versus the temptations of the flesh, the doubt, the over-wrought sensitivity and, in more worldly terms, money worries that wouldn't have been alleviated by gambling and shopping sprees and an appetite for alcohol that she 'medicated' herself with.
I'm not concerned about her dress sense or social graces and find it admirable in a way that she made few concessions to formality except in her verse, so whether we need to remember her as 'the bag lady of the sonnets' or as one of the most lauded poets, female or not, of her generation might be more indicative of our age in which our attentiuon has been diverted from the words on the page to such biographical detail. It may be time to redress the balance back towards the text.
While able to feel restored to equilibrium and feel fulfilled and, for brief periods, happy, it was her time spent in Rome that made her feel closest to 'whole'. Most of the rest of her life was spent in Oxford but increasingly peripatically and once, trading on a certain literary celebrity status, posted a notice outside Oxford station asking,
Elizabeth Jennings has nowhere to live. Can you help?
although we might see this alongside several times where Dana Greene qualifies some of Jennings's claims to distress with phrases amounting to 'according to her'. Her editor, Michael Schmidt, helped when he could but that wasn't always, but among her other benefactors was her 'pin-up boy', John Gielgud.
Betjeman, Larkin and, most of the time, Anthony Thwaite, were admirers of her work but she was upset by unfavourable reviews when they appeared, which they sometimes did. If the impression I had formed of a consistent high standard in her poems, that was based on a Selected and Collected that feature the best of thousands of poems written in torrents of prolific productivity and, whoever you are, that many poems can't all be outstanding. Michael Schmidt used 86 of the 'more than 1000 poems' she submitted for her book, Growing-Points, and 'in less than two months in spring 1977 she produced 486 poems'. That reminds me of when Stephen Spender first met Auden who asked him how many poems he wrote and Spender said he wrote a poem every day. Auden advised that he should write one a week, which he immediately did, but that's still plenty and far too many for me.
One could see this biography having a similar effect as Andrew Motion's biography of Larkin which was criticized for its frankness and honesty but if that's how it was, so it should be told. An old-fashioned biography of Malcolm Sargent I read a couple of years ago mentioned his divorce in passing and his penchant for parties elsewhere, which wouldn't have been so bad if not compounded by a foreword in which the author said he'd agreed with the dapper conductor it would be 'warts and all'.
We are surely better than that by now and can take it, wherever the biographer wants to set themselves on a scale between hagiography and scandal-monger. Nothing in Dana Greene's account of Elizabeth Jennings detracts from what we already thought of the poems but it adds depth to our understanding of their circumstances and Elizabeth emerges much more human, certainly more vulnerable and probably more admirable than many of us might have otherwise thought.
It is often instructive to look at the first poem in any poet's Selected, and Delay was an early landmark that set a high standard. The Clown is a later poem that Dana Greene makes central to Elizabeth's work.
It will now be interesting to go back to the poems and see what difference knowledge of the biography makes. I don't envisage it detracting from them, I only continue to wonder how much of it is our business.
By using her 'gift' she hammered her losses into art.is how Dana Greene sums up the work of Elizabeth Jennings.
And in her Epilogue she extends this central theme of her biography explaining how Jennings had lived for poetry, which she saw as a sacrament, her purpose, 'necessary for life itself' as a healing agent and a way of resolving, however temporarily sometimes, the 'inward war' she felt between a number of conflicting elements.
Not all of Greene's points are specific to Jennings's case. That she invented an imaginary friend in childhood, felt inferior to her sister and became overly dependent on others early on are not unique and don't on their own explain a nature that Greene reveals as 'needy', a reliance on others for emotional and financial support as well as the spiritual need for her religious faith. It is also news to me to see Edward Thomas listed alongside Sylvia Plath and Hart Crane as suicides. And the point that she was included in Larkin's Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse as one of the women poets that made up only one tenth of the poets in it should not be construed as misogyny on Larkin's part but in line with similar female representation cited elsewhere at that time.
One needs to interpret this life aware that the evidence on offer can be read as one sees fit.
It does, however, provide considerable background that one will inevitably take back to the poems that is likely to shade our reading of them differently. I, for one, was unaware of nearly all of this story and had regarded Elizabeth Jennings as a highly competent, quietly thoughtful and well-organized poet. The fact that she was the only woman included in The Movement of the 1950's, along with any number of other reasons why she didn't fit, and didn't think she fitted, with them is less significant when one considers that none of the others did, either, there was no 'Movement' and it only benefitted some of the lesser lights associated with it for the reflected glory they might have gained.
The 'inward war' consisted of such difficulties as her Roman Catholicism versus the temptations of the flesh, the doubt, the over-wrought sensitivity and, in more worldly terms, money worries that wouldn't have been alleviated by gambling and shopping sprees and an appetite for alcohol that she 'medicated' herself with.
I'm not concerned about her dress sense or social graces and find it admirable in a way that she made few concessions to formality except in her verse, so whether we need to remember her as 'the bag lady of the sonnets' or as one of the most lauded poets, female or not, of her generation might be more indicative of our age in which our attentiuon has been diverted from the words on the page to such biographical detail. It may be time to redress the balance back towards the text.
While able to feel restored to equilibrium and feel fulfilled and, for brief periods, happy, it was her time spent in Rome that made her feel closest to 'whole'. Most of the rest of her life was spent in Oxford but increasingly peripatically and once, trading on a certain literary celebrity status, posted a notice outside Oxford station asking,
Elizabeth Jennings has nowhere to live. Can you help?
although we might see this alongside several times where Dana Greene qualifies some of Jennings's claims to distress with phrases amounting to 'according to her'. Her editor, Michael Schmidt, helped when he could but that wasn't always, but among her other benefactors was her 'pin-up boy', John Gielgud.
Betjeman, Larkin and, most of the time, Anthony Thwaite, were admirers of her work but she was upset by unfavourable reviews when they appeared, which they sometimes did. If the impression I had formed of a consistent high standard in her poems, that was based on a Selected and Collected that feature the best of thousands of poems written in torrents of prolific productivity and, whoever you are, that many poems can't all be outstanding. Michael Schmidt used 86 of the 'more than 1000 poems' she submitted for her book, Growing-Points, and 'in less than two months in spring 1977 she produced 486 poems'. That reminds me of when Stephen Spender first met Auden who asked him how many poems he wrote and Spender said he wrote a poem every day. Auden advised that he should write one a week, which he immediately did, but that's still plenty and far too many for me.
One could see this biography having a similar effect as Andrew Motion's biography of Larkin which was criticized for its frankness and honesty but if that's how it was, so it should be told. An old-fashioned biography of Malcolm Sargent I read a couple of years ago mentioned his divorce in passing and his penchant for parties elsewhere, which wouldn't have been so bad if not compounded by a foreword in which the author said he'd agreed with the dapper conductor it would be 'warts and all'.
We are surely better than that by now and can take it, wherever the biographer wants to set themselves on a scale between hagiography and scandal-monger. Nothing in Dana Greene's account of Elizabeth Jennings detracts from what we already thought of the poems but it adds depth to our understanding of their circumstances and Elizabeth emerges much more human, certainly more vulnerable and probably more admirable than many of us might have otherwise thought.
It is often instructive to look at the first poem in any poet's Selected, and Delay was an early landmark that set a high standard. The Clown is a later poem that Dana Greene makes central to Elizabeth's work.
It will now be interesting to go back to the poems and see what difference knowledge of the biography makes. I don't envisage it detracting from them, I only continue to wonder how much of it is our business.
Tuesday, 18 September 2018
George Fu at Chichester
George Fu, piano, Chichester Cathedral, September 18th
I thought the Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel had come round again a bit soon. Surely we had that last year, possibly by Ivan Hovorun. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra might rely on the sure foundations of box office bankers for some of their season but we get more varied fare at Chichester. But, no, it wasn't Ivan, he played a Brahms sonata. And it turns out it wasn't last year but four years ago and not in Chichester but at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. How time flies, and it's a good job I've got my own website to look it up on.
George Fu opened with some Debussy Etudes. We know that Debussy wasn't an impressionist by now and that any dreamy palette of light-soaked meditation has something ominous suggested beneath it before long. If he is even thought of as a bridge between C19th Romanticism and C20th Modernism, he is surely more than halfway across that bridge. Number VI, Pour les huit doigts was a spell-binding, quicksilver romp to end the set, underlining, if it really needed to be, how lucky Chichester is to attract such a procession of fine talent to its lunchtime gigs. George Fu was as impressive here as any of the very impressive musicians they get and, having felt very much at home there and more than an occasional visitor, I will look forward to becoming almost a fixture when retirement allows.
But the performance four years ago had resulted in me adding a recording of the Brahms/Handel to the record shelves, great piece that it is. Early-ish for Brahms, at op.24, the baroque Handelian theme soon becomes C19th as Brahms uses the fine excuse of variations for showmanship on the composer's part, never mind the pianist's. George made good use of the bell-like sonorities of Chichester's Yamaha that lent itself particularly well to such music.
Although very much 1860-ish and as ravishing as it feels like being, Brahms also knows his Bach, who is conjured from time to time rather than Handel in the exploration of so many possibilities and the variations flower like some extraordinary floribunda before leaving us on a big flourish, having been so many places on the way from Handel to the very acceptable face of Romantic expression.
It was a tremendous exhibition of musicianship from a number of angles and Chichester shouldn't take these things for granted, which I'm sure they don't, but I have any amount of time for these people, the talent they bring, the time they put in and the end result.
Years and years ago I heard a chess grandmaster describing how he had walked round the middle European spa town one morning where he was playing a tournament, before his game in the afternoon, the cafe he sat in and the chess set he bought (perhaps he thought he'd give the game a try). Sometimes I am reminded of that charming little vignette on such a day as today, grateful for the cool September weather after the summer we suffered, in genteel Chichester.
Although Portsmouth has its share of charity shops- and good on them- it would be unexpected to find the Penguin Book of French Poetry 1820-1950 or the DVD of Depardieu's Jean de Florette in any of them. The St. Wilfrid's Hospice shop is one I'll try again, having added my modest Christmas card requirements and their 2019 diary to my shopping. And all for under ten pounds, you know.
But genteel Chichester. Then somebody spoils it all by doing something stupid.
As the train arrived to take me back to where I live in shabbier gentility, like a character from Maupassant, some juvenile delinquent wreck ran across the track. Much too far ahead of the train to constitute a danger but poor form nonetheless. Except he then ran back with the train only a few yards away. Very much the sort of behaviour which, from the safety of late middle age, makes one advocate bringing back National Service to squarebash some discipline into such errant, malformed nuisances.
Once the train was at the platform, I waited and saw what happened next, which was the miscreant essaying a third crossing, this time pursued by a uniformed officer who I dare say caught him and I hope administered the battering the train was only a moment too late to deliver.
It's a shame the little prat hadn't panicked and tried to escape via the platform where I might have upended him and begun the officer's work for him, having enquired of him how he thought the Brahms variations compared with the Beethoven Diabelli. But I hadn't noticed him in the cathedral.
George Fu opened with some Debussy Etudes. We know that Debussy wasn't an impressionist by now and that any dreamy palette of light-soaked meditation has something ominous suggested beneath it before long. If he is even thought of as a bridge between C19th Romanticism and C20th Modernism, he is surely more than halfway across that bridge. Number VI, Pour les huit doigts was a spell-binding, quicksilver romp to end the set, underlining, if it really needed to be, how lucky Chichester is to attract such a procession of fine talent to its lunchtime gigs. George Fu was as impressive here as any of the very impressive musicians they get and, having felt very much at home there and more than an occasional visitor, I will look forward to becoming almost a fixture when retirement allows.
But the performance four years ago had resulted in me adding a recording of the Brahms/Handel to the record shelves, great piece that it is. Early-ish for Brahms, at op.24, the baroque Handelian theme soon becomes C19th as Brahms uses the fine excuse of variations for showmanship on the composer's part, never mind the pianist's. George made good use of the bell-like sonorities of Chichester's Yamaha that lent itself particularly well to such music.
Although very much 1860-ish and as ravishing as it feels like being, Brahms also knows his Bach, who is conjured from time to time rather than Handel in the exploration of so many possibilities and the variations flower like some extraordinary floribunda before leaving us on a big flourish, having been so many places on the way from Handel to the very acceptable face of Romantic expression.
It was a tremendous exhibition of musicianship from a number of angles and Chichester shouldn't take these things for granted, which I'm sure they don't, but I have any amount of time for these people, the talent they bring, the time they put in and the end result.
Years and years ago I heard a chess grandmaster describing how he had walked round the middle European spa town one morning where he was playing a tournament, before his game in the afternoon, the cafe he sat in and the chess set he bought (perhaps he thought he'd give the game a try). Sometimes I am reminded of that charming little vignette on such a day as today, grateful for the cool September weather after the summer we suffered, in genteel Chichester.
Although Portsmouth has its share of charity shops- and good on them- it would be unexpected to find the Penguin Book of French Poetry 1820-1950 or the DVD of Depardieu's Jean de Florette in any of them. The St. Wilfrid's Hospice shop is one I'll try again, having added my modest Christmas card requirements and their 2019 diary to my shopping. And all for under ten pounds, you know.
But genteel Chichester. Then somebody spoils it all by doing something stupid.
As the train arrived to take me back to where I live in shabbier gentility, like a character from Maupassant, some juvenile delinquent wreck ran across the track. Much too far ahead of the train to constitute a danger but poor form nonetheless. Except he then ran back with the train only a few yards away. Very much the sort of behaviour which, from the safety of late middle age, makes one advocate bringing back National Service to squarebash some discipline into such errant, malformed nuisances.
Once the train was at the platform, I waited and saw what happened next, which was the miscreant essaying a third crossing, this time pursued by a uniformed officer who I dare say caught him and I hope administered the battering the train was only a moment too late to deliver.
It's a shame the little prat hadn't panicked and tried to escape via the platform where I might have upended him and begun the officer's work for him, having enquired of him how he thought the Brahms variations compared with the Beethoven Diabelli. But I hadn't noticed him in the cathedral.
Monday, 17 September 2018
Clarissa and friends
Mrs. Dalloway, now there's one back in the Top 10, re-read on the back of the Pallant House exhibition that made me feel all Bloomsbury again.
It's been a long time. Virginia's place in the top echelon has never been in doubt but they years, as it were, pass while other things get read and I had always thought To the Lighthouse was the masterpiece. Well, it isn't. They simply do not write novels like that any more, however many insist on trying.
Locked into themselves and their various pities, one doesn't even mind their social status and whatever because most of us who can afford the time to be so literary can't really claim to identify with the down-trodden victims of Dickens, Zola, Giles Winterbourne, Esther Waters or Paul Morel. There should be plenty more of a Virginia revival to come this autumn.
And neither must we feel bad about thinking up Top 10's, even if they contain over a hundred titles, because Julian Barnes admits to it in Keeping an Eye Open, his essays on (mainly French) painting, even if it is a pointless, harmless thing to do.
And if you ever felt a bit behind in your work, don't fret. Last week I received an acknowledgement from The British Library for the copy of The Perfect Book I sent them in late May. And now arrives the order for 5 copies for the other copyright libraries. I suppose demand for it must have been overwhelming. Well, it's lucky I can still furnish their order, isn't it.
It's been a long time. Virginia's place in the top echelon has never been in doubt but they years, as it were, pass while other things get read and I had always thought To the Lighthouse was the masterpiece. Well, it isn't. They simply do not write novels like that any more, however many insist on trying.
Locked into themselves and their various pities, one doesn't even mind their social status and whatever because most of us who can afford the time to be so literary can't really claim to identify with the down-trodden victims of Dickens, Zola, Giles Winterbourne, Esther Waters or Paul Morel. There should be plenty more of a Virginia revival to come this autumn.
And neither must we feel bad about thinking up Top 10's, even if they contain over a hundred titles, because Julian Barnes admits to it in Keeping an Eye Open, his essays on (mainly French) painting, even if it is a pointless, harmless thing to do.
And if you ever felt a bit behind in your work, don't fret. Last week I received an acknowledgement from The British Library for the copy of The Perfect Book I sent them in late May. And now arrives the order for 5 copies for the other copyright libraries. I suppose demand for it must have been overwhelming. Well, it's lucky I can still furnish their order, isn't it.
Thursday, 13 September 2018
Portsmouth Lunchtime Live! with Sachin Gunga
Sachin Gunga, Portsmouth Cathedral, Sept 13
There is really only one way to begin a series of concerts that are predominanty organ recitals, and that's with a choice bit of Bach. Sachin Gunga stepped in to cover the unavailable, advertised visitor and provided a thoughtful, mixed programme. A good move on his part, that others might consider following, was to take the microphone with him up to the organ loft to introduce the pieces from upstairs.
The Prelude and Fugue BWV 547, he explained, is known as the 'hickory, dickory dock' and it soon became obvious why although the nursery rhyme echo was no distraction. Lucid and made of Bach's customary intelligence, the fugue flows and weaves, implying the eternity that its finite nature won't quite fill.
No. 3 of Rheinberger's Meditations, Op. 167 is a gentle, lilting composition with childlike innocence that encourages one to look for the others in the opus. Likely to be similar, we might be treated to the others another time.
Sachin then played a sequence of three pieces, linked by the theme of light. The 'general crescendo' of Fiat lux by Dubois represented the coming of light. It is unfortunate when one's mind wanders and a serious piece in undermined by extraneous thoughts and the final bars here brought Reginald Dixon to mind for me, which is my fault but can happen with exuberant organ pieces. Bairstow's Evening Song was naturally more elegiac but flirted with inconsequence in its middle passages so Elgar retrieved the situation with Chanson de Matin, which I thought was Salut d'Amour but seems not to be but it's close.
'Born 1955' is a phrase that rings alarm bells in a composer of organ music and Bob Chilcott's Sun Dance was full of ideas for a short piece but less full of coherence. C20th organ music is a personal blind spot but one must persevere. Because the three hymn preludes by the centenarian Francis Jackson made more sense. Veni Sancte Spiritus suggested Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and East Acklam was a peaceable joy. The Fantasy on Sine Nomine overelaborates Let All the World in Every Corner Sing in its accessible but Modernist way which was an interesting place to end if gathering a quota for a proper congregation and giving it a traditional full blast would have roused the sleepy September sunshine.
So, we were indebted to Sachin for his imaginative stand-in set and it is to be hoped we hear more from him. On the one hand, he has some esoteric repertoire, on the other, does he know any Buxtehude.
There is really only one way to begin a series of concerts that are predominanty organ recitals, and that's with a choice bit of Bach. Sachin Gunga stepped in to cover the unavailable, advertised visitor and provided a thoughtful, mixed programme. A good move on his part, that others might consider following, was to take the microphone with him up to the organ loft to introduce the pieces from upstairs.
The Prelude and Fugue BWV 547, he explained, is known as the 'hickory, dickory dock' and it soon became obvious why although the nursery rhyme echo was no distraction. Lucid and made of Bach's customary intelligence, the fugue flows and weaves, implying the eternity that its finite nature won't quite fill.
No. 3 of Rheinberger's Meditations, Op. 167 is a gentle, lilting composition with childlike innocence that encourages one to look for the others in the opus. Likely to be similar, we might be treated to the others another time.
Sachin then played a sequence of three pieces, linked by the theme of light. The 'general crescendo' of Fiat lux by Dubois represented the coming of light. It is unfortunate when one's mind wanders and a serious piece in undermined by extraneous thoughts and the final bars here brought Reginald Dixon to mind for me, which is my fault but can happen with exuberant organ pieces. Bairstow's Evening Song was naturally more elegiac but flirted with inconsequence in its middle passages so Elgar retrieved the situation with Chanson de Matin, which I thought was Salut d'Amour but seems not to be but it's close.
'Born 1955' is a phrase that rings alarm bells in a composer of organ music and Bob Chilcott's Sun Dance was full of ideas for a short piece but less full of coherence. C20th organ music is a personal blind spot but one must persevere. Because the three hymn preludes by the centenarian Francis Jackson made more sense. Veni Sancte Spiritus suggested Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and East Acklam was a peaceable joy. The Fantasy on Sine Nomine overelaborates Let All the World in Every Corner Sing in its accessible but Modernist way which was an interesting place to end if gathering a quota for a proper congregation and giving it a traditional full blast would have roused the sleepy September sunshine.
So, we were indebted to Sachin for his imaginative stand-in set and it is to be hoped we hear more from him. On the one hand, he has some esoteric repertoire, on the other, does he know any Buxtehude.
Tuesday, 11 September 2018
David Malusa in Chichester
David Malusa, poano, Chichester Cathedral, Sept 11th; Virginia Woolf, Pallant House Gallery.
The new season of Chichester Cathedral's lunchtime concerts began with energy and high Romantic risk-taking with a performance by David Malusa.
Mozart's Sonata K.311 is Eine Kleine mannerism to warm up the fingers, more moving in its second movement but trilling and ornamental in the finale leading to something more impassioned in the ending. Never less than charming and attractive, I had very much expected it to be the highlight with more adventurous pieces to come.
But if Mozart would be first choice at home on records, the rest of his programme lent itself better to the thrill of live performance. Scriabin's Sonata no. 4, Op. 30 begins in surprisingly dreamy, impressionistic mood but soon moves into territory more associated with Scriabin, which brought thoughts of Rachmaninov to mind with its expansive lyricism that developed into something stormier, given with some relish by Malusa, and impressing the usual big audience for one of these events in the hugely successful series. Here was a way to bash them round the ears and dispel any doubt that they were back at it again. Hold onto your hats.
But Liszt's Totentanz, which is a Dance of the Dead, only took up from where Scriabin had left off and Malusa was able to use the full range of the piano's resources, battering the bass notes, running up scales, suggesting the better-known big passages from Pictures At An Exhibition and keeping its main theme in mind while flirting apparently with the outskirts of madness with some stirring bravura. All of which, for once, made Mozart seem rather genteel, which in such company he is.
At 35 minutes, one is tempted to say that David could have provided something like a civilizing Bach Partita to clam our troubled spirits but I can't imagine anybody felt short changed and he left us like that, moved, unsettled or invigorated as we saw fit.
For once, these might not be pieces that I'll follow up and add to the collection because Mozart is the better-trained house guest but it is a recital I'm unlikely to forget in a hurry.
It is a fine thing that Pallant House Gallery is half price on Tuesdays, when I'm most likely to be in Chichester. Their exhibition of paintings 'inspired by' the writing of Virginia Woolf ends soon, this coming weekend in fact, but is worth seeing.
In the other rooms are work by the likes of Walter Sickert, always good, and some Keith Vaughan, from the estate of Peter Schaffer, whose dehumanizing of the human form is eerie but it is really about Virginia and the extended coterie of Bloomsbury at the moment.
Among the documents on display was a letter to Lytton Strachey, compelling for being exactly that. For better or worse, Virginia is now disproportionately lauded for her ideas about what it is, or was, to be a woman artist, which is fine but not as significant as what you do once you are one, at which she excelled.
The centrepiece is the portrait of Virginia by Vanessa Bell, next to which is a Vanessa self-portrait, who one doesn't imagine suffering fools gladly. I was interested in a quiet, pale interior by Gwen John very similar to a print I have on my front room wall, the difference being that this time she has the window open and so it is less claustrophobic.
But a tremendous discovery for me was the artist known as Gluck, Hannah Gluckstein (1895-1978), one of those ground-breaking ladies whose role it was to live in unconventional ways. A biography was available in the bookshop but, with a few books lined up to read, I'll maybe look out for that later. But I was most taken with Before the Races, St. Bunyan, Cornwall (1924), the beautifully realized detail of the horses down in the corner below the vast sky, which is what some racecourses can be like, especially Newmarket.
Trains back from Chichester shouldn't be quite the counter-intuitive ordeal that they can be, it often being the best plan to go into Fratton so you can get another one back out to Cosham but, wearying though that can be, one doesn't mind when the trip has been so worthwhile.
The new season of Chichester Cathedral's lunchtime concerts began with energy and high Romantic risk-taking with a performance by David Malusa.
Mozart's Sonata K.311 is Eine Kleine mannerism to warm up the fingers, more moving in its second movement but trilling and ornamental in the finale leading to something more impassioned in the ending. Never less than charming and attractive, I had very much expected it to be the highlight with more adventurous pieces to come.
But if Mozart would be first choice at home on records, the rest of his programme lent itself better to the thrill of live performance. Scriabin's Sonata no. 4, Op. 30 begins in surprisingly dreamy, impressionistic mood but soon moves into territory more associated with Scriabin, which brought thoughts of Rachmaninov to mind with its expansive lyricism that developed into something stormier, given with some relish by Malusa, and impressing the usual big audience for one of these events in the hugely successful series. Here was a way to bash them round the ears and dispel any doubt that they were back at it again. Hold onto your hats.
But Liszt's Totentanz, which is a Dance of the Dead, only took up from where Scriabin had left off and Malusa was able to use the full range of the piano's resources, battering the bass notes, running up scales, suggesting the better-known big passages from Pictures At An Exhibition and keeping its main theme in mind while flirting apparently with the outskirts of madness with some stirring bravura. All of which, for once, made Mozart seem rather genteel, which in such company he is.
At 35 minutes, one is tempted to say that David could have provided something like a civilizing Bach Partita to clam our troubled spirits but I can't imagine anybody felt short changed and he left us like that, moved, unsettled or invigorated as we saw fit.
For once, these might not be pieces that I'll follow up and add to the collection because Mozart is the better-trained house guest but it is a recital I'm unlikely to forget in a hurry.
It is a fine thing that Pallant House Gallery is half price on Tuesdays, when I'm most likely to be in Chichester. Their exhibition of paintings 'inspired by' the writing of Virginia Woolf ends soon, this coming weekend in fact, but is worth seeing.
In the other rooms are work by the likes of Walter Sickert, always good, and some Keith Vaughan, from the estate of Peter Schaffer, whose dehumanizing of the human form is eerie but it is really about Virginia and the extended coterie of Bloomsbury at the moment.
Among the documents on display was a letter to Lytton Strachey, compelling for being exactly that. For better or worse, Virginia is now disproportionately lauded for her ideas about what it is, or was, to be a woman artist, which is fine but not as significant as what you do once you are one, at which she excelled.
The centrepiece is the portrait of Virginia by Vanessa Bell, next to which is a Vanessa self-portrait, who one doesn't imagine suffering fools gladly. I was interested in a quiet, pale interior by Gwen John very similar to a print I have on my front room wall, the difference being that this time she has the window open and so it is less claustrophobic.
Trains back from Chichester shouldn't be quite the counter-intuitive ordeal that they can be, it often being the best plan to go into Fratton so you can get another one back out to Cosham but, wearying though that can be, one doesn't mind when the trip has been so worthwhile.
Sunday, 9 September 2018
One Born Every Minute
Not babies, perhaps, but posh birds apparently willing to help.I realize that power and making them laugh can be aphrodisiac but there must be a limit.
I was thinking of framing yesterday's cartoonn from The Times and putting it on the wall but eventually thought I didn't need reminding quite that often.
--
Meanwhile, I worked out 12 across, AFFOREST, for myself but nneeded the wordfinder for SAPROPHYTE, a word the flamboyantly erudite Mr. Johnson probably uses in every other sentence he utters, which would be quite often.
Tuesday, 4 September 2018
Alternate Title
The Proms season presented some difficulties. While the schedule undoubtedly contained many concerts worth hearing, it too often turned out to be Leonard Bernstein when I tuned in and I'm either not sophisticated enough or too sophisticated for his big, American showtunes. There is more too him than that, I'm sure, but I haven't found it yet.
It is also to be regretted that the BBC chooses more of the special features to show than the depth of class acts that represent the main body of concerts. Although it was good to see Tom Service, who knows his stuff, after the disappointment of seeing the ubiquity of the Rev. Richard Coles add the Proms to his domain. I never thought I'd want to see Alan Titchmarsh back.
That said, they did show Andras Scholl's monumental second book of The Well-Tempered Klavier, following last year's book one and Yo Yo Ma's Cello Suites before that. What blinding occasions they must be, and not easy, not only for the musician to remember the whole unfolding texts but for the audience to maintain concentration. I'm not sure one can. And some stand up all the way through.
--
But before attempting to retrieve any compensation, it gets worse. After another week of looking forward to Friday night, the chance to see the Scholl Bach was not enhanced by a teenager's party next door which lasted to a quarter past midnight. It's the anxiety caused by knowing one is in one's private paradise but, beyond etiquette, it is being invaded and the outside world can get you from the inside. In the words of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, there is nowhere to run.
One is also aware that many years ago, one might have been part of the havoc that tweedy, pipe-smoking old people didn't approve of and I didn't want to be one of them. So, it's a matter of sitting it out and hoping it doesn't become a regular thing, looking forward to cold, winter nights.
I threw back a girl's shoe and just one plastic cup the following morning and enjoyed some quiet, as well as what compensation I could find. The record they played most often was Promises by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith. My conversion to it might be compared to that of Winston Smith loving Big Brother but it is any good. I also detected a re-mix of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car and then, at 00.15, My Girl in the Otis Redding version.
They can't have been all bad people.
--
Meanwhile, The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters was a tour de force probably a bit too clever for its own good but ended on a straightforward fable about paradise. It might be wonderful for a while but one gets bored of it.
I expressed similar reservation about the Tallis Scholars a few years ago, that perfection wasn't enough; Sean O'Brien has it in his latest book of poems,
That art is all there is and might not be enough.
And it must have dawned on the more astute supporter of any sporting outfit that, okay, Fulham (for example) don't win every week but it would be very dull if they did.
That doesn't mean I want to go to the cricket for the first time in two years and see Notts have Hampshire at 137-7 and proceed from there to lose by over 200 runs but it's the rough with the smooth, the light and shade and the temporary adequacy of compensation that makes it all worthwhile.
Moving from Barnes to Graham Swift's Waterland, a masterpiece I had so far overlooked, one appreciates that which is worthwhile and one glances down the Swift back catalogue confident that there must be more to be had among them.
And the card from the postman, that invariably means taking him up on his offer of re-delivery on Saturday, is Barnes' Keeping an Eye Open, essays on French painting - Delacroix, Bonnard, that sort of thing - which is likely to be paradise regained as a restorative, having thought the philistines were at my door.
And Waterstone's should be telling me the new biography of Elizabeth Jennings is ready to collect any time soon.
September is the kindest month.
--
One still needs things to do oneself, however. I couldn't ever have been one of those happy enough to watch football, cricket, or cycling without having a go myself. The mixed success at no great standard achieved in those disciplines could be seen to be carried forward into writing. But if the compulsion to take part in sport diverted attention from the fact that I was no Eusebio, Greenidge or Phil Griffiths, it was even less likely to dawn on me that I was no Auden or Edward Thomas, either. It didn't matter.
All one needs is something to do, to ward off thoughts of emptiness, being, nothingness and with poetry at least for the time being having reached a hiatus, Red Herring, the book of prose anecdotes and memoir, perhaps a second attempt at imitating Terry Eagleton's The Gatekeeper, will provide me with a project that need never be completed. It can be like Casaubon's Key to All Mythologies, and I'm not put off by googling 'Casaubon' and finding 'Casaubon delusion' as Google's second suggestion. I don't mind that his work was stalled and remained unfinished and I don't mind that he was 'pompous and ineffectual'. I'm happy to be all of that if I can pretend to be doing something, and enjoy it.
I have all the time in the world for George Eliot. I think I get it completely how Dorothea's worthy intentions led her into the cul-de-sac of assisting Casaubon and Ladislaw is the glamorous alternative. But we change, don't we, and find ourselves preferring the cheese with balsamic vinegar in it to the easy listening of grade 2 cheddar; Shostakovich and Buxtehude provide even more than you thought they did when some old favourites like Tchaikovsky no longer convince. I don't think Casaubon was that bad, or at least, being him wasn't that bad.
One can be post-glamorous. If I can say I'm writing a book, it won't matter if I never finish it. My biggest worry is that I might pass away on a Saturday and leave the Times crossword unfinished. I wouldn't want anybody finding me there, with 6 down not filled in,
Oh, look, he didn't even finish it. 'Useless Latin with 500 in ceremony (9)'. Should we put it in for him. He never realized, did he.
It is also to be regretted that the BBC chooses more of the special features to show than the depth of class acts that represent the main body of concerts. Although it was good to see Tom Service, who knows his stuff, after the disappointment of seeing the ubiquity of the Rev. Richard Coles add the Proms to his domain. I never thought I'd want to see Alan Titchmarsh back.
That said, they did show Andras Scholl's monumental second book of The Well-Tempered Klavier, following last year's book one and Yo Yo Ma's Cello Suites before that. What blinding occasions they must be, and not easy, not only for the musician to remember the whole unfolding texts but for the audience to maintain concentration. I'm not sure one can. And some stand up all the way through.
--
But before attempting to retrieve any compensation, it gets worse. After another week of looking forward to Friday night, the chance to see the Scholl Bach was not enhanced by a teenager's party next door which lasted to a quarter past midnight. It's the anxiety caused by knowing one is in one's private paradise but, beyond etiquette, it is being invaded and the outside world can get you from the inside. In the words of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, there is nowhere to run.
One is also aware that many years ago, one might have been part of the havoc that tweedy, pipe-smoking old people didn't approve of and I didn't want to be one of them. So, it's a matter of sitting it out and hoping it doesn't become a regular thing, looking forward to cold, winter nights.
I threw back a girl's shoe and just one plastic cup the following morning and enjoyed some quiet, as well as what compensation I could find. The record they played most often was Promises by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith. My conversion to it might be compared to that of Winston Smith loving Big Brother but it is any good. I also detected a re-mix of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car and then, at 00.15, My Girl in the Otis Redding version.
They can't have been all bad people.
--
Meanwhile, The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters was a tour de force probably a bit too clever for its own good but ended on a straightforward fable about paradise. It might be wonderful for a while but one gets bored of it.
I expressed similar reservation about the Tallis Scholars a few years ago, that perfection wasn't enough; Sean O'Brien has it in his latest book of poems,
That art is all there is and might not be enough.
And it must have dawned on the more astute supporter of any sporting outfit that, okay, Fulham (for example) don't win every week but it would be very dull if they did.
That doesn't mean I want to go to the cricket for the first time in two years and see Notts have Hampshire at 137-7 and proceed from there to lose by over 200 runs but it's the rough with the smooth, the light and shade and the temporary adequacy of compensation that makes it all worthwhile.
Moving from Barnes to Graham Swift's Waterland, a masterpiece I had so far overlooked, one appreciates that which is worthwhile and one glances down the Swift back catalogue confident that there must be more to be had among them.
And the card from the postman, that invariably means taking him up on his offer of re-delivery on Saturday, is Barnes' Keeping an Eye Open, essays on French painting - Delacroix, Bonnard, that sort of thing - which is likely to be paradise regained as a restorative, having thought the philistines were at my door.
And Waterstone's should be telling me the new biography of Elizabeth Jennings is ready to collect any time soon.
September is the kindest month.
--
One still needs things to do oneself, however. I couldn't ever have been one of those happy enough to watch football, cricket, or cycling without having a go myself. The mixed success at no great standard achieved in those disciplines could be seen to be carried forward into writing. But if the compulsion to take part in sport diverted attention from the fact that I was no Eusebio, Greenidge or Phil Griffiths, it was even less likely to dawn on me that I was no Auden or Edward Thomas, either. It didn't matter.
All one needs is something to do, to ward off thoughts of emptiness, being, nothingness and with poetry at least for the time being having reached a hiatus, Red Herring, the book of prose anecdotes and memoir, perhaps a second attempt at imitating Terry Eagleton's The Gatekeeper, will provide me with a project that need never be completed. It can be like Casaubon's Key to All Mythologies, and I'm not put off by googling 'Casaubon' and finding 'Casaubon delusion' as Google's second suggestion. I don't mind that his work was stalled and remained unfinished and I don't mind that he was 'pompous and ineffectual'. I'm happy to be all of that if I can pretend to be doing something, and enjoy it.
I have all the time in the world for George Eliot. I think I get it completely how Dorothea's worthy intentions led her into the cul-de-sac of assisting Casaubon and Ladislaw is the glamorous alternative. But we change, don't we, and find ourselves preferring the cheese with balsamic vinegar in it to the easy listening of grade 2 cheddar; Shostakovich and Buxtehude provide even more than you thought they did when some old favourites like Tchaikovsky no longer convince. I don't think Casaubon was that bad, or at least, being him wasn't that bad.
One can be post-glamorous. If I can say I'm writing a book, it won't matter if I never finish it. My biggest worry is that I might pass away on a Saturday and leave the Times crossword unfinished. I wouldn't want anybody finding me there, with 6 down not filled in,
Oh, look, he didn't even finish it. 'Useless Latin with 500 in ceremony (9)'. Should we put it in for him. He never realized, did he.