Space Saving

 One and a quarter inches of shelf space, £6.81 and the accompanying carbon footprint were saved by reading books from the library rather than ordering them this week. Multiply that by 52, or in fact by 73 because the two books took 5 days to read, and that makes over 7 feet six inches of shelf space and almost £500 a year if we calculate the savings the way a government might. It wouldn't be quite that much because I might not read two books in five days for a year, some titles will have to be bought, etc. but it does rather advertise the benefits of the library which I, for one, have for so long overlooked.

It will keep the Portsmouth libraries busy moving my orders to Copnor library but they seem to want to do it. Not every book I want will be in their catalogue, like not apparently Glyn Maxwell's On Poetry but it's quite possible something like a yard of shelf space and maybe £200's worth of orders might be saved.

This wek's two books picked from their shelves were Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata and Ancient Light by John Banville. They were both worth reading but it's not necessary for copies of them to be kept upstairs for future reference.

Kawabata first came to my notice when Colin Webb's legendary one-man operation in Cornwall was called the Kawabata Press and published Sepia magazine and some of the first poems I had in print. Like Yukio Mishima, Kawabata committed suicide. In 1962. Perhaps in the same way that Japanese, or even English, readers might think that Dickens, Trollope and a litany of other C19th English novelists seem similar, Kawabata's novel had at least superficial things in common with novelists like Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Mishims himself and others one might mention. It is full of raw emotional confession, the characters much more vulnerable and open to their own analysis than we usually expect in Eng Lit. Even the detail of Keiko's impossibly beautiful ears is carried forward into Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase and 1Q84, in which they can 'stop traffic'. 

Japanese literature spends more time contemplating such extremes, or that which seem like extremes to the more downbeat, ironic English and 'beauty' is more highly prized. I came to it originally in a feature in The Observer on cult fiction in the 1990's in which books like The Naked Lunch, On the Road et al were given symbols for horror, drugs, sex and such categories and Banana's Kitchen ticked every box. But it was the short stories in Lizard that I was more taken with and I became a Yoshimoto, and particularly a Murakami, reader ever since. 

One can hardly call John Banville a 'discovery', with him being a major contemporary novelist and Booker Prize winner. He's not on the shelves upstairs but I remember The Sea, and Ancient Light is no less compelling for the quality of the writing. It might be suspected of being a fraction over-written if one thinks that the best prose is like glass and you don't notice it but Banville's is noticeable when it's just that fraction too good. It can be sensual, as it needs to be in this story, but its perceptions go beyond the merely necessary into a kind of 'poetry', for want of a better word,

He had a remarkably small and disproportionate head, which gave one the illusion that one was always farther off from him than was in fact the case.

 

If there's another Banville ready and waiting on the library shelves on Monday, it's likely to get chosen ahead of the daunting 850 pages of David Copperfield or any other Dickens I find myself dutifully taking home but one can take home an armful and discard them if need be. It's just that what is on the shelves and not moved in from other libraries might not last me long. However, it's hard to believe that such a service is still provided for the sake of its own greatness, having been neglected by funding programmes and me for so long. I'm going to give it all the support I can. 

It transpires that Ancient Light is the final part of a trilogy that began with Eclipse and Shroud. One wouldn't have known, it was entire of itself, but there's two obvious choices to read in the wrong order.

Chichester Symphony Orchestra

Chichester Symphony Orchestra, Chichester Cathedral, Oct 26th

Mozart somehow found himself in the unaccustomed role of support act last time I was in Chichester. That wasn't likely to happen twice. The Chichester Symphony Orchestra gave great value for whatever money one chooses to donate by comparing and contrasting Richard Strauss in his Concerto in D for Oboe and Small Orchestra with Mozart as represented by the 'Haffner' Symphony, no. 35.

Mozart won but that's not to say Andrew Knights and his oboe were any sort of disappointment in a piece I didn't know. Although the concerto is from 1945, it could almost pass for C19th. The CSO, under Simon Wilkins, made a full, warm sound as the oboe achieved some lightness of being before taking on more intricate maneoeuvres. Its highlight was the Andante with its long, smooth lines that move towards an uplifting entrance of horns and low strings. Some fine trilling at the end of the cadenza brought in a lively Vivace. It was plenty long enough for me and whether it was written to show off the soloist's skills or purely for artistic effect, I'm not sure. One would hope it's only ever for the latter but one doesn't hear many oboe concertos beyond the Bach and Andrew gave a fine account so it was of interest.

Strauss is no Mozart, though. Again, the CSO filled the acoustic with the impressive opening blast of the Haffner. I think I counted 28 of them but they were well-balanced and made a fine job of one of Mozart's less anxious pieces. There's not much sign of the shadows of, say, no.40, in no. 35.

The Andante was sumptuous and the Minuet and Trio marked time before the headlong Presto that the composer advised should be played 'as fast as possible'. That's fine if he says so. I often think music benefits from not being treated as an athletic event. Simon Wilkins kept the tempo high enough without trying for too much and one might have thought of the Theme from the Horse of the Year Show, Mozart's Musical Joke, which is in a similar mood.

It's the only time that Chichester lunchtimes extend the stage area forward to accomodate more than chamber music and so it comes as a rare treat once a year. They are clearly thriving and this programme gave each section the opportunity to make a significant contribution, which they surely did.

It all took place under a striking artwork installation, Luke Jerram's Museum of the Moon, which filled the nave sky with its imposing detail. Sadly I went without my camera this week but I'll take it next week and show you then, the side we never see from here included. 

The Sunday Afternoon Show

 One of the perceived advantages of having the local library order in books, that it would save shelf space and money, was immediately torpedoed by the necessity of buying the first-up selection, Ungentle Shakespeare. It's the best of its kind in a field I like to make my own and so I had to have my own copy. However, finding one for less than a fiver inc. p&p was all good, and a credit to WeBuyBooks, and then it arrives in pristine condition. Joy is unconfined.

Balzac's Harlot Hugh and Low kept turning into something other than what was expected. I read it to follow up the further destiny of Lucien, the poet, back in Paris. Esther, the harlot that loves him, commits suicide halfway through, thus giving the title to a work she only appears in half of, like Julius Caesar, but then Lucien similarly dies when he didn't need to, echoing Romeo and Juliet. There's over 150 pages still to go with the two main stars gone and we focus on Vautrin, Jacques Collin, Dodgedeath or the Abbe Herrera, whichever iteration of the master criminal you choose to know him as before, whose book it really is,when, in a twist one surely didn't see coming, he becomes head of the crime squad. Well, I never. The last section has a glorious few chapters written in prison slang, like,

'They say you've heaved our chink,' Biffon put in with a threatening air.

'There'll be some rhino coming from you, no doubt?', asked Hair's Breadth.

One assumes that takes some translating but it was immense fun.

Balzac has been rich and rewarding but it's time to look elsewhere now. It might be a week or two before the library provide the latest Sebastian Faulks and so there's a gap to fill. They have David Copperfield, weighing in at 850 pages and I'll give that a go in due course even if I read Dickens more as a duty than a complete pleasure. There's biographies of R.E.M. and Prince which would fill the space without being entirely esseential but I was impressed that a nice, quiet, local library found a reason to have a feature on Japanese literature with a selection of Murakami, Mishima, Akutagawa, Kawabata et al. I'll maybe support that venture by borrowing a couple of those.

 

Meanwhile, making use of my own resources, I went back to some George Orwell essays and enjoyed their unphased common sense. Decline of the English Murder soon made me want to make such a thing my next failed attempt at a novel full of period echoes, vague sub-texts, inter-textual references and 50 thousand words I'd need to find from somewhere. I'm fairly sure I won't be daft enough to attempt it and it will be another 'conceptual' novel that I thought of but didn't ruin by writing it.

But in Benefit of Clergy, Orwell considers the charlatan that was Salvador Dali in unconvinced terms not dissimilar to those that Larkin chose for Charlie Parker. He's less than impressed by the man whereas Larkin was more less impressed by the music, but,

The two qualities that Dali unquestionably posseses are a gift for drawing and an atrocious egoism. 'At seven,' he says in the first paragraph of his book,' I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.'

One only has to replace an inexplicable gift for getting himself elected where the gift for drawing is and one has an alarmingly good fit for the surrealism and self-obsessions of Dali and the Prime Minister we have now.

Such feelings are common enough, Orwell continues, 'I knew I was a genius,' somebody said once to me, 'long before I knew what I was going to be a genius about'.

Yes, yes. Maybe we all had that in childhood but most of us grow out of it. For those that lack the required self-awareness,

There is always one escape : into wickedness.

And in our present day malfunctioning leader that would be habitual lying, reneging on fly-by-night promises, ebullient but groundless optimism and a fecklessness that belongs with the schoolboy who can't be bothered to do his homework.

-

But matters arise. One thought leads to another. The list-making habit is  often prompted by having something one feels the need to put on that list and see what it looks like alongside other such things. I've long wondered about finding The Best Book in the House and Ungentle Shakespeare would be a contender. It lends itself to a Top 6, that old feature we used to have here and still can if we want.

The shortlist would certainly include Dubliners by Joyce, the best prose fiction in the language. I'd have to see if Terry Eagleton's memoir, The Gatekeeper , makes me laugh as much as it first did. I remember not too long ago thinking that Ian Bostridge's Schubert's Winter Journey was the best book I'd ever read for its far-reachingness beyond the Wintereisse. Out of all the poetry biographies, John Stubbs's Donne was a hugely impressive book, as was John Carey's John Donne, Life, Mind and Art so it would be difficult not to consider the Penguin paperback John Donne, Complete Poems, too, as well as that poetry which has best survived all my doubts about the art form such as-

Rosemary Tonks, Bedouin of the London Evening

Sean O'Brien, Ghost Train

and, of course the Collected Larkin, the Complete Elizabeth Bishop, the copy of Touch Thom Gunn signed in Cambridge in 1979.

I don't have a separate edition of Hamlet but The Works by Maggi Hambling (happy birthday yesterday) needs consideration as would a careful walk round the house making sure I've not missed anything. I'll do that one day but consider yourself invited to submit a guest Top 6 on any subject if you've got this far.

 

The other matter, that arises out of mentioning R.E.M. and Prince, was a programme last night called The 80's, Music's Greatest Decade?

It need not have taken long. The answer is, 'no'. 

I'd have a fiver each way on the 1720's but preferably the 10 years that go from 1713 -1723, except by 'music' they meant pop music, I dare say.

The dubious case seemed to be made that the 1980's resulted in much fusion and thus Soul II Soul. Prince, R.E.M. and the Jesus & Mary Chain might have made the argument better but a decade strangled by the bombastic U2 and the law of diminishing returns reminded me why I had so many reggae LP's to say a traumatic farewell to.

It was a daring but ill-fated enterprise to claim any such thing for the 1980's that limps in far behind the likes of the 1970's, 1960's, in either order, and probably the 1950's and 1990's, too. Tamla Motown's best work went on into the 70's, The Beatles didn't, David Bowie's most glorious years were in the 70's, with T. Rex, as were those of Al Green and Joni whereas Aretha, Dusty, Cliff and Petula Clark did their best work in the 60's.

It's one thing to like one's own formative period best, as I do with a very specific dating of the singles charts of Sept 1971, but it's entirely another to waste airtime on such ludicrous agendas. The best decade, if we can free ourselves from such designated time zones, was 1963-1973.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

For Finnegans Sake

 It's not a title you expect to find in a Cosham charity shop, Finnegans Wake. One can hardly leave it there even if its ultimare function will be only to make the Joyce shelf look complete.

We were advised not to write about Ulysses at undergraduate level. It's probably good advice not to try to write about the Wake at any level. I read the first few lines to Yoko but got nowhere near the second full stop. I'll be needing a guide if I ever attempt it. It would be my most intrepid undertaking and it's not obvious what percentage of it one would 'get'.

--

I only saw five of the nearly grown-up cygnets at Hilsea. There were eight all summer so it is to be hoped the other three have gone on a school trip or something today.

Ungently does it

 

Balzac had to be set aside when the library said they'd got this in for me. It's been some time since I read any further into Shakespeare biography having thought I'd gone as far as I would. I'm glad I fed the mild obsession with it one more time.

Published in 2001, Katherine Duncan-Jones's Ungentle Shakespeare doesn't attempt a full account of the life but is Scenes from his life, concentrating chapters on periods or issues of particular interest. Maybe that saves her from having to fit the whole story together but her research is deep, her insights compelling and she is scholarly and convincing throughout. That must have been an erudite and cerebral dinner table when she was married to A.N. Wilson.

Katherine offers a number of correctives to several details usually assumed, imported or taken for granted in the majority of Shakespeare biographies. As it happens she is happy enough to accept the birthday on April 23rd as an estimate as good as any and so undermines my little joke about him dying on his birthday but not being born on it. The 'lost years' are most likely to have been spent as a lawyer's clerk and although she makes that story favourite in what is an open field, the way she lines up her reasons and apparently has no agenda apart from what her huge knowledge and understanding leads her to think make it easy to want to follow her.

She has Shakespeare in the Queen's Men by 1589 but since they usually recruited the best talent from other companies he will have needed a season or two to have come to their notice. I'd like to have him out of Stratford by May 1584 for my purposes and her estimate that 'conjugal relations' with Anne ended some time in the 1580's doesn't preclude the 'twins theory', often cited on this website but derided elsewhere, that Hamnet Sadler was father to the twins. Contrary to every other account I've seen, she credits the real authorship of the Groatsworth of Wit, which is the first official sighting of Shakespeare in London, in 1593, to Thomas Nashe who published it under the name of Robert Greene as his deathbed confession because the dead can't be libelled or sue for libel. It's already lively and bringing the litany of supposition and likelihoods vividly back to life. It might be of use to have read a more 'traditional' biography first, like Ackroyd, Holden or even Burgess, in order to appreciate that Duncan-Jones was fresh and original work.

The 'ungentleness' is thematic, with Shakespeare's provincial, non-aristocratic, non-university background and his pursuit of gentlemanly status central to his motivation. It is seen as something of a handicap compared to Ben Jonson's 'singularity' in being himself and not aspiring to be otherwise but Jonson is more often the envious party as Shakespeare is taken up by students as a fashion in the same way they idolized pop stars 400 years later and much more successful overall.

There seems little doubt that the Earl of Southampton is the 'fair youth' of the Sonnets, she plays down the idea of a 'tragic period' in the early 1600's being due to a dark episode in the dramatist's life and makes mention more than once of his ability to 'please all', not least by writing,

comedies that were very nearly tragedies...and tragedies that were full of mad scenes and of comic or partly comic material,

which Stephen Fry has explained is what he wrote for every essay on Shakespeare he did at Cambridge having first adjusted whatever the question was to fit his stock answer.

In a number of contemporary or personal parallels in the plays, Katherine finds Jonson in Jaques and possibly the boy, Hamnet, in William Page in Merry Wives. The 'tradition of ironic self-presentation' is maintained in Malvolio's cross-gartering on yellow stockings being an obvious reference (to his contemporaries) to his much-maligned coat of arms that was so important to his gentlemanly status. Chaucer, Thomas More and Philip Sidney are cited as precursors in self-ridicule but sadly Ungentle Shakespeare was published before my own poem, The Lepidopterist's Wife, in which,

the man next door who reeks of gin

and loss, who watches horse racing all day

on a wide screen, a penniless mischief

 

was a self portrait but it was probably not on the Duncan-Jones radar. It's great to have taken part in such a rich tradition, though.

The collaborations with the likes of Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and George Wilkins are all borne out in case anybody wants to argue that, no, in fact, Shakespeare didn't write every word of the plays attributed to him but he is here credited with A Yorkshire Tragedy and, yes, there was a Hamlet play extant in 1589 and the similarities of John Marston's Antonio's Revenge, written at the same time, to the 1600-01 masterpiece suggest they were written either in competition or with knowledge of what each other were doing. It seems remarkable that so much of this detail was not in any of the shelf-ful of books I have on the subject.

The contentious issue of the will is faced full on with Katherine in no doubt that Shakespeare had little residual sympathy for his wife or 'daughter', Judith and only angrily and even begrudgingly made the provision for them that he did. This lack of consideration for women runs back through the book to there being more evidence of same-sex relationships than with heterosexual activity and the disgust that women provoke in him, with special reference to the Sonnets and the dark lady. Neither has she any time for the relaxed, happy retirement back in Stratford. The Droeshout portrait and the monument in Holy Trinity church show someone 'well-fed' and if portraits tended to flatter, he could have been fatter than that. It is suggested that he didn't become ill and die because he drank but that he drank because he was ill and then died.

There isn't much here that stands in direct contradiction of 'twins theory'. It's only a shame that even a scholar as astute as Katherine, who is far cuter than the legions of others who have attempted such lives, hasn't thought of it or, at least, doesn't think it worth a mention. Much of the circumstantial detail fits but she presumably still thinks the Sadlers were good friends and godparents. She even has the idea in plain sight and misses it when,

It is very striking that in the document , of the 1620's, in which Shakespeare's settlement of this large parcel of land is recorded, it is also stated, wrongly, that he 'had one daughter'.

There's just a chance it might not be wrong and that everybody else ever since has been. 

But that's not the basis of 'twins theory'. It just happens to fit with the catalogue of other circumstances that make the life less of a mystery. Certainly, those sentimental sorts who like the idea of an uxurious bard have a game on with Katherrine who comes with immaculate credentials, immense research and fine instincts. This is the best book on the subject I've seen and since the subject is one that I like to think I have a bit of a speciality in (or did until I read this), it's an obvious candidate for the shortlist for Best Book I've Ever Read. I had thought that using the library might save me buying quite so many books but I must have my own copy of this. It's essential. It's okay, though, you can get one for a fiver.

Don't you know the deuce is still wild

 

Back at the track after two years away.

It cost me but it didn't hurt and it was worth it just to be at Wincanton, that under-rated glory of English countryside where horses of not always the most proven talent do the best they can.

That's all that can be asked of any of us. 

It should be asked of a few more of us.

--

I stayed with the poems of William Matthews for longer than I thought I would, knowing that there were worthwhile fragments in them even if the poems as a whole were struggling to convince me.

It's not easy to convince me about 'prose poetry', either, but there is such a thing and it's not for me to say it's an oxymoron.

In La Tache, 1962, in praise of a bottle of wine, Matthews writes that,

It is the emblem of what we never really taste or know, the silence all poems are unfaithful to.

It's that last bit, the silence all poems are unfaithful to, that looks profound, that makes one come as close to shuddering as any few words in a poem have done for quite some time. It might need some 'unpacking' in a way that I'm not prepared to do for fear of sounding like a poetry reviewer.

The best art aspires to the condition of silence/ because that is better than being found guilty of having said something/ and music is far better at that than poetry is.

You can see why I find it so difficult to write poems any more.

The Lantivet Duo in Chichester

 The Lantivet Duo, Chichester Cathedral, Oct 12th

If one doesn't make the most of days like this, one never will. The gorgeousness of the chill in the autumn air under clear skies is the best the world ever is and is so all too briefly. I set out early to add in a walk along the Chichester Canal before the concert and there I added to my occasional series of photographs that bring to mind lines from poems. This is, There is a willow grows aslant a brook. It's not a willow and it's a canal rather than a brook but it still brought the account of the death of Ophelia to mind.

 

The Lanvinet Duo are Anna Brigham, vln, and Brendan Musk, pno. It was the Mozart on the programme that quite naturally made me book this week's concert, I had no idea what the other music was, but how do events sometimes confound expectations. The Sonata K.526 was broken up by the unheard of pieces. I wasn't convinced that would work, thinking that the sonata should be allowed to develop itself as was presumably intended. As it happened, the exotic variety, the likes of which is unlikely to be repeated in the area this season, made a return to accustomed, reliable Mozart a useful interval between music from India, Cornwall and America. It's not often Mozart is reduced to such status but a reputation like his can stand it.

The Allegro was playful with the violin mostly taking the lead and the piano following it around. If that was what you'd come for, you'd be perfectly happy.  In the middle, the Andante was Mozart in third gear, which is higher than many composers' top gear, of course, but maybe it only seemed like that to me after what we'd been played in between. The Presto, before the programme's finale, had piano and violin fingers dancing and restored any faith that might have been lost before the maestro as warm-up act gave way to a rollicking ending.

 

The pieces in between, though, were what will surely remain in the memory. Sobhillu by Tyagaraja (1767-1847) turned out to be composed Indian classical music rather than the improvisation that many Indian musicians play. Anna's shift into the sliding notes and mysterious world of raga was impressive. I don't know if Paganini even tried that. Brendan's piano was almost a cantus firmus providing the equivalent of the drone accompaniment. It worked hugely well, not least due to the surprise it came as, and was the unlikely highlight for me. It was also a reminder that a return to my discs of Indian music is long overdue. 

Sam Cave's Cornish Folk Songs received their 'live', as in 'not streamed', premiere here and so there's half a chance I'm the first to review them. There are two of them, South Australia making some more use of sliding notes and in the manner of a sea shanty, perhaps, in a contemporary setting but not avant garde. It's good to see young composers no longer feeling themselves needing to continue with the by now tired fixations of what was once 'modern'. I had to go and check on the title of The Mallard, which I didn't catch. I would never have guessed. Beginning with pizzicato violin and maximim sustain on the piano, it went on to explore top notes on both instruments and created an atmosphere of iciness and chill. I might have guessed it was called 'Winter' before it rounded off with smoother bowing and echoes of a celtic lament. (With apologies to the composer and the Lantivets if I've entirely misunderstood it).

Finally, if the joyous Mozart Presto hadn't been enough to send us home happy, Jefferson by Sara Watkins (b. 1981) was bluegrass and a spirited hoedown, which wouldn't be the most complex musical composition in the repertoire, if the repertoire went that far, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take some playing.

I went for the Mozart and came back with so much more. All best wishes to these fine young people offering something genuinely original and exploratory. The Chichester Symphony Orchestra are playing the Haffner Symphony next time I'm there. I'll make it up to Mozart then. He was where I started 50 years ago but one is glad of any number of excursions such as today was, without which we would all be dull.    

Steven Isserlis - The Bach Cello Suites

Steven Isserlis, The Bach Cello Suites (Faber)

It's sometimes tempting to think that Mozart is the greatest composer, or maybe Handel. Beethoven has his moments and I like to be contrary with my Buxtehude but the answer is really Bach. The piano has possibly the best repertoire and one wouldn't be without the violin but the cello is my favourite instrument.

Among any number of great cellists, it's hardly for me to say who's best but Steven Isserlis is high on the shortlist. In an unguarded moment, perhaps, he found himself saying that the Cello Suites were 'the greatest music ever written'. All of which made this book an essential buy.

One need not worry about it being too technical. Steven is apologetic and not too overlong or academic when he needs to include thoughts on the compositions or how to play them but is, for the most part, light-hearted and jokey while never in any doubt about the awe that Bach and this music make him feel.

As with Shakespeare biography, there's a lot of 'possibly' and 'maybe' in finding the way into Bach's life and the life of his manuscripts although there is no shortage of anecodotes for Steven to base his short biography section on. Then he proceeds through an extensive summary and comparison of the four manuscripts, none of which are Bach's but all of which would have been copied from an original. They don't quite copy them down the same in every detail. 

While the first of his thirteen 'rules for the player' is that there are no rules, he manages to provide twelve more by way of advice and the book , having established that all but the preludes are dance music, he goes to some lengths to find an elaborate religious interpretation for them, too. In another parallel with Shakespeare Studies, the obsession with numerology that Don Paterson set out in his book on the Sonnets, there are highly contrived numbers games going on throughout the Suites that one eventually begins to wonder at. Once one starts on such detective work it is hard to stop, especially with 3, 4, 6, 7 and 12, at the very least, having religious significance and multiplied together can make so many other numbers, too. In not being able to tell if Bach took it so far or if Steven goes beyond what Bach intended, one has to accept that much of it must be valid. With so many layers and the emotional charge contained in the purely mathmmatical content, it's a lot to appreciate in what we first thought was dance music. The verdict is that they aren't studies or exercises but a private meditation. John Eliot Gardiner's book passes over the Suites with only the briefest mention but he is a choral man but exactly why these pieces were written remains one of those mysteries that make them the more interesting.

Best read while listening to the music, the 'companion' finally takes the reader through it movement by movement. Isserlis is unfailingly liberal and non-prescriptive, giving his personal view and accepting that others are available. It's not a long book and it flies by, showing the way to much more than one ever thought. However many times you've heard them, there's always more to be found.

 

The Loss of Faith

 I don't know what a loss of religious faith would be like. Harrowing for those who depended on it, I dare say, but I'm not aware of having had any to lose.

Like a lot of young boys, and now girls and middle-aged men, I had a comparable devotion to football and I've lost that and become agnostic about it. I didn't think I'd go through the same process with poetry but maybe I'm like an A. N. Wilson of English poetry, the 40-odd years of involvement and trying leaving me with piles of books, all sorts of thoughts and memories but a lack of certainty about what it all means and if it matters. It is at least as bad as Sean O'Brien's line that,

art is all there is and might not be enough.

It's probably worse than that, though. But aged about 14 I decided that pop music was no good and spent a year listening to Beethoven and Shostakovich but eventually found it necessary to come back, re-invented as a 'soul' rather than 'rock' admirer and so these conditions can pass.

 

It possibly began with an idea of 'avoiding bad practice' in poetry, like sentimentality, bad rhymes, didacticism, virtue signalling, grand gestures - the list grew, as my friend Pauline once described a tree, 'like Stalin's Russia'. I need to acknowledge another debt to Prof. O'Brien before the final, big one, by quoting him, sadly the best I have as a favourite living poet, in his novel, Afterlife, where Jane Jarmain who was writing poetry 'as if she thought it was possible'. Although I took that as one of the many examples of dark humour in that book at the time, it has become increasingly worrying that, no, it's never good enough. It can never achieve the condition of music, of Bach or of the Cello Suites, of which more next time because Steven Isserlis's book on them arrived today and life inevitably underwent an upturn as a result.

Many people say that poetry taught at school put them off it, whether because it was Robert Browning or they weren't impressed by alliteration, assonance, zeugma or the part standing for the whole, erm, synecdoche. A few were excited by it whereas I probably thought it was better than learning the Periodical Table, valencies or Boyle's Law. But as with singing hymns, which I very much enjoyed, or listening to the lesson from the Bible, which I took less pleasure in, 'education' presented one with something one could choose to accept, reject or modify to one's own preferred version. Thus, while accepting that much Christian teaching is based on worthy moral principles, the back story appears wildly far-fetched, one can take from poetry the bits one likes without it meaning wholesale reading of The Faerie Queen, Walt Whitman and the vast swathes of contemporary poetry that aren't much good. It's not a matter of identifying an alliterative line and thinking one's 'got it'. That doesn't matter. Neither is it a matter of making pronouncements like, just as an example, Carol Ann Duffy's 'poetry is the music of being human'. It is a matter, though, of my much-repeated adage, lifted shamelessly from Danny Baker, of 'all you have to be is any good'.

I noticed in the schedules this week that Radio 3's The Essay was on the subject of Ted Hughes. I'm not very excited about that until seeing that Tuesday night's edition is Sean's essay on Hughes v. Larkin. I thought I might 'build back' via a reliable, authoritative commentary on an issue that's always been central to my poetry agenda. Prof O'Brien has long been in the habit of explainimng things that I knew already but couldn't have put quite so....O'Brienesquely. The talk was from Hull in 2018 but I'm not aware of it having been available unless you were there to hear it at the time. It's here for a while yet, though,

The Essay, R3, 5/10/21

The starting point for the comparison can hardly avoid being The New Poetry in which Al Alvarez championed the risk-taking Hughes over the 'genteel' Larkin. Among Sean's other ways of differentiating these two highly differentiated poets were the raw v. the cooked, the shaman v. the rationalist and the alleged outsider v. the establishment figure. What thrilled me the most, though, was his identification of Wodwo as still 'good' Hughes but containing 'the seeds of his downfall', specifically in a line from Fern, followed by the 'bravura set of negations' in Crow, which is exactly where I thought Hughes went wrong and of which Sean says he took up with other poets rather than Hughes like a completist disappointed that his favourite band had had a hit. And then, most pertintently came the 'sprawling incoherence' of Gaudete. I'm so glad he thought that, too, because that is the very place where I agree with my friend Jeff that Hughes is 'unreadable'.

Hughes contiunes to overproduce as if 'as a means of survival' whereas Larkin wrote less and less and ground to a halt. Sean's not quite partisan enough, and far too clever, to unequivocally take sides in the old, old game of poetry wars but one comes away with a sense of where his sympathies lie and if he finishes with the quote that 'it's hard to lose either when you can have both', yes, you can have both but his excursion into thoughts about taste and judgement might make us think Larkin wins, probably about 3-1, for him with no need to go into extra time.

I was intending to begin by citing Dover Beach on the subject of the loss of faith. How many long years has my Matthew Arnold sat there behind me untouched. If I were as devoted to poetry as some people I know with a more profound commitment to it, it wouldn't have. I was ever the dilettante, never the first class honours student. Sean makes the point that both Hughes and Larkin had a 'regard for language' that surely is the minimum requirement for a poet and what I thought it was but look what's happened to Kate Clanchy.

I don't know anything about her book that won prizes, was subsequently found to be racist and then Michael Morpurgo got himself embroiled and found himself apologetic, too. What I'm fairly sure of is that Kate considered herself on the right side of all admirably 'woke' sympathies but then found she wasn't. 

It's dangerous out there. Words mean things. They might not mean the same things to those who read them as they did to those who wrote them. It might be safer in the abstract, and possibly more moving, element of solo cello music. 

 

Maria Luc in Chichester

Maria Luc, Chichester Cathedral, Oct 5th

Get there early if you can. I was in by 12.30 for the 1.10 start and was still only on the fifth row but where I've sat before with a good view of the keyboard. I hope to make it my seat but getting a good seat could become the next Olympic sport. However, one can spend half an hour with a book or enjoying the increasingly familiar architecture.

Beginning gently with Debussy's Prelude Book 4, no 1, Maria Luc made time her own thing in the spacious, lingering of a piece which has the line, 'les sons et le parfum tournent dans le soir...' appended to it. Beginning gently rather than with a big opening is a good strategy and one we will bear in mind when we finish with Debussy, too.

Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in E major, K.20 is chirpy and in a programme that could have been designed to demonstrate Maria's versatility in a variety of piano moods showed her agility rather than the restraint she began with. For then it was all drama, going close to both ends of the keyboard at times in Prokofiev's Sonata no. 3 in A minor which moved into a second movement that was forever spilling forwards. For all his difficulty, Prokofiev has been proving a popular choice in recitals recently, it seems, which is fine except I haven't heard anything from the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues and I wouldn't want it to be at their expense.

It was only then that Maria took a break and a round of applause. That first half was one of considerable contrasts. Chopin's Barcarolle op.60 featured a drowsy left hand behind a chiming, prettier left before broadening out into very much the gorgeousness that Chopin's name is guaranteed to bring with it.

By now the time is well overdue that I should express no surprise that Debussy is often not as easy and impressionistic as my pre-conceived idea of him was for so long. In his Op. 23, Pour le piano, he is dark and potentially dangerous in the prelude with tempestuous intent and repeated runs up the keyboard that glissando sounds too genteel a word for. The sarabande takes us back into calmer waters and a haunting or haunted atmosphere.  One might expect a toccata to involve quick fingers and that's what it did before flowing towards a fuller finish that Rachmanninov would have presumably been happy with and an ending as big as anyone would wish for.

Being able to attend more of these local concerts these days does nothing to diminish my gratitude for them or the great respect one has for all the performers. The wonder has only become less how good they are in favour of how many of them there are. Maria Luc's range is impressive, her forte as compelling as her piano and her fluency. She'll be welcome back any time.

Signed Poetry Books - John Burnside

It's been some time since I added to the Signed Poetry Book collection. I have a goodly proportion of the poets I'd like to have so the process of gathering was always going to slow down. Eliot, Auden and Larkin might be attainable but I try to have an eye for a bargain. I might need to sell the house to acquire a signed Sylvia or Dylan and I'm not one to make collecting such an obsession that I become a suspect on Midsomer Murders when a Thomas Hardy manuscript with impeccable provenance is up for grabs.

It is possibly indicative of the perceived difference between Portsmouth and Chichester that you wouldn't expect such a happy find in Portsmouth. I don't know if the fine Oxfam shop in Chichester had noticed this was signed but it's not as if the signature adds much to the value of a book until it is at least by more of a household name, like Betjeman, maybe. It's no reflection on the quality of the writing, only on the demand for the signature of the author.

It was quite glorious for me, though, given this year's very rewarding skim across the top of the prolific Burnside output. It's 'early' Burnside and interesting to see him finding his way towards the mesmerising poet he was to be. You can see it there waiting to happen but, in 1994, there was plenty more to come. 

The genuine artist keeps improving or else they should soon stop. It's by no means obvious that John has reached his limit yet and so he's still one to follow. It's possible that I have and so I'm not but at least I realized as much and have so far done the decent thing.

Retirement Diary

 It may still be a false dawn to think we are post-plague. There's still deaths in three figures each day and the more of the Prime Minister's brand of clueless optimism one hears the less - the even less - one is inclined to be encouraged by it. But one presses on because, really, what else can one do and it appears I've arrived at a period of contrived busy-ness that one needs to make the most of while one can. I hardly get a day off what with the walks, the concerts, today's visit to Scrabble Club and a go at indoor bowls on Weds as part of Portsmouth's very worthy two weeks of festival for the over-60's. I'm wondering if the office will take me back so I can have a rest.

Yoko got it right when I told her I was going to Scrabble Club. God help them that have to play you.

First go, my letters spell out FLORINS, I stick it on the end of DUET, score 76 and the game is already all but over. I apologize to the nice, kindly people who've just turned up for a gentle social morning and on my next turn show them that but for the want of an I to latch onto, I had QUAGMIRE for another 50 bonus.

I'm really not someone you want at almost any sort of genteel gathering. The librarian said they were thinking of having chess. I dread to think. Meanwhile I'll maybe get put back in my place at indoor bowls. I haven't played bowls for about 45 years.

But libraries are good, aren't they. It means, even in this day and age, not all books have to be bought and then found shelf space for. This little local facility had David Copperfield, the autobiography of Ruby Walsh, more cycling books than any library would have had 20 years ago and so I'll be a customer, I'm sure. Whether they'll get me the new Paul Muldoon to save me the expense of buying another dose of sublime mystification, I don't know, but I'll do what I can to keep such an admirable service in work.

 

Maybe they can get me Katherine Duncan-Jones's Ungentle Shakespeare, the new Sebastian Faulks, Glyn Maxwell's On Poetry, a biography of Edmund Spenser and all kinds of things for when I've finished Balzac's A Harlot High and Low in which we follow Lucien back to Paris with all the usual expectations of flying too high and crashing disastrously but with plenty of profound reflections on the nature of ambition, society, 'love' and money on the way.

It is with much regret that I record that poetry is not my friend at present. My persistence in undermining all the shortcomings I think I find in it have eventually persuaded me there's not enough left to like about it. Is it not mostly what so many outside of the poetry community think it is, a lot of preciousness indulged by critics who only compound the problem by trying to show that they 'get it'. At best it is a magician's trick done with language and at worst it is transparent virtue signalling. 

I very much hope it isn't and some time spent with a selection of time-honoured favourites will dispel my doubts. The Essay on the wireless this week is devoted to Ted Hughes which might not help much. A well-respected friend describes him as 'unreadable' and if I don't quite go that far, I do know what he means post-Wodwo. Tomorrow, Tuesday night's essay is Sean O'Brien making the comparison between Hughes and Larkin first established by Alvarez. One might reasonably expect that to be authoritative common sense but it will be interesting to see along which lines Prof O'Brien makes his distinction.

But tune in here first to read about Maria Luc and her Debussy, Chopin and Prokofiev in Chichester. What more could one reasonably want.