‘The sweet smell of decaying paper appeals to me no longer.’
I once attempted to explain to my screen-addicted son James, then 14, the heady joy of sme‘The sweet smell of decaying paper appeals to me no longer.’
I once attempted to explain to my screen-addicted son James, then 14, the heady joy of smelling an old book, in this case a 1939 hardback edition of Norman Douglas’s South Wind, printed on beautiful paper in the United States. James looked at me askance, a look with which I am all too familiar.
The passage of time does strange things. The ordinary everyday becomes just a memory: for example, the lending library in a second-hand bookshop. The essential can become passé: reading a book when you could be glued to a screen (I do know I am writing this on a screen). Two things stand out for me with this wonderful George Orwell story, apart from his beautiful writing, firstly, it’s a striking snapshot of a very particular time and place and secondly it illustrates the difference between romance and reality. Customers regularly make inquiries of this type: ‘Do you have Mill on the Floss by TS Eliot?’ Sigh.
Orwell’s bookshop of the mid-1930s might have been frequented by all types from baronets to bus-conductors, but is replete with old lady customers of vague request, moth-eaten men who may or may not smell of bread crusts, and lunatics, paranoiacs in particular. Orwell acknowledges the difference between the books people buy and the ones they borrow from the lending library; the latter reflecting their actual taste rather than what they think they should be reading.
I really like this glimpse of Orwell’s society at the time, especially with his satirical touch. I have a vivid picture of the colourful habitués, the cold and dust of the establishment, and the perils of losing your love for something when the commercial reality of trade overwhelms the romance of the individual tome....more
Sam Neill is well known as Dr Alan Grant in three Jurassic Park movies, Sean Connery’s ill-fated fellow submariner Captain Borodin (‘I will live in MoSam Neill is well known as Dr Alan Grant in three Jurassic Park movies, Sean Connery’s ill-fated fellow submariner Captain Borodin (‘I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me’), in The Hunt for Red October, Damien in Omen 3 and a clutch of antipodean characters in My Brilliant Career (with Judy Davis), Dead Calm (Nicole Kidman) Evil Angels (Meryl Streep), The Piano (Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel), and latterly the grumpy old man in Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Sam Neill is also a very likeable human being, which is a considerable advantage when reading his engaging and funny memoir. He is somebody who doesn’t seem to generate a bad word from anyone. He appears friendly on set and generous to his co-stars, often in awe of the talent he is working with, especially the actresses. He is quite modest about his own talent without being falsely so.
Neill has serious interests outside making films, notably producing pinot noir in Otago and building houses for himself. To be parochial, he has also spent an awful lot of time in Australia, like his compatriots Russell Crowe and good friend John Clarke, the great satirist. And Sam’s best mate is Bryan Brown, Aussie icon.
He is not so much a name dropper as someone who has spent decades mixing with famous people, from Sting to Princess Diana, as well as his fellow performers from Sir John Gielgud to Peter O’Toole to Meryl Streep.
Sam Neill has also been battling extremely serious blood cancer in recent times, specifically; stage three angioimmunoblastic T-Cell lymphoma. He has been in death’s corridor if not at death’s door but is now in remission after several courses of invasive treatments including some very experimental ones. Hence this memoir is ‘somewhat flung together. I write in haste.’(p2). And it shows, rumbling along at a fair pace more or less chronologically, but with wild diversions back and forth as he thinks of them. It is the charm of the book but makes it quite chaotic. There are lots of good stories, with hardly an unkind word for anyone, although he is none too complementary about right–wing politicians, notably the divisive Piggy Muldoon.
However, he does not disguise his antipathy towards Judy Davis and Harvey Keitel or his disenchantment with erstwhile Australian PM Bob Hawke, apparently conspicuously rude at a dinner Neill attended. I should say that Hawke is dead, so in no position to sue and both Davis and Keitel have reputations for being difficult. Almost everyone else he has worked with, Neill adores.
Overall an amiable outpouring from a man who thought he was dying but happily, especially for all his friends, he isn’t (still going as at posting date)....more
This is young Ernest Hemingway’s fictionalised account of the burning of the Turkish port of Smyrna in September 1922 at the conclusion of the Greco-TThis is young Ernest Hemingway’s fictionalised account of the burning of the Turkish port of Smyrna in September 1922 at the conclusion of the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922.
Only slightly fictionalised: Hemingway’s narrator is an officer from an unnamed, unidentified allied warship in the harbour, attempting to evacuate some of the thousands of screaming refugees crowding the quai, trapped as the city burns behind them.
While Smyrna had been part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, the Greek and Armenian presence in the city had been of even longer standing. After the end of World War One, Smyrna was occupied by the Greeks until Kemal Ataturk recaptured the city in September 1922. Days later the fire started in the Greek and Armenian sector, and thousands of refugees (reported numbers vary from 80,000 to 400,000) crowded the port to escape the flames.
Hemingway’s narrator sees women refusing to let go of their dead babies; reports that at one stage a Turkish officer orders no more refugees to be evacuated and Greeks fleeing, unable to take their baggage animals with them ‘so they just broke their forelegs and dumped them into the shallow water.’ (p2) Estimates of those killed at Smyrna vary between 10,000 and 125,000....more
Sobering sad short story starts off with the promise of a pleasant small town romance between Liz and Jim.
Liz works at Smith’s hostelry where Jim, theSobering sad short story starts off with the promise of a pleasant small town romance between Liz and Jim.
Liz works at Smith’s hostelry where Jim, the newly arrived blacksmith, down from Canada, takes his meals. Liz likes Jim a lot and cannot stop thinking about him. For Jim’s part: ‘He liked her face because it was so jolly, but he never thought about her.’ (p1).
After a hunting trip with other men, Jim drinks a lot of whisky, spies Liz waiting, and ends up forcing himself upon her without her consent.
Harrowing.
One of three stories and ten poems by Hemingway published privately in Paris in 1923 and later included in other volumes...more
New York is the only city where I have been subject to a museum meltdown, inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, overwhelmed when I realised there wasNew York is the only city where I have been subject to a museum meltdown, inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, overwhelmed when I realised there was simply not enough time to look at even half of the vast collection of treasures I wanted to see. I had to make some difficult choices. Ultimately, it was still a marvellous experience.
Sagely, Wendy Lubovich chooses only one item to highlight from the Met, Washington Crossing the Delaware, giving it a detailed appraisal while acknowledging that it features in the ‘American Wing’ of the museum. She does not need to say anything more, because the place is so well known. Other well-known museums are given different treatment: the comprehensive guide to the Guggenheim focusses on Frank Lloyd Wright’s innovative design, intended to highlight the artworks; the Frick exemplifies the conjunction between wealthy men, in this case J P Morgan and Henry Clay Frick, and the latter’s mansion, turned into a museum, full of numerous masterpieces.
For the Museum of Modern Art, Lubovich again waxes over a single work; One: Number 31, 1950 by Jackson Pollock. For the Whitney their continuing mission of featuring contemporary American artists is accommodated in a newly designed building by the Italian master, Renzo Piano, who parenthetically also designed my favourite Sydney building, the prosaically named Aurora Place, a structure inspired by an unfurling sail and unlike anything else in the city. Although Jorn Utzon is said to have been inspired by sails on the Harbour when he designed the Sydney Opera House.
Good as these entries are, the beauty of the book is in its conception and approach. Emons the publisher based in Cologne (‘11’ is lucky, ‘111’ even more fortunate) have been releasing guide books since 1984 and the 111 series since 2008. There are now more than 500 titles. For New York there are 111 museums, each presented with a page of text, nicely complemented by a photograph by Ed Lefkovicz. This captures something quintessential about each museum, large or small. It is these lesser known small and specialist museums which benefit greatly from this treatment by an informed guide, which the author is by profession.
The book is therefore full of discoveries, from the first entry about the former home of sculptor Donald Judd, now a museum of his work and his collection of sculptures laid out by the artist himself. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, boasts Duke Ellington’s Cotton Club white piano, Benny Carter’s double-breasted wool coat and a rich sound archive. The Noguchi Museum is housed in the building Isamu Noguchi (he of the famous ‘Noguchi’ table) bought to display his own sculptures and lanterns. The tranquil interior of the Japan Society building can be found just near the busy UN precinct.
There are museums for folk art, bonsai, children, tattoos, Harry Houdini, gangsters, art and design, food and drink, sex, and the New York Yankees, among many others.
A true delight.
PS: Emons has released 500 guide books to cities and regions round the world, but nothing as yet for Australia. They might want to start with the Qantas Founders Museum in Longreach, Queensland, or if confined to Sydney, The Australian National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour would be a good choice....more
It is wonderful to discover a new author, in this case Stephen Crane, well known for The Red Badge of Courage, but one I have not yet read. So The OpeIt is wonderful to discover a new author, in this case Stephen Crane, well known for The Red Badge of Courage, but one I have not yet read. So The Open Boat had the benefit of being fresh and turned out to be immensely satisfying, a story of courage, a story of quiet competence, skilled seamanship, teamwork and above all, restraint in the face of the likely prospect of drowning within sight of the shore.
The Open Boat of the title is a ten foot dinghy. (view spoiler)[There are four men in this very small boat after a steamer has foundered; the Captain, injured but still with his facilities, experience and temperament intact, a cook, an oiler and a correspondent. While close to land, the Captain must keep the vessel beyond the line of the breakers, which in the 'roiling' seas can only be done by rowing continuously while searching for a landing through the surf. This is closely based on Crane’s own experience of spending 30 hours in an open dinghy after the SS Commodore, on its way to Cuba, hit a sandbar off the coast of Florida.
The beauty of the story is the personalities of the four men and their tantalising proximity to the shore, the possibility of rescue which fades and the decision by the Captain, accepted by all, to head back out to sea on nightfall so they might make another attempt to reach the beach in daylight. (hide spoiler)]
This is a great adventure story and it reminds me that the best sea stories come from the veterans of sail and steam like Melville, Conrad, London, Conan Doyle and Mark Twain, who have real experience of river, sea and ocean....more
Before them rode the town policeman, fat with leisure, authority, bullets, pistol, handcuffs, club, and a badge. He was splendidly oblivious to the smBefore them rode the town policeman, fat with leisure, authority, bullets, pistol, handcuffs, club, and a badge. He was splendidly oblivious to the smoking, back-firing motorcycle beneath him as he swept slowly back and forth before the parade. (p10)
This is a short story of disintegration, re-invention and revival for Major Nathan Durant, a career military officer, almost despite his state of mind.
Major Durant has been badly wounded in Korea; his time in the US army has come to an abrupt end. He is no longer of any value to his employers. Slowly repaired in body, although he bears the scars, he is lost in soul, so he buys a second-hand cabin cruiser and starts heading vaguely up the coast towards Martha’s Vineyard, with no particular aim mind, just for something to do.
But he finds himself in unfamiliar social circumstances, cast from the closed world he has known for so long into a new one with which he is unfamiliar. He is awkward and out of touch with ordinary people, civilians, especially young ones, until he meets Annie, who is interested in his boat and interested in him.
Major Durant has stopped to pay his respects to a fallen comrade, from the town. This is the place where his two worlds intersect, represented by the weaponised policemen on the smoky bike, leading a parade of school children the day before Memorial Day.
Major Durant watches on with Annie as one of the children places some flowers at the small square named for the Major’s wartime mate.
A short story does not have to be long, and this one is not, a mere five pages.
Without giving away the twist, the tale starts off one way and ends upA short story does not have to be long, and this one is not, a mere five pages.
Without giving away the twist, the tale starts off one way and ends up going the other, in vintage Saki style, as the greedy protagonists seek to extract treasure from a long sunken galleon.
But what is treasure? One thing to someone and something else to another. And what is more important when all is said and done, stuff that glitters or the good name of the family?
Consistently intriguing. With many questions. The following contains details which allude to the plot.
What has happened to the world? Or just the peopConsistently intriguing. With many questions. The following contains details which allude to the plot.
What has happened to the world? Or just the people? If all the people are gone save a few, why do the fish and birds remain? And importantly why is ‘The Other’ always so well dressed, when Piranesi mostly goes barefoot and wears faded rags which used to be coloured jumpers? Piranesi meets ‘The Other’ at one of their regular scheduled meetings:
He was standing by the empty plinth. He wore a suit of dark brown wool and a shirt of dark olive. His gleaming shoes were a chestnut colour. (p142)
What are the halls? Who built them? Why were they built? Why are they full of statues? What happened at Manchester University in the eighties? What has happened to Piranesi’s lost journals?
The answers to just about all of these questions are revealed in due course as the story unfolds or perhaps unravels, in good way, as Piranesi meets a rare visitor and his perception changes as he learns from each encounter and his own introspection.
It is perhaps a pity that Susanna Clarke has given us only the two novels, her much lauded first, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, published in 2005, and now this one nearly two decades later, as well as some shorter works. However, given her tremendous battle with long-term debilitating illness, rendering her exhausted for much of the time, it is wonderful that she has produced this story at all.
She has created a richly imaginative world and a striking central character of goodness and heart, a journal keeper at the end of the world. Piranesi’s circumstances raise some interesting questions about reality and the state of the mind. (view spoiler)[Initially we are convinced that Piranesi lives in a remnant place where he may be one of two, perhaps three people still alive. He lives by his wits and the bounty of the semi-flooded world and its fish, mindful of the turbulence of the sea and its tides. But there are other people, a few at least, who serve to change his thinking, even if he is ambivalent about the intentions of possible visitors. It does seem that there is a big world after all and Piranesi has, or had, a life in it. But does he want to return to it? Is he in fact delusional and is his watery world imagined? Ultimately, it does not matter, as he achieves a reconciliation, or at least an accommodation in his life. (hide spoiler)].
Quite the most interesting story I have read so far this year....more
The Palazzo Barberini in Rome is the home of the Italian National Gallery of Ancient Art. It is full of mainly, but not exclusively, Renaissance art oThe Palazzo Barberini in Rome is the home of the Italian National Gallery of Ancient Art. It is full of mainly, but not exclusively, Renaissance art of a high order. No doubt it is a magnificent collection housed in a wonderful building.
The subject matter of the artists is overwhelmingly religious portraiture alongside mythological scenes, featuring some pretty big names like Titian, Caravaggio, Furini, Raphael, Bernini and Pietro Da Cortona plus scores of Italians I haven’t actually heard of, plus a smattering of quite well known ‘foreigners’, including Hans Holbein whose portrait of the hefty Henry VIII of England (p45), looks very familiar, El Greco and Nicholas Poussin.
Now this is not to my taste, my interest in visual art starts about the time of JWM Turner, say 1800, which is way after all those pious people stopped looking skyward.
However I was stuck by the Caravaggio action pic of Judith beheading Holofernes (pp88-89). No doubt Judith was annoyed with Holofernes, but also mad at the total absence of women painters in the collection (I do understand the historical reasons why this is so).
I was also taken by two tremendously atypical paintings by Bartolomeo Pazzarotti (1529-1592), a new artist to me who created sometime between 1578 and 1590 two smiling meatworkers among the carcasses with a boar’s head also prominent in (The Butcher’s Shop) (p61), and a senior couple with baskets of seafood along with spectacular crustaceans laid out on their table (The Fishmonger’s Shop) (p62). The lady seems to be telling the gentleman to stop handling the fish so much but that’s only speculation.
This is a wonderful catalogue for enthusiasts of religious art from Italy....more
One of the great joys of reading is finding a story with illustrations which enhance the tale.
Such is the case here with the added advantage that theOne of the great joys of reading is finding a story with illustrations which enhance the tale.
Such is the case here with the added advantage that the illustrator is the author herself, who always considered her art as important as her writing. Tove Jansson trained in art schools in Stockholm, Helsinki and Paris for nearly a decade between 1930 and 1938 (she was born in 1914), and she applied her artistic skill to her writing thereafter.
The story itself is charming, as many have observed, full of creature characters with distinct personalities: the adventurous Moonmintroll, the timorous Sniff, and fellow travellers Snufkin the mouth organist, the indolent muskrat philosopher and the Hemulen, who is an obsessive philatelist, oblivious of the dangers of a comet hurtling towards the Earth, the shop steward snork and his sister the snork maiden, she of the changing colour and eye for a bauble, as well as for Moonintroll himself.
The charm comes from the details of the everyday; coffee and cake, dancing and shopping along the way, in conjunction with the eccentric and the odd. Moomintroll’s party finds Snufkin living in a tent in a desolate bleak place with ‘that black velvet tree with the beautiful grey colours beyond’ (p45), Moominpappa is constantly updating his memoirs as events occur (it has been suggested that Jansson based Moominpappa and Moominmamma, the latter insisting on bringing a cake as they flee the oncoming comet, on her own parents, a sculptor and illustrator respectively). There are chain smoking astronomers calculating the exact moment of impact of the comet but with no thought of the cataclysmic effect if it hits. All the while this is taking place under a reddening sky as the adventurers travel on the seabed where oceans have disappeared.
Jansson’s wonderful illustrations depict exactly what is happening on the page, in a dark style which I would call Nordic mythological for want of a better term. When our travellers rest for the night on a high pointed rock in the empty sea, with their stilts leaning against the rock face, each of the characters is impeccably drawn just as you might imagine from the text including a wide awake Moomintroll on watch at the top. There are many of these epic illustrations and many more I would describe almost as beautifully drawn doodles in a minor key.
There are many fine collaborations between authors and illustrators: Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, Kenneth Graham and A A Milne with E H Shepherd, Jules Feiffer for Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, but there is something extra special when a gifted author turns out to be an equally gifted illustrator, witness Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, noting that The Jungle Book was originally illustrated by John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling. James Thurber drew whimsical cartoon figures for his own stories, and Antoine Saint-Exupery created an other world for The Little Prince. Would The Hobbit be the same without Tolkien’s drawings? And then there is Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit fixed in our minds as he is drawn by Potter herself. One final one I enjoyed with my son, Lynley Dodd’s Hairy Maclary series: Hairy Maclary: Five Lynley Dodd Stories....more
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