Carl Larsson

It was Pascaline, owner of a delightfully 'arty' B&B near Chamonix in the French Alps, a now regular port of call of mine on my trips across Europe, who first introduced me to the work of Carl Larsson.  He drew and painted in a style to which I would be ver happy to aspire and, by closely studying his drawings I have learned much about his techniques.  I now have three of his books; 'A Family', 'A Home' and 'A Farm'; all are a delight to browse.

The Pen Friend

Some years ago enjoyed reading Ciaran Carson’s, “Last Night’s Fun”.  I can not now find this book on my shelves.  I have probably culled it to a book fair.  Recently I stumbled upon the same author’s, “The Pen Friend”.  “Last Night’s Fun”, I can remember enjoying but remember little of the book, “The Pen Friend”, I believe, will endure in my memory for a long time and will be re-read sooner rather than later.  An exceptionally clever, thought provoking story - if story it is - that at many times during my reading had me insecure about my position in the strange relationship between reader, book and author.  Reading Fowles’, “The Magus”, I remember, had a similar effect on me; Sebald too, particularly in his “Rings of Saturn”, often had me wondering quite when and how I had been carried from one scene into another.

“The Pen Friend” is a literary tapestry with which haunting images have been created from very unlikely and diverse threads; collections of scent bottles, stamps and vintage pens skillfully interwoven with Esperantists, Spiritualists, Security Organisations, Terrorists; with Belfast, London, Paris, York and New York and many other incidental elements to fashion a picture of a seemingly beautiful love affair which the reality of life ultimately corrupts.  Or does it?  Is awful reality ultimately transcended?

For me, my first reading of “The Pen Friend” has been as much an experience as a read, Carson’s ideas, lurking now in the deeper, darker recesses of my mind, have already begun to haunt me.

On Chesil Beach

Arnold Bockin: Isle of the Dead *

My grand-daughter, who had been staying here with me, left last Monday abandoning on the table a copy of  'On Chesil Beach', by Ian McEwan.  Finding it there on Tuesday morning I picked it up and, over my morning coffee, I began to read it.  Before I rose from the table I had finished reading all of its 166 pages.  It is a tragic tale beautifully written.  In less able, or more salacious hands several passages essential to the story could easily have been narrated sensationally but McEwan handles his story to invoke emotions of tenderness and understanding rather than eroticism.  I enjoyed reading 'On Chesil Beach'.  In a way it left me feeling much as I did when I had finished reading William Trevor's,  'The Story of Lucy Gault'.
*Oh yes, despite the principal protagonists surviving to the end of the story, there is a connection!

The Barefoot Architect

My copy of this book arrived here yesterday, as with all my post it arrived from the village on a donkey ridden (Post haste!) by Nicos.  There is an erratic delivery service to the village but no road on which the post delivery vehicle can drive from there.  Why, I am now wondering has it taken me two years to learn of the existence of this wonderful tome?  Seven hundred paperback pages of information about how to had build just about everything from just about anything.  Since the oil crisis of the seventies ignited a spark within me of interest in simple building methods I have been an avid collector and reader of any book concerning the architecture and building of shelters of every kind.  The author, perhaps 'maker' would be more appropriate here, of this book, Netherlands born Johan van Lengen is, according to the blurb on the book's flaps, as interesting as his book.  Giving up an architectural career in San Francisco he went first to Mexico and later to Brazil where he helped the disadvantaged of those countries to improve the standards of their housing.  Barefoot Architect, first published in Spanish in 1982, was the result of van Lengen's work in those countries.  It was first translated into english in 1982.

Diaries of a Dying Man

After having the book by me for many weeks I have finally come to the end of William Soutar's, 'Diaries of a Dying Man'.  As is usually the case after reading a book that powerfully engages me, I am now a little unsettled concerning what next to read.  'Diaries' is not a long book, only 176 pages, but it does require close reading and, to understand some of Soutar, a good deal of reflection on what has been read.  The extracts from his poetry, written in Scottish, are beyond my current understanding but I found his English prose arresting.  To express and reinforce so many of my own ideas and ideals I could usefully quote much of Soutar.  Here, for example, is an extract from his entry for 8th October 1943, just weeks before he died:
  "Our body and soul cry out for change and refreshment; for the expansiveness of a world untrammelled by excessive regulation.  We want to feel that Earth has been washed clean again, and that from her comes the uncontaminated richness of fruit and grain.  A few simple things could bring about this change, a sense of freedom, and a return of a joy in earth.  And if such a one placed in a privileged position can have so intense longings - what agonies of desire must be experienced by the millions of destitute folk......"
Freedom untrammelled by excessive regulation and a joy in Earth; great ideas!

Recent Reading

This morning I read, 'Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto', by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine. Far from being an expression of the dreams of a pair of woolly-minded Greens, this eighteen page pamphlet is a succinct, intelligent and inspiring questioning of the civilization with which we are familiar and an appeal to take up arms, (or, rather, pens) against an impending 'ecocide'. For their 'Maps in the Sand' visit http://www.dark-mountain.net/
I also read Keith Levy's brilliant little book, 'How To Live Well On A Small Income'. This A6 size, 12pp + 4pp cover booklet has but two chapters each on one page. Chapter one is headed: 'Eliminate Debt', chapter two: 'Reduce Outgoings' and that is about it. Other pages are filled with a title page and verso, a dedication, a biographical note, an author's note, an introduction, a foreword and two pages of reviews. This book will make an excellent small present to give away to friends and family. For more information Google: flyingtortoise.blogspot.

The Liquid Continent; Travels through Alexandria, Venice and Istanbul

In Perth yesterday a shower of hailstones drove me off the street and into Waterstone's Bookshop. From one of the many displays set up by staff to tempt browsers to buy I picked up 'The Liquid Continent' by Nicholas Woodsworth and began to read. Outside the store hailstones had turned to heavy rain; I read on. Invariably, when I am in a bookshop, I browse books that have either a title or a cover illustration that attracts me. More often than not, after being put off either by the testimonials on the back cover or the first pages of text I return browses picked up on spec to where I found them.
Far from putting me off, the first pages of 'The Liquid Continent' encouraged me to read on. I particularly enjoy reading stuff that expresses my own ideas more competently than I can; stuff  to which I can contentedly nod. On page seven I read the following:
'And in all these places I came to the same conclusion: true Mediterraneans, if lesser in number these days, continue to use their physical senses in ways that most of us have forgotten. There is a kind of faux-peasant, goat-cheese-and-lavender sensuality about Provence, most of which emanates from glossy life-style magazines.  But the Mediterranean  also has a real sensuality, its own developed life of the senses.  It comes from a direct contact with the immediate world, from the intimate attachment of individuals to simple things around them. Meditteraneans answer to the strong flavours and sensations of the landscapes they grow up in, to family and community, to the cyclical rhythms of the seasons, to routines of daily work, to old habits sustained through the ages.'
This is exactly how I see the folk I have lived amongst for the past dozen years!
Long before I had read to the end of the first chapter I was hooked. Rarely has it been such a pleasure for me to part with £8.99.