…where you won't do very much harm

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.
-- E. M. Forster, A Room With A View

I should think this a popular quote. I imagine younger readers fastening to this advice, as I did so many years ago, noting, but mostly brushing aside the note of caution. Some marry a George or Lucy, others a Cecil or Charlotte. Some forget, for they no longer need to remember, others return with a rueful smile or occasional tears; I can’t think which is more appropriate, though appropriate of course has nothing to do with it.

Continuing adventures

I’ve not been too productive when it comes to writing, but then I have an excuse; not so long ago, I started a new job. As befits a new job, at least one worth sticking with, there’s a level of tiredness from taking in all that’s new; that’s the attraction. A new language, a new subsystem for building the UI, a new model design pattern, it’s all good. Mind you the office is 170 miles away, which is why I work from home with an occasional one-day visit; that’s a long day; up before 5am, back home as late as 8pm. So the reading has faltered too.

I was on a roll; The Sense of An Ending, Waterland, The Mayor of Casterbridge and A Tale of Two Cities to name a few. I’ve started the long run-on sentences of All The Pretty Horses – thankfully I’m used to McCarthy’s play-by-his-own-rules punctuation - but it’s had to wait until a short break this week to give it its due. Before then, instead of useful activities such as practicing how to read and write, I found myself perturbed by the recent events in Emmerdale. How did their first ever music festival make a £0.5 million profit on those crowds? Oh, and somebody else was murdered. It’s enough to have you lying awake at night wondering whether the alphabet can be re-produced in a semi-recognisable format using only nine pixels; some companies spend millions producing ‘retina displays’ but I like to ‘think outside the box’. It must be the long hours.

Pet cemetery

The goldfish is dead; long live the (other) goldfish. At 6pm on the evening of April the 7th, the father of Miss Ruse was called to a fish tank in a bedroom north of Bristol, there to pronounce Minnie the fish ‘dead on arrival’; dead on my arrival, it’s not like the fish could go anywhere. I’d expected a body afloat, not a ghost floating through a former home. Unsure of what should follow I asked my daughter, who fishing out her former pet requested a burial alongside Humphrey (the guinea pig) for the following day, Easter day, which entailed an overnight period of lying in state for the deceased. I can recommend Tesco re-sealable sandwich bags.

I am on the downward slope of my extended weekend yet nowhere near the arbitrary schedule imposed to complete Tender Is The Night. Unexpected deaths aside, I’m not too concerned as it’s achieved the desired effect of making me read, and when finished I can decide on Gatsby, recently read and Fitzgerald’s most famous, or this last and less well received of his novels. Of course I don’t really have to choose but I’m tending towards the latter. It’s decline and fall repeated; though extrapolated from where I am in his story, Dick Diver’s descent looks terminal in comparison to that of Logan Mountstuart whose own decline, whilst it might sometimes have been self-induced, was mostly one that afflicts us all.

Rise and shine, readers

Yesterday, having woken at an ungodly hour I remained such for hours, until close enough to an alarm that getting up made no difference. I was tired, so much so that driving into work occasioned one of those “where am I” moments similar to when, having driven from Bristol to Manchester, I failed to remember Birmingham. This time it was an eerie one minute tumbleweed along what later transpired to be the M48, but that’s motorways for you; and my excuse for the second - and definitely not the last - latte and cinnamon Danish combo of the week. It wasn’t enough to protect from a malcontent office air conditioner, but then what is?

Today starts a long Easter weekend in which to recover, eat chocolate, repent, think about fixing the blog, laugh at Ken Livingstone’s predicament and finish that book. Hopefully not in that order; I can laugh at Ken anytime and I’m committed to Tender Is The Night which, though brilliant, teases with the possibility of becoming annoying or worse, ordinary. I have four days, and no excuses.

The worst of Bath

I'm on to Persuasion, Jane Austen’s last novel though only the second I’ve read. Of them all, this story has always been my favourite, being more introspective and darker than the rest. I remember two adaptations; a recent ITV production with Sally Hawkins and an older BBC effort with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds. It is - again - incredibly romantic; I can see why Austen has such a following. It’s bitingly funny too:

The worst of Bath was the number of plain women. He did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of plain was out of all proportion ... there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath.

And sometimes, just biting:

He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him ‘poor Richard,’ been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.

Ouch, she’s hardly sentimental! One mild complaint, more of a thought, and not of the book; Anne is described as plain yet Sally Hawkins is anything but. To digress a little, neither is Ruth Wilson in Jane Eyre, and Toby Stephens was a little too good looking for Rochester. They’re all supposed to be, if not plain, certainly not striking. It’s a familiar failure; with respect to physical attractiveness, the source is often ignored - has it always been this way? Have we so little faith in character, or is it that producers - perhaps rightly - have so little faith in us?

Ethan Frown

On an impulse, having seen a tweet mentioning Ethan Frome and with almost nihilistic expectations, I decided to read the book. I’ve not read any Edith Wharton before though I’ve seen the odd adaptation. I even dug out a copy of The Age of Innocence in expectation of reading it next, then put it aside; Ethan Frome is crushing, but not in a good way.

Hey Mrs. Kinetta, are you still inflicting all that horrible Ethan Frome damage on your students?
-- Grosse Pointe Blank

So now I can appreciate Martin Blank’s comment. Perhaps a tale of what, for one individual, might have been if not for circumstance, is darker than one where our end is certain? In some ways I found it more depressing than The Road, yet though I could tell it was well-written, beautiful, tragic and so on - and it is all these things - it was also that rare case of knowing a good book but not feeling it.

Appellations

I should confess my culpability; in adversity will I prove to be the good person I have always imagined or hoped? I finished Any Human Heart on Friday. I don’t think “profound” so apt, but certainly moving; sad stories are the best, those I remember anyway. Is “sad” a deserved label? I remember that same empty feeling having read Doctor Doolittle as a child, sad because it was the natural end of things, but there’s more to William Boyd's novel than that.

John refuses to patronize pubs with royal or aristocratic appellations as a matter of principle.

I’ve noticed a week or so will elapse before I pick up my next book, and again I’ve no idea what I’m going to read. Logan rates Gogol (a recommendation from a fictional character!) or there are traditional classics from such as Dickens or Hardy - I like a bit of tortured soul. They jostle for position and I’m increasingly aware of how little I’ve read, but I tell myself there’s plenty to keep me busy. Then there are those I have; numerous writers telling me how little I know. As a teenager I was all maths, science gave a kind of certainty to the world, yet now I often feel the opposite; it describes everything, telling me nothing. Muriel Rukeyser wrote “The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms” - bloody poets.

Decline and fall

We don't want to know that 'Hitler invaded Poland' - we're more curious about what you had for breakfast. Unless you happened to be there, of course, when Hitler invaded Poland and your breakfast was interrupted.
-- Any Human Heart

I'm finding all this blogging malarkey rather hard going at the moment; it must be what happens when I try to read and write at the same time. I am at least making progress with Any Human Heart, as slow as predicted but on the finishing straight. Logan Mountstuart; once annoying, objectionable even, becomes more interesting with his inevitable decline. Only that’s not really it, he's always of interest; I think I'm naturally drawn in by the end of things, and I have a feeling this is leading somewhere profound. It's good advice though, this blog was started with a similar sentiment but as the years pass, meanders all over the place.

I'll have to think more on this too; the fall of The Roman Empire, the mass suicide in Demmin, those two off the top of my head but why this theme? It's something to do with how we handle hardship, what it says of our character, our ability to control our own destiny and our choices or lack thereof. How, though most can be giving when times are good, it's how we act in adversity that reveals our true nature. With that in mind I should probably stick to the news, for now.

The trouble is I can't remember what I was doing when Diane Abbot made that racist comment last week, and much as I try to be upset, I'm not. It was, regrettably, the fun involved in seeing her wriggle out of "white people love playing divide and rule", and the unfortunate slip of the keyboard the following day when Ed Miliband, having given the miscreant a "dressing down", referred to the recently deceased Bob Holness as having presented "Blackbusters". Then there's the Scottish referendum on independence - the SNP says it wants one, the UK government wants to take measures to ensure its legality and (as we've come to expect) Alex Salmond still finds something to complain about; such childish nonsense yet what can I say that's of any worth? Logan records that world events - such as his wonder at men walking on the moon - are poorly served by his journal when there are far better sources; better, his friend tells him, to concentrate on the minutiae. Only, I don't have breakfast.

A truth universally re-imagined

Praise be, I have finally read Pride & Prejudice; at the third attempt, or possibly the second since I’m not sure picking up the book and never opening it counts. It wasn’t, in case you’re wondering, the graphic novel depicted - I just like the idea and since I’ve seen so many adaptations, perhaps one day this will be another? How could I have doubted Jane Austen having seen this story told so many times? There’s an old version with Laurence Olivier that takes huge liberties with the story, but it helps if you have a crush on Greer Garson. I vaguely remember a BBC series from the 1980’s before their more famous effort with Colin Firth. And there’s the Keira Knightley film of which I’m unsure, despite having seen it a few times. I suppose familiarity was a problem but it proved its worth, despite taking a while to settle on who was who; Firth as Darcy, Mary Boland as Mrs Bennet, Melville Cooper edged out by David Bamber for the role of Mr Collins, yet I could never settle on an Elizabeth; it was no matter, the book was the star. I knew it to be a clever, sharp humour, but never imagined romance could be portrayed so well.

Courtesy of my Kindle which, despite Amazon continually reminding me of a newer, cheaper version with a better form-factor, has proved the spark necessary to get me reading again. I love my Kindle. Pride & Prejudice is the twelfth book I’ve read this year, it’s not a lot I know; I am in awe of you book-a-week types, for me it’s a recovery from near extinction, so I’m happy. Of the dozen, I’d seen film or television adaptations of five. I’m not sure what that says, whether it’s a good or a bad thing, whether it’s a normal ratio, but since I’m planning to read Any Human Heart next, it’s not worried me too much. I bought it on Blu-ray but to be fair, I am going to read the book first... oh alright, second; I saw it on Channel 4 last December.

Kind and helpful creatures

I had an unexpected experience yesterday. On searching for some winter images, the results left me feeling contrary; pictures of snowy landscapes - clichés to be sure, but usually the thing to remind one of magical times. It was as if a premonition for later that evening when Little Miss R informed me “I’ve asked Father Christmas for a cat... and if he doesn’t get me one I’ll ask Mother Christmas... then the elves”. There are various reasons - which I can’t explain - for not getting a cat. I couldn’t explain them to my daughter either, and though the request was funny, I went to bed worried with the prospect of disappointment.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a cold, laying for an indeterminate length of time with my eyes closed, a wandering mind, wondering how long I could last before seeking out some paracetamol. My mind was fixed by the bedroom door opening, followed by light steps around the side of my bed and a gentle shake. “I had a nightmare”, she said. It took a cuddle and a glass of milk to settle, ending with a smile; it took me a cup of tea, and an hour and a half or more to do the same. I read The Accidental Tourist, and then I read the Christmas letter again. “A cat or other pet” said item one, and I could smile too.

A time of pestilence

...to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

In-between the usual weekend tasks - the shopping, the exercise, trying to find something to fill the empty hours - I conceded a need to finish The Plague, which seems an odd thing to say about a book I liked so much. I was curious as to whether a work of fiction from a key philosopher of the last century would manage to be more than intellectual exercise. I found it written with that same intelligence, clarity and genuine compassion for the trials of man I found in Sisyphus, with not a drop of wasted sentiment. Two observations: The by now familiar non-judgemental nature as evidenced by a refusal to condemn Cottard, a black marketeer who most would portray as villain, but of whom Tarrou is moved to describe as “that man, who had an ignorant, that is to say lonely, heart”. Second is the character Tarrou, who might be described as hero, though I can imagine much discussion over who fills this role best, or even whether - given this is Camus - such a role can be filled. He appears to embody some of the themes for which Camus would eventually find himself estranged from his contemporaries. In confiding to Rieux, Tarrou describes a changing relationship with his revolutionary friends:

...once I admitted the arguments of necessity and force majeure put forward by the less eminent, I couldn’t reject those of the eminent. To which they retorted that the surest way of playing the game of the red robes was to leave to them the monopoly of the death penalty. My reply to this was that if you gave in once, there was no reason for not continuing to give in. It seems to me that history has borne me out; today there’s a sort of competition who will kill the most. They’re all mad over murder and they couldn’t stop killing men even if they wanted to.

Obstinately humanist, what a superb writer Albert Camus was. I look forward to The Rebel.

Look at those silly men

As befits a good book, I’m having a hard time categorising On the Road. It defies easy rating; it’s good literature that was no doubt ground breaking for the time, yet time has not treated the movement well. When I think of the beat generation, I think of the dated patois, of Jerry Lewis or numerous other parodies; and in my less forgiving moments I found myself weighing whether this wasn’t a fetid existentialism; less ‘on the road’, more ‘on the turn’.

There are some great moments; I particularly liked the description of roads being widened and laws abated to make way for one of Dean’s visits. The latter stages in general, the trip to Mexico and the slow unravelling of Sal’s sometime companion prove to be more sympathetic. There were a number of genuinely moving occasions where I felt Kerouac really got ‘it’, and his observations of friends worked well too, even occasionally of fellow travellers:

…because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do.

There’s nothing particularly revelatory in this observation, but it works. Most supporting characters however fair less well. For example when Sal finds himself...

... wishing I could exchange worlds with the happy, true-hearted, ecstatic negroes of America.

Oh dear, the last time I read something that patronising was a Guardian account of the working class. Unfortunately this isn’t isolated either; the otherwise excellent trip to “Mehico” has a wince-inducing indigenous population who supposedly speak ‘a leetle like theees’ and descriptions of women that wouldn’t be out of place in an airport novel. “We don’t understand our women”, says Sal, that much was obvious; men are predators and most women exist to be nailed; the 1950’s expression for this is to “work” or “make”, but let’s not argue terminology.

Camus wrote “it is not a matter of explaining and solving, but of experiencing and describing", appreciation doesn’t require empathy; the question is whether these slight descriptions are a failure of Sal or the author. Since it is a largely autobiographical work I tend toward the latter view; on the Camus test, Kerouac scores highly on one criterion but has mixed success - and some notable failures - on the other.

Yet here I am, over a week later and still I think of “On the Road”. For a large part, even after I had finished, I found the central friendship of the two frustrating; Dean is a horrible character, less shaman, more charlatan; but in this, bizarrely, lay my hope. Sal knows who Dean is but loves him just the same.

Developer reading The Shipping News

A Sunday the same as any other. Walk to shops. Reward myself with large latte and a very berry muffin. Exercise the guilt. Then watching Inception, at least think I did. Poor joke that. And reading The Shipping News. Good book; how to impart flavour? Present tense. Choppy sentences. Missing pronouns. Sparse. Don’t get that, not at first. Clever though, has a reason. Unlike this. This is poor. Embarrassing. Worse than a joke. Worse than that joke. Sound like HULK. HULK HUNGRY. MUFFIN NOT ENOUGH. HULK WANT MORE.

Reading and writing and the other thing

I’m in a bit of a post-happy mood on WWGCA, as those in the know like to call this blog. Admittedly the subject isn’t always too cheerful, but I am pleased - probably too pleased - at my ability to string a few words together; into what those in the know like to call a sentence. I’ve also been reading a lot, or more than usual, and the catalyst has been my Kindle. Those books I can’t find for my new friend, I read the old fashioned way. After watching Brokeback Mountain last Friday and discovering it’s based on a short story by Annie Proulx, I’ve started on The Shipping News, which already feels like a favourite. I remember liking the film too, though my image of Quoyle is now somewhat distant from that of Kevin Spacey. It’s so good I even found myself reading in the evening, imagine! That’s when I’m not distracted by the collaborative writing exercises of daughter and friends (hopefully) some years ago, now pinned to the board:

Exercise one

Exercise two

Wine into water

...our age is not willing to stop with faith, with its miracle of turning water into wine, it goes further, it turns wine into water.

I am 92% of the way through Fear and Trembling which, if I am to believe Amazon, is only 160 pages. Surely this is a miss-print, it feels more... substantial. Since a Kindle supports multiple font sizes, it deals not with page numbers but percentages; you always know exactly how much there is left to enjoy, or endure. Kierkegaard is not boring in any sense (though he is repetitive) but since it is a religious stance on the absurd, a philosophy I read previously in Camus, I find myself constantly having to walk in another’s shoes; which is no bad thing, but with Camus I could - at least in part - walk in my own.

Hence try as I might, I can never see Abraham as he does - though Kierkegaard does not claim to understand him - but I do admire his determination to question Abraham’s willing sacrifice of his son, to posit that without faith he is no more than a murderer; interestingly, for Kierkegaard, faith requires the absurd.

Faith ... is not an immediate instinct of the heart, but is the paradox of life and existence.

The happiness of angels

I find no meaning in the happiness of angels. I know simply that this sky will last longer than I.

There was no rancour, only a gentle parting of the ways. Sometime in my early teenage years I came to the conclusion that I no longer believed in God, realising that I couldn’t remember the last time I had. That my outlook on life - some vague notion of leaving the world a better place - didn’t change as a result, might suggest it was never serious; certainly, I don’t think I’d ever thought of the life that came next. Of course my outlook did change, or rather the scope, but not until much later and at an age when such goals feel foolishly optimistic, conceited even.

At first I never gave it more than a passing thought; life would appear to have little purpose but there was plenty to keep me occupied. Age granted me time to think again, not through a fear of death, more a building curiosity on a question for which I suspected an unedifying answer. Thus I came to The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays.

Albert Camus; born in 1913 in Algeria, died in 1960 in Paris, a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, a one-time communist - albeit during the 1930’s - who in criticising Soviet communism after the war managed to alienate his colleagues on the left, including Sartre who publicly denounced him. I confess, as with George Orwell, this only makes me like him more. Camus was a proponent of absurdism; a philosophy describing the conflict borne from our desire for meaning in a meaningless world, and discussing how we should react when conscious of this fate.

At least I think that’s it. I could hardly claim a complete understanding, yet for a work portraying the “philosophical suicide” of others, notably Kierkegaard of whom he suggests “an almost intentional mutilation of the soul”, The Myth of Sisyphus is a positive life-affirming read. Camus examines whether realisation should logically lead to suicide and answers with a defiant ‘No’, concluding such an act to be rejection. “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn” he says, though I think he describes it better in one of the other essays:

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Reason

I remind myself; every time I find something that isn’t working I’ve found something to do, as opposed to wondering about my choice of font. Since discovering that embedded comments are causing a problem - in that you can’t comment - I’ve switched to a pop-up window; it looks rubbish, but it works. Slightly more difficult will be unravelling the customised HTML, started when I knew next to nothing and continued through various stages of ignorance; it’s more ‘fun’ that way.

How long has it been broken? Possibly only a week, and since I don’t remember tinkering in that time I wonder if Blogger have done something to interfere with my ‘enhancements’. I should probably update to the latest designer, but that would mean starting over which... would give me something to do.

There are better goals. Absurdism may not be the easiest of subjects but I am determined to finish Camus, albeit not ‘finish with’ Camus since it’s well written - or should that be those bits I can understand are well written - as I dare say are the many bits I can’t. I’ve heard The Outsider is good too. And there’s a host of other stimulation to be found from people who I’ve never read. Small steps, something a little more accessible next; and I don’t say that to knock my intellectual capability, only that I’m a little slow.

From one virgin birth to another

Fifteen years later I finished A Prayer for Owen Meany; fifteen years ago it was the last remaining novel. I’d read the others, starting with the big hitters; The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire were followed by four more, with Owen purposely held back, saving the best (by reputation) to last.

John Irving has gone on to write several more since then, he was hardly going to wait for me, and since it’s been so long I’d be hard pressed to say which of his earlier work I thought best. I still have fond memories of The Water Method Man, but in those days my cynicism came from fashion rather than experience. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a great book and I’m ashamed of my earlier lack of understanding, my intolerance toward the narrator John Wheelwright; a character more interesting for the past than the present. I’d thought I was better than that. I’d thought the book would be better if his life in Toronto were excised altogether. I was wrong. Not only does it provide contrast, it is an honest portrayal of a damaged life; and if some parts are more appealing than others - that ought to seem familiar.

Made for television

Whenever anyone said anything that was a lot of bullshit to him, Owen Meany used to say, ”YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? THAT’S MADE FOR TELEVISION – THAT’S WHAT THAT IS.”
-- A Prayer for Owen Meany

A prayer for John Wheelwright

In the summer of 1996 I packed a few books for holiday, including one that I was perhaps half way through reading; A Prayer for Owen Meany. I remember finishing The Remains of The Day, a book as disturbing as it was sad, even more so than the film. I know I read a few others, perhaps another John Irving, but I can’t remember why I stopped Owen Meany as it was terrific, perhaps I thought it too good to waste on the sun? Whatever the reason, the book remained in the suitcase and wasn’t removed until I returned home – where it was placed on a bookshelf to gather dust.

Last week I decided to pick up where I left off 15 years ago. Actually, since it was that long ago I decided to recap from the beginning and I’m glad that I did. I found myself laughing at the same places as before; Owen’s part in the nativity play had me in tears, and how many books have managed that? More surprising was my reaction to John Wheelwright, the narrator of a story told in extended flashback. As is usual for this style, we are more interested in the story than the ‘present day’ interludes but this time around I am struck by another thought; the older John Wheelwright is so tiresome!

The narrator’s target is Reagan, but since there’s been quite a few since then I can’t help wondering; is there a Republican president that the Democrats haven’t wanted to impeach? This is possibly a little unfair because the Republicans are more than capable of dishing it out; from laughable suggestions that Obama is a communist to impeaching Clinton, who to be fair did lie under oath, but I guess it wasn’t a big lie or it was the kind of lie that’s OK.

But I digress, I’m curious that it should bother me more now, when my own political views are, shall we say, less strident than before. Was it because in ’96 there had been 17 years of a Conservative government, and one felt obliged to listen to an alternative voice? Or was it because I was still in my twenties (just), where I could relate to an earnest attitude, albeit one in danger of tipping over into boorish behaviour. Or am I just as tiresome?

I think I am still reeling from Ed Miliband’s nonsense on the weekend, and as a result perhaps a little less predisposed towards our storyteller. And it’s a good story, I’ve almost caught up to the part where Owen helps John avoid the draft, it will be all new from there on in. Of course it’s Owen I really want to hear about, but I wonder about John too. What calamity waits, what event transpires allowing me to bridge this gap? I suppose that means I care, and I hope we can be friends; what greater achievement than to make a friend with whom you disagree.