The Reader Online

Maybe the sky is falling in. If it isn’t it certainly looks as if the landscape for bookish debate–and for books themselves–is changing fast. This week’s harbinger of doom was George Steiner, who complained about the current state of the English novel in a speech at the Royal Society of Literature.

The debate about the merits or otherwise of literary blogging continues. The Reading Experience weighs in on the doomsayers who think all this webby stuff is bound to debase poetry, and by implication other kinds of writing too (via Ready Steady Book): "Literature will still be literature once the gates have been torn down. It’s just that there will be fewer people claiming the authority to define its boundaries for everyone else." Meanwhile the increasingly confident (I think anyway) Dovegreyreader explains her reasons for reading in a measured but forceful post about John Carey’s What Good are the Arts? DGR also commented on the Steiner Story.

The Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year has received a lot of coverage this week, much of it of the tittering behind the hand kind. Nicolas Lezard is not amused.

Way back in the mists of last week The Times reported on the opening of The English Project, a museum dedicated to the history of the English language.

And finally, we have had a lot of traffic this week for the Stairway to Heaven. At the risk of tangling this blog and the blog on the bookshelf in a spiral of cross-linking that could lead to the collapse of the galaxy, take a look at this: A bookshelf bath.

Posted by Chris Routledge. Powered by Qumana

I am sitting here with baited breath hoping that the multiple wrapped packages containing copies of The Reader 29 arrive tomorrow morning. It is always quite an anxious time this: organising the despatch from the printers to The Reader office; checking to see that the cover and photos have been printed to a high enough standard; hoping that there are no mistakes in contributors’ names or the body text; organising the post-out to subscribers and ensuring that address labels, leaflets and magazines find their way into the plastic envelope with the magazine to be sent on their way (thanks needs to go out, already, to the volunteers that help me with this process). Then, after all that, I can sit and enjoy reading the thing!

Here are a few highlights that you can look forward to in issue 29 of The Reader – Voices That Need to be Heard:

• New poetry by David Constantine, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Steven, Jeffrey Wainwright, Omar Sabbagh, John Kinsella and Penny Fearn.

• The Poet on his Work: Kenneth Steven is the latest brave soul to take on the challenge of writing about the process by which a poem comes to light. His fine poem ‘That Year’ stays purposefully somewhat out of reach, as the poet believes there must be something left for the reader to do. He also writes of the poet’s vulnerable waiting for poetry to arrive.

• Fiction by Gabriel Josipovici and Raymond Tallis.

• Richard Dawkins gets a proper mauling from Howard Jacobson, who rebels against the geneticist’s evangelical atheism, and almost abandons his own doubts. For the sake of balance, our own Graham Hayes provides the counter argument.

• The Interview. The brilliant Shakespearean actor Mark Rylance talks about his work, and his belief that the writer we know as Shakespeare is not Will S. (‘Stratford man’) but rather a group of writers. It is an honest and rather unusual interview.

• Joseph Conrad is here in many guises – in a searching essay by Andrzej Gasiorek, in Raymond Tallis’s moving story, ‘Heart of Darkness’ and in Suze Clarke’s recommendation of The Shadow-Line for Readers Connect. We have been very indulgent: William Wordsworth is also here in a round table of readings from writers such as Stephen Gill and Joanna Trollope.

• Lynne Hatwell, writer of the deservedly popular blog dovegreyreader tells us of her own reading groups.

• Plus reviews, recommendations and all our regulars. Brian Nellist lets loose on the state of the modern short story and on poetry in his reviews of William Trevor and Patrick McGuinness.

Posted by Jen Tomkins

The launch of Liverpool Poetry Café – at the Costa café on Bold Street – celebrated City Poems with 15 poets and lovers of poetry, from all ages, reading on the night of 11th February 2008 to a capacity audience of more than seventy. Poems as varied as Felicia Hemans Casabianca rubbed shoulders (as it were) with Patti Smith, Adrian Henri, John Tessimond, Mary Oliver and many more.

The Liverpool Poetry Café venture is the brain child of Alex Scott-Samuel, a passionate poetry enthusiast and public health researcher at Liverpool University and has been made possible through the backing of Costa and a positive association of poets and poetry organisations (including Dead Good Poets Society, Writing on the Wall, Liverpool Reads, Heartbeats, North End Writers and Liverpool Library Service) working together to support a programme of events to encourage a new audience for poetry.

Events and readings will take place at the café on the evenings of the second Monday and fourth Thursday of each month, starting at 7.30 pm for the remainder of 2008 to celebrate Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture status. Readings will include poets Jean Sprackland, Deryn Rees-Jones, John Redmond, Gladys Mary Coles, Aileen La Tourette, Alice Lenkiewicz, Brian Wake and Helen Tookey.

Anyone attending an event is advised to get there early to be sure of a seat.

For further information and a calendar of readings, download the brochure: http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~alexss/poetrycafe.pdf

By Pauline Rowe

Selected by Angela Macmillan 

‘London Snow’ by Robert Bridges was much enjoyed by reading groups in care homes for the elderly this week. The first half of the poem beautifully captures the absolute wonder of snowfall, making us almost nostalgic for the times when seven inches of snow was not a particular rarity. For children the snow is ‘crystal manna’: a blessing falling from heaven. But for the rest of us, snow is the enemy, holding up the daily round and we must wage war against it with snow-plough and gritter. Yet even as we grown ups tramp to work through the brown slush we glimpse the charm of the once pristine loveliness we have spoiled.Born in 1844, Robert Bridges qualified as a doctor and served as a physician in London hospitals including Great Ormond Street, before ill health forced him to retire early. Apart from a few poems Bridges is rarely read today so it may come as a surprise that he was once Poet Laureate. He is perhaps best known now as champion and literary executor of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

London Snow

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled – marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!’
‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

Robert Bridges, 1890

“Jen! Can you come downstairs and carry some things up to the office for me? I’ll be outside in twenty seconds.” So, off I fly down the stairs, thinking that I’ll be needing to flex some muscle to carry books, notes or files upstairs but no, instead I was confronted with a platter of bread, cheese, salads and meat, a bunch of bananas and a basket of hyacinths. “What’s all this for Jane?” “For the BBC, or whoever’s around that maybe hungry,” comes the reply. I think the perplexed look on my face must have said it all. “Oh Jen, you don’t know, do you? [no, I don't] The BBC are coming today, a film crew, to interview me and film a reading group… in twenty minutes!” Somewhat shocked and enthused by this, heightened by Jane’s cry of “Alan Yentob’s coming to do it!”, as she was getting back into her car to take it to the carpark, the whirlwind of activity began.

“The BBC are coming!” I yell as I return back to the office, armed with a delicious looking platter of food. “Oh, I know,” people say casually. “Well I didn’t, and we haven’t got any clean cups! Quick! Get some mugs cleaned, get the kettle on and oh, yes, get to the shop for some milk!” All hands on deck for the last minute preparations and all ends up well, of course: there are enough mugs and enough hot water for everyone (never mind the boxes and papers all over the place). The BBC film crew, director, researcher and Alan Yentob arrive without any unnecessary fuss or demands and the office is alive with an enthusiastic buzz. First things first though, “Cup of tea, anyone?”

The reason for this, to me very sudden, barrage into The Reader office was to film a reading group and interview Jane as part of an episode of Imagine… focused on the life and writing of Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing (due to be screened in late May). Lessing, who has had a profound impact on the course of Jane’s life, made an insistence in her Nobel Prize lecture that we must continue to tell stories, to read stories and that a “storyteller exists within everyone of us.” Jane’s ambition to get people reading, from whatever their social or educational background – and what’s more to enjoy reading – is inspired by Lessing’s own beliefs about how reading really can describe the human state. This is firmly expressed in Lessing’s final statement of her speech, “I think it is that girl, and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us.”

Whilst the filming was getting under way, I was looking after various members of the BBC crew (when I say looking after what I really mean is providing cups of tea and giving the nod to allow the cling film to be taken off the sandwiches), chatting to Alan Yentob about Never Mind the Buzzcocks and his feelings about Simon Amstell, and trying (with quite a lot of difficulty) to concentrate on getting some work done. After the day’s work Yentob and the crew seemed pleased with how it all went and were particularly encouraging about the format and success of the reading group. “This is what we do, ” Jane tells him, “and I want to do it all over the country.”

For all the disruption and excitement there was no disarray and they were all extremely grateful for our hospitality. “Honestly,” said the researcher, “it’s been great – normally we have to eat boiled rats in the BBC canteen.” The look in his eyes was worryingly sincere. “Welcome to The Reader,” I said, “we do tea and cake very well here.”

By Jen Tomkins

Addiction is a big problem for a lot of people. It starts at a vulnerable age with a copy of Tom’s Secret Garden recommended by a kindly librarian. You move on to Just William and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe and before long you are in real trouble, your whole adult life blighted. So if you are the sort of person who gets caught hiding hardbacks in your hair, taking them out for a quick furtive read at public events, or if you are constantly on the run from the paperazzi* and people keep trying to make you go to rehab (or even a charity shop with a huge box of duplicates) this might just be a short-term answer: hide the books in the stairs. Honestly I am tempted to go through the hell that is building a loft extension just to be able to do this (surly nod of appreciation to Boing Boing):

Here’s the link again.

*You see what I did there?

Posted by Chris Routledge

Kimberley Long is a former Reader volunteer currently teaching English in Japan. In the second of her series of posts she praises internationalism through her recent reading experiences.

A couple of weeks back I went to Kyoto for a three day weekend. Three day weekends occur fairly frequently here as Japan is blessed with an abundance of public holidays. They give the perfect opportunity to travel around the country without using up any of our precious paid holiday. This one was for ‘Foundation Day’, a holiday to celebrate the founding of the Imperial line by Jimmu, Japan’s possibly mythical first emperor. During this weekend my novel of choice was Patrick Suskind’s Perfume. This book has been highly recommended to me from all directions, and always seemed to follow me about. From being in Germany when the film was released a couple of summers back; to a South African friend here who can speak fluent German having a copy in its original language on her bedside table. And while I was home in the UK over Christmas I spent a brief visit in London. On the tube there was a man about my age sitting opposite me reading it in Italian. This is clearly a novel that transcends the boundaries of nationality and language.

While reading it I had to marvel at my own contribution to its internationalism. It’s a novel originally written in German and set in France. And here I was reading it in an English translation in the most quintessentially Japanese city in the world. Kyoto was originally the capital of Japan before it was moved to Tokyo about 140 years ago. As a result it has kept much of it’s old grandeur from this period in the shape of hundreds of shrines and temples. It is also has the most working Geisha, as anyone will know who has read about these rare creatures in Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. I had to wonder about what it was that makes the novel so attractive to people throughout the world, and I can only conclude that it is its preoccupation with smell. I doubt that any work of literature has ever before been devoted to the sense of smell in such a way. I actually heard once that in Austen’s entire oeuvre there is not a single reference to smell, although I haven’t checked for myself. Why has this sense been neglected for so long in literature? What is it about smell that has relegated it compared to the other four?

Maybe it’s because smell can be so difficult to explain. It’s such a personal sense. While most people will have similar experiences of what affects through sight and touch, smell influences people in different ways. For me the smell of lavender always reminds me of being aged 11. There was a lavender bush in my school and all through the spring and summer there was one corner of the playground that would be filled with its delicate yet prevailing scent. But perhaps it’s also because it is the sense we pay the least attention to in our day to day lives. I could vividly describe the view of Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, with snow on its slanted roof, the noise of the many tourists present, and the chill in the February air. But as much as I try to find it in my memory I have no idea what it smelt like there. The reason that the lavender bush stays with me is because it was so incongruous in the middle of an inner-city school yard. I had never smelt real lavender before, only the synthetic kinds that comes in soaps and drawer liners. Perhaps that’s why Perfume seems to have spread around the world. Like the lavender its evocation of smell intrudes on our normally scentless literary lives.

By Kimberley Long

For some reason the weather seems to to have a strong bearing on the poetry featured here. I have no idea whether this is a preference of my own or a tendency in poetry itself, but today’s poem fits the pattern nonetheless. The name of Scottish poet James Thomson (1700-1748) is not well known now, but some of his words most certainly are: “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves: / Britons never will be slaves.” Beyond writing the original lyric to the famous patriotic song Thomson was a powerful descriptive poet and often wrote about the area around the border between Scotland and England; though he lived the second part of his life in London, Thomson was especially fond of Jedburgh.

Here is an excerpt from his poem Winter, which is part of a long poem called The Seasons. The whole poem can be found at this link. For the last week or so we have been enjoying sharp, frosty nights and bright sunny days and Thomson clearly enjoyed weather like this too. I especially like the lines “This of the wintry Season is the Prime; / Pure are the Days, and lustrous are the Nights”:

from Winter
CLEAR Frost succeeds, and thro’ the blew Serene,
For Sight too fine, th’Ætherial Nitre flies,
To bake the Glebe, and bind the slip’ry Flood.
This of the wintry Season is the Prime;
Pure are the Days, and lustrous are the Nights,
Brighten’d with starry Worlds, till then unseen.
Mean while, the Orient, darkly red, breathes forth
An Icy Gale, that, in its mid Career,
Arrests the bickering Stream. The nightly Sky,
And all her glowing Constellations pour
Their rigid Influence down: It freezes on
Till Morn, late-rising, o’er the drooping World,
Lifts her pale Eye, unjoyous: then appears
The various Labour of the silent Night,
The pendant Isicle, the Frost-Work fair,
Where thousand Figures rise, the crusted Snow,
Tho’ white, made whiter, by the fining North.
On blithsome Frolics bent, the youthful Swains,
While every Work of Man is laid at Rest,
Rush o’er the watry Plains, and, shuddering, view
The fearful Deeps below: or with the Gun,
And faithful Spaniel, range the ravag’d Fields,
And, adding to the Ruins of the Year,
Distress the Feathery, or the Footed Game.

___

James Thomson, 1726. Here’s the link to the whole poem again.

Posted by Chris Routledge

Caroline Smailes’ debut novel In Search of Adam is a triumph of stylistic originality and a read that will remain etched on your mind for a long time. The harrowing and candid narrative of Jude Williams, who is only six years old when the novel begins, is stark and shocking. She describes through her innocent eyes the horrors of her life growing up in a ‘close knit’ community in the North East. Dealing with suicide, neglect, child abuse and mental illness this book is full of dark material. Yet Smailes’ prose retains a level of sensitivity that is exceptional and compelling. Using unusual typography, short fragmented sentences (many are only one, two or three words long) and recurrent images and thoughts, the narrative builds an authentic sense of Jude’s cruel and distressing early years:

I felt sick. I felt panic. Everything was going to change again. Bang. Those butterflies exploded into a fluttering frenzy inside my stomach. Fright. They needed to escape. I didn’t open my mouth. I feared they would flurry out of my throat. They would attack Rita. I would be in trouble. I kept my mouth shut. Tight. Tight. Tight.

For Jude, the world outside doesn’t really exist. She blocks it off because her experiences have proved that it’s too painful. So she is a solitary figure, alone in a world that wants to punish her for reasons unknown. Any external experiences are manifested internally and eat away at her self-esteem: “Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round.” After her mother’s suicide, it begins to feel like Jude takes responsibility for her dead mother’s ‘crime’. There is a strong message in the novel that our human need to blame and ridicule leads to the suffering of the next generation. Children are pure, but only until they are tainted by the malice of accusatory adults, imposing their opinions of others upon the child. In Search of Adam explains this with compassion and shocking power. Jude’s search for Adam is ultimately a search for untainted and innocent life.

By Jen Tomkins

___

Caroline Smailes’ novella Disraeli Avenue will be available as a free to download ebook from February 18th, 2008 is now available as a free to download ebook from here. It is about the street that is the backdrop to In Search of Adam. You are encouraged to donate whatever you can to the charity One in Four, which provides counselling services for adults who were abused as children. Read about Disraeli Avenue here. We covered this project earlier here.

Bea Colley writes:

Exciting news! The Liverpool Reads… Mal Peet website has just gone live. Please take a look:

www.liverpoolreads.com