A fortnight ago, Niall started our worldwide literature journey off by taking us all the way to Brazil; now we’ll jump from South America over to Central Europe, as I’ll be your tour guide for exploring the literary sights of the Czech Republic.

Before it became a popular stag and hen party hotspot, Prague – the capital city of the Czech Republic – was regarded for two quite famous literary exports. The first, a person: the author of many of the 20th century’s most notable novels and short stories, Franz Kafka, who was born in the city in 1883 (when it was still a part of pre WWI Austria-Hungary). The second, a book: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, written in 1984 by Milan Kundera. The novel immortalises Prague in the midst of what was one of the most difficult and significant times in the Czech Republic’s history – the Prague Spring of 1968, an attempt to reform Czech communism, of which Kundera himself was involved. Despite its title, the book may be considered anything but ‘light’ in its subject matter; dealing with the fate of the individual and suggesting that in the end, such a fate is meaningless as in an infinite universe the life of one person is insignificant – or as Kundera would put it, unbearably light.

The Strahov Monastery Library

Given this cheery philosophical outlook, it might be worth considering how best to spend an ultimately futile existence. Surely a pretty good way of going about things would be to soak up the contents of as many books as possible, as does one of the novel’s main characters, Franz (perhaps named after Kafka? Seems like a handy coincidence). Franzes both of the fictional and the Kafka variety would certainly be happy that they lived in a city containing such a historic, intricate and well-stocked library as the Strahov Monastery Library. Part of the Strahov Monastery, the library is 868 years old and has withstood such perils as fire and army invasion to hold over 16,000 books alongside 110,000 volumes of monastic writings – one of the oldest collections in the Czech Republic. With its beautiful and incredibly ornate Baroque interior and several special library rooms, the Strahov Monastery Library is as much of a tourist attraction as a library. Unfortunately given the rare and ancient quality of many of the books housed there, so much as a human breath would be likely to adversely affect their preservation; therefore most of the library is strictly off-limits to up close and personal inspection. You can however go on a virtual 360 degree tour of the library (also handy if you can’t afford the air fare to Prague).

Something that allows much wider access to literature for the Czech Republic’s readers – and those beyond – is the Libraries For All project. The Multicultural Center Prague is a partner in the project, which has the goal of upgrading local public libraries in the city (as well as also operating in Austria, Sweden and Germany) to ensure that they fully serve the needs of the Czech Republic’s migrant community. Libraries For All is working to make libraries in the Czech Republic truly multicultural, involving, diverse and democratic – an aim that Kundera with all his political activism would surely be proud of.

Well, now I have your attention, so let us start with our first country or as they say in Brazil: numero um.

I’m going to try to do this without explaining Spanish colonialism in Southern America. So let’s see how that works out. Brazil is the 6^th largest country in the world with a population of over 192 million people; it’s the largest country in South America and the fifth largest country in the world! It’s even got nice weather.

The culture of Brazil and its people is very mixed – a bit like our own. It involves mainly Portuguese, African and Native Indian ideas and customs mixed into the melting pot of European and Western values.  Which I think makes it a beautiful country…

On to the main event: in Brazil there is a mythological creature called Saci who is widely regarded as the most popular figure in Brazilian folklore – folklore being something I have always been interested in, probably because they were the first stories told around the campfire to keep the children from being naughty and well let’s be honest they were quite imaginative and entertaining. Saci is a little prankster with dark skin, a magical red hat, holes in his palms and the smoker of a pipe – I forgot to mention he only has one leg and at one time was on the receiving end of most of the blame for the country’s small problems e.g. ‘who threw that egg?’ ‘Saci’ ‘who soured the milk?’ ‘Saci’ ‘who smashed the pottery?’ ‘Saci.’ This little prankster was probably like a mini god-send for all mischievous Brazilian children – and adults.

Still want to know more about him? How’s about this:

He can make himself invisible, transform into a bird called a Matitaperê, he will lose his powers if he runs across a stream and if you leave him some tobacco he will be appeased for a while (sounds like some people I know).

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

Same place, two weeks time, to hear all about the Czech Republic.

A similar both sides  of the same feeling comes from reading William Blake’s poem ‘Infant joy’ alongside  his ‘Infant sorrow’.  Mr Field says in an interview in  the current issue of The Reader that mistakes, political, social, personal – come from not allowing complexity: ‘the heresies of all time are not the preaching of untruth; they are usually the preaching of a single truth without being buttressed by another truth.’  He’s right again, and I’m glad to say that  that buttressing one truth by another – sometimes diametrically opposed – is exactly what literature  does for us. No wonder reading, like breakfast, helps brain formation.

So we’re ready, Frank, when called to create reading for pleasure programmes for parents! Four years ago, Kerry Hughes, a young single parent who worked for The Reader Organisation put together a collection of readings for parents involved in our Get Into Reading project. Texts ranging from Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Before You Were Mine’ to Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son (one of the best books about parent child relationships ever written, connecting bad parenting to bad business practice, too: you’d like it, Frank) and it’s not just English literature, either: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart , Tolstoi’s Family Happiness , Theodore Roethke’s poem ‘My Papa’s Waltz’.

When are we going to realise that ‘literature’ is a technology for the  brain to brain, heart to heart transplant of useful human  information? Reading is an evolutionary tool, and great  books are there not for syllabi and exams, but for personal, human and social use. There are many great poems about parenthood/childhood. Coventry Patmore’s ‘The Toys’, is onesuch. You may need to translate  it out of  a Victorian Christian sensibility.  But it’s worth the effort involved in such translation.

The Toys

My little son, who looked from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quite grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I struck him and dismissed
With hard words and unkissed,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet.
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-veined stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells,
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I prayed
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
“I will be sorry for their childishness.”

Coventry Patmore

One of my favourites, David Constantine’s poem ‘New Year Behind the Asylum’, featured in Kerry’s wonderful collection, and David Constantine won’t mind I’m sure that I’m going to reprint it here. He’s in the revolution, too.

New Year Behind the Asylum

There was the noise like when the men in droves
Are hurrying to the match only this noise was
Everybody hurrying to see the New Year in
In town under the clock but we, that once,

He said would I come our usual Saturday walk
And see it in out there in the open fields
Behind the asylum. Even on sunny days
How it troubled me more and more the nearer we got

And he went quiet and as if he was ashamed
For what he must always do, which was
Go and grip the bars of the iron gates and stand
Staring into the garden until they saw him.

They were like the animals, so glad and shy
Like overgrown children dressed in things
Handed down too big or small and they came in a crowd
And said hello with funny chunnering noises

And through the bars, looking so serious,
He put his empty hand out. But that night
We crept past quickly and only stopped
In the middle of the empty fields and there

While the clock in the square where the normal people stood
And all the clocks in England were striking twelve
We heard the rejoicings for the New Year
From works and churches and the big ships in the docks

So faint I wished we were hearing nothing at all
We were so far away in our black fields
I felt we might not ever get back again
Where the people were and it was warm, and then

Came up their sort of rejoicing out of the asylum,
Singing or sobbing I don’t know what it was
Like nothing on earth, their sort of welcoming in
Another New Year and it was only then

When the bells and the cheerful hooters couldn’t be heard
But only the inmates, only the poor mad people
Singing or sobbing their hearts out for the New Year
That he gripped me fast and kissed my hair

And held me in against him and clung on tight to me
Under a terrible number of bare stars
So far from town and the lights of house and home
And shut my ears against the big children crying

But listened himself, listened and listened
That one time. And I’ve thought since and now
He’s dead I’m sure that what he meant was this:
That I should know how much love would be needed.

David Constantine

The festival focuses largely, but not exclusively, on issues relating to gender equality and active citizenship, with particular attention paid to how they affect young people. As well as working with schools and civic groups, the festival has invited a variety of different artists to share their expertise in using their tools to examine and challenge what they perceive as inequities.

Kayd is an organisation promoting the freedom of expression through art and culture in the Somali territories, and aims to encourage the tolerance and appreciation of the diverse Somali culture.

If you would like any more information, here’s a link back to a previous post about HIBF.

with Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organisation

25th August, Liverpool

19 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7ZG

What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the lore of old gallantry and hope?  

 

If Wordsworth were to be reborn as a twentieth century American, Gilead is the book he would write. Human, humane, real, devout, and connecting the inner spiritual with the outer public life, this moving novel was mentioned by Barack Obama as a favourite.

While you read this, I am imperishable, somehow more alive than I have ever been.

 

Jane Davis is Founder and Director of The Reader Organisation, a charity on a mission to bring about a reading revolution, making the content of great books available to all. Jane’s talent, energy, and belief in the value of reading are an inspiration to all who meet her: don’t miss this chance to experience the power of the reading revolution for yourself!

For more information please contact Casi Dylan, Training Manager, on casidylan@thereader.org.uk or 0151 794 2830.

You can download a booking form here: PDF/ Word.

For those of you who don’t know, Brian Nellist writes the regular ‘Ask the Reader’ feature in The Reader magazine, and is a frequent contributor of fascinating essays and reviews. In the current issue, he considers the poetry of Tennyson. Details of individual back issues, and the treasure within, can be found here. And to whet your appetite, here’s Brian’s essay on Sir Walter Scott which appeared in the first ever issue: People Don’t Read Scott Any More. (“Improbable is what the past looks like to the present which sees it the wrong way round, shorn of the logic that justified it at the time.”)

Any entries of poetry, stories, lyrics, essays, mini-dramas, plus any other forms of writing will be accepted, as long as they are on the theme of JOURNEYS.

Current Poet Laureate Andrew Motion writes that,

The Sefton Writing Competition is a very welcome event: it celebrates an exciting variety of new voices.

The Judging panel will consist of Brian Wake, Philip Wroe, and David Eddy.

Please click here for more information on terms and conditions, and how to submit your entry. The closing date for entries is 9th October 2009.

The turn-out on Saturday morning was fantastic! Once everyone had settled with coffee, croissants, and new acquaintances, Jane Davis kicked things off with an introductory chat before Clare read out an extract from her novel Poppy Shakespeare, which acted as the basis for group discussion about her work.   

After the informal group discussions, Book at Breakfasters had the opportunity to direct any questions or thoughts about the novel to Clare Allan: both audience questions and Clare’s answers providing more thought-provoking possibilities for discussion.  

Those attending were extremely impressed with what the morning had to offer, with most compliments focussing on the fact that the event ‘takes people out of their everyday lives to engage with stimulating discussions’; ‘makes people aware of mental health issues’; and, simply, how they were ‘inspired’, both by Clare Allan and by the lively discussions her presence initiated. 

A big thank-you to Clare for being part of our event, her honesty and good humour made for a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating breakfast. Thanks also to all those who attended: you helped to ensure the morning was the huge success it turned out to be.

Award-winning writers Clare Allan and Mark Haddon join us for this year’s ‘Book at Breakfast’ events – reading and discussion with coffee and croissants – to which you are welcome to come!

1. Book at Breakfast with Clare Allan:

Saturday 1st November 10.00am – 11.30am
at BBC Radio Merseyside, Hanover Street, L69 1ZJ
Clare Allan in conversation with Jane Davis

Join us for coffee and croissants in the company of Clare Allan, winner of the first Orange/Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition and author of Poppy Shakespeare for a talk about her work (an extract from the novel will be sent to read in advance). Clare Allan was the winner of the first Orange/Harpers short story prize.

‘Poppy Shakespeare has that rare quality: the feel of a book that needed to be written … It is bitterly, brutally funny and extraordinarily moving.’ Telegraph

‘Catch-22 meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest … an electrifying debut … surreal, raucous, infuriating and very funny.’ Guardian

2. Book at Breakfast with Mark Haddon

Sunday 2nd November 10.00am – 11.30am
at BBC Radio Merseyside , Hanover Street, L69 1ZJ
Mark Haddon in conversation with Jane Davis

Join us for coffee and croissants in the company of the multi-award winning writer Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time  (winning many prestigious awards, including the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year) and A Spot of Bother, for a talk about his latest work, a chapter of which, ‘The Island’, will be sent out to read in advance.

‘Haddon’s style is a reader’s bliss. He writes seamless prose. The words are melted into meaning… Haddon’s gift is to make us look at ourselves when we think we’re looking away, being entertained’. Tom Adair Scotsman

‘Haddon’s last, spectacularly successful novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, found a brilliant way to make the mundane strange and the strange mundane, choosing a narrator for whom the world is so perpetually strange that it can never be truly surprising’. Telegraph

Tickets for these Book at Breakfast events are limited and going fast. If you would like to attend either (or both) events please email info@thereader.org.uk or call 0151 794 2830 and we will send you a ticket and the extract for reading.

Posted by Jen Tomkins

There is something for everyone – whether a hesitant or reluctant poetry reader, or a confirmed literature lover, of any age – we hope bring great pieces of literature to as many people as possible in engaging, enticing and perhaps, unusual ways!

All events are free and there is no need to book in advance. Here are some dates for your diary:

• Thursday 9th October, 1-2pm – ‘If You Don’t Read Poetry, You Will After This’: a special event for National Poetry Day, especially for those that may be confused or put-off by poetry; come along to this event to discover the hidden pleasures of poetry and prepare to be persuaded (this event will be fed live to the BBC Big Screen!)

• Sunday 12th and 19th October, 12noon-12.45pm – ‘Children’s Storytelling’: bringing stories to life for little ones, on the two festival Sundays – kids can choose the stories themselves by dropping suggestions into boxes around Liverpool ONE and the Bluecoat in the run-up to the sessions.

• Sunday 12th October, 2.30-3.30pm ‘The Reading Cure: Chapter’ and Sunday 19th October, 2.30 – 3.30 ‘The Reading Cure: Verse’: two unique clinics to help solve life’s problems – serious or trivial – with the assistance of our greatest novels and short stories in the first clinic and poetry in the second. Discover how fiction really can help reality.

• Plus, informal Reading and Discussion Groups, based around the authors and poets appearing at the festival, so if you’re interested in a certain writer’s work, or just intrigued to learn more about it, then feel free to come along to any of the following sessions:
o Friday 10th October, 6.30: Jim Crace, The Pesthouse (directly before event)
o Saturday 11th October, 2.30: Kapka Kassabova, Street Without A Name and Vesna Goldsworthy, Chernobyl Strawberries (directly after event)
o Sunday 12th October, 12noon: Jennie Rooney, Inside the Whale (directly before event)
o Thursday 16th October, 5pm: Raymond Tallis, The Kingdom of Infinite Space (directly before event)
o Saturday 18th October, 7.30pm: Ronan Bennett, Zugzwang (in between two events!)

Hope to see you there!

Watch out for more information about forthcoming events, organised by The Reader Organisation at BBC Free Thinking Festival (31st October – 2nd November) and Shipping Lines: Liverpool Literary Festival (3rd – 9th November). Subscribe for our free festival email alerts here.