WHAT I’M READING NOW …

Even though Beverley Nichols offered a brief distraction, I haven’t been able to let go of Barcelona and The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. I’ve been wandering aimlessly through shadows and dimly lit cobblestone streets searching for the friends that ended when the last printed page, in The Angel‘s Game, turned blank. It’s just too soon to read it again; too fresh the rules so as not to be in suspense at the not knowing, at the not remembering.

So, having said that, there was only one thing to do. If I wanted to fall into the magic again, and I did, I had to find The Shadow of the Wind. I bought this book in 2010, sliding it gently into its place sandwiched between my other Zafon tomes where it’s been all this time, waiting. But I couldn’t find it. In its stead was an empty space. A space where ‘Shadow’ had always been, in the offing it could, one day, cast its spell. But now it was gone. I was becoming anxious; having a difficult time breathing. Obviously, I must have moved it. Yes. That’s it. I moved it. But where?

 

Well, yesterday pomeriggio, when I thought I’d exhausted every nook and cranny; when I was no longer looking, The Shadow of the Wind found me.

Interesting how certain places and characters grab at just the right time.

RHAPSODY IN GREEN

After my most recent ‘dark’ read, I chose to move in the opposite direction, into a rather ‘light’ tome. I came upon this little gem of a book quite by happenstance a few weeks ago, setting it aside for just the right moment. This one, I thought, will fit-in nicely with my collection. Enjoyable.

128 pages – edited by Roy C. Dicks
2009 Timber Press, Inc., 1st Edition hardcover
Line drawings by William McLaren

Dicks has compiled a few quips written from within the pages of Nichols’ gardening books by Nichols himself. Dicks has also included some amusing anecdotes about the companions Nichols chose to share his life, his cats.

Quoted from Merry Hall
(Jonathan Cape 1951) Timber Press 1998:

There is the tang of ice–the ice that laid out its little mirrors of glass all through the orchard in the clear days of January, so that the sky might lean close and see its face.

There is a great deal of truth in the old saying that in a garden the best fertilizer is the shadow of the owner.

Quoted from Garden Open Today
(Jonathan Cape 1963) Timber Press 2002:

I am honored by the visits of neighboring felines. They appear dramatically on the tops of walls, spying out the land (all cats, of course are in the secret service), or they dart from out of the darkness of the tool-shed. Sometimes they stroll, with apparent nonchalance, across the open lawn, which gives rise to scenes of great tension if any of my own cats happen to be engaged in counter-espionage at the widows (sic), as they often are.

And, as an aside to Dicks’ observations about John Beverley Nichols’  cats, I would be amiss if I didn’t include one of my favorite annotations from Nichols‘ book, Cats’ A.B.C. :

Most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked about the house with a saintly expression.

(1898-1983)

JOURNAL ENTRY

“ ….the only way you can truly get to know an author is through the trail of ink he leaves behind him. The person you think you see is only an empty character: truth is always hidden in fiction” (mid page 375 The Angel’s Game-The Cemetery of Forgotten Books)

I do not see myself as you see me. I am a coward. A coward who has always hidden behind the words I write, weaving what is real through the threads of what is not. Hoping against hope that someone will find me out, but no one ever has. And now, in the end, you are left with nothing. The nothing that will quietly slip away on the wind that waits to catch and scatter me into the ether.

Perhaps one day you will reread my words and catch a glimpse of me. Come find me then and tell me who I am.

THE ANGEL’S GAME (part two)

Within the dark Gothic Barcelona of the early 1900s, penurious ‘dime’ writer David Martin beguiles us through the mind of Carlos Ruiz Zafon who has written an undercurrent of chilling and frightening visceral passages within the binding of The Angel’s Game.

If you read this book, and I hope you do, for pity sake allow yourself to enter the shadowy labyrinth of this dark suspenseful story without expectation, and breathe. When the last page is turned, don’t be flabbergasted if you find yourself saying, ‘what just happened?’

I’m sorry the game is over.
Bravo, señor Zafon.

First Anchor Books/a division of Random House, Inc. – 2010

Original publication in Spain as El Juego del Angel, by Planeta 2008
1st US translation by Lucia Graves
Gothic thriller 531 pages

THE ANGEL’S GAME

I don’t, as a general rule, write about a book before I’ve finished it, but I’m actually finding it quite difficult to not think about this Faustian tale. As you know, I read at night, in the confines of my upstairs’ quarters. This morning, I brought the book down, with the intention of reading more. With the intention of returning to the Barcelona of señor Martin.

It’s a slow read. Slow only because I don’t want to miss a single nuance. Slow only because I find myself in the throes of descriptive writing so brilliant that I am no longer in my own continuum and wish to savor every moment. Carlos Ruiz Zafon has managed to blur the line between reality and fiction.

The Angel’s Game is touted to be a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind. However, whilst The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game are intertwined with same persons, surroundings and era, they do not belong as one. These two Gothic thrillers may be read as stand-alones. They are similar only in that they are written by the same hand and mind. And, that I have been allowed to return to the cemetery of forgotten books is beyond all imaginings.

Sinister, mysterious and darkly narrated in the first person, David Martin is a writer who thrashes about within his own genius, capturing the attention of one certain person (shall we call him that (?)), who makes an offer señor Martin finds difficult to ignore ……

Now, if you will be so kind as to excuse me, I have pages to slowly turn.

BLOOMSBURY AT HOME

On my bedside table there are mostly spiritual books, save one or two that I just enjoy looking through from time to time. One of those books is Bloomsbury at Home by Pamela Todd. It is a table book, mainly about the goings-on at Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Monk’s House (East Sussex, England); and Clive and Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant‘s Charleston Farmhouse, also in East Sussex. These two homes were the hub of the so-called unorthodox friends, artists, intellectuals and writers, who would gather there to hone their artistic skills.

Charleston Farmhouse

Monk’s house

“Comfort didn’t rank high in Bloomsbury houses (though beauty did), but there would be good French cooking, and wine at most meals, homemade bread and jams (Virginia was good at making both). In winter you might suffer seriously from the cold, and the bathroom pipes might be clad in old newspapers, but you would find a superb library, as good talks as I’ve heard anywhere and a great deal of laughter.” Francis Catherine Partridge (1900-2004), Memories. (Last surviving member of the Bloomsbury group).

This book is filled with a plethora of wonderful paintings by Virginia’s sister, Vanessa Bell and her lover, Duncan Grant. As you see from the photos I’ve posted below, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell * also embellished their Charleston Farmhouse home by painting on walls, fireplaces, and doors. The book also contains photographs, writings and tidbits about most of the Bloomsbury Circle of friends and explores their lives, their homes, and The Hogarth Press, the means by which most of their work was published.

 “You have overheard scraps of talk that have filled you with amazement. You have gone to bed at night bewildered by the complexities of your feelings. In one day thousands of thoughts have coursed through your brains; thousands of emotions have met, collided and disappeared in astonishing disorder.”

Virginia Woolf

Vanessa was married to Clive but it was “Duncan, whom she loved more than any other man in her life…….” the three of them lived in the Charleston Farmhouse home until their deaths. Virginia and Leonard remained at Monk’s House until their deaths.

A must-have book for the literati, in literature as well as in the arts.

Virginia

1882-1941 Virginia Woolf
1879-1961 Vanessa Bell
1881-1964 Clive Bell
1880-1969 Leonard Woolf
1885-1978 Duncan Grant

Vanessa

Leonard

Clive

Duncan

THE THIRD JESUS

“Firstly, there is Jesus the man, who lived over 2000 years ago and whose sermons form the foundation of Christian theology. Secondly, there is Jesus the Son of God, who represents a specific branch of religion. Finally, there is the “Third Jesus”, the spiritual guide whose teachings embrace humanity as a whole. By considering each of these separate figures, Chopra allows us to decide for ourselves which of them speaks the most clearly to us today.” Book Depository, limited –

 Grace, enlightenment, God-consciousness.

Using the New Testament as a guide, Chopra gives us fodder for thought with regard to words spoken by Jesus. Misconceptions are explored through quoted scripture, which I promptly looked-up after each reference.

We are given insight into a non-traditional view of who Jesus is, so if you are closed to any interpretation of Jesus other than the one taught in mainstream fundamentalism, don‘t even bother. Irrespective of religious background, this Jesus embraces all mankind, not only the church integrated in his name.

I like this book because Chopra doesn’t try to cram his own way of thinking down our throats. He delineates the facts and leaves it to the reader to decide. We all see what we expect to see. So, instead of seeing through the eyes of individual conviction, as we’ve all been programmed to do, we learn how to clear the mind of all expectation.

“Know the truth and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32. The only way to know that truth is to take an inward journey, through enlightenment, even if you are not a Christian –

FORGOTTEN BOOKMARKS

A Perigee Book/the Penguin Group
Hard cover first edition 2011
Non-fiction, arts, photography – 182 pages

This is an out of the ordinary little book, just received this morning. And, even though I have already finished it, it’s one of those books that will be slid from oft the shelf from time to time, so as to glean some nuances missed the first time around.

The author, Michael Popek is a bookseller in a family owned Antiquarian and used bookstore in New York. One of his tasks, if you can even call it that, is buying and sorting books. Whilst so doing, over the years, he has discovered some interesting ephemera forgotten and left inside books by earlier owners: photographs; letters, cards, notes; receipts, invoices; four-leaf clovers, and the such. He compiled a few ‘finds’ along with book references to share with us, giving glimpses into the lives of the prior readers.

Come to think about it, I’m certain I may have left a few of my own ‘bookmarks’ in a book here and there along the way. I like to clip articles about my books and their authors, placing those articles in their respective volumes. So, inheritor of my vast collection of Tomes – careful with my friends as they may reveal secrets of their own.

Any book lover will want to add this one to his collection. Interesting little book indeed.

 

A WRITER’S DIARY

 The Hogarth Press 1953 by Leonard Woolf;
Copyright renewal 1981 by **Quentin Bell and ***Angelica Garnett.
Harvest Book . Harcourt, Inc.
Soft cover – 351 pages

Last night I began rereading excerpts from Virginia Woolf’s diary. Leonard, her husband, wrote the Preface and edited out all entries that did not pertain to her writing life, “The diary is too personal to be published as a whole during the lifetime of many people referred to in it….” and compiled a most extraordinary portrait of Virginia Woolf during the time span between 1915 and 1941 – four days before her death.

In each entry there is a morsel, a crumb to be tasted, leaving the reader yearning for more of the whole (she did not see herself as a good writer. Always second guessing her own worth):

“Monday, August 19th (1929)
I suppose dinner interrupted. And I opened this book in another train of mind-to record the blessed fact that for good or bad I have just set the last correction to *Women and Fiction, or A Room of One’s Own. I shall never read it again I suppose. Good or bad? Has an uneasy life in it I think: you feel the creature arching in its back and galloping on, though as usual much is watery and flimsy and pitched in too high a voice. ”

“Saturday, April 11th (1931)
……..I mean the writing is free enough; it’s the repulsiveness of correcting that nauseates me. And the cramming in and the cutting out. And the articles and more articles are asked for. Forever I could write articles. But I have no pen-well, it will just make a mark. And not much to say, or rather too much and not the mood.”

Those who know me, know that I am a Woolfian, and have always been attracted to the Bloomsbury circle of literati and artists. I have no difficulty, at all, imagining myself as one of them.

If you are a writer, published or not, if you aspire to become a writer or simply just write in a journal of your own – this book must own you.

 “But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world – a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.” –Virginia Woolf

Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.” -Virginia Woolf

* A Room of Ones Own is a compilation of feminist essays – self published in 1929 through The Hogarth Press;

** 1910-1996 son of Clive (art critic. Member of the Bloomsbury group) and Vanessa Bell (sister of Virginia Woolf);

*** 1918-2012 daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant (painter. Member of the Bloomsbury group)

LIZARD MUSIC

Weird, slightly off-balance, and odd come to mind.

In a nut-shell: Victor, a home-alone boy, ventures out to a nearby town, sees real lizards who play musical instruments, and meets Charlie the Chicken Man, who goes by other names depending on mood. Charlie has a hen named Claudia. Claudia lives on Charlie’s head under his hat. Charlie or whatever his nom du jour is, speaks nonsense and shows up when least expected. Together, Victor and Charlie, guided by the formidable Claudia, go in search of the lizards.

This is a good book for the intelligent pre-teen who lives life slightly off kilter. I found myself smiling throughout the pages of this smartly written story.

Original publication 1976
Reprint: Soft cover 136 pages
Bantam Doubleday Dell
A Yearling Book 1996
YA – Science Fiction Fantasy