Booker Prize Week

So Hilary Mantel did it and I didn't. Let me explain. Di and I were standing in Waterstones, mulling over which of the new books to buy, all of them shiny harbacks with enticing covers. Di chose Wolf Hall, the winner of the Booker, I didn't. Well done Di. Now the question is, what did you think of it?

I chose the new Iain Banks and the new Margaret Atwood although if I hadn't faced the prospect of being overweight at Heathrow, I would have bought the Coetzee as well.

I'm not being a good reader at the moment. A few pages into Home by Marylin Robinson (Gilead sequel), a few chapters into Waterlog by the late Roger Deakin, half way through the Iain Robinson, nearly finished The Wisdom of Crowds, almost finished Dreams: A Very Short Introduction (husband has grabbed it from me) and about twenty more books are glaring at me from all over my bedroom, on my desk, at my bedside and on the floor. Husband says he wants to live in a Zen environment and is very annoyed by my clutter. Ah, the joys of marriage.

Our NIKE group

This is for you, Francette.

The first meeting of the NIKE (just do it) group met the day after a new moon in Leo and a partial solar eclipse. This was obviously auspicious since the group seemed (to me at any rate) to be centred and calm yet inspired and inspiring. Alternating waves of laughter and quiet filled the room. I loved it, every bit of it, and wished that we had booked in for the night so that we could be together a little longer.
I had been reading, with rapt attention, a book by Nancy Kline called Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind. Armed with the provocative ideas Kline puts forward about listening, really listening to people, and knowing that I had an awe-inspiring video by Sugata Mitra to share, I felt only positive anticipation about the day's conversations. There seemed to be no tension this time and no bone-wearying boredom either, but I could be wrong about this. It is possibly easier to be the organiser than the receiver on these occasions as one is able to control the flow and pace of the talk.
There will be another blog soon with heaps of information and a synopsis of the day's events but for now that's all, except to say, thank you Colette, thank you Elmarie, thank you Deon, thank you everyone for being so generous with your ideas and reminding me that there is power in the collective.
A luta continua!

On Netherland and reading at 3 am

So the dog wakes me at one in the morning and I curse my stupidity in going to bed too early because I can't get back to sleep. I stagger to the lounge and pick up where I left off last time Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. I am reading this book v-e-r-y slowly because it's such a marvel. When I use my usual skimming methodology, I have to go back and read again, because you can't miss a single sentence. Even though this book has the game of cricket at its centre, as Breath had surfing at its, and I don't know much about cricket nor will I ever, O'Neill has this gift of instilling significance into every phrase, not in that soppy sense of Wow, This is Significant Stuff, but in the real sense which makes me put the book down and stare into the middle distance. So early this morning at the time when one feels most alone and wonders how many other people are also up, I thought of what it means to write a really good novel, as this is. A novel that, like Henry James's, doesn't do much. A contemplative novel that manages to keep your interest throughout the contemplation. Hans has roots in the Netherlands - his memories return there repetitively with scenes of skating, the quiet orderly streets of The Hague, his mother, his school - yet his heart is in New York where he is an unwilling sojourner, a legal alien. The Chelsea Hotel comes to life in this book in a miraculous way, just as that other hotel, whose name I have forgotten, but which is being restored, will always remain for me part of my childhood thanks to Eloise. This morning I read this wonderful scene in which the Turkish angel (he wears rather dirty angel wings and robes) is lying on the roof of the synagogue and Hans lies next to him while the angel's mother has hysterics believing that her son has committed suicide. Hans looks up at the night sky and what follows is typical of the book - a synergy of signficant moments which I can't possibly capture in my clumsy and turgid prose but which made me put the book down and stare into the middle distance. You'll have to read it yourself.
So I get back into bed at 3 in the morning and lie there writing this in my mind. How annoying that the words flowed so fluidly there in bed which they never do when I face the screen, hands poised over the keys. I thought of what it means to write in this blogging space - how private it is - and what a paradox that is, to be most private when being most public. But no-one reads this. It's name - anacoluthon - protects my privacy. Who would bother with a blog with a name like that? So, why is this different from writing in a journal? Well, someone always finds the journal, so it's never a truly private space, whereas this huge etheric place which is theoretically open and free for all is a better place to hide.

Oh, and Kate Atkinson's latest is also a joy albeit in a totally different form.
And I have further thoughts about the novel as the most accomplished form in which to grasp the meaning of life, but I won't go there.

weddings and dogs and books

Well as you can see, it was a happy wedding despite the torrential rain that started falling just after N and V took their vows, a good omen people assured me repeatedly. I believe it too.
There are other photos of course, but I will start a new Wedding blog for interested parties. Huh. That's a joke.
Anyway, the wedding was wonderful. Hats off to Vicky for meticulous planning, right down to the placing of guests at tables which turned out to be the most difficult of all as there were two fathers, one stepfather, two mothers and one stepmother to be placed at dinner. It wasn't at all a Four Weddings and a funeral affair, much more a When we were...??? (that Joyce Carol Oates book about reconciliation?) and I still have that lovely feeling in the pit of my stomach, memories of a beautiful and healing weekend.
Right! Now for the dogs. The cute puppies have turned into greedy monsters who bite and scratch. Nearly 5 weeks old, they now eat, eat, eat, eat, sleep and play, in that order. Great fun. I want to do this again.

And, books? Quarter of the way through Wally Lamb, a leviathan of a book focused on the Columbine High School massacre but wandering along through all sorts of byways. I don't know what I think yet as am reading it too slowly. Finished all the Simon Gray I can handle for now and have his plays to dip into.
I'm a rather dismal reader at the moment actually, preferring by far to play Solitaire on my phone. How pathetic is that!

about saying goodbye to Simon Gray

I'm in a rising panic. I've reached the last book of the Smoking Diaries, number 4, called, appropriately, Coda and I can see that the last page is coming up and I don't want to get there. So today, in the expectation of finishing Coda (and what after all can come after a Coda?) I went to the library and got out about 7 plays and two more memoirs by Simon. This last book has been a painful read. Deliberately avoiding listening to a prognosis, Simon and Victoria are plodding along with his cancer until some silly doctor blurts out that he has a year max. The book takes a funny turn after that - this is why I am finding it so fascinating - one can read as if in real time Simon's shock and inability to focus on his writing. Nothing means anything. How could it with his death sentence staring at him. In the end, it wasn't the cancer that killed him, despite the awful treatment (why do people persist in having it?). He died of an aneuryism. Coda becomes almost unbearably poignant with this knowledge. At each stage, there is some wishful projection into an imagined future - will I make my next birthday, is this my last swim in Greece? Oh dear. I am writing this to stave off reading the last few pages.

About Agaat and puppies

Three weeks old. Our two males, held by Steve.

This is a lonely business, blogging. I hope Ilovenotcamping is going to log on soon. However, here are my latest thoughts on reading. or not reading Agaat. Yes, I must confess, I have given up on Agaat. Sorry Trace. Sorry Karen. Sorry everyone. I tried hard. Perhaps its just not my time but I have been thinking that it's more than that. There is something unfinished about Agaat, something too raw and 'in your face' for my liking. While it's almost Joyceian in its flow, I couldn't actually admit to enjoying reading it. After bribing myself and performing other tricks, I have decided to shelve it for another time and gratefully fled to Exclusives yesterday to buy the final two volumes of Simon Gray, The Last Cigarette and Coda. Want a taste of him?
2005
I'm still in Suffolk, where it's a typical August afternoon, cold and damp, with England losing a test match in Birmingham, and things can't go on like this. I say that, but how can they change? Well, I can make them change by stating categorically -

that intend to give up smoking.
I've left out the 'I'. Do it again, with the 'I' in it.
I intend to give up smoking.
There. I've put it down. It's legible, in firm, blue ballpoint. There's no getting away from it because it's plonk in the middle of the page, and to tear it out would be cheating.

And so it continues, anacoluthically and quite wonderfully. Now this is what I call good writing. See?

Oh, and I also read Hotel de Dream by Edmund White, which I bought a long time ago for the Bookclub and gulped that down with gratitude. Magical stuff. You can keep the South African farm fiction.

New Year Pup

Here is one of them at two weeks' old. Just finished feeding. Picture of satiety. Love it. Not that any of you will see this, numskulls that you are, forgetting passwords, forgetting self's name, etc.