oandthegang, somewhat daunted, sets out on another year

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oandthegang, somewhat daunted, sets out on another year

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1Oandthegang
Jan 5, 2017, 1:48 pm

Last year was a bad LT year for me. Lots of books came in the door, and a number of them even got read. There were books that I loved but while I slowly pondered how best to review them time slipped away and the reviews went downstream as I moved on to other things.

I might do a little note of some of the books I've liked and wanted to review so that they do not go unmarked.

I shall probably be doing a bit more reading this year, so will have to work at getting those reviews done.

I must also try to keep up with people's threads. There are now so many and they are added to so quickly that I find whole mornings can go by just trying - and failing - to keep up. Perhaps I need to check in daily.

Anyway, Happy New Year. Strange days are with us.

2arubabookwoman
Jan 5, 2017, 3:08 pm

Looking forward to following your reading again this year. I will try to lurk less and comment more.

3dchaikin
Jan 6, 2017, 10:54 am

O - CR will calm down again. It gets a bit crazy just after Jan 1. Wish you a good LT year this time.

4Oandthegang
Jan 7, 2017, 9:29 am

I see that Hans Fallada's excellent Alone In Berlin has been made into a film with Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson as the central couple, which is due for release in the UK on 10 March. Always a fan of Brendan Gleeson, though he is very far from the build of Herr Quangel, which seemed so much a part of the man's character. (Fan of Emma Thompson, too)

5valkyrdeath
Jan 11, 2017, 6:04 pm

It definitely is hard to catch up on threads at the start of the year, I'm still not there yet! Looking forward to following yours here.

Interesting about the film of Alone in Berlin. I've yet to read the book but it's on my list.

6This-n-That
Jan 13, 2017, 3:15 pm

>1 Oandthegang: It is okay. :-) I have been struggling to read updates, too. Also, everyone is making great reading strides and my own progress has been slooooow.

A strange and worrisome time ahead, indeed, but will try not to fret too much.

Happy New Year and best wishes for your reading endeavours.

7Oandthegang
Jan 21, 2017, 3:35 pm



The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

I am bewildered by the popularity of this book. Its cast seems drawn from a list of currently modish types, some characters being saddled with aspects of more than one. The plot is hackneyed. I will allow that despite this it did keep me reading right to the end, but I would certainly not recommend it for anything more than something to fill some time.

8SassyLassy
Jan 22, 2017, 5:01 pm

>7 Oandthegang: Just had a look at the Guardian review of this book, and I'm not sure I'm ready for winged leviathans. I was hoping it might be about good old Robert Devereux, but not to be I guess. I'll probably pass, although who knows?

9Oandthegang
Jan 22, 2017, 5:16 pm

Alternative facts. Time to be very very afraid.

10RidgewayGirl
Jan 22, 2017, 5:21 pm

>9 Oandthegang: That is worrisome. As is the attitude toward the press.

11edwinbcn
Jan 25, 2017, 12:41 am

The Essex Serpent sound like a book I might like.

12Oandthegang
Modifié : Jan 27, 2017, 1:08 pm

Two sound recordings which I think are brilliant, and would like to recommend:-



Grande Liturgie Orthodoxe Slave en la basilique Alexandre Newsky de Sofia performed by the Choeur Bulgare "Svetoslav Obretenov" directed by Gueorgui Robev (harmonia mundi France P. 1970)

I do not know enough about either music or Orthodox Christianity to be able to provide the sort of in depth information and analysis to which Club Read readers are accustomed, but as I love the music I thought I would recommend this (and the following recording) anyway. According to the sleeve notes of this cd (written by Stephan Lazarov) Bulgaria is the most ancient Orthodox Slavic country, having adopted Christianity as the official religion in 865 during the reign of King Boris. The fundamental lines of the Slavic liturgy were laid down in the ninth to tenth centuries from the example of the Greek Orthodox liturgy, and afterwards served as an example to the Russians, Serbians, and Romanians. The language of the church is still ancient Bulgarian. Lazarov notes that Russian religious music "the antiquity, originality and beauty of which there can be no doubt about, underwent to a reasonable and aesthetically acceptable degree, the noble influence of the Renaissance of Western Europe, above all that of Italy."

There are ten pieces on this cd, the work of three different composers: Dobri Christov (Bulgarian 1975-1941) Alexandre Arkhangelskii (Russian 1846-1924) and Alexandre Gretchaninov (Russian 1864-1956). The liturgy is made up of responses and blessings, so for instance the first piece, Velikaia Ekteniia (Magna ektenia), includes the response-recitatives of the two deacons together with the response-intersessions of the choir. The piece that those unfamiliar with the Slavic Orthodox liturgical tradition are most likely to recognize is Gretchaninov's Verouiou (credo in unum Deum). In this wonderful piece the soloist's recitation of the creed rides over the subtly modulating background provided by the choir. It is recording of this piece which to me really embodies the wonder of this cd, which is the sound of the space of the cathedral itself, which becomes a very real presence, giving utter majesty to the singing. (all music is a cappella). I haven't seen this particular performance uploaded onto any free site. If you search you may come across a recording featuring Boris Christoff, a bass opera singer, whose performance is not remotely like that which I am recommending; his attack and tempo are quite off-putting to ears accustomed to the thoughtful, reflective, performance on my Harmonia Mundi cd. Unfortunately the Harmonia Mundi cd does not credit any soloists, who are presumably simply members of the choir rather than featured guest soloists. In the Harmonia Mundi version the credo is sung by what I take to be a tenor or possibly a mezzo-soprano.

Moving on to a more well known piece, Rachmaninov's Vespers Op.37 (the all night vigil), I would like to bring to the attention of those who have not yet discovered it the 1965 recording by The State Academic Russian Choir USSR under the direction of Alexander Sveshnikov, sound producer A Grossman, Klara Korkan mezzo-soprano, and Konstantin Ognevoi tenor. This is regarded by many as the ultimate recording of this work. Sveshnikov collaborated with A. Grossman to produce the recording, which took almost a year, sorting through many takes as Svenshnikov sought to ensure that the final edit recorded only the best performances by his choir of each section. Despite all this effort, the recording was not made available in the USSR because of the work was banned at the time. The recording was made available for study, and, according to Wikipedia, was made available for commercial release in 1973 on the Melodyia-Angel label. It is now on the Melodyia label, seemingly as part of a series of releases of 'The Choral Art of Alexander Sveshsnikov'.



This recording has been uploaded in its entirety onto YouTube, but not being a person who listens to music through the internet I do not know whether or not the true quality of the recording would be reproduced that way. If you want to hunt it down it's the version with the slightly blurry photo of a grumpy looking man in a big-collared coat. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Rachmaninov+Vespers+4&&view=detail&...

There are many recordings of the Vespers, but this one has such wonderful voices, particularly the oktavists (Russian basso profundo - there's a whole debate going on on Wikipedia about the use of this term, which is used for the singers with extremely deep voices which are such a wonderful component of Russian music. I saw a programme on the BBC about classical voices in which it was claimed that these voices are becoming rare. One hopes not as so much music is created around them. And if they are becoming rare, why?)

OK, that's it. What's-wrong-with-a-tune-you-can-whistle type review over.

13baswood
Jan 27, 2017, 10:11 am

Enjoyed your CD reviews.

14Oandthegang
Modifié : Fév 2, 2017, 9:02 pm



Renaissance Masterpieces - Pro Cantione Antiqua dir. Mark Brown

- Miserere (Allegri), Spem In Alium (Tallis), Lamentations of Jeremiah The Prophet (Tallis)

This 1985 IMP recording is currently listed on Amazon at prices ranging from around 94p to over £500, however it appears to be also available on music streaming services, and I therefore urge you to bend your ears in its direction.

For me this is the best recording of Thomas Tallis's sublime forty part motet Spem In Alium. The piece is performed by eight five-part choirs rather than by a single massed choir. From the sound it seems likely that the eight choirs were placed separately within a church, enabling the music to move through the building. There's something perhaps to some ears a little messy about this recording - occasionally it seems as though there is whispering under the massed voices, possibly an effect of the acoustics of the building, and sometimes a sort of clicking which could be the turning of pages, but for me these simply add to the depth of the layering of the sound. The Spem starts with a solo voice, joined within seconds by another, and gradually through the first two minutes more voices join, some near, some at a distance. The voices reverberate through the space, which hums wonderfully in the intervals and particularly at the end of the piece. The performance takes thirteen minutes and thirty-six seconds, allowing the piece room to breathe. By comparison other performances/recordings which I've heard seem flat - uniform and soulless throughout.

I've just realised that I have nothing to say about the performance of either the Miserere or the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the reason being that the first time I heard the Spem was on this recording, I was amazed by it and I have not heard another performance which could hold a candle to it. The Miserere and the Lamentations having not made such an extraordinary impression I have not consciously compared other performances to them. Well, it's the same singers, the same musical director, and, by the sound of it, the same location as the Spem, so by extension good stuff.

Pro Cantione Antiqua was founded in the 1960s. It was created to be an ensemble of soloists rather than a choir, ensuring the individuality of each voice. Perhaps it is this which makes their Spem so striking. (It must be noted that the PCA's numbers were augmented for the Spem).

Thomas Tallis (c1505-1585, English) was appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal by Henry VIII, and managed to steer his way through the subsequent years of religious turmoil, writing music for the English liturgy under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, and for the Catholic rites under Mary. For Elizabeth he wrote works in English as well as in Latin. The sleeve notes by Matthew Adams note "Tallis was apparently a well loved, humble and unassuming figure whose epitaph provides us with a clue to the qualities needed to walk, unharmed, through the minefield of the Reformation and, in common with any good craftsman, to satisfy the demands of his current patron. 'As he dyd lyve, so also did he dy, in myld and quyet sort (O. Happy man)' "

The Spem is believed to have been composed in honour of Queen Elizabeth's fortieth birthday. The Lamentations is a mournful work intended for Holy Week, the most solemn of the Christian calendar, when the faithful are encouraged to consider the last week of Jesus' life and to think about the strength of their own commitment to the faith.

Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652, Italian) became part of Pope Urban VIII's chapel choir in 1629. While a member of the choir he wrote the famous Miserere, a psalm setting which has been sung by the papal choir in the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week ever since. It is written in five parts, with a second four part choir of soloists interpolating. Unusually for the time, the music ascended to top C. The score was jealously guarded, and only three transcriptions were authorised for release, and those to very particular people. It thus acquired a great mystique. Aged fourteen, Mozart attended a performance, then went home and wrote out all the parts from memory, returning to hear it again in order to make some adjustments and corrections. It seems the Pope was impressed by the feat rather than annoyed by the leak. Even then the work remained unpublished until 1790, when it was published by a Dr Burney, who had come across a copy whilst travelling in Europe. The performance in the Vatican would have had particular ornamentation, which was not included in the Mozart version, though it would have been understood in the Renaissance tradition. There have recently been some attempts to recreate the likely historic sound inclusive of ornamentation.

15baswood
Fév 8, 2017, 6:46 pm

Great to read about these renaissance pieces, which I have not got to yet.

16Oandthegang
Modifié : Fév 16, 2017, 6:54 pm



A Voice In The Night - Andrea Camilleri

It seems I have a complicated, albeit one-sided, relationship with Inspector Salvo Montalbano. Some years ago a keen fan passed on to me two of Montalbano mysteries, but I was not immediately taken with them. The BBC began showing the Italian Inspector Montalbano tv series in the slot previously occupied by the likes of The Killing, Borgen, etc., and while I was fascinated by the foreignness of the production style and the location I couldn't understand why the series had such a following. A lot of it seemed frankly idiotic. Puzzled, I bought The Shape Of Water, the first Inspector Montalbano novel, which explained a lot of what was presumably taken for granted by Italian viewers and by people familiar with the novels. Although still feeling somewhat neutral about the character I was in the mood for a new series, and so started reading through the Montalbanos in publication order, becoming more and more fond of them as I went. I looked forward to the new volumes and swiftly moved from paperback to hardback, enjoying the distinctive cover artwork, the story inside, and then .... I began to feel slightly disappointed. I had nineteen books taking up valuable shelf space. Would I really read them again? After a lot of debate with myself, off they went to the charity shop. Then I found that whenever I saw another Club Read member's review I felt envious, remembering how much I had enjoyed reading the books. So, expensively, back to the book store to replace the departed volumes.

I was in a bookstore recently and saw not only the most recent hardback, A Voice In The Night, but also a paperback, Montalbano's First Case, and other stories. It was like the sun had come out. I bought them both and have been looking forward to the right moment to read them.

While waiting for that moment I began thinking about the earlier volumes, wondering where they might be. Doubtless buried in the recent building chaos. Then a couple of days ago I decided it really was time to drop off at the charity shop the bags which had been lurking in the back of the car. As it had been a while since I'd put them there I checked before handing them in, only to find that one was full of - you guessed it - Montalbano books. I remembered that I had once again told myself that I couldn't keep them all, and that I should select a few and give away all the rest.

Well, today I was in the right mood to read the new Montalbano. I have just finished A Voice In The Night, and it has reminded me why I like these books and why I should keep them all. Notwithstanding the deaths, violence, and corruption necessary to the plots there is a gentleness and optimism. What is principally enjoyable about these books is Montalbano himself. He is a kind of everyman dealing with an exaggerated form of everyday life. Alongside the shrewdness which keeps him going as a police inspector, which in his Sicilian context means dealing not only with the individual crimes but also the context in which they happen - who is related to whom, who is in whose pocket, are his wonderfully human traits. He acts on impulse, but satisfying the urge of the moment usually leads to difficulties, and like a crafty child he often needs to lie his way out of the consequences. As well as thinking quickly to confuse the opposition, often to humorous effect, there is also the fun as he argues with Camilleri and complains that the actor in the tv series doesn't look anything like him. (I'm always taken aback by references in the books to Montalbano's moustache. While I don't really have a mental image of the character, clearly it doesn't include the moustache.)

There is a pattern to the novels. I'm not going to check back on the previous volumes, but usually they start off with Montalbano dreaming. In this volume he wakes up refreshed, but wondering whether he had dreamt. He has read that we always dream but can't always remember. It had been that on waking his dreams would immediately come back to him with the vividness of movies, then it became more of an effort to remember them, and now he didn't remember them at all. Could it be due to age? Livia, his ever distant girlfriend rings to wish him happy birthday. He has forgotten that today is his fifty-eighth birthday, and is not happy at being reminded about it. Unfortunately everyone else has also remembered his birthday, and whether at the police station or at the restaurant there is no escape.

Montalbano is a cautious driver, and this morning, as he is driving to work musing blackly on his age, he is flashed and shouted at by the driver of the BMW behind, a man in his thirties who, overtaking Montalbano shouts "Get yourself to a nursing home, granddad" and, brandishing a large monkey wrench, adds "I'm going to beat your brains out with this, you walking corpse!" The BMW then speeds away, overtaking the entire queue of traffic ahead. Montalbano silently wishes a particularly unpleasant accident upon the driver, and falls to wondering when the general decline in behaviour set in. It is when Montalbano later sees the BMW pulled in for fuel that his impulsiveness comes into play. Though not in need of refuelling, he nonetheless pulls in to the petrol station and parks in such a way as to block in the BMW. He then pretends to be unable to restart his car. The furious driver of the BMW shouts "I told you I was going to get you" and smashes the window of Montalbano's car, only to be confronted by Montalbano's gun, and is subsequently taken down to the police station in handcuffs. While many of us may fantasise about crafty ways to have appalling drivers taken off the streets Montalbano's clever wheeze backfires when it turns out that the angry driver is the son of the president of the province, untouchable, and represented by a lawyer sufficiently drenched in aftershave to make Montalbano sweat with nausea who points out that Montalbano deliberately provoked his client. As is generally the case, seemingly unconnected incidents have links to one another, and it is up to Montalbano and his team to think through the possible scenarios and establish, whether by legal means or otherwise, the real reasons for the escalating body count. Through it all he has his usual phone spats with Livia, eats inordinate amounts of food, plays the politics and peculiarities of the officials he needs, becomes increasingly irritated by the habits of his staff, and has a hard time with an octopus.

Livia, reminding Montalbano that it is his fifty-eighth birthday, points out that he was born in 1950. Although this English translation was published in 2016 I see that the Italian edition was first published in 2012. For Montalbano to be fifty-eight the book should have been published in 2008. I mention this because there is a rather odd author's note at the end of the book in which Camilleri explains that the book was written "a number of years ago" and "Any attentive reader who notices the more or less accentuated crises of ageing, or the more or less decontexualized quarrels with Livia and so on" should blame it on "the secret alchemy of publisher's schedules". I've not checked back to see how this book relates to the previous volume and its publication dates. I had read some time ago that Camilleri had deposited the final Montalbano with his publisher, to be kept under strict wraps until time for its publication, and as Montalbano seems to age through the series I have begun to count down with concern the years to his retirement. In A Voice In The Night Montalbano is starting to have some problems with concentration and memory which have me worried that he may be destined to suffer the same fate as Henning Mankell's Wallander. I trust we will have at least two more years of the Inspector before he retires, and I hope they will be good, healthy, years. What will happen when he does? How will matters with Livia be resolved? (update: it appears from the interview with the author in the link in the next post that Montalbano will have a sudden, and very final, end, so these musings about his post retirement relationship with Livia seem pointless. Perhaps she does him in!)

Whatever may happen in the future, this was a perfect book to cheer an otherwise dull day.

17Oandthegang
Fév 16, 2017, 6:18 pm

here's a link to an article in The Guardian from July 2012 which explains the merits of the Montalbano books better than I could.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jul/06/andrea-camilleri-montalbano-life...

And this from YouTube about the books and the programmes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWQYvG-KLvQ

18SassyLassy
Fév 16, 2017, 7:57 pm

Nice summation of the essence of Montalbano. I should read more of them.

I suspect we have all been there with the give away/ regret/ oh goodie scenario.

19baswood
Fév 20, 2017, 7:32 pm

>16 Oandthegang: Well I love the TV films. I want to live in his apartment on the seashore.

20wandering_star
Fév 21, 2017, 8:13 pm

I do like your description of your relationship history with the Montalbano books! Sometimes I am very surprised when I look back at old reviews, as my affection for particular books has grown in my memory.

I tend to watch the Montalbano TV shows when I visit my mother as she really likes them - it's about the only 'soft' watching she has as everything else is documentaries and classic fiction adaptations.

21Oandthegang
Fév 24, 2017, 1:48 pm

>19 baswood: Definitely. I find it impossible to read the stories without seeing that balcony and the view over the beach. I'm occasionally puzzled by the layout of the rooms, but I'm sure the continuity team have it sorted. As a creature of temperate climes I am also fascinated by the locations. So much rock, so little green. It's as though all the buildings have simply been hewn out of the mountain. I do enjoy watching people speaking Sicilian. On the other hand in the books one has access to what is going on in Montalbano's mind, which is where a lot of the entertainment lies. What particularly jarred with me before I started reading the novels was Catarella. Why on earth they would employ him and why there were such problems about his speech and his mishearing? Now all is explained I can relax. I think it's great that they seem to have floral wallpaper in the police station.

On the whole I prefer the Young Montalbano tv series. I have just finished reading the short story 'Montalbano's First Case' which was dramatized for it. Twenty more stories to go.

>20 wandering_star: That sounds like a stern TV regime!

22wandering_star
Fév 27, 2017, 11:18 am

>21 Oandthegang: she is pretty highbrow, my mum!

23Oandthegang
Mar 11, 2017, 9:34 am

Still no reviews, but...

I put the word Fear in for a search of my books. LT brought up books with Fear in the title, but also brought up the following titles. What does LT know that we don't?

Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Fall On Your Knees
Framley Parsonage
The Morville Hours
Alone In Berlin
The Years Of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power
The Exiles Return
Traitor’s Purse

Framley Parsonage. Be afraid. Be very afraid....

24wandering_star
Mar 12, 2017, 12:01 am

Fall on Your Knees sounds fear-inspired...

25SassyLassy
Mar 12, 2017, 11:32 am

>24 wandering_star: It's an incredible book, from the first attention grabbing line "They're all dead now" but it does always make me think of the carol with the line "Fall on your knees". It's one of those books that captures time, place and language so well.

Oddly I have several of those books in >23 Oandthegang:, but none of them are fear inspiring; melancholy in places, but no fear.

26Oandthegang
Modifié : Mar 17, 2017, 6:59 am



Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

I was in one of those moments between books that I was planning to read when my eye landed on Rogue Male. I knew nothing about it, having bought it on impulse. Before settling down for the night I thought I'd just check if it would be a good book to start the following day. The first chapter began:-

"I cannot blame them. After all, one doesn't need a telescopic sight to shoot boar and bear; so that when they came on me watching the terrace at a range of five hundred and fifty yards, it was natural that they should jump to conclusions. And they behaved, I think, with discretion."

Inevitably I read on into the following day, only stopping when I realised how little time was left before I would have to get up and do responsible things.

This is a tricky book to review without giving anything away. Robert Macfarlane in his introduction to this Orion edition tells any new reader not to read the introduction until they have read the book as there are so many spoilers in his introduction.

The novel takes the form of a first person narrative, written in three instalments, all dealing with the consequences of being caught watching that terrace. The narrator chooses anonymity in his journal in case its contents should ever become public. His name "is widely known", he has "been frequently and unavoidably dishonoured by the banners and praises of the penny press". He concedes that he himself did not really know what he was doing or why when after two weeks' hunting in Poland he crossed the border carrying a telescopic sight for his 'Bond Street rifle'. Moving from place to place he found that with each night's lodging he was getting nearer the House. "I became obsessed with the idea of a sporting stalk. I have asked myself once or twice since why I didn't leave the rifle behind. I think the answer is that it wouldn't have been cricket." Part of the interest of this sporting stalk was "speculation upon methods of guarding a great man, and how they might be circumvented". So far so very John Buchan, but this is a novel of a very different stripe. The narrator lets us know that he has been tortured and subsequently left hanging from the edge of a cliff, it being his captors' intention that he should eventually lose his grip and fall to his death. The condition of his body, when found, would be assumed to be the consequence of the fall, the torn fingernails showing his desperate attempt to cling to the cliff face. By a fluke he lands in a small area of marsh and so survives, but knowing that his body will be missed he is now on the run. He realises that having failed to stage his accidental death his pursuers will now involve the police, and even if he reaches England he will not be safe. No names are given for the country, the people, or the "great man", but as the book was published in 1939 we can be reasonably certain who he talking about. Especially when, later on, the expression 'will to power' is used. As the pursuit nears its end the narrator acknowledges to himself the real motivation for that "sporting stalk" .

Macfarlane says that Household described himself as "a sort of bastard by Stevenson out of Conrad". He also mentions the books which would have influenced Household in the creation of this novel - Stevenson's Kidnapped, Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps, and Greene's A Gun For Sale. From Conrad he would have taken the stripped down style of the narration.

I did have some niggles about the plausibility of some details of the plot. For some reason it kept bothering me that a man on the run, even one provisioning himself from a prestigious store where he well known, would take with him sufficient paper and writing implements to be able to make up this book, but then I suppose there is the remarkable log that Captain Bligh kept which survived his trip in the launch after being thrown off the Bounty. Perhaps there was a time when one just did such things.

I found particularly interesting the narrator's views on society. Born in the west of England in 1900, Household came into the world too late for Victorian or Edwardian ideals. Buchan's upper class heroes suffer from ennui; when young they were abroad in the colonies, serving the imperial dream, then they fought in the first World War. Those experiences have formed them, but the world has changed and their old skills are obsolete. Household's narrator, clearly a wealthy aristocrat, has more reservations about the society in which he finds himself. He maintains that it is the cruelty of the pre-war English public school system "the Spartan training of the English upper class" which has enabled him to withstand torture with a degree of detachment. It is of course the narrator's class which is crucial to the story. Without it not only would he have been unlikely to have undertaken the particular trip which triggers the tale, but there would have been no need for the elaborate staging of an accidental death, nor would he have had the unquestioning protection afforded to him by his few contacts on his return. Early on the narrator muses at some length on the nature of what he calls 'Class X'. He is concerned with the matter as he can disguise himself utterly in a foreign country, in a foreign tongue, but speaking to an Englishman it will be recognised and interfere with his attempts to efface his identity. "I should like some socialist pundit to explain to me why it is that an Englishman can be a member of the proletariat by every definition of the proletariat (that is, by the nature of his employment and poverty) and yet obviously belong to Class X, and why another can be a bulging capitalist or cabinet minister or both and never get nearer to Class X than being directed to the Saloon Bar if he enters the Public." He comments that the British have a profound division of the classes which defies analysis because it is in a continual state of flux. Written in the lead up to the second world war it is not surprising that matters relating to national character are brought in to the tale. While the threat in the story is from Nazis, communism was also in the air, so a degree of defence against both ideologies is built in to the narration.

Times have changed since 1939, and I do wonder how a man of the narrator's skills and qualities would be regarded in today's world. Whether that rugged individualism, the ruthlessness, the ability to live like an animal might now be regarded with a degree of unease.

(Revised)

27Oandthegang
Modifié : Mai 22, 2017, 5:45 pm

I have been doing quite a bit of reading but have got stuck when it comes to reviews. There are a number of books I've really enjoyed and would like to share, but by now I will need to refresh my memory.

In the meantime, I am in culling mood. I thought today that as I have only six bookcases (four four shelves, one three shelves, and one two shelves) I should steel myself to only having as many books as I can fit in those bookcases. I should shed all the books that live on the stairs and various other surfaces round the house as well as those that have been in storage for an embarrassingly long time. I'm making this public declaration just to remind myself of the goal, and also because I know how supportive CL members will be as I struggle - and probably fail.

A slight cheat, I thought I would do some culling of the kitchen books, which aren't actually part of the shelf counting, but I thought, hey, this will be easy. Wrong. My cooking is sub student level, and I'm not honestly that interested in food/cooking, but I have this foolish belief that if only I had the right cookbook I would change, so I keep buying cookbooks that look like they might keep me in the kitchen a little longer. As the books just sit unopened on the kitchen shelf my kitchen time remains minimal. Nonetheless a number of the books were given to me in memory of particular times or places, so are hard to cull.

So, easy cull - The Complete Hostess by Quaglino.



Quaglino's is a London restaurant which opened in 1929 and became very fashionable during the thirties and forties. It has gone in and out of fashion since. This book of recipes by Quaglino was published in 1935, reissued in 1974, now out of print. I love it because it belongs to such a different world.

Quaglino intended the book for ordinary housewives, albeit presumably reasonably well heeled ones, and he gives advice on shopping for the various ingredients. For almost every source of meat there is a recommended age and weight. Chicken are, it seems, best when they are Surrey fed. (Who knows? I have a good butcher, I shall test them.) Chicken for roasting should be between two and three pounds and from ten to sixteen weeks old. One should remember that English home-killed beef needs hanging a week longer than Scottish beef. (No explanation, just something we all ought to know.) Mackerel should be almost golden, when bought, as this means it is very fresh. "Do not buy this fish except between May and September, and if possible get a guarantee from the fishmonger that the ones you buy come from Hastings and Folkestone." We are not to forget that mackerel goes bad faster than any other fish. There is a rough guide to ascertaining the nationality of lobsters: Irish lobsters have their claws tied with wire, Scottish lobsters have their claws tied with tar string, and in other districts willow twigs are used. "I have not much to say about crayfish, except that they are freshwater fish, and the best ones come from the River Lee." (presumably not the bits of it that flow through London's East End!)

In addition to the fascinating window on real shopping there are the recipes. The recipe chapters begin About Cocktails; Caviar; Smoked Salmon; Hors-d'Oevres; Oysters and Shellfish; and move swiftly through to Champagne and Wines; Cigars; Coffee; finishing with suggestions for luncheons, dinners, and suppers, each arranged by season. There are thirteen pages of recipes for sole, and twelve pages of recipes for eggs - oeufs au plat, French fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled, soft-boiled, moulded and poached, cold, and of course, omelettes. Surely even I could rustle up some of these! There are also some lovely sounding ice creams.

The menus are a curious mix, there are things we wouldn't eat now - a distressingly high number of turtles and terrapins were being consumed, and some things that would no longer be served in a supposedly sophisticated setting. It seems impossible to avoid shellfish or caviare no matter what the time of year; the closest I can come to it in inviting you to join me in a spring luncheon c1935 would be:-

Jambon de Parme Hors'd-Oeuvres (White Lady)

Potage Bonne Femme

Scampi Bordelaise Riz Pilaff

Poussin de Surrey Sicilienne
Haricots Verts de Jersey
Coeur de Laitue aux Fines Herbes (Ch. Lauriers Blanc or Liebfraumilch Auslese 1921)

Pêche Flambée au Kirsch

Rocher de Glacé au Citron
Friandises

(Liqueurs, Kümmel Wolfschmidt Riga)

And of course coffee and cigars to follow.

The book ends with a handy list of wines and champagnes and their prices. If one really wanted to push the boat out the two most expensive drinks listed by the bottle were Georges Goulet extra quality extra dry 1920 and Heidsieck Dry Monopole 1921, both at 27s 6d.

And now I guess it's time to say goodbye to Quaglino's, 1935.

28SassyLassy
Mai 23, 2017, 4:16 pm

>27 Oandthegang: I know how supportive CL members will be as I struggle - and probably fail I'm sure they will be supportive whether you obtain your objective or not, but this being CL, I suspect many of us will having a sneaking hope that at least a few of the scattered books will be retained!

I notice your book has a foreword by Barbara Cartland, which tells the reader something right away. However, it does look like an interesting social history and assuming cook was at the market early in the day, those hints are worthwhile in an era when food was sold at basically ambient temperature. Who nowadays would consume such an enormous lunch, complete with appropriate drinks? It staggers the mind, although oddly, I can easily picture it on a lovely terrace.
Lastly, what would the worthy Mrs Beeton say?

29Oandthegang
Mai 23, 2017, 7:24 pm

Barbara Cartland was probably invited to write the forward as not only had she eaten there in its heyday, but at one meal back in the Thirties she found a pearl in her oyster. I must try to find a picture of her in the 30s. She can't always have worn pastels and boas!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaglino%27s

30Oandthegang
Modifié : Nov 18, 2017, 3:34 pm

I recently bought a pleasant Deutsche Grammophon recording of the Trout Quintet. (http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4797570 ) Much as I love it I find I am unable to listen to the first movement without imaging myself sitting having tea in a vast white room lined with potted palms as though in a scene from My Fair Lady. I'm not sure why this piece should make me feel so Edwardian when by its date of composition it is more Georgian.

From tea with chamber orchestras to big hats to Merchant Ivory to Helena Bonham Carter to Howards End. I've just looked up the cast of the 1992 film, which I must have seen though I can't remember it. Truly stellar. I must see it again someday.

The BBC has just started a serialised dramatization of Howards End. The first episode went out last week, and greatly disappointing it was. Although I don't feel that even the lovely Matthew Macfadyen will be able to save it I shall tune in to the second episode. In the meantime, suspecting from the filming that the production was struggling to represent something intrinsic to the book I purchased an Everyman's Library edition and settled down to read it.



Howards End by E. M. Forster

First published in 1910, the novel is centred on two sisters, Meg and Helen Schlegel. The elder, Meg, has taken responsibility for herself, her sister, and their young brother, Tibby, since the death of their English mother and their German father, although the little family is kept under the watchful eye of their maternal aunt, Mrs Munt (which seems a somewhat German name, although Mrs Munt throughout is seen to be anxious to see the children as being essentially English rather than German). They are comfortably off and their time is given over to "cultural" activities - concert going, art exhibits, reading, debating, etc.. While on a tour of Germany the Schlegels met the Wilcoxes, an English family. Mrs Wilcox invites the girls down to her country home, Howards End. As Tibby is ill, suffering badly from hay fever, Meg stays in London to look after him and Helen makes the journey alone, with disastrous results.

The novel opens with three letters from Helen to Meg, the first written on Tuesday, the next on Friday, and last on Sunday. Helen is taken with the house, the grounds, and the Wilcoxes themselves. She writes that the male Wilcoxes also suffer from hay fever, which they brave in the country but which soon drives them indoors, and that Mr Wilcox cheerfully knocks down all her ideas about women's suffrage, equality, etc., but manages to do it without hurting her. She feels very much her disadvantage in only knowing the world through and basing her ideas upon books, rather than the practical worldly experience he uses. She declares "We live like fighting-cocks". Her third letter says simply "Dearest, dearest Meg - I do not know what you will say. Paul and I are in love - the younger son who only came here Wednesday."

At this time and in their class "in love" would be seen as effectively on the brink of marriage. With Meg tied to the house by the ailing, and possibly malingering, Tibby, Aunt Juley Munt goes down to Howards End to ensure things go no further. Unfortunately by the time she arrives the 'engagement' is already off, and its brief existence would not have been known to anyone other than Mrs Wilcox had Aunt Juley not arrived. Unfortunately Aunt Juley has let the cat out of the bag by discussing the engagement with Charles Wilcox, mistaking him for Paul. Charles, furious, becomes convinced that the Schlegels are grasping people trying to entrap Paul for material gain and threatening the family stability. Helen on the other hand, having seen Paul's terror of her mentioning their single kiss, then regards the Wilcox men as having no true substance, nothing on which to stand, and her brief enchantment with practical men of the world is ended forever.

I had a lot of difficulty with this novel as not only did I find a lot of the ideas in it ridiculous but I was unable to decide whether Forster himself believed what he was setting out, or whether he was parodying the types represented by his characters. Although the Schlegels spend a lot of time discussing with their equally well heeled and well read friends questions such as how to better the lot of the poor, they have no idea about the poor and no ability to adapt their behaviour to anyone outside their circle. Indeed they would argue that to behave differently to a member of the lower classes would be condescending, notwithstanding that failure to do so could be hurtful. When they encounter Leonard Bast, a lowly insurance clerk with aspiration to lift himself from the unrelenting drabness of his life they alternate between disregard, contempt for him as one of the people who try to acquire culture but are doomed to become unimaginative fumbling pedants missing the point of it all, and occasionally interest in the possibility that he might have some spark within him. When Bast turns up at their house unexpectedly the three Schlegels regard him, "a young man, colourless, toneless, who had already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so common in London. ... One guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town, as one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit. Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew the type very well - the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew the very tones in which he would address her. " Leonard's very surname - Bast - is so very close to 'beast', one doesn't feel that Forster had the remotest sympathy for his kind. When Bast reminds Helen and Meg that they had met before at a concert at the Queen's Hall, adding that they will recollect the particular concert as it included a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Meg replies "We hear the Fifth practically every time it's done". For Bast the visit to that concert had been a treat and an extravagance he could barely afford, and therefore surely a treasured memory; for the Schlegels it was just another night out. Just to rub in the point, Forster describes the Queens Hall as "the dreariest music-room in London" and the concert cheap at two shillings. There is an extensive description of this concert and reactions to it, including Helen's envisaging of goblins and elephants represented in the music - pages of dottiness.

I was unable to shake the feeling that every page of this novel was likely to have prompted some essay question or other, and its famed "only connect" now seems trite from overuse.

I can usually have a fairly good go at putting myself in the context of the original publication, allowing for social mores and prejudices, but I was unable to connect with this novel or any of its characters.

I went to the Introduction in search of some enlightenment. The Introduction is bizarre and also carelessly written. Firstly the Introduction is written by an American aimed exclusively at Americans, and labours to explain English culture, particularly that of the early twentieth century, as though the English were as distant as the Sumerians. Secondly, it has sloppy errors. Discussing the argument between Charles Wilcox and Aunt Juley Kazin twice refers to Charles as Henry. Later he refers to "the ancestral sword that has hung so long on the wall at Howards End" rather implying that it was a Wilcox possession through the generations, when in fact it had belonged to Meg's father, a former soldier, and had arrived at Howards End fairly recently and had not been intended for display. Elsewhere he mentions that Max Beerbohm loved the first part of the novel but was scathing about the rest. Karin then surmises what Beerbohm might have disliked about the second half. It is possible, but somewhat surprising, that in the course of being scathing Beerbohm gave no hint as to the source of his displeasure. This is not an introduction upon which I would rely for guidance.

I know that this is a highly regarded and much loved work, but not, I'm afraid, one for me. Although I may at some point skim a Coles Notes guide to it, this book will not be staying on my shelves.

31chlorine
Nov 19, 2017, 4:03 pm

I had no idea that the author of The Machine stops was also the author of Howards End. The Machine stops is on my wishlist, and Howards End will not go on it, given your comments.

I saw the movie when it went out and _hated_ it. I don't remember any of it, only that I was really angry when I went out of the movie theater. Then if it went out in 1992, I was only 15 at the time. Maybe I would like it better as an adult. I remember my parents loved it. Do let us know what you think if you see it!