The Road Ahead

Am now packing some stuff for a few days in Alor Gajah at Mak's house. Noi is already there, having travelled north back on Tuesday to settle matters with the contractors who are working on repairs to the roof of the old place. I'm kindly being given a lift by Fuad & Rozita, since Noi went up in our car, and I'm happily looking forward to being chauffeured. Except for the fact that Fuad prefers to travel by night, so we're setting off at 2.00 am.

Not exactly sure what state I'll be in at that unearthly hour. Wish me luck.

Not So Scholarly

I made a bit of a blunder (not my first!) back on the first day of the month when I referred to Edmund Spenser summarising his own work in his gloss on March from The Shepheards Calendar. I'd completely forgotten that the commentary is attributed to one E.K. and whoever that may be there's a good chance it's not E.S. himself. Mind you, according to a fairly scholarly introduction to the poem I came across online from one R. S. Bear at the University of Oregon recent opinion has come to prefer the assumption that E.S. is glossing his own poem. So maybe my cavalier statement wasn't entirely foolish.

The thing is, though, that at some fundamental level I don't really care and, since I enjoy the idea that the poet is commenting on himself and his attitudes, I'll continue to feel that's the best way to read the text. It's no wonder that the academic world never felt it quite fitting to hold me to its collective bosom. Pretty wise if you ask me.

Falling Down

I was at the hospital for an hour or so last Friday, getting the low-down on the state of my lungs based on the most recent scan, and had my weight checked as part of the routine. It was gratifying to find I'd put back nearly all the kgs I lost last September and was back to my fighting weight. I suspected that this might be the case since the problem I'd been dealing with keeping my trousers up in the months following my hospitalisation had been put to rest. It wasn't that they, the trousers I mean, were coming down to my knees, but they kept sagging from my emaciated waist in a manner that felt deeply uncomfortable. Nice to get that sorted.

But, quite independently of the trousers situation, I have to confess that roughly half of the pairs of socks I possess have a way of slipping away from the foot (or feet, rather) which I find equally uncomfortable. These are the older socks which seem to have lost the elasticity that makes them cling, for want of a better word. The thing is, I don't recall being troubled in this way in the past. Are falling socks just a feature of old age? Or was I so full of energy in my earlier years that I was untroubled by scruffy feet?

And another question occurs to me. Why are clothes inherently comical? Well, for me, at least.

Small Comforts

I feel fortunate to live at a time when I can access Carol Rumens's reliably excellent Poem of the Week page in the Graun on-line. This week's choice, Small Change by Carole Satyamurti, struck me as having a particular excellence, and the BTL commentary is of a typically high standard. This is what the Internet is for. (Well, actually it's not - but it darn well should be.)

Formidable Stuff

Hugely impressed by Mary Durack's Keep Him My Country. Initially I wasn't quite sure as to where the plot was leading and was misled by the references on the book jacket to a tragic love affair into thinking that the story-line would be driven by a romance crossing racial lines. In fact there's precious little in the way of a distinct plot. In very general terms we might wonder what the future has in store for the novel's protagonist Stanley Rolt, the guy running the homestead, a sort of ranch, on which the work is centred, but there are any number of loosely entwined narrative lines, each of which has its own interest. In the end I suppose the book is about the stuff that happens to the various inhabitants of the homestead, and that stuff proves to be pretty engrossing, due to the fact that life in the outback just is that way, or was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (I assume 'outback' is the right term for this area of the Northern Territories of Australia, but can't recall its use in the text, now I come to think of it.) Interestingly the writer frequently switches point of view, although Rolt is distinctly the central consciousness of the text, and convincingly includes a sense of the aboriginal perspective, though never claiming any privileged insights in that regard.

At times the writing is distinctly, consciously, poetic, but the overtly descriptive passages are nearly all given over to an evocation of landscape that works wonderfully well so that this aspect of style doesn't come across as forced or overly precious. And the writer has an eye for the harsh brutality of this world as well as its many beauties, so this is a bracing kind of poetry, indeed bitingly practical at times. You are left in no doubt at all as to how tough this world is, regardless of its beauty.

It's a short novel but encompasses quite a range of characters, and they are all done well in terms of being convincingly realistic and rising above obvious stereotypes. Everyone is flawed, some spectacularly so, but there's much to admire and much to like. Above all the depiction of Rolt himself is a bit of triumph: he's genuinely complex, in some ways puzzling, even to himself, yet curiously heroic.

On the evidence of the text, I can't help but think that Ms Durack must have been quite a formidable character herself as well as a gifted writer.

Hard Rain

Can't remember the monsoon season keeping going this late into the year. Got quite fed-up yesterday at not being able to go for a walk to Holland Village. Very much felt the need to stretch my legs, but didn't fancy getting wet-through doing so.

Things looked very different this morning, with the rain having finally let-up. After clearing some necessary preparation for the working week ahead I set out in the early afternoon for the village with the sun not exactly beating down but certainly in attendance. And for the next thirty minutes or so it looked as if my decision not to bother taking a brolly with me would be confirmed as solid common sense. Then, pretty much upon arrival at my destination, I detected the first drops of rain in the air. Initially it looked like a few drops were all we were going to get, but within five minutes the heavens had opted to open and the rain came siling down.

For a good ten to fifteen minutes or so I found myself rapidly crossing open spaces and diving for cover as I looked for somewhere to grab a cuppa. Sadly I was able to confirm the closure of my favourite CBTL outlet, which had been boarded up on my last visit, but finally settled at a place across the road from its former location to enjoy a cappuccino and a quick scan of a couple of publications I picked up from the magazine shop on the corner. By the time I'd finished my drink the rain seemed to have settled to a faint drizzle and I prepared myself for the walk back, thinking the worst was over. Fortunately my preparations were of the long-winded variety since before I actually made my way to the exit down came the rain again, and I mean came down hard.

At this point I thought seriously of waiting for a break in the downpour and running for a bus, but, to my surprise, the downpour decided to cease pouring after a snappy ten minutes. As it did so, I bravely opted for the return journey on foot and made it back to Dover Road pretty much unscathed, considerably assisted by the covered walkways all along Commonwealth Avenue offering protection from the occasional drizzle. 

My adventure wasn't quite over though. I needed to buy one or two things from the supermarket across from the homestead and, having purchased these, thought it a good idea to grab another cuppa from the drinks stall and sit for a bit of a read, confident that the worst of the rain was over. It wasn't. A fierce squall manifested itself just as I thought of crossing the road and getting back to safety. For a time I thought it likely I'd end up soaked on arrival after all, but the squall blew itself out and I got back reasonably dry and congratulating myself on my deep good fortune. Of course, rain in this Far Place isn't like Manchester rain - bleak, and unforgiving - but a soaking is a soaking even if you don't exactly freeze in the process.

The uncertainty of it all made my little trip quite exciting in its way. But I'm happy to wait out the rest of the day, dryly secure. It helps that I've got Noi's return from foreign climes to look forward to later (though it seems too late to contemplate staying up for.)

Not So Bright

Watched Eric Khoo's 1997 movie 12 Storeys this evening. Much to enjoy, especially in the performances of Jack Neo and Koh Boon Pin, both of whom provide convincing meltdown scenes as the pressures of HDB life take their toll. The mixture of sly comedy and out and out bleak melodrama offered by the film shouldn't really work, but I think it does. It's true that Khoo deals in broad stereotypes in his characters, but these stereotypes manage to come alive - probably because they reflect a number of truths about Singaporean society.

Nice to watch something dealing with the dark underside of the island. 

In Contrast

Noi has gone to Jakarta for the weekend with Rohana and I am eating cheese on bagels this evening. This is no bad thing in that I've been really fancying munching on cheese for quite a while, and bagels are highly rated in this household. Also I was able to play some old favourites at appropriate volumes.

Chief amongst these, two great bits of Messiaen on a 1987 EMI 2 CD set: the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps and the Turangalila-Symphonie. Nice to hear the fine details of the quartet and get a sense of how much sheer power there is in the piece as opposed to just luxuriating in its lush mysticism. And wonderful to be exposed to the sheer ooommmph of the symphony, especially the glorious swooping of the ondes matenot - played by Tristan Murail in the CD version I was listening to, with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Must say, playing the two works side-by-side brought home to me the sheer range of Messiaen, despite the shared elements of their musical language. The Symphonie is, above all, deliriously romantic in the old-fashioned sense - an over-flowing chocolate box of sound; the quartet profoundly astringent, spare, reflective, mystical.

Triumph Of The Will

I'm happy to report that I'm now hitting the gym pretty regularly, achieving my target of three times a week. It doesn't sound much, but it feels a lot, if you know what I mean. This evening was the first time I found that I wasn't quite sure I wanted to go and had to force myself - but I knew I would be glad I did, and that proved to be the case. Now achingly tired but happy to ache as proof of getting something worthwhile done.

Strictly Speaking

Decided to read the March section of Spenser's The Shepheardes Calendar it being the first day of the titular month. Quite enjoyed the to and fro between his two shepheards boyes taking occasion of the season but was taken aback somewhat by the poet's summary of his own 'message' in his own note on the Embleme at the end of the piece:

Hereby is meant, that of all the delights of Loue, wherein wanton youth walloweth, be but follye mixt with bitternesse, and sorrow sawced with repentaunce. For besides that the very affection of Loue it self tormenteth the mynde, and vexeth the body many wayes, with vnrestfulnesse all night, and wearines all day, seeking for that we can not haue, and fynding that we would not haue: even the selfe same things which best before vs lyked, in course of time and chaunge of ryper yeares, whiche also therewithall chaungeth our wonted lyking and former fantasies, will then seem lothsome and breede vs annoyaunce when yougthes flowere is withered, and we fynde our bodyes and wits aunswere not to such vayne iollitie and lustful pleasaunce.

Talk about, you give love a bad name! A reminder that for all the attractive features of his verse old Edmund was a harsh Puritan at heart with little of Shakespeare's sense of tolerance. And speaking as one whose youth's flower withered quite a while ago, I really don't mind a bit of vain jollity on occasion.