Preparations

Enjoyed having a day off for the National Day holiday, but with a very full few weeks ahead of me on the work front spent a fair amount of time on work-related matters. Fortunately these were, on the whole, of a creative bent so not too painful.

Got most of a talk-cum-workshop I'll be conducting at this year's Literature Seminar for the Gifted Programme sorted out. I've decided to go for something fresh this time round and am looking at various song lyrics, supposedly to ascertain if they qualify as Lit, but in reality just to enjoy listening to the songs. The following song-writing luminaries made the cut: Will Shakespeare, Will Blake, Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Keith Reid, Adrian Belew, Sufjan Stevens and Alex Turner, a list so eclectically silly as to make me want to attend my own lecture.

I also did a fair amount of preparation for a production of The Fantasticks, an American musical from the early sixties that we are putting on in early November as a fund-raising exercise. Enjoyed running the music through my mind. It's strange how when you get really close to a show the songs can come to almost possess you. I'm at the stage when that's starting to happen to me, and a jolly nice way of being possessed it is.

No Excuse

Followed up my reading of Hearts In Atlantis with the deceptively slight looking The Reader by Bernhard Schlink - the basis of the film starring Kate Winslet which I've never seen but which I know got a fair bit of publicity via the Oscars a couple of years back. When marking IB stuff I've noticed a couple of schools have adopted this as a text in translation which, I must say, I find a bit surprising giving the somewhat erotic content, especially of the first part. Now having read the novel I'm further surprised in that it doesn't strike me as a particularly literary kind of work; rather it's one of those texts that clearly lends itself to discussion of issues, presumably the reason some teachers have leapt upon it for use in the classroom.
 
One of the things that Schlink does extremely well, it seems to me, is to ground his slant-wise treatment of the horrors of the Holocaust in the everydayness of German life. In his depiction of Hanna, the ex-concentration guard, he gives us an entirely believable portrait of a perfectly ordinary, almost dull young woman, who gets caught up in what are rendered as imaginable horrors, whilst maintaining a sense of the inexpressible extent of the suffering involved in that dreadful time. Partly this is done through the almost forensic detachment of his narrator, but there's more to the power of the novel than that.

A further clue to its lingering impact comes in the brief episode in which the narrator encounters one of the Jewish survivors, to whom Hanna has willed some money. The absolute truth of that encounter in terms of the survivor's sour response to the legacy is a reflection of the honesty of the text as a whole. Ultimately it's an extraordinarily troubling novel because it doesn't seek to provide explanations or excuses. For some stories there can be no closure.

Not As Expected

Finished Stephen King's Hearts In Atlantis a couple of days ago and found myself very much taken surprise by the development of the narrative. The last time I posted about it, towards the end of July, I was reading what I assumed to be a novel. I must say I'd read something somewhere that classified the book as a collection of short stories but that seemed to me obviously incorrect. So when I moved onto the second section, the part actually entitled Hearts In Atlantis, although the sudden switch to a first person narrator was slightly disconcerting, I thought the story was continuing with a switch of perspective. The fact that one of the characters from the first part played a role in the second added to my sense of reading a novel. In fact, I was wondering whether King had got himself into the same kind of mess he did in Christine in which the switch from first to third person, and then back again, was downright clumsy, coming about as it did from the dictates of the plot - though I couldn't see anything in terms of plot that might dictate a switch of perspective in Hearts. In fact, I couldn't see any linking of plot at all, for the simple reason there wasn't one.

It turned out that Hearts In Atlantis is a sort of collection of stories, but these are stories which vary considerably in length and style, whilst maintaining a focus on the same very broad group of inter-associated characters. The fact I failed to pick up on this until I was around the halfway mark is an indication of how dumb I can be sometimes as a reader, but was also enjoyably disorientating. I had no idea at all where the narrative was heading and even had to re-read the ending of the first section in order to grasp the fact it was a kind of ending. The first section is the only one, by the way, to feature some sort of supernatural apparatus and I'd sort of been expecting that this would be fleshed out in some detail. Must say, I'm glad it wasn't and that King settled for exploration of the rather more real horrors of the American experience in Vietnam, though not in an entirely head-on manner.

I'm not sure that the book as a whole really coheres, but that didn't matter to me. I was entirely, wonderfully hooked by the whole thing. Yes, it was more than a little overly nostalgic and distinctly sentimentally contrived at times, but as a meditation on the sixties and a partial portrait of that generation of American youth who grew up protesting the war in Vietnam it evoked very strong feelings in this reader.

Just For Fun

 

 

 

 

Highlight of the afternoon: a tulang feast provided by the Missus for no better reason than the fact that all the participants love their sup tulang and appreciate the rule that all dignity must be put aside when consuming the stuff. Unfortunately this was followed by a durian dessert, from which I watchfully kept my distance. All told, can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Fortunately participation in the Frisbee was optional.

Newly Arrived

 

 

 

After a lazily tired morning I stirred myself to get a bit of work done, and then it was off to our Haj class at Geylang and a visit to the latest arrival to our extended family at KK Hospital. She hasn't got much to say for herself at the moment but registers firm annoyance over a change of pampers which augurs well for the future. Or not, as the case may be.

Pure Relaxation

Much as I enjoy watching my own drama guys in action, it's a joy to sit and watch our other performing groups in a state of total relaxation, not having to worry about the five thousand and one things that can go wrong in live performance. (Make that five thousand and two - I've just thought of another.)

The measure of the enjoyment experienced by the Missus and I watching our dancers do their very considerable thing earlier this evening can be summed up by her instruction to me at the end of it all to, Tell Aloysius next time to announce that everyone in the theatre should get up and dance along with the dancers for the final number, as that's exactly what she wanted to do by that stage. Perhaps it's wise he announced no such thing, though, as I think any attempt by this old chap to shake his booty might well have ruined the evening for the dance cognoscenti in attendance.

A Lack Of Control

Once you abandon the illusion of being in control life becomes, not exactly easier, but that bit less difficult.

Switching Off

It's the final day of Syawal, the month after Ramadhan, and our twinkling lights are due to be switched off in roughly twenty minutes. We've had this set for a few years now and hope to be switching them on (and off) for a few years more.

Back To Bach

Last night I played a bit of Bach late at night just before nodding off: the second set of three in the Brandenburg Concertos, since you ask. Lay there wondering why I didn't play old JS more than I do, and just wondering at the wonder of the music. Then it occurred to me that it would be the easiest thing in the world to download pretty much all the major works onto my trusty iPod (well, all the ones I really need) and have made a start on that project today with the violin concertos. (I once nodded off to the slow movement of the double violin concerto in a concert at Sheffield City Hall and the sheer hypnotically narcotic pleasure of that experience has remained with me ever since.)

My recent neglect of the Master is particularly odd since of all the major composers Bach was the one most integral to my entrance into the world of 'classical music' (in the broadest sense) when I was in my twenties. I remember that amongst my earliest purchases of the classics on vinyl were a version of the Brandenburgs conducted by Harnoncourt featuring authentic instruments and a version of the St Matthew Passion conducted by Raymond Leppard which was distinctly old school in its inauthenticity. I was a fast learner in those days and, with the help of the highly informative Gramophone magazine, quickly realised that the records were not exactly compatible in their approach, though I loved them both. (The horns on the Harnoncourt actually sounded out of tune to me, in those early days of the authentic instruments movement.)

A funny and instructive thing happened a couple of months after the purchase. A friend of mine brought a few of her old friends from her university days round to my house. Not sure why; I suppose so I could meet them. One of these was a young chap who clearly fancied himself as a sort of cultivated type. I say this because he leafed through my record collection - as people did in those far off days - and actually sneered about the combination of the Leppard and Harnoncourt to his buddy standing near-by, thinking I didn't realise what he was up to. I must admit, the thought came to my mind of calling him out, possibly using the fairly direct kind of language I'd picked up on the streets of Manchester. I suppose it was a sign of my maturity that I just couldn't be bothered, despite the pleasure a confrontation would have involved.

The instructive part of all this, for me that is, lay in my deepening insight into the sad fact that for some people the appreciation of any kind of art or cultural artefact is so bound up with their sense of snobbish superiority to others that it almost leaves a stain on the glorious works they think they appreciate. Almost, but not quite.

Gone

Was on the blower to Maureen's husband John last night and it seems his car was stolen a couple of weeks ago. He'd parked it outside their bungalow and it sounds as if someone got into the house during the day, took the car keys and waited until night fell before driving off in it. Fortunately the insurance has paid out without any kind of fight but having had houses I lived in in Sheffield burgled no fewer than three times I can tell you it's an odd feeling when someone makes off with one or more of your possessions. 

Reminds me of when my old pal Simon had his car nicked on a street in Manchester one night after he'd given us all a lift to the pub. We stood around the spot where the vehicle had been parked in a state of semi-disbelief as if it would somehow materialise again if we stared hard enough. It didn't.

Now I think of it, I really hate that sort of petty theft because it's anything but petty to those on the receiving end. It's a good job I'm not a magistrate, or judge: I suspect there'd be precious little mercy in my courtroom.