a gallimaufry

On writing book reviews

Ahem, no, this isn’t a review of Nostromo. Although it is an explanation (of sorts) of why I haven’t written about it yet. Don’t be deceived by my endless procrastination – Nostromo is a truly brilliant and enjoyable novel, but there is a lot to think about it, and it is a long time since I actually read it. Now I feel just as I did as a student with an unwritten essay hanging over me like a great black crow, yet since there is no supervisor to yell at me if my thoughts on Nostromo never see the light of day, I seem endlessly able to put off posting on it.

Recently Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book wrote about how he creates book reviews, and asked how other people write theirs. The comments were as fascinating as his original post. This has inspired me to think about my modus operandi, and how utterly idiotic it is.

According to the comments on Simon’s post, people work in different ways, but fall into two very broad categories – the planners and the plungers – and there seem to be more planners than plungers. Which is not surprising. I am a plunger, I start writing a review with only a very rough idea of what I might say (and this invariably changes), and no quotations earmarked. I often read when I am supposed to be doing something else, so I never have any paper to hand, or on the bus, when I feel self-conscious about whipping out a pencil, so I never make notes while I read. Furthermore, it’s only in the act of writing that my thoughts coalesce; even if I try to make a plan my plans are so vague (‘Family!’ ‘Death!’ ‘Foreignness!’ etc.) it’s hardly worth the (little) trouble expended on bothering. This means that it takes me hours to write a post, I am constantly chopping out great chunks and changing my mind and hunting for quotations which might suit my suddenly-realised purpose, and then not finding them or finding something more interesting so going back and hacking the post about some more ... until I am exhausted. And then my fear of exposing myself to ridicule means that I have to keep the post for about twenty-four hours so that I can edit it again all freshly.

Reading the planners’ methods made me realise that while I will never be terribly organised I could make life a bit easier for myself. Thus I am about to start burrowing into the heaps of papers and books in this room as I definitely saw a handy small notebook hereabouts a few months ago, just the thing for keeping track of a few thoughts as I read. I shall keep this notebook with whatever I am reading at all times, and just woman up on the bus about making notes; after all, my fellow passengers have never sneered at my reading children’s books in Flemish or laughing to myself. And I intend to start on Nostromo this weekend, it probably won’t be as difficult as all that once I’ve made a start...

What about you? How do you work? And does your approach to writing about books reflect your approach to life generally (mine certainly does!)? If you haven’t already written everything you’d like to about this on Simon’s post, or even if you have, it’s a subject which fascinates me quite apart from my being eager to learn from you all, so please comment!

And have a happy weekend!

(Snoopy cartoon by Charles M. Schulz from here; I couldn’t find an original source but the Peanuts website is here)

Injustice, fairy tales ... and more on Merle

Guilt is dripping from the eaves here. There’s a pile of books and a muddle of other ideas waiting for me to write about them, but suddenly time is in short supply. I gave myself a bout of food poisoning (didn’t manage to give it to anyone else, just as well I’m not a Renaissance prince heh heh) which hasn’t helped. So here’s a little gallimaufry to salve my conscience regarding this neglected web-log, and Nostromo I promise faithfully to write about you very soon.

(Claude Cahun, Que Me Veux-Tu? [What Do You Want From Me?], 1928, from here)

• Terry Castle on two modernist couples, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, in the London Review of Books (December 2007). In her review of a catalogue of Cahun’s work and Janet Malcolm’s biography of Stein and Toklas (Two Lives), Castle touches on the question of collaboration in creative work, the two couples’ wildly different experiences of the Second World War (Cahun and Moore carried out an extraordinary two-woman Resistance in Jersey while Stein and Toklas lived in some comfort in France) and the nature of biography. (Via Lauren Elkin on Twitter.)
• ‘When did bigotry get so needy?’ – A few weeks ago a Belgian court rejected Mbutu Mondondo Bienvenu’s claim that Tintin in the Congo contains racist stereotypes and should either be withdrawn from sale or prefaced with an explanation that it was written in an earlier era with different mores. I have never read the book, so I can’t comment about it, but China Miéville has written a blistering attack on the judgment: his dissection of the responsibilities free speech entails is sharp and entirely to the point.
• Five hundred German fairy tales have been ‘rediscovered’ – At around the same time as the Grimms were collecting their folk tales, another German, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth, was amassing a similar horde, but after one unsuccessful edition in the 1850s his work languished in obscurity until recently, when a researcher started working on von Schönwerth’s archives. Some of the tales have been forgotten (as far as these things are forgotten) for 150 years; others are familiar but unlike the Grimms von Schönwerth appears to have resisted the urge to polish them up. The Guardian reported it here and have posted one of the tales, ‘The Turnip Princess’, here.

Merle fans: last Saturday peace and goodwill at last embraced the chicken coop. However, Merle’s clemency coincided with a bout of illness, a blocked crop. After several days of treatment (I syringed olive oil down her throat, not something to be undertaken lightly believe me, although I understand olive oil is good for the skin so Merle and I should be radiant by now, and then I massaged the lump, she did enjoy this) all was well and although she’s not laying she’s bouncing about again now. The ladies are all confined to the run now that we’re planting vegetables and they

Rhonda has revealed herself to be not at all the timid creature I’d imagined; persistent in trying to weasel past Merle to get to food which Merle did not wish to share, Rhonda further proved herself by standing up to our neighbour’s dog when he ran into the run and giving him a fright. She likes doing little sprints up and down the run and climbing on things. Rita, however, is much more shy and dreamy, hanging back when there’s food. We found that two of the toes on one of her feet are bent round as if she has severe arthritis; perhaps they were broken when she was a chick. They don’t cause her any obvious pain, but perhaps they account for her shyness. I sneak her extra treats when the others aren’t looking.

(Rhonda demonstrates how to scare off a beagle)

On this day...

Some beginnings which have happened on 9th March:

1009 – Lithuania was mentioned for the first time.

1454 – Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian navigator, cartographer and explorer after whom it is believed the Americas were named, was born in Florence.

1959 – Barbie made her début at the American International Toy Fair.

2011 – I started gallimaufrying.

(‘Are you animal, vegetable or mineral?’ or ‘Would you care for a slice of gallimaufry birthday cake?’ That’s me in the middle, you, dear reader, are to the left or right just as you choose. Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice Through the Looking Glass, 1871 from here. The illustration process is interesting: Tenniel’s drawings were engraved onto wood blocks by the Brothers Dalziel and these blocks became the masters for making electrotype copies which were then used in the Alice books. Tenniel returned to drawing cartoons and later said, ‘It is a curious fact that with “Looking-Glass” the faculty of making drawings for book illustrations departed from me, and [...] I have done nothing in that direction since.’ He was the first cartoonist or illustrator ever to receive a knighthood)

Do have some cake... Now I shall shamelessly take advantage of your mouth being full of cake to waffle on rather self-indulgently. I’d thought of starting a web-log for a while before I actually did, but I feared the self-exposure and that I would make a fool of myself. Eventually I convinced myself that it would be good for my freelancing business as a copy-editor, people would read my brilliant thoughts on literature and then think, ‘Such insight into Peter Vansittart’s prose! I must immediately hire Helen to copy-edit my lovely novel’, because that’s the hard-nosed kind of businesswoman I am, but then the freelancing went down the Swannee and I had to sack myself and join the ranks of the unemployed. This has turned out to be a Good Thing as now I have time to learn Flemish and play more with my little daughter, and I plan to train as a teacher once my Flemish is up to scratch, but it meant I had no ostensible reason for writing a web-log other than to flood the internet with my facile ideas. Which has been reason enough heh heh! Although my, I have found and still find it difficult, and I have even more respect for anyone who blogs.

I don’t mind (well I do a bit) if no one reads a gallimaufry as I enjoy the discipline of thinking and writing, but I have been touched by how friendly readers and other bloggers have been. I haven’t yet befriended anyone in Belgium who loves art and especially literature, and so the conversations I have on the internet with all of you have been precious to me. So do have another slice of cake and a very happy Friday, all you lovely people out there! Thank you, thank you all for reading and commenting and writing your blogs and generally making the world a better place.

Further chicken-ery

Yes, it’s another hen post – but it will be the last one for a while!

Denied access to the nestbox yesterday, Merle laid her egg in a great huff among some box plants.

Rita and Rhonda started to enjoy themselves. They indulged in a few dust-baths, and groomed each other.

(How to tell who your friends are: they pick lice off you)

Since then, the gate has been left open and Merle has been marching in and out of the run to wield the iron claw but her rage has abated, the shouting has stopped and on the whole she is maintaining a frosty hauteur. Still, she gives poor Rhonda the odd peck to keep her in order; she isn’t quite so mean to the feistier Rita, thus revealing herself to be a born bully I fear. But Merle, we know you’re crying inside.

(Merle lounges in a sinister fashion)

Rita and Rhonda wisely keep their distance from her. Then this afternoon, Merle led them out of the run and into the garden. For a few lovely moments, they all looked like friends. Merle then ruined it all by pecking Rhonda and refusing to let anyone else eat food from their dish, but small steps forward eh?

Ruling the roost

Alas, things are far from harmonious in the chicken run. Merle is just being too frightening.

(Merle being cross)

She was bouncing about shouting again this morning, while the two little pullets hid in their beds. So segregation has occurred. Merle is now out in the vegetable garden, taking it out on what remains of the herbs, with the gate closed behind her. The other two spent most of the morning hiding behind the henhouse.

(Rita and Rhonda being scared)

But by lunchtime, reasonably assured that Merle wasn’t going to blast back and beat them up, they had started making little forays out to drink water. They moved smoothly yet cautiously, stopping and bobbing their heads up and down at every sound. (A goat! A car! A blackbird!) Their yellow feet are clean with the cleanliness of hens who have never taken a dust-bath. They are not shy of humans, even two-year-old ones in loud pink wellies who insist on sitting beside them. They seem to have an acute perception of the vastness of the sky, the smallness of themselves.

 

New friends for Merle

(Anita in her prime)

Two months ago, a very sad thing happened chez gallimaufry – Anita Chicken suddenly dropped down dead one morning in the run. We aren’t sure what killed her, although I can’t help thinking that I should have kept a closer eye on her. I didn’t mention it here as approximately half of the hen-related posts I’ve written are obituaries and I should prefer not to imply that henwifery is one long round of death death death. Usually it’s frolics and eggs and oodles of poo.

Chickens are (supposedly) sociable creatures, so I was anxious about Merle. We handed her the freedom of the entire vegetable garden to keep her occupied, and she enjoyed jumping in our landlord’s cold frame (we share the vegetable garden with him) and destroying innocent leeks. The sight of her sprinting towards me as I brought her food never failed to make me smile.

(Merle on the compost heap)

This afternoon we went to fetch two new friends for Merle. They were very shy. (Understandably.) To keep them from getting lost, we closed the gate to the garden and put them in the little house so that they might get comfortable and begin to explore their new home. Merle was incandescent with rage at having her liberty curtailed. Ignoring the new arrivals, she danced about the run in a fury, shouting complaints at the top of her voice (which is pretty loud), until it grew dark, and then she seems to have marched into the little house and peremptorily thrown out her pals so she could snuggle up in her favourite corner – we saw them wandering about in the twilight. After supper I went out to check on them, but they had weaselled their way back into the little house and one of them was actually sitting on Merle’s back. So I am hoping for greater poultry harmony tomorrow, and perhaps not too much bossiness on Merle’s part.