a gallimaufry

in which I don't get round to the point of the post

It’s Day – what? Ten, Eleven, Twelve? And I’ve already lost count – of self-isolation. We have rolled in jam and feathers and are learning William Byrd’s back catalogue.

I seem unable to find an emotional middle ground between inanely thinking ‘For most of us this won’t be too bad and 95 per cent are likely to recover, focus on the positives’ and catastrophising: ‘Everyone who is over sixty, has a health problem or lives in a developing country is going to DIE and I’ll never see my parents again.’

Then I go outside and the weather is so beautiful, bright spring sunshine in a porcelain blue sky and cherry blossom and wallflowers, and to my astonishment my snakeshead fritillary is thriving, and I can’t believe any of this is really happening.

Yet another part of me seems to be observing events as if I am reading a dystopian novel or watching a film. This is the moment just before apocalypse strikes, right? And this is particularly odd because I almost never read those books (Station Eleven being a notable and brilliant exception) or watch those films, yet they have seeped into my consciousness anyway.

How helpful is this? Dystopian literature gives us markers, a little certainty on our way through this increasingly strange world. And we cling to certainty, we need a guide. But perhaps it also betrays our capacity to experience; it filters what’s happening to us through art so that it’s all second-hand. And are we the heroes, who will survive, or the masses, who will succumb?

Perhaps those narratives which feature heroes struggling alone in contrast to the masses are unhelpful narratives. For this is a crisis that requires us above all to think and act for the good of others, and to see ourselves as part of society, not as loners. Let us read Middlemarch and ignore The Day of the Triffids for now.

Hm, this was going to be a post about Frances Hardinge’s fiction, but I think now I’ll save that for another time. I wish all of you continued health, continued happiness.

plague reading

With the spread of Covid-19 now officially being declared a pandemic, it struck me as time to dust down my copy of the father of plague literature, the Decameron.

It is 1348, and Florence is being ravaged by plague. Ten young aristocrats take refuge in a palace a couple of miles from the city, and to entertain each other take it in turns to tell ten stories. It is twenty-five years since I last read this and I cannot remember much about the stories, but the back cover tells me ‘Ranging from the earthily comic to the profoundly tragic, they encompass marital misunderstanding and thwarted passion, the simple joys of physical love as well as bawdily exuberant tales of deception and hypocrisy shamed.’

For yes, I am stockpiling – books. (I find it fascinating that the British stockpile loo paper of all things, I mean, most of us have hands...) I teach in an adult education centre and many of our students are retired, so it is entirely likely that we’ll be sent home at some point even if I don’t catch coronavirus myself.

The Decameron may prove a little rich and to be honest at the moment, anxious as I am about the elderly and sick, especially my parents, I favour comfort reading. So alongside tales of mediaeval raunch, I am stockpiling:

• Armadale, by Wilkie Collins, to lose myself in (this isn’t truly stockpiling since I borrowed it from my mother when I was last visiting her)
• Two new-to-me Frances Hardinge novels, Twilight Robbery and Gullstruck Island

And I am looking out:

• The Ogre Downstairs and The House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones 
• The Lord Fish by Walter de la Mare
• the Carbonel books by Barbara Sleigh.

In sad times I like reading and rereading children’s books. They satisfy a nostalgic yearning in me for my childhood, which was close to idyllic, and at the same time they soothe and reassure with their happy endings. Even just sorting through them, choosing what I want to read (which of course may have changed by next week) is comforting.

What about you? What books do you turn to when you are anxious or unhappy? Do you have any good recommendations?

new books in 2020: what are you excited about?

It is only comparatively recently that I have noticed a trend: looking forward to books that are to be published in the near future. Pre-Internet, young Helen would be pleasantly surprised to walk into a bookshop and see a new book by a favourite author. Now the publicity machine never stops grinding on, and every new season brings articles on ‘forthcoming releases’ (which inevitably makes me think of the poor books as prisoners).

Never one to leave a bandwagon in peace, I thought I’d ask you, dear readers, if you pay attention to this advance title information and what books are being published in 2020 you’re feeling excited about.

For me, it’s Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi (currently scheduled for the middle of September which is deeply frustrating as it’s at my annual Peak Busy but I expect I’ll bravely find a way to neglect my paid work and devote myself to it). At last! I have loved everything she has written and I cannot wait to see what she’s done next. Fellow Clarke fans: you can read about it here on the Bloomsbury website. I defy you not to be intrigued.

(Me being excited about Piranesi, not really, a photograph from Dancers Among Us by Jordan Matter, found here and slightly cropped)

What about you? What are you looking forward to this year? Or do you ignore all the advance publicity and prefer to be pleasantly and serendipitously surprised?