Silent Night...

As Christmas approaches I wanted to share one of my favourite Christmas poems - it's e.e.cummings again but it's beautiful, tinged with sadness too...

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid

look the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel"

It's beautiful because it's so simple and innocent, and really seems to capture Christmas through the eyes of a child. That naivety and trusting nature, and the longing to make the world brighter seems to be one of the things that Christmas evokes in us - just look at all those Christmas films (Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life etc). The fifth stanza I particularly like; the image of putting rings on the trees fingers is beautiful and such a clever piece of personification that carries on the theme of the child getting to know the tree, wanting to know its story, bonding with it, wanting to protect it ('you are so little/you are more like a flower' - it's fragile). This is a particularly wonderful poem to read aloud because cummings seems to give us the 'resting' space, through his mis-en-page, so it sounds natural. Added to which, I always want to read it quietly and slowly, savouring the language, but also adding to the mystery and wonder of a child's experience of Christmas. I think the sadness comes in because the child forgets, or doesn't know, that its existence is ephemeral; after Christmas is over it will be gone and in its fragility it will die.

Last night at my church was the candlelit carol service which was lovely, and one of the carols was 'In the Bleak Midwinter' which is one of my favourites. The words are by Christina Rossetti and the tune I prefer is the one Holst composed. As we sang I realised just how great the words are - not just as a message but as poetry. Quite often I think that carols and hymns - and songs in general - are worth a second look in terms of literary value (maybe one day we'll dust off 'Jerusalem', originally a poem written by Blake in his introduction to his own book of poetry, and potentially mistakenly used as an alternative English national anthem!).

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Obviously this isn't the world's most culturally aware carol: although I'm sure it does snow on occasion in Bethlehem, it's hardly likely to have been doing so at Jesus' birth. However I think Rossetti is talking less about severe weather warnings and more about the spiritual condition of this world. It's the same idea C.S.Lewis uses in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - that evil in the world brings coldness to it, and only the arrival of a Creator King can restore that winter to spring. I'm not sure I've explained that very well so I apologise if it makes no sense! I really like that line 'Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign'; I like the picture of everything running and hiding in the presence of a far superior ruler - in awe rather than fear induced by tyrrany I think. The last verse (or stanza, depending on if we're singing or reading I suppose!) never fails to move me - it brings us right into the scene of Jesus' birth and shows us our inadequacy and inability to give anything of value to him; all we can really bring is ourselves.

Merry Christmas one and all :)

'Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme'

It's been quite a while since my last post, mainly because I've been back at university and it's been a particularly hectic semester! I've been doing mainly French language, but in English lit we've been studying the Restoration and 18th century, which I've actually found a lot more interesting than I was expecting. I've written an essay on Defoe's Robinson Crusoe - about whether it can best be described as a spiritual autobiography or as depicting 'naked materialism' - which is not really interesting enough to copy in here, and next week we're looking at Frances Burney's Evelina, which is an epistolary novel about a young girl's entry into society. I think I was expecting something Jane Austen-esque but it was too early for that really. We've also looked at 4 books of Milton's Paradise Lost, which is where my quote for the title comes from. I think the poetry is beautiful but it's very hard going, although I imagine once you make friends with it, this epic will just give more and more with each reading, so I'm determined to get through it all eventually!

I think what's frustrating about a university course is that you can't really study things in much detail - we're not looking at any Fielding, Sterne or Richardson, for example. There's been no mention of Samuel Johnson either, which I find strange as he was incredibly influential at the time and is largely responsible for the regularisation of spelling in the English language. In any case, I'm hoping to be able to read Sterne's Tristram Shandy as it's one I've wanted to look at for a while, and hopefully it should be quite amusing. Next semester is Romanticism and Renaissance literature, both of which could be hard going but interesting... to me anyway!!

I've also been sitting in on some lectures about literary theory and criticism, and while I've not understood everything, a lot of it's been very interesting. One thing that was said in the feminist lecture was that the university department tries really hard to include a fair amount of good literature by women because a lot of it's been ignored for such a long time, and while I agree with this I do think it must be difficult to get a good balance when writers like Burney appear to knock Fielding, for example, out of the core text list. I'm sure they've got other reasons for putting Evelina in but it does partly appear to be to redress the balance in favour of women writers.

Anyway... in my last post I said I was about to start reading Vikram Seth's An Equal Music, and I did indeed read and enjoy it. It seems that there's a great passion for music behind this writing, and a sensitivity to nuance as well as a commitment to be honest and precise about the music-making experience. It was really enjoyable and utterly heartbreaking. Fabulous, and as ever, masterful prose from Seth - so good that it makes me stop and go "wow".

I bought a big pile of books recently from an Oxfam nearby which was selling fiction for 99p, one of which was Kathleen Tessaro's Elegance. I've read this a few times and re-read it after buying it; it's such a light, bubbly read, skillfully written, and an entertaining story as its main character - Louise - uses an old-fashioned style guide to help her use clothes in her fight to sort her life out. I'm not usually massively into chick lit, but this for me verges on being quite thoughtful.

I've been starting to re-read C.S.Lewis' Mere Christianity recently and am enjoying again his clear writing and helpful analogies, although I find more and more things in his thinking that I wish I could question him on more, which I suppose can only be a good thing! So along with that, Tristram Shandy and some e.e.cummings poetry and a complete short stories of Katherine Mansfield that I have on my shelf, I have plenty of interesting reading material that I'll hopefully be able to come back to later!

"... to the country from which travellers return with another soul."

I seem to have fallen into the typical blogger's trap of being enthusiastic for a very short length of time and then going for weeks without writing anything! This is partly due to the fact that I haven't really read anything recently that I've thought worth writing about, at least until Wednesday when I began reading Edith Wharton's The Children (1928). Although I briefly studied The House of Mirth in my first semester at Sheffield, I'd not heard of this one until seeing it on a shelf at Broomhill Library. I've since been so engrossed that I finished it earlier this afternoon. Here are a few thoughts.

The book centres around the seemingly average Martin Boyle who is introduced to us as a man who 'would have loved adventure, but adventure worth of the name perpetually eluded him; and when it has eluded a man till he is over forty it is not likely to seek him out later.' Of course Boyle, who is in his forties, proves the exception to the rule and immediately meets the engaging and unconventional Wheater children, the oldest of whom - Judith, aged fifteen - immediately arrests his attention. As he becomes ever more embroiled in their lives and problems - their parents have a heartbreaking disregard for their children and are happy to pass them from one place to another, whether accompanied by a parent or not - it becomes clear that the only ending can be tragic. This tragedy is not melodramatic, though: it is unbearably sad. Wharton conjures up her characters so exactly and so simply, speaking bluntly through their pretenses through the eyes of Boyle (and thus telling us much about him) that we feel we know them. I don't want to give too much away, as part of this book's appeal while reading was not knowing where it was going to lead, but some interesting points include the following.

There is a distinct role reveral in the strange world the Wheaters inhabit of adults and children. The children's various parents behave in such a childish manner, following their whims and indulging in their sensual desires to the detriment of their children's welfare - indeed, the seeming lack of concern for the children's welfare is shocking and therefore very emotive to the reader, although treated as commonplace by the circle the family move in. It was interesting, I thought, that Wharton made it abundantly clear whose 'side' we ought to be on throughout the novel. The children themselves - especially Judith - have a very adult knowledge of the world and the way grown ups behave, but in other ways are completely naive and uneducated. Judith herself has taken on the responsibility of six siblings for several years and is thus an odd and incomprehensible mixture of adult and child. As in The House of Mirth, where Wharton explores the idea of women as property, children here are often viewed as property to be disposed with as adults see fit, and as a commodity of bargaining between marriages and divorces.

The title of this blog refers to a thought Boyle has on his last meeting with his fiancee Rose Sellars, is a widow he has loved his whole life and who is dragged into his relationship with the Wheater children and particularly his relationship with Judith. Rose is an interesting character as she seems to stand for all that is respectable and correct - Boyle once thinks of her as 'all made of light and reason' and Wharton frequently uses the word 'perfect' to describe her appearance, behaviour and responses to situations. She is almost the book - and Boyle's - moral standard, but to say more might give away too much plot!

That was quite long but I could have said more! So apologies if you've waded through all of that. It's a book I can wholly recommend if you are at all interested in American literature, women's writing, literature from the turn of the last century (Wharton in many ways reminds me of Henry James, who I am learning to love after reading The Portrait of a Lady and The European) or anything to do with how people behave and why. Don't read if you like action, adventure and obviousness! (If that's a word; I hope you understand what I mean.)



In other news, some of you (*cough cough*) will be glad to see that the colour scheme has changed - apparently pink is "too girly", and, not wanting to encourage the widely-held belief that literature is a girls' subject, I have changed to a more universal green which I hope meets with approval all round! Also, today I watched the first part of ITV's 'Lost in Austen' which I was a little sceptical about to begin with, its premise being a young, disillusioned London girl - Amanda Price - getting trapped in Pride and Prejudice, where none of the characters realise they do not actually exist. Actually, I found it was quite cleverly done with its gentle mockery of the cult status of the novel (of Mr Darcy, Amanda says, "He's not Colin Firth, but then even Colin Firth wasn't Colin Firth - they had to resize his head!") and the amusing attempts Amanda makes to speak with the language of the time but ending up adding in more modern phrases, to the bemusement of the Bennetts. Plus, Mr Bennett is even more caustic and entertaining than in the novel itself, and he is possibly my favourite character in the original! As an aside, I'm not entirely sure I understand the Pride and Prejudice craze; my favourite Austen book is actually Mansfield Park (except for the ending, which seems to me too contrived to be believable). Also in TV world, BBC are planning an adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles which I will attempt to catch as it's one of my Hardy favourites despite the fact that I want to stop it before it's begun, such is the grinding inevitability of the downward spiral of poor Tess's life.

Lastly, I paid a visit to a more local library today and was excited to pick up Vikram Seth's An Equal Music (1999) which I can't wait to continue with - I read a couple of chapters earlier and was hooked by Seth's delicate and beautiful prose and deft characterisations. The Daily Telegraph called it 'The finest novel about music ever written in English' which makes me wary - surely that depends on how much you know of music to know what good writing about music is? - but then I can believe anything good about Seth. On my gap year I read his epic A Suitable Boy and absolutely loved it and was completely engaged throughout the whole 1400 pages. Anyone who has any interest at all in India or indeed in great literature should give some time to it.

"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood" ~ T.S. Eliot

... And I am going to prove it. These days poetry is far less read than almost any other type of literature, which is desperately sad. Perhaps it is because it takes more effort to read a poem - it is not written, like in a novel, as ordinary, continuous, even lines where sentences cohere together. Sometimes we are bedazzled by it, seeing it so exalted and highly viewed that we worry we will not ever be able to understand its "hidden meanings", which we are convinced all poems possess. Yes, they usually do, if they are good poems (although even bad poems contain hidden meanings!). What it is important to realise is that often when a poet writes a poem, they draw on their own individual experiences and associations, as well as what literary critics and professors call "tropes" - poetic images and themes which continue throughout literary history (for example the symbolic linking of the rose with love). So we can unravel some of poetry through these ideas which we come across many times, but sometimes we have no hope because we don't share the poet's experience - or occasionally their historical timeframe and socio-cultural background and awareness among other things. This is where our own experience comes into play.

There are lots of technical terms for techniques used in poetry, and some of them enhance our enjoyment and understanding of it as we see what effect metre or rhythm has on the poem's overall effect and thus meaning (I recommend Stephen Fry's 'The Ode Less Travelled' for the person interested in poetry but ignorant of the technicalities). However, not understanding or knowing these terms does not at all need to hamper our appreciation of poetry. I find that often the sound of the words of a poem in my head, or on my mouth as I read them aloud, bring about emotions and associations even before I begin to understand what the poet is talking about - a great example is Keats; try 'Ode to Autumn' ('Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' - how beautiful!!) and 'Ode to a Nightingale' and I hope you'll see what I mean!! You can find these poems, and any others I mention, on poemhunter.com or hopefully in any good English poetry anthology from a library.

So appreciation of poetry need not be a scary or elitist thing - just read the poem slowly, aloud if possible, and let it speak to you and connect with your own experience; you may then find it easier to understand. Savour the sound - English really is a beautiful language and poets exploit that beauty to convey their meaning.

Here is one of my favourite poets, who I am very far from understanding, e.e.cummings, with 'i carry your heart with me' (and the typing/grammatical 'errors' are intentional; it was his style).

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


I love that second stanza (verse), especially the line: 'this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart'. I couldn't explain why, and this is the wonder of poetry. I love the unusual way of expressing love as comparing it with something so huge and incomprehensible by humans - what is literally keeping the stars apart? Why should it not be love?

I was going to post a poem by John Donne - a very different poet but again a favourite of mine - but I find I've rambled and sermonised enough! Go explore poetry for yourself... please!!

I'm currently rather randomly reading a book intended for children, Gatty's Tale by Kevin Crossley-Holland, which takes a character from his medieval trilogy centred around a boy called Arthur (highly recommended!) and makes her the primary focus. I'm not sure if I'll blog on it, but it is a nice book, written in Crossley-Holland's unusual style, which combines poetry with fancy and a different way of seeing things. I'm also reading Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew, as something completely different, but am enjoying that too - it's interesting to see how much of our perceptions of Jesus are altered by our social, political, religious and historical perspectives.

Blog the First

Well here I am with a blog... Advance apologies for my lack of eloquence and occasionally inability to say exactly what I'm trying to, as well as occasional pretentiousness... (and over-uses of ellipses!). I'm also aware that sometimes I sound as though I'm writing an essay; hopefully this will change and become more informal as I become more used to casually discussing literature.

So here as I write my first blog I'm thinking about John Fowles' 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' (1969) which I have just finished reading. It's an intruiging book, and I enjoyed reading it, largely because it made me think. A brief outline of the story: It is 1867. Young gentleman Charles is staying in Lyme, as is his fiancee Ernestina Freeman (daughter of a rich tradesman of humble origin). During their stay they encounter Sarah Woodruff and learn the story of her relationship with 'The French Lieutenant' of the title. To tell any more would be to give away the story, which itself contains both passion and madness. The great interest, however, is in the way Fowles presents the story - or at least the way his narrator presents the story.

Fowles assumes the paradoxical role of an all-seeing, all-understanding and all-knowing yet twentieth century narrator, yet who admits 'This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. If I have pretended until now to know my characters' minds and innermost thoughts, it is because I am writing in... a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God.' (Fowles' narrator, whether it is himself he is portraying or not, is a fully-convinced atheist and his references to the after-life are humorous and slightly mocking) And indeed, this narrator flits frequently back and forth from "such and such happened was then usual but now we see it like this...", discussing the both the Victorian and modern ages as a whole, and telling us things about the future of the characters far before they happen. Occasionally this gives the effect of the narrator judging the period quite harshly, although his main concern is the issue of freedom during the Victorian era.

Following from this supposed admission that he does not understand his own characters, the narrator believes: "We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live." This theory, along with the constant reference to and musing upon freedom drives the novel to its startling double-ending, which is evidently meant to free us as it frees the characters. My reaction, however, was possibly like that of many readers: frustration, impatience and confusion. In yet another paradox this is the exact view which Fowles' narrator would mock us as Victorian for taking, in our wish to have everything sanitised and cut and dried.

I think to really understand all the implications of what Fowles (or his narrator) is suggesting in this novel will require further reading at a later date (possibly after some study of literary theory and cricitism when I might be able to place tentative labels to some of these concepts!), as the interest for me lies here in these theories and ideas rather than in the characters - although those of Sarah and Charles are particularly interesting.

Do not read this book if: you want a light, easy read without any philsophising.
Do read if: ideas and the Victorian era interest you
Books it reminds me of: Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990) (which I recently read and really enjoyed, maybe I'll blog on it some time); Human Traces, Sebastian Faulkes (2005)
Other info: It was made into a film in 1981, screenplay by Harold Pinter and starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons (I might try and hunt it out!)

Your thoughts on this book are more than welcome :)