50 years a reader |
An exploration of half a century of reading. |
Short and sweet turns long and wordy… BOOK 20: Sir Quixote of the Moors. This is John Buchan’s first attempt at a novel. The 39 Steps it ain’t. Of course he was only 19 when he wrote it and he was still at University, so probably had other things on his mind. I’m not dissing it or him, but it does make me laugh both with this and the next attempt ‘John Burnett of Barns’ that he later criticizes the likes of S.R.Crockett when, writing in a similar style, he can’t come within a country mile. Of course, he’s entitled not to like the style, to want to write differently – though actually if it’s style you’re looking at, The 39 Steps (and other later Buchan novels) don’t seem to be that stylistically different - of course the language is updated but the sort of ‘feel’ of the text, the pacing and the character interplay, do seem remarkably similar. I like Buchan’s pacing in his later novels – it suits his themes and content – but somehow it doesn’t hold water when trying to write historical novels set in Covenanting Times. Well, at least, Crockett just does this so much better (better even than Stevenson and mightily better in my opinion, than Scott) Crockett just lets it flow. Buchan seems to rush it – to be out of sync with the time he’s portraying whereas Crockett seems at home there. So Crockett is more believable – and to boot ‘Men of the Moss Hags’ (written the same year) is an accomplished feat which is both gripping and easy to read, whereas Sir Quixote reads like a novella being tried out by a lad who thinks he ‘can do better’ but actually can’t. Not yet. Does this do much more than show that writing is a craft that has to be learned and that it’s not a good idea for a young writer to be overly critical of a more established one. Am I going to be hoist on my own petard of course. All writers criticize all other writers. I guess it’s how we do it that matters. I just don’t like how Buchan denigrates Crockett - it reeks of the green eyed monster. When what, I suggest, Buchan really had to do was ‘find’ his own voice rather than try to ape anyone else’s. And I think he did that. Not in this novella though. It’s clunky. And to say it ends abruptly… did he have a tutorial to attend in short order which was more pressing? Or did he really (as I’m sure we all did at 19) think he’s written a work of rare genius? Well, it’s worth reading if you like Buchan and (like I have already confessed) me are something of a ‘read one book read them all’ (reeeed not red I mean – present tense –otherwise you’ll think I’m a right arse!) And it is, some might say, mercifully short. BOOK 21: As far as even short novellas go, Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills wipes Sir Quixote of the Moors off the map. It’s wild, it’s weird, and it’s like reading a prose version of Coleridge or Blake, but it IS well worth a read. I’ve read and re-read it several times over the last few years. It always disturbs me, it always makes me wonder how, what, why Crockett wrote it – and because of that I think I can allow myself to make it number 2 on my books for July. Though that feels a bit like cheating. It is packed with religious allegory, much like medieval paintings. Unless you know the allegorical side of it you are probably missing a lot (as I fear I do) but the sheer Gothic madness of it – yet Gothic Romance taken out of the castle and spread out wild on the Galloway moors – repays the reader more than enough. You take your hat in your hands and have to just give yourself up to it – you can’t sit down critically analysing it (unless, of course you really do get all the allegories, then perhaps you end up having quite a different experience) But for me, it has the passion that Buchan lacks in Sir Quixote, and an originality that is both frightening and impressive. BOOK 22: With those in the ‘bag’ I also determined to finish the Grampian Quartet by Nan Shepherd. I had never finished the one I started first a couple of years ago which was The Living Mountain. It’s another short book. You’ll know when the sun’s come out here because then I will be out in the garden with a BIG book. I’m not sure what to say about The Living Mountain. I come to it with a range of problems and prejudices I suppose. None of which should detract or discourage anyone else from reading it, because I think it’s well worth a read. It’s just perhaps not ‘for me’ at this particular moment. Because I’m not able to get out into the mountains for myself, I tend not to read too many things about the ‘experience’. It just reminds me what I’m missing. I miss being out if not in mountains then in the hills. However, the Cairngorms have never held much interest for me beyond skiing (another curtailed pastime.) I’m not the greatest of fans of natural description – at least not without characters and plot attached – and Shepherd’s ‘descriptions’ of the minutiae of flora/fauna/weather etc didn’t really do much for me. But she does offer something more profound with which I am in agreement. It is that mountains are not just for climbing. The significant ‘living’ part of them is actually that part which connects with ourselves. This I can relate to. Knowing a place well rather than striving to conquer or control is something I am attuned to. It doesn’t need to be a mountain. It doesn’t even need to be that remote. One can see things in depth as well as in breadth. I do this every day myself. I go to places, and see things, and experience them which are of no moment to anyone but myself. And that’s perhaps where I didn’t engage with The Living Mountain. I felt that a lot of it was Shepherd’s life, that personal part of life that cannot (or perhaps is best not) communicated to others. The relationship between words and nature is a strange one, and something, as a writer, I think about a lot. Sometimes even write about – well aware of the irony of the process. However beautiful the prose (or poetry) I find that words are not the best medium through which to experience being one with nature. It’s the moments beyond words that are truly important and, by definition, these are beyond words. For literary people it is something of a jolt to accept that there are things beyond words. My life and my identity are hugely bounded by words – but my most profound (and enjoyable ) experiences in life have not needed them. The desire to communicate experience through words is perhaps essential to a writer – if I could paint, believe me, I’d paint rather than write – but even as we rely for our identity on words, nature (and, in my case, non-literate people – and animals) offer something even more significant with which to engage. Being in nature, be that mountain or any solitude, is about experience beyond words. Words emerge when we try to share or communicate that experience with another person. Some may find The Living Mountain profound. I connected best with Shepherd in ‘A Pass Through the Grampians.’ I didn’t feel a connection with the Cairngorms in ‘The Living Mountain’ but it did make me reflect on the significance of mountains/hills/wild place and ‘nature’ in general on the human body and soul. While I’m not sure I agree with him, personally I prefer Norman Maclean’s view of nature in ‘A River Runs Through It.’ It is also a place I’ve never been, but his prose takes me there in a way Shepherd’s just didn’t. No more than personal preference (and prejudice) I’m sure. In it he says ‘Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.’ He believes that the words are under the rocks – I take it to be that the profound words are hidden to us - they certainly are for me when trying to communicate what I feel about nature. Even when I can walk the walk, I can rarely talk the talk about it. It all makes me wonder whether we can ever really share our experience of nature. Or anything. I’m coming to the conclusion that actually EVERY man is an island and communication is a way we try to build bridges or causeways. But fundamentally we are all alone BOOK 24: Moving on. Having enjoyed Sentimental Tommy, though I did take my time to finish that one as I recall, I finally progressed to the sequel, Tommy and Grizel. It’s given me re-found respect for Barrie. Worried about timing this month, in case I didn’t get round to it, I re-read ‘Better Dead’ first, a sort of warm up if you will, which is basically a short story but boy, it shows you Barrie in a completely different light. Once you’ve seen the way he uses satire in ‘Better Dead’ you are in a much better place to be able to justify that ‘Tommy’ is indeed a satire and can appreciate it as it was intended. ‘Tommy and Grizel’ is, I suggest, a book without precedent. I cannot say I have a proper grasp on it yet, and I will definitely go back and re-read both ‘Tommy’ stories. But even while wading around in it, there are loads of interesting things to point out. Firstly, the playing around with narrative voice, which I really enjoy. And secondly the presaging of Peter Pan as character which is to be found in the novel. Barrie’s notion of ‘flying’ as the natural state of boyhood which is lost when feathers are plucked as one grows to manhood is explored through Tommy. His views on sentiment and love are more complex for me as a modern reader to understand – firstly because the word ‘sentiment’ has now changed almost beyond recognition – though perhaps today when people say (as too often they do) ‘it was emotional’ in the sort of hushed tone that makes you think that they are shocked that people should ever express an emotion, never mind be able to distinguish one from another – all simply classed together as ‘emotional. Secondly because the whole ‘love’ thing is very complex. The problem for a reader with a writer like Barrie, who toys with his role as narrator, is that it’s hard to know how much is ‘real’ and how much is fiction. This indeed I suspect is the whole point of ‘Tommy’ and the problem is that as reader we perhaps derive meaning to suit our own narrative of the author. I can quite see how Barrie became smeared with the term paedophile, how everyone became obsessed with his small stature reflecting his impotence etc etc… he is playing with the second (but not the first) throughout the story. Barrie’s notion that children are cruel and that love is somehow constraining and part of the cruelty is part of his exploration of love. I need to read and re-read and think again about this before making any kind of sense of what I think he really means - and indeed perhaps it’s all just a challenge to get us thinking – a challenge that is slightly more difficult because of the social changes that have taken place in the century or more since the book was written. But it is quite unlike any other book I’ve read – and in a good way! Barrie himself remains something of a mystery, a master of disguise, but a man I very much would have liked to meet. In fact, if I did the ‘dinner party’ thing, I can think of few more entertaining guests to have for the evening than Crockett, Barrie, and Shepherd. John Buchan, I’m not so sure. He told a good story, but I suspect he may have been a wee bit pompous for my liking. That may just be my prejudice though, so we won’t hold it against him. So – for some short books I’ve written rather a lot of words – and I’m about to start a new strand for this project – R&R. Check it out from the beginning of August. I'm about to start something I wish I'd done 50 years ago!
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AuthorIn 2016 I will have been reading for 50 years. I'm going to celebrate this by reading even more and sharing what I'm reading. Archives
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