Bibliography, December 2008

Books bought / received (15)
B. Bryson, Made in America
L. Cohen, The Favourite Game
J. Darwin, After Tamerlane
M. Druon, Le Roi de fer
M. Druon, La Reine étranglée
M. Druon, Les Poisons de la Couronne
M. Druon, La Loi des mâles
M. Druon, La Louve de France
M. Druon, Le Lis et le Lion
M. Druon, Quand un roi perd la France
R. Gildea, Children of the Revolution
R. Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs
H. Rasky, The Song of Leonard Cohen
F. Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the world
A. Wheatcroft, The enemy at the gate

Books read (13)
M. Bywater, Big Babies
B. Chatwin, The Black Hill
L. Cohen, The Favourite Game
A. Enwright, The Gathering
W. Goldman, The princess bride
M. Hamid, The reluctant fundamentalist
S. Jordison, The Joy of Sects
D. Lessing, The Golden Notebook
A. Powell, At Lady Molly's
A. Powell, Casanova's Chinese restaurant
A. Powell, The Kindly Ones 
H. Rasky, The Song of Leonard Cohen
J. Tiptree, Her smoke rose up forever

December has been a good month. Christmas has not been too overbooked - coming away with less than twenty acquisitions is good work - and I've read some crackers, with one major exception - Bywater was terrible, bile-strewn, illogical ranting drivel. Do not read it. Ever.

I wanted BOTM to be Powell, and Casanova's Chinese restaurant almost made it. It's well constructed, without the disjointedness of the early volumes, or the slightly clumsy deliberate structural contrast that marr The Kindly ones. However, it was eclipsed by Chatwin's surprising novel (For a man who made his reputation as a travel writer and student of nomads, the last novel I would have expected was a tour de force of a claustrophobic setting of the lives of a pair of twins in rural Wales), and especially by the Golden Notebook.

Now, I really didn't want to like Lessing's masterwork. It's been sitting reproachfully on my shelves for a year because it is a) long, b) about communism c) and femminism, and d) structured in what can only be described as experimental. It is however also excellently written, gripping, and insightful. For an 'old red' as Lessing describes herself in the preface, it's an unflinching examination of the bankruptcy of the party during and especially after Stalin, but it's great strength is how it deals with the main protagonist and her disordered, fractured mind - hence the notebooks. It took me many days, but it's worth it.

As a final postscript, I should probably cover off the year in this post as well. As the Whitbread (sorry Costa), I've split this up, though more simply - into fact and fiction.

• Novel of my year was V. Nabokov, Lolita which was as good as it is controversial and the first half is probably as close to perfection as writing gets
• I had real trouble with factual between several great books, but in the end, J. Berendt, Midnight in the garden of Good and Evil edges out D.Brown, Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Both American, and both with some similarities, but the quality, detail and warmth of Berendt's book make me to long to visit and to reread.

Pretty in Mink

I'm not the sort of person that often points out calendars full of pictures of young ladies, but this rather provocative one is really going to irritate vegetarians and that has to be a good thing.

I've never seen the real fuss about fur. Yes, it's probably not the nicest way to treat an animal, and it's not necessary, but as is true of almost all activities relating to animals, I fail to see why it makes it to the top of the canon of sins above, say, battery farming (the same applies to hunting of course, which is at least old-fashioned class warfare masquerading as conscience). So good on this lot - it's only a shame we couldn't do one in Britain.

As far as I can see, the institute that does it is largely mad, but the point remains sound.

The Mighty Quin

I went to the Stoop on Saturday to watch one of the most exciting matches I have seen as Harlequins managed to win deep beyond injury time. And, though I cannot quite be seen, I was just to the right of the image above, behind the post when the final drop goal went over. It was great.

What was doubly great was also the sheer joy of having a civilised night out at a contact sport. A minor fight on the pitch aside (when gloriously, the PA played Give Peace a chance), it was done in great spirit and I watched lots of big (and by the end drunk) men cheerfully cheer Frenchmen waving their flags when they were ahead, and the French similarly gracious in defeat.

So, hurrah for middle class sport and down with Association Football.

Everything louder than everything else

I'm in the middle of a glut of cultural activity at the moment, as a coincidence of tickets etc seem to have come in at the same time. Last night I went out to see The Dog Roses play in Kennington, which was great fun. It's times like this when you realise that you are blessed in London with an abundance of cultural activities - I've just booked Richard Thompson in Feb to complete the picture.

However, at the risk of sounding old before my time, they were loud, though by no means as loud as other bands I have seen. They were playing in a pretty small room and they weren't very far away so I feel they could have turned it down a little. Their interval act, a man who has been listening to a lot of Dylan (not that that's a bad thing), managed to easily fill the room without any amplification. Now, clearly they are meant to be louder, but do we really the fiddle to amplified to such a degree.

Of course, this is not a new development, and the loudness war (I'm delighted that this is its name) has been knocking around for a while and has been bemoaned by many. I notice it more now that I have an iPod, when the contrast between old and new recordings is striking. It's also pretty much impossible to listen to some tracks on a busy train as they are simply too quiet, though these are mostly spoken word or the like.

However, it's a little hypocritical for any of us - as consumers of amplified music - to really complain about this development, when the real gripe remains with classical aficionados. Amplification robbed a massed orchestra of the title of being the loudest music act one could seem and now, a handful of boys with electronics can outdo a large collection of classical instruments. (I always this record was held by the Who, but apparently no longer). However, I do think it has got worse and shops and pubs have become complicit in robbing spaces of quiet.

So, consistency forbids the anathema, but I still wish people would just turn the music down a little.

Another child gone

I nearly expired from ranting this morning. multimedia technology enabled me to simultaneously read an infuriating work email at the same time as listen to this story on the radio. So angry was I with both of these that I exploded into a coughing fit that took some minutes to subside, and hurt.

At the time, work irritated me most, but during the commute the schooling story just depressed me. Here is Radio 4's summary:

A mother is refusing to send her daughter to school because it will not let her wear earrings. Eight-year-old Alisha Dixon has not attended school for nearly a month.

It's a fair summary, but it doesn't convey the problem once the mother started talking - the interview was just bleak listening. The school is probably being inflexible and a little bit overly draconian on uniform - I neither like nor defend uniform policy in general. However, as soon as the mother started you realised it doomed. Having revealed that she pierced the girl's ears at four initially, she argued that once she had done them again at eight, she wasn't letting them be done again. She ended up saying 'I went to the papers because no-one was listening to me.' It had clearly never occured to her that four year olds, and probably eight year olds simply shouldn't have pierced ears, and people ignored her because this just isn't important.

However, this isn't really the point. What is central to this is her assumption that her view is so important that the school should abandon their policy (albeit one I also don't agree with) and - most importantly - such trivia are more important than her daughter's education. And you know - right there - that's a another child gone - education of so little consequence in the family that it would be a miracle if she comes out engaged and given the tools for a future career. People witter on about academic routes not being best for everyone, but it's pretty much a disaster if they don't even get to find out.

I'm sure the mother has nothing but her daughter's best interests at heart and it's this that makes it so depressing. She sounded caring, and interested in her daughter, but there was obviously no-one to tell her to grow up, stop wasting time, take the earrings out and send her back. Society isn't great to those without opportunities, but there are times when people really don't help themselves.

In the name of God, go!

One of the reasons the raid by police in the Commons is so sensitive is because of the regicide, to whom this quotation is ascribed, when he purged the parliament. However, it has become a more general purpose call to urge individuals to obey a moral imperative, it was used to Chamberlain, and appears to get routinely rolled out in US politics.


Hence, I'm not going to feel too bad about using it for England's cricketers, though I'm not calling for any of our players to be fired (at least not for non-cricketing reasons, any side under pressure would always be better for losing Ian Bell)

They need to go back to India, and they have to do it at as close to full strength as possible. Some of them will be worried, especially those with young children, and that's not helped by the inevitable exaggeration by distance and ignorance. Nonetheless, they all have duty to go. When violent loonies attack in otherwise safe areas, people shouldn't back out and they shouldn't back down. Partly because those places tend to get safer through the swarming number of troops, but mostly because that's yielding.

Now, private citizens can do as they please (though I think Indian flights must be supercheap now), but these young men get paid lot of money and given adulation for playing a game for their country. And that means they have to go. It's especially important because it's cricket, India's sport, and a game that has higher standards than others. Precautions can be taken (it's probably sensible to move the Mumbai test) but if we want to make any claim for our ties to India, we need to go and send the message that we don't run scared just because it's in a foreign country, with brown people in.

The Americans bottled coming here in 2001 for the Golf - they were wrong, and we pilloried them for it. But broadly we haven't been the victim of many cancellations despite years of IRA murders. And I'm grateful, but now it's our turn. Instead we are to be treated to over ten days of shilly-shallying while they decide - would that we had a modern Keith Miller to remind them of real pressure. He would have gone.

Cromwell's quote in full. The ECB and the England management should listen, whether here or in Abu Dhabi:


You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. Depart I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

Bibliography, November 2008

Bought / recieved (17)
R. Benaud, My spin on cricket
M. Bywater, Big Babies
W. Goldman, The princess Bride
N. Gordimer, Writing and being
S. Jordison, The joy of Sects
D. Lessing, Shikastra
S. Leys, The wreck of the Batavia
D. Lodge, Small World
A. Powell, The Valley of Bones
A. Powell, The Soldier's Art
A. Powell, The Military philosophers
A. Powell, Books do furnish a room
A. Powell, Temporary Kings
A. Powell, Hearing secret harmonies
C. Rossant, Return to Paris
J. Tiptree, Her smoke rose up together
S.J. Taylor, The reluctant Press Lord

Books read
I. Asimov, Foundation
S. Brook, The double eagle
A. Cobban, A history of modern France, vol. 2.1799-1871
T. Heyendahl, The Ra expeditions
D. Lessing, Shikastra
D. Lodge, Small World
A. Powell, The Acceptance world
I. Szerb, The Pendragon legend
M. Tully, India in slow motion

I'm really failing in my ability to make inroads into the unread pile, but it is worth noting that nine of them were Powell, and they were due to be bough in the next six months anyway.

BOTM was The Pendragon legend, which was lent to me by a friend of Anna's who, gloriously, is more anal than me about books and inscribes in them his name and date of acquisition. Anyway, it's very easy to read, rolls along excitingly, and really shows up all the more modern (it was written in the 1930s) grail and secret history novels.