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Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

27/7/2014

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Wuthering Heights is another nineteenth-century literary classic that I had seen in adapted versions for film and TV but had never actually sat down to read. I am so glad that I finally got round to it, because this is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. Like her sister Charlotte’s equally great novel Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights is without any shadow of doubt not only a literary classic but also a compulsive page-turner. The language is only very occasionally archaic and, like all the best writers, her vocabulary is accessible, so a dictionary is rarely if ever required to read this book. I am filled with nothing but awe and admiration.

The 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, directed by William Wyler, only really concentrates on the romantic relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, and avoids getting involved with the book’s dark heart. Wuthering Heights is a powerful study of the destructive force of jealousy and bitterness. It is an incredible achievement, because Emily Brontë, through her main male character Heathcliff, manages to create a man/fiend who is at once both the book’s anti-hero and villain. He is a dark, brooding monster, slowly consumed by his own rancour, taking it upon himself to torture and destroy those who have wronged him. However, his thirst for revenge is never sated, and the reader is appalled by the scope of his hatred. Yet, tormented, vengeance-driven fiend though Heathcliff is, the quality and psychological depth of Brontë’s writing somehow always manages to keep a tiny part of the reader on his side. Something in us always yearns for him to find redemption.

Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights under the pen name of Ellis Bell. It was published in 1847 - just a year before she died of tuberculosis. She was only thirty years of age at the time of her death, and never knew the success her one and only novel would go on to achieve. At first, it received quite mixed reviews - hardly surprising, I think, when you consider the book’s underlying sense of amorality, and the Victorian values it clearly challenges. Emily Bronte was born on 30 July (a day before my own birthday) - so she’d be a hundred and ninety-six this week (me, not so much!). I have no doubt people will still be reading and enjoying her novel in another two hundred years and more - and let’s face it, that’s more than can be said of just about every book that has ever won the Man Booker prize.

Happy birthday Emily Brontë. Thanks for writing such a monstrously brilliant novel!


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Thunder 'n' Lightning

19/7/2014

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PictureGreat Aunt (Bopa) Mary's little chair
There’s a right-angled cloud up in the sky looking down at me as I sit at my desk by the window in the corner of what used to be (and occasionally still is) our dining room. Right-angled clouds appearing in the sky, what next, I ask? Perhaps it’s there in the sky as a precursor to the mega-storm we’ve been warned to expect in the UK sometime this afternoon. The treetops are somewhat billowy and there are ominously dark clouds fast approaching - I’m on my guard! Judith instucted me to be off the computer before the storm strikes - good sense, of course, and I shan’t disobey her. Judith is not a fan of thunder and lightning. She is of course not alone in this: my Great Aunt Mary at the first thundrous drum roll would immediately gather her favourite little chair and head for the cupboard under the stairs; my father, generally a sanguine type, used to turn quite pale and become unusually silent during thunder storms. He’d seek out a quiet spot in a dark room and sit the thing out.

Dad said he’d never been troubled by whatever the weather had thrown in his direction, until, in his early twenties, he’d experienced storms in the Himalayas. He was taken to Darjeeling to a nursing home to convalesce after first having undergone some weeks of hospitalisation and treatment for amoebic dysentery during World War Two. He was stationed on an RAF base in Mumbai (then Bombay), where he’d fallen prey to the ‘bug’. The treatment for this form of dysentery in those days required being filled-up with a pink foam that Dad said smelt like disinfectant. I shall spare you, gentle reader, a fuller description of exactly how a pink foam might wend its way along to find the small intestine of a British serviceman during WW2. Apparently, the treatment demanded that the foam had to be retained incrementally - initially for perhaps only fifteen minutes or so, gradually increasing to several hours. Dad always made me laugh when he described the joyous agony this experience could be at times. It’s not difficult to picture the scene - a ward full of bright-eyed young servicemen all attempting to retain the pink foam that had been inserted in their nether regions - the banter and waggish humour, and in the face of this, the Herculean effort required to avoid laughter and the bubbling gurgles that must inevitably follow any muscle relaxation.

Isn’t it strange where a right-angled cloud up in the sky can take you? Actually, in the time it’s taken to write this blog post the sky has totally cleared and it is now a gorgeous clear blue, not a storm cloud in sight - not even a pink bubble!


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Lil' Jimmy Reed

13/7/2014

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I’m still doing a fairly authentic troglodyte impression through my daily strivings down in the cellar. How much preparation can any flippin’ job require, I ask? Then in my head I hear the tempering voice of sound reason (I’ve learned to trust its promptings through many bitter lessons, dear reader) postulate, “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. I shrug my shoulders with resigned acceptance, gather together my board and trowel and carry on. Actually, I’m in danger of painting a picture of cellar purgatory here - it really ain’t that bad! And like I’ve said before, I quite enjoy, even relish, a burst of physical work between drafts. I like to move about and flex a muscle or two; the one and only thing I don’t like about writing is all the sitting down it requires, which makes me think that in the future I may research a standing desk.

Anyway, I did emerge from the cellar from time to time, most notably on Thursday evening when my son Tom, who with his encyclopaedic and ever-expanding knowledge of Blues, Jazz and Soul music, invited us to join him and his fiancee and go and see a touring Blues artist called ‘Lil’ Jimmy Reed’ that he’d heard of via the Blues with Bottle mailing-list. The gig was in nearby Sevenoaks at the Stag Theatre’s Plaza Suite venue, and was organised by the Blues with Bottle Club - a local group started some twenty years ago by a group of Blues enthusiasts. It’s a comfortable venue, the evening was relaxed but most importantly the music didn’t disappoint any!

At approximately seventy-five years of age Lil’ Jimmy Reed must be amongst the very last of the Southern Bluesmen who is still umbilically connected to its heyday. He was born in Louisiana, although I understand he now lives in Alabama. His first guitar was fashioned for him out of an old cigar box,and his first professionally made guitar was a gift from his father after he returned home after a successful day at work. He learned to play by ear and never took a lesson in his life. His real name is Leon Atkins and he acquired the name change after turning up to watch the popular blues singer Jimmy Reed; the management at the venue, seeing their man was too worse for wear with drink to put before an audience, and aware of Leon’s growing reputation, thrust him onto the stage, introducing him as Lil’ Jimmy Reed - the name stuck!

This was a terrific evening. Lil’ Jimmy was very ably supported by Bob Hall on boogie- woogie piano and Hilary Blythe on bass guitar. Judith and I were were very glad not to have missed this opportunity of experiencing Lil’ Jimmy play. We felt privileged to be hearing and seeing such an accomplished performer and great exponent of the Blues.

Here’s a clip of Lil’ Jimmy playing - taken from You Tube

Here’s Lil’ Jimmy’s Facebook page

Also, here are some up and coming UK dates. If any are near you - definitely worth seeing!


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Ghosts 'n' Stuff

6/7/2014

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It’s been a busy week for us Johnsons

We went to see a digitally recorded performance of the recent acclaimed Almeida Theatre production of Ibsen’s Ghosts, skilfully adapted and directed by Richard Eyre. It is a wonderful play about the power of the past to return and haunt the living with its unresolved bitter truths and hidden lies.  An appropriate theme indeed at a time when so many loved and trusted British celebrities have been lately exposed for their sordid past behaviour.

In Ghosts, Ibsen, the great nineteenth-century exponent of naturalism, remains true to the unities of Greek Theatre (Action, Place, Time), as his play unfolds and its characters unravel within the space of a day and night. He was without any shadow of doubt a tremendous playwright, commanding an ability to drive his audience along with a force as irresistible as a steam locomotive.  What may at first seem to be little more than a domestic drawing room saga, set in the  comfortable provincial home of Helene Alving  with her liberal ideals, soon has power to make the jaw drop. The past and its ‘sins’ return, leaving a trail of torment and destruction in their wake.  Judging from the collective exhalation that came from the audience as the lights dimmed on the cinema screen - this play still packs a very powerful punch even a hundred and thirty years after it was written. The cast were all excellent, however, Lesley Manville was utterly marvellous as Helene Alving, and thoroughly deserved her Olivier award.  I think her performance, its truthfulness, integrity and total lack of theatricality, has to rank as one of the very finest I have ever witnessed.  Here’s a link to the West End Theatre Series website - some cinema performances are still available. Do not hesitate if it’s possible to see a reprise showing of this.

Judith and I spent last weekend in Cardiff. Since my mother passed away eighteen months ago now, we like to pay a visit home every few months when the feeling of ‘hiraeth’ (longing is closest to the word’s meaning) becomes compelling. “We loves the ‘Diff!” We met up for coffee with a long-lost cousin, last seen when he was thirteen and I was eleven. We’re all chatterboxes and a couple of strong coffees didn’t inhibit any of our tongues any. We had a lovely time!

Then I returned home to the cellar and the great effort I’m engaged in down there. I love a difficult task, although after our busy weekend I did feel rather despondent by Tuesday after realising I had made a mistake the previous day and needed to take another day to undo everything it had achieved. Ah well, I got over it and was smiling again by the end of the week - especially after receiving, completely out of the blue, no less than four new 5* reviews for Roadrage in as many days! All were, as always, greatly appreciated - two of these pieces were so marvellously succinct I hope you’ll forgive my indulgence by including them in this blog post:

“I found this book by chance and it is a riveting read. Fantastic characters, fantastic plot and I would highly recommend to all. Brilliant.” - left on Amazon UK

and

“Brilliant storyline. A must read.” - left on Goodreads

Pretty good, huh?


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