Category: Miscellaneous

Book Catch-Up

27/7/2016

Like at least half the population of the UK I was really thrown by the Brexit result. I planned to write a piece about it, perhaps I shall, but at the moment my feelings surrounding the whole referendum thing are still too raw, and this blog was never meant to become a rant platform or an opportunity for spitting vitriol. The first weekend after the vote I wrote this on Facebook, which basically sums up the way I felt at the time:

“No point feeling depressed any longer about Brexit. Happily readjusting to living back in the 1970s. Looking forward to a nice prawn cocktail followed by a Vesta Beef curry and then we're planning to settle down to an episode of Love Thy Neighbour with Jack Smethurst and Rudolph Walker. Laugh!”

As for David Cameron and his cowardly resignation after recklessly allowing the referendum to happen in the first place, I feel angry still. I felt somewhat sickened when his sycophantic Tory chums described his arrogant foolishness as ‘a brave decision’ and talked of the great courage he’d shown as their leader ... grrrr!

But I’m not going to talk Brexit ... well, not anymore. I’ve read a number of very good books over this period, so here’s a brief appraisal of them:

My Ántonia - by Willa Cather

This is a powerfully evocative novel about home, love and friendship by a wonderful writer. It is written from the perspective of the book’s sympathetic narrator, Jim Burden, who at the age of nine arrives at his grandparents’ farm in Black Hawk, Nebraska, and becomes smitten by the ‘force of nature’ that is Ántonia from the first moment he sets eyes upon her. The book is far more than just a love story though. The characterisations are richly satisfying and it left me with a powerful sense of place and time. Cather helps the reader understand, through her straightforward but nearly perfect prose, the strains, hopes and dreams of the immigrant settlers who inhabit her landscape, and gives us an insight into the fears and old oppressions they are fleeing from. This is one of those rare books that once reaching its end you could happily return to the beginning and start over. Excellent.

The Winter of Our Discontent - by John Steinbeck

This was Steinbeck’s last novel - not however his final book. It has been sadly overlooked possibly because it received some very mixed reactions at the time of publication. Don’t let this put you off. This is a very finely-crafted work, which seems particularly appropriate at this moment in time after the greed demonstrated by banks, corporations and individuals in recent years. Steinbeck makes a small East Coast town his backdrop for the moral dilemma that grocery clerk Ethan Hawley faces in this story. It is a morality tale. The writing is first rate. Definitely amongst my favourite Steinbeck novels and seriously underrated. Recommended.

The Road to Nab End - by William Woodruff

Autobiographical account of a childhood spent in Blackburn, a Lancashire cotton- weaving town in the early twentieth century. Woodruff never writes sentimentally about the terrible hardships these working-class people faced throughout the depression years. Unusually for an autobiography I found it utterly compulsive reading. It is the first of two parts and I definitely mean to read its sequel . A very fine slice of social history without the lecture; a masterfully-written account of an impoverished childhood. Superb.

When the Women Come out to Dance - by Elmore Leonard

These short stories are deliciously entertaining, great characterisations, lean prose, not a word out of place. Great fun to read.

No Name - by Wilkie Collins

This was considered pretty scandalous in its day because it deals with the subject of illegitimacy. It tells the story of Magdalene and Norah Vanstone, who are disinherited because of the sudden deaths of their parents. The family money which was intended to be shared between them goes to a miserly cousin who treats them with utter contempt. The sisters have very different personalities: Norah humbly accepts her lot in life and seeks work as a governess; Magdalene (the name’s a bit of a give-away - but this is nineteenth century literature!) seeks to regain her family fortune.

If you’ve read any Wilkie Collins before, you can expect a great cast of characters: misers, wicked housekeepers, scoundrels with a heart of gold and naval men with hearts of oak. It’s great stuff!

So, there you have it - everything I’ve read since I last posted a blog.

On 1 August I’m taking part in a summer buddy read with some chums I discovered on Twitter. Anyone can join in. We do two books a year. The current choice is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Basically all you have to do is get a copy and start reading on that date; no time limit, write a blog or leave a review and get in touch. It’s fun!

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The Wettest Holiday Ever!

9/6/2016

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In 1960 we looked like this

Holiday time approacheth ...

Memories of childhood are notoriously imprecise, but certain things, whether entirely accurate or not, somehow lodge themselves in the brain and refuse to budge. One such recollection is a family holiday to the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl during what must have been the summer of 1960, when I was five/six. Porthcawl was considered the holiday mecca for us Valleys folk; in fact, it was impossible to visit the place without bumping into someone you knew from home - no place then to fly off to for an illicit weekend liaison, not that such thoughts would have had any place in my innocent mind back then; any fantasies I entertained were wholly confined to fighting injustice and righting wrongs like my heroes the Lone Ranger and his ever-faithful Indian companion Tonto.

Wales, a mountainous place with a large coastline, is famed for its rain. I’ve heard it rumoured that some of our sheep, if not a few of the locals in some rural parts, are web-footed. Back in the Porthcawl summer of 1960 a natural proclivity for an amphibious lifestyle would have come in useful. I wouldn’t entirely trust my own memory here; my parents however always maintained that over a two-week holiday we did experience fourteen days of almost non-stop rain. The first week we boarded with a lovely lady called Mrs Jones (the names of both saints and sinners were always faithfully recorded by my late mother); the second week, we suffered the misfortune of lodging with a Mrs Martin. Mrs Martin was a widowed lady who quite evidently detested children, which naturally didn’t bode too well for my brother and me. Even my father, normally big-hearted, found his good nature put to the test by this woman; Mrs Martin was more strict Victorian governess than welcoming hostess, and to top it all, she was a rotten cook to boot - this is probably what riled Dad the most! I think Dad regarded a bad cook as a work of the Devil (well, not far off!). I recall him, after one of numerous inedible meals, gruffly muttering to my mother that perhaps the late Mr Martin had gone to his heavenly reward after consuming one of his wife’s dinners.

Mrs Martin’s guest house truly was cold and unwelcoming. In those days, families like us who lived on modest incomes purchased their own food and had it cooked for them by their hostess. I’ve no idea what this practice was called, eventually it was of course succeeded by B&B and half-board. I have a feeling it may have been called something a bit misleading like ”All found”. So, our domestic situation only made matters worse; outside it continued to rain and inside the guest house we were subjected to Mrs M’s culinary abuse and sneering dislike of children. One evening, shortly before the evening meal, Mrs Martin accused my brother and myself of vomiting over her bathroom and leaving it in a terrible mess. She was very condemnatory and quite scary in her manner I recall. My mother, like all good mothers, would not stand for her ‘chicks’ to be maligned thus, “I can assure you, Mrs Martin, that It wasn’t either of my boys!” she protested. “Who on earth was it, then?” sneered the awful Mrs M, “I don’t know,” replied Mam on the verge of tears, “But it wasn’t either of my boys!” At the same moment as Mrs Martin scoffed scornfully at this, a plaintive voice called down from the landing upstairs, “It was me!” a frail male voice called out. The Joneses were a kindly, elderly couple from the Rhondda who were the only other paying guests in the house. “I’m very sorry, it wasn’t the boys, I was taken ill and I was about to clean up the mess!” Mrs Martin looked appropriately shamefaced as she shuffled away from my mother who was standing guard over her boys, proud and victorious. As far as my brother Ian (seven years older than myself) was concerned, the confrontation was the final straw. The next morning he caught the bus back to my grandparents’ house. I don’t recall him coming on a family holiday again - Mrs Martin had been the line in the sand for him!

I don’t think I gave my swimming trunks an airing at any time over that holiday, but I did manage a few paddles in the odd rock pool between cloudbursts. One evening we went to see the variety show at The Grand Pavilion. I remember Dad particularly enjoyed the comedian, and was still telling a joke he heard that night about a family of rabbits thirty years later. The local cinema had only one offering as I recall, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the 1958 Hammer version of Dracula. It had an X certificate (i.e. eighteen and over!) so no good for me, in fact I recall my hair standing on end just looking at the black and white stills that were displayed in a glass case outside the cinema. The large shelter on the promenade with its multiple rows of benches was filled to capacity every day. Each day we did the same circuit of shops around the town - Woolworths was by far the best, of course, and hours were spent browsing its aisles. Every day we’d have a Fulgoni’s ice-cream cone or two; we’d generally escape the rain mid-morning and mid-afternoon by going to a cafe to have cups of tea for the grown ups and a glass of pop or a milk shake for us. Sometimes, to avoid Mrs Martin’s meals we’d have faggots and peas from the stall in Coney Beach (to allay the concerns of American readers here, faggots are a ball of minced lamb and offal, traditionally served with mushy peas) or Mam’s lifelong favourite, fish and chips. I think the putting green, a traditional holiday pursuit, and still surviving in Porthcawl to this day, was waterlogged and closed up those weeks, I certainly don’t recall us playing. But not all was lost, on the last night of the holiday I was taken to the fair and allowed to go on half a dozen rides and to spend any pocket money my grandparents had pressed into my hand before leaving.

One of the best things I remember was going out one evening after dark when it was high tide and dodging the waves that surged into the air like a blowing whale and left its spume washing across the promenade.

Here is Another Porthcawl story

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Gilgamesh

2/6/2016

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Driving to work one morning my wife almost ran over a book. Yes, a hardback book, strange but true. Just imagine what this meant for a book fanatic like Judith - books materialising out of nowhere and suddenly appearing on her path?

She naturally pulled into the side of the road to try and see if she could help. Its cover was slightly bent and Judith did what any book-lover is duty-bound to do - brought it home so it could be treated for shock and duly nurtured. The gentle reader will be delighted to learn that the aforementioned book has since found happiness and fulfilment amongst others of its species upon our bookshelves.

The book was Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell.

“That’s the oldest story ever written down,” I exclaimed when she brought it home.

“I know,” she said, “I found it in the middle of the road.”

“Wow,” I said, “I’ve always wanted to read it.”

“Here’s your chance,” she said, passing me the book.

It’s pretty ridiculous to rate a book that is actually older than The Bible by a system of stars, one to five! The poetic text in English by Stephen Mitchell is far easier to regard objectively and review. For my money he has done an excellent job of bringing together literal translations of the surviving fragments of Sumerian,Babylonian and Akkadian texts and working them into an agreeable epic poem by adopting a certain amount of artifice, which he freely admits to in his introduction.

This is a morality tale about the tragedy of human existence. When we first meet Gilgamesh we are told of his tyranny and how he oppresses the people in his kingdom, the walled city of Uruk. The people petition the Gods to temper their king’s abuses, and the responsive Gods duly send Enkidu, a kind of wild man, who is very nearly Gilgamesh’s physical equal, to restore balance to the world. It is interesting that as the story proceeds, and after they’ve become friends, they develop the attributes of each other - a bit like people are said to do in a marriage, and the text most certainly has a homo-erotic quality.

Gilgamesh is later forced to suffer bereavement and loss when his friend Enkidu is chosen by the Gods to die as a punishment for Gilgamesh’s wanton destruction of Humbaba, a monster entrusted by the Gods with the task of guarding the Cedar Forest and for killing the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh is so heart-broken after the loss of Enkidu that he wanders the world in despair. Eventually, he perks up a little and goes on a highly perilous journey to find Utnapishtim to see if he can learn the secret of eternal life. Utnapishtim tells him about the great flood (Noah’s Ark but predating the biblical version) and assures him that eternal life is impossible and its secret belongs to the Gods alone. Finally, he returns home to the walled city of Uruk as its rightful king. He has acquired some wisdom and perhaps the knowledge, known to the mystics and sages througout the ages, that man’s life can only be lived in the present.

What this poem tells me is that almost five thousand years ago, when the earliest of these tales were first conceived and written, human beings were largely concerned with the same issues as they are now.

A very successful roadside rescue indeed, I think.

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Radio Four

17/4/2016

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I've been decorating over the past week or so - trying to catch up with the stuff I pretend isn't waiting to be done when I'm busy writing. I'm not a great fan of the paintbrush, if the truth be told, however, I have been grateful for the opportunity to listen in to more on the radio. When I say radio I am naturally referring to BBC Radio 4. We generally wake up to Radio 3, the classical station, as the other half dislikes opening her eyes (ears!) to the full-on confrontation that is the Today news programme on 4.

The variety of programmes on Radio 4 is always astonishing, and as someone who rarely watches television I think I'd happily pay my BBC licence fee for this service alone, which has managed to both educate and entertain me over many years. If only I could write and listen to radio programmes at the same time! Alas, during periods of writing the radio has to be switched off until I break at lunchtime (here I must confess to having been hooked into the Helen & Rob marital abuse storyline of late in Radio Four’s daily soap The Archers!). I've really enjoyed some of the drama offerings, especially Killing Time by Peter Jukes, starring Lenny Henry, and The Clerks' Room by Janice Okoh, plus a number of one-off plays and some serials like Home Front, about the First World War, which relates itself to a day exactly a hundred years ago. But the Radio 4 diet is completely omnivorous, and this week I've also particularly relished hearing Thinking Allowed and The Media Show.

There is one fifteen minute programme that I've found immensely engaging though, and I'm so glad I didn't miss any of it: Free Speech, written and presented by Timothy Garton Ash. Basically this is a series of essays on a subject I truly believe we should all feel passionate about - the hard won right to express ourselves without prejudice. This is a terrific short series and I can highly recommend listening to it.

So, mostly thanks to BBC Radio, the decorating has been getting along nicely and relatively pain-free!

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Buddy Read - The Harp in the South

13/2/2016

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I think I mentioned a few weeks back that I was about to take part in a buddy read of The Harp in the South by Ruth Park. A few of us on Twitter choose a book unread by us all, (often an unexplored author too) and we start reading on a set date - no rules really, other than we only do a title every six months - this is because reading has to be a pleasure, not a chore!

This book was suggested by our Australian member* and I think all of us feel really pleased about it, because we found it a hugely enjoyable book. The Harp in the South (published 1948) is actually the second book in a trilogy, although it was written first. The success of the novel was followed by Poor Man’s Orange (1949 - last book in trilogy) and Missus, the first book in the trilogy but actually written very much later, in 1985 in fact. I had no idea until I read, in the aforementioned review, that the (Harp in South) book was the winner of a newspaper competition and serialised in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1947. It’s not difficult to believe it won, because it really is so very well wrritten; it perhaps also explains the slightly episodic nature of the narrative, which might be viewed as a flaw in the writing until you’re aware of that fact. The novel, perhaps surprisingly today, was seen as controversial when it first appeared, many arguing that Park had made up the slum life we experience through the lives of the Irish Catholic Darcy family who are central to her book. Park attested to the book’s authenticity, having herself lived in a tenement in the Surry Hills area of Sydney with her husband when first married.

The book is set at the time it was written, which certainly took this reader by surprise, probably because of the acute poverty experienced by its cast of characters. Initially (because the period isn’t stated), I thought it was set in the early 1930s or even earlier, but oblique references to Lana Turner etc put me on the right track. What really came across for me was the tolerance and care these people demonstrate for each other, how despite everything they somehow manage to uphold their standards of decency, despite the plodding grimness of their lives. It’s hard to believe (from our cosseted lives today) how a day’s outing to the seaside could have been seen as a momentous occasion. There is tragedy, ugliness and despair here, but there are also many light-hearted moments, and the book left me feeling exhilarated and uplifted. The writing itself is excellent and Park’s descriptions are always beautifully crafted.

Ruth Park (1917- 2010) was actually a New Zealander by birth and was no stranger to poverty, having grown up through the Depression there. She was a prolific writer, wrote several novels including many books for children and produced literally thousands of radio scripts. She died at the fine age of ninety-three.

If like me you were almost completely ignorant when it came to Antipodean literature, then add this title to your TBR pile. Or, just add it simply because it’s a very good book. I’m delighted to have found a new author and especially happy because I still have two parts of the trilogy left to go. Woohoo!

* Caffeine and Chapters review

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Making Room for the New

31/1/2016

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I wrote a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) blog recently about The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying, a simple, effective way to banish clutter forever by Marie Kondo (see Wrong Twice). I admit that I found the book a little bit of an ordeal to read, and I joked in my blog that the good thing about its lengthy title was that, being a slim book, there wasn’t that much more to get through! However, joking aside, it has proven to be an immensely practical aid to de-cluttering.

We decided that the most sensible (and sane) approach was for us to make a slow tactical ascent of Clutter Mountain by tackling it in stages. We pencilled into our diaries a series of weekend dates over the end of 2015 and early part of 2016 - aiming to tackle at least one of the categories Kondo describes in her book every third week (practical for us). First we took on Clothes, then Books, and our most recent session was with Papers. I foolishly thought this particular category would prove to be a doddle - but five solid hours later, after producing a heap of papers beside our shredder reminiscent of the Nixon White House, I thought differently! We still hadn’t quite completed the task by the time we deemed it necessary to stop for the day, the plan is to finish off with a few hour-long sessions over the next week. All this stuff, I hasten to point out, was all very easily identified as thoroughly unimportant, or totally redundant and of no significance to either our present or future lives. Frankly, it is hard to credit the amount of junk that accumulates around us over time. Clutter had taken on the persona of a curmudgeonly old miser that had insidiously built a little kingdom for itself around the periphery of our lives and was threatening to take us hostage. It had to be shown the door!

The ‘fumigation’ process still has a few months left to run, however, I think it safe to say, eviction orders have definitely been served and the clean-up is underway. What’s really remarkable is how much lighter and brighter the house feels, and despite having toted about half a dozen sacks of clothes and about twenty large boxes of books to charity shops, we still have clothes to wear and books to read - but only the things we actually like wearing and books we either love, plan to read, read again, or simply want to keep for reference etc.

So, basically, if the idea takes your fancy and you too would like to try this approach, take heart from my assurance that the baby doesn’t have to be thrown out with the proverbial bathwater!

I’d love to hear from anyone who has de-cluttered in this way, or pursued an alternative method.

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Little Tales

17/1/2016

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This week I’ve been reading Little Tales of Misogyny by Patricia Highsmith, a collection of vignettes, about the type of person it’s easy to dislike. These little fables, often very brief, take on a different character study e.g. The Victim, The Evangelist, The Mobile Bed-Object, The Prude, The Middle-Class Housewife etc. and each in turn is subjected to Highsmith’s unique, acerbic and archly wicked eye. A lot has been written about Highsmith’s misanthropic nature, even her friends seem to have found her difficult and spiky a lot of the time, but I couldn’t honestly comment on whether these tales in any way reflect her own (reputed) hatred of her own sex; personally, I think Highsmith is simply having a lot of fun with this collection. The tales almost invariably end badly, are often a little bit sneaky, unkind, unpleasant or downright nasty - they are also (at all times), hugely entertaining and great fun. I suspect Highsmith wrote these stories, as the title itself suggests to me, with her tongue very firmly fixed on the inside of her cheek. I read them, as I believe they were written - to be enjoyed. And so I did.

Next week, starting tomorrow, I am very pleased to say it’s Buddy Reading time again! It’s an untitled, non-exclusive club that is open to anyone. We read no more than two books a year together, which makes the exercise a pleasure rather than a pain. No genre is excluded, and so far the only plan appears to be taking on a book one of us suggests that hasn’t been read by anyone else. This time we are reading an Australian classic, The Harp in the South by Ruth Park. It’s the second book in a trilogy of the same title, however, it was the book she actually wrote first. Park completed the first part of the trilogy, Missus, almost forty years later. Some of us have taken the time to read Missus first and others, like myself, plan to read the books in the order they were written. I am really looking forward to discovering a writer (slightly ashamed to admit this) that I had previously never heard of; in fact, it’s my intention to rectify my woefully poor knowledge of Antipodean writers.

Pick up a copy of Harp in the South, send me a message and when you’ve completed the book leave any comments you have either on Amazon or Goodreads or on your blog (if you have one) and send us the link, or, better still, join us on Twitter - myself and the other Buddy Readers will very much enjoy hearing your views. Believe me, it’s a surprisingly painless way of finding good reading.

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Happy 2016!

1/1/2016

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I stopped making New Year resolutions many years ago. I admit that I’ve had a number of bad habits in the past that were regularly marked down, destined to become ‘has beens’ in the forthcoming New Year - sometimes my iron resolve lasted days, weeks even, but generally I was lucky if I made it til midday on 1st Jan. So much for those determined declarations of intent!

On reflection, my most destructive habits (e.g. smoking) are now happily consigned to the past. Even so, I still cautiously avoid getting physically too close while anyone’s actively smoking and even find myself holding my breath as I walk past them. I would hate to become ‘hooked’ again and know full well that it would only require me to listen to the delusion that ‘one little cigarette would do me no harm’ to be led astray. I always feel sad to see young people smoking, but understand that they wouldn’t appreciate me pointing out the dangers of smoking to them.

So, no specific New Year resolutions. However, I do have a number of wishes I’d love to see come to fruition:

I’d like to live in a more equal society where the gap between the richest and the poorest people in my own country and on this planet is dramatically reduced. I don’t think the answer to this is quite as simple as just taking all their money off the rich - a truly fair and just world requires all of us to play a part.

I’d like to see some genuine consensus between our leaders on environmental issues. So far we’ve only witnessed lip-service and a good deal of hot air - we live together on one planet, and it behoves us all to take more care of it. Our politicians are all too often vain, complacent and slippery and must be held to account, which demands more effort from individuals like you and me - politicians will only pay attention if we make them listen.

I’d like to live in a world where peace prevails and where differences are aired around a table. Most human conflict ultimately concludes in this way, so what a shame we find the inevitable solution so unthinkable at the beginning. The cost of intransigence is invariably great suffering and too often means the loss of many innocent lives. I’d dearly love to see the world’s arms dealers go out of business. Harry Patch (1898 - 2009), last surviving British soldier who fought in World War One, put it very powerfully when he asked: “Why did we fight? The peace was settled round a table, so why the hell couldn’t they do that at the start, without losing millions of men?”

Unless every human being on this planet has a profound change of heart, it’s hard to imagine these wishes coming true in 2016, in my lifetime, or even within the lifetime of my beautiful new grand-daughter - or even that of her own grand-daughter. Yet, these remain my wishes for this and for every New Year.

And I do truly believe that change begins with me.

In 1987 my wife and I moved out of London to a village in Sussex. I told the man who owned our little grocery store that the reason we didn’t buy his eggs was because they weren’t free-range. The following week he got some in for a try-out. Guess what? His egg sales actually increased. Thirty years on it’s hard to imagine a time when free-range eggs were not widely available. Likewise, when Mrs Thatcher refused to impose sanctions upon the South African Government and its loathsome apartheid system, thousands and thousands of people in Britain and Ireland boycotted South African products e.g. fruit. I believe this action on the part of many individuals made a real difference; justice finally prevailed, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the rest is history. One young woman in Ireland and her union colleagues spent two and a half years on strike pay after refusing to sell Outspan grapefruit at her checkout.

Like I said, I believe change begins with me. The American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead put it like this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Let’s all do our best to make it a healthy, peaceful and happy 2016 for all!

Links:
Irish anti-apartheid movement:
http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/an-boks-amach-the-irish-anti-apartheid-movement/

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Wrong Twice!

14/12/2015

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I listen to my wife’s advice on what to read for the following reasons:

1. Because after thirty odd years, she knows my taste.

2. She’s very well read herself (far better than I am - but don’t tell her I admitted it!).

However, advice and gentle suggestion are very different to being ‘told’ you have to read a certain title and are even issued with a timetable for completing the task. The ultimatum stated .... “Read it by 1 December or else I’ll start without you!”

Yes - not just bossy behaviour but behaviour that goes way beyond bossy!

I dug my heels in as you’d expect, and met her insistence and righteous fervour with sarcasm and the odd withering glance (mostly I withered when she wasn’t looking). But eventually, gentle reader, her eyebrow arched just one too many times, and my resistance collapsed.

Booohoohoo! (sound made by weeping man).

The book I was forced into reading, you’ll need to know?

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: a simple, effective way to banish clutter forever by Marie Kondo

Did I enjoy reading this book?

Nooo!

Do I think the author is a nut?

Yes.

Was it worth reading?

(Grudgingly) Yes.

Booohoohoo! (same sound of man weeping again).

Yes, this book was definitely worth reading. We were deluged beneath an ocean of clutter that had been acquired over decades. The simple points Marie Kondo makes, and her practical tips about getting rid of accumulated clutter, were definitely a new and useful approach for tackling this very real problem of having too much stuff!

And I should know about too much stuff - having had the unenviable task of reducing my late mother’s belongings shortly before she went into sheltered accommodation and a greatly reduced living space. I counted over twenty car journeys I made to the municipal tip/recycling centre, and approximately the same number to local charity shops. Mam hadn’t been able to throw out anything over her whole lifetime - hanging in a wardrobe were all my father’s clothes, despite him having passed away seventeen years before. It filled me with great sadness, and there were real tears shed at times; I vowed I wouldn’t leave such a legacy for my own son to have to deal with.

If you seriously would like to get rid of the clutter that surrounds you and lighten-up your life - then read this book! Fortunately, the book’s title covers a considerable percentage of the entire reading matter if you’re tackling it on Kindle - so, mercifully, not too much more to go!

Would I recommend this book as a practical aid to de-cluttering?

Yes, definitely.

Would I recommend this book as good reading?

Sorry, I must’ve dropped off, what was the question again?

However, I did read something over the same period that satisfied all criteria. From First to Last by Damon Runyon is a truly fantastic read . This is a companion volume to On Broadway by Damon Runyon and between the two they contain (I understand) just about all his stories. They are truly delightful, literally from first to last! The language, dialogue and cast of quirky characters are richly comic and unique.

We have had these books on our shelves since the late 70s and Jude had encouraged me time and time again to read them. I resisted, mainly because I told myself I didn’t like short stories much.
I don’t think I had a closed mind. It must simply be because short-story writing has improved.

Okay, I was wrong again!

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Buddy Reading 'Norwood' by Charles Portis

11/9/2015

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Me and some Twitter chums have been ‘buddy reading’ Norwood by Charles Portis. I am proud owner of all the Charles Portis books I am aware of - not that this amounts to a huge number. Norwood is the third of his titles that I’ve read, although it was the first book he actually wrote. His most famous book is almost certainly True Grit, which has spawned two films. Neither movie is half as good as the novel, although the John Wayne version captures the book’s spirit best, I think.

Now that I’ve read Norwood, and having previously devoured The Dog of the South and True Grit, by my reckoning I only have Gringos, Masters of Atlantis and Escape Velocity (a miscellany of Portis’ non-fiction, short stories and a drama - compiled and edited by Jay Jennings) left to go! Yikes! I am eking them out, because although each of his books is infinitely re-readable, there is nothing quite like discovering a gleaming new gem for the first time.

What can I say about Norwood? I simply adored it. Portis writes the most uncluttered prose imaginable and employs a deceptively simple style, yet he has the eye of a poet. The writing flows with such ease it can sometime deceive the reader into thinking that the author doesn’t seem to be working very hard at all. Simple stream of consciousness stuff you may think - think again! Portis’ use of language is masterly, the characterisations are wonderful and the dialogues his cast enter into, sublime. It strikes me as verging on the criminal that Norwood was actually out of print for a while. Hurumph!

I suspect that Charles Portis is underrated because his instinct as a writer is always to make us smile, and it seems to be the way that the literati only truly respect and value a writer if by the end of their novels the main characters are either dead, dying, or so utterly devastated by their experiences that we understand they’ll never manage to smile again. Portis is a dead loss when it comes to dishing-up pain and angst; he only ever seems to want to nudge his characters along with gentle nurturing. He can however paint a picture with a very few words: “Vernell was Norwood’s sister. She was a heavy, sleepy girl with bad posture.”

I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of what happens in Norwood, how it starts and ends in Ralph, Texas and all the humorous stuff that happens in between - it’s a slim read, find out for yourself. For my money this is a superbly-crafted book and deserves its place on my favourites shelf. I feel a lightening of the heart and a turning-up at the corners of my lips just thinking about Norwood Pratt. I will most certainly be re-reading this again very soon.

The blurb on the back of my copy tells the tale of a Portis fan who hesitated over proposing to the woman he loved and hoped to marry until she had read and pronounced her verdict on Norwood. I’m very pleased to say that Judith, who was ‘buddy reading’ it at the same time as me, was heard chuckling along most agreeably - divorce proceedings may not be imminent!

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