Literary locations

 Exploring the locations of a favourite book.

Last year I read When Marnie Was There by Joan G Robinson on Mr Norfolkbookworm's recommendation.  I don't know how I missed it as a child. I know that I loved Robinson's other creation, Teddy Robinson and that I also loved timeslip stories.  All I can think is that I picked it up at the wrong age. Teddy Robinson is definitely aimed at beginner readers whereas the complex plot of Marnie is more suited to those 10+.

Anyhow, it doesn't matter I've discovered the book now and as well as being a top read from 2015 I think it might enter my top books of all time.

Another great thing about the book is that it is set in Norfolk and we can easily get to the village in which it is set. This past weekend there was an added bonus as the Mill, which plays a pivotal role in the plot, was open to the public for the first time in 40 years.

While I really wanted to get to the very top for the views (heights don't bother me) I was defeated by the ladder access. Mr Norfolkbookworm has no fear of ladders but the height was too much for him so sadly we have no views of North Norfolk from the top, but I consoled myself that the plot doesn't revolve around the top floors and so I did walk where the characters had their adventures...

Looking towards Marnie's house

The main village staithe

The channel to the beach

Burnham Overy Mill

With many thanks to the National Trust for opening the Burnham Overy Mill to the public making it possible to fully imagine the whole of the book.

Theatre 2016: Review Twenty-Six

Doctor Faustus, The Barbican, London. September 2016.

I'm easily swayed into going to the theatre and this time it was my friend the Upstart Wren who was keen on seeing this.  I have a love/hate relationship with the RSC but Doctor Faustus is a play I like a lot and so I was quite happy to accompany her.  It all started well, trains were on time, we found the Barbican with no problems and our seats were excellent...

The opening was promising too - the roles of Faustus and Mephistopheles are shared between two actors and at each performance the decision as to who plays which role is decided by striking matches, however as the characters were dressed identically at this point I can't remember whether the owner of the match that went out first played Faustus or Mephistopheles - already not a good sign for the play!

I got more hopeful as the start did show Faustus surrounded by books, but my reading of him is that he feels he has learnt all he can from the books he has but wants more which is why he makes his pact but in this version he starts by throwing books away in disgust and I had the feeling that he was bored by them not that he was a renowned scholar.

It just went downhill from here on. The text had been drastically cut but the time filled with lots of modern dance and whitewashing of the stage. I never felt that the good and bad angels were actually fighting for Faustus, they merely seemed bored and one of them could barely speak the line.
A moment of levity came with the appearance of the deadly sins although even this became smug and self referential as covetousness appeared to look like Antony Sher's Richard III - a role he played for the RSC...

image from Findingshakespeare.com

My biggest discomfort from the play came ultimately from the feel of the piece. I found it to be incredibly anti-Semitic in tone.  At times, to stress the evil events, a black and white film is played at the back of the stage - this reminded me utterly of the propaganda films created by Goebbels during the late 1930s and early 1940s, also the words Faustus speaks to conjure throughout the play were certainly not the Latin of the original and had, to my ear, the harshness and cadences of Hebrew. 

I'm not the only one who has been made uncomfortable with this - other have commented that the students/devils have the look of Jewish scholars.

I'm pleased I saw this version of the play for it reminds me how good the Globe's version from 2011 was. I think that cutting out all of the humour from the play (like Shakespeare Marlowe's plays are a good balance of comedy/tragedy) was a mistake, the play felt unbalanced. I've also read the play since seeing it and I don't think I like the additions either. 

Ultimately I never believed in either of the leads - possibly because Mephistopheles looked just like Richard O'Brien when he played RiffRaff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Book review - Secret Diary of Henrick Groen 83 1/4

Growing Old Disgracefully.

I can't stop talking about this book it is The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole meeting the 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared set in Amsterdam.

Hendrik is in a retirement home and not happy to be growing old and weaker, but at the same time he is also reveling in his age and complaints.  The book made me laugh, gulp and cry but at no point was it ever predictable which is what makes it such a great book for me.

The diary format could be jaded and old hat but the characters and setting make it a step above and the chance to read a Dutch diary other than The Diary of Anne Frank was a real treat.  I'm recommending this book to everyone and anyone!

Geek counting

Number crunching the books.

A near disaster with a glass of water and 11 years of  reading diaries saw me decide to type up all the books I've listed in various diaries and journals over the past decade.

It has (unsurprisingly) taken me quite a while to get through the various notebooks and diaries, and while I don't have the stereotypical doctor handwriting sometimes deciphering my notes was interesting.  I'm also pretty sure that I've lost a couple of months from 2009 - I can't believe that I only read 8 books in three months even with a trip to Canada and a new job.

The stats from January 2005 to December 2015 are now crunched and even I was quite surprised to discover that in ten years I'd noted 2973 books.

It is very clear that when I still worked in book retail I read a lot more, however I was a children's specialist and for several years part of the team responsible for selecting the 5-8 book of the month meaning that every month I read an awful lot of shorter reads. At some point in my record keeping I decided not to note down what are commonly known as 'picture books' - everything has 48 pages or more.

Since starting work in the library I can see that I read a lot more non fiction and that I take a lot more gambles on my reading, there is no pattern at all to what I read - I really will try anything.

One thing that also came through from my notes is just how often I re-read a few authors, a couple of these are typical mid-twentieth century school/family story authors and the third is a contemporary, feminist, fantasy author.  On average I read many of the books by these authors once a year.
I was a little surprised that books I consider favourites, such as Little Women, don't feature highly on my rereads list but other books by Alcott, such as Eight Cousins, reoccur much more often.

Some books that I felt sure would appear on this list aren't there and I wonder if it is because I read them before 2005 or if I just didn't note them which is possible, until I found the right journal:

This lets me list the author, title, date read and gives me a line for notes about the book and the layout lets me note my reading for two years in each volume.*

What I found interesting reading back through all of the lists was just how many of these books I could actually remember in some detail. A few I hadn't listed the author but as soon as I popped the books in to a search engine it all came flooding back, looking at the dates I read some books also stirred memories, some good and some less good. Looking at some titles I am instantly transported back to where I read them - Greek beaches, slow trains, plane journeys the lot.

Right all of this typing has eaten into my reading time and as today has been designated #readabookday I'd better get on with it.

*On looking for a picture of my preferred reading diary I've discovered it is now out of print so I am off to bulk order the ones left in stock.

Theatre 2016: Review Twenty-Five

The Deep Blue Sea, Lyttleton Theatre, National Theatre, London. August 2016.

This was a play we were lucky to get seats at, and typically the day after I grabbed three together it was announced that there would be a National Theatre Live performance - the very next day to our visit.  However live theatre is preferable and it was nice for Rebecca and I to meet up with the Upstart Wren.

I have a soft spot for Rattigan - I loved Flare Path when Mr Norfolkbookworm and I saw it back in 2011 and I've also enjoyed films penned by Rattigan or adapted from his plays - and so I was happy to go to see this.  I'm not sure what drew my companions to this one - reviews and the cast I think.

In not booking until late we did have seats right at the back of the Lyttleton theatre and for the first half I felt very distant from the action, however by the end this distance worked and it was as if we were watching the play through the deep blue sea.

Like Flare Path this is a play with very little plot as such but is all about emotion - on the surface and repressed and it grew on me very cleverly. At the interval I thought that the recent film was better viewing but I was drawn deeper and deeper in and by the end I was cheering for Hester.

In many ways this is a very modern play, Hester, ultimately, takes a very brave line and goes her own way. She takes neither of the 'easy' ways out that are on offer to her. The men in the play are less stereotypical than you might expect for the late 1940s and early 1950s and there is just a prescient hint of the relaxation of society that started just a few years later.

On reading around the subject, and the wonderfully detailed programme, it becomes clear that this in someways is an incredibly autobiographical play and this might explain why the characters took so long to grow on me - like real people they are more flawed than you'd like and not people you want to identify with. The callous act with the shilling really drove this home.

The set was fantastic, Hester's flat took the main part of the stage but the other other apartments in the building became visible as needed through clever lighting and it made the play both claustrophobic and a great reminder that one couple's drama is very small fry in the scale of the world.

Rebecca and I enjoyed the play more than the Wren but we've spent the past 24 hours discussing the whole thing a great deal which implies that there was more to this play than first thought.  While Rebecca and I became more and more involved as the story went on out third found it becoming more trite... it would be a dull world if we all had the same views and in being challenged in our opinions has meant that we've had to think more about our views which is always good.

All of us however, and the people sitting next to us, were bothered by the slightly anachronistic feel to the props and sound  - the most important piece of music came from at least 5 years after the play was written let alone set...

I'm pleased I saw this live, and with friends so we could discuss it - but I do wonder if we'd have seen a different play if our seats had been closer to the stage...