Harriet Devine's Blog

dyslibria

No such word, I hear you say -- I just invented it for a strange disability I seem to have contracted lately -- the inability to finish books. Of course I do finish loads of books but I was rather shocked this morning when I realised that I have put quite a few aside recently without getting to the end. To name a few:
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell -- I got about two thirds through this and just ran out of enthusiasm.
The Historian -- abandoned this really early on, as it didn't appeal at all. Gave it to my daughter who has loved it so perhaps I should have another go.
The God of Small Things -- read this last summer when I was in Kerala, where it is set.  Got very close to the end but became irritated with the narrative voice and thought the end was predictable -- skipped through and checked, found I was right.
Latest casualty is The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. I thought this looked so promising. It's about an antiquarian bookseller who loses his memory -- but selectively. He can remember all the books he's read, all the history he's learned, but he can't remember who he is, or anything about his family or his life. So he sets about trying to get his memory back -- goes to his old family home and starts reading all the books he had as a boy. So far so good -- and the book is beautifully ilustrated with coloured reproductions of all the pictures from the books and comics he's reading. But my goodness -- it does go on! I kept thinking we were going to get somewhere soon, but no -- book after book came out of attics, cupboards, boxes -- bottle after bottle of wine was opened, meal after meal (lovingly prepared by old peasant nanny) was consumed and still no sign of that elusive memory. So I packed it in. Shame really -- a nice idea but not well executed. Or is it me?

Donne again

By a strange coincidence the Guardian Review on Saturday had an item on Donne
Worth taking a look if you are interested -- some good comments here, including one which describes his poetry as 'snaggy' -- nice word, that. They quoted part of one of Donne's Holy Sonnets, such a great poem I must put the whole of it in here:

  Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

 As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

 That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

 Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

 I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,

 Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;

 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

 But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

 Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

 But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

 Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,

 Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

 Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,

 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

This was written in the later part of Donne's life, when he was struggling to be a good Christian (he converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism and became Dean of St Paul's). But you can see he is addressing God with the same kind of (erotic?) intensity that he used to his women. I love the denseness and the power of the language -- look at all those verbs in the opening lines -- and the brilliance of the paradoxes at the end.

Meeting film stars

Like most of us these days, I've got a number of books on the go -- more on these later. My latest acquisition is Felicity Kendal's childhood memoir, White Cargo, bought used from Amazon. As someone who has also written a memoir of my own theatre childhood, Being George Devine's Daughter , this was naturally going to interest me. But theatre aside, Felicity Kendal's life was very different from mine -- as most people know, she grew up in India, where her father had a touring company. The Indian connection was my reason for finally launching into the book. I was in India last month, seeing a festival of new plays by young Indian writers, which was held at the Prithvi Theatre in northern Mumbai. This lovely little theatre was founded in memory of the late great Indian actor Prithvi Kapoor, whose youngest son Shashi was married to Felicity Kendal's older sister Jennifer, who sadly died some years ago. Shashi Kapoor became a distinguished and famous actor in his own right, of course -- many people will remember him as the handsome rajah in the 1980s film Heat and Dust. He was indeed a great beauty and I had a terrific crush on him for years. Imagine my feelings, then, when he was pointed out to me on the festival opening night just yards away from where I was standing. Alas, he does not look like this picture any more -- he is nearly 70 now, amazingly enough.  A few days later I was actually introduced to him and any disappointment over lost youth and beauty simply faded away. He was adorable -- courteous, charming, with the same slightly crooked smile and the same lovely twinkling eyes.  I felt like a teenager, quite weak at the knees.  So Felicity Kendal's book was a must.  I've only just started reading it but it promises well, what with theatre and India and Shashi all rolled into one.

John Donne

I think one problem some of my students have with Donne is that they think because he was writing four hundred years ago, what he says will be archaic and irrelevant to them and their lives. So I try (as I think I always do when teaching anything) to help them to see that once they get past the 'old fashioned' language,  he is expressing feelings and ideas that they have probably had themselves. Haven't they ever woken up in the morning with a lover and wished the rising sun would go away and let them stay in bed all day? Or looked at that same lover and thought everyone they had loved before was just a rehearsal for this one? Or felt that though they were in two separate bodies, their souls were not separate? Or, in a quite different mood, wished their lovers were not so boringly faithful? Or that they would hurry up and get undressed and into bed?
Then I might encourage them to listen to Donne's voice -- see if they can relate to the immediacy of the way he opens his poems:

MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ;

    For God's sake, hold your tongue and let me love!

    I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
    Did, till we loved?

    I am two fools, I know,
    For loving, and for saying so
    In whining poetry.

Then we could start on some whole poems --  I have so many favourites it's always hard to choose.   'The Flea' is entertaining -- Donne trying to get the girl into bed. 'The Sun Rising' and 'The Good Morrow' are popular. If I want to introduce them to the idea of the Metaphysical Conceit (an exaggerated metaphor) I'd get them to read 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' in which he compares himself and his lover to a pair of compasses and convinces you that it's about the most apt comparison in the world though it sounds so bizarre. And so on.

There's a brilliant website where you can listen to all these poems, read all about Donne and look at some lovely pictures. http://www.luminarium.org

footling about

Gosh -- no visitors ever and then two in a day and the place is a mess. What shall I tell you? I've just got back from work, where I spent the morning trying to infuse my first-years with enthusiasm for the poetry of John Donne -- a personal favourite of mine, but one who often defeats all but the brightest. Luckily I do have at least one of these in the group. The place I teach in is the newest of the new universities but we are blessed with a percentage of mature students who make it all worthwhile. Having done my own degree as a mature student I have a particular fondness for these people, who have sometimes given up quite good jobs to come and study Eng Lit. And of course being a bit older (occasionally a lot older) they have plenty to say, though they do feel at times like they  are saying too much. The young ones rarely speak at all, which can be a bit of strain in a two-hour seminar.
I should now be knuckling down to some writing but I'm such a morning person that to start at this time of day seems out of the question. I've just started writing an article on some visits I made to India over the last year, to observe a series of workshops for new playwrights, run by the Royal Court Theatre. My first day on this went really well, and my second day went really badly, resulting in one feeble paragraph which will probably be chucked out anyway. But writing is like that, and I kind of accept it now.
Meanwhile, the kettle is on, the home-made biscuits (present from next door neighbour) are waiting to be nibbled and Timmy the cat is rather attractively placed in a pergola in the back garden (yes, I really should remove last year's growth of golden hops, but I am a fairweather gardener so they will go when the weather warms up a bit).