Reading etc.

A friend gave me a subscription to this publication.  I was most pleased.  It suits all my pretensions.   As I am fond of saying, my parents paid good money for these pretensions and I don’t see why I shouldn’t use them.  The first copy arrived last week and it is very hard.  Long, long book reviews.   Not bad in parts though (there’s damned with faint praise). We’re not going to throw it out when we’ve finished it, we’re going to pile old copies up in the spare room so that when my sister-in-law the publishing exec comes she can be impressed.

Am not sure that this is what the editors intended but the small ads are the best bit.  I mean, you may think I’m pretentious (think of the ballet lessons, the elocution classes), but what kind of person puts in the following:

“Am I the only one here writing personal ads to his imaginary childhood friend?  For the last time: are you a fourteen foot high Stegosaurus-Bagpuss cross breed with the voice of Ed Bishop, an ability to vaporise Sunday school martinets and turn cod liver oil into Vimto?  If you are out there Basil de Bumps, please answer.  Spoilt commitment-hungry only child, 38 (the sort who took his library books back before running away) needs help from therapeutic London F, more Jenny Hanley than Angela Carter.”

Note the use of the colon.  And they’re all like this.  Extraordinary.  By the by, if any 20sixers want to get back to this man you can reply to Box No 06/10.  I think I might make an extract from the LRB small ads a regular feature of this section. What do you reckon? And does anyone know what Vimto is?

By the by am reading “The Dante Club” following rave reviews and finding it bitterly disappointing so far.  Will update in due course.

“Hives a mystery in first-grade class”

Do you know Ogden Nash? I love his poems. He seems to have been a very devoted father and I have copied below, for your delectation, one of his many poems about children.

Lines To Be Embroidered On A Bib

OR
The Child Is Father Of The Man, But Not For Quite A While

So Thomas Edison
Never drank his medicine;
So Blackstone and Hoyle
Refused cod-liver oil;
So Sir Thomas Malory
Never heard of a calory;
So the Earl of Lennox
Murdered Rizzio without the aid of vitamins or calisthenox;
So Socrates and Plato
Ate dessert without finishing their potato;
So spinach was too spinachy
For Leonardo da Vinaci;
Well, it’s all immaterial,
So eat your nice cereal,
And if you want to name your ration,
First go get a reputation

If you liked this, there are lots more at http://www.poemhunter.com/ogden-nash/poet-6637/.
Also “Candy is Dandy the best of Ogden Nash” makes a tasteful gift and is easy to wrap. OK, enough proselytising for today.

Babysitter arrives, am unready to depart yet updating blog. This is foolish. Quick question for my technically minded brethern (or indeed sistern) – can anyone tell me how to put up one of those vote things? You know, where you click a box for yes, no or maybe?? Thanks.

As you know, my brain has frazzled and I now only read children’s books. Slowly. Using my index finger and mouthing the words while frowning intently (actually the frowning intently bit is true – anyone for botox?).

Anyhow, I am reading “Maurice or The Fisher’s Cot” which is a recently discovered children’s story by Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame. A lot of the book is intro about the Shelleys and their friends. Poor old Mary Shelley had a miserable life. Consider the following from the introduction:

“Mary….was the child of …the philosopher and novelist William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, famous for her pioneering statement of women’s rights…the birth of the younger Mary killed her mother….When she was sixteen, Mary met…Shelley. He was only twenty-two, with a wife Harriet and a small daughter…Shelley and Mary eloped…leaving…a desperate Harriet, pregnant with her second child. [Mary’s] first child died… Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont had become part of their household….Claire involved herself briefly with Byron and became pregnant by him [more of this later], but it was always Shelley who made himself responsible for her welfare, and many people believed that Mary and Claire shared his sexual attentions..

[I]n 1816 [Mary’s] half-sister Fanny…committed suicide…Shelley’s wife Harriet drowned herself… Shelley married Mary…in the hope of winning custody of his children by Harriet, but failed to do so. He and Mary left for Italy with their two children accompanied by Claire and her daughter by Byron, Allegra…their children died and Mary fell into deep depression”.

But that’s not all, wait until you hear what happened to poor little Allegra. Claire had given Allegra up to Byron (who was in Venice) believeing this to be in the child’s best interests. Allegra was “fifteen months old and never before parted from her mother”. Byron put her into the care of the British Counsul and his wife. Claire got no news of her from Byron but the Consul’s wife “wrote coolly..about Allegra wetting her bed and losing her gaiety of spirit”. The poor little thing. Claire went to Venice in August and Byron allowed her to keep Allegra with her to the end of October when he insisted on having her back. When Byron took Allegra back, he refused to allow Claire to visit or to tell her about Allegra’s health or whereabouts. When she had not seen Allegra for 18 months, Claire wrote begging Byron to let him have her for the summer. He refused. He continued to refuse to let her see Allegra and she continued to beg for access to her daughter. Byron placed Allegra in a convent, she was the youngest child to be admitted and still her mother begged to be let visit her to no avail. Allegra never saw her mother again. She died in the convent;she was only 5. “Mad, bad and dangerous to know” indeed. Isn’t that a heart-rending story?

My sister-in-law the publishing executive gave me “Persuasion” on tape for Christmas and I have just polished it off. Does this count as a book? I had forgotten what a drip Anne Elliot was. I have to say that I found her very tiresome. I felt that Captain Wentworth would have been much better off with one of those nice Musgrove girls. In fact, it reminded me a bit of “Mansfield Park” where the issues are so odd to modern eyes, it’s very hard to work up much sympathy. Wow, they were going to put on a play in Mansfield Park. Appalling. Miss Musgrove wanted to jump the stile. Stop, stop, it’s just too horrific. Now with “Pride and Prejudice” you know where you are. By any standards eloping with Mr. Wickham is a bad and stupid thing to do. Nevertheless have to say that I was very taken with the whole books on tape thing as I spend a lot of time in the car and I am sick of listening to Radio Contact, Bel RTL and the world service. “Persuasion” was much better than all of those, so really pretty good.? I’m sure Miss Austen would be delighted with such wholehearted praise and yes, pub exec., you’re right, I am very difficult to please but would certainly welcome more tapes.

Speaking of radio, so somewhat at a tangent from books, I concede, I heard a great drama documentary thing the other day about robots taking over from mothers.I found the mock ads for “robbies” very convincing. In fact, I am keen to go out and buy one. Check it out at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s1011073.htm.

Other book stuff. No bookclub as yet. I am getting slightly cold feet as many of the people I know here are Irish diplomat types. In case this vital information has passed you by, Ireland holds the Presidency of the EU for the next six months and this means that all the diplomat types have gone to ground. I got a Christmas card from one couple saying, “see you in July” (yes, you’re right, that brings to 7 our total Christmas card count; however, since our friends forgot to stamp their card, we had to pay 49 cents for the privilege of receiving it, so am not sure it can be offset against our original expenditure..). Furthermore, last week’s Irish Times reported their boss as saying that it will be a 7 day week, 24 hour a day job. She mentions that physical stamina will be required. All leave has apparently been cancelled for the six months of the Presidency. In these circumstances, are people likely to want to come to my place of a Monday night to talk about books? They’ll probably want to sleep or chair a late meeting.