VH: Passing the bâton

My successor on Vie Hebdomadaires, Gayle Reynolds, has just taken over. The following link will take you directly to Gayle's posts:

http://viehebdomadaires.wordpress.com/category/gayle-reynolds/

Hop, step, jump

[this is a copy of my seventh and final post as a guest of Vie hebdomadaires]

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On my last day as a guest of Vie hebdomadaires, I should either pull together ends in some clever way or say something profound. Alas, I can’t offer either. Today was a day of relaxation interspersed by bits and pieces.

The relaxation was a necessity. I’m in the middle of one of my periodic overcommitted phases … at too many points in the past, when today was a long way off, I’ve said “that looks interesting; I’ll do it” or “it’s important somebody does this; I’ll take it on”, and now all the chickens have come home to rest at once. I’ve almost finished writing the chapters for a textbook, for which the publisher and editor have been waiting (with strained smiles and gritted teeth) for three months. No complaints; I wouldn’t swap this occasional but recurrent problem for a less full and absorbing life, but it does produce days like today when I have to switch off and potter about while the batteries recharge.

There was a walk around the park, in brief watery sunshine after rain. There was a visit to a café, where I noticed the extraordinary sculpted planes of a napkin part unfolded on a table (see below). There was quite a bit of time sitting quietly with my partner, sharing the sections of Olympics coverage which she enjoys: the women’s marathon, the tennis, the gymnastics (she was a prize winning gymnast in her schooldays), the athletics.

Watching the triple jump sparked memories of my last sports day at school (we called it the “hop step and jump” then) but not with any prize winning glow; exactly the opposite, in fact.

As I suggested in my third VH post, I was never a shining light of the school sports scene. Nonetheless, I ended up for the second half of my final year as a house captain … the reasons for this having to do not with my own qualities but with a combination of the head teacher‘s selective snobbery, the demographics of a school whose students came and went in remarkable numbers as politicomilitary tides shifted their parents around, and an argument which led to me sulking elsewhere at just the moment when the head teacher walked in on a drunken sixth form orgy in which everyone else was implicated.

At first, this wasn’t a problem. There wasn’t, for most of the time, very much for a house captain to do apart from standing and looking pompous at the back of the hall during daily assembly. I mustered a team for the school quiz, in which we came first thanks in large part to eleven year old Miranda who answered with 100% accuracy not only her own questions but any that somebody else (regardless of team) couldn’t. But then the annual sports day loomed.

Those politicomilitary tides of arriving and departing children which I mentioned didn’t affect all school houses equally. Over a long enough period, of course, they evened out; but in the short term they frequently affected one house more than another. At the time of this particular impending sports day, my house was very short of boys in the upper two years – and the other two houses had a monopoly on those who were any good at sports.

I went to the head teacher with my problem. I could not, I said, produce enough boys in the upper school to participate in every event. This wasn’t my fault, nor was it anybody else’s; it was just the way things panned out. He looked at the figures, and agreed. He said that he would think of something. I went away.

The following day, he called me back to his study. He had decided, he said, to transfer some upper school boys from other houses into my own, to even up the numbers somewhat. This was great news; I suggested that he include in this transfer my friend Frank, who would be able to organise and motivate sports participants (I tactfully avoided any emphasis on the fact that Frank was the most sporty person in the school, and would win any event in which he took part). The head said he would see what he could do.

A week later, I got my transfers. The head called me into his study again to give me the list. before handing it over, he made gruff comments about the difficulty of arranging something like this “without ruffling feathers”. It had, he said, been necessary to negotiate willing agreement with other house captains; but a consensus had, eventually, been reached. He handed over the list; I scanned it; my heart sank. The four boys transferred to me, which their own houses had generously agreed to give up, were (like me) bookish, uncoördinated, uncompetitive and generally as different from Frank as it was possible to be. Perry was so rarely seen outside the darker corners of the library that I trouble remembering what he looked like. Clive was all set for a glorious Nobel prize winning career in chemistry, but his part in soccer matches consisted of examining the soil on the pitch and speculating about its pH value. There were two of my best friends: Chris, who was an English Literature nut, and Brian the mathematician who regularly quoted Einstein as having said “Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.” (yes, yes, I know, it wasn’t Einstein who said that; but Brian declared it was, so we believed him).

Dividing up the various events between my now just barely adequate number of participants was a matter of discovering what they would grudgingly agree to try and then picking up the remainder myself. Thus it was that Chris came to put aside his much annotated copy of Aphra Behn‘s Oroonoko and his black rimmed spectacles to start earnestly practising for the hop step and jump.

Sports day came. In the lower school events, things went reasonably well in general and Miranda (now twelve) took first prize in everything for which she’d been entered. The middle school did middlingly well, its results well behind the best but somewhat above the worst.

In the upper school we glumly watched each other participate, and fail, bravely. Perry gave his all, nevertheless came last in every event but wasn’t bothered by the fact, showered, and disappeared back into the library. Clive, all changed and ready and willing, found an interesting article about something abstrusely molecular in a copy of new Scientist which he had brought along to read between events. By the time we found him, sitting under a tree scribbling notes and formulæ on his leg, it was too late: his swimming events were over. Brian had an accident with the javelin, spearing it into the ground just ahead of him and doing an unintentional impromptu pole vault. I was so far behind the rest of the field in the 800 metres race that the games teacher pulled me off the track before I finished so that other events could start.

And Chris, in the hop step and jump? He was there on time. We watched him take his run up, and were proud of him. His foot hit the mark exactly, and we cheered as he sailed off from it in a soaring hop. Perhaps our cheers were the problem; perhaps they distracted him, broke his concentration. Coming down from the hop, landing on the same foot, he took another hop … then another … arms flailing, he strove to keep his balance as his momentum took him into one hop after another. He hopped in a ragged arc, never getting anywhere near the sandpit, watched by an incredulous school through reactions from horror to hilarity, until he hit a bush and sat down.

Watching Olga Rypakova show how it should be done, I was fondly remembering how much more (later, if not at the time) I enjoyed Chris’s version.

With that anticlimax, I’ll fondly bid my week with Vie hebdomadaires goodbye and hand you on to the next writer.

-Felix

More books, and the darker side of solitude

[this is a copy of my sixth post as a guest of Vie hebdomadaires]

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As will be obvious from my first post in this series, books (and fictions in particular) are important to me … to a very real extent, I am what I read. Today’s helping has no particular theme except that it brings another ragbag of book related ramblings.
Before moving on, let me share an unsolicited testimonial. After some time trying to acquire a digital copy of Zenna Henderson‘s The anything box (another of my teen influences) I found a reasonably priced copy (as opposed to many high-priced copies which I’d seen) courtesy of second hand dealer Marx Books in Lubbock, Texas. The words “courtesy of” are particularly appropriate here: John Marx, the proprietor, sent a personal email acknowledging my $5 order. Mr Marks is (unlike me) a real life Cliff Janeway and it shows. Impressed by book, despatch time, service and communication, I went back today for three more books (the site is very efficient, with an excellent search system to find exactly the book you want) … and received yet another personal email before the invoice, detailing exactly the condition of each book in my order and giving me the chance to cancel if I wasn’t happy with what I heard. I shall certainly be using Marx Books again
When I sang the praises of solitude, yesterday, in this series, I casually said that “Though I wouldn’t choose it, I could probably cope with solitude as a permanent state if I had to”. I was, of course, writing from the comfortable position of having that choice. I am, it has to be admitted, lucky enough to be able to play at solitude, and I have no doubt that I would see it in a very different light if it was enforced upon me. Even in wilderness, I am always a tourist – safe in the knowledge that can return to the safe bustle of city streets or tamed rural agricultural countryside whenever I like.
The difference is well depicted in a fictional setting by Ursula K Le Guin‘s Threshold (aka The beginning place), where solitude is used as a walkabout style metaphor for coming of age. The two young protagonists, both fleeing the constraints of home, seek solitude of different kinds in a timeless land which they discover on the other side of the “threshold” of the title. That solitude allows them to flourish and grow, though each resents the other’s presence. When the place makes demands of them, they find themselves adrift within it and without choice, at which point they not only must find strength in their togetherness but find the return to society their most desired goal.
What has prompted me to this line of thought is discussion of another book entirely: a novel which explores courage and endurance in the face of enforced solitude of a very different and claustrophobic kind.
One of the pleasures of blogging is the diversity of feedback, and especially that which comes as a surprise. Today I received two such despatches from the real. The first was from photographer Judith Acland, who tells me that she is starting Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable creatures on my recommendation. The second, from Jasmine Golledge, was a report from the middle of Emma Donoghue‘s novel Room, read on the basis of my post about it last year: “I’ve been unable to put down the book Room. I’m on page 277 already. Brilliantly written, compelling, heart wrenching – fantastic. Several parts have moved me to tears already, and it isn’t that often that a novel is able to do that. …. So far, excellent recommendation!”
That interim judgment was encouraging. It’s always a nerve wracking business, recommending a book and then waiting to see whether my opinion is shared by the person who has taken my enthusiasm on trust. And a recommendation placed out on the web in full public view is a hostage to fortune. I read Room on my brother’s recommendation, and was glad I had. My mother, who also read it on his recommendation, felt that it was exploitative: the novelist turning a profit on the real suffering of women such as Elisabeth Fritzl, Natascha Kampusch or Jaycee Dugard (a point of view which I can understand and respect). My partner, an English literature specialist with whom I usually share a great deal of common ground in reading matter who read it on my recommendation, left her copy behind in a Croatian hotel room by accident but without subsequent regret.
Jasmine, however, to my relief, wrote again later to confirm her approval. And since she did so in words which so perfectly encapsulate my own reactions, I’ll end by just quoting them instead of finding my own:

“One of the things I loved about this book was the way it drew me in immediately, and I didn’t spot any obvious plot devices that jolt you out of the story and make you aware that you are reading. ( You know the type … where the hardened detective goes home to his lonely house and begins ruminating on his old happy married life before his wife was murdered and he turned to drink, all the while stroking a kitten he rescued from a mine-shaft…).
It was beautifully written, the story flowed naturally and, I felt, didn’t give into the “they escape, the bad guy gets punished, all live happily ever after” tale that most people want. It showed, in very simple but devastating ways, the continued impact in small ways that most people wouldn’t even consider. Jack has to unlearn almost everything he thought about the world, the very nature of reality. The worst and most brutal aspects of humanity, and also the very best. His mother is a hero, and yet attempted suicide at a time he needed her most. The nuances of the ongoing difficulties and complexities of that relationship, and what the boy will grow up having to adjust to and live with, is more disturbing and terrifying than the idea that a man could capture and imprison a woman for so many years.
We hear those sorts of stories on the news all the time, we cry, we’re shocked, we get angry, and we maybe rant about how the abuser should be hung drawn and quartered or locked up for life. We argue about what kind of monster could do this to another human being, are they just evil, or did something in society or their own childhood make them that way, how did society/the police/the government not see what has happening and stop it. Then we mentally sigh and say, “well, they’re free now, and the bad guy has been punished” – and we move on with our lives. End of story. This novel blows that comforting allusion out of the water. It’s what I feel makes it shocking and disturbing, and yet also what I like about it. It challenged me to think about the minute ways the impact would continue to spread, like ripples on a pond.”

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• Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable creatures. 2009, London: Harper Collins. 9780007178377.
• Emma Donoghue, Room. 2010, London: Picador. 9780330519021 (pbk)
• Zenna Henderson, The anything box. 1966, London: Gollancz.
• Ursula K Le Guin, Threshold. 1982, London: Granada, 0586054073 (pbk)

Solitude standing

[this is a copy of my fifth post as a guest of Vie hebdomadaires]

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As I mentioned in passing, a couple of days ago, I have tendency to be solitary.

Not that I don’t like people; I do, very much; but I also like time alone. Though I wouldn’t choose it, I could probably cope with solitude as a permanent state if I had to; I certainly have never minded a couple of months at a stretch, when they came along. Mostly, though, as an ideal, I take it little and often: short spells, a few minutes or a few days, amid the hurleyburley.

You don’t have to head for the wilderness to get solitude. You can get solitude in the heart of a city, if you want to. A couple of weeks ago, I was shown a place of bosky solitude which I had never suspected, just behind a thriving arts centre which I have visited frequently. As someone who (from active choice) spends much of his life travelling, I get my most frequent doses of solitude in that suspension which occurs between one place and another, even on a crowded train. Nevertheless, wilderness does have its appeal and I particularly love that special kind of solitude which arises from knowing that no other human being likely to appear. I have an especial weakness for islands; and this little group of three islands, wilderness surrounded by sea which in turn is enfolded by wilderness mainland, is one of my treasured favourite spots. No, I have no intention of telling you where they are.

Neither solitude nor wilderness need, these days, necessarily require an absence of communications links. Much wilderness is now suffused with one or another sort of radio signal into which you can tap in if you wish; dealing with that is simply a matter of using the “off” switch, or even leaving the equipment at home. Sometimes I sit in my wilderness solitude and use email; sometimes I don’t; it depends. This particular island wilderness, though, has only the last gasp level of comms access, the satellite phone of which I shall not make use unless there is an emergency. Trying to use a system like WordPress over a satphone is, in any case, a silly idea: slow, clunky, error prone, apt to go off somewhere else just as you finish so that you have to start again … nothing could be more calculated to destroy the very state of mind which a wilderness island promotes. So, this post (I do, you see, have a small Android device with me on which to write) will have to wait until tomorrow’s return to the madding crowd before it can be uploaded.

I also have an MP3 player, and will sometimes use that too (with ear buds, to avoid any sound pollution of the place itself). But not today. As the sun set, somewhere just out of sight from my rocky shoreline spot, I privately listened only inside my head to Judith Durham singing, from the biomemory bank, Catch the wind.

-Felix

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Plash

[this is a copy of my fourth post as guest of Vie hebdomadaires]

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Never mind the quality, feel the width

[this is a copy of my third post as guest of Vie hebdomadaires]
image source: Radio Times

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I mentioned in my first Vie Hebdomadaires post on Monday that I learn valuable lessons from occasional differences of opinion with Ray Girvan, amongst our frequent agreement … and so it is this first Olympic Games week. I wouldn’t go so far as Ray does in his 29 July post in my opinion of “sport, and any celebration of it” but I do have concerns.

I don’t have any poor opinions at all of sport in principle. My own personal preference has always been for other physical activities (walking, climbing, cycling, even for a time in my mid teens, cross country running … usually solitary, which probably says more about me than anything else) but I am happy for other people who enjoy more organised or team oriented ones. I can even enjoy watching them, even if others around me find my enjoyment strange.

I can enjoy watching anyone do anything well, and celebrate their doing of it. I can enjoy beauty, and expression whether beautiful or not, wherever I find them. I don’t ever tend to initiate the watching of sport but today, for example, when my partner was watching the athletics, I enjoyed many parts of it in exactly the way that I would enjoy an act of modern dance. When I spend an afternoon with my step son and his family, and a game of soccer is on the television, I enjoy that in the same way that I would enjoy a ballet (he, like almost everyone else know, finds that equivalence hilarious … but it stays with me).

What I can’t manage to do, in either of those examples, is manage to care in the slightest who wins.

There is an old chestnut, frequently quoted at me when I was a spotty, skinny, uncoördinated schoolboy suffering joylessly through a game of Rugby: “it’s not the winning that matters but the taking part”. I could buy that … but, alas, it is almost always spoken in hypocrisy. Sometimes the hypocrisy is a vehicle for comfort and kindness; sometimes not; but I have very rarely heard it said in sincerity. For many players of games (not all; I’ve watched youngsters turn out all season, in all weathers, week in and week out, to play soccer or rugby despite winning not a single match), as in so many areas of life, winning matters very much. For most spectators, it matters even more.

More worrying than the individual desire to win, though, are the outbreaks of mob “chimpiness” (for which word I am again indebted to Ray) which surround sporting events: Quatermass and the Pit style spasms of our biological heritage. At the crudest and most obvious level, it emerges as football terrace violence. More insidiously, but just as definitely, it can be seen in the bean counting which is going on in Britain (and most other countries) at the moment: not honouring the achievements of the participants, but totting up how many medals “we” have won.

It goes way beyond the sports themselves, too. The arts are, by and large, less afflicted by this mass effect – but not once sports have raised the temperature. Despite many detailed reservations and relativist economic concerns, I could enjoyed the Olympic opening ceremony too: as a superbly well designed and executed piece of spectacular theatre put on by a huge cast of committed volunteers. But … so much of the commentary was not around the performance itself but concentrated on whether or not “we” had trumped the equivalent effort four years ago in Beijing.

-Felix