A Good Deed

Trying to get to a temp job on the outskirts of town, I used an online journey planner and made efficient notes on how to get there. I successfully caught the required bus and spotted the correct stopping point. It didn't look right though, so I queried with the driver whether this was the location I was looking for. No, I was miles from there. I got off the bus and stood in the High St in a little place, which as a Londoner I would be tempted to arrogantly describe as "in the middle of nowhere". For a few minutes my mind was blank, I didn't know what to do, I was quite disorientated. I had no more change in my purse to pay for another bus ride and I hadn't even saved the number of the agency in my phone. Eventually I decided what to do; I went to a cash point and took out £10, cursing because this was one of those terrible outlets that take money from you for using them. It annoys me to think that that is maybe the only cash machine in the High St, so the locals have little choice other than to be regularly fleeced.

Anyway, I looked up and down for a cab office, but not seeing one, I went into a little newsagent to ask if there were a cab office nearby. There was a woman in the doorway talking to the man behind the counter. When I asked about the cab office, he shook his head but passed me a Cab Card. Then I asked how far I was from the place and was relieved  to be told it was only a couple of miles - it could have been ten miles for all I knew. I phoned the number on the card, but it went to answer phone, I suspect it was just one driver and that was his mobile. When I asked if he had another number, the woman spontaneously offered to drive me to the place. In the car the radio played Mahler's Symphony No 9.  In the end I was less than five minutes late.

When I told people what had happened they accepted it as normal but to me, being from a big city, it seems amazing that someone would give a lift to a stranger. I am so grateful to that woman.

The Rape of Lucrece Performance by Gerard Logan Review

A couple of nights ago, I went to the theatre to see a performance of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece delivered by Gerard Logan.

The poem is based on the story told by the Roman historian Livy about the rape of a virtuous Roman matron Lucretia, by  Tarquin son of King Tarquin Superbus ("the Proud"). Lucretia tells her husband Collatinus what has happened before witnesses and then kills herself. This inspires Marcus Junius Brutus to swear an oath that they will be avenged against this grievous assault upon Collatinus' wife. Ultimately this leads to Tarquin being driven into exile and the inauguration of the Roman Republic.
The actor was wearing a sort of dun coloured salwar kamez which was remeniscient of a Roman tunica (the trousers were a wise addition for performance in the winter months). Over his shoulder he draped a length of white cloth to produce the effect of a Roman toga. The cloth was to fulfil many roles in the course of the narrative. The actor came and stood alone in the centre of the unadorned stage, with only drumroll from offstage as accessory. He spoke the parts clearly, most of the time powerfully conveying the emotions of the protagonists, Tarquin as he debates with himself talking himself round his doubts about the propriety of outraging his hostess.
When he spoke the part of Lucretia the effect was a little jarring in a way that was possibly deliberate. Shakespeare starts by laying cloying emphasis on her helplessness and purity calling her "dove", "lamb" and such like. Too whole hearted an expression of this depiction of the heroine can leave the reader/speaker in the uncomfortable position of joining with the rapist in objectifying Lucretia, the building up of her chastity and vulnerablility rendering her violation the more piquant. It was perhaps his discomfort with or wish to question these lines that seemed to give his expression of Lucretia's pleas and distress a kind of mocking falsetto. Later, when the raped woman finally pulls herself together, giving expression to anger and thoughts of vengeance and of how her honour might be restored, his delivery of her voice improved, although admittedly it also became more definitely masculine, scarcely distinguishable from the raging Tarquin so it could just be a limitation of range that produced the effect.
Lucretia's self condemnation arouses a complex of responses and interpretations. On one level she seems to be acquiesing to the Roman cultural assessment of  the rape of a respectable woman as significant as an egregious insult to her respectable  husband. There is little sense that she personally has been violated or only in so far as she is a wife rather than simply a human being. She insists that though innocent she must die or else her example may allow other adulterous women to get away with it. On the other hand, Lucretia's taking of her own life is arguably the only way she can regain control over her own body and situation, her act of violence in which she anniliates herself can be seen as both negating and confirming the annihiliating act of Tarquin. As the poem drew to a close, the white cloth had become Lucretia's corpse, first mourned over by husband and father who argued over who had the greater claim upon it and later paraded about the streets of Rome as a political tool.

Paranormal Activity Film Review

Watched Paranormal Activity last night. I came to it with high expectations, based on a review I had read in the Guardian, recommending it highly for its subtlety. It is a film very much in the Blair Witch tradition - the unfolding action viewed through a camera set up by the protagonists.

Without spoiling too much, I think I can say that the basic premise was that a young couple, bothered by possible paranormal activity at night in their home have set up a camera in the hope of capturing concrete evidence. At first they are light hearted, perhaps only a little self-consciously displaying their affection for each other in front of the camera and before others. The intrusion of the camera is an amusing novelty in their lives. Inevitably things turn darker and escalate. I was left speculating how far the dark force that haunted them came from within or without, how far was it nourished or engendered by the tensions simmering beneath the surface of their happy relationship?

I must say I found  some of the action a little slow and repetitive, even inconsequential; perhaps the refusal to deliver resolution offers more in the way of verisimilitude than tidy plot development but half way through, I found myself becoming impatient. Yes there is something in the house and it moves things around, no, wandering around in your underwear shouting at it won't help.

The exorcism reference (cut from some versions of the film) was absurd with its hints about unfortunates chewing off their own arms.

On the other hand I was clearly sufficiently influenced by the film to be just a little disturbed when my laptop started inexplicably making noises on its own in the middle of the night...

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino Review

At the moment I am enjoying rereading "Grotesque" by Natsuo Kirino. It is a compelling and disturbing book focusing on the twisted lives of a group of young women who attended "Q" an elite school/university (apparently the two can be combined in Japan) in which there is a polarisation between the super rich girls who have been there since elementary school and the hard working less privileged girls who are admitted later through their hard work. Like her previous novel "Out" it is a dark tale but with characters that appeal even less to the reader's sympathy. In the earlier novelthere was at least initially a grizzly cameraderie between the group of women factory workers as they rallied round their friend. In this novel the principle protaganist is almost entirely unsympathetic as she coldly watches and even gratuitously hastens the disintegration of those around her. She is a lonely and twisted character, deeply affected by the constant comparisons made between her and her beautiful sister Yuriko. Prostitution and murder blights the lives of the other main female characters. A friend of mine who had enjoyed "Out" was repelled by this novel seeing it as self-hating and anti-feminist. To me the novel seemed instead an angry indictment of the competitive, image obssessed society that shaped and distorted these women. The initially over-achieving character who ends by taking a bizzarre pride in the fact that she juggles being a business woman and a prostitute seems to mirror the twin expectations of  and pressures upon women in contempory society to be both beautiful and sexually appealing while at the same time be successful career women. Glossy magazines such as Cosmopolitan exhort women to not only work hard but look good, go to the gym, buy the right products, cook the right meals and have sex with an equally successful if less well groomed male in a variety of positions. The prostitute/businesswoman character who boasts of her career to sexual clients and sneers at her female colleagues for not venturing into the world of prostitution is indeed a grotesque image of someone trying to meet all the expectations thrown at the modern woman.

Another aspect of the novel that I really enjoyed was the vivid portrait of the Chinese character Zheng's life in a remote Chinese village and his epic and horrendous train journey to the big port city to find work. The novelist brings the world of a snobbish private girl's school and the world of a desperately poor immigrant to life with an equally unflinching eye.

The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Been reading a fascinating if disturbing book "The Burning of Bridget Cleary" (Angela Bourke 1999). It explores a bizzarre and notorious case occurring in Tipperary in 1895 in which a woman was burned to death by her huband, accompanied by a group of her own relatives. They apparently believed that the Bridget, who had been in bed for some days sick with bronchitis, had been stolen by the fairies and what remained in the bed was a Changeling or substitute. By burning the Changeling, the hope was that the imposter would be driven out and the real Bridget would return.

While it is impossible to get to the bottom of what really went on that night - were the bystanders really as helpless as they claimed to prevent Patrick's burning of his wife - why was a fairly common folk belief acted upon to such scarcely precedented extremes? - the book explores the event from a number of interesting angles.

The incident and responses to the incident illustrated the gulf between two worlds existing side by side - Victorian Modernity with its Police Force, telegraph, compulsory schooling, doctors and "rationality" and the thought world of the Irish rural peasantry with its complex lore about fairies, fairy doctors and other supernatural elements. Bourke explores whether talk about such things always equated with a literal belief in them or whether talking about fairies was a coded way of dealing with problems of daily life. The rejection of disabled children for example was explained or excused by raising the possibility that the child was not the parents' real offspring but a Changeling. Saying that a woman was away with the fairies could be hinting in fact at her infidelity. Bridget Cleary was known to be "haughty"; a smartly dressed, attractive milliner with her own Singer Sewing Machine and a flourishing poultry business. Was the assault upon her in part initially intended merely to humble her?
Much of the British and Irish press, in particular those of Unionist sympathies leapt on this story as evidence of how unfit the Irish clearly were for Home Rule, comparing them with those in further flung regions of the British Empire. Victorian racist discourse was ready to see the Irish as possessed of an inherent inferiority that would preclude self government. By coincidence the Oscar Wilde trial was simultaneously taking place in London and was also used against the Irish - if an anglicised and educated Irishman such as Oscar Wilde was incapable of conforming to Victorian norms what hope was there for his less privileged countrymen?
Of course this was also a period in which Irish folklore was becoming a source of interest to scholars particularly of a nationalist bent. W B Yeats and Lady Gregory were questioning countryfolk and recording their stories about fairies and the like. Lady Gregory emphasised that ill treatment of suspected Changelings was actually disapproved of in traditional fairy-lore - any abuse meted out to the fairy impostor was liable to be visited in vengeance upon the abductee. In that way such lore could in fact act as a safety valve urging tolerance of and explaining the behaviour of family members who might be suffering from periods of mental ill health such as post-natal depression - the person was "not themself" but with patience and kindness they might be hoped to return to themselves. As we know standard Victorian treatment of the mentally ill could be a lot less "civilised".

Genji Monogatari

Currently reading The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu - a substantial novel from tenth century japan. It's a lovely volume with accompanying woodcuts. It is one of those books that I have been trying to read off and on for years now - I read a little of it, get distracted, come back to it, start again and so on. In part I blame the size of the thing - it's too big to casually walk around with to the bathroom or  as a work-book i.e a book to be read on the train to and from work and at lunchtimes (very anti social I know).

I suppose also the culture of Heian Japan is often baffleing. People get upset about very obscure things, such as hearing the coarse  voices of ordinary people from within the house but seem to accept being abducted and possibly raped (it isn't quite clarified) as fairly normal if potentially embarassing. I suppose the more I read, the more I will understand. Interestingly though I find Heian women's accounts of their real lives are by no means so alarming as in this fictional creation. I can't see Sei Shonagon tolerating strange men (even princes) carrying her off in the middle of the night. It seems a bizarre conceit as well that these women are depicted as so small and frail that they can just be picked up and carried around like dolls or infants. All sorts of questions could be raised here about women writers and readers and the propensity in certain circumstances to romanticise a less liberated state than the one actually prevailing. Look at the craze a few years ago for wretched Bridget Jones and love of all things Jane Austen.

Went charity shop foraging again yesterday and came away with purple and black cotton/silk dress knee length and also rather serious full length black linen dress with lots of buttons.

Successful Foraging

A successful charity shop forage produced a linen/cotton mix grey striped suit for my interview this week - £15. Before that had omlette and chips in a cafe with G- who I met up with in town after morning volunteering in Patients' Cafe. The chips were a bit too dry and healthy. Then we had a nice sunny walk back along the front.

Dorian Grey

Last night I went to see the film adaptation of Dorian Grey. My reactions were largely positive. The film stayed true enough to the book, keeping intact the characters of Henry Wotten and Basil Hallward while using the license of the visual media and the benefit of hindsight to expand upon the implications of the tale. As might be expected, unlike the text the film left little to the imagination as to what terrible depravities Dorian might have got up to. The scenes of debauchery lent the late 1890s quite a 1960s air with young people dancing excitibly to drumming in a respectable drawing room. I tend to think that the demystifying of depravities in texts such as Jekyl and Hyde or Dorian Grey can only be disappointing and banal.

Unless one is going to summon the shadow of the Ripper, what can one say a depraved gentleman has been up to in the East End of London save smoking opium, drinking gin and having sex with the socio-economically deprived?

One thing the film did do particularly well I thought was illustrate the shocking nature of Dorian's failure to age. Having wrought his worst for the time being on the Capital, he decides to go on a lengthy sojourn around the world, there doubtless to engage in further unspeakable actions. Months turn into years and we see Dorian return to a London in which carriages have been replaced by ponderous motor cars, in which young ladies now wear straight unfussy skirts and have a straight, unfussy manner of address. Dorian has returned in the middle of the first world war and the unfussy and staight talking young lady is Sir Henry's daughter who appears to be the same age as Dorian himself. There is a stunned silence as he walks into the drawing room and we see all his old acquaintence very visibly aged while he of course remains the same.

One major objection I did have to the film was that the Portrait made horrible noises which seems entirely wrong.

"The Sundering Flood" Part Two

Finished "The Sundering Flood". As expected all turned out happily.. The last section of the book was primarily dedicated to filling in what happened to Elfhild following her abduction. Having in fact been kidnapped by a scurrilous and cowardly merchant who had lustful designs upon her, Elfhild is rescued by a chivalrous knight who is in love with her. Elfhild honourably warns him that her heart is given to another but he redeems her nonetheless and maintains her as a guest in his castle until he is killed in battle and Elfhild must flee from the cruelty and displeasure of the good knight's unpleasant mother. The striking thing about Elfhild's adventures is that while she is a largely passive figure herself - a beautiful noble object to be handed from one person to another - it is in fact an old witch who is active on her behalf. This "carline" uses all manner of trickery and magic to protect and further the interests of Elfhild, despite having no family relationship to her. She is a sort of surrogate grandmother replacing the two female relatives who were first rather uncaring guardians of Elfhild and then in turn died, leaving her alone other than this old woman. It is interesting that Morris chooses to make his heroine rather helpless and (at least in this section of the narrative) characterless while allowing an elderly woman to be wise and resourceful in her stead.

"Steelhead" reappears again, like a deus ex machina, to save the life of Osberne when he was treacherously set upon by enemies in a deserted place. He scares off his assailants and then carries the badly wounded Osberne to one of those healing hermits most beloved of Arthurian legend. Steelhead, though courteous, expresses some scepticism as to the validity of the hermit's Christian faith. This confirms the impression that Steelhead belongs to some older pagan tradition. His patronage of Osberne recalls to some degree the patronage of gods to Homeric heroes but I suspect his origins could be better found in a study of Norse or Germanic lore which was a subject of particular interest to Morris.

Osberne and Elfhild live out their lives happily at Osberne's old farmstead, scorning any grander fate despite Osberne's great renown. Osberne specifically forswears any further dabbling in knightly adventures. The life of the yeoman is to be preferred to that of the knight or noble.

An engaging and mysterious tale.

"My thoughts on The Sundering Flood" Part One

I am currently reading The Sundering Flood by William Morris. It was dictated from his deathbed and published posthumously in 1897. The novel is important as a work of proto-fantasy fiction; although it is strongly influenced by medieval romance, it differs in being set in an entirely imaginary alternative world.

The work is written in a somewhat tortured pseudo-medieval style which can be irritating particularly at first. One of the great pleasures of reading works written in Middle English is the sometimes startling freshness and directness of phrase.

It tells of the adventures of a young man Osberne a shepherd boy in a remote village which is cut off from its nearest community by an impassible channel of water - the "Sundering Flood". The boy early shows his prowess and hardihood by the slaying of wolves that harried his family's flocks. He also meets a young girl, a shepherdess who lives on the other side of the Sundering Flood so the two can only communicate across the abyss. There is a strong pastoral tone to their early innocent meetings, strongly reminiscient of Longus' Daphnis and Chloe. Osberne also has a mysterious otherworldly ally, wierdly called Steelhead, who gives him sword and arrows of supernatural deadliness and accuracy. Although Osberne is only a young man, his fame grows as his high deeds mount but things are brought to a head when his girlfriend is carried off by raiders. Osberne leaves his farmstead on a quest to recover the maiden and this leads to his serving under a noble knight and aiding him in his wars (once he is convinced they are just wars and that the innocent will be spared from slaughter). True to his socialistic principles, Morris depicts the farmers' son refusing the offer of a knighthood and also aiding his patron in ridding a neighbouring kingdom of its king and setting up a commonwealth run by guilds. He is no closer however to finding Elfhilda and after five years of having no news of her is ready to give up and return home. I shall see what happens next.

What did Aleister Crowley say to his spider plant before he went away on holiday for two weeks?

Do As Thou Wilt

Today I strolled in the park with G- in the late afternoon. Not as flowery as our last visit earlier in the summer. Standing on a picturesque bridge, we gazed at the downward rush of a gushing waterfall.

Here are some photos I took in the park at the beginning of June.