A Book Thief's Confessions

The Silken Tent

2011-04-02T05:30:00.001-07:00

A bizarre idea for a poem, in some ways - comparing your beloved to a tent hardly seems the most romantic simile ever! - but the result is magical:

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To every thing on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.

- Robert Frost

In Memoriam; or, standing on Bangor Pier after a friend's funeral

2011-01-24T15:44:00.000-08:00

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

- Tennyson

Mark Zuckerberg part 2

2010-12-14T07:20:00.000-08:00

Further to that blogpost a few weeks ago, I've just noticed that both Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield have received Golden Globe nominations for The Social Network, hurrah!

More musings in a similar vein...

2010-11-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I was thinking about how people perceive their own futures, and how current society seems defined by a confusion over whether following one's dream is possible, or even sensible. I've just started reading One Day by Dave Nicholls, and it's kept me thinking on that theme. The concept of the book is that we encounter two characters, Dexter and Emma, on one day each year, starting from their first proper meeting the night of their graduation from university. As they get older, we see how their lives pan out, and it's fascinating to compare their actual futures to the ones they hoped for initially.

Here's how Dexter starts out: At twenty-three, Dexter Mayhew's vision of his future was no clearer than Emma Morley's. He hoped to be successful, to make his parents proud and to sleep with more than one woman...but how to make these all compatible? He wanted to feature in magazine articles, and hoped one day for a retrospective of his work, without having any clear notion of what that work might be. He wanted to live life to the extreme, but without any mess or complications. He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. Things should look right. Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary.

And Emma: The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. Eat sensibly. Stuff like that.

"Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world", and other stories

2010-11-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Today, I had a few free hours between an Opera North workshop and some college commitments so, as I am very occasionally wont to do, I made an impromptu solo visit to the cinema. The film I saw was the social network, a reasonably accurate portrayal of the origins of the website we all love to hate, Facebook. It's really very very good indeed, and I'd strongly recommend a viewing; firstly, because it's fascinating to get a hint of what went into the creation of such an internet phenomenon, but also, and more significantly, because the writing is extremely intelligent, the film-making is beautiful and the young acting talent on display is absolutely first-rate: Jesse Eisenberg should unquestionably receive some award nods for his pitiably defiant portrayal of the main character, but mention must also be made of an astonishingly (in my mind, at any rate!) accomplished performance from Justin Timberlake and (the best of all, I reckon) an unforgettably moving turn from Andrew Garfield, last seen on the British theatre stage as Romeo at the Royal Exchange.

What surprised me most, however, was how deeply thought-provoking the experience turned out to be; it was one of those serendipitous things where a piece of Art unexpectedly resonates with stuff going on real life.

Last night, I was having a long chat with one of my housemates, and one of things we talked about was an odd feeling of restlessness in our hearts. We both have so much to be thankful for in our lives and, to a massive extent, are really really happy with our jobs, and our personal situations etc etc...but it never quite takes away this niggling feeling that we're missing something, that there's something more exciting, more fulfilling, more significant that we could be doing. And that made me think of another conversation I'd had at the weekend. Some of the other younger men at church have made, or are considering making, quite dramatic changes in their career paths, and it got a few of us chatting. I made the point that the age in which we live can be very puzzling indeed: young people are now constantly given the message that anything is possible; that, with the right balance of ability and hard work, absolutely anything can achieved. So it's now perfectly acceptable, and often even laudable, for someone who's spent a huge amount of money and time following a particular life-path - like law, or medicine, or teaching, or whatever - to give it all up to pursue their lifelong dream of being, say, a poet, or an entrepreneur, or a textile artist.

And I think that that affects an awful lot of people - they start to wonder whether the life they're living is really "the one", whether they have more to give than their current career or situation exploits, whether it's time that they, too, followed their dreams. But I suppose that it's one of those self-perpetuating myths... In a rather boring, unremarkable way, I guess I am actually living my dreams a bit; a large part of my income comes just from singing and acting, and virtually all my work is Arts-centred, which is one of my biggest passions. But I still spend a lot of time soul-searching and wondering whether it's really the right thing to be doing... At the moment, I'm thinking a lot about whether I would rather focus on performing or education/outreach, and also whether classical singing is really what I want to do, as opposed to some musical theatre, or even straight acting. The restlessness never ends.

Watching the film today brought these thoughts to the forefront of my mind again. The story is populated by immensely gifted young men who, despite their talents, are deeply discontented, and longing to do something of real significance. For the main guy, Mark, the whole Facebook saga stems from his desire to get into the highest rank of Harvard clubs - when asked why, he says "Because they're exclusive and fun, and they lead to a better life." There it is, you see - that underlying suspicion that there are other people around him who are having more fun, achieving more of their potential, heading towards a better future.

So yeah...lots of thinking today! And I haven't really arrived at any conclusions yet. As a Christian, I believe that a lot of the restlessness in the human soul is down to the fact that, in our natural state, we're extremely messed up - our sins have destroyed our relationship with our creator God, and it can only be repaired through faith in Jesus Christ - but even when, by God's mind-blowing mercy, our sins have been forgiven, life seems to still, often, be characterised by restlessness and a fear that we're not fulfilling our own potential. Despite knowing that a truly worthwhile life is one that is spent serving God and telling others about Him, the decisions over what career to pursue, what dreams to follow and what life-path to take are still pretty befuddling, often unbearably so.

But this blogpost is already far too long! So I won't continue. Perhaps there'll be some more thoughts along soon. First, I must update my Facebook status...

I am a camera

2010-10-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier this afternoon, sitting on a sun-warmed bench in leafy Manchester, I finished a rather wonderful book called Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.

No. Even now I can't altogether believe that any of this has really happened...

Isherwood lived in Berlin in the early 1930s, and watched first-hand as Hitler rose to power. He taught English, and did some writing, and changed accommodation a lot, depending on his variable income; but what he did most of all was just observe - watch as an extraordinary city went through some extraordinary circumstances.

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.

The writing is absolutely beautiful, but it's almost secondary to the incredible sense of ever-weakening defiance against inevitable darkness with which Isherwood manages to permeate the book. His friends and acquaintances include cabaret singers, businessmen, beggars, prostitutes, Nazis, landladies, homosexuals, Communists, barmen, con-artists, Jews, barons and many, many more - each lives in a very different situation to the others but all of them are fighting, desperately struggling to preserve an illusion that their lives will get better... They are all absolutely terrified and deeply unhappy, but rarely allow it to show. It has echoes of both Mrs Dalloway and The Great Gatsby, in different ways, which is probably why I loved it so much!

When I have been listening for some time, I find myself relapsing into a curious trance-like state of depression. I begin to feel profoundly unhappy. Where are all those lodgers now? Where, in another ten years, shall I be, myself? Certainly not here. How many seas and frontiers shall I have to cross to reach that distant day; how far shall I have to travel, on foot, on horseback, by car, push-bike, aeroplane, steamer, train, lift, moving-staircase and tram? How much money shall I need for that enormous journey? How much food must I gradually, wearily consume on my way? How many pairs of shoes shall I wear out? How many thousands of cigarettes shall I smoke? How many cups of tea shall I drink and how many glasses of beer? What an awful tasteless prospect! And yet - to have to die... A sudden vague pang of apprehension grips my bowels and I have to excuse myself to go to the lavatory.

Our natural inarticulateness, and Shakespeare: some thoughts!

2010-07-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

I saw a life-affirmingly wonderful production of As you like it earlier this week (hopefully I'll blog about it soon) and it put me in mind of a poem I wrote about a year ago. It sprang from a desire to convey an idea in my head - that, for a lot of us, we love Shakespeare because he never shies away from attempting to convey the giddiness and terror and ecstasy of all aspects of life. We are all very inarticulate, I think (that's true isn't it? We can never quite express exactly what's in our heads or hearts?), and I love Shakespeare because he gets closer than I ever could to properly putting into words things that I feel. Stuff like Lear, on Cordelia's death: No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! Which of us hasn't wanted to scream that after a loved one's death?

Anyway, I wanted to write a poem that starts out like a Shakespearean sonnet, but whose structure gradually disintegrates as the writer loses faith in the form, feeling that it's too emotionally honest for modern sensibilities - and then, at the very end, there would be a glimpse of true feeling again. It may be rubbish (and please don't feel obliged to read it if the very idea makes you cringe - I would usually be appalled at the idea of someone displaying their poetry in public! A bit like holiday photos, I guess) but it conveys a thought in my head better than prose can, I think:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Or number all thine attributes and charms,

Until thy soul seem'd all but writ away

And I should run to clasp you in my arms?

I laugh: already, how my pen recoils

From these old forms - he knows his master, so

He corrects "thee" and, here, the metre spoils

A little. Still, I'll struggle on, I -

No. It does feel a bit OTT, tbh.

We're kinda past that, aren't we? Society. Us.

You'd cringe, probably - a sonnet?! - I'd blush. Stammer.

Not worth the effort, mate.

And yet... Inside, I long to flee this curse.

My lips may lie; my heart must speak in verse.

Breakfast

2010-03-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big of fan of breakfast, generally, but I read an article on it recently that may alter my perceptions. Here's a quote:

It's at the right end of the day: the morning, a time of beginnings and possibilities, a time when problems have been slept on, when solutions haven't yet proven unworkable, when nothing specific has gone wrong. And if you've made it to breakfast, even if it's just toast at the kitchen table, then you've already achieved something. You're alive. You're feeding yourself. You're viable. Breakfast may be a small thing, but greatness starts with small things. Greatness starts with breakfast.

Something to think about!

"Thou wilt turn again to me...for of all fowles that may fly, thou art most meeke and hende."

2010-03-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in rehearsals to play Mr Noah for an RNCM Outreach production of Benjamin Britten's wonderful opera Noye's Fludde, based on Genesis 6-9. It's brilliant music, and we're planning quite a fun staging, with lots of umbrellas (hurrah!), but my favourite thing about it is the very first scene, which has Noah hearing God's voice ordering him to build the ark. In this production, the stage is covered in cardboard boxes laid out in the shape of a huge cross; that shape is then taken apart, and the boxes in it are used to build the Ark. I love this, because it's become, in my mind, a unintentional visual metaphor. How brilliant that the Cross becomes the Ark, as both were used in the Bible as a means of salvation: Noah's Ark kept a family and all the world's animals safe from the Flood; the Cross, on which Jesus died, provided a way for each one of us to be saved from the punishment we deserve for the sinful way in which we live.

The other wonderful thing is that it's written in old English, so you get amazing lines like

And heare are beares, woulfes, sette,

Apes and monkeys, marmosette,

Weyscelles, squirelles, and ferrette...

Such fun!

...and a night that drags interminably!

2009-12-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Oh dear. It's suddenly Christmas Eve, the one night of the year that last about 1,000,000 hours....

Merry Christmas everyone! And, very possibly, a New Year that may even contain a few blogposts.

Joy to the World!

Two men a-questing!

2009-12-24T00:54:00.000-08:00

I really do think Ben Fogle and James Cracknell are two of the most brilliant guys on the planet. I'm currently watching the documentary following their attempt to race to the South Pole last year, and it's absolutely fantastic; they truly are living the dream for those of us who long for traditional, Boy's-Own-type adventures in farflung places!

Three Magi a-journeying!

2009-12-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

One of the pieces of music I'm practising furiously at the moment is Benjamin Britten's Journey of the Magi, a weird and wonderful setting of the famous poem by T S Eliot. It's a mesmerising piece of work, imagining what might have gone through the minds of the wise men as they journeyed to Bethlehem. A hard time we had of it is the verdict, as they describe the obstacles they faced, and the doubt in their minds: the voices singing in our ears, saying that this was all folly.

The final stanza intrigues me the most, in which the Magi look back at the end of their quest; Eliot, himself undergoing something of a religious awakening at this point in his life, has the men commenting on the strange shadows of Death that seemed to linger around the Christ-child's birth, and their realisation that their world would forever be different.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Four TV shows a-watching!

2009-12-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

Christmas is the only time of the year during which I vaguely schedule my life around television. Here are my four festive highlights this year:

Cranford The marvellous 2007 drama, based on novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, has returned to our screens with an even more astonishing cast of British talent, including rising stars Jodie Whittaker (Izzy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles) and Matthew McNulty (Fisher Bloom in Lark Rise)
Outnumbered The funniest thing on television? A close contender.
Turn of the Screw Henry James's terrifying ghost story, made into an amazing opera by Benjamin Britten, and now adapted for televsion by the BBC. The preview clips alone chill the blood, so goodness knows whether I'll survive the full drama!
Doctor Who Enough said.

Five gooooooooooold riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings!

2009-12-20T01:23:00.000-08:00

Everyone loves that bit!

Six plays a-coming!

2009-12-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

One of the most exciting things about a new year is the promise of new theatre. Here, in no particular order, are the plays to which I'm most looking forward in 2010:

Women beware Women by Thomas Middleton (National Theatre) I love the dark grotesquerie of Restoration drama (anyone remember The Revenger's Tragedy from 2008?!) and this play is a brilliant example of the genre. It's directed by Marianne Elliott, whose All's well that ends well was a massive highlight of 2009, so will undoubtedly be startling and original.
Henry IV part 1 by William Shakespeare (Globe) It's a play that everyone raves about, and which is most famous for being the first appearance of the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, but I have never seen it and, indeed, know very little about it. The Globe's Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole, is helming this production, and he is known for his insightful, honest interpretations of Shakespeare, so this promises to be very excellent indeed.
La morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory (Royal Shakespeare Company) Wonderful! A brand-new adaptation of the King Arthur legends, directed by the fantastic Greg Doran, and performed by the RSC's resident ensemble. Can't wait!
1984 by George Orwell (Royal Exchange Theatre) Matthew Dunster, responsible for the astonishing production of Macbeth from earlier this year, has adapted this wonderful novel, and will direct the first production. I imagine it will be terrifying and brutal, and excellently theatrical.
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (Royal Exchange Theatre) A classic play that I've never seen before. The REX is so good at plays from this period (think of An Ideal Husband, Hay Fever etc) that is guaranteed to be an absolute treat.
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (Lowry) The West End's most terrifying play finally tours to Manchester! Hurrah! Eeek!

Seven carols a-singing!

2009-12-18T06:14:00.001-08:00

Top 7 carols today, in reverse order:

7. Angels from the realms of glory This appeals to the singer in me, as the chorus is a genuine challenge to sing in one breath...
6. The First Nowell Ever since hearing Olly Hamilton's incredible arrangement at the Platt Carol Service two years ago, this has been a firm favourite; it seems to have a fantastic joy and spirit that, to my ear, is quintessentially festive.
5. O come, all ye faithful A classic. Beautiful harmonies, a sensible key signature that allows everyone to sing the high notes in the right octave and, of course, one of the best descants ever!
4. In the bleak midwinter It's all about the cheesey last verse "What can I give him?... Give him my heart" Lovely!
3. O little town of Bethlehem I'm not totally sure what my favourite thing about this one is - it's a close tie between the hushed awe of the third verse, and the gloriously soaring descant in the final verse.
2. God rest ye, merry gentleman Carols in a minor key make me feel more Christmassy than ones in a major key. A strange fact, but a true one. The best thing about this carol is the final verse of the David Willcocks arrangement, where the sopranos and altos sing wordless, spinetingling chords above the men belting out the tune.
1. O come, O come Emmanuel Again, it's in a minor key, so it's an immediate winner - but this one has an elusively haunting, poignant quality that gives it the top spot in my shortlist; and, of course, the top Ds on "Rejoice!" in the chorus are a bass-baritone's delight!

So, there we go. Any controversial choices? You decide.

Eight decades a-passing!

2009-12-17T12:05:00.000-08:00

The BBC recently adapted Andrea Levy's bestselling novel Small Island, and it is currently available to watch on iPlayer. It's a fantastic drama, taking place over the 1930s and 40s and telling the story of a Jamaican couple, Gilbert and Hortense Joseph, who move to London in search of a new life. Here they become involved with Queenie Bligh, a young landlady awaiting her husband's return from the War.

It will come as no surprise to learn that a big theme of the film is racism. It's a subject that is hardly new fodder for TV drama, but I really was sobered by the outrageous way in which the Josephs are treated by so many of the British public in this story. When you reflect on the fact that we are only a mere eight decades away from the era in which Small Island is set - less than a lifetime, really - it is an unsettling experience.

For the most part, the Josephs maintain an impressive dignity in the face of their struggles and, in many cases, seem much more civilised than their mockers. There is a lovely moment when Gilbert introduces Hortense to the wonders of fish and chips; he explains that the English eat the meal straight from newspaper, without cutlery, and Hortense's response is an utterly bewildered "Like monkeys?"

Oh, and the ending had me shedding a small tear! Cracking stuff.

Nine books a-reading!

2009-12-15T14:43:00.000-08:00

I have been uncharacteristically extravagant in recent days; normally I only buy books second-hand, to save money, but there have been a few good offers in Waterstones et al, and I have taken these opportunities to restock my bookshelves. Consequently, I am in the joyous position of having NINE shiny new novels waiting to be read:

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M T Anderson
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz
The Gift by Cecilia Ahern
The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith
Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes

The Anthony Horowitz is particularly exciting as it is the latest in my beloved series of Alex Rider novels - a brilliant collection of books about a teenager in the employ of MI5.

Exciting! If there is anything particularly notable in any of them, perhaps it will even find its way onto this blog...

Ten Doctors a-regenerating!

2009-12-15T06:26:00.000-08:00

(Sorry, it's a day late... I was away yesterday.)

This Christmas will be, in many ways, a time of worldwide mourning, as something unthinkably sad is going to happen... David Tennant will be leaving the role of the Doctor forever!

While I have no doubts at all about the quality of his successor Matt Smith (a lead role in the marvellous Sally Lockhart Mysteries plus a play at the Royal Exchange - who can ever cast aspersions on his acting credentials?!), Tennant's departure will be very difficult to accept! I am undoubtedly going to cry like a little girl!

Eleven chills a-tingling!

2009-12-13T08:21:00.000-08:00

There is something about the traditional, old-fashioned, round-the-fire ghost story that seems inextricably linked to Christmas. I suspect that's something to do with the dark nights, and the idea of a reunited family shutting the curtains and gathering around to share chilling tales...

In any case, I have, for the last few years, endeavoured to read a good ghost story over the Christmas period. It's usually the Victorians and Edwardians who understood the genre best (and the titles are always brilliant - who but Henry James could pen something like The Strange Romance of Certain Old Clothes?!) but the one modern writer who I think has properly inherited her predecessor's talents is the wonderful Susan Hill. This Christmas, I shall be reading her acknowledged masterpiece The Woman in Black, which is now most famous for its stage adaptation, one of the West End's most successful plays. From browsing the first few pages, I know it to be the story of a young man named Arthur Kipps who experiences something terrible in a lonely house on the moors and, years, later is compelled to relate the tale:

They had chided me with being a spoilsport, tried to encourage me to tell them the one ghost story I must surely, like any other man, have it in me to tell. And they were right. Yes, I had a story, a true story, a story of haunting and evil, fear and confusion, horror and tragedy. But it was not a story to be told for casual entertainment, around the fireside upon Christmas Eve...

I beg to differ, Mr Kipps! Tell on!

Twelve days a-counting!

2009-12-12T15:22:00.001-08:00

Right, I have come up with a personal challenge to try and get me back into the habit of blogging: it's twelve days until Christmas, and on each day between now and then, I shall endeavour to write a post that has some vague relation to the number of days left...in a vague semblance of the 12 days of Christmas... Bear with me! It might be fun!

A new beginning? Not convinced...

2009-12-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

Well it's taken me over a year, but I just might have found the inner strength to return to the world of blogging... We'll see how it goes.

Many things have changed in my life since my last post: the Ginger House, tragically, has disbanded; I'm now at the Royal Northern College of Music, doing a Masters in vocal performance; and, most significantly for this blog, I have read many more books and seen a lot more theatre. There is definite potential for some Confessions, methinks...

The last Last Word

2008-09-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

The fantastic thing about these monologues has been the way in which each one is so different from the other two. The final one, A bit of Private Business, stars Bob Hoskins as a hitman waiting in a public toilet for his next target. Hoskins is so good at this sort of thing, and his comic timing is pretty much impeccable, making much of this monologue very funny indeed. But, in keeping with the other two, things eventually turn a bit darker...the man finds himself meditating on age, loneliness, and the feeling of a world moving on while some people get left behind, and the end of the piece is so surprising that it takes a little while for you to realise how significant it is - the hitman has outlined for us the black-and-white rules and principles of his world, but ultimately we see that, tragically, the things he believes in cannot be trusted any longer.

In summary, these monologues by Hugo Blick have been really quite excellent. Managing to balance comedy and tragedy is a tricky one, but each piece has done it, brilliantly.

The Last Word...again

2008-09-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

I was wrong, it seems - the monologues are about imminent death, but not necessarily the death of the narrator, as in the first one; in the second one, Six days one June, it is the mother of the storyteller who is on the verge of dying. This one is very unsettling, about a forty-year-old farmer called Huw (played by Rhys Ifans, the master-portrayar of tortured souls) narrating what, at first, appears to be a Lonely-Hearts-type advert, but ultimately becomes a sort of confessional video diary as his story turns darker. Ifans manages to make the character both horrific and pathetic in equal measure; it's a very subtle, mesmerising performance that makes Huw's inevitable breakdown horribly enthralling, as he obsessively washes his face and gives way to wracking sobs.

Brrrr...not comfortable viewing! But thoughtprovoking enough to make it worth a watch.

The Last Word

2008-08-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

This post's title isn't a way of saying I'm not going to blog anymore - au contraire, this in fact marks my long-overdue return to blogging after several months of silence! It really refers to a mini-series of thirty-minute dramas that recently aired on BBC One called The Last Word Monologues, thus named because they each feature a character on the verge of dying. I've only watched the first one, but it was so excellent that I thought I'd blog before I watch the other two.

Subtitled Before I call you in, this monologue had Sheila Hancock playing a woman with an untreatable illness recording her last message to her husband before her death. There were lots of snide reviews and comments in the press about Hancock's "stagey" performance, or the "unnatural" script, but I just found it incredibly poignant and beautiful. This is largely due to Hancock's masterfully restrained performance - she's always been known for her ability to do raw emotion effectively, and this is a perfect vehicle for her talents - but credit must go to the writer and director, Hugo Blick, too, as the interchange of anecdotes and reflection is very well-judged. The best bit, for me, is when the woman urges her husband to remarry within a year; this is when Hancock is at her best, gazing straight into the camera with tears in her eyes, blazing with sheer emotion.

Quick, get it on iPlayer before it goes!

The Mistletoe Bough

2008-05-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

A slightly random post, but this is a fantastic Victorian ballad by Thomas Haynes Bailey that my friend Felix has set to music and it is so wonderfully melodramatic and gruesome that I wanted to share it with everyone!

The mistletoe hung in the castle hall
The holly branch shone on the old oak wall.
The Baron's retainers were blithe and gay,
Keeping the Christmas holiday.
The Baron beheld with a father's pride
His beautiful child, Lord Lovell's bride.
And she, with her bright eyes seemed to be
The star of that goodly company.

"I'm weary of dancing, now," she cried;
"Here, tarry a moment, I'll hide, I'll hide,
And, Lovell, be sure you're the first to trace
The clue to my secret hiding place."
Away she ran, and her friends began
Each tower to search and each nook to scan.
And young Lovell cried, "Oh, where do you hide?
I'm lonesome without you, my own fair bride."

They sought her that night, they sought her next day,
They sought her in vain when a week passed away.
In the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot,
Young Lovell sought wildly, but found her not.
The years passed by and their brief at last
Was told as a sorrowful tale long past.
When Lovell appeared, all the children cried,
"See the old man weeps for his fairy bride."

At length, an old chest that had long laid hid
Was found in the castle; they raised the lid.
A skeleton form lay mouldering there
In the bridal wreath of that lady fair.
How sad the day when in sportive jest
She hid from her lord in the old oak chest,
It closed with a spring and a dreadful doom,
And the bride lay clasped in a living tomb.

Sarah Edwards's Sovereign God

2008-05-02T05:57:00.000-07:00

I've already mentioned that I'm reading The Pleasures of God by John Piper at the moment - towards the end of chapter two he deals with the whole question of God's sovereignty over all events, particularly in terms of how we cope with tragedy and loss knowing that even the saddest moments of life are still within God's plan and purposes. He quotes a letter written by Sarah Edwards (wife of the theologian Jonathan Edwards) to her daughter Esther, upon being told that Jonathan had died after contracting smallpox:

What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had [Jonathan] so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be.

It is Clarissa, he said.

2008-04-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

So, on Friday morning I finished Mrs Dalloway...

My goodness me. I can't even begin to describe what it's like, it is so utterly unique out of all the books I have read. With every page, the depiction of the characters becomes richer and richer and, as the various streams of consciousness chase each other through the overall narrative, every thought is so poignant; the insignificant, tragic, beautiful stories of incredibly real people became shockingly powerful. Virginia Woolf suffered from mental problems throughout virtually the whole of her life, and I think that contributed to how perceptively she was able to depict and understand people; surely, at the very least, it must have informed her portrayal of Septimus Warren Smith, one of the book's most heartbreaking figures, going quietly and willingly mad from shellshock as his desperate wife tries to help him somehow.

There is so much wit here, too, but almost always in a brutal way - one of the most pathetic characters, Miss Killman, is enjoying an internal tirade against Clarissa Dalloway, whom she despises, when the cringeworthy comment is inserted (she herself when alone in the evening found comfort in a violin; but the sound was excruciating; she had no ear) - we already loathe Miss Killman, but this extra bit of information damns her even further.

All in all, it's a breathtaking read, and one to which I am sure I will return continually through my life. It's a mark of how much I loved it that it has now appeared on my "Favourite Books" list on Facebook (!) - joining such masterpieces as Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Gormenghast and The Book Thief.

"Peter! Peter!" cried Clarissa, following him out on to the landing. "My party! Remember my party tonight!" she cried, having to raise her voice against the roar of the open air, and, overwhelmed by the traffic and the sound of all the clocks striking, her voice crying "Remember my party tonight!" sounded frail and thin and very far away as Peter Walsh shut the door.

Many books

2008-04-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

Ach it has been a while since last I posted: life has been a bit mental of late so I have been neglecting my blogging. However, I have had many hours of travelling time so have done lots of reading, Hurrah! So here is a bit of an update on my literary journeys.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - I bought this on a bit of a whim in a second-hand bookshop in York, it was a beautiful two volume set which cried out to be purchased! Read the first volume over about a month and it was fantastic - the prose is quite dense so does require a fair bit of mental commitment, but the characters are so well drawn that you get lost in it very quickly. Tolstoy's grasp of human nature is extraordinary - each of his Russian aristocrats have their emotions, desires and fears sketched out masterfully, and the reader gradually realises that the one thing they have in common is a dissatisfaction with their own lives. Only one man, Levin, begins to grasp where he might find fulfilment and this occurs when he takes to the fields with his peasant employees and works alongside them in their labours - this brings home to him the complete emptiness of the lives of his wealthy friends. What Tolstoy conveys brilliantly is the inevitability of each character's destiny, as a result of their actions - Chapter 22 of Part 2 has a very sobering paragraph when two of the main characters (who are having an affair) come to realise where this course of events will take them, signified by the their awkwardness around the woman's son: The sensation he aroused [in them both] might be compared to that of a seafarer who can see by the compass that his vessel is drifting away in the wrong direction and that he is powerless to stop it. Every moment sees him getting farther and farther, with nothing but ruin before him. The child was the compass that showed them what they knew only too well, but refused to recognise. Am anxious to get stuck into the second volume but I will leave it a while.

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith - This author is, of course, best known for his books about Precious Ramotswe, the No. 1 Ladies Detective - I do love those books, but prefer his lesser-known series about Isabel Dalhousie, professional philosopher and part-time sleuth, who lives in Edinburgh. This particular book is the second in the series, and it is simply marvellous - Isabel is a brilliant viewpoint character, meditating wittily on every event of life, and the ingenious plots rattle along at an excellent pace, making the books impossible to put down.

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - This is my current one, I'm only about thirty pages in but am already enchanted. Woolf's style of writing is incredible - basically one long stream of consciousness containing all of Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts on one particular day - and you emerge from the book feeling like you've inhaled some sort of heady incense. More on this once I've finished it...

The Pleasures of God by John Piper - I've been reading this for a while, in partnership with my friend Sam; again, it requires a lot of concentration but I'm trying hard to really engage with what the author says, and evaluate his points. The basic premise is to expound upon the things in which God takes delight, as shown by the Bible: chapter one deals with God's pleasure in His Son, while chapter two considers His pleasure in His works. It's all very thought-provoking, the margins are slowly filling up with my pencil annotations!

That's it for now! Lots of good stuff, although a little bit tiring to read...I think I need a reliable murder mystery to be the next novel!

Come cangia in un punto il tuo destino

2008-04-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Life is pleasingly unpredictable when you can only afford to buy discounted produce in Sainsbury's. Tonight, for example, I popped in on my way home from work, intending to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese and a couple of mushrooms...instead, I left the store with one peach yoghurt, a carton of chilli vegetable soup and a bag of brioche.

Previous post continued; or, "Love is paying attention."

2008-03-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

So, Jonah and Otto...I was quite disarmed, really, as I was expecting some Pinter/Beckett-esque modern theatre piece, with the slightly elusive quality that characterises both those playwrights. It wasn't anything like that, really: yes, the dialogue was a bit heightened (in a poetic way) but ultimately this play was a very straightforward portrayal of a developing relationship between two very different men who begin as strangers and leave as, well, not exactly friends, but something close to that. What was remarkable, however, about this play was the way in which it made you realise that people are not straightforward - we always make assumptions about the people we meet, but there are extraordinary depths to them that need uncovering. Here, we initially saw Otto as a straitlaced and slightly peculiar old man; Jonah as an unstable, smart-mouthed hoodlum. Both of these assumptions were proved to be totally wrong. We watched, captivated, as the two men uncovered their own and each other's insecurities, secrets, longings and fears; as the balance of power shifted between them; as they both were changed by their encounter. The final (and briefest) scene is absolutely beautiful - the two men part, and virtually nothing is said to each other, but we know and they know just how much they have connected and just how long they will stay in each other's mind and heart.

"a single tear falls from his eye"

2008-03-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight, a bunch of us are going to see a play called Jonah and Otto by Robert Holman; I am very excited, mainly because I know next to nothing about it. Holman is not a playwright whose work I know at all - the only things I know about him are taken from an article written by another playwright, Simon Stephens. The article seems to suggest that Holman plays are always incredibly thought-provoking, beautifully written and have an emphasis on strong visual imagery. Sounds good to me. The article ends: "If you are new to his plays, I envy you. You're about to embark, in my opinion, on something rather extraordinary."

More of this later...

Meeow

2008-03-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Last night a group of us went to the Royal Northern College of Music to watch a double bill of Ravel operas, L'heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortileges - both were fantastic (the first one is a hilariously stupid farce with gorgeous music) but it was the second one that really dazzled us all. It's a much-neglected opera, mainly because it's so hard to stage: the story revolves around a little boy who misbehaves, and is punished by the household objects he has mistreated, so the director must somehow come up with ingenious ways of making chairs, crockery and a fire (!) come to life and start singing! This production was fantastic, both visually and musically - particular highlights were:

The Princess suddenly rising up out of the boy's storybook - audible gasps from me, and everyone else
The wallpaper coming to life, and the beautiful quasi-pastoral music that followed
The terrifying sequence with Mr Arithmetic and the numbers
The spine-tingling moment when the set opened out to change from the living room into the garden outside - many more audible gasps!

Fantastic stuff.

10 Days to War

2008-03-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

Since Monday, there have been a series of 10-minute dramas, one broadcast each day, to mark the anniversary of Britain's commitment to the war in Iraq. If you haven't seen them, I really would urge you to go onto BBC iPlayer and watch the ones that have been on so far - they're all a portrayal of a real event that happened in the ten days leading up to the start of the war (Monday's, for example, entitled A Simple Private Matter, is about Elizabeth Wilmshurt, a senior civil servant who resigned on the basis that the country could not legally justify going to war) and are incredibly well-acted and though-provoking.

"I thought one was enough; it's not true."

2008-03-02T12:41:00.000-08:00

I don't read much non-fiction, aside from Christian books - there's just so much amazing fiction around that I get a bit distracted...but, just occasionally, I read a true story that takes my breath away. One such book (which I've just finished reading) is The Two of Us by the actress Sheila Hancock, about her life with John Thaw (of Inspector Morse fame). Thaw died of cancer in 2002, and the book is mainly about Hancock dealing with the death of her husband - her diary extracts from 2001-3 are interspersed throughoutt the biographical stuff.

It's a beautiful, beautiful book, but two things struck me in particular. Hancock relates some of the letters that helped her most after Thaw's death, including this quote: "Time does not heal, nor any belief, but our own common sense, determination and courage will get us through". As I read it, I realised the truthfulness of it - there's often a lot of feeling among Christians that, when a believer whom you love dies, we should use the knowledge that we'll see them again one day as a kind of antidote to grief. I discovered, when my Grandad died last year, that it doesn't work like that - while I know it is utterly true that he's in heaven, and that I will see him again, that truth in itself does not help me deal with his absence here on earth. It's at times like this that I realise how incredibly wrong people are when they dismiss the Christian faith as an "emotional crutch" to help one through the bad times; I miss Grandad hugely, irrespective of the fact that I know he's in a better place where, one day, we'll be reunited. "Time does not heal, nor any belief", you see. What my faith does provide, however, is not an emotional crutch to take away pain, but rather the knowledge of a loving God who watches over me; it can only be through His strength that "common sense, determination and courage will get [me] through".

The other very touching section comes in the Prologue, where Hancock relates this story:
"Walking in our field. A soft mist of rain. The sun shining behind the drizzle. A rainbow forms across the sky behind me. It reflects in the raindrops on grass and trees. Millions of multicoloured baubles, iridescent, extraordinary.
John, quick, come and look.
Racing back over the wooden bridge, into the conservatory, I toss aside his script, grab his hand and pull him, limping and protesting, to my magic vision.
It's gone.
Oh, great. Miserable wet trees, driving rain and soaking wet trouser legs - thanks a bunch.
But it was beautiful.
Well, you daft thing, why didn't you stay and enjoy it?
I couldn't enjoy it properly without you."
That's why relationships (whether that be friends, lovers or family) are so fundamental to life - having someone to share things with makes everything so much more beautiful.

Times have changed

2008-02-28T13:53:00.001-08:00

This is a brilliant piece of trivia for any resident of Manchester: In 1850, Charlotte Brontë came to stay in Plymouth Grove with fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, and wrote the following about the charming area of Moss Side - "In this hot weather the windows are kept open; the whispering of leaves and perfume of flowers pervades the rooms."

What might she say now?! "In this hot weather the windows are still locked and barred; the wailing of burgler alarms and stench of dead cats pervades the rooms." Ah...how different life is now.

The noblest vocation

2008-02-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

We had a concert at school tonight and two of my singing students sang.

I think I might have now come to understand why teaching is so fantastic - I felt so incredibly proud of them as I watched them perform, and the idea that I have helped them in some way, however small, to enjoy singing more...well, it's just brilliant.

Just brilliant.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again..."

2008-02-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

I read Daphne du Maurier's acknowledged masterpiece Rebecca last summer, and came to understand why it's regarded as such a fantastic book...I couldn't put it down, reading til the early hours of the morning then getting so scared that I'd have to stop until the daytime! What affected me most was the sense of dread and impending disaster that permeates the whole novel...you keep reading out of morbid fascination, really, to reach the inevitably chilling end as quickly as possible.

On Monday this week I began to read another of her books, Jamaica Inn - as I expected, I was immediately hooked all over again. It was written before Rebecca, and you can probably tell that it's not as mature in construction as the later book, but the Gothic terror is still there in abundance, as well as the enigmatic characters and the approaching doom.

"From far away, across many fields and scattered ploughlands, came the merry peal of bells, odd and discordant, in the morning air.
She remember suddenly that it was Christmas Day."

It will not be a happy Christmas for the inhabitants of the Jamaica Inn.

A small observation

2008-02-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

It is often very good indeed to sit down and chat about life with your housemates.

"What's she on about now?"

2008-02-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

A bunch of us went to see the play Roots by Arnold Wesker tonight - it was fantastic in the way that a play should be, in that it left us all very thoughtful and unsure about what the final message was. Beattie has her big epiphany about life and family and roots and everything else, and is thrilled to discover that she is finally thinking for herself, but the viewer can't help feeling...what good will it do her? Can she really change life now? Of course not - she has made herself completely alone: her family will never ever understand her now, and the man she loves has deserted her because she didn't become the woman he wanted until it's too late.

So it's a bit bleak but incredibly thought-provoking too.

As all good plays should be.

"How do you do it?" - Adelaide Midwinter

2008-02-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

Life is strange; we all know this, obviously, but it can still wrongfoot you. A person you think you know very well can do something unexpectedly hurtful and not even realise; a fictional story (tonight, Lark Rise to Candleford) can inexplicably upset you even though it's not real.

That's the weirdness of life, I suppose, and the complexities of people.

But, then again, we sang a wonderful hymn in church this morning:

We have an anchor that keeps the soul
Steadfast and sure when the billows roll.
Fastened to the rock which cannot move -
Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour's love.

It's a slightly cliched chorus really, the kind of song that one associates with brass bands and community hymn-singing; nowadays, we prefer poetic beauty or pop-esque cheese in our Christian songs, not this outright simplicity of faith. But it's so true. Sometimes, when life just throws something at me that brings me close to tears, all I have left is this unshakeable truth: that I have an anchor in Jesus Christ. And that's all I need.

A first attempt

2008-02-16T02:04:00.000-08:00

So this is my first venture into the world of blogging...we'll see how it goes. My housemates reliably inform me that it is an excellent thing to be doing, anyway.

Now, my blog's title refers to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which I've just finished reading; I can't really recommend it highly enough - it really is simply astounding. A little girl named Liesel Meminger is living in Munich during the Nazi regime, and this is the story (narrated by Death himself) of how she tried to change the world in her own small way. Zusak's writing style is remarkable, it's some of the most poetic prose I've ever read. Read it! Everyone should! At once!

So since that's the last book I read, and I loved it so much, I thought I might steal the Thief herself for my blog title; and it's quite appropriate, as I love books and I prophesy that most of my posts will probably be book-related...so here you go, some confessions from this particular book thief for you to read whenever you feel like it.

For now, I'll leave a quote from the book:
"I am haunted by humans." - Death