Marilyn was a movie icon that has always intrigued me. In fact one of the first essays of any substance that I remember writing as a teenager, was about Marilyn Monroe, and how people are seldom what they seem.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thought for the Weekend - Marilyn Monroe
I'm in the middle of reading 'Marilyn Monroe - The Personal Archives' at the moment, so I guess it is of no surprise that Marilyn gets the ticket this week.
Marilyn was a movie icon that has always intrigued me. In fact one of the first essays of any substance that I remember writing as a teenager, was about Marilyn Monroe, and how people are seldom what they seem.
Marilyn was a movie icon that has always intrigued me. In fact one of the first essays of any substance that I remember writing as a teenager, was about Marilyn Monroe, and how people are seldom what they seem.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Walking/Photo Journal - Reluctance
I dragged myself out walking today, and pretty soon I felt a bit like Robert Frost when he wrote about the end of a season.
Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
- Robert Frost -
Magpie Tales - Escape
Escape
Her twelve year old feet run through the forest, they are bare and she is freezing. There are lots of dark places hidden within the trees. Beyond the tallest trees she can see the light glistening, calling her, telling her the way.
The light she knows is her only hope; she tries to stay focused, pushing herself forward, but her knees are weak, and she loses balance. She has to get up, escape. The white canvass soaks through her, eating her skin as the trees swirl and she falls further still.
The trees are closer now and so is the noise, a loud echo, that tells her, he is close.
http://magpietales.blogspot.com/
Thursday, January 27, 2011
In the Skin of the Lion - Book Club Review
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| Michael Ondaatje |
As you will see from the reviews below, we are a mixed bunch when it comes to opinions. Certainly Mr Ondaatje caused some very lively debate regarding quality prose versus the merits/necessity for plot. Some people fell in love, whilst others were less so. All part of life's rich tapestry I guess!!
(See excerpt link below)
I love In the Skin of a Lion because it changed my opinion of what a novel can be. Michael Ondaatje is a very unique writer - his style and sense of structure is very distinctive and original. He is not linear, and eventually, as his 'very faint, very human' structure reveals itself, I found myself submitting to a free, image and character-driven version of storytelling. What is initially frustrating but ultimately liberating is the extent to which he allows you to make up your own mind. I like that sense of unpredictability in Ondaatje, that the story is written on the wing (like life) and that the story can go anywhere at any time. Not many novelists are able to make you feel you are on such a free-floating journey when you read their books.
Ondaatje is a great writer, it's just a shame that he's not such a good storyteller.
Hauntingly beautiful, perfect writing, poetic, moving, thought provoking - this book really does ‘bristle with intelligence’ as the blurb on the back cover suggests. Historically very informative I felt I learnt a lot about Canada’s backwoods and the ‘throbbing polyglot city’ - and about the particular tensions between rich and poor, excess and want. The descriptions of work, of back breaking labour and the products of that labour were also exceptional.
Maybe I’m just too tired but I had to work a little too hard at times to follow the plot– I got lost and had to re-read a good bit to the point where I have to confess I wouldn’t have made it had I not committed to read it in the group. This would have been an awful shame because I would have missed so much and especially the exhilarating debate it caused. I fell in love with four of the characters - Nicholas, Hana, Caravaggio and Gianetta (in the order in which we meet them). Maybe I haven’t read enough of this postmodern structure and it will grow on me but – in the end - in terms of plot I felt a bit left at sea like Caravaggio and Gianetta – and not sure if the author will come back for me.
Really nice, poetic writing, shame about the plot being stuck so deep in Mr Ondaatje's subconscious that he completely failed to tell us poor mere mortal readers what was going on.
I was left with a love/hate feeling towards ‘In the Skin of a Lion’, mainly because Ondaatje sought to bury plot and understanding so deep that at times, it was like finding a needle in a haystack, a beautiful haystack, but a haystack all the same. The novel has merit on many fronts, some of the brief encounters alone, like the meeting with the young boy Al, by themselves would salvage you from hating this novel because of their pure joy to read. There is absolutely no doubt that the man can write and does so brilliantly about love and sex and many other things, but at a cost. Overall I was glad I read it, and understood that it would not be a linear tale, but his ‘very faint, very human’ structure', (a quote I got from google during the reading of the novel, because I needed to know what made the man tick!) was a little too faint for my mental well being at times.
This book is about the immigrants in Toronto in the 1920’s who built the bridges, waterworks, tunnels. It is about the dispossessed, those without who see the lives of the rich and feel the anger burning within them. Sometimes they rise against it or get drunk and feel kinship among their own. It is a book about love. Love that doesn’t own but is given freely. It is a book about life, the whimsy of it and the way we grow. Above all, it is a book about language that makes each reading, be it the second, third or hundredth, as pleasurable, if not more so then the first. It is a work of genius. Allow yourself to be immersed within its pages and the world changes.
In the Skin of a Lion - all 20 pages I managed - suggested itself as a challenging, yet beautifully written novel. Creating a fierce debate about whether exquisite writing is enough to make a book worth reading, or whether a conventional story arc is a must, it certainly evoked strong feeling in those who managed to get to the end. And after hearing the lively debate - flying nuns, arsonists, banana cake! - I think I might just go back and finish it.
Next month's book club choice is 'The Pornographer'
by John Mc Gahern see introduction link below:-
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Walking/Photo Journal - Haystacks
Speaking of haystacks, I guess planning ahead, is usually a good thing.
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| Bales of Hay - Bohernabreena |
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Walking/Photo Journal - Housebound!
It's a soggy wet day in the old mountains, too dull and miserable to walk, plus the car is sick and the man in the garage isn't feeling hopeful I'll get it back today either, so housebound it is!
(Coffee was good, next time I'll leave the plastic milk bottle and ugly butter carton out of it!)
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| Wet January Day |
Monday, January 24, 2011
Walking/Photo Journal - Waiting for Spring
Dull, cold day, Spring will hopefully be here soon.
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| Dry stone wall near bridge at Piperstown |
Book Club - The Pornographer by John Mc Gahern
The book club choice for February is 'The Pornographer' by John McGahern
Brief Description
One of the preeminent writers of our time, John McGahern has captivated readers with such poignant and heart-wrenching novels as Amongst Women and The Dark.
In The Pornographer, Michael creates an ideal world of sex as a writer of pornographic fiction, while he bungles every phase of his entanglement with an older woman who has the misfortune to fall in love with him. But his insensitivity to this love is in direct contrast to the tenderness with which he attempts to make his aunt’s slow death in a hospital tolerable. Everywhere in this rich novel is the drama of opposites, but above all, sex and death are never far from each other.
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| John Mc Gahern |
The first time I listened to John McGahern was on a programme produced by RTE, and I remember going from mild interest to being absolutely absorbed by what the man had to say. He spoke about writing, the art, and the need to write, and as this was in the days before you could pause a programme, or view it later as a download, I ended up grabbing the first piece of paper I could find, (which was a torn up telephone bill) and started madly to write down notes. I still carry that torn phone bill around in my wallet. The many quotes I took down are each a gem, but for now, I give you my favourite:-
'A good writer is present everywhere, but never visible.'
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Walking/Photo Journal - Derelict Cottage Piperstown
One of the first things that struck me about living in the Dublin Mountains was the sense that so much about these surroundings were here long before any of us were born, and will remain long after we are all gone. But there are elements that are not so safe, and one of those is the numerous derelict buildings that still remain from times past.
When we came upon our own piece of derelict structure eleven years ago, we felt a connection not just to the land, but to the house itself. It was in a very sorry state, most of our friends thought us mad, and indeed over the seven years that it took us to get approval for refurbishing the cottage, we did at times agree with them.
Anyhow like all good stories, it had a happy ending, but there were stories about the house, that went beyond the known historical tales attached to it, like the bold Robert Emmet and the Kearney's, both already written into country and local history. No there was another story to be told, one that we heard much later.
The first time I got a hint of it, we had steel scaffolding up through the belly of the cottage and the daughter of a neighbour, (she was probably about eleven at the time) told me how she used to look up at our house from her Granddad's (Maurice Collins) place, and dream about one day living here, fixing the house up, for it was indeed a house that when you looked up at it from the lower levels of the valley, looked like something out of a childhood fairytale. Later still, others too came and visited, and each recounted their own tales of the cottage, whether it was playing in it as a child, or revisiting it in later years, and each time they spoke, there was something special from memory in the house for each of them.
Maybe it was because of the history of the place that locals were drawn to it, they too sensing something that went beyond their own years on earth, but somehow our little cottage became part of what this beautiful part of Dublin represents, not just the landscape, but the people and the houses that they once called 'home'.
When I am out walking and I look at the derelict cottages, I think of the people that used to live in them, the ones that are no longer here, and the ones living, that remember these old buildings as part of their family history, for they are as important an element of this place as the hedgerow and the forests, and if we are not careful, we could lose them and their stories for good.
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| Derelict Cottage - Piperstown |
One of the first things that struck me about living in the Dublin Mountains was the sense that so much about these surroundings were here long before any of us were born, and will remain long after we are all gone. But there are elements that are not so safe, and one of those is the numerous derelict buildings that still remain from times past.
When we came upon our own piece of derelict structure eleven years ago, we felt a connection not just to the land, but to the house itself. It was in a very sorry state, most of our friends thought us mad, and indeed over the seven years that it took us to get approval for refurbishing the cottage, we did at times agree with them.
Anyhow like all good stories, it had a happy ending, but there were stories about the house, that went beyond the known historical tales attached to it, like the bold Robert Emmet and the Kearney's, both already written into country and local history. No there was another story to be told, one that we heard much later.
The first time I got a hint of it, we had steel scaffolding up through the belly of the cottage and the daughter of a neighbour, (she was probably about eleven at the time) told me how she used to look up at our house from her Granddad's (Maurice Collins) place, and dream about one day living here, fixing the house up, for it was indeed a house that when you looked up at it from the lower levels of the valley, looked like something out of a childhood fairytale. Later still, others too came and visited, and each recounted their own tales of the cottage, whether it was playing in it as a child, or revisiting it in later years, and each time they spoke, there was something special from memory in the house for each of them.
Maybe it was because of the history of the place that locals were drawn to it, they too sensing something that went beyond their own years on earth, but somehow our little cottage became part of what this beautiful part of Dublin represents, not just the landscape, but the people and the houses that they once called 'home'.
When I am out walking and I look at the derelict cottages, I think of the people that used to live in them, the ones that are no longer here, and the ones living, that remember these old buildings as part of their family history, for they are as important an element of this place as the hedgerow and the forests, and if we are not careful, we could lose them and their stories for good.
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