Light summer reading

At the end of a warm summer day it's a pleasure to sit in my comfortable elm wood chair by the picture window overlooking the city, harbour and ocean,while the sun sinks behind the horizon.













A Haydn Piano Trio plays softly in the background and a good book lies in my lap. No need to turn the light on until it gets dark. The sun disappears behind the horizon at 9.30pm now - alas! the days are getting shorter again. But it doesn't get really dark till around ten or half past.



Because my attention is divided between the sun, the music and my book, I prefer to read something light. As someone pointed out on a podcast about writing and writers, it seems that modern authors walk away from narrative. The only authors who still concentrate on telling a good story are writers of crime, mystery and 'genre' novels. And of course children's books. Speaking here was Tim Wynne-Jones who has written several books, including books for children, for example Rex Zero and the End of the World.

Wynne-Jones said he likes Ian Rankin because he writes about Edinburgh, and about 'drinking Scotch in a cold place'. I have heard some really nice interviews recently with Ian Rankin and there are quite a few on the internet, because of the publication of what may be his last 'Rebus novel'. See for example here, or here and here is a nice overview of Rankin's writing and his Rebus novels. He sounds like a nice man, thoughtful, interested in politics, which inspire many of his novels. I scoured secondhand bookshops and the library, but the author is so popular that his works are seldom on their shelves. I was happy to find one, The Hanging Garden, which interested me because I heard Rankin talk about it. It's inspired by the events during the war, in 1944, in a French village called Oradour-sur-Glâne, where the Germans massacred every single inhabitant (only five people survived, of whom two died of their wounds soon after).

This was one of those 'reprisal' actions. Rankin visited Oradour, which has been left in the state it was found after the war as a monument. Here is a beautiful U-Tube slide show of pictures of Oradour-sur-Glâne, before and after the massacre and the monument as it is today. Very interesting to compare with the monument in Berlin made by an architect to commemorate the holocaust, which I discussed in a previous blog entry (dated 5 January 2008). The Berlin one is important because you may be more or less forced to look at it when you roam through the city, while you have to make a conscious decision to visit Oradour, unless you're taken in a school class. Both types of monument are important, I believe.

So, I read The Hanging Garden, my first Rebus novel, and I did not really like it. Too jumbled, too many sub-plots, too many big themes to cram into one small crime novel. Also, I don't like Rebus. I don't like men who drink too much, although Rebus is loudly on the wagon in this book. Yet, Rankin touches on some really important issues. The question whether it is possible to extricate oneself from a mob when you find yourself in the middle of it. Whether you can stand up for your ideals, for justice, for what is right, when everyone around you is willing to walk right over you and clobber you if you get in the way. He compares WWII incidents with Northern Ireland, where Rebus supposedly served. Important questions. A pity they are crammed into a confusing tangle of stories in this book that deal with other vitally important issues, such as drug smuggling and the abuse of eastern European women as sex slaves. If any of my blog readers is an admirer of Ian Rankin, please comment and/or recommend one of his books you think I should read.

Instead, I turned to a trusty old friend, Inspector Maigret, the invention of Georges Simenon.

They're old books, but have a depth that I feel many modern crime novels lack. (Look here for a good website on Maigret) . And another podcast pointed me to Michael Dibdin, who wrote a series of books with an inspector called Aurelio Zen, set in Italy. I have started with his first, called the Ratking, and so far I really enjoy it. Amazon reader reviewers give it 5 stars. I like the character, the writing is excellent (Dibdin has written other novels outside the Aurelio Zen series) and Zen seems a pleasant character. Of course this is only the first. Sadly, Dibdin died in 2007. He was respected as an author. The Guardian wrote an obituary. Dibdin seems to have been a nice man, according to an online interview. But he has either been ill for some time, or he smoked and drank too much. Interesting to compare the pictures appearing on most of his books and online entries, with a later one I discovered.


This only goes to show the truth of an epigram Margaret Atwood has tacked on her office notice bulletin board: "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté" (Quoted in Negotiating with the Dead (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2002), p. 35). Atwood regrets she did not realise in time how wise the American writer Thomas Pynchon was, who has never done interviews, nor allowed his photo to appear on book jackets. Pynchon's 'reclusiveness' has become legendary.

Back to my light summer reading. The book that's currently on the top of my pile is the third in what promised to become a series of at least four 'who-done-its' by Louise Penny. Her books may appeal more to female than to male readers. Penny's website more or less
confirms this.

What I like about her books (the first two of which I gobbled up during a long international flight), is that the murder story is not the only mystery. This series is set in one particular, imaginary Canadian village. Some of the people who live in the village re-appear in each book. Although some of the characters border on caricature at times, they are not impossible, while others are simply wonderful, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache among them. One of the reasons I seldom read 'who-done-its' is that so often the narrative is not engaging enough to keep me interested, or not well enough written to keep me on the page. Too often I get bored and skip straight to the end to find out who did it and be done with it. That is not how I feel about Louise Penny's series. There are enough other themes weaving along to make me want to know what happens on the next page, not just what happens in the end. And she writes really sumptuously about art (at least two of the people in the books are painters), poetry (there's one poet - two in the third book) and about food!! They eat well in Penny's books, because the imaginary village boasts a great café where everyone regularly congegrates in front of a warm fire.

The sun has come out, so I am going to enjoy it. Till next time. If you know of any great light holiday reading, I'd like to hear from you.

viewpoints

My announcement of this blog to friends and family has had exactly the response I hoped for: encouragement and engagement.

One of the chapters in 'Reading Pictures' is headed by a painting by Marianna Gartner, a Canadian painter of whom I had not heard, although I now realise that I had seen at least one reproduction of one of her paintings on a book by Margaret Atwood, titled 'Negotiating with the Dead: A writer on writing. I have not read this book yet, but I've just discovered that my local library has a copy, so that will be my next read.

Manguel's reading of Gartner's paintings seemed to me to lack something. Manguel states that since we no longer have a universally recognised symbolism of painting, as they did in the more religious past, our reading of paintings is 'blind', instead of 'sighted'. Yet, to me Manguel misses the feminist/womanly point of view that, in my opinion, many of Gartner's paintings seem to require. I searched the internet, expecting to find some scholarly article that would confirm this, but no luck. I did find a delightful U-Tube slide show of Gartner's paintings, created by a member who calls herself Accabadora and who has made quite a few slide shows of art works.

When I looked at other slide shows by Accabadora I was struck in particular by a movie called 'Portrait of a Lady'. Such beautiful, serene, strong and characterful women! So many of the faces look quite modern, even though the paintings are old. And the ending, which I won't give away here - you have to look for yourself - is very revealing I think. It creates an important perspective. For reasons I cannot quite explain this particular slide show moved me deeply. I'd be interested to hear your response.

The other chapter in Manguel's 'Reading Pictures' I take issue with deals with monuments. His leading picture is of a model of the Berlin Holocaust monument by Peter Eisenman. Manguel is fairly negative about Eisenman's monument and feels that this 'bulky memorial' will require large signs to explain its significance. Manguel feels that Eisenman's design emphasises the 'work of art' more than the 'dreadful event it is supposed to commemorate' (p. 259). Of course I had to look it up on the internet. The model of the memorial, reproduced in Manguel's book, does not do it justice at all, I think. This is clearly a place one has to visit and walk through and experience. I do not doubt that it will elicit some visceral response. There is a BBC announcement of the opening of the monument in May 2005 online. There's a sidebar with a video of the opening and pictures of the memorial. If any of my readers have been to the monument, I would love to hear their response.

hypertextual reading and writing

The idea that new technologies are likely to supplant old ones seems strange, or rather unnecessary. New technologies are simply new ways of doing things, an enhancement, often, of our choices. Rather than listening to a radio program as it is broadcast, I prefer to listen to podcasts in my own time and place, for example while doing the dishes. Housework is now an excuse for listening to interesting programs. I subscribe to podcasts at Radio New Zealand, Australian Broadcasting Corp, Canada Broadcasting Corp, and BBC.The programs I listen to often lead me to the internet, to the library, the bookshop or simply my own store of books on my bookshelves.

A recent example of this is the series of 2007 Massey lectures by Alberto Manguel. While I had heard of his books, in particular 'A Dictionary of Imaginary Places', I had never read any. Manguel's lectures have the strange effect of being mesmerising, yet forgettable. I could not possibly tell you what they are about, largely because Manguel meanders from thought to thought, from subject to subject, as if we wander through a maze. His choice of route is always logical, but at the same time another route might have been an equally sensible choice, but leading to a different place. Just when you are moved by the depth of one thought, he has already moved on to the next. Luckily with podcasts you can rewind and listen again, although that does not seem to help in this case. The language is so full of aphorisms, pointers, adjectives, connectives that Manguel's maze feels like a dense jungle. Yet, I listen with delight.

Manguel's Massey lectures sent me to the internet to find out more about him. After a look at Amazon, always full of useful reviews, I made a quick trip to the library, where I decided I wanted to start with 'Reading Pictures'. One of the Amazon customers complained about the quality of the paper and print. The library's Bloomsbury copy has nice thick paper. The reproduction of pictures is not of art quality, but that's not the point of the book. The pictures are just there to help you see what Manguel is writing about. His book reminded me of another, little, book on my holiday reading pile. A New Zealand book in the Ginger 'How to...' Series of Awa Press. Justin Paton's 'how to look at a painting' is different from Manguel's 'Reading Pictures', but I would bet that Paton has read Manguel.

'Reading Pictures' has proven a magical journey for me. As do his Massey lectures, Manguel's personal wanderings through the world of art meander from thought to thought in a coherent, logical yet arbitrary manner. Other routes would have been possible and others would write differently or choose different works of art to juxtapose. Manguel himself admits as much in his conclusion, where he calls his book a collection of 'haphazard notes and indecisions'. For me the pleasure has been the discovery of artists I had not met before and of seeing points of view that are new to me. I am glad Manguel has read many art history and theory books. It saves me a lot of work, while his footnotes give me the opportunity to follow up on anything I want to know more about.

Each of the chapters is headed by one work of art by one particular painter who forms the thread of the chapter. One example is a chapter on architecture. In this case the leading picture is of the salt works Arc-et-Senans designed by C.-N. Ledoux. There is a beautifully designed website devoted to Arc-et-Senans. In fact it's one of the nicest websites I have come across recently. Although Ledoux' salt works form now a beautiful museum, the place was only in use as a factory and salt works for sixteen years, from 1779 to 1895. It was never very efficient, mainly because of where it was situated: near the wood required as fuel, but too far from the source of salt. What Ledoux viewed as an ideal industrial society, failed because of low productivity. Manguel suggests it may not have been a great loss to the workers: "You imagine the hundred or so workers (the same workers who, in other rags and under other names, toiled on the Great Wall of China, in the Caribbean gold mines, in England's satanic mills) under the omnipresent director's watch, lungs rotted by the wood smoke, skin cracked and bleeding from the briny air, dog-tired, in a din of angry voices, babies' cries, couples bickering, sitting night after night after night with their fellow workers, never on their own, never knowing any privacy, preparing themselves for the New Society Ledoux had designed for them" (Alberto Manguel, Reading Pictures (London: Bloomsbury, 2000), 237).

More on 'Reading Pictures' another day.