Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Tuesday 30th March - Almost the end of the Month

 The curtains are drawn against the bright sunlight, a couple of days of good weather, we are blessed.  The narcissus in the pots just outside the window have broken free of their sheaths and their pale lemon welcomes the sun. The double petalled pink primrose has also broken cover as has the dark red, but edged with gold  - primula. Spring flowers pass by quickly heralding the season but not stopping long.

At the end of the garden, the pink/red flowers of the flowering currant stand in relief against the evergreen dark leaves of the ceanothus (Californian lilac) and I look forward to that powdery blue it will display later on.

Book reading;  I do not read, or listen now, to a lot of stuff.  My brain refuses to regurgitate any more facts, knowledge or the learning of it is there, to be picked up as the memories flood through my thinking.  A friend brought back Frostquake by Juliet Nicholson she had borrowed and we both agreed that this particular recollection of the year 1962 did not actually match up with our remembering of it.  Though in hindsight it was a good  historic timeline.

Have been listening to Gormenghast via my phone.  Pound created a disreputable bunch of characters when he wrote the book but as I listen what captures my mind is the sheer volume of description the author gave to the book.  So that I am walking with Fuchsia as she wanders around the wastelands that surround the great castle, or pondering on the great horizontal tree that grows from the side of the castle and the two batty sisters that occupy the Room of the Roots.

Where was Pound going with all this dreamt up nonsense, or maybe it has some sort of significance.  We are left with Lewis, Tolkein and Ezra Pound great fairy tales, written roughly around the same time - what inspired it all?


13 comments:

  1. Not my kind of books really Thelma. I love a good novel (not too many of those about) and I love travel books - especially now that I can no longer travel myself. Nice to hear of your plants bursting into bloom.

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    1. I know Pat I am not in the mainstream reader of modern novels but each to his own. I am already regretting throwing out all my books on Celtic saints but have kept my plant books. I think, terrible confession to make here, but modern day fictional human history bores me.

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  2. Hi, I believe it was Mervyn Peake who wrote Gormenghast. Wonderful descriptions I agree. Loved reading the trilogy oh so many years ago.....now reading Frostquake as mentioned by you in a previous post. Thanks for the heads up. Interesting but like, you, not quite how I remember the period. I enjoy reading your blog. Identify with what feels like a transition period in your life, although maybe we are all in a state of transition! Heads up to Weaver another good recommender of books. Regards Janx.

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    1. Yes you are right Jan, Mervyn Peake, don't know why I got him muddled with Pound. Think Peake died fairly young before he could write more but the trilogy has an almost black sense of a pessimistic soul. A friend from the past over the weekend asked me to fill in a questionnaire on the subject of megaliths and my relationship to them. Mulling over this I realise there are choices to be made in this period of my life as well.
      Kind regards Thelma

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    2. I think Peake was a war artist (I will check this out as I may have imagined it) but his experiences may have been reflected in his writing. I found the fourth/follow up book very odd, Titus Alone? springs to mind. Regards Janx.

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    3. Ooops, me again. The Boy in Darkness was the follow up book. Titus Alone was the third book in the trilogy. He had an interesting but relatively short life.

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    4. I suppose it was like the war paintings of Paul Nash, a jagged landscape of burnt trees, of sadness. The minds of the writers and painters sullied by war.

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  3. I like to read mysteries, although, I don't care for them if they are too scary or gory or too silly either!
    My life has changed so much since retirement and COVID and I do wonder how it will alter again once COVID recedes (hopefully). I have gotten used to having a lot of ME time but I am not sure if I really like it or not. Time will tell, I guess.

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    1. The older I get the less I read. I once read that there are only 7 plots to wind a story around. Therefore I see a beginning, a middle and an end, and sometimes if I get bored I read the end before the rest of the book. Tut.

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  4. I love Tolkien and Lewis, I'll have to try Gormenghast.

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    1. It is a hard read, and long I think, but it is essentially a fairy tale, sort of in Grimm's tradition.

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  5. As much as I love spring flowers and the flowering buds on trees, they are only here for such a short spell and then they are gone. Maybe that is why I treasure them and the moments that I have to enjoy them.

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    1. Yes Arleen, they also of course come straight after the cold winter we have all experienced and their colours are bright and welcoming.

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