Other Stories

We'll Meme Again...

Oh the punnery. I'm hilarious.

Chartroose and her Book Barrage posted this meme yesterday and today I'm taking on the mantle. A lot of it may be ground I've covered before, but since when have I let that get in the way of some good, solid, memery?

1. Who is your all-time favourite author, and why?

I can give no one answer to this: instead, I am giving two. Virginia Woolf is the first. My love of Mrs Dalloway is well-documented and it is no exaggeration to say that this book changed my outlook on life when I read it at 19. Being of the age when Mrs D believes herself to have been happiest, I could relate on a number of levels to the way she talked about her magical summer. But then, in the book, she's in her early 50s and still trying to recapture the person she was at 18, she is wondering when everything changed, and why it all changed. I didn't want to be like that. It sounds corny, but I decided after that fateful reading to find happiness where I could, to take life as it comes, and to make the most of everything. I hope I've stuck to that. I try to, at any rate. I don't want to wake up one day and wonder where my life went.

And, of course, there is A Room of One's Own, which is just an incredible rallying cry for women to assert some of their independence through writing (amongst many other things). I have a beautiful little embossed paperback edition, which was the first present Boyfriend ever bought for me, and I love it. I was wondering whether there was irony in the fact that a man - whoever that man may be - having bought me my favourite edition of that particular book, but I've decided there isn't. He knew it was a book I loved, and which meant a lot to me. It was an extremely thoughtful gift.

Then there's Orlando, which is much overlooked I think. There's a boy in the 17th century. He grows up. Then he turns into a woman. And lives for hundreds of years. It's brilliant. Chameleon nature of sexuality and all that. Lots of pictures of Vita. Love it.

My other favourite author is Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre is simply an amazing book and I have no earthly idea how many times I've read it. Villette is also fantastic and I remember as a teenager sitting on my bed with a French dictionary trying to translate the French passages.

2. Who was your first favoutite author? Do you still consider them amongst your favourites?

I'd love to be able to give some incredibly precocious answer to this like "Oooh, yes, I first appreciated the majesty of Dostoyevsky at 3 and a half" but I can't. The honest answer is Ann M. Martin, author of The Babysitters Club series. I devoured those books! I was probably 8 or 9 at the time, and every weekend when I went to the West End of Glasgow to see my dad, he would take me to John Smiths on Byres Road, or the big John Smiths in town, and he would buy me another Babysitters book. Without fail I'd have finished it by that night. I just could not get enough of them. I wanted to be beautiful and artisitic like Claudia with her big, almond-shaped eyes, but instead I was undeniably more like the tomboyish Kristy. Hey, at least the name was close.

The first time I went to America, when I was 9, we went to a book shop in some mall somewhere, and I discovered that they had lots of Babysitters books that were much further on in the series than I could get in Britain, it being an American author and all. I came back with stacks of the American editions and let me tell you I was quite the envy of my friends when I produced number 63 in the series. We were only up to 49 in the UK! Thank god my parents encouraged my reading, even when my dad wasn't a reader at all. They realised pretty early on that books (and music) were more or less the only things I was interested in as a kid, and nurtured accordingly. Thanks, mum and dad.

Is she still a favourite? I can't say I read her anymore but I have very fond memories of them.

3. Who is the most recent addition to your list of favourites?

This is a toughie. I think probably Brian Moore (thanks to Palimpsest), or Nicola Barker. Rather different authors, but both excellent.

4. If someone were to ask for your favourite authors right now, who would you say? Who would you add after reflection?

Well, obviously all those mentioned above. Add to them some Dickens, some Sarah Waters, some Ali Smith, some Michel Faber, some Margaret Atwood, some Wilkie Collins, and some Armistead Maupin, and you've covered much of my range.

After thinking for a second, I'll add Iain Banks (no sci-fi M for me) because of a long-standing love of his writing (even his slightly ropier recent stuff), and I'll add Sylvia Plath because her poetry is astounding and gets a bad rap as really depressive when in reality the majority of it really, really isn't, and I'll add Katherine Mansfield because her short stories are sublime, and I'll add Rebecca West because The Return of the Soldier is an amazing book, and I'll add Emily Bronte purely and simply because of the masterpiece that in Wuthering Heights.

So, that's your meme for today. Tag, you're it.

Haworth

Haworth was amazing. Truly, it was Bronte-tastic. The museum was full of incredible things: the tiny books the children would write for their tin soldiers; first editions of the novels; letters; Emily's dress; embroidery not just by Emily and Anne, but also by Maria Bronte, who died as a child; Branwell's paintings; Patrick Bronte's Book of Psalms and magnifying glass; the sofa on which Emily died; locks of the sisters' hair from mourning envelopes.

I had intended writing a long and effusive post about how incredible it was to be so close to these real belongings of the authors I idolize, but as pretentious as this sounds, I honestly can't find the words. This hampers a blog post somewhat, so instead I shall share with you a few of the photos I took on the day.



The Bronte Parsonage (above)


Gate between Parsonage and Church (above)



The Dining Room where the girls did most of their work (above)

Haworth the village was also beautiful - hugely hilly as one would expect from the Yorkshire moors, and quite windy which added to the general sense of Wuthering-ness. It was *glorious*. I have more photos on Flickr.

The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West

I don't know if you saw it, but on Saturday there was an excellent piece in the Guardian by Carmen Callil, who started Virago back in the 70s. It explained the motivation behind setting up this publishing company that championed women ('How often I remember sitting at dinner tables in the 1960s, the men talking to each other about serious matters, the women sitting quietly like decorated lumps of sugar. I remember one such occasion when I raised my fist, banged the table and shouted: "I have views on Bangladesh too!"'), and it was a wonderful article that made me feel really quite inspired.

And so today, I return to my First Ever Virago Modern Classic, The Return of the Soldier by  Rebecca West. For such a short book, it really does pack quite a punch, and I find myself thinking of it surprisingly often. It sort of slots into my head with Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf because two of the main themes are more or less the same: the passage of time (public and private), and The Great War.

Chris Ellis returns from fighting in the war a shell-shocked man. Via hospital, he eventually returns to the marital home (or mansion, rather) and his beautiful wife Kitty. However, the shell-shock has destroyed his memory, and because of that we discover that Kitty wasn't his first love. Five years previously he had been in love with - and planned to marry - the considerably more humble Margaret Allingham. He had had a huge argument with her, which was what put paid to their marriage plans. In his amnesia, though, he believes himself to be still in love with Margaret, and has no idea who Kitty is. Narrated by Kitty's sister Jenny - who lives with them - we watch as Kitty allows Chris to meet with Margaret, but only deep in the grounds of the marital estate - never in the house.

Kitty's disgust with the situation is not just about jealousy. Kitty is a wealthy, beautiful woman, who thinks constantly about social position, while Margaret is of a more meagre income and ordinary looking. Thus, the house becomes representative of the public: public (i.e. linear) time, the show we put on for the neighbours, social position, outward gestures, while the garden becomes a forest of the past, of the private time scale in Chris's head, of the breakdown of Edwardian social structure that the war caused. As the novel moves forward (and West is different to Woolf in that she tells the story simply in a straightforward fashion) and Chris begins to regain his memory, we watch the struggle between very different feelings for two very different women, and therefore two very different lives.

I won't spoil the ending for those of you who haven't read the book, but I do beg and implore you to go and read it. It's only short (less than 200 pages), and its simplicity of language makes the story incredibly moving.   

Farewell Chairman Humph

When Boyfriend and I went to see the live show in Oxford last year, we all got kazoos. It was a marvellous show, and Humph played 'Well Meet Again' on his trumpet at the end. Glorious.

We shall be playing Swanney Kazoo in our house today in tribute.

Charity Shop Haul and Mini Link Love

I have been trying really hard not to buy anymore books. For one, I bought the iPhone of Joy recently, and therefore should really not be spending anymore money, and for two, I've so behind in my reading at the moment that it's quite painful. Uni work + extremely busy time at work + family stress = not a lot of Kirsty Reading Time.

However, all of these things are done and dusted for the time being, and the weekend just gone saw me creeping back to form with a book and a half devoured over two days. *sigh* That's better. Thus I feel utterly justified in having had a bit of a second-hand splurge on Saturday morning. Boyfriend and I had taken a leisurely breakfast at a local cafe and were wandering home when through the window of the Mind shop I spied some shelves of books. That was it, I was through the door with Boyfriend trailing after me. "I just want to look," I lied, as I suspiciously fingered my purse in my pocket.

Ten minutes later, I emerged into the fresh air £26 poorer but 17 books richer. What a haul! I picked up:

• Four Dreamers and Emily - Stevie Davies (I've never read anything by her, but she's   been highly recommended to me several times over the years, and it was a Women's Press book. And it was 80p.)
• Alberta and Jacob - Cora Sandel (Another Women's Press edition, and translated from Norwegian, so falls into both my "women's fiction" and "translated fiction" quotas.)
• The Remarkable Journey of Miss Tranby Quirke - Elizabeth Ridley (It's VMC. It was 80p. Of course I was going to buy it.)
• Sexual Politics - Kate Millett (Feminist table-thumping ensues.)
• The Brontes Went to Woolworths - Rachel Ferguson (Talked about over at Justine Picardie's blog, and found in delicious old green VMC livery.)
• Zoology - Ben Dolnick (Recently released in B format paperback, it caught my attention in Borders some weeks ago. Finding it in A format paperback for just over a quid was obviously fate.)
• I, Claudius / Claudius the God - Robert Graves (An omnibus edition from 1976, complete with TV tie-ie photo on the front.)

And then, the piece de resistance. For 20 of your British Pounds, a Virago Modern Classics box set, in perfect condition, box still shiny and new, nary a spine broken featuring the following:

• Precious Bane - Mary Webb
• Liza's England - Pat Barker
• The Land of Spices - Kate O'Brien
• The Edwardians - Vita Sackville-West
• Fireworks - Angela Carter
• Good Behaviour - Molly Keane
• Provincial Daugher - R M Dashwood
• Our Spoons Came From Woolworths - Barbara Comyns
• Now in November - Josephine Johnson

I was massively excited. I can't even begin to tell you. Another entirely-free weekend awaits me, so I can't wait to get properly stuck in.

And now, some mini-link love. Knitter Friend has just started her own Etsy Shop, and her creations are quite beautiful. Go see (and buy). Also, her blog can be found here.

Also, all this week on OUPblog, I am posting questions concerning Oxford World's Classics. No prizes, just for fun. But do go and have a shot. Answers on Friday.

The Sad Shepherd - WB Yeats

Today, beloved readers, we're going high brow. High brow-ish at any rate. With my current strict reading diet of all things Yeatsian, I felt I couldn't not have a post about it. However, I wanted to spare you my cackhanded literary analysis, so I have decided to go minimalist and share with you my favourite Yeats poem (so far... I haven't read everything he's written). It is one that I wasn't familiar with before I started work on this essay, but I've been finding myself reading it every day. Enjoy.

The Sad Shepherd (1885, published 1886)

There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!
The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.
He fled the persecution of her glory
And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,
Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.
But naught they heard, for they are always listening,
The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,
And thought, I will my heavy story tell
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send
Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;
And my own tale again for me shall sing,
And my own whispering words be comforting,
And lo! my ancient burden may depart.
Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;
But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.

Daughters of Decadence

I actually originally read this book of women's fin-de-siecle short stories last year, but it has been more or less a constant companion ever since. In those gaps where time is too short to read a healthy dose of whichever novel I am on, a quick dip into this wonderful collection is the perfect reading substitute.

Edited by Elaine Showalter (feminist academic and one of My Heroes), this collection rescues fin-de-siecle literature from the clutches of the dominant male writers of the time such as Wilde and Haggard. This was the time of the New Woman, and women were writing furiously. As Showalter says in her excellent introduction:

"Not only as heroines of drama, but also as competitors in marketplace, women were a major presence in the new literary world of the 1880s and 1890s. They were writing with unprecedented candour about female sexuality, marital discontent, and their own aesthetic theories and aspirations; and speaking to - and about - the New Women of the fin de siecle. Famous, even notorious, in their own day, these women writers have been overshadowed not only by such distinguished male contemporaries as Conrad and Wilde, but also by minor novelists like Haggard and Stoker."

It's time for the women to step forward and take the credit they are due. Arguably the most famous story in this collection is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper, which I defy anyone not to love. The story was written in the 1890s after she had been suffering from post-natal depression, and had been treated by Dr Silas Weir Mitchell. He had made her go through the rest cure, and she was not allowed to do anything by stay quietly in bed - she could not even read or write. Now, I can tell you here and now that if I was shut up somewhere in the country without recourse to a healthy dose of books I would be throwing myself out of a high window in fairly short order. Charlotte PG instead waited until she could write again and wrote this furious, eloquent, heartbreaking story of a woman in just such a situation, descending from depression into true madness in her confinement.

However, the lesser-known stories are just as wonderful. Kate Chopin - best known for her novella The Awakening - opens the collection with a very, very short story called An Egyptian Cigarette which sees a woman who smokes a cigarette brought back from Cairo for her and slips into a druggy dream of Egyptian Gods, and a mysterious man.

There is also a feminist counterpart for Conrad's The Heart of Darkness: Charlotte Mew's A White Night. It is narrated by the heroine's brother, Cameron, and follows Ella, Cameron, and Ella's new husband King on their honeymoon to Spain. There they witness the ritual burying alive of a veiled woman, which Showalter rightly calls "a warning of female destiny in the contexts of patriarchy", then sees the party's reaction to it. Ella is massively disturbed and transforms from strong New Woman into speechless hysteric, while Cameron believes that "the woman didn't really count", the whole thing was merely a "spectacle" and a "rather splendid crime".

These are all truly fantastic stories, and I heartily recommend that you all go and haste ye to a place where you can buy it. Go, go, go! You won't regret it.

(And what a gorgeous cover - lovely Virago designs strike again.)

The VMCs, again

For those of you who, like me, adore the Virago Modern Classics, author Justine Picardie is inviting comments and memories of the series for a newspaper piece she is writing. I have already been over to her blog to put in my tuppance worth. Do pop over and say hello.

My first VMC, for what it's worth, was The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. It remains one of my favourite books of all time.

In other news, while you're meandering about the blogosphere, do take a moment and read my post over at OUPblog. It's an excerpt from one of my very favourite short stories: A Nightmare by Guy de Maupassant. It's deliciously eerie.

The restorative effect of books.

You know when you have a kind of stressful day and all you want is comfort? To hell with trying to stretch yourself, with reading lists, and the TBR pile. What you need is something familiar that you can almost recite without the words in front of you.

For me that book is Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. As soon as I read that "Mrs Dalloway said that she would buy the flowers herself" then I can exhale, relax, and let myself get pulled into her delicious prose as it soars and dips and flies.

Yesterday this book made me feel human again. It's not just me that gets that way about books, is it?

This week, I have been mostly reading...

For your readling delight, here are some interesting articles from around the interweb:

• Here's the latest post from OUPBlog: one of my colleagues got to go to the European premiere of Sweeney Todd last night in London. I am uber jealous.
• Apparently 25% of British adults haven't read a book in the last year. The Guardian Books Blog ponders what you might suggest to someone looking to get back in the reading habit.
• Dovegrey has been reading a Grace Paley short story every day. Not only has this made me want to read some of Paley's work, but it's also made me want to read more short stories. All suggestions of good ones gratefully received.
• Apparently it's the National Year of Reading. The BBC wonders whether you need to read books to be clever.
• The Reader Online has 'Frost at Midnight' by Coleridge as its featured poem. It's been a personal favourite of mine since I first studied it at high school, so I'm happy. Oh, those opening lines: "The Frost performs its secret ministry/ Unhelped by any wind..."
• The lovely Sara over at A Salted blogs on why she writes.
• Are these the most beautiful bookshops in the world? Borders in my old stomping ground of Glasgow is on the list... which surprises me to be honest. The original building is good, but I can't help wondering whether it might look even better without all that strip-lit glass frontage? Oh, I'm an old/young cynic. Ignore me. They sell books, I'm not complaining. Much. (Also, the photo of it on the Borders site is a bit misleading. That's not the angle most customers come at it from).
• If you're still at a loose end, then this is infuriatingly addictive.

That's your lot for today. I'm intending on getting in some serious reading time this weekend, so I should hopefully have more to say next week. Have a good weekend, blog readers!

Blogular Excitement

Pullman writes for OUPBlog! Kirsty gets overexcited.

Terry Pratchett

I was really sorry this morning to read that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's.

My best friend at school, Morag, introduced me to TP in 2nd year at High School, and I knew he was the chap for me as soon as I read about the Luggage. It quickly developed into an slight obsession with all things Discworld. I even wrote part of my SYS English dissertation on Wyrd Sisters (along with The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess... honestly, it was less eclectic than it sounds).

While I started to lose interest as I got into my twenties, Terry P will always have a special place in my heart. For one thing, if it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was 15 or 16. I read the first book in a single sitting one day when I was off sick from school, and I remember my mum threatening to make me go back in at lunchtime because she thought I was laughing too much as I lay on the sofa.

The Witches are my favourite Pratchett characters, though the Luggage and Death are fairly high up there too. And who else could use footnotes in quite the same way...

But, to be positive, according to his statement this morning he wants to remind people that he "is not dead", and that he believes he still has some books in him yet. Excellent news for Pratchett fans everywhere I should say.

The Man with the Flaming Trousers, and Other Stories

It says here on the back of Annus Horribilis by Sam Jordison "Think you've had a bad day?". Quite often, I complain about having had a hard day/being tired/things not going right. After reading this book, however, I see that I really am rather fortunate.

This is a collection of stories - at least one for each day of the year - about awful but funny things that have happened to people. Sort of the like the Darwin Awards without anyone necessarily dying. (Although a few Darwin winners do make it into Jordison's book.) As I mentioned a while ago, on my birthday in 2002 a man accidentally set fire to his own trousers while simultaneously smoking, trying to pull up his trousers and running away from the police. I can't tell you how many times I've told this story to people now.

"Hello, I'm Kirsty. Did you know that there was once a man who...?"

Cue slightly glazed  looks and vague smiles. I remain unabashed, however, and have been accosting people (mainly Boyfriend to be fair) with other tales of woe. My other favourites include:

• Arnold Schoenberg's fear of the number 13 being alarmingly prescient when he died on Friday 13th, at 13 minutes to midnight, aged 76 (7+6=13).
• The Australian woman who sat at a red traffic light for 2 days because she hadn't realised it was broken.
• The man from Paisley (the next town over from where I grew up in Scotland) who worked in a pet shop and was sacked for juggling guinea pigs.
• The man whose pals broke him out of jail by way of a ploy too cunning even for 'Prison Break': they faxed the jail pretending to be from the local court, demanding the jailbird's release. And it worked. (Sadly, the hapless felon was rearrested soon afterwards while watching telly at his mum's house).

I promise not to complain about my day every again, unless I set my jeans on fire, etc. Good fun all round, this book.

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My latest OUPblog post is over here.

You like me... You *really* like me!

The lovely Sara over at A Salted has given me A Roaring Lion Award for Powerful Words! See?

Hurrah! I never win anything, as they say. Thank you Sara.

So, here's the deal. I have to pronounce my views on the top 3 things that make writing powerful. And here they are:

1. Believability (if that is indeed a word) -- you can be the most technically brilliant writer in the world but if you don't make what you're writing believable then you're more or less buggered, aren't you? By "believable" I don't mean "realist". Your story can be set on Mars and be populated by 20-legged, genderless, pink chickens, but you have to make us believe in that world. Though I confess that if you're story is about genderless pink chickens with too many legs, you are going to be have to be bloody good to get me to even entertain the notion of reading it.
2. Excellent characters (which may come under the heading of "believability", I don't know.) -- as is proven by The Gathering and Negative Space, I have little time for irritating people inside fiction or outside it.
3. Balls -- I think you have to be fearless to be a writer. To put yourself out there for judgement takes balls in my book (which is why I'm too scared to show anyone what I write).

And now I have to pass the Roaring Lion Award on to 5 other bloggers... but at the moment I can only think of one: Dovegrey Reader, whose blog was one of the ones that inspired me to give this book blogging lark a bash in the first place.

Here is my Daemon

I love Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The film of the first one is coming out in January (it seems like ages ago we Oxfordians were tripping over camera crew wherever we went... between that and flippin's Lewis...) and the official website has a natty little thing that finds out what your Daemon would be.

Fellow Pullman fans will know what I'm on about.

At the moment, mine takes the form of a fox, but the people who know me can say whether that's accurate or not. Here is mine just now...

So, if you know me in real life, go and answer a few questions so I know whether I really am a fox or not... (and find your own daemon of course...)

Cop Out Link Post

A bit of a cop-out post today, I know, but I am busier than is truly decent. Sorry chaps. So, in the absence of me having anything remotely interesting to say, here is some link love from me to those who have entertained me via the internet this week.

• I really, really want this poster.
• This is (a) a fantastic name for a cat, and (b) a very amusing story. I'm a sucker for a cute cat story. From the BBC News Website.
• DoveGrey Reader sticks up for those of us not averse to a little pencilling in our book margins.
• The Victorian Web. I can lose whole hours just browsing about this site.
• Amazon in the States has launched their e-reader, the Kindle. Personally I hate the idea of any kind of e-reader, and I think this contraption looks not unlike the telephone we had at home in about 1989 (except without the screen, obviously). And why is it called The Kindle? I realise I am a crusty book purist. But I'm happy with that.
• Meanwhile, the OUPblog has a different view on the Kindle from the VP of Rights.
• Alasdair Gray's wonderful novel Lanark is the Guardian Book Club choice at the moment. Here's John Mullan on text as illustration.
• Will it soon be harder to have an abortion in Scotland than it is in England? The F Word investigates.
• Only 10 days till the Haggis Hunt starts again!
• The Reader Online features a poem by Anne Stevenson, called Poem for a Daughter.
• Excellent little book-related comic strip: Cat and Girl

Free Book!

Right, for reasons too long and complicated to go into, I have ended up with two copies of Alasdair Gray's BEE-YOOT-IFULL new book, Old Men in Love.

Even my level of Grayophilia doesn't require me to possess two copies, so I've decided to offer it to you, the blogging public. LitBloggers: email me at otherstoriesblog (at) gmail (dot) com (I'll foil you yet, googlebots and slurp spiders) and I'll pick a name at random. Lucky winner announced tomorrow.

And if none of you want it, I'll just have to sell it on Amazon. But I'd rather give it to a nice blogular home.

Alasdair Gray interview, part II

Here's part two of the Alasdair Gray interview, originally posted over at the BBC Collective site.

Here Gray talks about the relationship between painting and books, and about what influenced him when he was younger.

Alasdair Gray interview, part I

My abiding love for all things Alasdair Gray is well known in these parts. Today at Other Stories we have for you part one of an interview with the great man himself originally found over at BBC Collective.

I just love this interview. I have watched it far too many times already.

"I promise you I don't go around picking up YOUNG THINGS in Byres Road..."

Part two tomorrow.

Hero War Cat

Just a tiny post to say:

Look at the hero war cat!

Awwww.....