John Wayne

I hadn't realised what a great actor John Wayne could be when he gets away from the character he created in many films - "John Wayne". In the film I saw last evening on TV, "The Cowboys", he was at his best: hard, bitter, unforgiving of character blemishes (like a small boy's stammer), tough as nails, old and handsome.
"The Cowboys" is almost a great film, marred by an ending that must send shivers of disapproval in liberal minds: tut-tutting at the boys, enlisted by Wayne to take about a thousand head of cattle across 400 miles, who reek revenge on the villains who killed their leader; head shaking at the blood lust of boys because they have learned nothing of "love thy neighbour" and more of "an eye for an eye".
It is a beautifully photographed film with a masterful performance from Wayne and an equally thrilling performance in his best villanous role from Bruce Dern.
I could not believe my eyes that the film critic of The Radio Times gave the film only two stars. For God's sake they give some dreadful westerns four stars sometimes. This is a really tough western with outdoor scenes that are thrilling to see and action as brutal as anything Sam Pechinpah could devise.
Well done Mark Rydell for a great, well almost great film.

Modernism

Here are two interesting quotes:
1. "Success and failure on the public level never mattered to me; in fact I feel much more at home with the latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the last couple of years."
That's from a letter written by Samuel Beckett.

2. "A gap had opened up between the ideal of modernism as the antithesis of mass culture and the reality of America as a marketplace in which absolutely anything could be bought and sold.... When someone happily observed that one of the concerts (Varese and Ruggles being the chief composers) had drawn a full house, Ruggles accused his own organisation of 'catering to the public'. As so often in the modernist saga, revolutionary impulses went hand in hand with intolerance asnd resentment."
That's from Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise".

I used to be a tutor on a Creative Writing course and a good deal of time was taken up by would-be writers wanting to know or giving information about possible markets for their work: would Best magazine be good for the short story with a twist? How much would they pay? Is it worth trying Women's Weekly? What about Mills and Boon?

There was this insatiable desire to be published - somewhere, anywhere. I know what it's like. I've experienced it. Now I don't care..... Yes I do. Yes I do.
But never go to a vanity publisher or to a friend.... Why not? Samuel Beckett did.

Books for Children

In an article in The New Yorker someone reflects on the books he read when he was a child. I thought: I can't remember a single author of a single book I read as a child. I read (or rather looked at the comic strips) kids' mags like Beano, Dandy, Film Fun and whatnot, but books with words and stories - I can't remember reading any.
Of course, in school you had to read certain books that were on the syllabus. Though I have to say I don't think I read any of those right through. "Treasure Island" I half read so that when a question in an exam was "What do you think is the most exciting scene in the book?", I wrote about the attack on the stockade (?) because that was as far as I'd got.
Then there was "Prester John" by John Buchan ( a book that I guess would not make it on to a modern, PC, syllabus) which I read bits of. "David Copperfield" I read bits of.... though the bits might have turned me into, later, a bit of a Dickens freak - someone once wrote "if a stranger calls at my house I ask him if he likes Dickens; if he answers in the negative I lock away my silver and phone for the police". Well I'm not that much a Dickens freak.... but not far off!
This New Yorker writer mentioned Maurice Sendak - never heard of him; Paul Galdone - never heard of him; William Sleig - never heard of him.
And here I am a published author of a novel for children and I never read such books as a child. But probably I'm not much good because the book has been remaindered or is lying in a warehouse somewhere in Wales.
I once picked up a book in the library that was about authors who wrote for children. I didn't recognise any names. So I looked for the name of one I knew by reputation. It wasn't there. Roaul Dahl!

The Thrush

The ten most seen birds in gardens are the house sparrow, the starling, the blackbird, the blue tit, the chaffinch, the woodpigeon, the collared dove, the great tit, the robin and the long-tailed tit.
I had never seen a long-tailed tit until about a week ago when a couple of them appeared, not in the back garden where we have a bird table, but in the front garden (our neighbour throws food for birds into her front garden). Now, according to a report in The Times, there are many of them these days. I wonder why some birds seem to disappear for long periods then re-appear in great numbers.
And where, in that list, was the thrush?
In our garden about ten years ago there were many thrushes, now there are none. Plenty of blackbirds and thousands of sparrows, a few robins, a wren.... but no thrushes.
We had a red currant bush in the garden and one particular year it was heavy with fruit; but we left it too late to pick because when we took containers there to pick the fruit, it had all gone: the thrushes had swooped down on the bush and had eaten the lot.
Now, no thrushes.
A wonderful bird, speckled breast, a beautiful singer.
Brings to mind Robert Browning:

"Hark! where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
That first fine careless rapture."

Hah! but in the trees there are a family of magpies and I bet they love thrush's eggs.

Smokes and Oranges

Writing in The Times today, Michael Gove comments on the new film about Brian Clough, "The Damned United", with "we are back in a different world when ashtrays were laid out with oranges in the dressing room at half time".
I remember those days though not at the level of sport Gove mentions. A forward I knew who had not played rugby for many years was induced to play for the college third team, of which I was a player, only to give up the ghost at half time to relax and smoke a few cigarettes; he never returned to the field of play.
A friend of mine who was a sprinter once ran against Ken Jones, Olympic sprinter and famous Welsh wing three-quarter (who scored the winning try against the All Blacks back in the 50's). My friend was given a ten yard start. Ken Jones arrived, he told me, fag in hand; he placed the fag on the grass at the starting line and the race began. Half way to the finishing line my friend was overtaken. Then Ken Jones returned to the starting point, picked up his still burning cigarette and proceeded to continue smoking it.
There was, about fifty years back, an American tennis player (can't remember his name) who arrived on the centre court at Wimbldom with a cigarette in hand. I can't recall how far he went up the Wimbledom ladder but I'm sure he didn't win the tournament.
My favourite "oranges story" is that of the second rate rugby team at Tredegar back in the 1930' or 40's. In those days rugby was an amateur sport and it was "not done" for players to be paid. Yet it was well known that certain teams did pay players. Tredegar was one of those teams. So, when quality players got too old to play in the first class games they joined teams like Tredegar where they received financial rewards "in the boot". But how did the team managers cover up these payments? Well, half oranges were always distributed to the players at half time and at the end of the year this expense was dutifully recorded on the annual report of expenses - "Oranges £300".

Ozu

Anthony Lane in reviewing a new film called "Tokyo Sonata" said he couldn't help "but summon the ghost of Yasujiro Ozu, the serenist of Japanese filmmakers".
He certainly was. I have seen only two of his films, "Tokyo Story" and "Autumn Afternoon" and thought them both marvellous and, yes, serene.
There is no flashy camera work with Ozu: he films a scene with the camera usually at ground level and with the characters sitting at a table or squatting on a mat; the camera doesn't move, I can't recall much, if any, cuts - it's just shot in one scene and that's it, he then shoots the next scene.
The acting is always superb in a gentle, serene way; there's no wild displays of histrionics by these homely, middle-class people; the drama arises out of conflicts which are domestic. No one is murdered, no one is beaten, no one shouts at another; there are no chases. This is not Kurosawa with his raging battle scenes and strangulations and rages (Incidentally, when Kurosawa was asked who his favourite film maker was he said "John Ford of course"). No this is the cinema of serenity where relationships are put under a microscope and the little quirks the characters possess are revealed in a way that is gentle and, yes, serene.
I think he made about 16 films. He lived with his mother until her death. He smoked all the time and, I believe, liked a drink too. He was sergeant in the Japanese army. I can't imagine him killing anyone.

Tobacco Factory

I get the idea sometimes that, theatre-wise, there is more going on outside London than there is in the big city, certainly than in The West End which is pretty well full of musicals - and some, if not most of them, are not new.
We travelled to Bristol to a small theatre to see Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". The Tobacco Factory, which is the name of the theatre (I assume it was once just that, a Tobacco Factory - certainly looks like a factory rather than a theatre from the outside), is on the outskirts of Bristol - if you think of going then get a good map first; we followed a route given by the AA and got lost!
The production was fine, the acting good, the theatre itself plain and simple but adequate. Some actors these days do not speak Shakespearean verse very well but these actors at The Tobacco Factory do. I believe the company perform a couple of Shakespeare plays per season. Well done! I wish there were others doing this.
Soon we will be going to Chichester to see a couple of plays: Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" with Diana Rigg and a play by Ronald Harewood called "Taking Sides". Neither play is new though Harewood's play was written only a few years ago; so Chichester is not a venue where new plays are usually done but it is a place where good quality plays are performed.
Won't get lost going to Chichester but will make sure I carry a good map just the same.

Clive Owen

Someone this week wrote that Clive Owen is a big success in Hollywood; for God's sake, he's just made a film with Julie Roberts - he must be big now! But then the writer said that he might turn out to be the new Cary Grant.
Might. Just might. Might not I think. I doubt if he'll even think of trying because I cannot see Clive Owen playing the sort of sophisticated, looney, sometimes even goofy stuff that Cary Grant could play with a coolness that made the characters almost believeable.
I can't think of a more brilliant opening to a film than the first 20 minutes of "Bringing Up Baby". I can't see Owen in that sort of role (nor Julia Roberts in place of Katherine Hepburn). There is a desperation about Grant that is covered with a desire not to be made a fool of; and there is an almost spiteful grace about Hepburn as she seems intent on netting the professor without ever appearing to be in love with him.
I like Clive Owen and hopes he does go on to make better and better films but, if I were asked to give him a spot of advice, it would be: "Be yourself; don't try to be anyone else and certainly don't try to be Cary Grant or the differences will show like patches in a dress suit."

Birds' Eggs

I had noticed a small bird flitting by the window, over the patio where I have nailed a flat piece of wood to a post for birds to feed off. Today the small bird stopped flying in its hectic, vigorous and fast moving way and clung briefly to the fence. I was able to see that it was a wren. It was about two inches long and about one inch wide. It was brown and looked fat. I couldn't see the eyes, probably too small but saw a small beak.
When I was a child I lived close to a wood where there were all sorts of birds. We did what I suppose is now called "a politically incorrect act" and collected their eggs. I had a small collection of sparrows', blackbirds', thrushes' eggs. I didn't have a robin's. Nor did I have a wren's - though one day I could have.
I found the wren's nest and put my small child's finger through the hole in the front to see if there were any eggs there. There was an unwritten rule about the ethical collection of eggs which was, that since birds could only count to three, you were allowed to take an egg from its nest if there were more than three there. This rule was passed on from generation to generation, I assume, by word of mouth; no one knew where it had originated.
I can't recall how many eggs were in the wren's nest but I had made up my mind, as my finger entered the cosy warm environment of the inner sanctum, that I would not take a single egg. There was something so magical to me about the warmth of that "room" - that home! - I could not bring myself to defile it. Or was I that sensitive? Maybe there'd been just two eggs there.
You don't see many small birds these days. At The Hill, Abergavenny, where adult education classes I attended frequently were held, there had been, twenty odd years back, many small birds. Now there aren't many, if any. But there are plenty of magpies hopping about the grounds.
Of course, they are, these politically correct days, protected.

Translaters

Charles Moore was writing in The Telegraph about a literary festival in Aldeburgh where a certain "veteran translater", Anthea Bell, was giving a talk on her profession.
It made me think: are there more women translaters than men? I can think of two famous women translaters: Constance Garnett who specialised in Russian literature and H.T. Lowe-Porter who specialised in Thomas Mann. While there have been other translaters of Russian works, I don't know of anyone who has translated Mann other than Lowe-Porter (I wonder if anyone would have the time to translate other German authors as well as translate the whole large output of Mann's).
I have tried to read other translations of Russian authors but Constance Garnett remains my favourite; maybe this is because I have got used to her style. I once tried a new translation by Michael R. Katz of "The Devils" by Dostoevski but couldn't get on with it at all.
I suppose there is a certain creative talent to translating; that there is something of the personality of the translater in the work. Maybe I like Garnett best because I like Garnett's style.
As for H.T. Lowe-Porter, there is, to my knowledge, no one to compare her with.
I once knew a professional translater: she translated chiefly medical journals and books. She could speak five languages fluently I believe and was, when I knew her, learning a new one - Welsh. She was a highly intelligent woman, well read, an excellent writer of stories and articles and an autobiography that was immensely colourful and interesting (never published, but never to my knowledge offered). There was one thing I could never understand about her though - she is the only person I have ever met who read and enjoyed Mills and Boon romantic novels.
Somehow I can't see Lowe-Porter enjoying a Mills and Boon.

Spain

We were on a package holiday in the south of Spain (OK, I admit it - a Saga do) when one of the party was taken ill and rushed off to hospital. I enquired of our tour guide what would now happen and she said that it was now out of Saga's hands but in the very reliable hands of the hospital authority.
Reliable? I thought. Spain reliable? I thought. Not in my young days it wasn't. Not while holidaying on the Costa Brava. Then everything had a sort of dirtyness about it. The toilets were abominable, fly infested places. Hotel rooms were dingy. And the police were scary.
"Things have changed," said our guide. "Those days were when Franco was in power. Now it's different. I tell you, I would not be treated in the NHS back home; I get treated here in Spain."
That was the second time I had heard that, the first being the words of Tom Sharpe the novelist who lives in Spain. It was the chief reason he lived there, he said.
Now I read in The Times that 30% of Spain's entire power output is produced by wind and water.
"What is the truth with us in Britain?" Matthew Parris moans. We just sit around complaining that wind power is variable. That is, not reliable.
And there's me thinking that Spain was all dirty toilets, bull fighting, paella and sun, whereas it's clean reliable hospitals, reliable wind power and sun. Yes, and sun! Surely we've got more wind than Spain.
And less sun!

Telling the Truth

When I was a tutor on a creative writing course I used to give a spot of advice about writing that I had picked up somewhere - an article in a magazine on psychology maybe, or from Readers' Digest, or the back of a matchbox possibly. It was this: "If you have a problem then tell it in the form of a story."
At the time it seemed a good idea: many of those would-be writers on the course did just that and, let me tell you, we had plenty of people with problems on those courses.
I had the feeling that we helped solve some of the problems they had. One lady had been a quite successful children's writer but then she'd had a nervous breakdown and suffered "writers' block". After a weekend with us she seemed to break the block because she returned to later courses with new stories to read to us. Whether or not she was successful in publishing them I never found out because I decided to do the decent thing and pack in tutoring there - I'd done enough damage by then!
Budding writers are often advised to "write about what you know". This came back to mind this evening as I was starting to write (re-write, rather) a story about a vicar who finds a pair of knickers and a bra in a drawer in a room of an adult education college where he is attending a course on "Morality, Darwin and The Old Testament" (read the story on my website if you wish). This was not based on what I knew: I had never been a vicar, I had never found a pair of knickers and a bra in a drawer in any room etc etc.
My advice now to would-be writers is "try to write a good story, never mind if it's based on your own experience" because telling the truth, telling it as it really was can prove disastrous.
Think Julie Myerson and her new book on her son, his taking drugs and how she and her husband eventually kicked him out their home. Instead of the book drawing favourable reviews it's had the opposite effect: she has become subject to intense criticism and some mockery. Indeed, she now regets her decision to publish the book.
As her son says: "she is a writer and like a lot of writers she is wrapped up in her own world."
Right on, as they say.

Friday Poem

"Winoes"

Their wizened cheery faces,
Their camaraderie,
Their engrossed talk (philosophy);
They sit on benches in the sun;
They quaff the wine and sherry,
They're as happy as the day is born.
Legless,
Out of their minds,
Sloshed,
They point and grimace, point and lecture,
Point and hold the pose:
A lugubrious ballet pose,
Or ancient Chinese exercise.
Then sad depression for a while
Until a drink rejuvenates.

Salome

Salome is mentioned by name only once in The Bible: in Mark. However, this is not the same Salome as came to be known as the woman who asked Herod for the head of John the Baptist; this one in Mark's book is a faithful follower of Christ who visits the cave where Christ has been incarcerated only to find that the rock has been removed and Christ has gone. That she is with Mary Magdalene may signify something but nothing is specified.
The Salome of legend comes in a story in Matthew but her name is never mentioned, only that the young woman is the daughter of Herodias by her first husband, Herod's brother. The story was made a play in one act by Oscar Wilde and produced in Paris in the 1890's.
This play was used soon after as the basis for an opera by Richard Strauss. It caused a sensation. The composer could not get it performed in Vienna and had it produced in a smaller city to which many of the musical giants of the day, like Puccini, flocked.
I have just seen the opera in Cardiff performed by The Welsh National Opera Company. Musically it is a wonderful work; dramatically it still thrills but there is no doubt that, even now, these days that are as un-Victorian as could be, it is still a shocker. In the final scene when the head of John the Baptist is brought to Salome and she desires to kiss the head's lips, someone behind me actually gasped in sudden shock. It is a most distasteful scene - even now!
There is one scene in the play in which "The Young Syrian" commits suicide that is just not credible dramatically: it comes as it were, out of the blue, no one seems to care that the man has taken his life; not only that but there seems no great reason that he should have. He is carried off at Herod's orders. Yet it has a dramatic link to the later actions for they all are the acts of exceedingly disturbed people consumed, in one way or another, by lust. Even John the Baptist is consumed by a kind of lust, a religious lust, one that is almost maniacal. "All the world's evil has come from woman" he says. And Salome's acts and behaviour from then on seem to prove this to be true.
There is a wonderful recording of the opera with Solti conducting and Bridget Neilson in the role of Salome.
And there are magnificent set of ink drawings by Aubrey Beardsley of scenes from the play which can be seen here and there on the internet.