Someone was writing in a newspaper last week about going to get rid of his collection of old vinyl records. Selling them or throwing them away (to make more space in his study). Of course he didn't; he couldn't. They meant a lot to him; they were part of his own history. He started playing some of them again.
So have I.
I thought about selling mycollection a couple of years ago but didn't. I couldn't. It isn't that I play them much; I don't until recently.
Someone on Desert Island Discs chose Beethoven's 3rd Symphony and it reminded me of my own old vinyl recording by Otto Klemperer and The Philharmia Orchestra, so I got it out and played it. Wonderful.
A long time ago John Freeman did interviews of famous people on a TV programme - "Face to Face"; in one of them he interviewed Klemperer. I can't remember anything he said but at the end they played the finale of his recording of Beethoven's 3rd symphony; the nest morning I went out and bought it.
Now today, I have bought another Klemperer recording of a Beethoven symphony: his 9th, the Choral. A vinyl record - or, rather, two records. They were in pristine condition; the recording had some of the top singers of their day, singers like Christa Ludwig and Hans Hotter. How much did I pay for it? £1.99 exactly. From an Oxfam shop.
Klemperer recorded all Beethoven symphonies twice (maybe more) one set before he had a brain tumour, the other set after his successful operation. I have known people who found his post operation recordings slow and dull. Certainly they are slower but not dull; they are in some way more assured.
This 9th symphony is magnificent.
There was, in the Oxfam shop, a Dinu Lipati recording of Bach and other composers. I must get it soon before someone gets to it first.
Thursday 28 January 2010
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman is eighty. I thought he'd always been eighty - or thereabouts. maybe that's a bit of an exageration but you know what I mean - he's never been young. Indeed, his film career didn't start properly until he was in his forties; whether that long period of waiting for something to turn up made him the often bitter seeming actor in later years can't be proved but I think he played the gruff guy more than most and better than most.
Mark Stein writes today: "He's like an old-time movie star - Spencer Tracy or Jimmy Cagney - fellows with lived-in faces."
Like them he was never the romantic lead though Tracy could do romantic comedy ("Pat and Mike") as he got older. But there was a gruff side to both Tracy and Cagney though maybe not as gruff as Hackman's.
He was best in roles in which he played a villain where he could use that bitter smile which wasn't a smile but a show of a smile to pretend that underneath that gruff exterior beat a heart, but a heart with not much love in it.
Woody Allen cast him in a film which I have not seen; when asked why he had cast Hackman he said he wanted a man for the part that looked like an ordinary guy, not someone like, say, Paul Newman: "Imagine an ordinary wife coming home and seeing Paul Newman sitting there in froint of the fire".
He's given up ac ting; now he paints and writes novels. He'll be interviewed one day no doubt, and like Kirk Douglas, will say something like he wished he had taken up writing before now and that it's better than acting..... Pull the other one.
Mark Stein writes today: "He's like an old-time movie star - Spencer Tracy or Jimmy Cagney - fellows with lived-in faces."
Like them he was never the romantic lead though Tracy could do romantic comedy ("Pat and Mike") as he got older. But there was a gruff side to both Tracy and Cagney though maybe not as gruff as Hackman's.
He was best in roles in which he played a villain where he could use that bitter smile which wasn't a smile but a show of a smile to pretend that underneath that gruff exterior beat a heart, but a heart with not much love in it.
Woody Allen cast him in a film which I have not seen; when asked why he had cast Hackman he said he wanted a man for the part that looked like an ordinary guy, not someone like, say, Paul Newman: "Imagine an ordinary wife coming home and seeing Paul Newman sitting there in froint of the fire".
He's given up ac ting; now he paints and writes novels. He'll be interviewed one day no doubt, and like Kirk Douglas, will say something like he wished he had taken up writing before now and that it's better than acting..... Pull the other one.
Sunday 24 January 2010
Learning
In "seven" today, a magazine that comes with The Sunday Telegraph, there is an interview with James Patterson who is "one of the world's most prolific authors with 70 odd titles to his name and over 170 million books sold". Phew!
I read one or two of his books some time back - I think I reviewed one for Wales on Sunday, a newspaper that started literary and went downhill to pop-like stuff - and enjoyed them; he's one of those writers who write books which are often called "page turners"- you can't put the darn things down once you start them. He admits he writes such books and is rather proud of it I think; once, he says, he read only what is called great literature and said he was a bit of a snob but when he came to write he found he was best at more popular kinds of writing. He said something that at first I thought was rather strange: he had been studying literature for a PhD but gave it up because "studying literature would destroy his love of reading". Hello? Shouldn't it do the reverse? Isn't that what studying literature is all about - making great literature more enjoyable, not less?
Well, I can actually appreciate what he is saying. I have two "case histories" which go some way to proving the truth in his remark. One has to do with a man I knew who wrote plays for the BBC, radio and TV plays, but had no education to speak of. He was urged by people he got to mix with in drama circles to attend Harlech College and get himself educated. Not only did he do that but from there he went to Oxford University where he got a 1st in literature. After leaving the university he never wrote a play again. It had destroyed his powers to create characters.
Another case is of a young woman who also had been to university when, again, she came away with a 1st in English; she said she wanted to write stories for children; we were on a course together and I tried to help her. But I couldn't. She did not know how to write a story, never mind a story for children
It seems they had both been educated to criticise literature to such an extent that they could no longer create stories, as if their critical faculties were so strong that when they started to write something they were too critical of it.
James Patterson didn't want his studying of literature to destroy his love of reading. I think you could probably add his love of writing to that as well.
I read one or two of his books some time back - I think I reviewed one for Wales on Sunday, a newspaper that started literary and went downhill to pop-like stuff - and enjoyed them; he's one of those writers who write books which are often called "page turners"- you can't put the darn things down once you start them. He admits he writes such books and is rather proud of it I think; once, he says, he read only what is called great literature and said he was a bit of a snob but when he came to write he found he was best at more popular kinds of writing. He said something that at first I thought was rather strange: he had been studying literature for a PhD but gave it up because "studying literature would destroy his love of reading". Hello? Shouldn't it do the reverse? Isn't that what studying literature is all about - making great literature more enjoyable, not less?
Well, I can actually appreciate what he is saying. I have two "case histories" which go some way to proving the truth in his remark. One has to do with a man I knew who wrote plays for the BBC, radio and TV plays, but had no education to speak of. He was urged by people he got to mix with in drama circles to attend Harlech College and get himself educated. Not only did he do that but from there he went to Oxford University where he got a 1st in literature. After leaving the university he never wrote a play again. It had destroyed his powers to create characters.
Another case is of a young woman who also had been to university when, again, she came away with a 1st in English; she said she wanted to write stories for children; we were on a course together and I tried to help her. But I couldn't. She did not know how to write a story, never mind a story for children
It seems they had both been educated to criticise literature to such an extent that they could no longer create stories, as if their critical faculties were so strong that when they started to write something they were too critical of it.
James Patterson didn't want his studying of literature to destroy his love of reading. I think you could probably add his love of writing to that as well.
Saturday 23 January 2010
Parliament
MP's have a lot of fun sometimes. Cameron is having fun at the present time in Prime Minister's Questions pointing out weaknesses in Gordon Brown's "reign" but Matthew Parris in The Times today thinks he is going too far by not concentrating on things that matter to the public but on trivialities; while he is getting a lot of shouting support and laughter the remarks may rebound on him and make him look trivail.
Quite true. Looks like bullying which is the last thing David Cameron should be doing coming as he does from a priveleged background: one might have a vision of that public school rascal Flashman roasting kids over fires in "Tom Brown's Schooldays", and I'm sure that would be the last thing he'd want.
But parliament can be fun sometimes without too much rancour and bullying.
My father told me of an MP who was a very big drinker; he also had a very big pot to go with it. One day Lady Astor was making one of her speeches about the evils of drink and there, across the chamber from her, was the fat, boozy MP chuckling and making snide comments. She turned on him saying something like: "and look at the honourable member for (whatever), over there with his big, fat belly." To which he replied: "I'd put my belly up against yours any day of the week."
I liked a remark made a few weeks ago when Nick Clegg got to his feet. You have first to know that Nick Clegg had (unwisely, I think) admitted to having "had" 30 lovers before marrying. He said: "A young lady in my constuituency came to see me...." He didn't get any further - "thirty-one" shouted some wag.
Quite true. Looks like bullying which is the last thing David Cameron should be doing coming as he does from a priveleged background: one might have a vision of that public school rascal Flashman roasting kids over fires in "Tom Brown's Schooldays", and I'm sure that would be the last thing he'd want.
But parliament can be fun sometimes without too much rancour and bullying.
My father told me of an MP who was a very big drinker; he also had a very big pot to go with it. One day Lady Astor was making one of her speeches about the evils of drink and there, across the chamber from her, was the fat, boozy MP chuckling and making snide comments. She turned on him saying something like: "and look at the honourable member for (whatever), over there with his big, fat belly." To which he replied: "I'd put my belly up against yours any day of the week."
I liked a remark made a few weeks ago when Nick Clegg got to his feet. You have first to know that Nick Clegg had (unwisely, I think) admitted to having "had" 30 lovers before marrying. He said: "A young lady in my constuituency came to see me...." He didn't get any further - "thirty-one" shouted some wag.
Friday 22 January 2010
James Ellroy
James Ellroy, who wrote "L.A.Confidential", a good film but, to me, an unreadable book, had a most peculiar choice of records on his "Desert Island Discs" this week. He started with Beethoven's 3rd symphony, then chose the Hammerklavier piano sonata by Beethoven, then to Sibelius's Violin Concerto, a couple of symphonies by Bruckner and, at the end, "the greatest music ever written" he said - Beethoven's 9th Symphony, "The Choral". The overall choice seemed to reflect his personality which could be summed up by the word "obsessive". There was a darkness about the works he chose, a sombreness; there was no lightness at all, no Mozart or Percy Grainger or Stravinski at his cheekiest.
One thing he said about Beethoven's 3rd symphony struck me as true: that it was a turning point in classical music. It seemed to mark the end of classical and be the beginning of the romantic. Certainly the symphony is, and must have been then, something new to audiences not least in its length. I was told once that a certain conductor of those days would threaten an orchestra with making them play another 3rd symphony if they didn't keep up to speed, sort of thing. Also I recall someone remarking that the first movement is longer than most of Haydn's symphonies with their 4 movements.
I think there is something salient in the fact that Beethoven dedicated the work to Napoleon, calling it "The Eroica": he wasn't just writing music in the classical tradition but he was thinking thoughts outside of music, romanticising. As Bernard Shaw said about Beethoven: he was the first composer to put himself into his works - or something like that.
It has to added that Beethoven, on hearing of Napoleon's nefarious exploits, crossed out the dedication to that warlike monster, another romantic/moral act.
One thing he said about Beethoven's 3rd symphony struck me as true: that it was a turning point in classical music. It seemed to mark the end of classical and be the beginning of the romantic. Certainly the symphony is, and must have been then, something new to audiences not least in its length. I was told once that a certain conductor of those days would threaten an orchestra with making them play another 3rd symphony if they didn't keep up to speed, sort of thing. Also I recall someone remarking that the first movement is longer than most of Haydn's symphonies with their 4 movements.
I think there is something salient in the fact that Beethoven dedicated the work to Napoleon, calling it "The Eroica": he wasn't just writing music in the classical tradition but he was thinking thoughts outside of music, romanticising. As Bernard Shaw said about Beethoven: he was the first composer to put himself into his works - or something like that.
It has to added that Beethoven, on hearing of Napoleon's nefarious exploits, crossed out the dedication to that warlike monster, another romantic/moral act.
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Salah
In the same platoon as me in Her Majesty's forces was a young man named Salah. He was from Kuwait. I have just seen Jon Snow and his son's documentary about the first Gulf War in which Iraq invaded Kuwait, tortured and killed many Kuwaities and set fire to their oil fields before they were beaten by a UN force of Americans, British and many other world forces. I couldn't help wondering if he had suffered at the hands of the Iraqies or maybe he was killed by them.
But probably not because he was one of the "royals" of Kuwait. He was, I was told, "the son of the sheik of Kuwait"; if he was he was probably one of the ruling family who, at the commencement of the war, fled the country (lucky them). I wonder if they took their wives with them. Would have been big party since I heard that the sheiks had many wives. And there were a good few shieks.
Auberon Waugh, writing in the Telegraph at the time, cynically expressed the view that we were fighting to protect the 57 wives of the sheik (or sheiks?).
Salah was a nice fellow but not in any way a soldier. For a start he didn't know how to march. There were in the army after WW2 some few soldiers who just could not march. They could walk alright but when it came to marching something in their brains told them that it was totally different from walking. So occasionally you'd see corporals and sergeants trying to train them how to march. "You don't move your right arm forward when you put your right foot forward." That's what they'd do since they believed marching to be different from walking. So there'd be a corporal holding the man's right arm and another holding the man's left arm, and every time the man put a foot forward, say his right, they would try to push his left arm forward and his right arm backward. It was hilariously funny to watch. They never to my knowledge succeeded; indeed, they probabaly gave the man such a feeling of uselessness that he'd never walk (or think) properly again.
Salah could't march but, since he was a sheik's son, he never had to suffer that sort of indignity. He just slouched about the place.
One day he was late for parade and the fiercely crazy Sergeant Major saw him as he got in line. He marched over to him and stared at him. A lesser NCO whispered to the S'arnt Major that "he's the son of the sheik of Kuwait sir." "I don't care who's son he is," roared the S'arnt Major. "Let me tell you, you little piece of shite," he said, "the way you're going you'll never grow up to be a good Shah."
I wonder if Salah, when he got out of the madhouse and went back home, did become a good Shah after all and settle down to domestic bliss with forty or fifty wives.
But probably not because he was one of the "royals" of Kuwait. He was, I was told, "the son of the sheik of Kuwait"; if he was he was probably one of the ruling family who, at the commencement of the war, fled the country (lucky them). I wonder if they took their wives with them. Would have been big party since I heard that the sheiks had many wives. And there were a good few shieks.
Auberon Waugh, writing in the Telegraph at the time, cynically expressed the view that we were fighting to protect the 57 wives of the sheik (or sheiks?).
Salah was a nice fellow but not in any way a soldier. For a start he didn't know how to march. There were in the army after WW2 some few soldiers who just could not march. They could walk alright but when it came to marching something in their brains told them that it was totally different from walking. So occasionally you'd see corporals and sergeants trying to train them how to march. "You don't move your right arm forward when you put your right foot forward." That's what they'd do since they believed marching to be different from walking. So there'd be a corporal holding the man's right arm and another holding the man's left arm, and every time the man put a foot forward, say his right, they would try to push his left arm forward and his right arm backward. It was hilariously funny to watch. They never to my knowledge succeeded; indeed, they probabaly gave the man such a feeling of uselessness that he'd never walk (or think) properly again.
Salah could't march but, since he was a sheik's son, he never had to suffer that sort of indignity. He just slouched about the place.
One day he was late for parade and the fiercely crazy Sergeant Major saw him as he got in line. He marched over to him and stared at him. A lesser NCO whispered to the S'arnt Major that "he's the son of the sheik of Kuwait sir." "I don't care who's son he is," roared the S'arnt Major. "Let me tell you, you little piece of shite," he said, "the way you're going you'll never grow up to be a good Shah."
I wonder if Salah, when he got out of the madhouse and went back home, did become a good Shah after all and settle down to domestic bliss with forty or fifty wives.
Saturday 16 January 2010
Siblings
"God help the Mister who comes between me and my sister/ And God help the sister who comes between me and my man."
So sang the two film sisters in "White Christmas". Good verse by Irving Berlin: clever and truthful.
Christopher Hitchens has written an article for Vanity Fair on sibling rivalry; in some cases it's more like sibling war. Two brothers, twins, find themselves on opposite sides in the American Civil War - apparently captured in a painting in a large canvas in Atlanta depicting the great fire there (yes, I remember it well: Clark Gable with his pony and trap and Vivian Leigh beside him braving the flames to get away to safety). Then he mentions Olivia de Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine who hated each so much that on an Oscar night one stood at one end of a line of Oscar winners and the other stood at the other end; also Olivia refused to accept her Oscar from her sister and flounced off leaving Joan standing there Oscar in hand not knowing what to do - she'd have probably liked to throw it at her sister. Fontaine wrote, in her biography, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did; and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it."
There is no greater lack of affection bettween the two Hitchens brothers: Christopher is on the left politically and Peter on the right.
I am looking back to see if there was much of this rivalry between me and my older brother. There wasn't much I recall.... O yes, there was the matter of the apple. My father gave us an apple between us and said one of you can cut it, the other choose which half he wants. My brother chose to cut it; he did so with infinite care so that you could hardly distinguish between the two halves. Now came my opportunity to choose my "half". Hand aiming for one piece, I hesitated when I saw a thin smile appear on my brother's lips; I hesitated more when his smile disappeared as I reached towards the other half - he may be bluffing, I thought. Eventually when I did make my choice he laughed and said"You chose the smaller; this one's the bigger," and took a great big bite of his piece.
I cried.
So sang the two film sisters in "White Christmas". Good verse by Irving Berlin: clever and truthful.
Christopher Hitchens has written an article for Vanity Fair on sibling rivalry; in some cases it's more like sibling war. Two brothers, twins, find themselves on opposite sides in the American Civil War - apparently captured in a painting in a large canvas in Atlanta depicting the great fire there (yes, I remember it well: Clark Gable with his pony and trap and Vivian Leigh beside him braving the flames to get away to safety). Then he mentions Olivia de Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine who hated each so much that on an Oscar night one stood at one end of a line of Oscar winners and the other stood at the other end; also Olivia refused to accept her Oscar from her sister and flounced off leaving Joan standing there Oscar in hand not knowing what to do - she'd have probably liked to throw it at her sister. Fontaine wrote, in her biography, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did; and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it."
There is no greater lack of affection bettween the two Hitchens brothers: Christopher is on the left politically and Peter on the right.
I am looking back to see if there was much of this rivalry between me and my older brother. There wasn't much I recall.... O yes, there was the matter of the apple. My father gave us an apple between us and said one of you can cut it, the other choose which half he wants. My brother chose to cut it; he did so with infinite care so that you could hardly distinguish between the two halves. Now came my opportunity to choose my "half". Hand aiming for one piece, I hesitated when I saw a thin smile appear on my brother's lips; I hesitated more when his smile disappeared as I reached towards the other half - he may be bluffing, I thought. Eventually when I did make my choice he laughed and said"You chose the smaller; this one's the bigger," and took a great big bite of his piece.
I cried.
Monday 11 January 2010
Words and Music
Once upon a time when I was a theatre reviewer for a journal called The South Wales Spectator which no one I knew read, I invented sur-titles. Well, I didn't invent them so much as had the idea for them. Well, rather, my idea was for sub-titles. Since few people read the magazine (the only ones who did were probably photographed in it since it was, like Tatler, a magazine devoted mainly to high-up marriages: "pictured are the bride, Elizabeth Manly-Crossbow, with her groom, Captain Shafstebury Watson-Beaver, together with Miss Manly-Crossbow's father, Lord Hillougby Manley-Crossbow..... blah blah blah) I am pretty sure the idea of sur titles wasn't taken up from my invention (idea) of sub-titles. But it may have been and, anyway, I was first.
In those days, in my monthly article on local theatre goings-on (for which I was paid a fiver), I used to put forward the argument that opera should be in English. Why? So that the audience could understand it of course. Surely, I argued, the text is as important as the music: might as well just go "la,la,la".
Now I'm not so sure. Some songs are worsened by the words; some songs use words as musical background - take "A brighter shade of pale": it doesn't matter what the words say, if anything at all. I recall one the group who recorded that number saying he didn't know what the hell it was about. I think it got to No.1.
And take "Send in the Clowns". Does anyone know what that is about? You can understand what the singer is saying - sentences that don't add up to much: "Isn't it rich/ Are we a pair, me with my head in the clouds/ you in mid air" (or vice-versa) etc. But it doesn't matter; it's a joy to hear; you can interpret it as you wish.
Sur-titles are a great invention (I was first): you can now see Berg's "Lulu" and follow the plot as well as enjoy the music.... if you like that sort of thing.
Which bringfs me to a composer named Ruggels, an American avante garde conmposer. He was informed that one of the concerts in which his music was being played was full to capacity with music lovers to which his reaction was "what is the organistion catering to the public for?" As Alex Ross says in his book "The Rest is Noise": "As so often in the modernist saga, revolutionary impulses went hand in hand with intolerance and resentment."
Just like Sondheim who seems to resent the success of "Send in the Clowns" because it's too popular or something. Shouldn't be able to remove a song from its context he says, or some such thing. He hated Sinatra's version. It's great.
In those days, in my monthly article on local theatre goings-on (for which I was paid a fiver), I used to put forward the argument that opera should be in English. Why? So that the audience could understand it of course. Surely, I argued, the text is as important as the music: might as well just go "la,la,la".
Now I'm not so sure. Some songs are worsened by the words; some songs use words as musical background - take "A brighter shade of pale": it doesn't matter what the words say, if anything at all. I recall one the group who recorded that number saying he didn't know what the hell it was about. I think it got to No.1.
And take "Send in the Clowns". Does anyone know what that is about? You can understand what the singer is saying - sentences that don't add up to much: "Isn't it rich/ Are we a pair, me with my head in the clouds/ you in mid air" (or vice-versa) etc. But it doesn't matter; it's a joy to hear; you can interpret it as you wish.
Sur-titles are a great invention (I was first): you can now see Berg's "Lulu" and follow the plot as well as enjoy the music.... if you like that sort of thing.
Which bringfs me to a composer named Ruggels, an American avante garde conmposer. He was informed that one of the concerts in which his music was being played was full to capacity with music lovers to which his reaction was "what is the organistion catering to the public for?" As Alex Ross says in his book "The Rest is Noise": "As so often in the modernist saga, revolutionary impulses went hand in hand with intolerance and resentment."
Just like Sondheim who seems to resent the success of "Send in the Clowns" because it's too popular or something. Shouldn't be able to remove a song from its context he says, or some such thing. He hated Sinatra's version. It's great.
Sunday 10 January 2010
Bloomsbury
Simon Heffer occasionally gets off his high Tory horse to allow something other than politics to engage him: often it is music, particularly English music, Vaughan Williams being a favourite of his; today in the Sunday Telegraph it is literature, in particular the Bloomsbury set whom he detests.
So do I, though my hate of them is not really based on having done much reading of them. I have never read a word of Virginia Wolfe; he mentions D.H.Lawrence being a memeber of this group but I don't recall that. Maybe he is putting them together because he wishes to make a point about a certain kind of writing of the period. His main thesis is that this lot were far inferior to those other writers like Wells, Arnold Bennett and Galsworthy who tended to write not about literary people but about ordinary people.
There are two "sets" of writers I really don't want to hear anything more about: the Bloomsbury lot and the Waughs. O yes, and the Coopers, though they weren't so much literary as upperclass twits who attached themselves to people they regarded as important, like Hitler and Mosely, humanity's gunge.
Unlike my dislike of Bloomsbury, based on nothing but what I have read about them rather than their works themselves, my dislike of the Waughs is based on quite a lot of reading of their work. Yet I do admire Evelyn Waugh: I enjoy his barbed wit, his style, his humour; can't say I like that semi-autobiographical novel (?) and have never wished to read Brideshead Revisted since I have the feeling that it reeks of Catholicism - not that I am anti-Catholic, it's just that Waugh (like Greene) when he gets onto the subject of his adopted religion, kind of relishes it and wallows in it and can't think straight.
In another part of the same paper today was an article about bananas; Nigfel Farndale related how, after WW2, the Waugh household received three bananas; the three children, Auberon amoung them, eagerly waited to taste these fruits they had heard were delicious but had never tried. Evelyn Waugh put three bananas on a plate, poured on cream and sugar and ate them, all three of them while his kids looked on. Farndale says that Auberon never forgave him for that.
Neither do I. A horrible man.
So do I, though my hate of them is not really based on having done much reading of them. I have never read a word of Virginia Wolfe; he mentions D.H.Lawrence being a memeber of this group but I don't recall that. Maybe he is putting them together because he wishes to make a point about a certain kind of writing of the period. His main thesis is that this lot were far inferior to those other writers like Wells, Arnold Bennett and Galsworthy who tended to write not about literary people but about ordinary people.
There are two "sets" of writers I really don't want to hear anything more about: the Bloomsbury lot and the Waughs. O yes, and the Coopers, though they weren't so much literary as upperclass twits who attached themselves to people they regarded as important, like Hitler and Mosely, humanity's gunge.
Unlike my dislike of Bloomsbury, based on nothing but what I have read about them rather than their works themselves, my dislike of the Waughs is based on quite a lot of reading of their work. Yet I do admire Evelyn Waugh: I enjoy his barbed wit, his style, his humour; can't say I like that semi-autobiographical novel (?) and have never wished to read Brideshead Revisted since I have the feeling that it reeks of Catholicism - not that I am anti-Catholic, it's just that Waugh (like Greene) when he gets onto the subject of his adopted religion, kind of relishes it and wallows in it and can't think straight.
In another part of the same paper today was an article about bananas; Nigfel Farndale related how, after WW2, the Waugh household received three bananas; the three children, Auberon amoung them, eagerly waited to taste these fruits they had heard were delicious but had never tried. Evelyn Waugh put three bananas on a plate, poured on cream and sugar and ate them, all three of them while his kids looked on. Farndale says that Auberon never forgave him for that.
Neither do I. A horrible man.
Thursday 7 January 2010
Malvolio
I have only once acted in a play. It was an amateur production of Richard the Third by Shakespeare. I was a soldier: the one who leads the group carrying the coffin of .... whoever it was.... Suddenly out comes Richard himself, old Crookback, and tries to halt the procession. I then had to say: "Stand back and let the coffin pass." My one and only line in the play. I forgot it. It was D.W.'s fault. He was a friend of mine and he was sitting in the front row grinning up at me. I almost said "Hi, D.W." but instead I had my line to say. Which I forgot.
I have never acted since. I have never wished to. But once, a long time ago, I did fancy acting.
At the school Eisteddfod, one of the set competitions each "house" had to enter was a scene from "Twelfth Night". The letter scene. I got a few bods from the sixth form to do the scene. Big, six and half foot second-row B.T. played Andrew Aguecheek, a short imp of a kid with a loud voice played Sir Toby Belch, a pretty girl (we all fancied) played Maria. I played Malvolio.
Maria came out to start the scene. She came out from the changing room in the gym where the scenes were played - don't ask me why the main hall wasn't used. She came out, stood still and did not speak. In thespian-ese, she "dried". But she didn't panic, at least not outwardly; she didn't scream and rush off. What she did was something braver and more useful to us waiting in the wings, so to speak, to go on: she returned to the changing room and re-entered with the text of the play in her hand. She kept the book in her hands throughout. She didn't act, she gave "a reading". Next came the gang led by Toby Belch. Next came Malvolio to find the letter they had forged. To hide from him they all dived behind a gym horse, took out their books from their pockets and, like Maria, proceeded to give a reading of the text.
I had learnt my lines. I thought I was rather good. I was told at the end that I had made the best exit - I pranced off like a fairy. I had the feeling that my performance was more appreciated in its absence than in its presence.
We came last.
Malvolio is now being played by Mr Misery himself, Meldrew or Richard Wilson. I hear he's very good. But I wonder if his exit is as good as mine was.
I have never acted since. I have never wished to. But once, a long time ago, I did fancy acting.
At the school Eisteddfod, one of the set competitions each "house" had to enter was a scene from "Twelfth Night". The letter scene. I got a few bods from the sixth form to do the scene. Big, six and half foot second-row B.T. played Andrew Aguecheek, a short imp of a kid with a loud voice played Sir Toby Belch, a pretty girl (we all fancied) played Maria. I played Malvolio.
Maria came out to start the scene. She came out from the changing room in the gym where the scenes were played - don't ask me why the main hall wasn't used. She came out, stood still and did not speak. In thespian-ese, she "dried". But she didn't panic, at least not outwardly; she didn't scream and rush off. What she did was something braver and more useful to us waiting in the wings, so to speak, to go on: she returned to the changing room and re-entered with the text of the play in her hand. She kept the book in her hands throughout. She didn't act, she gave "a reading". Next came the gang led by Toby Belch. Next came Malvolio to find the letter they had forged. To hide from him they all dived behind a gym horse, took out their books from their pockets and, like Maria, proceeded to give a reading of the text.
I had learnt my lines. I thought I was rather good. I was told at the end that I had made the best exit - I pranced off like a fairy. I had the feeling that my performance was more appreciated in its absence than in its presence.
We came last.
Malvolio is now being played by Mr Misery himself, Meldrew or Richard Wilson. I hear he's very good. But I wonder if his exit is as good as mine was.
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Religion
Ben Macintyre, in The Times, writes today about the religious objectors to Hitler's reign of terror, how they opposed him not so much physically, like von Stauffenberg when he attempted with others to assassinate him, but morally. In particular he mentions Helmut von Moltke who with other Christian intellectuals planned for the aftermath of the war and on how "to exorcise the sin of Nazism". Earlier in the article he writes this: "In our secular age, religious conviction is deeply unfashionable".
A couple of weeks ago in the same newspaper Matthew Parris vented his spleen at the what he considered to be the nonsensical carting about the country of the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux: what on earth were people doing believing that these few bones could in some magical, or miraculous, way bring about some kind of change for the better in their lives? A few weeks later when he was in Malawi he witnessed the charitable work of British Christians helping the poor of that backward country. He had, he said, received many letters criticising his article on St. Therese and now, not in so much an apology, but a realisation that, however much people were deluded in believing in God, he had to admit that their work in his name couldn't be gainsaid.
I have just been reading an article in an encyclopedia about the slavetrade and how it eventually was stopped by the work of Charles Fox and the Quakers together with others of Christian faith, like Wiliam Wilberforce; the British trade came to an end in 1833, the year of Wilberforce's death.
Like Matthew Parris I find it difficult to believe in supernatural phenomena but am heartened by the work of those who do. Yet, if God is good, as is maintained by the believers of all religions, why did he wait so long for the slave trade, for example, to carry on before intervening, through people like Wilberfioorce, to put an end to it. After all, it wasn't years but centuries.
There has been a good deal of talk about the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square and who should occupy it; I think William Wilberforce would be a very good choice even though I don't follow his beliefs.
In the film about him a couple of years ago a parliamentarian stood up and said something to the effect that they were always praising great men of war but here at last was man of peace who deserved the greatest praise.
Wilberforce would stand on the now empty plinth as a sort of counterbalance to that of Nelson who stands high above, diagonally opposite.
A couple of weeks ago in the same newspaper Matthew Parris vented his spleen at the what he considered to be the nonsensical carting about the country of the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux: what on earth were people doing believing that these few bones could in some magical, or miraculous, way bring about some kind of change for the better in their lives? A few weeks later when he was in Malawi he witnessed the charitable work of British Christians helping the poor of that backward country. He had, he said, received many letters criticising his article on St. Therese and now, not in so much an apology, but a realisation that, however much people were deluded in believing in God, he had to admit that their work in his name couldn't be gainsaid.
I have just been reading an article in an encyclopedia about the slavetrade and how it eventually was stopped by the work of Charles Fox and the Quakers together with others of Christian faith, like Wiliam Wilberforce; the British trade came to an end in 1833, the year of Wilberforce's death.
Like Matthew Parris I find it difficult to believe in supernatural phenomena but am heartened by the work of those who do. Yet, if God is good, as is maintained by the believers of all religions, why did he wait so long for the slave trade, for example, to carry on before intervening, through people like Wilberfioorce, to put an end to it. After all, it wasn't years but centuries.
There has been a good deal of talk about the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square and who should occupy it; I think William Wilberforce would be a very good choice even though I don't follow his beliefs.
In the film about him a couple of years ago a parliamentarian stood up and said something to the effect that they were always praising great men of war but here at last was man of peace who deserved the greatest praise.
Wilberforce would stand on the now empty plinth as a sort of counterbalance to that of Nelson who stands high above, diagonally opposite.
Friday 1 January 2010
Poets
I am told that in some junior schools children are told that "poetry need not rhyme" or that "you can write what you like in a poem" or some such rubbish. I have the feeling that some of our so-called important poets have had too great an influence on teachers. A year or so ago I picked up a "book of poetry" - I don't think! - in which none of the poems rhymed, few made much sense though they were full of politically correct material, and none of them possessed any rhythm. They were all prose pieces written in lines with capital letters starting every line (maybe).
There is a person who publishes a magazine who wishes to receive submissions provided they don't rhyme. No good Philip Larkin sending anything then (if he were alive).
There are two poems in the Christmas edition of The Spectator and neither have rhymes. However, one by Wendy Cope does have a certain rhythm; it isn't prose put into lines with capital letters at the beginning of each. The other by none other than our just retired poet laureate, Andrew Motion, is, to my mind, prose put in lines like poetry - with capital letters where they would occur in sentences.
"I was passing, so dropped in
unannounced. It had been a while
and my hand on the lych-gate
fondly remembered deep scars."
That's the first "verse". The rest drones on relentlessly.
George Steiner, in writing a piece on Dylan Thomas, mentioned the lack of meaning in the poems, if memory serves me right. Yes, I agree, but they are still wonderful to listen to because if they are nothing else you know they are poems.
There is a person who publishes a magazine who wishes to receive submissions provided they don't rhyme. No good Philip Larkin sending anything then (if he were alive).
There are two poems in the Christmas edition of The Spectator and neither have rhymes. However, one by Wendy Cope does have a certain rhythm; it isn't prose put into lines with capital letters at the beginning of each. The other by none other than our just retired poet laureate, Andrew Motion, is, to my mind, prose put in lines like poetry - with capital letters where they would occur in sentences.
"I was passing, so dropped in
unannounced. It had been a while
and my hand on the lych-gate
fondly remembered deep scars."
That's the first "verse". The rest drones on relentlessly.
George Steiner, in writing a piece on Dylan Thomas, mentioned the lack of meaning in the poems, if memory serves me right. Yes, I agree, but they are still wonderful to listen to because if they are nothing else you know they are poems.
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