It has become quite common in some circles to blame the state of modern society on the 1960's. These years, the argument says, undermined all of the tenets that society had come to rely on. Respect for elders, monogamy and obedience to the forces of law and order all went out of the window and the world began it's accelerated descent into heck.
Now, a passing knowledge of history would reveal that to be a vastly overrated estimation of the importance of those decades, but there is a theme that became more and more popular in the sixties and shows no signs of dying off- the "Bad Boy". The outsider who does not play by societies rules and, in fact, makes their own rules. The person who invites out sneaking admiration by living their own life in their own way.
The burgeoning film industries around the world found lucrative subjects to explore in the exploits of these misfits but from the earliest times, it has not been pure invention that has put anti-heroes into the public mind. Author Rosemary Sutcliff has said of Greek History "In a time of heroes who cannot be looked at it terms of black or white, none is more determinedly piebald than Alcibiades".
The trait seems to be part of human nature that most people can over-ride in the interest of a quite life yet the characteristic attitude slows no sign of dying out.
My own favourite "Bad Boy" is in truth a boy since he is the 11 year old William Brown.
William has all of the attributes of the classic rebel, he feels that society is wilful and mean, he cannot see any logic behind the rules and he finds the impositions it places upon him completely impossible to obey. He has a laser-like ability to cut through our adult euphemisms and evasions.
When his great Grandmother is dying, William accompanies his mother to the deathbed and when he is left alone with the old woman he asks "I'm just wondering if you are going, because if you're not I have to get back and feed my animals because I think Ginger might forget."
Most of William's schemes end in catastrophe yet he is indomitable and his confidence is undented.
I have great regard and even love for William but, as a parent, I can see that he would be a cause of great concern. But perhaps that is the reason for the continuing popularity of the "Bad Boys", we can experience their lives and travails without having to take responsibility for them.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The Victor picture.
Possibly the expression that books have given the the world that has made the biggest impact on the culture is the one about not judging books by their visual representation. Yet we do and possibly most ironically of all we do it to books, a lot.
A lot of time and money goes into researching what consumers like to see on book covers and react to the most favourably and one assumes that that money would not continue to be spent if there weren't concrete results to point to.
It makes sense to the buyer because of the tactile experiences that are involved in buying a book. The look and the feel and even the smell add to the pleasure of owning the book. A friend sent me one of his poetry books that is an experience in itself without even opening it.
But mostly it comes down the front picture that catches us and holds us, maybe, in the mass markets, for that extra second that decides us one way or the next.
After we own the book the cover becomes the mental picture that we associate with "that story" just as we do not think "shoe" but "that thing that goes on my foot"
We may even get extra insight into the book by looking at the cover while with other books the cover is like a condensed version of the whole story and it is like a grown up version of "Where's Wally?" to see what is going on. The best example of that would be Josh Kirby's illustrations for Terry Pratchett's Discworld stories.
But the illustrator that I want to write about today is Victor Ambrus. He was born in Hungary but fled to England in 1956 following the unsuccessful revolution, apparently having just escaped from a collapsing building at one stage.
His historical illustrations appear to have been in demand from the time he left Art School. He quickly became established and became a free-lance artist with a back up of lecturing from 1963 to 1985 at Art colleges.
The author that is most associated with Ambrus's art in my mind is Rosemary Sutcliff. Her historical fiction fit in very well with Ambrus's illustrations.
I think the reason that Ambrus's work is so suited to historical fiction is because of the feeling that we get from the pictures of the everyday life that is somehow captured by the slightly imprecise lines of the figures.
You can see that the shoes that someone has on are not very clean or their helmet has been battered around a bit. And while there is that impreciseness it is only slightly so, in the lines of the drawings, the clothes and weapons that are being used are absolutely true to the time.
Similarly the people are not all TV series good looking because, most people aren't, and they seem to belong to the times they are in.
Similarly the style of drawing lends itself well to a windswept landscape where it is not very warm. The people in the illustrations seem to belong where they are.
This has all stood Victor Ambrus in good stead in his job as the illustrator of the Channel 4 series "Time Team" where his sketches show us how the various objects, buildings and sometimes people fit all together and he has lost none of his ability to convey his imagination onto paper.
A lot of time and money goes into researching what consumers like to see on book covers and react to the most favourably and one assumes that that money would not continue to be spent if there weren't concrete results to point to.
It makes sense to the buyer because of the tactile experiences that are involved in buying a book. The look and the feel and even the smell add to the pleasure of owning the book. A friend sent me one of his poetry books that is an experience in itself without even opening it.
But mostly it comes down the front picture that catches us and holds us, maybe, in the mass markets, for that extra second that decides us one way or the next.
After we own the book the cover becomes the mental picture that we associate with "that story" just as we do not think "shoe" but "that thing that goes on my foot"
We may even get extra insight into the book by looking at the cover while with other books the cover is like a condensed version of the whole story and it is like a grown up version of "Where's Wally?" to see what is going on. The best example of that would be Josh Kirby's illustrations for Terry Pratchett's Discworld stories.
But the illustrator that I want to write about today is Victor Ambrus. He was born in Hungary but fled to England in 1956 following the unsuccessful revolution, apparently having just escaped from a collapsing building at one stage.
His historical illustrations appear to have been in demand from the time he left Art School. He quickly became established and became a free-lance artist with a back up of lecturing from 1963 to 1985 at Art colleges.
The author that is most associated with Ambrus's art in my mind is Rosemary Sutcliff. Her historical fiction fit in very well with Ambrus's illustrations.
I think the reason that Ambrus's work is so suited to historical fiction is because of the feeling that we get from the pictures of the everyday life that is somehow captured by the slightly imprecise lines of the figures.
You can see that the shoes that someone has on are not very clean or their helmet has been battered around a bit. And while there is that impreciseness it is only slightly so, in the lines of the drawings, the clothes and weapons that are being used are absolutely true to the time.
Similarly the people are not all TV series good looking because, most people aren't, and they seem to belong to the times they are in.
Similarly the style of drawing lends itself well to a windswept landscape where it is not very warm. The people in the illustrations seem to belong where they are.
This has all stood Victor Ambrus in good stead in his job as the illustrator of the Channel 4 series "Time Team" where his sketches show us how the various objects, buildings and sometimes people fit all together and he has lost none of his ability to convey his imagination onto paper.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Dreams of Plenty - or - What Do "The Little White Horse" and "Brideshead Revisited" Have in Common?
“Have no fear, young Mistress” came Marmaduke’s voice soothingly behind her. “There is enough. There is sufficient plum cake, saffron cake, cherry cake, iced fairy cakes, eclairs, gingerbread, meringues, syllabub, almond fingers, rock cakes, chocolate cakes, parkin, cream horns, Devonshire splits, Cornish pasty, jam sandwiches, lemon-curd sandwiches, cinnamon toast and honey toast to feed twenty and more.”
Hungry? Elizabeth Goudge probably was when she wrote that in food-rationed, fuel-rationed, under siege England during WWII. At the same time as she was writing this longing dream of luxury food in “The Little White Horse”, Evelyn Waugh was sitting in a Devonshire hotel banging out “Brideshead Revisited”, probably on a diet enriched by a few extra black-market eggs and almost certainly drinking more claret and more cocktails, but longing in a similar vein for the days of champagne, white bread, plover’s eggs and lobster Newburg
Voluptuous descriptions of food and feasts aren’t limited to books written during the war. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” was published in 1950 when sugar, sweets (candy, lollies), canned and dried fruits, many forms of meat and even that staple of British life, tea, were still rationed. This goes someway to towards explaining both Edmund’s selling-out for a large box of Turkish Delight and the occasional purple passage where Lewis rapsodises “ .. it was a wonderful tea. There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled for each of them (!) and then sardines on toast and then buttered toast and then toast with honey and then a sugar topped cake.”
Even books ostensibly set in reality, written during the period of food rationing are suffused with idealised visions of ever-available food. In Enid Blyton’s “Five Find-Outers”, for instance, written in the 40s and 50s, the Find-Outers are constantly swilling lemonade and swigging ginger-beer or popping into tea-shops, the proprietors of which proffer the desired plates laden with macaroons as they enter.
I can imagine that it was a form of wish-fulfillment for the authors, writing about sweet, non-available food, but I wonder what it was like to read these books as a child living in wartime or austerity. Was it torturous or were the descriptions simply too fantastic, too unreal and so a table laden with cake and jam-sandwiches was as much a fairy-tale as a unicorn and a tame lion?
Hungry? Elizabeth Goudge probably was when she wrote that in food-rationed, fuel-rationed, under siege England during WWII. At the same time as she was writing this longing dream of luxury food in “The Little White Horse”, Evelyn Waugh was sitting in a Devonshire hotel banging out “Brideshead Revisited”, probably on a diet enriched by a few extra black-market eggs and almost certainly drinking more claret and more cocktails, but longing in a similar vein for the days of champagne, white bread, plover’s eggs and lobster Newburg
Voluptuous descriptions of food and feasts aren’t limited to books written during the war. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” was published in 1950 when sugar, sweets (candy, lollies), canned and dried fruits, many forms of meat and even that staple of British life, tea, were still rationed. This goes someway to towards explaining both Edmund’s selling-out for a large box of Turkish Delight and the occasional purple passage where Lewis rapsodises “ .. it was a wonderful tea. There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled for each of them (!) and then sardines on toast and then buttered toast and then toast with honey and then a sugar topped cake.”
Even books ostensibly set in reality, written during the period of food rationing are suffused with idealised visions of ever-available food. In Enid Blyton’s “Five Find-Outers”, for instance, written in the 40s and 50s, the Find-Outers are constantly swilling lemonade and swigging ginger-beer or popping into tea-shops, the proprietors of which proffer the desired plates laden with macaroons as they enter.
I can imagine that it was a form of wish-fulfillment for the authors, writing about sweet, non-available food, but I wonder what it was like to read these books as a child living in wartime or austerity. Was it torturous or were the descriptions simply too fantastic, too unreal and so a table laden with cake and jam-sandwiches was as much a fairy-tale as a unicorn and a tame lion?
Friday, April 22, 2011
Midwinter Books? Intermittently since 1703? What the heck?
Well, the “Midwinter” bit is easy enough - it’s my surname. The “intermittently since 1703” is a grandiose attempt to link to a bunch of maybe-but-probably-not relatives who had publishing and bookselling businesses in early eighteenth century London.
Daniel Midwinter (maybe 1675 - about 1733) and his son Daniel Midwinter (-1759) were printers and booksellers whose businesses could be found in St Paul’s churchyard, London at the Sign of the Rose and Crown and at later at the Sign of the Three Crowns. They were (possibly quite literally) bigwigs in the Stationer’s Company with the younger Daniel leaving the Stationers a thousand pounds to apprentice four children per year (and pay for their ‘graduating’ clothes) and to help fund the Company’s annual Dinner on 01 December.
The Daniels tended to the serious and weighty style of book, fun-filled tomes like “A new Geographical Dictionary containing a brief Defcription (sic) of the Countries, Empires, Kingdoms, Provinces, Cities, Mountains, Lakes, &c of the World” or “A Treatise of Fluxions: or, an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Containing a full Explication of that Method by which the Most Celebrated Geometers of the present Age have made such vast Advances in Mechanical Philosophy” which is interesting to those of us who love Neal Stephenson’s “The Baroque Trilogy” but must have been pretty heavy going.
Edward Midwinter (-1736) had a shop at the Sign of the Looking Glass on London Bridge, (which must be one of the most romantic addresses ever) and at (the considerably more prosaic) Pye Corner. He appears to have specialised in chapbooks and sensational or popular literature like “Cynthia: A Tragical Account of the Unfortunate Lovers of Almerin and Desdemona” and “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates”. He may not have been, to modern eyes, 100% scrupulous about little things like copyright, being involved in an abridged edition of “Robinson Crusoe” possibly cut and published without involving Daniel Defoe in any way
The Daniel Midwinters was described as doing “topping business” - as opposed to Edward who may have ended up in in the Mint district of Southwark trying to escape those to whom he owed money.
I like to think that the modern “Midwinter Books” has Edward’s style of merchandise - and the Daniel’s business acumen.
Daniel Midwinter (maybe 1675 - about 1733) and his son Daniel Midwinter (-1759) were printers and booksellers whose businesses could be found in St Paul’s churchyard, London at the Sign of the Rose and Crown and at later at the Sign of the Three Crowns. They were (possibly quite literally) bigwigs in the Stationer’s Company with the younger Daniel leaving the Stationers a thousand pounds to apprentice four children per year (and pay for their ‘graduating’ clothes) and to help fund the Company’s annual Dinner on 01 December.
The Daniels tended to the serious and weighty style of book, fun-filled tomes like “A new Geographical Dictionary containing a brief Defcription (sic) of the Countries, Empires, Kingdoms, Provinces, Cities, Mountains, Lakes, &c of the World” or “A Treatise of Fluxions: or, an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Containing a full Explication of that Method by which the Most Celebrated Geometers of the present Age have made such vast Advances in Mechanical Philosophy” which is interesting to those of us who love Neal Stephenson’s “The Baroque Trilogy” but must have been pretty heavy going.
Edward Midwinter (-1736) had a shop at the Sign of the Looking Glass on London Bridge, (which must be one of the most romantic addresses ever) and at (the considerably more prosaic) Pye Corner. He appears to have specialised in chapbooks and sensational or popular literature like “Cynthia: A Tragical Account of the Unfortunate Lovers of Almerin and Desdemona” and “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates”. He may not have been, to modern eyes, 100% scrupulous about little things like copyright, being involved in an abridged edition of “Robinson Crusoe” possibly cut and published without involving Daniel Defoe in any way
The Daniel Midwinters was described as doing “topping business” - as opposed to Edward who may have ended up in in the Mint district of Southwark trying to escape those to whom he owed money.
I like to think that the modern “Midwinter Books” has Edward’s style of merchandise - and the Daniel’s business acumen.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Bedtime Reading - or - The Guilty Pleasures of Re-Re-Reading
No not that sort of bedtime reading. Books that won't give you nightmares about maddened psychotic killers (yes, Jonathan Kellerman, I mean you) or books that kill off cherished characters or children (Dorothy Dunnett's brilliant, awful chess game in "Pawn In Frankincense") thus leading to angst and sleeplessness.
For me, that means a nice, safe, re-read to guarantee no ghastly surprises. And I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, some of my bedside table stack contains books that are being re-read for the *insert large number of your choice*th time. If a book is good once, it'll be good again. And again. And again.
Top of the pile is Georgette Heyer. At her best she rivals Miss Austen for sly humour and anthropological observation and although her books are a lot less dense than Austen, there's plenty of room in my life for the meringue of Heyer as well as the boiled fruit cake of Austen. My favourites would be "The Unknown Ajax", "Frederica" and "The Grand Sophy", but almost all of them make an appearance in the stack (except for "Cousin Kate", see previous caveat re: psycho killers).
Another safe re-read are the works of D. E. Stephenson. Light romance with some interesting sociological observations - particularly see the not-100%-fiction "Mrs Tim" tales subtitled "Leaves From An Officer's Wife's Diary" they are drawn from her own experiences following her Army husband. My favourites are "Miss Buncle's Book" and "Katherine Wentworth". Some are quite dated now (the social attitudes in "Miss Bun the Baker's Daughter" seem mid-Victorian) but there isn't one I'm not happy to re-read. I'm particularly love the way characters from one book appear briefly in another, connecting almost all in a complex web, although all are complete in themselves. So Edward, the anti-hero in "The Tall Stranger" turns up (unredeemed) in "The Musgraves" or Rhoda from "Vittoria Cottage", "Music in the Hills", "Winter and Rough Weather" pops into "Bel Lamington" as a dea ex machina. It makes the books seem even more real.
And, oh guiltiest of guilty pleasures, I love the novels of Essie Summers. She was a New Zealand writer of romance novels - Mills and Boon - but with a depth of character and ability to describe a scene that is missing in many a 'serious novelist''s work. She set her books primarily in the South Island, frequently on large sheep runs - see "A Place called Paradise", "The House of the Shining Tide". Often the hero was a minister or the heroine a minister's daughter, Summers, being a minister's wife had a fund of amusing and/or disastrous anecdotes to draw upon. The books are dated, the sexiest they get is a burning kiss, heroines or heroes are haunted by bygone scandals ("Sweet are the Ways") that would be food for a merry Facebook status update nowdays. But the quality of writing and the sheer niceness of the stories remain.
Anne
For me, that means a nice, safe, re-read to guarantee no ghastly surprises. And I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, some of my bedside table stack contains books that are being re-read for the *insert large number of your choice*th time. If a book is good once, it'll be good again. And again. And again.
Top of the pile is Georgette Heyer. At her best she rivals Miss Austen for sly humour and anthropological observation and although her books are a lot less dense than Austen, there's plenty of room in my life for the meringue of Heyer as well as the boiled fruit cake of Austen. My favourites would be "The Unknown Ajax", "Frederica" and "The Grand Sophy", but almost all of them make an appearance in the stack (except for "Cousin Kate", see previous caveat re: psycho killers).
Another safe re-read are the works of D. E. Stephenson. Light romance with some interesting sociological observations - particularly see the not-100%-fiction "Mrs Tim" tales subtitled "Leaves From An Officer's Wife's Diary" they are drawn from her own experiences following her Army husband. My favourites are "Miss Buncle's Book" and "Katherine Wentworth". Some are quite dated now (the social attitudes in "Miss Bun the Baker's Daughter" seem mid-Victorian) but there isn't one I'm not happy to re-read. I'm particularly love the way characters from one book appear briefly in another, connecting almost all in a complex web, although all are complete in themselves. So Edward, the anti-hero in "The Tall Stranger" turns up (unredeemed) in "The Musgraves" or Rhoda from "Vittoria Cottage", "Music in the Hills", "Winter and Rough Weather" pops into "Bel Lamington" as a dea ex machina. It makes the books seem even more real.
And, oh guiltiest of guilty pleasures, I love the novels of Essie Summers. She was a New Zealand writer of romance novels - Mills and Boon - but with a depth of character and ability to describe a scene that is missing in many a 'serious novelist''s work. She set her books primarily in the South Island, frequently on large sheep runs - see "A Place called Paradise", "The House of the Shining Tide". Often the hero was a minister or the heroine a minister's daughter, Summers, being a minister's wife had a fund of amusing and/or disastrous anecdotes to draw upon. The books are dated, the sexiest they get is a burning kiss, heroines or heroes are haunted by bygone scandals ("Sweet are the Ways") that would be food for a merry Facebook status update nowdays. But the quality of writing and the sheer niceness of the stories remain.
Anne
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)