Painting with words

Knowing I was going to write about ‘An Equal Stillness’ as I read it, there were naturally all kinds of opening lines forming in my mind as I turned the pages, How surprised I was to find them all chased away by the simple act of reading one sentence and finding all my preconceptions about the narrative voice shattered. Not who I was expecting at all!

Which, I suppose, serves very well to emphasise the point I had intended starting with: that with a supposed seven plot lines available to a writer, it is difficult to find something fresh and captivating. That Francesca Kay manages it is clear.

To write fictional biography about well known people is a technique I admire, but to do it with a totally imagined character is intriguing and compelling. Jennet Mallow is a painter and so into the form of words there comes a need to describe her paintings – that art form one turns to when language fails in its evocable power.

It’s a quiet book, somehow almost sensuous in its descriptions: the life and work of a woman laid out, with all its imperfections, failures, successes and small moments spread out. I rarely listen to music as I read, fearing a distraction from an overloud, or wordy, piece; but this book seemed to demand a classical accompaniment: the notes seeping into my appreciation of the words and helping me see the paintings that were described. The melding of these art forms just seemed to be right on this occasion.

It’s a wonderful novel: one that will haunt with its themes of love and loss, even as we strive to imagine the paintings that are the central point of the work. Understated is the word that springs to mind when trying to describe the feeling of the novel. There are no big explosions of emotion, and that is surprising – particularly for a first novel. Francesca Kay seems to have found her voice from the outset and draws her readers into this small, but creative, world she has created.

Remembrance through song

I've been pondering which poem to use for Remembrance weekend, and was having a difficult time choosing, and then I heard this song:



So happy remembrance weekend everyone.

Courage in the face of adversity

I never buy the weekend papers, but if I'm ever in a coffee shop or other places that leaves them lying about for people to pick at should the mood take them, I will always make a bee line for the Times Magazine.

For there is one particular article within it's pages which never fails to inspire and move me, because it is the ongoing tale of one woman's courage and her triumph (however small) over a tragic accident that has shaped her life, perhaps forever.

Melanie Reid is a columnist with a difference. Over a year ago now, she fell from a horse and broke her neck and back, sustaining terrible spinal damage. I have no idea what she wrote about before this happened, but now her weekly article details her struggle to overcome the damage. There is no forced cheerfulness to her writing. If she's had a terrible week, then by god you know about it; if she is frustrated by the system or by what is happening in the outside world, then she does not shy away from revealing her feelings. Equally, though, she shares the small triumphs and the happy family times that she experiences.

This past Saturday's piece (15th October 2011) was one of the triumphant ones. There is movement to report - tiny, but significant - and her tone is upbeat throughout the article, even though the message she gives on the pace of this improvement is bleak to a reader. 'The received wisdom' (she writes) 'on nerve regrowth is that, if you're going to get any - and not everyone will - it will happen at a rate of about one millimetre a day. Which is about one inch per month. Which puts my feet at least five years away from my neck.'

That's staggering. And the fact she keeps on writing through all the pitfalls and setbacks is equally so.

My one regret is that with the Times requiring a subscription for its website, I can't go and look up all the back issues I have missed. I hope, one day, that someone will think to collate them into a book, for they really are inspirational, and not something people should miss. Now, if all the copies of the magazine disappear from the coffee shops of Oxford, I'll know why!

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen has always been something of an enigma to me - in fact sometimes he seems like a riddle wrapped in an enigma. His films are an acquired taste, and sometimes appear to have no discernible plot, but there is always the direction of his camera which draws the eye and pulls one into the film regardless of whether or not Allen has anything to say. It is rare in this era of blockbusters to find someone who makes films purely for the love he has of the process.

Allen has always been regarded as the portrayer of New York, with his works being love letters to that city. Now, with his latest film 'Midnight in Paris' he appears to have transferred his affections and sets about showing his audience how truly beautiful the capital city of France is - especially in the rain.

This is a film with a message which doesn't truly present itself until almost the end. At first you are simply presented with an American couple about to be married, the man a Hollywood script writer with desires to be a 'proper' writer. Here he is, in this beautiful and inspiring city only to find himself stifled by his fiancee and her pedantic friend (played brilliantly by Michael Sheen) who appears to be an 'expert' on everything.

Only when, slightly drunk and declining to go dancing, he stumbles off into a nighttime Paris and is 'picked up' bu a vintage car full of champagne quaffing revelers does the adventure begin. For suddenly, as the clock strikes midnight, this man finds himself thrust quite unexpectedly and implausibly into 1920s Paris keeping company with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway and Dali. This midnight era becomes a refuge for him, as his relationship with his fiancee breaks down and he becomes drawn to a beautiful woman (captivatingly played by Marion Cotillard) the muse of Picasso and who is in thrall to an earlier 'golden era'.

And here is the central theme of the film: this artistic yearning for a lost time which has come through the years to inspire and enthrall. For Gil, it is the 1920s, for Adriana, the woman he is falling in love with, it is the belle epoch. As with the 1920s, this earlier time opens itself to these tow, and there they are in the Moulin Rouge, deep in conversation with Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas, who declare the Renaissance to be the golden era. Enthralled by what she has seen, Adriana decides to stay in her ideal time, but Gil cannot bear to leave the 20s behind. Returning to modern day Paris, he loses the woman he loves, but gains the determination to change his life.

This idea of an era holding special significance for people except those that live in it is fascinating. I cannot imagine anyone sighing with desire to live in 2011 and calling it a golden age - but given time it will surely happen. It is an impossible dream - to go back and experience life as one's role models and heroes have done and yet Woody Allen makes it happen. And he treats the dream with such a cavalier attitude - shrugging his shoulders at almost every scene, seeming to say 'well, you've met the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway, why not T.S.Eliot, why not Dunja Barnes or Matisse, and hey! meeting Man Ray is perfectly possible in this best of all possible worlds!

I hesitate to say this is Woody Allen's best work, because I've not seen everything he's done, but I think this has to be my favourite!

Poem of the week

On such a windy day as this, who better to turn to than a Bronte .....

LINES COMPOSED IN A WOOD ON A WINDY DAY

by: Anne Bronte (1820-1849)

MY soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky

I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder to-day!

Water Sports

There's something in the water .... quite literally!

For those of you in the UK, you may have noticed that quite a few celebrities have been getting wet recently. Ronan Keating and Pamela Stephenson (amongst others) swam the Irish Channel (dodging a fair few jellyfish along the way), and David Walliams is currently achieving heroic things, swimming the entire length of the Thames.

I am also getting into the water and doing my bit for charity. I am swimming the channel, and although I'm doing it in stages, I feel quite inspired! Plus, of course, this way I won't drown, swallow a load of industrial waste, or get hit by a tanker in the shipping lanes!

The channel is 22 miles, and the pool I'm doing this in is 25 meters. This means that a mile is equal to 64 lengths, and I need to do 1416 in total! So far, I've done 264 lengths.

As I mentioned, I am doing this for charity (Comic Relief and Molly's Library - set up by students of Somerville, which provides books and education to children and adults in Cape Coast, in Ghana), so if anyone would like to sponsor me, then please go here.

Wish me luck!

Poem of the week

There is an awful lot being written this week about the 10th anniversary of the collapse of the World Trade Centre. I'm doing my best to avoid most of it - there seems to be a lot of sensationalist articles, and the rest of it just stirs up memories.

I remember precisely what I was doing when I heard about it (walking into a classroom for a lesson, wondering what the class of juniors was still doing there, and why three teachers were crowded around a tv) and in fact I think I even saw the plane hit the second tower. I watched a lot of news coverage that evening, and many of the images stuck in my mind.

Needing an outlet, I wrote a poem. Then, over the following week, I wrote about 30 more. As my tribute to this anniversary, I'd like to share two of them with you.

The nightmare (13.09.01)

Who has a nightmare at nine in the morning?

Who has a nightmare when they are fully awake?

This is a nightmare that actually happened.

This is a nightmare that does not go away.

People jumping out of buildings,

Bodies falling on the ground.

Towers creaking, falling to the floor

Only these sounds, nothing more.

Nightmare people roam the street.

Deathly pale, unnaturally white.

This is a nightmare that starts with morning,

But does not finish with the night.

Searching (13.09.01)

Searching though the ruins

Can anyone be found?

Searching through the ruins,

The dead mobiles sound.

People wander in the streets,

Wander on and on

Searching for their loved ones -

Their loved ones long gone.

The searches come to nothing

Cries of woe are heard.

The dead are gone and buried

The searched for never found.

The chicken or the egg

It's an age old question a book worm/film buff often finds themselves grappling with - which should come first: the book or the film?
It's a conundrum that has divided opinion since the first film adaptation was made (and it was probably a silent Shakespeare play or Jane Austen novel) and which shows no sign of being settled in the near future.

I am, for the most part, firmly in the camp of 'book comes first' (although I did need to see the films of The Lord of the Rings before the books made any sense), which is why I spent three evenings tearing my way through 'One Day' before the film came out.
It's a charming concept for a plot line - following Emma and Dexter through twenty years of friendship on the same day every year. They don't necessarily have to be in the same room, or indeed see each other at all, but it is clear that each feels the others' presence keenly.

I could have quite easily read the entire thing in one hit, but it's a bit too depressing to do so comfortably. Dexter is not the nicest of characters and seems intent on ruining his own life. As he spirals out of control into an alcoholic haze, the reader struggles to find any sympathy to give him at all. Indeed his only redeeming feature seems to be Emma, and even she appears determined to waste the talent she has at first. As one star falls the other begins to rise, and it's debatable whether they ever truly end up parallel.

The film sticks very closely to the book, which is inevitable, as there's not much point in any real deviation. If you've read the book, of course, you are aware of how the story will end, and I think that in this case - with such a focused plot line - it has a negative impact for the viewer. Of course, the same effect would be had if the film were viewed first.

Anne Hathaway, as Emma, has come under a lot of negative criticism for her portrayal, or rather her accent has ..... I didn't think it was that bad: yes - she is supposed to be Yorkshire, and that wasn't in much evidence, but there were some nice moments in the Scottish section, where she had a slight Scottish lilt.

Anyway - coming back to the point: I don't think in the case of 'One Day' it really matters whether you read the book or see the film first, because they are both so true to each other ..... There are many instances, though, that a book can greatly enhance the film. I recently discovered that one of my favourite Ingrid Bergman films 'Goodbye Again' was in fact based on a novel by Francoise Sagan - 'Aimez Vous Bhrams ...'. The way that young woman wrote about love and how the need for it causes those in its grip to act in the most foolish and destructive of ways is truly remarkable, and I greatly prefer the book.

There's never going to be a definitive answer to this question, because it shifts with every new adaptation.