Month: January 2024

Isha Makes Way For Jocelyn

This morning I enjoyed another positive chiropractic session with Eloise, and will be able to leave the next one for a week.

This afternoon, as storm Isha subsides somewhat in order to make way for the onset of Jocelyn tomorrow, I read the next two stories from my Gogol collection and published the post https://derrickjknight.com/2024/01/22/a-madmans-diary-the-nose/

Ellie is now able to ask for singing and dancing videos simply by singing the notes and swaying to the tunes she wants.

Here she perches on Becky for a session of some in cartoon versions.

This evening we all dined on second helpings of yesterday’s Chinese Takeaway with the addition of spring rolls and tempura and hot and spicy prawns with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished The Guv’nor

A Madman’s Diary & The Nose

These next two tales in the Folio Society’s collection of Gogol’s Stories belong together in my series of posts. Schiller, in “The Nevsky Prospect”  has already pleaded that “i don’t want a nose! Cut off my nose!”

In “A Madman’s Diary” and the following story our author presents a world where the boundaries of existence are redetermined by a maniac, perhaps Gogol as he sees himself, who in “The Nose” states that “What is utterly nonsensical happens in the world.

It seems that the terrors of his abusive childhood were at last catching up with him, and perhaps to stimulate his suicide at aged 41.

Peter Sturt has provided an illustration for each story.

The madman talks to dogs, and reads their private letters; claims to be the king of Spain; and is carried metaphorically in a straitjacket to be kept in hospital subjected to what he experiences as torture.

The owner of “The Nose” wakes up without it; conducts a search; finds it dressed up in splendid clothes.

Perhaps this is the author’s parody of the imbeciles who he believed could be promoted beyond their competence in his Russia, or anywhere else in the world.

Attempting to alleviate his position Kovalyov seeks to persuade a clerk to publish an advertisement for the discovery of his olfactory member; we see sick humour in the official offering him his snuff box when he had not the capacity to sniff. Was his desperate, lonely cry “My God, my God! Why has this misfortune befallen me?” a reference to Jesus on the cross?

The Return Of The King

With storm Isha on the way today I stayed inside and scanned the illustrations from the third of the Lord of The Rings trilogy, being a result of the redrafting by Eric Fraser of Ingahild Grathmer’s original drawings.

Here is the title page and frontispiece.

and here the pages complementing the text.

This evening we all dined on King’s House Chinese takeaway – a new outlet which delivers excellent food in good portions on Sundays.

The Nevsky Prospect

Once again in this next tale in the Folio Society selection of the stories of Nikolai Gogol, the author has displayed his facility for evoking place and person in apparently effortlessly fluent descriptive prose.

We are immediately introduced to this famous Petersburg street and its populace in the first two paragraphs covering five closely packed pages of glorious language. This technique is repeated throughout the work in different settings.

Gogol takes us through a typical day from morning to night showing the nature and numbers of visitors at work and play at different times. He details types and condition of clothing and presentation bearing in mind the impression walkers wish to impact on others of either sex. As the day progresses it is the self-display that becomes the more important.

“Thousands of varieties of hats, dresses, and kerchiefs, flimsy and bright-coloured, for which their owners feel sometimes an adoration that lasts two whole days, dazzle everyone on the Nevsky Prospect. A whole sea of butterflies seem to have flown up from their flower-stalks and to be floating in a glittering cloud above the beetles of the male sex……….And the ladies’ sleeves that that you meet….are like two air balloons and the lady might suddenly float up in the air, were she not held down by the gentlemen accompanying her, for it would be as easy and agreeable for a lady to be lifted into the air as for a glass of champagne to be lifted to the lips.”

The above quotation, part of the second paragraph mentioned above,contains samples of the descriptions, including the writer’s prolific use of metaphor and simile.

Two different gentlemen of dissimilar backgrounds and occupation meet and exchange observations of different young ladies.

We follow their diverging dreams and experiences culminating in Gogol’s belief in the falseness of the Nevsky Prospect. Peter Sturt has illustrated one man’s dream.

This evening we all dined on pork spare ribs in barbecue sauce, Jackie’s savoury rice, and breaded halloumi sticks, with which she drank more of the sauvignon blanc and I drank more of The Guv’nor.

The Portrait

I have not mentioned our heating problem recently because I am bored with it. However, ever since the end of November several of our radiators have resisted all our efforts to bleed them. Because this has been, until now, a comparatively mild winter in terms of temperature, and because one or more of our residents has been battling a virus we have managed without engineers reluctant to enter a plague house.

Now, during the coldest two or three days of the year the boiler has decided to pile on the agony. We have had no heating for two days and nights. Ronan, of Tom Sutton Heating, responded immediately this morning with an emergency visit on which he discovered and replaced a blocked filter between the oil tank outside and the pipe entering the house.

After lunch I read the next story in the Folio Society Gogol selection which serves as the title of this post.

Beginning with an engaging description of a range of local people from all walks of life the author continues in this vein with a further range of individuals, displaying a thorough knowledge of characters through their physiognomy, their clothing and its condition, their occupations, and their activities or otherwise.

One of those interested in the works in the art shop is our main protagonist who recognises the quality of one painting among the dross –

as depicted by Peter Sturt, a striking, well executed, portrait with seemingly magical powers, which had a profound effect on the skill and the lot of Tchertkov who, tempted by fame and fortune, abandoned his early love of sensitive depiction for more traditional commercial work.

Eventually he does his best to reverse the process by changing his life in a way which I do not wish to reveal, and it is only in the second part of the story that we realise the subject of the portrait.

This evening we all dined on tasty Ferndene sausages; more of yesterday’s piri-piri chicken; creamy mashed potatoes; firm cauliflower and carrots; chopped cauliflower leaves, and meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Pique-Nique rosé 2022, and I drank The Guv’nor.

Autumn In Winter

On a digit-tingling icy cold morning, where the surface of every water container reflected bright sunshine

I took a brief walk around the garden where the seed heads of cordyline Australis accompanied new buds of rhododendrons;

resilient ornamental grasses vied with spent hydrangeas;

columns of shadows including those of a stout rose stem on the orange shed door and a string of small watering cans against the kitchen wall decorated flat areas.

Lichen lingered on sculptures of Summer and Autumn somewhat out of season.

This evening we all dined on spicy piri-piri chicken and Jackie’s savoury rice with which she finished the sauvignon blanc and I finished the cabernet carménère.

The Two Towers

This morning’s chiropractic session with Eloise was encouraging: my next appointment is for five days time, which is continuing the further spacing.

On another cold, dull, day I stayed at home afterwards and scanned the Illustrations to the second book in J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Here is the Title Page and Frontispiece,

and the illustrations, approved with restrictions by the author himself.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s classic cottage pie; crunchy carrots; green and runner beans, and meaty gravy with which the Culinary Queen drank more of the chardonnay, Ian and Dillon drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Cabernet Chiménère.

New Forest Emporium

While Jackie and Becky visited New Forest Emporium & Water Garden Centre  this afternoon, I opted to stay and rest in the warmth, where I finished reading the 7th story in my Gogol collection and posted

The Tale Of How Ivan Ivanovitch Quarrelled With Ivan Nikiforovitch

The ladies brought back a good report of this antiques emporium and water garden with its own café that looks as if its fry up has to be sampled. They chose carrot cake and coffee.

Here is Jackie’s picture of a thatched cottage alongside the project,

and of the highly recommended and friendly family run B.J. Parrett & Son Ltd filling in a pothole.

I have published this prematurely and will complete it later with details of the dinner which Ian brought with him when he rejoined us later.

Said dinner, purchased from Ian’s local Emsworth Farm shop, consisted of a first rate range of steaks, mine being a succulent rib eye, expertly cooked by Becky; chips of both red and white potatoes; potato gratins; onion rings; and garden peas, with which I drank Lacaze Valle Central Cabernet Carménère 2022, a juicy and spicy, red wine perfect for accompanying such good steaks. There are also excellent fruit and ginger cakes which I probably won’t be able to manage.

The Tale Of How Ivan Ivanovitch Quarrelled With Ivan Nikiforovitch

“The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovitch Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovitch” is the seventh story in the Folio Society’s collection. I finished reading it this afternoon.

These two lifelong friends, suddenly estranged with the aid of a mischievous woman, because of the desire of one for an object hanging up to dry belonging the other rushes along after escalating provocation to a farcical court case conducted in a manner reminiscent of Dickens’s Jarndyce v Jarndyce and conveying in a few sentences the incompetence and delay that occupied our English novelist throughout Bleak House.

Opening with delightfully bucolic description including that of the clothes on the washing line, on which “an old uniform with frayed facings stretched its sleeves out in the air and embraced a brocade blouse” – in the process indicating the presence of the breeze, as the garments detail the uniform.

Such detail is also described later in this metaphor: “in the cupboard which had been turned to marble by ink stains.”

Gogol’s humour is evident throughout this story.

His grasp of the flow of language demonstrates the mindset of the stubborn protagonists who eventually lose track of the cause of their rift.

Peter Sturt’s illustration depicts the provocative action mentioned above.

A Roll In The Leaves

On another sunny, bright, and cold day a brisk morning foray into a garden somewhat

iced up, as on the surface of this water-filled trug,

revealed our model pig celebrating his escape from crushing by the recently fallen tree by casting his shadows across the patio paving.

On the rooftop, the jackdaws are vociferously laying their customary claim to nesting rights in the disused chimney pots.

This afternoon we took a forest drive to Bisterne Close and back.

The decorated post box in Wootton Road now celebrates New Year.

The water-filled woodland as we turn into the close reflected the low sun peering through the trees.

The woodland floor is now dry enough to crackle the leaves, yet still fresh enough for mossy roots.

Ponies wandered freely;

one enjoyed a roll in the leaves, rising in the usually ungainly fashion and wandering off, oblivious of the coat of leaves it now wore.

I spotted Jackie photographing the woodland some distance off and only later realised that she was intrigued by wondering how this hollowed trunk could remain standing.

More sunlight reflections bounced from the icy surface of the close’s seasonal pool.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s tasty beef pie; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower and broccoli, and thick, meaty, gravy with which the Culinary Queen finished the Spanish rosado and I drank Carménère Reserva Privada 2022