The Folio Society – derrickjknight

The House Of Bernarda Alba

This is the third of Federico García Lorca’s Three Tragedies in the Folio Society edition of 1977. As usual I have presented the illustrations by Peter Pendrey as they lie on their pages in the context of the author’s clear scene directions.

The play has an all female cast, with the only male character, being the focus of conflict and rivalry never appearing on stage.

We have an embittered controlling woman who battles to maintain appearances of harmony in a family of daughters barely concealing seething hatred. “I’m not interested knowing what you’re feeling inside; that’s your business; but I like to see an illusion of harmony at least.” “Do you understand?” – this last sentence is an indication of her domination over all but her youngest, whose equal spirit seeks the changing life of the future, while her mother clings to the old ways.

The poet’s language includes such as “until she looks like a squashed lizard when the children have finished with it” or “I love the way that priest sings…..his voice soars up and up like water filling a bucket little by little”. Songs in verse carry repeated phrases like “Open doors, open windows, /Village maidens draw near/The reapers beg roses/For the hats they wear”, yet the perception of the condition of women is encapsulated in this three sentence conversation: A. “Men get away with everything.” Another A. “It’s the ultimate punishment to be born a woman.” M. “Not even our eyes are our own.”

The appearance of the eldest, possibly dementing, woman in the final act symbolises loving mothering as she tenderly carries a baby lamb.

As the oppressive heat out in the village threatens an impending storm, so the stifling suppressed conflict among the sisters portends an emotional explosion within the airless house of mourning.

Sue Bradbury’s translation is fluid and seems to me who has no Spanish to convey the original language.

Here are Peter Pendrey’s last two accurately expressed lino-cut illustrations.

This evening we dined on a rack of pork spare ribs in barbecue sauce; Jackie’s special fried rice; carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and runner beans, with which I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Yerma By Federico García Lorca

We were very fortunate at Southampton General Hospital this morning because my BCG vaccine procedure began on time and 20 minutes later I was ready to go home, This meant that we were on our way out of the building when an ear-bursting bellow vied with piercing higher tones from the tannoy system instructing everyone to clear the building by the nearest available exit. It seemed that the whole world then walked slowly towards the main doorways. No-one panicked which was a good thing. By the time we had walked to our car, those who still had appointments or work inside, continued to mill about outside. I had warned others approaching that they could expect an evacuation. We recognised many of them as we escaped by car.

It is interesting that I had forgotten the acute discomfort I experienced for the first 48 hours after the first session; I was soon reminded after we returned home. Never mind, I know it will pass.

I spent much of the afternoon reading the first of the three tragedies in the Folio Society’s collection by Federico García Lorca.

The frontispiece above is clearly a portrait of the author himself and that on the front board probably Yerma. This tragic figure struggles with her longing for a child to whom she talks while caressing her empty womb and wishes for passion from her cold husband while trying to suppress her own. She lives in a society where a woman doesn’t count as one unless she has children. Identifying with this belief she engages in fertility rites to help her conceive, yet clings to her honour.

García questions this through the voices of his largely female cast, including gossiping washerwomen; young girls; a sorceress and her acolytes; and the silence of her husband’s shrivelled sisters.

We have music and dance, and the poetic language one would expect from the writer that García is. “The rain smoothes the stones by falling on them, and then the weeds grow – people say they are useless – ….but there they are, I can see them moving their yellow flowers in the wind.” “Have you ever held a live bird in your hand? ….Well [pregnancy is] like that; only in your blood.”

Even the scene directions are telling (Pause. The silence intensifies and without any outward indication one is aware of the struggle between the two) or (The second sister appears and goes over to the doorway, where she stands like a statue in the last light of the evening)

Sue Bradbury, the translator, provides a knowledgeable and well written introduction to the writer and his work.

Presenting Peter Pendrey’s Lino-cuts as they lie on the page offers examples of the poet’s writing.

Wood pigeons are heavy, ungainly, birds more like barrage balloons than delicate creatures who could manage to feed on the crab apples I see beyond my window as they cling precariously to the bending branches and tear at the fruit, dropping as much as they consume. Today they faced the afternoon gloom and allowed rain to drip from their plumage.

This evening we enjoyed further portions of Hrodle Chinese Take Away fare with which I drank one glass of La Macha viña San Juan Merlot, Syrah, Tempranillo 2023.

The Castle Of Otranto

Today I finished reading

With devices such as living artworks such as sculpture magnified to be too huge to be accommodated by the eponymous castle and a portrait painting transcending decades to carry the likeness of a future protagonist, Walpole has woven a story of seemingly star-crossed lovers; of deceit; of manipulation; of usurpation; of intrigue; and of thwarted sexually abusive abduction in which a tyrant battles to maintain his ill-gotten possession of title. “At that instant the portrait of his grandfather …. uttered a deep sigh and heaved its breast.”

Romance, links with a bygone past, mystery, and menace; the essential ingredients of the Gothic novel, are all brought to play in this lasting classic of the genre.

Effects of the weather such as winds of varying strength and dramatic claps of thunder; of sudden sounds; of light and darkness are employed to feed the fears of a young woman seeking refuge in unfamiliar corridors and stairways of “a subterranean passage…..blasts of wind that shook the doors she had passed, and which, grating on the rusty hinges, were re-echoed through that long labyrinth of darkness… ” she flees the advances of a powerful man who would make her his possession. “She heard him traverse his chamber backwards and forwards with disordered steps; a mood which increased her apprehensions.”

Much of the story is presented in dialogue between the various protagonists at which the author is very skilled. “..whatever be the cause of —‘s flight, it had no unworthy motive. If this stranger was accessory to it, she must be satisfied of his fidelity and worth ….. his words were tinctured with an uncommon infusion of piety. It was no ruffian’s speech; his phrases were becoming a man of gentle birth.” “Persuade her to consent to the dissolution of our marriage, and to retire into a monastery…..”

The introduction by Devendra P. Varma is most informative, itself in delightfully descriptive prose.

The frontispiece and these other imaginative lithographs are all by the incomparable Charles Keeping.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s penne pasta arrabbiata sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, with which I finished the Malbec.

A Mistake Discovered Too Late

This morning I received a telephone response from Abby of Southampton General Hospital PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) concerning the manner of my discharge from hospital on 24th August (https://derrickjknight.com/2024/08/25/four-days/). I made it clear that I wanted to prevent this happening again to anyone else. She will discuss this with the relevant department and report back to me. I am under no illusions that the system will change other than perhaps ensuring that the discharge doesn’t happen on such a day when necessary help is not available.

We then transported another 13 spent compost bags of green refuse to Efford Recycling Centre and came home with two plant stands purchased from the Reuse Shop.

After lunch I finished reading the last story in my Folio Society collection from the work of Maria de Zayas.

Beginning with a dramatic description of a tempest and cleverly led escape to security by an exceptional male character in that he is honest, caring, and seeking answers to

the scene pictured in this illustration by Eric Fraser, it is in fact the treachery of women leading to the typical male cruelty. A woman’s lies result in the honour murder of an innocent man and the disparity of the two women in the picture.

The device for recounting the story is the falsely dishonoured man explaining it to the honourable protagonist and standing by his extreme cruelty as justified revenge.

Maria de Zayas closes with: “It is my opinion, incidentally, that some women suffer innocently. They are not all guilty, as is commonly supposed, and the ladies present might consider this: if the innocent….must pay for imaginary crimes, then what ought not to be the punishment of those who pursue their vicious follies in all reality. It is worth noting that, at the present day, men have such an adverse opinion of us that even if we endure innocent suffering they still decline to do anything about it.” In fairness, she has granted a happy ending to the good man of this tale.

Later, I watched the next episode of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams.

This evening we dined on salt and pepper, and tempura prawn preparations with Jackie’s colourful savoury rice.

Forewarned But Forestalled

This fourth tale in The Folio Society selection of stories of Maria de Zayas, introduced in https://derrickjknight.com/2024/09/02/the-ravages-of-vice/, has a change of mood, of power; and a humorous theme.

This time clever women are the tricksters and men the victims of their jokes and deceit. The first fool was “so chastened by his experiences that he now scorned all women without exception, a sentiment quite contrary to reason, because for each wicked woman there are a hundred good ones. Not all women are wicked and it is not just to blame all for the crimes of a few. But he maintained once and for all that there was no trusting them, especially the clever ones, because they, from having ben calm and sensible, suddenly became flighty and vicious and took men in with their cunning wiles.”

The author closes with “I can now bring to an end this amazing story, which was intended as a warning to those ignorant people who condemn brains in a woman…..and if a woman is going to be bad, she will be bad whether she is clever or stupid, though in the first case she is more likely to b able to control herself.”

Here is Eric Fraser’s faithful illustration to this story.

A Shameful Revenge

On another day of relentless rain I stayed indoors and occupied myself with reading, including this third story in my Folio Society Maria de Zayas collection.

De Zayas writes that it is not acceptable for a man of good society and wealth to marry a woman, even of the same background, without similar riches; it is, however, satisfactory to win such a prey by any means possible as long as the affair is kept secret in order to preserve her reputation and his honour. In such a situation “the moment he saw her, or so he maintained, he lost his heart to her. (The worst thing about men to my mind [says the author] is that they profess to feel much more than they really do.)”

Persistence and false promises are preferable to force, although any method may be employed to break down honourable resistance to a dishonourable suit. Once satisfied the lover eventually tires of his love. When “unable to consummate his lust [he] had been in despair…now he regretted it. And the worst of it is that there are many men like him; there always have been and there still are today. There are many [such women] too, and neither one nor the other regret what they are doing until they have plunged into the same abyss as engulfed all their predecessors.”

“Who but a man could be guilty of such a betrayal!” Nevertheless our author says “You will surely allow me, gentlemen, in this tale of mine about a man’s deceit, to express my admiration for a woman’s wrath, for you will recognise that a woman’s fury often springs from a man’s duplicity.” Our author would have agreed with William Congreve that “Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned.”

Revenge is acceptable if in defence of honour; one of the schemes in this story is less shameful than the other.

As so often in these stories a shamed woman has recourse to “taking the veil” in order to preserve her life. Shakespeare’s Hamlet enjoins Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery”.

Here is Eric Fraser’s engraving for this story.

This evening I dined on Jackie’s penne pasta arrabbiata sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, while she opted for a plateful of vegetables, including carrots, cauliflower, green and runner beans. I drank more of the Fleurie.

The Ravages Of Vice

María de Zayas y Sotomayor (born Sept. 12, 1590, Madrid [Spain]—died c. 1661) was one of the most important of the minor 17th-century Spanish novelists and one of the first women to publish prose fiction in the Castilian dialect.

Little is known of Zayas’ life except that she was born into a noble family in Madrid and may have lived in Zaragoza, where her work was published. It is not known whether she married or when and where she died.

Her novels about love and intrigue, which used melodramatic and frequently horrific elements, were widely read and very popular. Novelas amorosas y ejemplares (1637; “Novels of Romance and Exemplary Tales”) is a collection of short novels about the romantic complications of married life, ostensibly told one evening to amuse a sick woman. The stories are mostly about women who are mistreated by husbands or seducers. Novelas y saraos (1647; “Novels and Soirees”) and Parte segunda del sarao y entretenimientos honestos (1649; “Soiree Part Two and Decorous Amusements”) are sequels. In many of her stories Zayas accused Spanish society of leaving women without the information or emotional strength to resist seduction and abuse. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maria-de-Zayas-y-Sotomayor

In his introduction to

John Sturrock tells us that the author “was, by the standards of the time, an educated woman, and since women then received very little formal education she was presumably self-taught. She is very ready with an apt classical reference in her stories…..”

“There are two great motive forces [in these] – love and honour. Love is seen, conventionally enough, as a blind and irresistible force which drives women to destruction, while honour is its severe and apparently inevitable concomitant; the second exists as the only way to check the ravages of the first. But it is in her attitude to the concept of sexual honour that Maria shows originality. The concept is essentially a masculine one of course. Men alone have honour; women have their chastity, a reputation even, but should they succumb and lose them then there is nothing they can do about it except wait for punishment. It is the husband, the brother or the father who is dishonoured when a wife, a sister or a daughter is seduced, and it is up to them to wipe out the stain with the blood of the guilty parties. Thus it is that a woman is quite liable to meet her death at the hands of her nearest and dearest. Maria … [says] that men are deceitful, they wreak their nefarious purposes on the weaker sex by duplicity, by making promises they have no intention of fulfilling. Then they subscribe to a double standard of morality, whereby their own infidelities are considered very dashing while those of their womenfolk are punishable by death.” (Sturrock)

As translator Sturrock claims that de Zayas’ prose style “would be impossible and probably undesirable to attempt to reproduce that too faithfully. She writes like a woman in a hurry, impatient often of the niceties of structure and balance. The translation then aims at simplification as much as fidelity, avoiding, at opposite ends of the spectrum, deliberate archaisms and obtrusive modern idioms.” One can only trust that he has been successful in his work.

There are stories in this Folio Society collection. I will feature these one at a time with minimal comment on the prose.

The first is “The Ravages of Vice”, in which we are told of carnage consequent upon deceitfully contrived alleged infidelity. The story races along with good action sequences and the occasional didactic element, such as parenthood where the step-child is loved at least equally as children of a couple: “This is how good married couples ought to behave if they want to live in peace, because a thousand quarrels and upsets arise out of the dislike husbands often feel for their wives’ children, and wives for their husbands’ children.”

Love, honour, deception, and retribution are all Maria de Sayas’s major themes featured in the tale.

Here is Eric Fraser’s faithful and powerful illustration to this story.

The Secret Garden

Last night I sat up late reading

My first Folio Society edition,

having boards and spine decorated by the artist comes in

a slip case bearing one of her drawings.

This delightful book, in fluent descriptive prose, charts the journey of Mary Lennox, born to an ex-pat English couple in India, until the age of ten when she was transported to Yorkshire. It is a tale of her transition of cultures and the consequent adaptations.

There is a touch mystery apart from that of the eponymous garden.

The prose contains many similes and metaphors, yet is itself a metaphor to the resurgence of neglected yet apparently pampered lives upon the introduction of loving kindness.

We learn how Mary encounters a kindred spirit with similar experience and emotional deprivation in the midst of wealth; and how this is balanced by a loving family with very slender means, but with a generous maternal mother who really knows children and their needs. Two of her children in particular are instrumental in Mary’s gradual learning to love.

We learn how crushingly destructive grief can be, but how it is possible to be helped to rise from despair.

I often find attempts at reproducing vernacular accents in speech, but Burnett uses it as a method of bridging cultures and engaging her characters. As Mary becomes closer to the Yorkshire people she learns their language. The dialogue in this book is faithfully rendered with the author’s perfect control.

The garden of the story, largely neglected for ten years, through the changing seasons, the gradual resurgence of plant life, and the lives of small living creatures, is the metaphor for life.

The robin, a particularly significant character threading a link through the story, first became imprinted on Ben Weatherstaff as a fledgling. Masterman’s drawings, although including many of the robin do not include a fledgeling. I am therefore taking the advantage to feature my

3rd August 2019 drawing of Nugget, who, still with blueish feathers and lacking his adult red breast, first arrived in our garden a short time before. Longer term readers will remember the many photographs in those earlier posts featuring him.

I have not included my usual quotations from the text, because there are many examples of the author’s prose alongside this selection of Dodie Masterman’s drawings. Those not taken from within the text are smaller tailpieces from most of the chapters except for the final one which might give too much away. I recommend enlarging these pages in the gallery.

From The Saga Of Dietrich Of Bern

This is Part Two of Book Two of Legends of the Ring. It “was most likely composed in Norway somewhere between 1230 and 1250 by a well-travelled or well- read Norwegian, writing in Norse for the culturally flourishing court of Hakon IV.” (Magee).

This Folio Society selection, focussing on the Siegfried story, does not include the whole of the Dietrich saga, but the last in a series of duels is one between the two heroes. The main thread stitches together bloodthirsty battles between the Nibelungs and the Huns. The translation is by Edward R. Haymes.

In my review of The Nibelungenlied I state that “The powerful prose narrative lacks the beauty of the Icelandic poetry of Book one, although it presents the tale in considerably more detail.” https://derrickjknight.com/2024/08/04/the-nibelungenlied/. Maybe the more fluent and attractive prose in this saga of a now familiar story reflects the writing of someone more akin to the Scandinavian Source.

Dietrich is described thus: “He was long-faced and regular of features, light in colour, and had the best eyes of all men, dark brown in colour. His hair was light and fair and fell in curls. He had no beard, no matter how old he got. His shoulders were so broad that they measured two ells across. His arms were stout like a great trunk and hard as stone. He had fair hands. In the waist he was slender and well-formed, and his hips and his thighs were so stout that everyone thought that it was very strange how the man had been shaped. His legs were fair and well-shaped. And his calves and ankles were so stout that they could have belonged to a giant. His strength was greater than any man knew and he himself scarcely tested it. He was cheerful and modest, generous and a giver of great gifts, so that he did not hold back from his friends with gold or silver or treasure or with almost anything they would accept.”

The birth of Siegfried and his fostering by a hind is beautifully expressed: “A hind came along and took the [baby] boy in her mouth and carried him home to her lair. There she had two fawns. She put the boy down and let him drink for her. She raised him like her own young and he was with the hind for twelve months. Then he was as strong and big as other boys four years old.” Growing thereafter into a perfect match for Dietrich. When Mimir found the youngster and took him in “a hind came running up, went up to Mimic’s knees and licked the face and head of the boy. From this Mimir knew that the hind must have fostered the boy. For this reason he did not want to kill the hind and he took the boy and kept him with him. He intended to raise him as his son and he gave him a name and called him Siegfried.”

This is an example of the greater detail given in this saga to the material covered in previous sections of Legends of the Ring.

We also have more details of lengthy individual duels and battles with fast moving action described.

The position of women in this society obsessed with beauty and strong men of honour is somewhat complex. It was a fate worse than death for a man to be beaten by a woman and fathers are always speaking of giving their daughters to valued suitors. Yet queens and wives can be powerful, scheming and influential. We have clear indication of this in Chapter 5 of the saga extracts, The Bride-Winning of Siegfried and Gunther.

The first of Simon Brett’s illustrations to this section of the book has been placed above the relevant quotation. The others are in this gallery.

Wuthering Heights

In a comment on her post
Book Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë of 1st July, the excellent reviewer https://bvitelli2002.wordpress.com

knowing full well what the answer was likely to be, asked me whether I had a copy in my library.

I therefore offer

as an accompaniment to Barbara’s review.

As usual images may be enlarged when accessing the gallery. Charles Keeping’s lithographs suit the mood of the book very well.

This afternoon I watched the Wimbledon Tennis men’s match between Carlos Alcaraz and Frances Tiafoe followed by the women’s game between Emma Raducanu and Maria Sakkari. Before the latter match had finished we dined on bowls of rice, noodles, and prawns from bowls on our knees in front of the TV. I drank more Malbec.