Tag: The Folio Society

Sea Foam

I spent much of the afternoon of this humid-damp day finishing reading

The author is one of New Zealand’s finest. ‘Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) is one of the most highly regarded short story writers of the 20th century. A contemporary of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence, she played her part in shaping modernism by experimenting with style, subject matter and theme in a body of work that re-defined the genre. As well as short stories she also wrote letters, reviews and journals in a prolific career which was cut short by her untimely death at the age of 34.’ This quotation comes from https://www.bl.uk/people/katherine-mansfield which describes her rather tragic story.

My view of her stories is that, with fluent, uncluttered, prose she describes her detailed observation of intimate snippets of lives and her surroundings including those absorbed on her travels. The tales selected by Jane Miller are of varying lengths. Three incorporate one particular family, suggesting to me that these could perhaps have formed part of the novel the author never penned.

My own tenuous link with Ms Mansfield is described in https://derrickjknight.com/2018/03/30/colour-coordinated/

What impresses me most about Jennifer Campbell’s illustrations to this volume is

that within such bold, stylised, outlines she manages to convey the range of emotions reflecting the writer’s own variety.

Late in the gloomy afternoon Jackie drove us down to Milford on Sea where the south westerly wind was surprisingly warm as it whipped

sea foam through the rocks at the seething water’s edge, up into the air, swirling past my nose, and rolling across the promenade, where

walkers enjoyed the view,

while others could be glimpsed through the unseasonable gloom against the backdrop of Hurst Castle. I chose not to brighten up these photographs to demonstrate what the light was like on this early summer afternoon.

This evening we dined on succulent roast pork; wholesome sage and onion stuffing; crisp roast potatoes, some of them sweet, and Yorkshire pudding; crunchy carrots; and tender greens, with tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Colle Marrone Appassimento 2016, a powerful, complex, Italian red wine.

To The Lighthouse

On another overcast morning Aaron, tasked with improving our stepping stone escape route from the Dead End Path to the patio, fetched some spare paving from his own home and

produced this level work. He was one stone short and will bring that next week.

I first read

in 1989. About 20 years later I read it again for the Upper Dicker Book Reading Group. Today I finished it once more in order to test my response to Louise DeSalvo’s biography. https://derrickjknight.com/2020/05/19/seeking-acquaintance/

I don’t remember ever reading another novel three times.

I enjoyed the work once more, no doubt with greater understanding. Perhaps all first novels are to some extent autobiographical, and, having been enlightened to the story of this most gifted writer’s childhood and adolescence, I have to agree that Mr and Mrs Ramsay are undoubtedly based on Mrs Woolf’s own parents. As it is my custom not to reveal spoiler details of the story, I will say no more about this.

This novel is an exceptional work of art. The symbol of the trip to the Lighthouse underpins the developing dissection of a family group’s relationships evoked with remarkable insight. As always the author’s language, given her abundance of detailed description, is elegantly economical. Every adjective, every adverb, every metaphor, every simile is made to count. (She makes good use of parenthesis and would not have countenanced this last sentence). Her punctuation is flawless, and her phrasing perfect, reflecting the numerous revisions she apparently made to her well crafted works.

Gilbert Phelps’s introduction is knowledgeable and educational.

The cloth boards are embossed with a design by the artist.

I confess to having been initially ambivalent about Maryclare Foa’s colour illustrations. Although very well composed with good palettes I found the distorted figures rather ponderous. Now, however, I believe the painter has captured the isolation of the individual characters much as Virginia’s sister Vanessa Bell did in her faceless paintings. It is a policy of the Folio Society to choose an illustrator who can represent the period.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s super savoury rice; a rack of pork ribs in barbecue sauce; salt and pepper prawns; and spring rolls with which she drank Becks and I drank more of the Douro.

A Central Rectangle

Louise DeSalvo’s work on Virginia Woolf which I featured recently in https://derrickjknight.com/2020/05/19/seeking-acquaintance/ prompted me to return to ‘Between The Acts’, the writer’s last novel. Dr DeSalvo had sought metaphors and other phrases in the novel which could be referring to Woolf’s childhood sexual abuse. I could see the possible reasons for the doctor’s interpretations, but, of, course they can never be proven.

Bearing in mind that the novel never received a final revision by the author, who drowned herself before this could happen, I did think that the family story of a watery death in the duckpond may have suggested her impending demise; however, the book was completed on the eve of the Second World War which looms in the shadows over the final pages.

None of this can detract from the delicious, spare, uncomplicated, language used by Mrs Woolf in her keenly observed descriptions of her characters, flora, and fauna, relationships, and village life from a much gentler age than our own. This is a sensitive and insightful writer.

The dramatis personae include the characters taking parts on stage in a local pageant, and in the assembled audience who play their parts between the acts. As usual, I will tell no more of the story.

My Folio Society edition of 1974 contains an introduction by Quentin Bell and lithographs by Gillian Barlow. It is bound in boards bearing

a design by Fiona Campbell.

Well composed, from interesting perspectives, Gillian Barlow’s illustrations have captured the essential isolation of her subjects which does perhaps reflect those of Woolf and her family.

The book by DeSalvo is illustrated with contemporary photographs which I chose not to include in my above-mentioned post. Barlow’s illustrations were so tuned into one page of photographs that I now include them here:

Was Barlow influenced by these paintings, I wonder? Or did she acquire all her inspiration from her reading of the novel?

While I was drafting this material Jackie continued gardening and produced some views.

Florence sculpture stands at Fiveways.

Here are two views of the Shady Path and another of the vista from the Wisteria Arbour.

We designed The Rose Garden with paths spanning from a central rectangle shown in the first image. This group of pictures finishes with the rickety entrance arch which is all that is left of the rubble-encrusted vegetable garden that we inherited.

This evening we dined on succulent roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing; crisp Yorkshire pudding; perfect roast parsnips; creamy mashed potato; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower; tender cabbage; and tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Syrah.

Versatility

During the power cut yesterday evening I finished reading

being the fourth of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire novels.

I have to say I found this one rather ponderous in its political and philosophical passages, giving the impression that the periodical pattern of its publication promoted such prolixity.

Trollope’s familiar themes of love, marriage, and matriarchal machinations; the mores of the period; the importance of appearance over authenticity, and status over sincerity; devious deception, and struggles of conscience, are treated in this continuing chronicle of clerical kinship.

To my mind the author is at his best when dealing with the characters of his subjects, in particular through his easy command of dialogue, and his descriptions of his period.

Julian Symons has written a helpful introduction in which he acknowledges that he is at odds with many critics.

The Folio Society aims to commission illustrators commensurate in style with the periods of their publications. Peter Reddick’s elegantly delicate drawings perfectly fit the bill. Each is placed within the text of a single page, on a rather smaller scale than these I produce here.

A comparison of these with the same man’s woodcuts for Hardy’s ‘The Return of the Native’ provides ample examples of this illustrator’s versatility

On this dull but dry day Jackie continued with her planting as in this orange themed chimney pot,

and tidying along the Gazebo Path. She watched the blue tit at top right of this picture

feeding on sunflower seed hearts which it

carried up to the wisteria,

placing it beneath its foot with which it gripped the nugget while it nibbled away. This was done repeatedly.

Our very own Nugget, still skittish and clearly occupied elsewhere, is back investigating Jackie’s activities.

“Where’s Nugget?” (70)

The pieris behind the Nottingham Castle bench in the picture above is one example of the red/green complimentary colours that Jackie photographed along with all today’s photographs.

 

Another is shown by these geranium palmatum leaves turning red to warm up in cold weather.

The red Japanese maple stands beneath the golden one behind it;

 the red leaves and gold flowers of this heuchera repeat that combination.

This evening we dined on roast lamb, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower, carrots, runner beans, and red cabbage with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cap Royal Bordeaux Supérieur 2016.

 

Skilful Chiselling

When John Corden visited us in February he was struck by our New Forest landscape which reminded him of studying Thomas Hardy’s “The Return of the Native” which he had read at school, where his English teacher had instructed the boys not to skip the first chapters describing the landscape because that countryside was one of the important characters in the book. He asked us whether Hardy had lived nearby. He had, indeed. On October 11th 2013 we had visited the thatched cottage in which he was born, not far away across the county border into Dorset. Jackie sits by the fireside which once warmed the budding writer.

I therefore returned to my Folio Society edition of the novel in which the terrain is indeed a major feature. An informative introduction by R.M. puts the work in the context of the author’s life and work.

Thomas Hardy writes an engrossing and intriguing tale of life and relationships among a few villagers sharing the remote setting. Such geographical proximity as there is does not exclude emotional distance, rivalry, and conflict. The author’s descriptions of the nature of the human inhabitants, the wildlife, and Egdon Heath itself is matched by sensitive dialogue. One might also say that the weather, which certainly reflects the action and moods of the protagonists, is also a significant character.

Peter Reddick’s robust, muscular, woodcuts depict the harsh reality of life at the time, and the noble strength of those who lived there then.

Endpaper maps of the fictional Wessex have Egdon Heath alongside what is The New Forest, and Reddick’s illustrations show a landscape largely unchanged in our National Park.

 

I have diverged from my usual practise of presenting the illustrations in full page scans because they are so small and so numerous that I would be flooding you with text. This has the advantage of enlarging and making more visible the artist’s skilful chiselling.

This evening we dined on lemon chicken; roasted new and sweet potatoes; crunchy carrots, and tender green beans with which I finished the Pinot Noir and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

Characterisation

‘The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club’ was the 24 year old Charles Dickens’s  serialised debut novel. Such publications in 1836 were the soaps of the period before television and a more leisurely age when reading was a main source of entertainment. The monthly instalments of these comic capers were eagerly awaited by those in many walks of life. Those who couldn’t read gathered round their more literate friends and colleagues, having contributed to the costs of library borrowing.

Today’s promotional merchandise boosting sales for blockbuster films and best-selling books like the Harry Potter series are no new idea. Pickwick inspired items were on sale when Queen Victoria came to the throne. There may not have been a market for replica football kits, but there was for Pickwick hats and coats.

The novel itself is really a series of short stories stitched together with the thread of what Mr Pickwick himself terms his “rambles” which were taken by coach and horses with groups of friends around the South of England. Interest was a little slow to catch on and the young author seemed to be feeling his way before picking up the pace with gusto. Gradually we become attached the characters introduced along the way.

Every so often what appears to be an extraneous story is introduced in the patched garment. These I found of varying interest.

As usual with Dickens, we learn much about the social, economic, and legal aspects of contemporary life. The author writes with fluidity; with remarkable knowledge of human nature; and with considerable humour. But, then, the world has appreciated that for almost two centuries,

All the strands are neatly drawn together in the closing stages when we learn the outcome of various relationships and their prospective futures.

Christopher Hibbert’s introduction to my Folio Society edition is scholarly and informative – I owe Pickwick hats and coats to him.

I have now finished reading the lengthy tome and can complete my posting of Charles Keeping’s

lively line drawings leaping exuberantly from the leaves of the book. I have written before about the artist’s fidelity to the text. What is also striking is his expressive rendering of the author’s characterisation. Keeping conveys the nature of his subjects with humour and accuracy. Some are grotesque caricatures; others gentle and sensitive souls. Comparison with the first and last of today’s selection will indicate that Charles Keeping can produce consistent individual portraits.

This evening we dined on smoked haddock, cod fish cakes, very tasty carrots, tender runner beans, juicy ratatouille and Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Syrah.

Fidelity

This morning we visited Shelley and Ron’s home bearing flowers and cards for a particular occasion. Ron was otherwise engaged, but Helen was also present. We enjoyed coffee and conversation and returned home for lunch.

Having reached page 556 of The Pickwick Papers I am ready to reproduce another batch of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to the Folio Society edition.

Close perusal of the last double page spread comparing the author’s text with the lively line drawings will display the artist’s fidelity to Charles Dickens’s writing and the skill of whoever planned the layout of the book. Should it be necessary, a click or two will enlarge the leaves.

This evening we dined on roast lamb; roast potatoes and butternut squash; crisp Yorkshire pudding; crunchy carrots; tender cabbage; and very meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Finca Carelio Tempranillo Barrica 2015.

Keeping Dickens

Charle Keeping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keeping was probably my favourite contemporary book illustrator. So, when, in the late 1970s, the Folio Society sought members’ recommendations for pairings of books and illustrators, there was only one possible submission for me.

In 1981 the first of the Dickens series was published. Derek Parker reviewed it thus

in The Times on 4th of June that year. This cutting is slipped inside The Pickwick Papers, which I am currently reading.

Normally I do not feature a book until I have finished it. In the case of this tome I might be some time. I will comment on the text when that time comes, but I have decided to take my readers on a ramble through Mr. Keeping’s signature line drawings as far as I have got.

Here is the frontispiece.

Such pagination as the overflowing layout allows will indicate the publisher’s generous proliferation of penmanship exuberantly deployed.

I have scanned full pages in order to display the artist’s scintillating gems bursting from the text.

Should there be sufficient interest I will present further pictures as I turn the pages of the book.

While I occupied myself preparing this post Jackie photographed a crab apple tree full of sparrows debating whether to trust a new feeder.

Strong winds and very heavy rain had beset us overnight and this morning.

Later, all was reasonably calm and we took a short drive into the afternoon sun.

Clear streams ran down the gutters on Holmsley Passage where

the crossing gate and scudding clouds were reflected in rippling pools.

Trees on the skyline stood against the lowering sun as it peered from behind the clouds;

a mud-caked pony nibbled at yellow gorse;

and the hide of chomping cattle was tinged with red outlines.

Sunset occurred as we returned by Holmsley Road. That, too, was reflected in waterlogged terrain.

This evening we dined with Elizabeth at Lal Quilla. I enjoyed Goan King Prawn; Elizabeth’s choice was Lamb Chana; and Jackie’s Chicken Sag. We shared mushroom and pilau rice, a plain paratha, and Tarka Dal. Jackie and I drank Kingfisher; Elizabeth chose Cobra. The welcome, food, and service were as good as ever.

As I Lay Dying

Mat, Tess, and Poppy returned to their home at Upper Dicker late this afternoon.

Afterwards, I finished reading William Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying’. The book was first published in New York in 1930 by Jonathon Cape and Harrison Smith, Inc. My Folio Society Edition of 2011 is enhanced by William Gay’s knowledgeable and insightful introduction, and by the evocative illustrations of Katherine Hardy.

Fifteen different narrators are the device by which the author tells the tale of an eventful burial trip. They alternate with each other in presenting chapters varying in length from one line to a mere handful of pages. We enter the hearts and minds of a stubbornly independent poor rural family as the individuals relate their thoughts and observations in most credible uneducated vernacular. The protagonists, despite a certain amount of stupidity, usually retain their dignity.

Practical, sometimes wry, common sense is expressed by characters outside the bizarre-thinking family whose determined isolation does not work to their advantage. The trip has different meanings to different members of the Bundren Family who are too proud to accept help from anyone. The story is a compelling one of which I will not reveal details.

The front board bears a giant fish

caught by the youngest son.

The mother of the family appears on the frontispiece,

and other full page illustrations appear at intervals.

Despite the title, this was not an unenjoyable book to read at the holiday period.

This evening, Becky, Ian, Jackie, and I dined on the Culinary Queen’s splendid beef in red wine, creamy mashed potatoes, mashed swede, crisp carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, followed by Christmas pudding and custard, with which I drank El Zumbido Granacha 2018 and Becky and Ian drank Wairauru Cove 2018. These delights were consumed on our knees while watching Rocketman, the marvellous biopic of Elton John played by Taron Egerton

The Siege Of Krishnapur

In the afternoon of this day of steady rainfall Paul and Margery visited to deliver the painting by John Jones that Paul has now framed. We had an enjoyable conversation over tea and mince pies, and are very pleased with both the picture and the framing.

During the rest of the day I finished reading J.G.Farrell’s historical novel ‘The Siege Of Krishnapur’. Originally published by George Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1n 1973, mine is the Folio Society edition of 2008 with an excellent and insightful introduction by Hilary Mantel and evocative illustrations by Francis Mosley.

Without revealing anything of the story I can say that the clearly impeccably and aimlessly researched work takes us into the period of the Raj, its customs, its class divisions, and its beliefs. The pace of the narrative reflects the ebb and flow of action and reflection of such an event. There is dramatic action and there dull, energy-sapping periods. All the senses are so well engaged. Sickness and death are rife. We see how people are revealed in their true colours – some rising to the occasion, others failing or turning it to their own advantage. Barriers between the sexes are broken down.

The boards are embossed with this design by the artist which also runs across the spine.

 

Mr Mosley, especially with his chosen palette, has captured the essence of the time and place.

As, this evening, we left home to meet Elizabeth at The Wheel Inn, Jackie photographed arboreal fingers reaching for the full moon draped in dramatic clouds.

The staff at the community pub, having reserved a friendly table,

had placed us beside the log fire. Jackie also produced these two photographs.

Elizabeth and I both enjoyed crispy duck with ginger salad starters.

My main course consisted of oven baked hake wrapped in parma ham, lobster sauce, sautéed potatoes and asparagus. The ladies were both delighted with their roast turkey with all the trimmings. Jackie finished with Christmas pudding, and I chose Eton mess. Both were very good. Jackie and Elizabeth  both drank Warsteiner and I drank Ringwood’s Best.