tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17491876665314001442024-03-17T15:45:49.772+01:00Channel Light VesselLooking at bits of culture that are not not talked about very much. I'm not currently updating this blog, but may return to it when less busy. People are still leaving comments however - many thanks for all of them!
Josephine Gardiner
Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-30458058008994359702016-07-13T13:52:00.000+02:002016-08-02T15:46:53.094+02:00The selkie in literature and film<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Updated 2/8/2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">The selkie in literature and film</span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWbl3Vcf7xa0yGBZMGrm5bqNGg7yeThr6bfwXWjVEYwD8G87s4CrsPAouPxkgBB1iW6gpiH5YN_aDwMFtt1u3tjyllppZJRHyNc-jmBat-0Iw-rh82bAlThYkIJzNBV3d935SJyH74t80/s1600/Common_Seal_flopping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWbl3Vcf7xa0yGBZMGrm5bqNGg7yeThr6bfwXWjVEYwD8G87s4CrsPAouPxkgBB1iW6gpiH5YN_aDwMFtt1u3tjyllppZJRHyNc-jmBat-0Iw-rh82bAlThYkIJzNBV3d935SJyH74t80/s640/Common_Seal_flopping.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Books</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Seal Woman</b> by Ronald Lockley </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Lady from the Sea</b> by Henrik Ibsen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Beside the Ocean of Time</b> by George Mackay Brown</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The People of the Sea</b> by David Thomson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Tales of the Seal People</b> by Duncan Williamson</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Films</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Song of the Sea </b>(2014)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Ondine </b>(2009)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Secret of Roan Inish </b>(1994)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Poem</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The White Birds, W.B. Yeats </b>(1892)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Selkies - seals who change into people and back again - always seemed far stranger and more compelling to me than sirens or mermaids. A siren is simply a beautiful woman who lures the sailor to his doom. The fish part of the mermaid is the tail of a generic fish. But the selkie myth involves a specific species, and seems to pay careful attention to the attributes of that species. The stories told about selkies emerge from the northern coastal cultures and craggy landscapes that humans share with seals, and mirror the ambivalence in the relationship between seals and people, and people with nature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There are various theories about the origin of the selkie myth. The stories are associated most frequently with the Orkneys, Faroes, and Shetlands, and the western coast of Ireland. One idea is that hunting parties of Finnish, Saami, or Inuit people were spotted on beaches beside their sealskin coats, or sealskin-covered boats, giving rise to the idea of the seal shedding its skin to assume human form. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAmQZlmmCJExVBobombTVw01OzGTcnNwitr76aNv88GKFLqoUD7kPUMmTzdOS8Q1r30Nc_jLoBzyTikHi1IPII-LoH0Yb-eRXtaomD8oo5vjppE1yRm5i50NusQu4byyOhVD9IkulEAg/s1600/Faroese_stamp_585_the_seal_woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAmQZlmmCJExVBobombTVw01OzGTcnNwitr76aNv88GKFLqoUD7kPUMmTzdOS8Q1r30Nc_jLoBzyTikHi1IPII-LoH0Yb-eRXtaomD8oo5vjppE1yRm5i50NusQu4byyOhVD9IkulEAg/s400/Faroese_stamp_585_the_seal_woman.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Faroese stamp, showing a seal woman entrapping, or possibly protecting, a man. </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Speculation on the origin of the myths is perhaps unnecessary once you think about the nature of seals, and what seals might have meant to the small, isolated fishing communities who lived close to them through the centuries. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">They have an almost-human quality. The seal embodies vulnerability when on shore – large, fat, and round, with short, apparently useless flippers, lumbering movements, and big, expressive eyes. In the sea, however, they seem a different species, supple and graceful, with a physical power and freedom impossible for humans. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Like humans, seals are social, living in large groups. The males fight each other, pairs bond, they communicate with mournful, singing sounds, their babies are endearing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Seals and humans were in direct competition for fish, and fishermen would sometimes cull these rival predators. Seals were also hunted for their skins, and their blubber was used for lamp oil. So the selkie stories might express the hunters</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> conflicted feelings: unease and lingering guilt about killing a creature that is both mysteriously other, and disturbingly familiar. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The recurring themes in selkie folklore hint at repressed desires and fears. While in human form, selkies make loyal wives and husbands, so long as the seducer keeps their sealskin hidden. Once the selkie finds the skin, the game is up and she, or he, returns immediately to the sea, abandoning house, hearth and family. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">You might fear, or wish, that your partner would vanish; you might long for a reason to abandon the chores and embrace a new life in the waves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The selkie can be a romantic seducer, the stranger from the sea who enchants a villager only to disappear, leaving heartbreak in his or her wake. Selkies can be protective - saving babies, warning people of danger - or dangerous, bringing a tide of ill fortune to anyone who interferes with their freedom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In centuries past, life must often have been relentlessly hard and inward-looking for people in the remote, storm-blasted Irish and Scottish fishing communities. The more imaginative might well have stared out at the sea horizon, envious of the seals who could slip smoothly away into the distance, away from domestic bonds. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Or they might have wondered about who, or what, might arrive on the shore in the twilight – a shapeshifting stranger who would rescue them, seduce them, free them from care, or carry them to their deaths. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Selkie stories may have represented the fears and longings of isolated coastal communities. </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: </span></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>© David Ross/Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For his book, <i>The People of the Sea</i> (1954), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Thomson_(writer)">David Thomson</a> listened and recorded verbatim retellings of the selkie stories in pubs and front rooms, with versions of the myth being constantly adapted and embellished by the storytellers. They talk matter of factly about about hunting and killing seals, before spinning out stories that reveal a deep admiration for the creatures, guilt about causing them harm, fear and awe of their magical powers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The storytellers</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> tone, as reported by Thomson, is sometimes mischievous, almost defiant, as if they were daring their listeners to doubt the tall tales, while at other times there</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s a hesitancy, like people afraid to relate their dreams in case it makes the dreams real.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In <i>Tales of the Seal People </i>(2005), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Williamson">Duncan Williamson</a> suggests that selkies were a way of coming to terms with losing relatives at sea. The idea that your father or lover had gone to join the seal people would be easier than imagining them lying forgotten on the seabed, deprived of a funeral. The sea is clearly a symbol of death and eternity, as well as adventure and possibility, and the selkie myth draws on both of these. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Duncan Williamson spent his life in Scotland</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s traveller community. His stories, he says, are retellings of tales he heard from the fisherman and crofters of Scotland</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s west coast, passed down through the generations. In each story, he tries to reproduce the voice and style of the original teller, and the the selkies (he calls them </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">silkies</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’) are lovers, friends, replacements for lost children, rescuers and avengers. The conflict between characters who love and identify with seals, and those who resent them, is a common theme, but my personal favourite is </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Lighthouse Keeper</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">. The bond between a lonely man and the lost seal, is touching:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“You know it’s very hard when you live in a lighthouse on your own out in the sea and there’s not a soul to be seen. . . even a mouse would cheer you up! When somebody comes flip-flapping around the floor, especially a seal that you have just taken from the sea, it means so much to you - it means the world to you.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I wanted to look at how far the the selkie myth has penetrated beyond these traditional stories into mainstream culture, either literally or more indirectly as a symbol of transformation, enchantment, or freedom. The answer seems to be not very far, which is surprising, but there are some interesting examples nevertheless.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hcGYl5aYMlRpZkur_XxgjRKD3lRApAYkfgN19-hzjsUGWfaUE2YfDkVttx4Y_12I0cabKTOUrpfDnFJJa4zEF5cizpSJ9ArQ5RHZOlrjr5MCnHqOoXCsN-pds7wGT2FCVB2tqvFunwA/s1600/Seehunde_auf_Duene_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hcGYl5aYMlRpZkur_XxgjRKD3lRApAYkfgN19-hzjsUGWfaUE2YfDkVttx4Y_12I0cabKTOUrpfDnFJJa4zEF5cizpSJ9ArQ5RHZOlrjr5MCnHqOoXCsN-pds7wGT2FCVB2tqvFunwA/s400/Seehunde_auf_Duene_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Community of common seals </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Seal Woman by Ronald Lockley (1974)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This strange novel, which I read as a teenager, was my introduction to the idea of the selkie. It is the story of a young man from London enchanted by a feral young woman, Shian, whom he encounters living outdoors in a wild coastal forest in the far west of Ireland, “somewhere on that little-known stretch of coast which runs from Valentia Island south to Cape Clear”. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Unlike many selkie tales, Lockley’s story is not written for children. Lockley was a scientist, not a novelist, and this is an eccentric erotic fantasy, expressing a passionate longing for isolation, for wilderness, and the desire to submerge and obliterate oneself in nature, to become absorbed by it. The fantastical and improbable aspects of the story are underpinned by the author’s precise attention to the physical world. <i>Seal Woman </i>is perhaps a neglected example of magical realism. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2a4aW-dofXU02eNyql8hS_MQN_wdfhwCdypdMjL43uTGqqXscaDiYgJY5taA2608m5Yuxiy7A2THSxdcZ2iL_qV9Mm3ayLohf_2_SJAu9TLwHvmh4NxvZ9wg_MDsu3lJs8muyybxqESQ/s1600/Seal+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2a4aW-dofXU02eNyql8hS_MQN_wdfhwCdypdMjL43uTGqqXscaDiYgJY5taA2608m5Yuxiy7A2THSxdcZ2iL_qV9Mm3ayLohf_2_SJAu9TLwHvmh4NxvZ9wg_MDsu3lJs8muyybxqESQ/s400/Seal+woman.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There are two protagonists, the narrator and Shian. Shian is the last of a noble Irish family, the O’Malleys of Kilcalla, but she has abandoned the decaying mansion she inherited, and rejected all connections with human civilisation. Her true home is the sea, and her true people the seals who live there: “I have given my heart to the sea and the folk of the sea.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Shian lives inside her own myth. She believes her grandmother’s story that she was found as a baby washed up in a seal cave after a storm. She is spellbound by this idea, and the ballad she sings, ‘Song of the Sea’, includes a prophecy that a ‘prince from the ocean’ will arrive in the waves to claim her: “We shall follow the seals on the wings of the waves. . . he will crown me his queen in the far Holm of the seals.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The narrator decides to pose as this sea prince in order to win her love, deliberately wrecking his boat off the seal cove so that he can arrive in the storm and fulfil her prophecy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For a time, the couple are happy; Shian teaches the narrator to how to live wild, both in the forest and the sea, foraging for food and eating raw fish, learning to spend longer and longer under the waves, making love on the shore. But Shian is not content with this idyll – she is increasingly impatient to swim away with the seal herd, further and further west to the Skellig islands and the wild Atlantic beyond. The narrator is more conflicted, immersing himself and luxuriating in Shian’s world while secretly hoping he can entice her back into some form of civilisation. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqBfExLJIdTrkgOnpitgomXPh48i7QW6AzzhDJ4Y1AsHlsuAknmp01PouX6vzsmM1KhSRIe0hd-K_UdEkEBs5X2NZjlLFlPBGUSLht04mX6Y6PFXB2sZlNXoiPLy-lcjy6EvMKz-2oEnI/s1600/Deciduous_woodland_by_the_Owengarriff_River_-_geograph.org.uk_-_449903.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqBfExLJIdTrkgOnpitgomXPh48i7QW6AzzhDJ4Y1AsHlsuAknmp01PouX6vzsmM1KhSRIe0hd-K_UdEkEBs5X2NZjlLFlPBGUSLht04mX6Y6PFXB2sZlNXoiPLy-lcjy6EvMKz-2oEnI/s1600/Deciduous_woodland_by_the_Owengarriff_River_-_geograph.org.uk_-_449903.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; line-height: 29.26px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-size: medium;">Shian teaches her lover to live wild in the forest and the sea. This photo shows deciduous woodland carpeted with wild garlic in Co. Kerry, where Seal Woman is located. </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo:Wikimedia/Geograph</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Shian seems to be a selkie in transition – she has webbed fingers and seal-like powers in the water, but her shape remains human, at least while she is with her lover - though he never sees her in winter (preferring to return to London rather than face the force of the Atlantic gales).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The story is almost a reversal of <i>The Little Mermaid</i>. In Hans Christian Anderson’s story (1836), the mermaid sacrifices her sea life and sea-family for the chance to win a human man’s love and gain an immortal soul. She exchanges her tail for legs, but at a horrifying and painful cost: she will always feel as if she is walking on knives. She also loses her power of speech and song (interestingly, the narrator in <i>Seal Woman</i> loses his voice too). As a final blow, the prince marries someone else. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The Little Mermaid accepts the magic potion from the Sea Witch, exchanging her marine identity for a human soul, legs, and suffering.</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Picture: Wikimedia Commons.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In <i>Seal Woman</i>, it is the man who is seduced by a sea woman, but though he loves her, he is not prepared to abandon civilisation for her and throw in his lot with the seals. “I pretended a deep interest in everything to do with the sea, for only in water was my seal woman really at home.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the end, he sacrifices nothing, except his peace of mind: she haunts him. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ronald Lockley (1903-2000) was an ornithologist and naturalist – he wrote over 50 books on natural history, including <i>The Private Life of the Rabbit</i>, a source for Richard Adams’s <i>Watership Down</i>. He had ample personal experience of wild living: he spent school holidays living rough in his local Welsh woods, and, during the 1930s, he and his wife were the only human inhabitants of Skokholm, a small island four miles off the coast of Pembrokeshire, where Atlantic grey seals would have been regular visitors.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5jlr5TnFIJh4IuH-JHj8zD4h5QjPZuZgsf2B9PnTx-fWHplWA4rW6BDKdQJjAwrwb2ap9YRMzsdYC71yy2VYMZmDotcr7xZh4XWfyDjkKNPltDUXdpTZ5TsTgLHowDZt0oOje8PYynRQ/s1600/Ronald_Lockley_%2528Welsh_Naturalist%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5jlr5TnFIJh4IuH-JHj8zD4h5QjPZuZgsf2B9PnTx-fWHplWA4rW6BDKdQJjAwrwb2ap9YRMzsdYC71yy2VYMZmDotcr7xZh4XWfyDjkKNPltDUXdpTZ5TsTgLHowDZt0oOje8PYynRQ/s400/Ronald_Lockley_%2528Welsh_Naturalist%2529.jpg" width="329" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ronald Lockley, around 1940.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Seal Woman</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">reveals more of the author’s passion for ancient, untouched woodland than for the sea. There is a tension between his descriptions of the deep peace of the wild Irish forest, with its trout streams, otters, flower species (all carefully named), and the cold, stormy, powerful sea, always threatening to sweep Shian away forever. The sea, the seals, and the selkies are his rivals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I spent some time on Google Earth and Geograph trying to locate ‘Kilcalla’ on the coast between Valentia and Cape Clear in County Kerry. Lockley writes of a long strand where the seals rest, with the Skelligs visible on the horizon. The wild forest, as he mentions in the melancholy epilogue, “is now almost entirely stripped . . . the last deer killed, or fled,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> and the seals driven away by hunters. I couldn’t see any signs of woodland, but these views below of cliffs at Drumnagour, with the Skelligs almost lost in mist, might come closest to the place he had in mind. He might also have been thinking of the Blasket islands to the south.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rXQvvLtu0EFGZY8tRxBqEVkVPTm9qxf16SiwdJe3PN2pZeXOR5ffXiO44OF7kyw1BACi3GiLt2Qc87I32s7DsPDZVrhS3_Pv7tYVfdAURQ1NisKmbARWvfnJ-Ozlu16NqG7gt-_u3Zc/s1600/1350729_ee03420c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rXQvvLtu0EFGZY8tRxBqEVkVPTm9qxf16SiwdJe3PN2pZeXOR5ffXiO44OF7kyw1BACi3GiLt2Qc87I32s7DsPDZVrhS3_Pv7tYVfdAURQ1NisKmbARWvfnJ-Ozlu16NqG7gt-_u3Zc/s320/1350729_ee03420c.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-size: medium;">Distant Skellig islands and the cliffs at Drumnagour. </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photos: Dennis Turner/Geograph</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The novel</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s epilogue, written over 40 years ago, now reads like a sad prophecy of environmental degradation. The seal slaughter at the end of the book had a real life echo in 2004, when a brutal slaughter of 60 grey seals on Begenish island in the Blaskets caused public outcry and demands for better protection. A film by Jacquie Cozens, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwmRtLrjT0c">Grey Seals: Life on the Edge</a></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> is available on YouTube and tells the whole story. </span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">The Lady From The Sea, by Henrik Ibsen (1888)</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The paintings in this section are by the Norwegian artist Nikolai Astrup (1880-1928). This one is from 1926.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While Ibsen’s play never mentions the selkie myth, the theme – a woman obsessed, bewitched, by the sea – has clear selkie resonances. The open sea, and the stranger who returns from it, haunt the play as symbols of freedom and terror, undermining the claustrophobic safety of small-town Norwegian fjord life. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>By Nikolai Astrup, 1909.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The title might lead you to suppose that it is the central character, Ellida Wangel, who is the selkie spirit here. Ellida initially seems to fit the bill: she is the daughter of a lighthouse keeper, she swims in the fjord every day in all weathers, the townspeople call her ‘the lady from the sea’, and she pines for the open ocean, unsatisfied by the “sluggish” waters of the fjord: “night and day I’m haunted by this irresistible longing for the sea,” she says. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This obsession is undermining her relationship with her husband, Dr Wangel, who, incidentally, must deserve a prize for being the most understanding husband in literature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But Ellida is no selkie, she is entirely human. Her enchantment derives from a meeting, before her marriage to Wangel, with a passing stranger at the lighthouse: a sailor to whom she feels fatally bound. In Ibsen’s cast list, he is listed simply as ‘A Stranger’. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Everything about this man, however, is mysterious, slightly sinister, remorseless, free, and strongly selkie-like. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ellida says she never knew much about her lover: “Only that he went to sea when he was very young. And that he’d been on long voyages.” His name was Friman, but then changed to Johnston. He has killed his ship’s captain, for reasons unknown. Before leaving Ellida, he joined their two rings and threw them into the waves. “Then he said that we must be married to the sea.” Married <i>to</i> the sea, not beside it, or to each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The stranger came, Ellida tells her husband, “From Finnmark [the northernmost part of Norway] . . . but he was born over in Finland.” Dr Wangel then replies, “He was a Kvaen, then.” This is an intriguing reference, because one theory about selkies traces the myth back to Finns, Finmen, Saami or Kvaen people visiting the northerly British islands in centuries past. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“What did you talk about?” asks Dr Wangel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Mostly about the sea . . . </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">About its storms and its calms . . . dark nights at sea . . . and the sea sparkling in the sunshine. But we talked mostly about the whales and dolphins – and the seals that lie out on the rocks basking in the noonday warmth. And we talked about the gulls and the skuas and all the other seabirds . . . . And, do you know, it’s an extraordinary thing, but as we talked like this he seemed to me to have something in common with the birds and beasts of the sea.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There is an implacable, mythical, dreamlike quality about the sailor that seems to permeate the whole play, affecting not only Ellida, but her husband and the other characters. Ellida says she wrote to him, breaking it off. “He wrote back, quite coolly and calmly, that I must wait for him. He would let me know when he was ready for me, and then I was to go to him at once.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">She admits he has a inexplicable power over her mind; she is bound to him by fear rather than love, for she loves her husband. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The Stranger in </i>The Lady from the Sea<i> is a symbol of freedom and terror. Luminous and alarming painting by Nikolai Astrup, 1917.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ellida also attributes supernatural powers to the man: “I suddenly see him – actually standing there, right in front of me. . . or rather, a little to one side. He never looks at me – he’s simply there.” Most disturbingly, it emerges that Dr Wangel and Ellida have had a baby together, a baby who died. Ellida is convinced there was something strange about the baby’s eyes: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Ellida</i>: The child’s eyes changed colour with the sea – when the fjord was calm and sunny, so were his eyes; but when it was stormy – oh, I saw it even if you couldn’t!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Dr Wangel</i> [humouring her]: Well – possibly. But even if that was true – what of it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Ellida</i> [softly, coming closer]: I’ve seen eyes like that before…the child had the stranger’s eyes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For Ellida, this is evidence that she can never escape her sea ‘marriage’ to the sailor, and can never be a proper wife to Wangel. At this point in the drama, especially given the vagueness of Ellida’s details about the sailor, you are left wondering if Ellida is simply mad and the sailor-lover a fantasy figure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">She certainly understands depression, comparing human happiness to “the joy we get in the long summer days – it implies the darkness that is to come, and that implication casts its shadow over all human joy, just as the drifting clouds cast their shadows over the fjord . . . ”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But the sailor is real. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A steamship glides into the fjord. Shortly afterwards, Ellida’s lover appears on the footpath by the Wangels’ garden. He has “bushy red hair and a beard”, and wears a “Scottish cap”. Ellida does not recognise him, until she sees his eyes. But he has come to claim her, just as he promised.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The conversation between them is one-sided: all the stormy emotion and conflict is on her side, he neither entreats nor bullies, he simply states that he has come to keep his promise and delivers his ultimatum: she has 24 hours to decide whether or not to sail away with him, of her own free will. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His attitude, in short, is selkie-like: calm, uncompromising, faithful, singleminded, remote, inhuman.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the final scene, Dr Wangel’s generosity of spirit breaks the Stranger’s spell over Ellida. She realises that it was prospect of a completely free choice that both fascinated and horrified her. Given that freedom, her choice is clear. The Stranger departs immediately like an exorcised ghost. “From now on,” he says briskly to Ellida, “you are no more to me than – than a shipwreck that I have come safely through.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The conversation between Dr Wangel and Arnholm, the teacher, (Act Four) leaves open the question of whether Ellida’s obsession is due to mental illness or supernatural influence:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Arnholm</i>: What do you think is the real explanation of this power that the stranger has over her?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Wangel</i>: Ah, my dear friend, there may be aspects of that question that aren’t capable of explanation. . . </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Arnholm</i>: Do you believe in that sort of thing?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Wangel</i>: I don’t believe or disbelieve; I simply don’t know. That’s why I leave it alone. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPIypBMjzok1_OtAKh8DDLdzJmzKKAMRpHJSpnSw-8d4KSVXmBuveDdpIHKBjoVFpBVAk7X3zalVYXKsZyyKbpaCmChKO196FhZB087eotkN2mDp3Iqiob1v-rycybkQnmKj0Qo3vjqTQ/s1600/255px-Ibsen-Dresden01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPIypBMjzok1_OtAKh8DDLdzJmzKKAMRpHJSpnSw-8d4KSVXmBuveDdpIHKBjoVFpBVAk7X3zalVYXKsZyyKbpaCmChKO196FhZB087eotkN2mDp3Iqiob1v-rycybkQnmKj0Qo3vjqTQ/s320/255px-Ibsen-Dresden01.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ibsen in Dresden, c 1870</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ibsen spent 27 years living and working away from his native Norway, principally in Dresden, Germany – a long way from the sea. <i>The Lady from the Sea </i>was written in Munich, after a period spent back in Norway. His nostalgia for Norwegian coast was probably one inspiration for the play. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1880 he wrote to Hegel from Munich that “of all that I miss down here, I miss the sea most of all; that is the loss that I find it hardest to reconcile myself to.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the play, Dr Wangel echoes this feeling:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Haven’t you ever noticed that the people who live by the open sea are a race apart? It’s almost as if the sea were a part of their lives; there are surges – yes, and ebbs and flows too – in all their thoughts and feelings. They can never bear to be separated from it . . .” </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR8hLvpSWvpksMfQ8NIf9olp9ffvL8832nTpae6STIUQepNu6GcWO3HGedfYWJ4JabWjUcmQ66uwZXuTWb7z5oVCvJSotqY9xZA05z0Sidg6UP7s1rk2Z9bFym3Kw-4AdALqqb0zjs_x0/s1600/Henrik_Ibsen%252C_ca_1898.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR8hLvpSWvpksMfQ8NIf9olp9ffvL8832nTpae6STIUQepNu6GcWO3HGedfYWJ4JabWjUcmQ66uwZXuTWb7z5oVCvJSotqY9xZA05z0Sidg6UP7s1rk2Z9bFym3Kw-4AdALqqb0zjs_x0/s640/Henrik_Ibsen%252C_ca_1898.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ibsen in Oslo, circa 1897</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Selkies make guest appearances in books with other themes. In George Mackay Brown’s strange novel, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Beside the Ocean of Time</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, the hero, Thorfinn Ragnarson, imagines himself into episodes of the history of his Orkney island. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In one chapter, his shy 18th-century alter ego falls for Mara, whom he sees dancing on the shore in human form. Naturally, he steals her sealskin, they marry (selkie women make good wives, for a while). One slightly sinister twist is that Mara’s arrival spells doom for her mother-in-law, who sickens, finally dying when the couple’s child is born. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I liked the way that practical details of Orkney life (Mara refuses to eat the oatcakes and porridge, preferring raw fish) come slapping up against the more poetic: “Mara’s speech had something of the music of breakers in a cave-mouth, or far-off horizon bell-notes, or dolphins in the flood tide.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mara finds her sealskin one day when Thorfinn and the children are away at the Lammas Fair. She chooses the sea over her family and domesticity, as selkies always do, and poor Thorfinn is left alone on the darkening shore: “One of the seals called to him, but the very sound of his name was strange in that ocean language. It was a strange, terrible cry, of love and loss, joy and longing.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One of the most haunting retellings occurs in Rowena Farr’s <i>Seal Morning</i>. An old woman befriends a female seal. The seal comes to live with her and gives her financially valuable information about the location of fish shoals. But when the seal finds a mate, the old lady tethers her companion on a long rope, so that she (the seal) is allowed to swim out and continue providing the lady with marine intelligence, but cannot join her seal-lover. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The rope ends up strangling the seal, leaving her mate bereft. The old lady pays a high price for her meanness of spirit and is condemned to loneliness for eternity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The story is a sad summary of what goes wrong in relations between human beings and other animals. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiReGIZLOWuA5L2FPsQZTR31zbHrkevOUuati820NVGeWHJF8e0LCx6aBTdiw64EWQdUVbvm1Z7J4ecuhP1SQ6BvHeGfda1jA_mbk20j4oNtoqAiFtQN9CInKqS8wq1SUMqt3RhU7hurYI/s1600/Halichoerus_grypus_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiReGIZLOWuA5L2FPsQZTR31zbHrkevOUuati820NVGeWHJF8e0LCx6aBTdiw64EWQdUVbvm1Z7J4ecuhP1SQ6BvHeGfda1jA_mbk20j4oNtoqAiFtQN9CInKqS8wq1SUMqt3RhU7hurYI/s400/Halichoerus_grypus_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Atlantic, or grey, seal.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Films</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Song of the Sea </b>(2014)<b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Director: Tomm Moore</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This animated film is quite simply a delight: poetic, moving, funny, and above all, luminously beautiful. It is such a powerful aesthetic and sensuous experience that the unapologetically happy ending is a bit of a surprise – you suddenly remember that this is actually a children’s film. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2015; the mystery is why it didn’t win. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The story centres on an unhappy family and an epic journey away from the sea and back again. Ben (10) and Saoirse (6), are children of a lighthouse keeper on the west coast of Ireland. Saoirse, who cannot speak, finds her mother’s selkie coat one night and slips out to the strand to swim with the seals – she is a selkie (she may be the last one – the film implies a scarcity of selkies). Only her selkie song, if she can find her voice, has the power to break the spell of suppressed grief that paralyses both her family and the fairy spirits of Ireland (literally in the case of the latter – they are turned to stone). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The real brilliance of the film lies in the way it illuminates themes of transformation and shapeshifting, weaving traditional Irish stories into the everyday life of the characters. Everybody (except Ben, who is really the ‘narrator’) has a dual identity: the father, for example, is also the giant Mac Lir, and the ferryman moonlights as the Great Seanachai, whose beard contains all the world’s stories in its long trailing hairs, but suffers from amnesia himself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nothing is quite as it seems, even the rocks and islands of the landscape are always on the verge of turning into something else, animated by spirits and mythical powers. This seems to capture the essence of the selkie myth.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGY3LgoeBd_W-zuX8gm2uJWg-ktQKzglrZCY6v70Q10bt49ya45OrkIbjVxmRtZtAk0ZKYkIZQKffB3xLingAuJ2pawpze1x4NaA8FVoV2ZGnUa8YXDiCna-WcSMWIUcP9heWePbB7kV4/s1600/images+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGY3LgoeBd_W-zuX8gm2uJWg-ktQKzglrZCY6v70Q10bt49ya45OrkIbjVxmRtZtAk0ZKYkIZQKffB3xLingAuJ2pawpze1x4NaA8FVoV2ZGnUa8YXDiCna-WcSMWIUcP9heWePbB7kV4/s640/images+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Animation and animism: the landscapes of </i>Song of the Sea<i> live and breathe.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The outstanding shapeshifter though, is the grandmother, who is also Macha the owl witch. The transformation is quite subtle (on seeing Macha, I thought ‘where have I seen that face before?’): she’s simultaneously a fat, frowsty, sad old woman, a convincing owl, and a spirit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Macha, who traps and imprisons emotions in bottles and jars in her attic, made me laugh, especially when her gang of vicious owls are trying to heave her huge bulk up the staircase (she is half turned to stone), but these scenes would be thrillingly frightening if you were seven or so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The difficult relationship between brother and sister evolves with humour and without sentimentality, making it surprisingly moving. Ben initially resents Saoirse because he associates her with the disappearance of their mother. His snappishness in the early scenes develops into an exasperated protectiveness, punctuated with outbursts of sarcasm: “Yes, why don’t we follow the magical lights? That would be <i>so</i> much more sensible than using a map!</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ben and Saoirse make an epic journey from Dublin back to the sea.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The attention to detail is exceptional: the decor in the grandmother’s stuffy Dublin house, the crackly, moaning (1930s?) song on her radio, the laconic Dublin bus driver, Saoirse drawing seals with her finger on the misted car-windows, a line of pylons in the shape of owls, looming over the selkie and radiating ill-will. Sounds of rain, waves, and trickling watery sounds create a hypnotic, sensuous background to the haunting soundtrack. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Song of the Sea</i> is one of the few films I’ve seen that capture the magical effects of light on landscape and mood. The film’s climax, in which sea, sky, rocks, hills, and cliffs are transformed by the shifting colours of the aurora borealis and animated by reawakening spirits and myths, is breathtaking. This film repays a second (or third) viewing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Keep the credits running if you want to hear the final lullaby sung by Nolwenn Leroy, or listen here:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uen59x1NBRs">Lullaby from Song of the Sea</a></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">Ondine </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(2009)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(contains spoilers)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Director: Neil Jordan</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Ondine</i> was the only selkie film I could find that is aimed at adults (there may be others, please let me know). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The opening scenes are promising – a Cork trawlerman (Colin Farrell) pulls up a half-drowned young woman in his net, a woman whose origins are mysterious. His small daughter Annie believes the woman, Ondine, must be a selkie. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Given that this is directed by Neil Jordan (<i>Company of Wolves</i>, <i>The End of the Affair</i>) I was expecting a compelling treatment of the borderlines between fantasy, myth, and reality, and between child and adult perspectives. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But this film seems determined to sabotage itself. We are invited, for example, to believe that Ondine’s singing induces improbable loads of fish out of the sea and into her admirer’s nets, giving weight to Annie’s magical theory, only to be let down at the end of the film by a banal drugs-based explanation for Ondine</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s presence in the village. It is as if the film can’t credit adults with any tolerance of ambiguity, let alone magic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The selkie figure (Alicja Bachleda) is attractive but lacks the otherworldly quality the part demands, and the total absence of sexual chemistry between ‘selkie’ and fisherman does not help. Dervla Kirwan does her best with the part of the crabby wife, but seems miscast. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There are other false notes: the arbitrary eastern-European connection, and the way the little girl, though confidently acted, is often too knowing, using expressions like “sartorially challenged” (would she believe in selkies at all?). Above all, I only spotted one brief appearance by a solitary seal in the entire film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Secret of Roan Inish</b> (1994)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Director: John Sayles</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Secret of Roan Inish</i> brings selkies firmly back into children’s territory: the selkie myth is recruited to tell a story about homecoming and family roots in rural Ireland in the decades after WW2. Little Fiona arrives from the city (portrayed as a smoky den of vice) to stay at her grandparents’ cottage, isolated in the grey and watery beauty of Ireland’s north west coast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In welcome contrast to <i>Ondine</i>, you do get to see a lot of real seals, though their role remains peripheral and auxillary. Seals and selkies chiefly serve to add buoyancy to the human story. The use of the myth feels forced at times, though I liked Fiona’s uncle’s deadpan reference to the seals as ‘another branch of the family’.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s a nagging sense that the seals’ only reason for existing is to look after Fiona’s lost baby brother and help her family to return to their rightful home on the island. I was left wondering what the seals and selkies got out of it all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Another moment of adult cynicism arose for me when Fiona (10) and her slightly older cousin completely renovate a row of ruined cottages by themselves, though I can</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">t really explain why I found this idea harder to swallow than the thought of seals looking after a baby boy for years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The cinematography however is impressive, the music haunting, and the storyline strong, if slow. Seen at the right age, the film might inspire an interest in selkies and cast the spell that failed to work on me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In general, there seems to be plenty of scope for a new adult drama, perhaps adapting Ibsen, that explores what the the selkie myth means to people, or what people mean to seals. There’s a fertile seam of potential themes: dreams of escape, the illusion of possession, blurred and shifting identities, the seductive stranger, conflicts between the erotic and the sinister, the domestic and the wild.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Whether the treatment was literal or metaphorical or both, it would need a grand and confident vision, and the only director I can imagine succeeding would be Lars Von Trier. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Poem</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This poem by W.B. Yeats takes seabirds, not seals, as a motif, but the identification of the sea with transformation, love and longing, freedom and sadness, seems to connect with the spirit of the selkie myth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>The White Birds</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>(Written for Maud Gonne after she had refused his marriage proposal.)</i></span><br />
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* * * * * </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 27.412px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>©</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Josephine Gardiner 2016</span></span></span><br />
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<b style="line-height: 27.412px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">LINKS</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>* If you are interested in the origins of the selkie myth, the website <a href="http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/index.html">OrkneyJar</a> is excellent on the theories, and includes many other folktales and traditions of the Orkney Islands. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>* All books mentioned in this article are available either new or second-hand from Amazon and other sources. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br />* <a href="https://www.mcsuk.org/">Marine Conservation Society UK</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><br />*Elaine Morgan and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/may/01/academicexperts.highereducation">Aquatic Ape hypothesis</a> (Guardian interview from 2003) and Aquatic Ape hypothesis in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis">Wikipedia</a></span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-80334505606994003832016-01-06T03:14:00.001+01:002016-07-20T22:08:06.124+02:00Unseen British paintings 1900-1960<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1xKzc_sHMUce5P1nEqGfCOLLd9OihC-FFXiJPvuygzfzWgxDMQ5JWCWjTa_89VaQOj-2_QOEF841XfSjDE_1zkXQvqHR3LeDzrODqtLGYegoyKyF4rzJu1-3q2FzTYw2fAFdgzxgMcj4/s1600/IMG_0697.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1xKzc_sHMUce5P1nEqGfCOLLd9OihC-FFXiJPvuygzfzWgxDMQ5JWCWjTa_89VaQOj-2_QOEF841XfSjDE_1zkXQvqHR3LeDzrODqtLGYegoyKyF4rzJu1-3q2FzTYw2fAFdgzxgMcj4/s640/IMG_0697.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Orchard with beehive, Whiteleaf</i>. <i>By Clive Gardiner, c. 1914. </i></span><span style="line-height: 23.4px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unseen </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">British</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> paintings 1900-1960</span></b></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> By Clive Gardiner, Lilian Lancaster, Gladys Davison</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Artists die, but they live on in their work – or so conventional wisdom would have you believe. The problem with this is that the paintings that stay in the public eye tend to be those that have monetary value. These are the ones that are reproduced, exhibited, resold, and talked about. The way in which paintings acquire monetary value in the first place is a bit of a mystery to everyone outside the art world (and quite a few inside I suspect), and is not necessarily linked to quality, impact, depth or originality. The sad result is that many interesting or even excellent painters are overlooked and forgotten, along with the boring or frankly terrible, and their work is never seen again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Also, if we only ever see the best and most celebrated exemplars of particular periods or movements in art, the reciprocal influences connecting individual artists are lost, and our understanding of that phase or period in art is poorer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Artists have a harder time with immortality than writers. Writers who are highly regarded or popular (or both), in their lifetimes often fall dramatically out of favour after their deaths. But their work survives in multiple editions and formats, and reputations can revive decades later. The ideas of a painter or sculptor on the other hand are embedded - even imprisoned - in physical objects, and these objects can deteriorate or vanish, taking their creators with them and depriving the world of their unique vision. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The point of this post is simply to show some examples of the work of three artists, Clive Gardiner, Lilian Lancaster, and Gladys Davison. The last two are almost completely forgotten. Gardiner's dramatic poster designs for London Transport and the Empire Marketing Board are still recognised and highly regarded, and he is remembered also as principal of Goldsmiths' College in London between 1929 and 1957. But his work, as a painter, designer, and illustrator, was far more extensive and varied than this, and included a large number of landscapes painted in the Isles of Scilly.<br /><br />Many of the the paintings in this article have not been seen in public at all for decades or, in some cases, almost a century. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Clive Gardiner (1891-1960)</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXF0rB4jf8ELhl64troWxpoGYs6ZwtrCKTbgRo_N6rz9nWP-8USRxiHDawhR-Q-R6rDyfzS4oh92P4ysqCWvVALdaxIXCTqLcLhJSAUdi-SkO36klmxMqlxWikxkldRhulLfZAUaLmpY/s1600/epping2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXF0rB4jf8ELhl64troWxpoGYs6ZwtrCKTbgRo_N6rz9nWP-8USRxiHDawhR-Q-R6rDyfzS4oh92P4ysqCWvVALdaxIXCTqLcLhJSAUdi-SkO36klmxMqlxWikxkldRhulLfZAUaLmpY/s640/epping2.jpg" width="520" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Epping Forest. Clive Gardiner, 1928. This was one of many posters Gardiner designed for London Transport. </i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i> Channel Light Vessel</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">oday, Clive Gardiner is probably best remembered for his designs for London Underground and London Transport in the 1920s and 1930s, of which the Epping Forest poster above is one. You can see the full collection of this work at the <a href="http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/artist/artist.html?_IXSR_=LjCOLviAj_B&_IXSESSION_=3zVfoaEIkHq&IXartist=Clive%20Gardiner&_IXFIRST_=1&IXpage=1">London Transport Museum</a>, and there is a good biographical summary on the <a href="http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/faculty-of-arts-brighton/alumni-and-associates/associates-and-alumni/graphic/gardiner,-clive-1891-1960">University of Brighton</a> website. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The posters show Cubist and Futurist influences and in one sense are very much of that period, but they are also entirely individual. To appreciate this, you have to look at them alongside other British transport posters of the time (it was something of a golden age for transport posters) - they are original and impossible to confuse with any other designer. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Harbour with moon, Isles of Scilly. Clive Gardiner, date unknown, probably late 1940s. </i></span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oil on canvas.</span></i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"> </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Lyme Regis harbour (Dorset) by Clive Gardiner, date unknown, probably late 1920s or 1930s. </i><i>Oil on board.</i></span><i style="font-size: medium;"> </i><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span><i style="font-size: medium;"> </i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After the end of World War II, Clive Gardiner started visiting the Isles of Scilly every summer after the end of term at Goldsmiths, usually staying on the tiny island of Bryher. His attachment to the islands seems to have been strong, personal, and possessive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The remoteness of the Isles of Scilly must have been a big part of the attraction: according to his brother-in-law, Lionel Robbins (writing in a South London Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1967), Clive Gardiner did not mix much with other artists, "could not bring himself to show his work to dealers", and found all forms of self-promotion and networking "utterly antipathetic". Gardiner's younger son, Stephen, writes (in the same catalogue) that his father was always "mysterious" about his visits to Scilly: "The islands began as a discovery and ended as an obsession. And he made it quite plain . . . that he wanted to keep the place to himself." </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcaJ55izbGkEU-mB3cvcJiYi02mo1gsVY9DdN4xnNWFKMeXKCXnGzhD91uIiudxqa5ToVc1jiJ9MoU2zzIWE_w03OdLjwhdei2Hkth_6LH66Iu20bZwVk25LPTCp9LZJqU0rEb1T-bs1Y/s1600/Scilly1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcaJ55izbGkEU-mB3cvcJiYi02mo1gsVY9DdN4xnNWFKMeXKCXnGzhD91uIiudxqa5ToVc1jiJ9MoU2zzIWE_w03OdLjwhdei2Hkth_6LH66Iu20bZwVk25LPTCp9LZJqU0rEb1T-bs1Y/s400/Scilly1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Trees on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly. Clive Gardiner, date unknown. Oil on board.</i></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDu73w0oQQxe0N6LizL9pUptsVTx3CNOaiLYXYzqDmWwgzYWJAjNbyBC1CPgpvlN6Txc2Wmr7SrSUR_IbuB_EhjFKTqcE5JGQZCu13KDPnc6qqL-faE3AjMx4-bAATNy2ey2-lZmh0Mk/s1600/IMG_0676.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="528" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDu73w0oQQxe0N6LizL9pUptsVTx3CNOaiLYXYzqDmWwgzYWJAjNbyBC1CPgpvlN6Txc2Wmr7SrSUR_IbuB_EhjFKTqcE5JGQZCu13KDPnc6qqL-faE3AjMx4-bAATNy2ey2-lZmh0Mk/s640/IMG_0676.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Hughtown harbour beach, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly. Clive Gardiner, date unknown. Oil. I have left the frame on this photo, as it seems to suit the painting well. </i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhJqGYru_ZLJ-ae6XbTynzuoD5TGCB8j7NCW3kYnL9fp2Avfa7Ger8f6kaWzvxgNM-0RLsJbtNBUe3uZ0oA6UJhdY95UVMSvluuXW9Qn8iK5yce9TDrWzuQc7w27A0p3te-ZmooIFQGk/s1600/Scilly2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhJqGYru_ZLJ-ae6XbTynzuoD5TGCB8j7NCW3kYnL9fp2Avfa7Ger8f6kaWzvxgNM-0RLsJbtNBUe3uZ0oA6UJhdY95UVMSvluuXW9Qn8iK5yce9TDrWzuQc7w27A0p3te-ZmooIFQGk/s640/Scilly2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Harbour scene, by Clive Gardiner, oil. Date unknown.</span> </i><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span><i><br /></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Stephen Gardiner also writes that his father gave him 'permission' to go to his beloved Scilly in 1955. The place had "an eerie familiarity" because he already knew it through his father's paintings. Stephen, who did not share his father's reticence, started asking local people if they knew his father. "I thought he might have become quite well known since he had been going there for so long. I was wrong . . . I described him in detail - the glasses, the trilby hat, the grey raincoat: a fairly large man, I would say, and impossible to miss." But nobody - publicans, boatmen, hotelkeepers - knew his name or could recall him in any way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This story is particularly strange in the context of a tiny island community. Gardiner's relationship with Scilly seems to have remained mysterious, a private landscape. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9ihpcwo3QCYvWeHSCeZrczy6uh5lwsgq7W-xvQJyXp6oFkW2jSC_pvsanY7-d7m7IQN4BMvEax9tck10NjOxaKmPA15aOyXMByXxARb7qSB3K0SODJnjnwaZNjSQVbZ3pH9aE_e0FsYM/s1600/Scilly3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9ihpcwo3QCYvWeHSCeZrczy6uh5lwsgq7W-xvQJyXp6oFkW2jSC_pvsanY7-d7m7IQN4BMvEax9tck10NjOxaKmPA15aOyXMByXxARb7qSB3K0SODJnjnwaZNjSQVbZ3pH9aE_e0FsYM/s320/Scilly3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Cottages, Isles of Scilly, by Clive Gardiner, date unknown. </i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Jetty with yacht, by Clive Gardiner. Date unknown, oil. </i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP27A_vPoeCwZpnhZ1kT0rZIsT4Mp8JUxVGUX6BNY8SdibeGYNMnb3dHmrIDDWVOaY1cNWdyidtyIXMW4IrachjtrHvOHDMl8BDkH6CkxQSAj7j_SPGlu9NKdw1O1jI-mhE7JkBJAwIfw/s1600/med%253F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="531" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP27A_vPoeCwZpnhZ1kT0rZIsT4Mp8JUxVGUX6BNY8SdibeGYNMnb3dHmrIDDWVOaY1cNWdyidtyIXMW4IrachjtrHvOHDMl8BDkH6CkxQSAj7j_SPGlu9NKdw1O1jI-mhE7JkBJAwIfw/s640/med%253F.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Coastal landscape, by Clive Gardiner. Date unknown, oil on canvas. This painting shows Gardiner's appreciation of Cezanne, and looks like Provence, which Gardiner visited in search for Cezanne's inspirational places. But it could just as easily be a lane in Cornwall on a fine day. </i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzf3AHYYYQXlKeKSgiuJbyO2zQ_UC0RkX3S21eguRgTKglNeAc4doS3IlIOpRUtMdWnBReLoM7zVbVLVplOSnRolffaxrmUvaxyZcfx86gzxg9e2vJCz6W6wIOdUNAmnDL4K-62GDsEc/s1600/Old+Town.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzf3AHYYYQXlKeKSgiuJbyO2zQ_UC0RkX3S21eguRgTKglNeAc4doS3IlIOpRUtMdWnBReLoM7zVbVLVplOSnRolffaxrmUvaxyZcfx86gzxg9e2vJCz6W6wIOdUNAmnDL4K-62GDsEc/s400/Old+Town.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Old Town, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly. Clive Gardiner, date unknown, pencil and crayon drawing. </i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFXP_xC_B036uRcRyJAbvkeeQHj0bvUntXhFi3k_gt4UDp7Q1MpNemyw-kjZpAiBKbA4XCGFQg8Vvwl9F60w4MDLmLPkecq5eEkYMcttScnVvioQ8yjs0KXahhkETGDjNqsvPIOz0Ltxg/s1600/Scillysails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFXP_xC_B036uRcRyJAbvkeeQHj0bvUntXhFi3k_gt4UDp7Q1MpNemyw-kjZpAiBKbA4XCGFQg8Vvwl9F60w4MDLmLPkecq5eEkYMcttScnVvioQ8yjs0KXahhkETGDjNqsvPIOz0Ltxg/s400/Scillysails.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Sails by Clive Gardiner, date unknown. Oil. </i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUiCHrsfLqrTMns88yXAIQkI44eM0Nu9TdL_O0YlQypoCXFQ-EYBwDuZGDl5zGhyphenhyphenmXEtMBnga5tAx-0qR8VM1ibu3HP_kq_6rd0DF4UdUaMeUgTv8o0i1y1Mzqt2wwkIZsr0KF32e5uYw/s1600/Penzance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUiCHrsfLqrTMns88yXAIQkI44eM0Nu9TdL_O0YlQypoCXFQ-EYBwDuZGDl5zGhyphenhyphenmXEtMBnga5tAx-0qR8VM1ibu3HP_kq_6rd0DF4UdUaMeUgTv8o0i1y1Mzqt2wwkIZsr0KF32e5uYw/s400/Penzance.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Harbour by Clive Gardiner. Date unknown, oil on board. This is either Hughtown, St Mary's (Isles of Scilly), or Penzance harbour. </i></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;">© Channel Light Vessel</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio09myoAJjpWWAAaEw3skzXXEiTJ3kU4LEEWEo3-lsnLKY1NSS-IWDdoZzl_cpBAz28W5xcvwjW8pPB0mP1zUqzQbEjCijXyGN4MnFcVYUQHGwIWDeX-ZiiRE8I2Jey2X8CaphFIPIz14/s1600/Begonia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio09myoAJjpWWAAaEw3skzXXEiTJ3kU4LEEWEo3-lsnLKY1NSS-IWDdoZzl_cpBAz28W5xcvwjW8pPB0mP1zUqzQbEjCijXyGN4MnFcVYUQHGwIWDeX-ZiiRE8I2Jey2X8CaphFIPIz14/s640/Begonia.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>White begonia, by Clive Gardiner. Date unknown, oil on canvas. </i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRGuiuL_fpgMqkHQ8I9LZrEDbVaSAvNU3E0DK0SNDPeKXpb5oV1bU2_3CI8bI4ENB5oWXPx6BPiTTOFmlTWl3GOjkM0aeyg0EV153AEj7w6W9CCGHcsNudvZ5UQkbBd57sDnWUHA7H8ts/s1600/Leda%2526Swan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="531" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRGuiuL_fpgMqkHQ8I9LZrEDbVaSAvNU3E0DK0SNDPeKXpb5oV1bU2_3CI8bI4ENB5oWXPx6BPiTTOFmlTWl3GOjkM0aeyg0EV153AEj7w6W9CCGHcsNudvZ5UQkbBd57sDnWUHA7H8ts/s640/Leda%2526Swan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Leda and the Swan by Clive Gardiner, date unknown, probably 1930s. Oil on canvas. </i></span><span style="font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 23.4px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lilian Lancaster (1886-1973)</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lilian Lancaster was a painter of portraits, still life and flowers who studied at the Slade (1906-10) and the Royal Academy School until 1914. She also taught at Eastbourne and Brighton art schools, and was married to Clive Gardiner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">She should not be confused with her aunt, also called <a href="http://barronmaps.com/lilian-lancaster-1852-1939/">Lilian Lancaster</a> (1852-1939), an artist, map-designer and actress. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The younger Lilian Lancaster was a pupil of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Sickert">Walter Sickert</a>, and remained a vocal admirer of Sickert throughout her life. Her earlier paintings show this influence, though most of her work owes more to the French impressionists, particularly Degas and Renoir. Her later work tends to be more static and occasionally over-sweet, but the best of her portraits have real impact. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuUy7KQRz2fEjchfL8DMRKliK7f66C5hCsdqLSCY_fSQ71Bz3Frra1fH5w6EfrsB6e7pMMIMoEEFhT0t0-90oEp9yUir3Qzw5QUXqaGnJvLe1gRWu-y-O_6Or4Uyy18NxK0RqnOn35Wg/s1600/Stephen44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuUy7KQRz2fEjchfL8DMRKliK7f66C5hCsdqLSCY_fSQ71Bz3Frra1fH5w6EfrsB6e7pMMIMoEEFhT0t0-90oEp9yUir3Qzw5QUXqaGnJvLe1gRWu-y-O_6Or4Uyy18NxK0RqnOn35Wg/s640/Stephen44.jpg" width="531" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Stephen Gardiner and Cat. By Lilian Lancaster, circa 1944. Oil on canvas.</i></span><span style="font-size: 17.6px;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This portrait (above) has a satisfyingly balanced composition, with the curves of the collar, the chair-back, the cat's stripy body, and the hands all lending movement. The barely feasible beauty of the two subjects is kept in check by the deep navy of the sailor's uniform and the subtle olive-browns of the tabby fur and the upholstery. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWeZ1WewyDzGcwtRrDjEVJcSH8e2APwVmcLJjSHm-rJhEgVMg4HjKdSJTaBy3cFjEbuZTiQU3ln3ibnBz-y2d0O0Ryisq8t4rVhWURMlndYH2ebt2s_yL-Da9Y_Cx5YxI4Rtr4EttwRMo/s1600/Statue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWeZ1WewyDzGcwtRrDjEVJcSH8e2APwVmcLJjSHm-rJhEgVMg4HjKdSJTaBy3cFjEbuZTiQU3ln3ibnBz-y2d0O0Ryisq8t4rVhWURMlndYH2ebt2s_yL-Da9Y_Cx5YxI4Rtr4EttwRMo/s400/Statue.jpg" width="343" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Classical still life by Lilian Lancaster, circa 1906-1914. Oil on canvas This is an early painting and may have been done when she was still a student. If so, the painting of the form of the statue and the drapery behind are very confident. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUb4L87x4bY7b6yPKdLxZHdjWV1K6GHfOYe6_LwTQh9nVQBCkY2kA6To9PaId6aw0KJZ0wG8_VUfMYxbjbsiwQGK6jT3MUuS2wEni4e-HlMtGhOghjUCHEhIAS7Ki3pAJrSO6nLLP5he0/s1600/leeleeportrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUb4L87x4bY7b6yPKdLxZHdjWV1K6GHfOYe6_LwTQh9nVQBCkY2kA6To9PaId6aw0KJZ0wG8_VUfMYxbjbsiwQGK6jT3MUuS2wEni4e-HlMtGhOghjUCHEhIAS7Ki3pAJrSO6nLLP5he0/s640/leeleeportrait.jpg" width="545" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lilian Lancaster, self-portrait, 1920s, oil. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgJNiEKUkt1WbrWlpcfoz2ib2Ir-m98DbL4jphoYBVKfxqYCEilNPz2LpB8CanrOKQYBSUPBO-Uay9F1BcCUltEiE2wjFaIJBpomlPQ4KwdJd7kJIcZ64xcszj9rNI_AlOsjiBzlk6TY/s1600/LancasterGirl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgJNiEKUkt1WbrWlpcfoz2ib2Ir-m98DbL4jphoYBVKfxqYCEilNPz2LpB8CanrOKQYBSUPBO-Uay9F1BcCUltEiE2wjFaIJBpomlPQ4KwdJd7kJIcZ64xcszj9rNI_AlOsjiBzlk6TY/s640/LancasterGirl.jpg" width="529" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Young girl with pearls by Lilian Lancaster. Circa 1910-1920, oil. The dark tones and the long, melancholy face of the sitter are reminiscent of a Velazquez portrait. I cannot work out what the object is that the girl is holding. </i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gladys Davison 1849(?)-1922</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I know very little about this painter (full name Gladys Dorothy Davison) other than that she was a pupil of Walter Sickert, a friend of Lilian Lancaster (above) and that she always preferred to be known simply as 'Davison', because she hated the name Gladys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Information on Davison seems extremely scarce; I found online records for the sale of three of her paintings, one of which is a beautiful portrait of her sister <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/gladys-dorothy-davison-the-artists-sister-5818188-details.aspx">Maria</a>, sold at Christie's in 2014, but no biographical details at all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Given that she was a friend of Lilian Lancaster, who was born in 1886, I am doubtful about the 1849 birthdate for Davison, which is given in the Christie's catalogue. This would have made her almost 30 years older than her friend - not impossible, but surprising. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The portrait below seems to be a self-portrait. There is no date on it, but she looks to be in her late 20s or early to mid-30s here, so if she was born in 1849 this painting must date from the 1880s, but if this birthdate is wrong, it could be from the first two decades of the 20th century.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Self-portrait by Gladys Davison, signed, oil on canvas, date unknown. </i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The portrait is a powerful and haunting painting in which the influence of Walter Sickert seems strong, both in terms of style and atmosphere. The pallor of her face, with its intent expression, set against her bone-white collar, form an island of light in the dusky blues and golds of the room. The details of the room - a blue vase on the draped mantelpiece, a darkened mirror, a painting - are quite precise, but recede into the gathering shadows; there is a sense of fading, wintry light.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-v5Qb-LPwLXARQc9ts0OR9Z8d6A9_EI4XvEEs9Alo3JdnuDs3Wi7dM3b3swug8OldOGEC8YkMfa5mPHDjDoprFIVxy_ZuQeuJEJejnblh_QUEdUS7u4qsp21E49d2SJT4ywIw7dZ4CDo/s1600/DavisonWestminster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-v5Qb-LPwLXARQc9ts0OR9Z8d6A9_EI4XvEEs9Alo3JdnuDs3Wi7dM3b3swug8OldOGEC8YkMfa5mPHDjDoprFIVxy_ZuQeuJEJejnblh_QUEdUS7u4qsp21E49d2SJT4ywIw7dZ4CDo/s640/DavisonWestminster.jpg" width="532" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Woman in large hat near Westminster. By Gladys Davison, circa 1910-1918. </i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 23.4px;"><i>© Channel Light Vessel</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This second portrait, which may be of Lilian Lancaster, is quite different: there's an exuberant springlike quality to it, partly due to the rooftop location and the strong light across the checked dress, but mostly thanks to the hat. It's the sweeping lines of this huge feathered hat that bring life and movement to the picture, for the subject is sitting quite passively, with little expression, and without the hat the whole painting would have been more static. The hat also brings the suggestion of a breeze - in the lock of hair to the right, the slight lifting of the black bow, and the billowing curves of the dress. <br /><br />Note the tower of Westminster Cathedral to the left. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Quotes from Lionel Robbins and Stephen Gardiner are from articles written for a South London Art Gallery catalogue, published in 1967.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-72804496805508608272015-09-20T22:46:00.000+02:002016-07-26T20:10:46.890+02:00Edward Thomas: 'The New House'<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The New House, by Edward Thomas</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This is a short post, because I’m in the throes of moving house (for the third time in three years), which has given rise to some predictable thoughts about the housing crisis in the UK, and the way in which property, and the lack of it, is dividing families, communities, and society. These sheltering boxes of bricks, concrete, stone and wood seem to have acquired a greater value than the lives lived in them, and are treated with far more reverence and respect. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But I also started thinking about impermanence and human illusions of ownership and security in general, and Edward Thomas’s poem, <i>The New House</i>, came to mind. If I was asked to provide an example of what poetry can do that prose cannot, this would probably be it. In just 16 lines, the poem precisely captures an emotion that is strange, fleeting, and subtle, but at the same time instantly recognisable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The genius of this poem lies in the fact that Thomas chooses a <i>new</i> house to convey the sadness of passing time, using his anticipatory melancholy about the life and loss that will be lived within its walls in the future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The conventional way to reflect on the fragility of life and inevitable decay would have been to write about an old, deserted house: it is not unusual to experience a frisson of melancholia in an abandoned building or a mossy ruin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But the leap of Thomas’s imagination that propels the reader into the future, to mourn a past that is still to come, is utterly original, and the simple beauty of the last two lines in particular makes an indelible impression on the memory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Edward Thomas died two years after he wrote <i>The New House</i>. He was killed in the First World War, at the battle of Arras, on April 9, 1917, aged 39. I can’t tell you much about the houses he lived in, but I think that this poem, which is now 100 years old, and the others he wrote, will outlive the houses that survived him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The New House, by Edward Thomas </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Now first, as I shut the door,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> I was alone</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the new house; and the wind</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Began to moan.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Old at once was the house,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> And I was old;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My ears were teased with the dread</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Of what was foretold,<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nights of storm, days of mist, without end;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Shone in vain: old griefs and griefs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Not yet begun.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">All was foretold me; naught</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Could I foresee;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But I learned how the wind would sound</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> After these things should be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>March 1915</i></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-75106550766090461122015-06-25T05:43:00.000+02:002016-07-28T18:07:02.528+02:00Graham Greene's Brighton: an exploration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Graham Greene’s Brighton: an exploration</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Looking for locations in <i>Brighton Rock</i> (the book) in the modern city</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The iron pillars stretched down across the wet dimmed shingle holding up above his head the motor-track, the shooting booths and peep machines . . . a seagull flew straight towards him between the pillars like a scared bird caught in a cathedral, then swerved out into the sunlight from the dark </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">iron nave." From <i>Brighton Rock</i>. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There’s something slightly absurd about literary pilgrimages. What, really, are you looking for? The historical location as it actually was when the author knew it decades or centuries ago? The writer’s biographical links to the place, or their re-imagining of that place? Or the landscape you imagined when you read the book? All these are quite liable to evaporate when you confront the unforgiving ordinariness of the modern site, and find, for example, that there’s a fried chicken shack squatting on the precise location of the book’s most haunting scene. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Even when a novel’s locations have survived the passage of time, there can be a sense of flatness when you finally stand in front of them. It’s as if you had arrived at a party to find it was over years ago. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> <br />Despite all this, I still can’t resist literary tours. It</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> the idea that fiction is a parallel universe, and with a bit of luck, it might be possible to cross over and wander freely in the physical landscape of the book, to identify what the characters saw, and compare this with how you imagined it. Before I moved to Brighton, almost everything I knew about the city was derived from </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Brighton Rock</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> - the city and the novel had merged, so this ‘tour’ was more like a rediscovery of somewhere I had known for a long time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Published in 1938, <i>Brighton Rock</i> remains compelling because of the way Greene places good and evil on one side (Rose and Pinkie), and what might be termed common decency (Ida Arnold) firmly on the other. Here, the battle is not between good and bad, as in a conventional crime thriller, but between the good, the bad, and the quite nice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Greene’s obvious loathing for the amateur detective he created, the self-righteous, self-indulgent champion of justice, Ida Arnold, springs from his perspective as an enthusiastic Catholic convert. Arguably, the most important conflict of the novel is between Ida and Rose, rather than Ida and Pinkie, or Rose and Pinkie. You are forced to consider whether is it better to do good things for selfish reasons (Ida), or bad things for noble ones (Rose). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This ambiguity shifts the moral compass for the reader, so you have the sensation of being lost without a map or guide. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the other hand, Greene’s writing has an extraordinary visual confidence: it is impossible to doubt his authority when he is reporting how things looked during the action. Reading the book is like watching a film – which, of course, it was to become.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The beautiful Brighton Wheel on Madeira Drive.</span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Writers of fiction are free to change the geography to suit their own purposes. Some are cavalier with the physical facts, while others alter place names to avoid complaints from pedantic readers (Thomas Hardy being the obvious example). Greene seems to have been fairly accurate about Brighton, though he did compress it – for example, Pinkie and Dallow walk from Brewer’s house by the (now demolished) viaduct on the Lewes Road back to the seafront in a remarkably short time. There are also some odd inconsistencies (see the section on Nelson Place later in this article).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is easy to become literal-minded when touring literary landscapes, and to forget that Greene</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s Brighton was an imaginative creation (a point he makes himself in <i>Ways of Escape</i>). Perhaps the most interesting question is whether anything of the mood, or tone, of Greene</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s city survives in modern Brighton. I think it does - despite the ridiculous house prices, the place has not succumbed to the commodification and artful packaging that has overtaken many of the more attractive British towns and villages. It is not self-conscious or twee, and still has, to quote Greene out of context, a </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">dangerous edge</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This must rank as one of the most instantly compelling first lines in fiction. But this dark opening is followed directly by a lyrical passage on the exhilarating beauty of Brighton, the holiday crowds down from London, emerging into “the fresh and glittering air”:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“The new silver paint sparkled on the piers, the cream houses ran away into the west like a pale Victorian watercolour. . . an aeroplane advertising something for the health in pale vanishing clouds across the sky.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Right from the first page, the distinction between the carefree, breezy, daylight city and its menacing undercurrents is made clear - the cheerfully ordinary is shadowed by a sense of dread. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpb633ZwhRdEZ_wC3opY0qZf2h1qpeYTpgygUfjPmcUoS04YEU1znMeOdTghbo1OgInHOJvE7nIe0llihOkhjH9TpuBv7LrkPAEp10GqBN0bxGr1U6-1Q7MB_ax-goF1FiUVF0mf5AWUo/s1600/IMG_0154.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpb633ZwhRdEZ_wC3opY0qZf2h1qpeYTpgygUfjPmcUoS04YEU1znMeOdTghbo1OgInHOJvE7nIe0llihOkhjH9TpuBv7LrkPAEp10GqBN0bxGr1U6-1Q7MB_ax-goF1FiUVF0mf5AWUo/s640/IMG_0154.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To the left, traditional relaxation in the sunshine. But where is that darkly dressed </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">figure</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> on the right hurrying to? </span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Fred Hale would have arrived at the station along with the Whitsun crowds, to start his patrol as ‘Kolley Kibber’ for the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Daily Messenger</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> newspaper, waiting for the challenge: “you are Mr Kolley Kibber and I claim the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Daily Messenger</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> prize.” The station itself does not feature much in the novel, though the film has some amazing footage of crowds arriving in 1947. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Brighton Station today probably looks more beautiful than it ever has, with the soaring curves of the ironwork painted blue and white, sunlight diffusing through the glass roof, and outside, the pale terraces ascending in steep bands to the right, with the sea glimpsed at the end of Queen’s Road. In the 1930s the station would have been blackened by soot from the steam trains. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggw5wFVPqfCNdhU_3IJavba7pAmu5Lm2_Ltax4vvLAwswBr0uU2qlZ8HuHg5QF7OLiAbvtL0PlGU_ZYtxi4b8k_dguxYNtQQrQAfuhgPRZcgTDSo7VgySglILR2nWE_SzUWs-6DBFu5es/s1600/station.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggw5wFVPqfCNdhU_3IJavba7pAmu5Lm2_Ltax4vvLAwswBr0uU2qlZ8HuHg5QF7OLiAbvtL0PlGU_ZYtxi4b8k_dguxYNtQQrQAfuhgPRZcgTDSo7VgySglILR2nWE_SzUWs-6DBFu5es/s640/station.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The beauty of Brighton Station, designed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da" style="text-align: start;">David Mocatta</a> in 1840, built by the London</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> and Brighton Railway. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lonely, hunted, sick with fear, clinging desperately to thin shreds of optimism, Fred Hale is tormented by the sunny normality of bank holiday Brighton all around him: “he had come out of the same streets, but he was condemned by his higher pay to pretend to want other things, and all the time the piers, the peepshows pulled at his heart.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Greene does not identify the pub just off the seafront where, near the start of the book, Fred encounters both the tipsy Ida Arnold and Pinkie’s gang, but the 1947 film used the bar of the Star and Garter hotel, now Dr Brighton’s on Little East Street (below).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mUUSHrn-gjhgNUFz8uprMgZZZnCH1quNlpskdqLtei59bgJlcU3IdG-aJi7UPXH27eFLxAShHlNSRrDfRlj-vHG84vlCYDE0cSSUuJotMJrJlfFAJPPTwL8-IqjZI_dP5Q6l8QxJmBY/s1600/drBrighton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mUUSHrn-gjhgNUFz8uprMgZZZnCH1quNlpskdqLtei59bgJlcU3IdG-aJi7UPXH27eFLxAShHlNSRrDfRlj-vHG84vlCYDE0cSSUuJotMJrJlfFAJPPTwL8-IqjZI_dP5Q6l8QxJmBY/s320/drBrighton.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The inside of Dr Brighton's is modern and airy today, with little resemblance to the pub of the film or book, but there is no shortage of older-style pubs if you look around.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The sense of sweaty menace and nauseating anxiety builds, and Fred spots Cubitt, one of Pinkie’s gangsters, “leaning carelessly against a pillar-box. . . Hale knew exactly what he’d do. . . He’d simply link his arm with Hale’s and draw him on where he wanted to go.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Imagine my surprise when I moved to Brighton and spotted this:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_cksgRYLPR7TMtCQty98FOBG8mtOQ9ILW2VFE8xV88WbAg4s0upcsgnUVIiyHTGHV08z5SBynPLmO7tg_WHbEEuQ6MDt5TrXHMcuwliwW08kB84mR30djNKOUghlLu5BB53YkDLzDns/s1600/cubitt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_cksgRYLPR7TMtCQty98FOBG8mtOQ9ILW2VFE8xV88WbAg4s0upcsgnUVIiyHTGHV08z5SBynPLmO7tg_WHbEEuQ6MDt5TrXHMcuwliwW08kB84mR30djNKOUghlLu5BB53YkDLzDns/s400/cubitt.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have never come across the surname 'Cubitt' anywhere else.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the film, Hale is murdered on a trip in the ghost train on the Palace Pier, appropriately named ‘Dante’s Inferno’, and his body thrown into the sea. The pier has a suitably sinister modern equivalent, the ‘Horror Hotel’ (below).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CVqA4SDVuL7jFMLhTq24pNG2aSyn85XPhUzLRJXQ4BG4d2CUc7lGitSgJYY_DtjySQeX_Q9gjsAfPpOx-Ige_CgM84licttSrpmvKfQM-rNBFMKBd5ur1Pjg42mWQtt_4yhoAIB8hL0/s1600/Horror.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CVqA4SDVuL7jFMLhTq24pNG2aSyn85XPhUzLRJXQ4BG4d2CUc7lGitSgJYY_DtjySQeX_Q9gjsAfPpOx-Ige_CgM84licttSrpmvKfQM-rNBFMKBd5ur1Pjg42mWQtt_4yhoAIB8hL0/s640/Horror.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The real Dante's Inferno. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is more difficult to identify the murder scene in the book, because both the method and the location of the murder are hinted at rather than explained. According to the post-mortem, Fred Hale died of heart failure, putting the police off the scent. It is heavily implied that his murder involved a stick of Brighton Rock, perhaps forced down his throat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />In the final hour of his life, Fred attaches himself to Ida Arnold, who for Fred represents “shelter, knowledge, common sense” and protection from the mob (I always wondered why Fred didn’t offer Ida or another woman the full <i>Messenger</i> prize to persuade her to stay by him, but perhaps his conscientious newspaperman scruples got in the way). Ida leaves Fred Hale waiting at the entrance to the Palace Pier while she visits the lavatory. “I’ll be here. Just here. By this turnstile. You won’t be long, will you?” he says to her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The turnstile itself has gone – you now walk straight through onto the pier, but it would have been here:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VvuluVGbghvtfw_bL5i51i-nI-2JcTKVNLT9Kqg81lqd29T9ygGvw_Z6V_uXpa-vB2X65U9DGsHGrH6-8UmCRyr30x3jexxBvBtSJGa9z0x1QlLdSJS3H_y4xY6hahfjvIXfC45vVgo/s1600/turnstile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VvuluVGbghvtfw_bL5i51i-nI-2JcTKVNLT9Kqg81lqd29T9ygGvw_Z6V_uXpa-vB2X65U9DGsHGrH6-8UmCRyr30x3jexxBvBtSJGa9z0x1QlLdSJS3H_y4xY6hahfjvIXfC45vVgo/s400/turnstile.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Palace Pier entrance: this is where Fred Hale would have waited for Ida.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ida’s public lavatory also seems to have gone – perhaps it used to be at the bottom of the steps to the left of the pier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />When Ida comes back up the steps less than four minutes later, “cool and powdered and serene”, Fred has vanished. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The action then shifts and follows Pinkie Brown on to the Palace Pier. He enters a ‘Palace of Pleasure’ full of peepshows and slot machines, engaging the owner of a shooting gallery in conversation to establish an alibi. He wins a prize, and chooses a doll that reminds him of the Virgin Mary, which he holds by the hair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The Palace Pier today has a large amusement arcade which is unremarkable until you look up at the roof, a dome with graceful wrought iron beams, painted green and white. It creates an odd contrast with the gaudy flash and beep of slot machines below, a contrast that Greene might have appreciated. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWlFzVmwrEWUFkRjxa_-AkcBmNJz_a2ifRx1GNINtbdlNf7HLl4eWxUxpu52lQjrg-q0_AhC2Ja_7rzQ_BWmWYzUKAd-FKQ4uy7n4h88kcdIZkuZjYsnDVRfseWEMbBx6yE4tpQmQCJ8/s1600/roof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWlFzVmwrEWUFkRjxa_-AkcBmNJz_a2ifRx1GNINtbdlNf7HLl4eWxUxpu52lQjrg-q0_AhC2Ja_7rzQ_BWmWYzUKAd-FKQ4uy7n4h88kcdIZkuZjYsnDVRfseWEMbBx6yE4tpQmQCJ8/s400/roof.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The domed roof of the amusement arcade.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4aK5kUcCE70ogIv-F90oF_J6rDsdZUYy0ZGE8Gphin9YscGVvGEwmrNOXHBh9GYpdaxraZnVZXddMaqqidqlzurz1sXxqzXYMQFGzSrL6789p0W1mTsLJaO6M5Jq7iCto3fW_Iryvdow/s1600/amusements.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4aK5kUcCE70ogIv-F90oF_J6rDsdZUYy0ZGE8Gphin9YscGVvGEwmrNOXHBh9GYpdaxraZnVZXddMaqqidqlzurz1sXxqzXYMQFGzSrL6789p0W1mTsLJaO6M5Jq7iCto3fW_Iryvdow/s640/amusements.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The green and white painted pillars and screens in the amusement arcade are as impressive as anything in the Pavilion. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There is a shooting gallery too, but it does not have dolls as prizes; instead I found dolls being dispensed from a machine. They were princesses Elsa and Anna from the Disney film <i>Frozen</i>:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPLgU7HS8GabyfX7S3GkQpQK9J4D3gsTkkxMPwYuhs_Bq0U0QP2YvTW0N_-PQESwacWiiJpPsmztqZeMRxiWOL7wzfRo9s-oRPzS6Hn0SDW6lUOuRUatTtPXTWN-Ue3mHO0cq7-7x51w/s640/dolls.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="569" /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Frozen </i>is based (very loosely) on 'The Snow Queen', a story by Hans Christian Andersen. The story of Kai, the boy whose heart is pierced and frozen by a splinter from a distorting mirror that makes everything in the world appear ugly and evil, and Gerda, the girl who never loses her faith in saving him, has obvious parallels with the story of Pinkie and Rose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It was also Graham Greene who famously remarked that "there is a splinter of ice in the heart of the writer." Perhaps 'The Snow Queen' was an influence on Greene and Brighton Rock. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Pinkie then meets up with the other three members of his little mob in a café at the end of the pier. It is obvious that the murder has just been done, but we have to wait until later to find out exactly where and how.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Spicer, the ageing gang member who just wants out, is drawn back to the scene of the crime (part 3, end of section 2). He stands where Fred had been standing, looking across at the Aquarium, imagining the police coming to inspect the crime scene: “he could see anyone in the hot empty midweek afternoon who went down below the Aquarium. . . to the little covered arcade where the cheap shops stood between the sea and the stone wall, selling Brighton rock.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />When I read this, I initially concluded that Pinkie and the mob seized Fred at the turnstile, hustled him down the steps to the left, and killed him in the little tunnel that runs from the underbelly of the pier, under the road, to the sunken entrance to the Aquarium. They could also have killed him right under the pier, but then why mention the tunnel at all? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This tunnel still exists, though there are no stalls selling rock either inside or outside it. There is however a shuttered and apparently defunct fish and chips cafe at one end, which suggests that there might have been shops and stalls under here. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The tunnel leading from the Aquarium entrance through to the beach beside the Palace Pier.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPOLgNdhejp7h8lA5rpROCe5dxWJtCaaGz7Ph2Inej-BMDqp_DlbSxyPJSmQdgZ2p1ECusmErUiIi_Q9gVcXHzArOU7tsaxfOyz9429PaxUJSpxWD95IgYRRLMxPLEowevML4Qw2-z09o/s1600/IMG_0191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPOLgNdhejp7h8lA5rpROCe5dxWJtCaaGz7Ph2Inej-BMDqp_DlbSxyPJSmQdgZ2p1ECusmErUiIi_Q9gVcXHzArOU7tsaxfOyz9429PaxUJSpxWD95IgYRRLMxPLEowevML4Qw2-z09o/s400/IMG_0191.jpg" width="381" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shuttered shops and café at the beach end of the tunnel.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This theory comes unstuck later in the book, however. When Rose and Pinkie are walking on the pier after their marriage, the ‘tunnel’ seems to refer to a larger area under the pier. Rose suggests that they walk along it, and Pinkie recoils, thinking for a minute that she has intentionally chosen the scene of the murder for a stroll. “The long tunnel under the parade was the noisiest, lowest, cheapest section of Brighton’s amusements”, Greene writes, adding that the amusements were on the landward side and the seaward side taken up with shops selling Brighton rock and shellfish. The lights were always on in this tunnel, he says. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This sounds too big an area to be the tunnel I mentioned before, especially as Greene says it included a ghost train (part 6, chapter 2, <i>p</i>. 194). Perhaps there used to be a long covered section, running under the pier and extending beyond it on each side. Or perhaps Greene invented or adapted it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Also unclear is how the mob got Fred’s body, without being noticed, to the glass shelter on the parade, where, according to the novel, it was found. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />What is clear is that the murder took place somewhere in the area below the pier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is still striking how the atmosphere changes instantly when you venture underneath the pier from the beach or the promenade, especially if the day is warm and bright. Immediately, you are in deep, chilly shade; the shouts and laughter from the beach recede, as if they are coming from miles away, footsteps echo, and the sea sucks at the cold stones. The blue sky is forced into the distance by black pillars draped with seaweed and strips of ancient plastic.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirPB6MEbXzm0z-_3o5StBNAezi7oxalvYxx5LgOaLMCbqZtNf_t-tN-wtLvzGjR__Vxg0fn_Woo-_ZOBBp1SGMWjHH2gICgiN564s6ch3vc5Xe4ZRnVrkudHyZiU1ddGyILA5KZR4VcqA/s1600/scarypier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="415" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirPB6MEbXzm0z-_3o5StBNAezi7oxalvYxx5LgOaLMCbqZtNf_t-tN-wtLvzGjR__Vxg0fn_Woo-_ZOBBp1SGMWjHH2gICgiN564s6ch3vc5Xe4ZRnVrkudHyZiU1ddGyILA5KZR4VcqA/s640/scarypier.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The "dark iron nave" under Palace Pier, complete with seagull (top centre left). </span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If you want to experience the contrast between the two Brightons of the book, this is a good place to come. More than once, Greene compares the structure under the pier to a church or cathedral, “a dark iron nave” where the occasional seagull “half vulture, half dove” flies between the pillars “like a scared bird caught in a cathedral”. It is a sinister sort of church, though.<br /><br />There is also a dank, empty stone area separated from the shingle, with brown stalactites hanging from the iron beams (this section was recently fenced off in June 2015). Perhaps this formed part of the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">tunnel</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> of amusements and shops selling rock, where the gang murdered Fred Hale. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNN2QWzp_4v3MT0OXWDZgyI4MkXsugmCWzowioLNNU9RqmmN0XAmvqcMGy8qDRLsbV9_NI4erVxHfnFMKqIfPXHyFTo5NZC8ETgmOaB4FB2D3ghyphenhyphen4r_CdtOWjzEWm9K7mSX1_gZOEUUL8/s1600/stonearea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNN2QWzp_4v3MT0OXWDZgyI4MkXsugmCWzowioLNNU9RqmmN0XAmvqcMGy8qDRLsbV9_NI4erVxHfnFMKqIfPXHyFTo5NZC8ETgmOaB4FB2D3ghyphenhyphen4r_CdtOWjzEWm9K7mSX1_gZOEUUL8/s640/stonearea.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The dank area under the Palace Pier (now fenced off). Possible site for the murder of Fred Hale. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Mr Colleoni - grand hotels and razor gangs</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mr Colleoni, the rich, established mobster, appears throughout the novel as Pinkie’s infinitely more successful enemy and the source of bitter envy, but the characterisation is slight. Colleoni is likely to have been based on on a real gangster, Charles ‘Derby’ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sabini">Sabini</a>, who ran racecourse protection rackets (among other rackets) across southern England during the interwar years, notoriously using razor attacks to intimidate victims. By the time <i>Brighton Rock</i> was published in 1938, the racecourse crime at Brighton was more or less over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Greene installs Colleoni in a permanent suite at the ‘Cosmopolitan’ Hotel on the seafront, where he is luxuriously cocooned from the squalid violence he orchestrates. The Cosmopolitan was based not on the Grand Hotel or Metropole, but a hotel called The Bedford, built in 1829 in late Georgian style. According to T<i>he Encyclopaedia of Brighton </i>by Timothy Carder (1990), the hotel was considered the most distinguished late Georgian building after the Royal Pavilion. Its interior included a Grecian hall with Ionic columns and a glazed dome, and famous guests (apart from Mr Colleoni) included Charles Dickens, who wrote <i>Dombey and Son</i> there. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Bedford Hotel, model for The Cosmopolitan in <i>Brighton Rock</i>. This photo is undated, but looks to be from the late 1920s or early 1930s, so this is how it would have looked to Pinkie, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rose, Ida, and Mr Colleoni.</span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This postcard - probably 1930s - shows the Bedford Hotel in context on the seafront (looking east). The hotel is the first building on the left. Note the sunken gardens - this is </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">where the paddling pool is now. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sadly you cannot visit the Bedford Hotel now, because it burned down in mysterious circumstances on April 1, 1964. The previous year had seen controversy over a proposal to replace it with a tower block. Two people died in the fire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Bedford/Cosmopolitan was replaced by this building below, which is my least favourite piece of architecture in Brighton. It is now occupied by the Holiday Inn.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The tower block that replaced the Bedford Hotel after it burnt down in 1964. </span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The only reminder of the old Bedford Hotel is this plaque </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">on the building that replaced it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Colleoni likes to boast of his wealth and position, telling Pinkie that Napoleon III used to stay in the room he occupies, with the Empress Eugenie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />“ ‘Who was she?’ ” asks Pinkie. <br /><br />“ ‘Oh,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Mr Colleoni said vaguely, ‘one of those foreign polonies.’ ”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Colleoni, Pinkie and all the mobsters use this word ‘polony’ to refer to women, sometimes varied with ‘buer’. ‘Polony’ originates from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari">Polari</a> slang, which was used by fairground workers, Romanies, and gays, as well as a variety of underworld characters, and is also spelt ‘palone’. According to Wikipedia it derives from ‘straw bed’, though it could also relate more crudely to polony sausage. The etymology of ‘buer’ is even more obscure. It obviously means loose woman, rhymes roughly with whore, and is apparently still in use in Ireland: <a href="http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/definitions-etymology-po-buer-and-poloney.211274/">buer</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Nelson Place and Paradise Piece</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The bond between Pinkie and Rose is based on their Catholicism, but also on a shared background of extreme poverty. They come from the same huddle of streets - decaying terraces of tiny houses hidden from the glittery holiday town. This was the densely populated, steep district around Carlton Hill, one of the poorest in the city. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">©QueenSpark Books/Brighton and Hove Museum</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Nelson Place, where Rose lives in <i>Brighton Rock</i>. This photograph dates from the 1930s; the street was demolished toward the end of that decade. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Reproduced with permission from QueenSpark Books.</i></span><span style="font-size: 17.6000003814697px;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nelson Place, Rose’s home in <i>Brighton Rock</i>, was a real street. It was demolished, probably in the late 1930s, as part of the comprehensive clearance of the area and replaced with flats. The original photograph of Nelson Place in the 1930s is from the book <a href="http://www.queensparkbooks.org.uk/book/109.html">Backyard Brighton</a><i> </i>(from QueenSpark Books, fascinating), and shows street architecture that is still quite typical of some smaller streets in Brighton: flat-fronted houses on one side of a narrow alley, each with a small front yard enclosed by low stone walls. You can see a similar design in Camden Terrace, for example, off Upper Gloucester Road (just down from the excellent Duke of Wellington pub):</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Camden Terrace. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nelson Place in the 1930s photo certainly looks shabby and poor, but not quite as desperate as the scene Greene paints of Rose’s house, with its cracked panes and “the awful little passage which stank like a lavatory”. The windows look intact, there is no rubbish lying about. You can see a woman peering out of her front door, an elderly man standing in his front yard, a dark-suited figure retreating up the lane with his hands in his pockets, and a cat running toward the camera. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><i>Backyard Brighton</i> includes an interview with a former resident of Nelson Place named Amelia Scholey, whose family were the last to move. “We didn’t want to move,” she says. She describes her father’s business growing watercress, and how Nelson Place was used for smoking herrings. Charlotte Storrey, living in nearby Nelson Street, adds that “we were very unhappy when we had to leave the area because we had a good business there.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />These accounts give a rather different picture of life in Carlton Hill compared to Greene’s version, which is of a living hell of squalor, violence, sadistic child gangs, and despair. My guess is that Greene went walking one day (his knowledge of Brighton seems quite extensive, typical of someone who likes to walk for the sake of it) and wandered into the Carlton Hill district by chance. Here he would have been shocked by images of derelict streets and poverty, the sudden change from the elegant Regency terraces below, “the shabby secret behind the bright corsage, the deformed breast”. His own wealthy upper-middle class background would have made the experience much sharper. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />I could not verify whether Pinkie’s nightmarish home, the inaptly named Paradise Piece, ever existed under that name. Greene locates it as just around the corner from Rose’s home in Nelson Place. The website <a href="http://www.brightonhistory.org.uk/streets/streets_p.html">Streets of Brighton and Hove</a> does list Paradise Piece as a “now vanished part of the Carlton Hill area slums”, but there are no details.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In <i>Brighton Rock</i>, Pinkie returns to this district on the way to ask Rose’s parents for permission to marry. The hated memories suck him back in, until he reaches “the top of the hill, in the thick of the bombardment – a flapping gutter, cracked windows, an iron bedstead in a front garden . . . a municipal notice announced new flats on a post stuck in the torn gravel and asphalt facing the little dingy damaged row, all that was left of Paradise Piece. His home was gone.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />There’s an odd moment later in the book, where Greene seems to be telling us that Pinkie lived in Nelson Place, like Rose, not Paradise Piece. Pinkie has a nightmare on his wedding night, dreaming that the Palace Pier is sinking like the Titanic, and that he falls down “into his bed in Nelson Place” listening to his parents having fumbling sex in the next bed. Waking in black darkness beside Rose, “he could see nothing and for a few seconds he believed he was back in Nelson Place.” (Part 6, chapter 2, page 203). Was this a mistake by Greene?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />At the top of Carlton Hill today, you come to a street called Mount Pleasant. I wondered if this was the site of the half demolished street Greene named Paradise Piece, especially given the similar flavour of the names. Mount Pleasant, I should add, is now a genuinely pleasant road, with amazing views of the sea. Carlton Hill is now a mixture of architecture from all decades since the 1930s, with a few surviving earlier buildings. One street of flats is named ‘Nelson Row’.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nelson Row, part of the development that replaced Nelson Place and other streets </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">around Carlton Hill. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mount Pleasant, at the summit of Carlton Hill. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Frank's: the gang's lodging house</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The squalid lodging house that serves as the gang’s base seems to have been, rather to my surprise, in Montpelier Road. This street sweeps down a steep hill from Seven Dials to the sea, and is full of tall, attractive houses (some of them grade 2 listed) and mature trees (the street is marred only by the heavy traffic).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Elegant architecture in Montpelier Road. It is difficult to imagine this street as the location for a seedy lodging house in the 1930s. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But Frank’s must have been in Montpelier Road. After Pinkie and Rose marry, they try to get a room at the Cosmopolitan, and are first ignored, then denied a room by the snooty receptionist (this is one of the rare scenes where it is possible to feel sorry for Pinkie). The couple then walk up from the sea “through Norfolk Square towards Montpelier Road. A blonde with Garbo cheeks paused to powder on the steps up to the Norfolk bar.” </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Looking south to the sea from Norfolk Square. Pinkie and Rose walk up from the seafront through here after their wedding, on their way back to Frank's. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The east side of Norfolk Square. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Again, Pinkie is described waking early the next morning and walking down to the sea from Montpelier Road, while on page 237, Greene actually identifies the house number: 63. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Kite had opened the door to No. 63 and the first thing he’d seen was Dallow embracing Judy on the stairs, and the first thing he had smelt was Frank’s iron in the basement.” This suggests that the Montpelier Road area, now quite gentrified, was a district of poorer lodging houses. <br /><br />Unless the street numbers have changed since the 1930s, No. 63 Montpelier Road was ‘Frank’s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">. The house is larger and grander than the book suggests. It is also possible, of course, that Greene was being mischievous in identifying this house. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">No. 63, Montpelier Road: presumed location of Frank's. </span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Trains, viaducts, and basements: Brewer's house and Prewitt's house</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Early in the story, Pinkie and Dallow call on Brewer, a bookie who is behind with his protection money. The scene in the little house, with Brewer’s sick wife groaning in bed upstairs, establishes Pinkie’s cruelty – he slashes Brewer with his razor on the way out. Brewer “had a house near the tram lines on the Lewes Road almost under the railway viaduct.” This viaduct was demolished in 1976: you can see some excellent photos of it before, during and after demolition on the website <a href="http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/page/lewes_road_railway_arch?path=0p115p210p690p">MyBrightonandHove</a>.<br /><br />The splendid London Road viaduct to the west, however, is is alive and well:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The viaduct over London Road. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Exploring the streets around the London Road viaduct, I was convinced that I had found the location for Prewitt’s house, because the whole area, though now gentrified, corresponded to the picture I had formed while reading the book. Prewitt, you will remember, is the shady solicitor who takes care of Pinkie’s ‘business’, likes to punctuate conversation with quotes from Hamlet, and mourns his social descent from public school to life in a dingy house “shaken by shunting engines” and showered in soot from the tracks. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Streets below the the London Road viaduct. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But Dr Geoffrey Mead of Sussex University, an expert on the changing Brighton landscape of the interwar years, places Prewitt’s house much closer to the centre, backing onto the railway lines behind Aldi on the southern end of London Road. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This area has been substantially redeveloped in the last decade, but it’s not difficult to find alternative models for Prewitt’s house, and imagine Prewitt’s glowering wife in the basement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Brighton is a city of interesting basements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">The roadhouse</span></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Black Lion at Patcham. This building dates from 1929.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Geoffrey Mead also suggested that the original for the roadhouse visited by Pinkie, Dallow and Cubitt was the Black Lion at Patcham. It is here that Pinkie, having recently murdered Spicer, fails to lose his virginity in a Lancia with Spicer’s girlfriend. During the 1920s and 1930s, roadhouses like these were springing up all over Britain as the use of private cars grew. The Black Lion is now a Harvester restaurant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Roedean School</span></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Roedean school for girls, on the clifftops east of Brighton. The building is visible for miles.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: small; letter-spacing: -0.1ex; line-height: 1em;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Roedean, the exclusive girls’ public school, is mentioned a couple of times in the novel (though not by name) underlining the sense of parallel worlds existing alongside each other in the town. Roedean versus Nelson Place. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the day of the races, Greene describes the girls coming out to play hockey while the crowds from Brighton make their way up to the racecourse: “through the wrought-iron main gates they could see the plebeian procession, those whom the buses wouldn’t hold, plodding up the down, eating buns out of paper bags.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Greene then deftly links the disparate components of the scene in this superb paragraph: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“The junior girls took to their heels like ponies racing on the turf, feeling the excitement going on outside, as if this were a day on which life for many people reached a kind of climax.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: center;">Roedean school looms up on the clifftop east of Brighton. The sheer size of the building is remarkable and can be seen for miles down the coast. On a dark rainy day, viewed from the bus to Rottingdean, it can look quite intimidating. Fees are around </span><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -0.1ex; line-height: 1em; text-align: center;">£10,000 a term for boarders. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Roedean.</span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Snow's restaurant</span></h3>
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<br />Snow</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s, the café where Rose works as a waitress, is a crucial location in the novel. This is where Spicer slips one of Kolley Kibber</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s cards under the tablecloth to create a false alibi, and where Ida Arnold comes to interrogate Rose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When Rose is dressing Pinkie’s wounds in the back room at Snow</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s after he has been carved up by Colleoni</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s men, Greene writes that a bus could be heard going by in West Street. This suggests that Snow</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s was either on West Street itself, or on the corner of West Street and the seafront. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Geoffrey Mead has found </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sweetings Ltd oyster merchants and restaurant, grill room, luncheons and suppers</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> listed at 66 West Street in an old street directory, </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pike</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’s Blue Book, Brighton and Hove & District, 1925</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Number 66 is the corner of West Street and Kings Road (the seafront), and therefore seems a likely candidate for Snow</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Peacehaven</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />“Dona nobis pacem,” says Pinkie.<br />“He won’t,” says Rose.<br />“What do you mean?”<br />“Give us peace.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This exchange occurs in the car as Pinkie drives out with Rose at night along the cliffs to Peacehaven toward the end of the story. His intention is to get her to commit suicide and shoot herself, but it is at Peacehaven that he meets his own annihilation. Blinded by vitriol, he plunges over the cliff “as if he’d been withdrawn suddenly by a hand out of any existence, past or present, whipped away into zero – nothing.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Throughout the book, in a reversal of the Faust story, Pinkie is tempted by God, often via music, Pinkie’s Achilles heel. He expends a huge amount of energy stamping on the tiny green shoots of compassion when they try to force their way into his mind. This happens for the last time on the road to Peacehaven:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“An enormous emotion beat on him; it was like something trying to get in; the pressure of gigantic wings against the glass.” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He resists this final temptation, though. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Friar's Bay, Peacehaven.</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© </span>Stacey Harris, Geograph/Wikimedia</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">A few thoughts on Ida Arnold: why did Graham Greene loathe her?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Why did Graham Greene hate his character, Ida, with such passion? It is difficult to think of another novel where a central character has inspired such consistent loathing in its creator. Whenever Ida appears, Greene never misses a chance to hammer home the message about her implacable complacency and middlebrow tastes, her “remorseless” optimism, her cookie-cutter ethics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ida is the eternal Insider, a stranger nowhere and to no-one. She’s the secular counterpoint to Pinkie and Rose’s puritanical and drastic Catholicism; Greene uses her faith in ouija boards to indicate that a debased, cosy superstition has been substituted for religion. Her compassion is described as self-indulgent and “merciless”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The pressure on the reader to dislike Ida is as relentless as Ida herself. But Greene’s real problem with Ida is a question of motivation. Ida takes a frank pleasure in her quest for justice and pursuit of Pinkie. She does it in the name of what is “right”, but for her it is also fun. Fred Hale, as an individual, soon fades from Ida</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s memory as she is caught up in the thrill of the chase. By contrast, Rose’s motives are as pure as Ida’s are corrupt: Rose knows Pinkie is destined for Hell, but chooses to damn herself in solidarity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />While Ida</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">enjoyable distress</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> at Fred</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s fate is certainly repellent, like her patronising treatment of Rose, it is also Ida’s bullish persistence that uncovers the murders. Without her, Pinkie’s violence would presumably have continued, with Rose’s support, and the murder of Fred Hale would always have been filed as a suicide. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It seems to depend whether, in doing good, you think motives really matter - or matter more than outcomes. Greene, as a Catholic, clearly thought that they do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Ida Arnold is alive and well in Brighton. Walk past any pub on a weekend, and you will hear that loud carefree laugh echoing down the street, “full of beer and good fellowship and no regrets”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Brighton Pierrots, by Walter Sickert, 1915. This painting, for me, captures the Brighton of <i>Brighton Rock</i>, and particularly of Ida Arnold, more powerfully than any other. In the 1947 film, Ida (played by Hermione Baddeley) is seen performing as a pierrot. Sickert stayed in Brighton in 1914 at number 4, Bedford Square. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Greene in Brighton</span></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The entrance to Embassy Court, a block of flats designed by Wells Coates and built in 1935. There is a story that Graham Greene lived here or stayed here for a while, but I have not been able to confirm this. The building caused outrage locally when it was first built. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 24.9199981689453px; text-align: left;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Graham Greene</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s association with Brighton began in childhood. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> In </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A Sort of Life</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, he mentions his aunt Maud taking him to Brighton for his health. He visited throughout his life, often staying at the Royal Albion Hotel on the corner of the Old Steine (which Greene spells </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘Steyne</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’ in </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Brighton Rock</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">and the seafront. Brighton also features in <i>Travels with My Aunt </i>(1969) and <i>The End of the Affair </i>(1951).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There is also a story that he lived or stayed in Embassy Court, (photo above), but I have not been able to confirm this. Terence Rattigan, with whom Greene wrote the screenplay for the film of <i>Brighton Rock</i>, certainly lived in Embassy Court, but not until 1960. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the 1980s, Embassy Court</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s most famous resident was the novelist and journalist Keith Waterhouse, who said that Brighton </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">has the air of a town that is perpetually helping the police with their inquiries.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One of Greene</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s favourite pubs in Brighton was The Cricketers on Black Lion street (below). The pub has a room upstairs, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘The Greene Room</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’ where a number of letters from Greene to his old friend in Brighton, Michael Richey, are displayed. Richey, a Catholic like Greene, was director of the Royal Institute of Navigation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Bizarrely, Graham Greene shares the Greene Room</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s space with Jack the Ripper. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The Cricketers, with the 'Greene Room' upstairs.</span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many thanks to Dr Geoffrey Mead, of Sussex University, who generously gave his time for free, talking about possible locations, and giving specific information about the sites of Brewer</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s house and Prewitt</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s house, the mob's roadhouse, Derby Sabini, and the Carlton Hill area. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Geoffrey Mead also runs historical and cultural tours of Brighton. </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Useful Links</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.queensparkbooks.org.uk/book/109.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">QueenSpark Books</a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/">My Brighton and Hove</a></span><br />
<a href="http://www.brightonhistory.org.uk/index.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Brighton history website</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://grahamgreenebt.org/">Graham Greene Birthplace Trust</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Films</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two films have been made of </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Brighton Rock. </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The 1947 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039220/">Brighton Rock</a> is excellent. Directed by John Boulting and with a screenplay by Graham Greene and Terence Rattigan, it starred Richard Attenborough as Pinkie, Carol Marsh as Rose, and Hermione Baddeley as Ida. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The murder of Hale, and the ending, differ from the novel, but otherwise it captures the book brilliantly, and is a work of art in its own right. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233192/">version</a> of Brighton Rock was made in 2010, directed by Rowan Joffe. I have not seen it, so I can</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">t comment on its quality. In this film the historical setting was changed, from the 1930s of the novel to the 1960s.</span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-82597432561470130492015-05-27T20:58:00.000+02:002016-07-20T22:03:45.308+02:00The Constant Nymph: Love and Loathing in Bohemia<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Constant Nymph: Love and Loathing in Bohemia</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Margaret Kennedy’s 1924 bestseller combines psychological acuity with romantic idealism. It also betrays some shocking attitudes to social class in pre-war England</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When <i>The Constant Nymph</i> was published in 1924, its author, Margaret Kennedy, achieved what most novelists dream of: literary acclaim followed by huge commercial success - on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a bestseller that earned praise from, among many others, JM Barrie, John Galsworthy, AA Milne, Cyril Connolly, and Thomas Hardy. It was adapted as a stage play starring Noel Coward, and there were three separate films made of the novel in 1929, 1933, and 1943. It is a clever and occasionally poetic novel, emotionally shrewd and sardonically observant, dealing elegantly with grand themes and contrasts: love and lust, beauty and cruelty, jealousy and trust, art versus ‘culture’, security versus freedom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yet today, if not actually forgotten, <i>The Constant Nymph </i>barely features in most people’s mental lists of significant 20th century novels. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The most obvious reason for this is that the story centres on a love affair between Tessa, a 14-year-old girl, and Lewis, a man twice her age. And in contrast to Nabokov’s <i>Lolita</i>, published over 30 years later, this age gap is not even placed at the heart of the story. The mutual love between Tessa and Lewis (which is not consummated), is presented by Kennedy as something inevitable, unshakeable, and pure. Tessa</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s extreme youth is an inconvenience</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, a practical obstacle blocking the path to the couple</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> predestined union, but it is not really depicted as a moral problem - certainly not in the way it would be today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This makes it an intriguing example of a novel that is more risky to recommend or dramatise in 2015 than it was back in 1924. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Another difficulty with the novel is that it is deeply veined with snobbery and the permutations of class (some crude, some exquisitely subtle). It also includes some frank anti-Semitism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The anti-Semitism tends to appear in what the characters say, rather than in the author’s own voice, so arguably Kennedy is simply reflecting the common unexamined prejudices of the time, like many other writers of the same period. This view is supported by the portrayal of Jacob Birnbaum: the children call him ‘Ikey Mo’ (a derogatory nickname for Jews), but Birnbaum is actually one of the book’s most likeable characters. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The treatment of class, however, is more insidious and thus more interesting. Rather than seeing the snobbery as problematic, I think it opens a window on the nuances of social hierarchy in pre-war England, and this is fascinating. The novel simply oozes contempt: the lower middle class, the pretensions of the upper middle class, the socially ambitious, the fat and awkward, the ‘refined’, those who aspire to be ‘cultured’ – all these and more are in the firing line. But the harshest contempt is reserved for those who, like Lewis’s wife Florence, try to harness the purity of art to some external purpose, whether this is money, success, social improvement, or, in Florence’s queasy words, “the business of living beautifully”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Kennedy implicitly criticises the pretensions of Florence and her circle, and this is very effective. But she also reveals plenty of social disdain on her own account, expressed in her authorial voice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />I was 14 when I first read <i>The Constant Nymph</i>, exactly the same age as Tessa, the novel’s young protagonist. At 14, I used to read uncritically. That is to say, I had complete trust in an author’s authority. If something sounded odd, unfair, or even wrong, I unhesitatingly put my doubt aside, attributing it to my own lack of understanding. In many ways I still think this is the right way to read fiction – to surrender your scepticism for the duration. But as an adult, regardless of how immersed you are, there is always a second voice whispering underneath the text, quietly taking notes, swimming to the surface on the final page with a list of queries and objections. So I thought it might be interesting to compare my reaction to the book at 14, with my re-reading of it as an adult.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><b>The Constant Nymph<i>: the 14-year-old's </i></b></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">perspective</span></i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I came across the novel via another novel. I had just read, and loved, Nancy Mitford’s <i>The Pursuit of Love</i> (1945). In the latter, the narrator, Fanny, has an aunt who is about to marry. Fanny says that a cousin is “now teasing me with <i>The Constant Nymph</i>. She read aloud the last chapters, and soon I was dying at a Brussels boarding house, in the arms of Aunt Emily’s husband”. The fact that Nancy Mitford assumes her readers will be familiar with the novel’s plot is some measure of its former ubiquity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Intrigued, I had to read about this nymph.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I never questioned the ethics of the age gap between Tessa and Lewis, other than feeling incredulous that a mature man could find a 14-year-old schoolgirl interesting in any way, let alone fall in love with her. I remember admiring Tessa’s self-possession in adult company, I was impressed that someone my age could make such intelligent contributions to a conversation, and thought Tessa seemed far older than her years: “Her trouble was not the bewildered groping of adolescence for a goal in life, but rather the sad finality of a woman who has beheld her destiny too young.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />While I could not really relate to this, my sympathy for Tessa took off when she is uprooted from her continental gypsy life, separated from Lewis, and sent with her sister to an English boarding school, Cleeve (based on Cheltenham Ladies College). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Tessa writes to Lewis: “. . . truly the only place where you can be alone here is the lavatory, which is not very comfortable, and they come rattling at the door if you stay there too long . . . our chief business here is to be always running as there is some place, on a timetable, that we must be in <i>every minute of the day</i>”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I never went to boarding school, but Tessa’s italicised emphasis of “every minute of the day” conveyed the imprisoning horror of constant supervision and, combined with the denial of privacy, this has remained with me as an idea of hell. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Margaret Kennedy, 1896-1967. Interestingly, Margaret Kennedy was herself a pupil at Cheltenham Ladies' College, the school on which 'Cleeve' is based. Her characters, Tessa and Paulina, hate it so much they run away. </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Florence’s slow transformation from benevolent older cousin to shrill and resentful persecutor is frightening, but at 14, the threat to send Tessa back to school after she runs away seemed scarier than the attempt to split her from Lewis. I applauded when Lewis and Tessa fled England for Brussels on the boat train, and while the ending was sad, it seemed romantic; Tessa “slept on, where they had flung her down among the pillows, silent, undefeated, young.” It seemed preferable to the alternative. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />One incident in the novel offers a perfect definition of imaginative understanding between people, and the difference between this love and mere liking. Tessa, Lewis and Florence are sitting on a mountainside, and Lewis describes a childhood memory of sleeping out on some cliffs in Cornwall, hearing birds flying out to sea just before dawn. Tessa’s mind “swung back to meet the mind of that lost boy who had lain awake upon a high mysterious cliff, beside a whispering sea. She too, heard wings.” Tessa recognises the memory as one of those rare fleeting experiences that become “the inspiration for a lifetime”. Florence, however, merely asks Lewis a banal question about whether he had ever lived in Cornwall.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Achensee near Pertisau, in the Austrian Tyrol. The first part of the novel takes place in this area.</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"> (</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Wikimedia Commons)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This made an impression at 14, and still does. It also foreshadows a more sinister moment near the end of their story, when Lewis and Tessa are on a tram in Brussels. Tessa is looking at “a menacing sky: rags and banners of red cloud hung above the noisy streets and lit the faces of the people with an angry flame. The cries and shouts of the city sounded like cries of danger, warnings called forth by the wild light.” She turns to Lewis, wondering if he has noticed, and finds him “gazing at the bright sky with the extreme concentration of purpose which he used for all important things . . . gathering in that noisy radiance and stowing it away in his mind.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />As for the question of mutual contempt among the characters, I simply accepted it. When Kennedy does not actually tell the reader what to think about a character’s social position, she nudges you firmly in a certain direction. And when she is not doing that, her opinion of the characters emerges clearly in what they say. As a 14-year-old, I obediently went where the author told me, but the book left me feeling ambivalent and vaguely uncomfortable, and now I can see why. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><b><i>Re-reading The Constant Nymph as an adult . . .</i></b><br /><br /><b>The “fat Slav”</b><br />Even at 14 I had found the introduction to the Sanger family a little confusing. Re-reading it later, I’m not surprised. The first characters the reader meets are Lewis Dodd, a youngish composer, and Kiril Trigorin, a choreographer, in the Tyrolese Alps. They are on their way up from the valley to visit Albert Sanger, an eccentric musical genius and patriarch, in his remote mountain retreat. Lewis is going as a beloved friend of the family, Trigorin as a eager (and as it transpires, unwelcome) guest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />It seems as if you are being invited to despise Trigorin, via Lewis’s reactions, but it is not clear why this should be. Trigorin is richly dressed, but “his eyes, which should have been bold and greedy, were strangely unhappy and disclosed, in their direct gaze, an unexpected diffidence, an ingenuous modesty, entirely out of keeping with the rest of him”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Which sounds vaguely sympathetic. It is true that Trigorin is embarrassingly effusive. He lavishes praise on Lewis, who obviously finds him a crashing bore: “this fat person must be going to stay with Sanger; there was no other explanation for him. For the rest of the journey they would be compelled to travel together.” But it gets worse. Trigorin praises Lewis’s artistic work, but Lewis says to himself: “it was not for the appreciation of people like this fat Slav that he [Lewis] had written the ‘Revolutionary Songs’.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><b>“Are you a Jew?”</b><br />This situation continues when we meet Teresa (Tessa) and Paulina, two of Sanger’s seven children, ragged figures waiting on the lakeshore. They both greet Lewis with enthusiasm, but poor Trigorin is welcomed with rudeness. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“ </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘Can he eat bacon?’ whispered Paulina in an audible aside . . . </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">he looks a little like a Jew.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> ” Tessa “turned to Trigorin and enquired baldly: ‘Are you a Jew?’ ” (He isn’t). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />It emerges that the girls have put a pig’s carcase in the cart that is to carry them all up the mountain: “draped in a tartan rug and crowned with Teresa’s straw hat, it was a horrible object, but not unlike a stout German lady.” Again, we seem to be invited to find this funny rather than macabre. I don’t remember what I felt about “Are you a Jew?” at 14, but I do remember being struck by the rudeness, and repelled by the dressed-up dead pig. I thought there must be something wrong about Trigorin that had somehow escaped me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />To be fair, Tessa does suffer some pangs of conscience over the treatment of Trigorin: “She found herself wishing, absurdly [why absurdly?] that Lewis had been kind to the poor fat person,” and tries to reconcile the completeness of her love for Lewis with the cruelty and arrogance she discerns in him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Trigorin is used partly as a literary device – his questions and Lewis’s answers provide information about the cast for the reader. But his treatment sets the tone for the whole novel – he is one of the crowd of outsiders who are ruthlessly excluded from the enchanted circle that surrounds Tessa, Lewis, and Tessa’s full siblings, the ‘natural aristocrats’ of the book. It is an exclusion that is echoed, much later in the novel, when Lewis’s wife Florence arrives home to find the Sanger children with her husband: “Her first impression, as the party round the fire rose up to greet her, was that she was an intruder. The children flung themselves upon her with every appearance of joy, but, for a fraction of a second, she knew that their faces had fallen.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><b>Temperament and ‘breeding’</b><br />Kennedy then gives a satisfyingly full description of Tessa and Paulina, using precise physical detail to establish personality. “Teresa was the fairer and the plainer; her greenish eyes had in them a kind of secret hilarity, as if she found life a very diverting affair. But she had begun lately to grow out of everything.” The girls are barefoot and dressed eccentrically, half peasant, half gypsy. But Kennedy adds this: “Both contrived to have, at unexpected moments and in spite of their rags, a certain arrogance of demeanour which proclaimed them the daughters of Evelyn Sanger, who had been a Churchill.” So while the girls dress in peasant clothes, Kennedy is careful to separate them from the real peasant class of Austria. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />At the Karindehutte, the house in the mountains, the sublime beauty of its situation in a flowery meadow with the sound of cow bells “rising very faintly like single drops of music distilled into this upper silence” contrasts with the seething emotional tensions in the ramshackle family group. Tessa’s older sister Antonia has grown beautiful, a fact that irritates her father’s mistress, Linda Cowlard, “a vast dazzling blonde” who likes to spend the day resting in a hammock. ‘Cowlard’. . . Linda’s surname, which unites the cow with pig-fat, encapsulates how Kennedy wants you to see the character. Linda’s lower class is confirmed when Kennedy says that “her origins were obscure, but it was believed that she had once been the daughter of a tobacconist in Ipswich.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />But it is the description of Linda’s daughter Susan, the youngest member of the Sanger family, that delivers the most violent blast of snobbery: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />“It [<i>sic</i>] was a wholesome, plebeian-looking brat, pink and formless as a wax doll . . . Linda was very fond of it, dressed it in white with pink ribbons.” <i>It</i>? Not content with this, Kennedy goes on to underline where the difference lies between Susan and her half siblings: “The child did, in fact, look something of a stranger among the others; her healthy inferiority especially distinguished her beside the brood of the ill-starred Evelyn, with their intermittent manifestations of intelligence and race.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Here we are being told by the author to despise the child Susan, as her half-siblings do, before Susan has said or done a thing. She implies that distinction is a matter of inheritance or ‘breeding’. After this, though, the snobbery in the book becomes more subtle, expressed mainly through Florence and her social ambition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><b>Florence, the cultured steam-roller</b><br />When Sanger dies, the children are left homeless and penniless, and their older cousin, Florence Churchill, comes out to Austria from England to rescue them. Florence is the the most interesting character in the novel, partly because the author does not tell us what to make of her. She is multi-dimensional, changes frequently and develops the most, and her true nature is betrayed by her words and thoughts, rather than her origins. Florence is intelligent, cultured, educated, well-connected and beautiful. She travels to the Tyrol full of benevolent intentions, and is seduced first by the beauty of the landscape, and then by Lewis. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />There is one early hint of the darker, relentlessly controlling aspect of Florence’s character, and this comes from her father: “Sometimes, viewing her unswerving pursuit of a chosen course, he was compelled to liken her to something slow, crushing, irresistible – a steam-roller.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />With Florence’s arrival, the novel gains pace and homes in on Lewis’s failure to understand his own feelings for Tessa, and the consequences of his mismatch with Florence. His attraction to Florence is highly sexual, and he is also touched by her apparent concern for Tessa’s welfare. By contrast there is no discernible sexual element in his relationship with Tessa, who represents a sort of wild purity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Florence, for her part, wants to tame Lewis, to publicise his musical genius, using her contacts to launch them both into London</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s artistic high society. This leads to some devastatingly acute observations on different views of the purpose of life and art. Lewis wants to create music, Florence wants to create an effect. They buy a house by the river near Kew, in London, taking Roberto, the Italian servant from the Tyrol, with them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Florence</i>: “He’s exactly the kind of servant I’ve always wanted. . . Really feudal. He gives the right tone to the house.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><i>Lewis</i> (puzzled): “The right tone?”<br /><br /><i>Florence</i>: “He’s the sort of servant we ought to have. He goes so well with the sort of effect I want to produce.”<br /><br /><i>Lewis</i>: “Why should you want to produce any sort of effect?”<br /><br /><i>Florence</i>: “. . . I want this house to look like us . . . pleasantly Bohemian . . . a sort of civilized version of Sanger’s circus, don’t you know, with all its charm and not quite so much . . . disorder.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Florence also believes that influential people, however unpleasant, must be made use of. Lewis has a spiteful, petty-minded sister called Millicent. Florence wants to invite her round, because “She carries a good deal of weight in some quarters. It wouldn’t be at all difficult for her to put a spoke in your wheel.” “I haven’t got a wheel,” retorts Lewis, who believes that art has no purpose, that “ideas are best conceived in a world of violence, that civilization must of necessity end by quenching the riotous flame of art for the sake of civic order.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So the philosophical cracks in their marriage are more like canyons, and they exist long before Florence is properly aware of the threat posed by Tessa. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Nowhere is the difference in world-view between Florence and the Sangers more brilliantly captured than in chapter 21, in which Lewis gives his first concert. The Sangers make no distinction between the great opera houses of Europe and their own home; music is life and vice versa. Florence on the other hand, “possessed a special concert room demeanour – a still, serious, attentive carriage which sometimes, on special occasions, showed itself quite early in the day, as though she were practising inwardly.” What a superbly acid description of unconscious social and artistic pretension. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Kennedy allows the reader to feel some sympathy for Florence, who, after all, finds herself in an impossible situation which distorts her better nature. She also has enough self-awareness to mourn her own transformation: “What had happened to her? Life had become a shipwreck, a desperate, snatching , devil-take-the-hindmost affair.” However, she sabotages the reader’s sympathy because, in the end, what matters to Florence far more than love or pride is social position. Even when Lewis tells her plainly that he loves Tessa, not her, Florence will not let go. And at the end of the book, in the midst of tragedy, she is full of coldly practical strategies for hushing up the scandal, and, rather like Scarlett O’Hara, laying bleak plans to reunite herself with Lewis, “to build upon wrecked love a monument of worthy achievement.”</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Strand-on-the-Green, on the Thames in London, where Florence and Lewis begin their rocky married life. Florence wants the house to be an exquisitely tasteful backdrop to their entry into London artistic high society. Lewis sees it as a 'silver sty', and himself, presumably, as a trapped pig. </i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><b><i>The Constant Nymph</i> today</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This article has focused on some of the more troubling aspects of this novel. Is it worth reading in 2015? Certainly, for its precise, entertaining, and often uncomfortable human insights, its memorably poetic images, and the array of original characters (many of whom I haven’t even mentioned here). Is it a period piece? Again, yes, but the assumptions about class in the novel are worth noting for their own sake, as is its passionate perspective on the role of art in society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />I have not yet seen any of the three films made of <i>The Constant Nymph</i> (they are rarely shown and difficult to come by), so I can’t comment on their interpretations. I think the book could be dramatised as a modern TV serial, but it would take a brave scriptwriter to do it. They would somehow have to deal sensitively with the problem of Tessa’s age, as well as preserving the idealism that gives the book its heart, the sharpness of the psychological insight, and the snobbery that (hopefully) pins it to a period in the past. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Some interesting footage on YouTube of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrdDlHMCNDk" target="_blank">Brussels in the 1920s</a>, where the story ends.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>(Thanks to 'StephendelRoser' for putting this on YouTube.)</i></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-12195197932216638962015-05-11T01:30:00.000+02:002016-07-20T22:06:08.904+02:00Squirrel Nutkin: Anarchy for Under Fives<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Squirrel Nutkin: Anarchy for Under Fives</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Nutkin embodies the spirit of irreverence, making him an excellent role model for children</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Graham Greene, writing about Beatrix Potter in 1933, called <i>The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin</i> “an unsatisfactory book, less interesting than her first (<i>The Tailor of Gloucester</i>).” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />I couldn’t agree less. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />First published in 1903, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Squirrel Nutkin </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">is more than “a Tale about a tail”. It is a story of brave defiance in the face (quite literally in the face) of tyranny, with a morally ambiguous ending. The hero, a squirrel named Nutkin, is one of the most flamboyantly subversive characters in children’s literature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The book also presents the child with images of a wild, pristine world free from human intrusion: pictures of Lakeland wildlife and landscape that are precise and physical, but also romantic. These images last a lifetime. The one that took root in my own imagination shows the squirrels coming through the wood in a long single file, each carrying a fish. Their leader, however, carries no fish, is not walking in line, but is bounding ahead, singing:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“The man in the wilderness said to me,<br /> ‘How many strawberries grow in the sea?’<br />I answered him as I thought good –<br />‘As many red herrings as grow in the wood’”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This strange, formal procession through the green forest, with its suggestion of religious or pagan ceremony, together with the teasing beauty of the verse and Nutkin’s ecstatic fearlessness, created a sense of enchanted freedom. When I look at it now, the illustration has lost much of its power - it is even a bit pale and disappointing - but the mental image formed decades ago remains just as vivid. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The procession through the forest, bearing gifts of fish</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The story of Squirrel Nutkin is simple in form, a rhythmical repetition of similar events over six days. The tension builds through the steady escalation of Nutkin’s provocative challenges to authority, and the reader’s nervous uncertainty about exactly when that authority, in the form of a huge tawny owl, will react. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />It begins with a society of squirrels living in a wood by a lake, including Nutkin, his brother Twinkleberry, and their cousins. Twinkleberry has no real role in the story other than as the only named member of the large crowd of cousins. It is Autumn, and the squirrels sail across the lake to an island to gather nuts. But before they can do this, they have to ask permission from Old Brown, the owl who lives in an oak tree at the heart of the wooded island. It is not explained why Old Brown has the power to grant or deny this permission. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the first day, the squirrels offer Old Brown “three fat mice” and all of them (except Nutkin) bow down before the owl: “Old Mr. Brown, will you favour us with permission to gather nuts upon your island?” But Nutkin scorns such obsequiousness from the start, preferring to dance up and down and demand that the owl answer a riddle – the first of eight rhymes which punctuate the story. The owl studiously ignores Nutkin and shuts his eyes, saying nothing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Each morning, the compliant squirrels bring a new set of gifts to propitiate Old Brown – a fat dead mole, minnows, beetles wrapped in dock leaves, honey, and finally, an egg. Notably, all the presents are either dead smaller animals, or items stolen from other creatures. And each day, Nutkin’s behaviour becomes more provocative and defiant. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />On day two, he tickles Old Brown with a nettle:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Old Mr B!, Riddle-me-ree!<br /> Hitty Pitty within the wall,<br /> Hitty Pitty without the wall;<br />If you touch Hitty Pitty,<br /> Hitty Pitty will bite you!”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(‘Hitty Pitty’ is the nettle itself)</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Provocation: Beatrix Potter's Old Brown is a remarkably accurate portrait of a tawny owl</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Now Old Brown wakes up and fixes Nutkin with the expression of a cat wondering whether it is worth the effort to pounce on an insect. The owl’s ominous silence throughout the story adds to the sense of imminent danger. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The denouement comes on day six. Nutkin chants another riddle, dancing up and down “like a sunbeam”. But it</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> the picture that tells the real story here: Old Brown’s huge owl-face bursts out of the tree, inches from the reckless dancing figure of Nutkin. The sense of sudden movement in this illustration is extraordinary, and, for a small child, as shocking as those moments in horror films when a face thrusts up out of nowhere, pushing right into the viewer’s own face. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Dancing in the face of danger: one of the most frightening - and inspiring - pictures in children's literature</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A couple of pages later, Old Brown’s patience runs out, and he catches Nutkin: “There was Old Brown, sitting on his doorstep, quite still, with his eyes closed, as if nothing had happened. But Nutkin was in his waistcoat pocket!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />As Potter writes, this should be the end of the story, but Nutkin is not so easily extinguished. He escapes, but loses his tail to the owl’s claws and beak. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This ending is quite abrupt and is left open to interpretation. Many children will listen to the story being read aloud by a parent, rather than reading it for themselves, so they will be at the mercy of any spin the adult chooses to impose on the conclusion. This might involve the implication that the loss of his tail serves Nutkin right for defying authority, with the adult framing the story for the child as a lesson on the consequences of wilful nonconformity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This is certainly the majority interpretation given by the reviewers (all adults) on the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/885497.The_Tale_of_Squirrel_Nutkin" target="_blank">Goodreads</a> website. Almost all of them, depressingly, call the book </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">a morality tale</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> in which </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">impudent</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Nutkin “got what was coming to him”, or “a cautionary tale about how manners do not cost a thing and you should respect people.” Most of them express admiration for the saintly patience of Old Brown, and “no sympathy” for Nutkin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So the superficially conventional ending allows the book</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s more anarchic subtext to slip neatly under adult radar, like Peter Rabbit squeezing under the fence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> <br />For children lucky enough to have parents who resist the temptation to moralise (I was one of these), or those with the precocious strength of mind to reject such interpretations, the ‘message’ is less trite and more fertile. Nutkin loses most of his tail, but he’s still alive, and it is his name, not Old Brown’s, on the cover of the book. His loss of speech and poetry is a little more concerning, although this return to zoological reality also occurs at the end of Mrs Tiggywinkle, when she loses her clothes and her true hedgehog nature is restored. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Potter’s prose tends to be dry and tactfully detached; she never patronises her young readers by telling them what to think, so I doubt whether the ending is intended as a lesson. Also, I’m not sure how much Potter’s original intention, whatever it was, matters, compared with the book’s effect on children. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />This effect, when you are three or four years old, resembles the experience of vicarious pleasure in watching another child defying an adult: Nutkin is the child who goes too far, and who, thrillingly, is not burdened by the natural timidity that keeps others obedient (look at how the other squirrels are all watching intently, from a safe distance).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />But there’s more to it than this. Nutkin is the spirit of irreverence. He ignores the concept of ‘respect’ and ridicules the owl’s complacent authority. He suggests that creativity and play are as worthwhile as duty and conformity (he may not work with nuts, but he does invent games). He shows that you can confound and baffle tyrants using words, humour and poetry, and he does it with an inspiring insouciance. I can’t think of many better ‘lessons’ for young children in 2015. If <i>The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin</i> is misinterpreted by adults, but continues to fascinate and delight children, then that is a measure of its subversive power. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Beatrix Potter as a child, photo taken by her father</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>‘Owl Island’ in the book is St Herbert’s Island on Derwentwater, in the Lake District.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>The quotation from Graham Greene is from an essay about Beatrix Potter in </i>Graham Greene: Collected Essays<i>, Penguin, 1970.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>All illustrations of Squirrel Nutkin in this article are from the</i><i> <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14872/14872-h/14872-h.htm" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg Ebook of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net)</span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-30935788090558018642015-04-17T19:09:00.000+02:002016-08-01T18:23:12.117+02:00The Runaway by Ruth Morris<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-large;"><i>The Runaway</i>, by </b></div>
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-large;">Ruth Morris</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>(Published in America as ‘Runaway Girl’)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>Updated April 30, 2015</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>*Contains Spoilers*</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I plan to talk about children’s literature here occasionally, so I’ll begin with a book that fulfils all my self-imposed criteria for inclusion in this blog: it’s underrated, obscure, and (more or less) forgotten. It is out of print, though you can still find plenty of old copies on Amazon. It is also remarkably difficult to find any information about the author, Ruth Morris, who does not seem to have written any other books. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> <br />Until I read <i>The Runaway</i> at the age of 10, Australia was just a big blank island on the map, sitting there at the bottom of the world, home to koalas, kangaroos, and a few dusty facts from geography lessons. It had never really occurred to me that real children might live there, children with the courage to walk off alone into the outback to escape their ghastly relatives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The ‘outback’ itself was a new word and a new idea, opening up a vision of vast spaces and wild emptiness that was, and still is, fascinating for an English child from an intensively cultivated landscape. Other strange words were used by the characters in the story, none of them explained, so you had to guess from the context: swag, bonzer, beaut, billy, crook, tucker, kelpie, galah. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />From what I have been able to discover, the book was first published in 1961 by Michael Joseph. The American edition was retitled ‘Runaway Girl’ by Random House and came out in 1962. In 1964, it appeared in paperback under Penguin’s Peacock imprint. The U.S. edition was illustrated (by Beth Krush), the British edition wasn’t. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The Penguin Peacock edition</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Reading it again for the first time in decades, I was surprised by how closely it fitted my memory of it, and how well it has weathered the test of time. In fact I can’t see any reason why <i>The Runaway</i> should have disappeared from children’s shelves.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The American edition, retitled and with illustrations by Beth Krush</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Joanne Mitchell, the narrator, is a 12-year-old orphan who has been living for some years with her aunt and uncle, wealthy socialites in Melbourne. Aunt Valeria, Joanne tells us, “used to tell her friends I was ‘a civilized child, intelligent about prettying up the house’.” But when Aunt Valeria and Uncle Robert take a cruise to Europe, Joanne is cast out of civilization and packed off to stay indefinitely on a sheep station in remote Queensland, with relatives she has never met. She’s OK with this idea, imagining picnics in the bush and exciting drives to visit other sheep stations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Her arrival at the isolated backwater is powerfully described. “Red dust lay thickly over the tired wooden station buildings and stirred little eddies underfoot.” She is met by Uncle Fred, “a bent stick of a man with sparse gray hair and the face of someone who is always stubbing his toe on disappointment.” A bleak lunch follows in the station hotel, heavy with uncomfortable silences over slices of cold boiled mutton. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />“ ‘How’s Aunt Lilian?’ ” Joanne asks, trying to make polite conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“ ‘Good. She’s good.’ The flies settled back on the tablecloth. And in the sugar bowl too.”<br /><br />But Aunt Lilian is not good, she’s grim. When Fred and Joanne finally arrive at the sheep station after 30 miles by jeep over rough, empty country, it is clear that Aunt Lilian sees Joanne only as a useful pair of hands. The house is spartan, cheerless, scoured clean, the yard a flowerless desert. For the next two months, Joanne is an unpaid servant, helping the neurotic Lilian scrub every inch of the already spotless house, every day. Aunt Lilian is no Marilla Cuthbert – there is no warmth hiding behind her dour exterior.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Life with Aunt Lilian </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Joanne finally snaps after Aunt Lilian sends her to help out at her (Lilian’s) sister’s farm a few miles away. She travels alone, in a horse-drawn buggy, full of hope that the sister will be different. But she finds another bare yard, chained dogs, dirty scattered bones, and a neat, arid, empty house (Lilian</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s sister is out). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“A solitary petunia raised a defiant but ill-nourished head from the edge of a drain. It must have been a great-great grandchild of the last, long-forgotten cultivated flower that ever bloomed at Four Creeks.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Turning the reluctant horse, Darkie, around, Joanne heads off into the unknown and the adventure begins. She cuts off her red hair and becomes Joe Casey, judging that a boy will attract less attention than a lone girl wandering and camping in the outback.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The character I remembered most clearly from my childhood reading of this book was the old sheep drover who encounters Joanne (now Joe) on the open road. This memory seemed slightly surprising; gnarled, short-tempered old men have no obvious appeal for 10-year-old female readers. The drover, though, is an original creation, and I was pleased to find him exactly the same, full of laconic anecdotes about the dogs, sheep, bars, and mates of his past, stories that always begin with “Knew a bloke once. . . ”<br /><br />From a distance, the drover looks like </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">a mound of rags with a hat on top”. He is unimpressed by his young companion’s clumsiness in harnessing horses and lighting fires, and contemptuous of her ignorance of the subtle distinctions between types of sheepdog. But he saves Joe/Joanne from starvation, and teaches her how to survive in the bush. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Camping in the outback with the sheep drover</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The drover is not a cosy character. Joanne notes his tough treatment of his “dirty, smelly” dogs, and he blithely abandons her alone at a desolate crossroads when it suits him, with a casual “So long”. He’s a man of the road who doesn’t ask too many questions; he accepts you, but admits no responsibility. He does however give Joanne a puppy, which makes the lonely black nights camping rough in the bush a little more bearable.<br /><br />The trio – Joanne, the horse, the puppy – continue the road trip, staying for a while with the Bryce family, a struggling mother and her brood of boys (the challenge of pretending to be a boy among real boys is something girl readers might empathise with). This brief respite is curtailed when Mrs Bryce</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s husband returns and becomes suspicious of the cuckoo in his nest. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Joanne’s sense of freedom and her discovery of the natural world is set against her acute loneliness and constant hunger. Every random stranger represents a possible threat: the danger of being discovered and sent back to Aunt Lilian. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Joanne's lonely nights with Darkie the horse and Abby the puppy</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i> </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The happy ending, with Joanne finding a new home, is not delivered before a final burst of tension. She runs away one last time in the middle of the night, terrified that her new family will find out that she is not a boy, and reject her (echoes of <i>Anne of Green Gables</i>). <br /><br />The conclusion gives the book a satisfying symmetry. Joanne’s story begins with a long-distance train journey westbound into the unknown, and ends with another long, despairing train ride to Brisbane, where she descends among strangers onto the platform, before her new father appears and all is well.<br /><br />Re-reading the book, I was looking for reasons why it should be out of print, and couldn</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">t really find any. It is set in the 1950s, but there’s nothing that freezes the story in that era; it feels timeless. There is no racism. If you were hypersensitive, you might object to Mr Mitchell’s implication, on discovering Joanne is not a boy, that girls are naturally disposed to enjoy helping around the house. But the broader message is that girls are the equal of boys in terms of courage and survival in the wilderness. Adults might wonder why Joanne’s adoptive family were not contacted by social services, but this is not likely to worry young readers. The descriptions of Joanne’s puppy sometimes border on the over-sweet, but again, this seems unlikely to irritate the literary sensibilities of children. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />As a character, Joanne has an everygirl quality, making her easy to identify with. She has no exceptional talents or quirks, but is simply an affectionate, observant child in need of a home. She doesn</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">t seek adventure, but is forced to confront it. The story perhaps has more appeal for children outside Australia, because they are most likely to enjoy the exploration of an unknown territory and culture. Joanne is 12, but I would suggest a slightly younger readership (9 to 11), given the greater sophistication of children in 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />So who is, or was, Ruth Morris? The only information I could find initially came from the website <a href="http://www.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/australia/morris.html" target="_blank">Jane Badger Books</a>, which says that she was born in 1926 in Queenscliff, Melbourne, Victoria, the daughter of the garrison commander at Port Phillip, Victoria, and was educated at Melbourne University. She taught for a while, then spent two years in England working on farms and for people with disabilities, before returning to Australia. <i>The Runaway</i> was apparently based on a journey she made through Queensland in an old Ford in 1956. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This biographical information was confirmed by Dr Catriona Mills, senior researcher at <a href="http://www.austlit.edu.au/" target="_blank">AustLit</a>, the Australian literature database. She said that they had no record of any publications other than <i>The Runaway. </i></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ruth Morris in 1961, when The Runaway was published. From the Australian Women's Weekly. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Catriona Mills did however unearth three newspaper articles about the publication of the book. The first, in the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/48072632">Australian Women's Weekly</a>, dated November 8, 1961, says that Ruth’s trip around Queensland lasted six months, was undertaken alone apart from her cattle dog, Cappy. “I never would have done it without him,” she said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The article says that she married a Geoffrey Webb of Culcairn, New South Wales, after her trip, and, mysteriously, that she had finished another book </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">about two youngsters</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’ </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">adventures in the foothills of the Baw Baws.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> But I could find no record of this book. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nor did the the Peacock edition of <i>The Runaway </i>include one of those useful ‘about the author’ sections that all Puffin books used to have.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i> </i><br />It is surprising if Morris did not publish again, because <i>The Runaway</i> is the work of someone who enjoys writing and does it with conviction.<br /><br />If anyone reading this knows anything more about Ruth Morris (not to be confused with the Canadian prison reformer of the same name, born in 1933), or would like to share anything else about <i>The Runaway</i>, please feel free to comment below. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; font-style: italic;">A galah (Eolophus roseicapillus). Joanne talks about seeing flocks of these pink birds against the pale blue skies of Queensland. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: David Cook/Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Many thanks to <a href="http://www.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/australia/morris.html" target="_blank">Jane Badger Books</a>, and to Dr Catriona Mills of <a href="http://www.austlit.edu.au/" target="_blank">AustLit</a>, the Australian literature database, for the biographical information and links to newspapers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Links to articles from the National Library of Australia's Trove digitisation project: <i>Australian Women'</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>s Weekly</i> <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/48072632" target="_blank">1961</a>, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/51193533" target="_blank">1962</a>; and <i>The Canberra Times</i>, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/104925175" target="_blank">1962</a>. </span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-67599892418181446472015-04-07T07:03:00.001+02:002016-07-20T22:10:47.126+02:00What is it like to be a psychopath? 'Engleby' by Sebastian Faulks<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>What is it like to be a psychopath?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Another look at <i>Engleby</i> by Sebastian Faulks</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The Sea of Ice, by Caspar David Friedrich, 1823. Also known as 'The Wreck of Hope'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>* SPOILER ALERT * – please don’t read this if you have not read the novel.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Where would fiction be without the murderer, the psychopath, the serial killer, the ripper in the shadow, ‘the smiler with the knife’? Eviscerated, is the simple answer, with Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley, Graham Greene’s Pinkie Brown, Ruth Rendell’s Teddy Grex, all cast out along with numberless other nightmarish figures who stalk the pages of crime fiction (and ghost stories). Some murderers are no more than plot devices, while others break out of their crime-genre boxes to secure an enduring place in the popular imagination. But, with very few exceptions, the interior life of the psychopath remains mysterious in fiction, we look at him or her from the outside, from the perspective of the police officer, psychiatrist, relative, or victim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It seems fairly safe to assume that few novelists have committed murder, so it is unsurprising that many writers have preferred to investigate what it would feel like for a sane, sensitive character, for whom the idea of killing is alien and repulsive, to be drawn into murder through some accident or momentary moral failure. This imaginative effort has given us (among others) Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov in <i>Crime and Punishment</i>, and more recently, the five undergraduate murderers in Donna Tartt’s superb novel, <i>The Secret History</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Getting under the skin of a genuine psychopath, showing the reader what the world might look like from their perspective, seems to me a more difficult task. Of course, ‘psychopath’ is an imprecise and elastic label of dubious medical or legal value, a word that means nothing more than ‘sick mind’, but in fiction, what it describes is popularly understood to mean a person without remorse, antisocial, manipulative, possibly sadistic, and probably delusional. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ruth Rendell has made an enormous contribution here, singlehandedly and prolifically creating some of the most frightening characters in fiction, such as Eunice Parchman (<i>A Judgement in Stone</i>), or Senta in <i>The Bridesmaid</i>, and Rendell invites the reader in to listen to their interior voices. But there’s still a narrowness to Rendell’s psychopaths. Like the fanatically hygienic Minty in <i>Adam and Eve and Pinch Me</i>, they are trapped in, and defined by, their manias, obsessions, and fetishes; we watch in appalled fascination, tempered with sympathy, as the character’s compulsion or phobia expands and tightens its grip, distorting and conquering their reality. They murder to escape what seems to them a greater horror. Also, Rendell’s murderers are clearly mentally ill, and, like most fictional psychopaths I have met – they are so sick, so strange, so utterly beyond the borders of normal experience that they are oddly reassuring. The reader can think, ‘well, at least I’m not like that’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Is Mike Engleby mentally ill? The answer is almost certainly yes, but the hesitation in making a glib diagnosis is part of what makes the character so disturbing and original. It is much more difficult to define yourself in contrast to Engleby. Instead of feeling comfortably distanced by his oddness, you catch yourself cheering him on as he lampoons lazy thinking, or exposes pretentiousness, complacency, and rudeness in others. He also elicits sympathy as he wrestles with the ‘curse of consciousness’, and when he is haunted by a sense of something that has been lost in modern life: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“You need the air to be warm, not hot, but balmy with a smell of grass or hawthorn. You need the black outline of branches against a sky that, while dark, still has a blue shade to it. What you’re trying to do is get plugged into the depth of history going down through these villages, these houses, these lawns panting with their garden scent at evening.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But the Mike Engleby who wrote that passage is the same person who can write the following about the final moments in the life of the young girl he has abducted and killed: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“I don’t remember how, but I became aware that she had wet herself. Was there a smell? Did I hear it? I don’t know, but she’d made herself disgusting . . . her face was ugly with crying.” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As the narrator, Engleby offers a number of possible causal explanations for his own ‘condition’: a violent father, poverty, a semi-detached mother, a sickeningly brutal experience of abuse and casual sadism as a scholarship boy at a squalid public school. He also suffers physical and psychological symptoms: headaches, insomnia, memory lapses, addictions, and episodes of dissociation in which he experiences a sudden violent dissolution of his sense of self, which he describes as a physical sensation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Any combination of these might be enough to make him a murderer, but this does not answer the old question of why other people who suffer similar difficulties do not kill. Faulks also probes the slippery question of guilt and insanity, and the extent to which the latter wipes out the former. In the novel, Engleby is committed to a psychiatric hospital (rather than prison) on the grounds of ‘personality disorder’, but whether he should be let off the hook in a larger moral sense is left to the reader to decide. I don’t think he should be, and I’ll explain why later.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For me, the attempts at explanation, and the public school bullying chapter in particular, are the least interesting and successful aspects of the book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The novel does three things brilliantly, however. First, it offers you a convincing experience of inhabiting the consciousness of someone who has committed murder, and he is an astute, perceptive, sardonically witty murderer with a phenomenal memory. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Second, the story forces the reader to define precisely what is wrong about Engleby, what it is that he lacks. To achieve this, Faulks uses something akin to the Socratic method: as the story proceeds, he knocks away your assumptions about what a serial killer might be like (brutal, unreflective, inarticulate, blinkered, lacking in insight, humourless, unable to understand the perspective of others, incapable of change) building up a portrait of an original thinker, a damaged outsider who seems to possess far more insight than those around him, until finally, shockingly, Mike’s memory returns, and you are there with him in a dark Fenland lane, reliving the murder of Jennifer, forced to watch as he unmasks the monster. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The shock comes not at the discovery that Mike has killed Jennifer (this is strongly signposted, you just don’t know how), but in his complete lack of simple pity for her terror (“her face was ugly with crying”), and the way he blames her for “what she’d made me do.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The third excellent thing is spookier, and only emerged (for me) on a second reading. It concerns manipulation, a trait often attributed to the psychopath. Mike’s narrative voice (we are reading his journal, over several decades) is interspersed with long quotations from the diary of his principal victim, Jennifer, which Mike stole from her, along with one of her letters to her parents. It is these extracts that establish Jennifer’s character, her distinctive voice. But in one of the diary entries, the style changes markedly, gaining eloquence and flow; suddenly it sounds like Mike, and you start to wonder if some of the ‘voices’ (we also hear from Mike’s only friend, and his psychiatrist) are the creation of a clever simulator, and how far you, the reader, are being manipulated by the psychopath emerging from the pages. It’s an unsettling sensation. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGsY566x3_Uu3Om0g0K7KMqTfVFeeWE_Q42dMHzbECyA8SuGaN5Ia5Iz8R_23-xr8ftziQuz3O0N5SF-jx-5tMbZ8T-FgMSXNth7bnu-6QQ_-lUftADdF_43AMXgqe908u-oI911Fscso/s1600/IMG_20150408_162817759.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGsY566x3_Uu3Om0g0K7KMqTfVFeeWE_Q42dMHzbECyA8SuGaN5Ia5Iz8R_23-xr8ftziQuz3O0N5SF-jx-5tMbZ8T-FgMSXNth7bnu-6QQ_-lUftADdF_43AMXgqe908u-oI911Fscso/s1600/IMG_20150408_162817759.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We first meet Mike as a student at Cambridge in 1972. He tells us he is in his second year at the university, describes his room, the architecture, the food, the dons, his favoured pubs, Folk Club, and his first sightings of Jennifer Arkland, the confident, fair-haired history student with whom he becomes obsessed. The narrative trots along entertainingly enough, but after a few pages you become aware of something slightly amiss. The tone is curiously flat, deadpan, like that of a clever boy at boarding school obliged to write a letter home. There’s also a striking lack of references to friends; he’s in his second year, but only seems to have acquaintances (“most nights, I go out alone”), and the only note of affection comes when he mentions his younger sister, Julie. In fact Julie is the only character in the novel who inspires any genuine tenderness in Mike, but she remains a ghostly, peripheral figure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mike does not explain why Jennifer, rather than any other female student, is the focus of his rapidly developing obsession. He doesn’t mention sexual attraction, and he has never talked to her, but wonders </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">what her room was like. What was her life like?” Mike then records a couple of strange speculative fantasies about teatime in her hall of residence, one cake-filled and cosy, the other bleak. But we don’t hear from the real Jennifer until Mike opens her private letter and reads her stolen diary.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The style of these diary entries is perfectly judged by Faulks. Writing in an abbreviated, student-essay-notes form, Jennifer has a sure instinct for predictable adverbs and safe adjectives, combined with an artless unconcern for possible banality. The cold is ‘arctic’, she cycles ‘vigorously’ on her ‘trusty’ bike, she ‘dutifully’ sets her alarm for an early lecture. Studenty 1970s words like ‘zonked’ and ‘budge’ sprinkle the pages, but she is still a good enough writer to give us a vivid picture of her life and a strong sense of her physical presence. She sounds absolutely authentic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jennifer can be seen as Mike’s opposite, which might explain his fascination with her. She is preternaturally cheerful, so full of optimism and gaiety that she feels obliged to tone it down for propriety’s sake. Even the Cambridge cold inspires good humour. She’s balanced, equable, conscientious without being a “swot”, bright rather than brilliant; she goes to pubs but doesn’t get drunk, it is her roommate Hannah who forgets keys, not her, and she has a healthy interest in boys, but knows she’s too young for a “long-term thing”. Her life is overflowing with friends, clubs, plays, boys, volleyball (she would have been a natural for Facebook) and, in stark contrast to Mike, she has the support of an extremely loving family and a stable, middle-class background. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jennifer is also profoundly unoriginal, and I think this is a strength in the novel. The temptation would have been to create an exceptional character, a warm and empathetic genius to point up the contrast with Mike and solicit the reader’s outrage at her death. But her ordinariness, or at least her youthful immaturity, helps to underline Mike’s lack of compassion. For the reader, Jennifer is not particularly interesting, but her death nevertheless provokes a sharp horror and pity. For Mike, the perpetrator, it really doesn’t, even though he is fascinated by her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When Jennifer first goes missing, Mike has no memory of the deed, and we do not know he is the killer. So he is reporting her disappearance in his journal from the standpoint of an innocent fellow student. His comments are revealing. While watching a TV appeal, Mike bursts out laughing at Jennifer’s boyfriend’s demeanour, which he considers artificial: “he put on a grown-up voice.” This surprises another boy who is also watching. He (this boy) “looked up at the noise of my laughter with a puzzled and slightly accusing look. He appeared to have tears on his cheeks.” Later, at a ‘service of hope’ for Jennifer (her body has not yet been found) a friend gives a tribute. Mike wonders “how Anne had got to know Jen so well and care about her so much so quickly. I mean, they were just student pals, weren’t they?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This heartless reaction is followed by an accurate but equally chilly dissection of newspaper editorial style when reporting missing girls, concluding shrewdly that “Notoriety is a very odd thing. From the moment her face appeared on that poster, Jennifer has stopped being herself . . . something pious has attached itself to her.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As Mike is preparing to leave Cambridge, thinking about what he will and won’t miss about the place, he hints at what he got back from his fixation with Jennifer: “What I liked about it (Cambridge) was a version lived by others. For instance, by Jennifer. I enjoyed her time here.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>I enjoyed her time here. </i>There’s something unnerving about that sentence when you remember he is talking about a girl who is missing, presumed dead. He might not realise he has killed her, but he knows her likely fate. There is also pathos in it: unable to engage with life himself, he borrows the perspective of someone who, in his view, is better equipped for living. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The case goes cold, and over the next decade Mike moves on, hacking out a successful career on London newspapers, while Jennifer is marooned in 1974, aged 21, listening to prog rock, dazzled by the vista of her bright future, presumed dead. “I haven’t thought about Jennifer Arkland for years,” Mike notes at one point. James Stellings, his only friend from university, invites him to a dinner party with his wife and some well-heeled banker and lawyer friends. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The description of this excruciating evening is one of the funniest episodes in the novel, and it is impossible not to sympathise wholeheartedly with Mike as, seated between two of the wives, he is obliged to discuss children’s schools, and au pairs, first with one, then the other, then back to the first “like watching Wimbledon in slow motion.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“She asked me if I had any children and I said no. Then she told me which of her children were good at which subjects. . . . then she talked about the reputations of various schools that her children were not going to but which friends of hers had children at . . . ” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Anyone who has ever been trapped in a similar situation will recognise this particular type of rudeness, a combination of self-absorption and total lack of curiosity about other people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And yet . . . Toward the end of the book, after Mike has been found guilty and is confined to psychiatric hospital, Stellings still visits him regularly. We get to read Stellings</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> witness statement, describing Mike. In it, Stellings sounds honest (we learn for the first time that Mike is physically unattractive), quite perceptive, and generous. “He (Mike) could be very funny, but he hardly ever laughed . . . I did like him, though . . . and I will stick by him.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Engleby however has nothing but contempt for Stellings’ assessment, calling him </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">pedestrian</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">radically inarticulate”. This then puts a different slant on that dinner party, and you wonder if Mike was really the victim of rudeness or the cause of it. The perspective shifts, and Engleby changes shape again.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mike Engleby tells us he has memorised Jennifer’s diary, word for word. But we only have his word for this. The suspicion I mentioned earlier, that Mike may have overwritten Jennifer, comes with this passage attributed to Jennifer, dated 25 May, 1972:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I simply don’t believe that Jennifer could have written that at 19, when a year <i>later</i> she was writing like this: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Early college brek with Sue Jubb and Liz Burdene. Poor Sue’s hair looks as though she has been electrocuted as in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. They just have tea and toast, but I get hungry later, so had to have the fried egg etc. The egg had been sitting for a long time so had to lever off hard little cap from the yolk. Underneath, it was fine. At least, nothing that salt and pepper and a bit of tinned tomato couldn’t disguise. Check pigeonhole for letter from Simon (nothing: sob) and pedal furiously to Sidgwick.” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This second passage is entirely typical of Jennifer. Of course, Faulks may simply have slipped up and lost Jennifer’s voice in the first extract. But I prefer not to believe this. It is more interesting to think that this is Mike, playing with his readers, and using Jennifer - his idea of her - to breathe some life into his own experience. <i>“What I liked about it was a version lived by others.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The last pages of the book confirm Mike’s will to control the past, to control Jennifer, and to control her writing voice. They reveal his lack of real remorse. He creates a final diary entry for Jennifer, dated the day <i>after</i> her disappearance. This time, Jennifer gets into Mike’s car, but instead of driving off with her out of Cambridge, into the the fens toward her death, they end up at her house, in her bed. The style is pure Jennifer, but nothing else about it is. Jennifer’s role in this repellent fantasy is only to comfort Mike Engleby. There’s no more of her reality as a separate person than there was when he ignored her terrified screams in the car, and smashed a slab of concrete on her head in a dark lane. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The truth this book exposes is a simple one, that a person can have impressively superior gifts, but without compassion, these are hollow. The journey there, taken inside the mind of the killer, is exhilarating and entertaining as well as disturbing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While <i>Engleby</i> does not fall into the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">forgotten</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’ </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">or </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">obscure</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> categories I imposed on this blog, I do think it is underrated. It is well worth a second read. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Engleby by Sebastian Faulks. Vintage Books, 2007.</i></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-24776946130687077172015-03-11T01:31:00.000+01:002016-07-13T15:09:37.553+02:00John and Marie Christine Ridgway: 50 years of living dangerously<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Wandering Albatross - woodcut, 1837.</span></i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"> </i><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)</span></i><br />
<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">John and Marie Christine Ridgway sailed around the world in 2003-4 to raise international awareness of the plight of the albatross: 19 out of 22 species are threatened with extinction.</span> </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>John and Marie Christine Ridgway: </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Book-cover blurbs, manipulatively edited to highlight the kindest bits of reviews, do not usually make for inspiring reading. So it is refreshing when you come across one that is witty, vivid, and original. Here’s what the novelist Len Deighton wrote for the back cover of one book by the Ridgway family, </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then We Sailed Away</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (1996): </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Don’t do it. Don’t abandon the cats, the garden and your beloved home to sail round the world with your family and your daughter’s boyfriend. Don’t be battered to despair in a shrieking October gale before reaching the grey wastes of the North Atlantic. Don’t have your pocket picked in a Bolivian prison yard. Don’t finish a long day chopping your way through the Andes jungle, infested with fleas, devastated by diarrhoea, with your pack-horse running with blood from the nightly attacks of vampire bats, only to find a large tarantula in your bedding…” </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Don’t do any of that stuff,” Deighton continues, “because John Ridgway, a resourceful adventurer with an amazing writing talent, has done it for you.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If that doesn’t pique your interest, I’m not sure what would. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I know nothing about sailing, nor have I met any of the Ridgways, so this post is entirely based on a few of their books. Ever since I stumbled across a book called <i>Amazon Journey</i> (an expedition from the source of the river in the high Andes to its mouth in the Atlantic) in the late 1980s, the Ridgways have haunted my imagination. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">John Ridgway is someone who might have looked more at home in an earlier century, when the world’s wild places were still uncharted and inaccessible, before the tentacles of Google Maps started creeping into every forgotten dusty town and unvisited island, exposing all corners of the planet to the camera. He also sounds like one of those people for whom the phrase ‘good in a crisis’ was invented, and for people like this, when a crisis is not available, you have to go looking for one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After <i>Amazon Journey,</i> I read <i>Road to Elizabeth</i> (and re-read it several times), and then Marie Christine Ridgway’s <i>No Place for a Woman</i>. The places, journeys, and events described in these books are so far outside and beyond the experience of the average British family, and the images so powerful, that (for me at any rate) a walk in exposed country can trigger a ‘memory’ of marching across the empty Altiplano, and wooded hillsides can create pictures of the Ridgways hacking through 5,000 feet of precipitous, spidery thicket down to the Apurimac river. Even a gale blowing up the English Channel can recall Marie Christine’s terrifying account of battling through the Minch in mountainous December seas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I have never come across anyone else who has read these books, and only second-hand copies are available on Amazon, which suggests they are out of print. John Ridgway has an MBE, but never seems to be listed in those (fatuous) lists of ‘top 20 British adventurers’ that even respectable newspapers feature from time to time. His <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ridgway_(sailor)" target="_blank">Wikipedia entry</a> is surprisingly short. I found just one vintage ATV documentary on YouTube about the Ridgways, tracking their competition in the 1977-78 Whitbread Round the World race (worth a watch, more on this programme later in this post), but that was about it. Mentioning John Ridgway to friends brings the response (if I’m lucky) of ‘oh, yes, he rowed across the Atlantic with Chay Blyth’. Which is true (92 days at sea, 3,000 miles in an open boat in 1966, through two hurricanes), but this improbable voyage of endurance was the opening salvo in an extraordinary life dedicated to the spirit of adventure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">To recap, John Ridgway has, apart from writing 11 books, sailed non-stop around the world, then navigated it a further two times, been the first to cross a Patagonian ice cap, tracked the Amazon river from its source in the high Andes to its mouth in Brazil, sailed all over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, survived hurricanes at sea, calving icebergs, extreme altitude sickness, and dangerous rapids. He has been lost in uncharted tropical forest, evaded Shining Path terrorists, and - perhaps the hardest test – survived being repeatedly cooped up in yachts with other people for months on end, without privacy and in all weathers. Sometimes he has been accompanied by Marie Christine and their daughters, sometimes other sailors and explorers, sometimes he has gone alone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">These were not lavishly funded expeditions, carefully scripted and narrowly focused, but explorations that seem to have been inspired by a passion for pure adventure, for its own sake. The planning was done, of course, but a sense of impatience and spontaneity is present in all the books, together with the feeling that the outcome might turn out to be entirely different from the original plan. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The journey described in <i>Road to Elizabeth</i> is perhaps the the most striking example of this: John, Marie Christine, and Rebecca set out for South America to meet an old friend, Elvin Berg, who had been farming coffee deep in the Peruvian backwoods. After discovering that this friend had been murdered by terrorists, they located his daughter, Elizabeth, by slipping into the government-designated ‘emergency zone’, then decided to adopt her, eventually bringing her home to Scotland. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">These strenuous, exhilarating and risky expeditions were undertaken as ‘holidays’ from the Ridgways’ day job running their School of Adventure at Ardmore, in the remote wilderness on the farthest edge of North West Scotland. The school, founded over 50 years ago by John and Marie Christine Ridgway with little money, no house, no electricity (for 18 years), and a good deal of pioneering hard labour, became was a success and has attracted 20,000 visitors. It is now run by their daughter Rebecca, whose C.V. includes being the first woman to kayak round Cape Horn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Exciting lives, however, do not necessarily make for exciting reading, as the thousands of (usually) predictable and pedestrian travel blogs plodding around the internet make plain. Anybody with a bit of cash can travel, some travel far and dangerously, and almost all of them will try to write about it, but it is surprising how few can do so without boring their readers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The writing – both John’s and Marie Christine’s (I have not yet read Rebecca’s book) – is unfussy, unsentimental, driven briskly along by a sense of needing to get to the next place and keep to the plan, but they draw you into the emotional and visual landscapes of their many journeys, so you’re left with the illusion that you made the trip yourself. The tone is quite dry, avoiding the temptation to become confessional or self-consciously ‘hilarious’; you’re left to read between the lines and picture it for yourself – and the imagined scenarios can sometimes be pretty funny as well as unnerving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps the big difference lies in their ability to notice precise physical details about the journeys – wild animals, birds, trees, and flowers (always carefully named), landscape and its effect on mood, bouts of illness, snatches of conversation, endless tins of sardines, strange smells, stranger people - and to remember and convey how this felt and what else was happening when they noticed them: the physical reality of a remembered experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Nothofagus obliqua - one of 36 species of nothofagus, a southern-hemisphere beech, observed frequently during the Ridgways' voyage along the coast of Chile in 1996.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">John Ridgway has written that sometime during the extreme rigours of his original expedition rowing across the Atlantic, he found himself “deeply impressed by the permanence and the simplicity of the challenge posed by sea and sky. The artificial preoccupations of the world in which most people live were even more remote from my mind than from my body.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The decision to start the adventure school came from this - he wanted others to experience the immersion in the natural world that has become difficult for many people to experience. Apart from being exciting to read, the Ridgways’ books act as a gentle reminder that there is still a lot of wildness out there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <span style="text-align: center;">© </span>Channel Light Vessel</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">*** *** ***</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>'Round the World with Ridgway': an ATV documentary available on YouTube</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If you thought that reality TV was a new genre, watching this is something of of a revelation. Made way back in 1977-78, this film records most of the voyage made by English Rose VI in the Whitbread Round the World Race. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">With a crew of 13, skippered by John Ridgway with Marie Christine, it captures daily life on board the boat: the high spirits and grim humour, the setbacks and the exhilaration. It also documents the inevitable personality clashes, simmering tensions, and tempests that blow up among people living and working under pressure at close quarters (a living space of 10 feet by nine!) for months. All of this is exacerbated by the constant awareness of the camera crew recording everything. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The film doesn’t show any of the crew in a particularly flattering light, and in that respect it foreshadows the reality programmes of recent years. But to balance this, there’s an impressive storm and unnervingly beautiful footage of sailing past crystal icebergs in the south Atlantic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Near the end of the film, there’s an odd time-warp scene where the crew are relaxing below deck, eating sandwiches, listening to the news on the radio, lost in their own thoughts. This informal, placid moment looks deceptively contemporary, like something that happened last week, but the voice on the radio is reporting the Amoco Cadiz oil spill, and a printing dispute at <i>The Times</i>. It is mid-March, 1978. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Producer: Richard Creasey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Cameraman: Roger Deakins</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNlDKlUjl3U" target="_blank">Round the World with Ridgway documentary</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-size: medium;">Books mentioned in the article – available on order from <a href="http://www.johnridgway.co.uk/books.html" target="_blank">the Ridgways' website </a>and second-hand from Amazon.</b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></h4>
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Amazon Journey</b></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hodder & Stoughton, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">1972) by John Ridgway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Expedition to the source of the Amazon, and the voyage down it to the sea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Also includes a strangely fascinating and detailed appendix, listing equipment, clothes and medical kit taken on the expedition – old fashioned puttees (there are instructions about how to put them on) are apparently effective for keeping snakes, ants, dirt, and worse from entering your boots. </span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Road to Elizabeth</b></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> (Gollancz, 1986) by John Ridgway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Extraordinary story of how an expedition to the Peruvian Andes led, via challenging terrain, danger, tragic news, illness, terrorist threats, and some happy coincidences, to the child who became the family's adopted daughter.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><b>No Place for a Woman</b></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Gollancz, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">1991) by Marie Christine Ridgway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">My advice would be to read Marie Christine’s book after </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Road to Elizabeth</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">. It offers a different and fascinating perspective on the couple’s story and how Elizabeth (now known as Isso) settled in Scotland after Peru (as well as nerve-racking accounts of exploring Patagonian ice in rubber dinghies). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>Then We Sailed Away</b></i> (Little, Brown, 1996) by John, Marie Christine, and Rebecca Ridgway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">John, Marie Christine, Rebecca and Isso on an odyssey in English Rose VI around the Caribbean, Galapagos, Marquesas, Chile coast, Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica, and home via Tristan da Cunha, Brazil, and the North Atlantic. Written jointly by John, Marie Christine and Rebecca, it is p</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">articularly interesting on wildlife and plants found along the way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</i> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>(Photo: DickDaniels/Wikimedia Commons)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The beautiful Red-tailed Tropic bird</i></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Other books </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>A Fighting Chance</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">(Paul Hamlyn, 1966) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">by John Ridgway and Chay Blyth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Journey to Ardmore</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">(Hodder & Stoughton, 1971) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">by John Ridgway </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cockleshell Journey</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">(</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hodder & Stoughton, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">1974) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">by John Ridgway </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Gino Watkins</i> (OUP, 1974) by John Ridgway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Storm Passage</i> (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hodder & Stoughton, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">1975) by John Ridgway </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Round the World with Ridgway</i> (Heinemann, 1978) by John and Marie Christine Ridgway </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Round the World Non-Stop</i> (Patrick Stephens, 1985) by John Ridgway and Andy Briggs </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Flood Tide</i> (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hodder & Stoughton, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">1988) by John Ridgway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Something Amazing</i> (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hodder & Stoughton, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">1993) by Rebecca Ridgway </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">*More information about the books: </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.johnridgway.co.uk/books.html" target="_blank">http://www.johnridgway.co.uk/books.html</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">*For the School of Adventure at Ardmore, click here: <a href="http://www.ridgway-adventure.co.uk/" target="_blank">Ridgway Adventure</a></span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1749187666531400144.post-32403848967568112012015-02-18T21:17:00.003+01:002022-07-24T13:30:10.930+02:00Why has the BBC buried 'The Roads to Freedom'?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Why has the BBC buried </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Roads to Freedom</i>?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">The series still exists intact - so why can't we watch it? [<i>Updated 14.7.22 - see below</i>]</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Michael Bryant as Mathieu Delarue in The Roads to Freedom. David Turner, who dramatised the series, called the character of Mathieu</i> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">“</span><i>the Hamlet of our age.</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">”</span></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"> This is a rare photo: it is almost as impossible to find photos of the cast in their roles as it is to watch the series. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Channel Light Vessel</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“It’s relevant to every generation, but it’s especially applicable to young people.” <i>Michael Bryant</i>, 1970. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>IMPORTANT UPDATE July 14, 2022: </b>Well, it seems they have finally given in! BBC4 is to broadcast the Roads to Freedom on July 27 at 10.05. Why only now, 46 years since it was last shown? It is over seven years since I wrote this blog article (very hurriedly, in a fit of frustration), and it has been attracting comments ever since. And for far longer - decades - people who watched the series in the 1970s have been writing to the BBC asking when it will be available to see again. No reply was ever given, to my knowledge, and the BBC's reluctance remained a mystery. Over the past couple of months, DVDs of the series have been popping up on the internet. I have now seen it, and can confirm that it has stood the test of time remarkably well. It is excellent news that Roads to Freedom is now available for everyone, though I'm still intrigued to know what took them so long, and why nobody was allowed to know why.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">* * * </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If you</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">re under 50, you may not know that the BBC dramatised Jean-Paul Sartre’s trilogy of novels, </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Roads to Freedom</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, so you won’t realise that you missed the best series the BBC ever made.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You certainly won’t have seen it, because the BBC won’t allow you to.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is has not been shown on television since 1976, it is not on DVD, not available as a box set, not on YouTube, Netflix, or anywhere else. The mystery is why - and why the BBC won’t <i>tell</i> us why.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ll come back to this strange story, but first:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Why is the BBC’s adaptation of <i>The Roads to Freedom</i> important?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jean-Paul Sartre’s three novels, (published 1945-49 as </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Les Chemins de La Liberté</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">) focus on a philosophy teacher, Mathieu Delarue, and his group of bohemian friends in Paris just before the Second World War and into the Nazi occupation. Mathieu’s aim is to defend his personal and intellectual freedom, resisting all forms of commitment to people, politics or action. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The perspective shifts constantly between characters, especially in the second book, creating a mosaic of simultaneous individual experiences of people preoccupied with the details of their own lives, in denial and powerless in the face of oncoming disaster.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Almost unfilmable, you might think. But it worked perfectly, thanks to inspired direction by James Cellan Jones, and David Turner</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s intelligent dramatisation. Then there was Michael Bryant’s superb portrayal of Mathieu (a part he seemed born to play), and unforgettable contributions from Georgia Brown (Lola), Daniel Massey (Daniel), Rosemary Leach (Marcelle), Alison Fiske (Ivich), Anthony Higgins (Boris), and many more.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The first episode of The Roads to Freedom was broadcast on Sunday, October 4, 1970. The series was repeated on TV once, in 1976, and then vanished for 36 years until a one-off screening at the BFI in 2012. </span></i><i style="font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Since 2012, silence has returned. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Every actor was convincing, every role came alive; there was no such thing as a ‘minor character’ in the series. This </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">reflected the idea in Sartre</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s novels that everyone experiences themselves as centrally important.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In terms of direction, screenplay, and acting, <i>The Roads to Freedom</i> was highly original. The series seemed to capture the feel of life in Paris at the end of the 1930s, and having watched it, you felt you had lived through it. Everyone will have different memories of the series, but when in Paris I can’t avoid thinking of Mathieu, running round the city trying to borrow money for his girlfriend’s abortion, avoiding joining the Communist Party, analysing the depths of his own inauthenticity while watching strippers in dark nightclubs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The haunting voice of Georgia Brown singing the theme </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">La Route est Dure</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”-</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> melancholy, melodramatic, deep and smoky - was the soul of the whole series for many viewers (link at the end of this post).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIMTzxRiQz0Rs2GahpzszGYSICSgcDD5MNbQE2-2maeuh42R8wNF0JIYwZ1Xfo1458O7KTIyzdHih1r3zb_0-vkzxgsB7n14_qVkEUo7JTtuirDPOXIRDHma9K5dxSxqNq9s6SgY9cL4/s1600/roadscover1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIMTzxRiQz0Rs2GahpzszGYSICSgcDD5MNbQE2-2maeuh42R8wNF0JIYwZ1Xfo1458O7KTIyzdHih1r3zb_0-vkzxgsB7n14_qVkEUo7JTtuirDPOXIRDHma9K5dxSxqNq9s6SgY9cL4/s1600/roadscover1.jpg" width="460" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The BBC seemed to be proud of the series in early October 1970, putting Michael Bryant</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>s Mathieu on the cover. Inside, the actor is quoted saying that The Roads to Freedom </i></span><span style="font-size: 17.6px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>is relevant to every generation, but it</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;">’</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">s especially applicable to young people</i><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">.</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;">”</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> How sad that the young people of 2015 do not have the chance to see it for themselves. </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sartre</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s novels are largely concerned with what his characters are thinking, and the BBC</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s <i>The Roads to Freedom</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> is one of very few TV dramas to treat the stream of consciousness seriously and naturally: instead of having the actors speak their thoughts aloud, we hear monologues spoken by the relevant actor in the background, while the character goes about his or her business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This contrasts with the highly artificial convention, still followed in almost all films and television dramas, of actors speaking aloud even when they are alone. On the whole, real people don</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">t do this, and it always looks particularly absurd when the character is supposed to be in danger.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Sartre in 1950, looking remarkably similar to Michael Bryant as Mathieu on the cover of the Radio Times (previous pic).</i> </span><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Wikimedia Commons</span></i></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The ‘lost’ work of dramatic art that wasn’t actually lost</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For many years, whenever the question of what happened to <i>The Roads to Freedom</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> cropped up on internet forums, somebody would speculate either that the BBC had wiped the tapes, or that only a few episodes had survived. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the absence of any denial, or any information at all, from the BBC (despite enquiries from the public over several decades), this depressing rumour was widely accepted as true - until 2012. Then, in May 2012, the BFI (British Film Institute) screened the whole 13-episode series in London on May 12 and 13.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In one sense this was fantastic news: the tapes had not been wiped at all, far from it - the entire series had survived. The BFI theatre was apparently packed out both days. But while enormous credit is due to the BFI for showing it, it leaves unanswered the question of why it is not available to all of us. Many people did not hear about the screening in time (I was one of them), others would not have been able to go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps more importantly, the people who did attend would mainly have been those who remembered the original series from the 1970s. Younger people – the people who have been denied access to this work of art – would not even have known why the screening was an important event. Which seems ironic in view of Michael Bryant</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s opinion (quoted in the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Radio Times</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, October 1970) that </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s relevant to every generation, but it</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s especially applicable to young people.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> David Turner, who adapted the novels for the screen, called the character of Mathieu </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">the Hamlet of our age - Hamlet with a social conscience</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The series is not simply a period piece; it addresses universal themes and had a profound, lifelong effect on the young people who saw it in the 1970s. What a shame that the young people of 2015 are not even aware the series exists, when the moral questions and personal dilemmas it illustrates are just as relevant today - possibly more so. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXFFp_A9IBQg4hysFccvpdCV9q1kavUL3d0ZvbZcLXzwTOxnNYa_R4_QTvUaf_wyezIlepDraNoBkniggPzWXA0JZULdBi7KNU1j3-ijgAiTSbV8jEyuajpnyAFuxj6ov-9oJxP7UsN8/s1600/512px-Sartre_and_de_Beauvoir_at_Balzac_Memorial.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXFFp_A9IBQg4hysFccvpdCV9q1kavUL3d0ZvbZcLXzwTOxnNYa_R4_QTvUaf_wyezIlepDraNoBkniggPzWXA0JZULdBi7KNU1j3-ijgAiTSbV8jEyuajpnyAFuxj6ov-9oJxP7UsN8/s1600/512px-Sartre_and_de_Beauvoir_at_Balzac_Memorial.jpg" width="411" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">(Photo:Wikimedia Commons) </span></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I would like to be able to show you photos of the rest of the cast in their Roads to Freedom roles, but none are available (why, I wonder?). So here</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">s a picture of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in front of the Balzac statue in Montparnasse, Paris, date unknown, but it looks like the late 1930s.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The wall of silence</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Since the BFI screening in 2012 . . . nothing. Silence from the BBC. Not a whisper of a plan to release the series on DVD, or to repeat it on TV. This is not for want of enthusiastic pressure from viewers: there’s a </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/forum/television/ref=cm_cd_notf_message?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxI304LK3PC5VN&cdPage=7&cdThread=TxACMQV1W8FZUB#MxI899VYMV34HM" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">discussion thread on Amazon</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, for example, that has been running since 2008 and is still the top thread in Amazon’s TV discussions, which must be some sort of record. <i>(Thread now deleted)</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The comments on the Amazon thread are passionate and eloquent - enough, you would think, to touch the most stony-hearted bureaucrat. One after another, people describe the huge impression the series made on them when they were teenagers, and person after person describes their frustration when letters and emails to the BBC are unanswered, or when they are repeatedly sent around in hopeless circles. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“I would be prepared to purchase this at any price,” a poster declares in 2010.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“I watched <i>Roads to Freedom</i> in my teens and have never forgotten it,” says another.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And here is a writer disagreeing that the series appealed only to the élite: </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My family is working class, but still me, mam and dad were glued to it. I was 13 and up to that point had never heard of Mr Sartre. Having watched this I read all his books and loved them.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 2010, Gareth H Richards offered to put up $10,000 to transfer the series to DVD. On 22 May, 2016, he confirmed that this amazing offer still stands. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 2012, James Cellan Jones, the director of <i>Roads to Freedom</i>, joined the Amazon discussion urging people to keep up the pressure on the BBC, which they did. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Similar comments to the ones I have quoted above can be found on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) reviews and comments for <i>The Roads to Freedom</i>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In November 2012, Peter Cox started a petition, which now has over 1,000 signatures. It is here: <a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bbc-s-roads-to-freedom-1970.html">http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bbc-s-roads-to-freedom-1970.html</a></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In October 2012, I wrote to seven people who, at that time, seemed influential at the BBC:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(Lord) Chris Patten, Chair of the BBC Trust</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> George Entwistle, Director General of the BBC</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Roly Keating, Director of Archive Content, BBC</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Nicolas Brown, Director Drama Productions, BBC</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Alan Yentob, Creative Director, BBC</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark, Newsnight, BBC.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I had one reply, from Chris Patten’s secretary, who (politely) told me that it was nothing to do with the Trust. The others? Not even an acknowledgement.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpoNHAx_z8oUk3mEcFhwUiiqXol9cR5Rx6-ltd0uau9sisxVDrXI0Gv818pw4C8q3Q0r4Q__xGBjHs-B3BqZhh8B0YHI661QJTU_j8NDqcpWQa2lWpbdOdZZBp4XRtW92MJqDHQqWjpRU/s1600/Georgia_Brown_Showtime_1968.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpoNHAx_z8oUk3mEcFhwUiiqXol9cR5Rx6-ltd0uau9sisxVDrXI0Gv818pw4C8q3Q0r4Q__xGBjHs-B3BqZhh8B0YHI661QJTU_j8NDqcpWQa2lWpbdOdZZBp4XRtW92MJqDHQqWjpRU/s400/Georgia_Brown_Showtime_1968.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The incredible Georgia Brown, who played the nightclub singer Lola Montero, though this photo does not show her in the role. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo: Wikimedia Commons</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Other people describe almost identical experiences, either of silence, or of being directed by the BFI to the BBC, who then fail to reply. One person was even told to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">have a look on Amazon</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">. It’s insulting really.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>So, BBC, what on earth is going on?</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We are left with two questions. First, why has the series not been made available to viewers, and second, why does the BBC refuse to engage in any discussion about it, or reply to viewers’ enquiries?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We know now that the series exists in its entirety. People have wondered if there might be contractual problems related to the original actors. But many drama series from the 1960s and 1970s are now available as box sets and so on, so why would this only affect <i>The Roads to Freedom?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Until the BBC breaks its deep <i>omerta</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">on the programme, we won’t have any idea. If we don’t know what the problem is, no solutions can be found. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Which brings me back to the second question. The BBC, which I normally defend, seems to be hiding a significant work of art from the British people. It’s as if the National Gallery decided that we weren’t allowed to look at the Turners, and refused to say why. </span></div>
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It’s the strange secrecy surrounding the fate of the series that is most baffling. Why was it impossible for people to get a straight answer from the BBC about whether the series still existed? Why was the rumour that the tapes had been wiped allowed to circulate unchallenged for decades?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As somebody wrote on the forums, “You’d think the BBC would be proud of it, wouldn’t you?”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
La Route est Dure, to be sure.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #03000e;"><i style="color: #545454; line-height: 27.412px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">© Josephine Gardiner 2015</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg7QhxKZ_DuU07zsGpQ0T35NI9suUQSVptT53tt8Iq6pfKcKFig663I1hElZXNXBjXJJTJPr9z0lfjTWPUizsp3o0_IVHWaQz9ToEoE0gZ1M7ZanRyGuh7Hybma8qCDQxpFQawFOPaT5w/s1600/danmassey.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg7QhxKZ_DuU07zsGpQ0T35NI9suUQSVptT53tt8Iq6pfKcKFig663I1hElZXNXBjXJJTJPr9z0lfjTWPUizsp3o0_IVHWaQz9ToEoE0gZ1M7ZanRyGuh7Hybma8qCDQxpFQawFOPaT5w/s400/danmassey.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Daniel Massey played Daniel Sereno, a man tormented by guilt about his sexuality. </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Channel Light Vessel</span></i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqhx0gs5lpA">Here is a great YouTube video of Georgia Brown (below) singing the theme</a> </span></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">(</span></span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Many thanks to 'morganafan' for putting the video on YouTube)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 22.6545448303223px;">© Channel Light Vessel</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>First post</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">m going to start this blog with an Irish poem I found a while ago somewhere in the recesses of the internet. It</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s anonymous, and if I remember rightly, it</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s a translation from the Gaelic. The poem</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">s artless purity certainly feels very old, a voice from a wild forested Ireland of centuries ago, though there is no date. The defiant, passionate hope in it, especially the last line, is timeless. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Heart of the Wood</i></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My hope and my love,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">we will go for a while into the wood, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">scattering the dew,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">where we will see the trout,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">we will see the blackbird on its nest;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">the deer and the buck calling,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Anon.</span></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This article is ©Copyright - all rights reserved - Channel Light Vessel http://emeraldlamp.blogspot.co.uk/. Please email me if you want to reproduce all or part of it with an acknowledgement of the source. DMCA protected. </div>Emerald Lamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16762568799029928719noreply@blogger.com0