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Wivenhoe Bookshop
 Newsletter Winter 2004
Contents:
Excitement in store for the Bookshop Reading Group
NEW YEAR, NEW FACES
Over-the-sofa gallery news
My hospital reading list…
David Williams’ pick of our £4.99 Naxos Classical cds
Staying Alive–real poems for unreal times - a review by Martin Newell
LEILA BERG RECOMMENDS...
Having read the extraordinary Icelandic novel Independent People by
Haldor Laxness for our January meeting, we are changing tack for
February’s meeting by reading a proper ‘whodunnit’. The novel is
The Water Clock by Jim Kelly, set in Ely where the author lives. When we
discuss this book at the Bakehouse restaurant on 20 February, the author
has agreed to come and join us and face the music! Penguin have recently
offered him a three-book deal and Granada have shown an interest in
televising The Water Clock so I think we are in for a treat. Then, in
March, we are taking advantage of the Essex Book Festival (details of
which are in the shop or at the library) and reading the novel Only in
London by Hanan Al-Shaykh who will be giving a talk at the Wivenhoe
Library on 17 March at 7.30. When we have our meeting on 26 March we
will be able to discuss the book with all the advantages of having met
the author. Any one who wishes to join the group should contact us in
the shop. The cost is £10 for a (delicious) meal and a drink at The
Bakehouse and you have £1 off the cost of the book.
NEW YEAR, NEW FACES We are very sorry to have to say goodbye to Elaine who has worked here at the Bookshop since she started her MA in September 2002. She has transformed the place and her enthusiasm and commitment to the shop (not to mention her fantastic window displays) are going to be sorely missed. Elaine is going to start her fabulous career in the world of journalism and we wish her lots of luck. To replace her we are very excited to be welcoming one of our Over-the-Sofa artists, Helen Lee, who will be a great asset to the shop. And we are also happy to welcome Chris Pugh, an MA student at Essex who is going to work in the shop on Saturdays. The rest of us, who have worked here for a total of FIFTY ODD years, will enjoy having some new brooms, though I can see a few old dog problems looming!!
Over-the-sofa gallery news
Our Christmas exhibition of small artworks from all the artists who have exhibited in our gallery since it began was really successful. It was an interesting showcase for local artists, and many were sold to bookshop customers who were looking for Christmas presents or who were keen to have a piece of work by an artist they admire at a price they could afford.
January: we have
Liz Pollard who has lived in Wivenhoe since 1986 and who works mostly in
traditional print media. She creates work using a wide range of
printmaking techniques, from simple monoprinting and relief prints to
multi-plate etchings, using photographic references, sketches and
drawing to develop her ideas. Influences range from 17th Century Dutch
genre-painting, Chardin still lifes, Japanese wood-block prints, the
Ealing Studio films, to contemporary video and performance artists. Liz
has a forthcoming solo show at Colchester Central Library (5th-30th
March) which will explore her personal response to oriental art and
culture.
February: our
artist will be Jereme Crow from Brightlingsea. Jereme studied fine art
at the Cumbria School of Art and Design and he specialises in painting
and sculpture. He was commissioned to create an altar painting for the
multi-faith chapel at the University. His work is similar to abstract
expressionism and the artist uses his art to attain transendental
spiritual enlightenment.The work he is exhibiting in the gallery is
entitled “Maha-mantra IV”. Chanting the maha-mantra, says Jereme,
entails singing the transendental names of the Lord, which after a
time cleanses the soul of impurities.
In March we are especially
pleased to welcome Dale Devereux Barker to the gallery. He will be
holding an exhibition entitled “Artist’s Books and
Miniatures” from 1-31st. On Saturday 6th March he will be in the
bookshop from 2pm to talk about his work. Dale has represented Britain
in numerous Print Biennales throughout the world, and his commissions
include enamel and ceramic panels. He is represented in many public
and private collections including the Tate Gallery and the Victoria
and Albert
My hospital reading list…
There are a few books that I would actually really like
to read, but cannot be bothered: Claire Tomalin’s life of Pepys,
Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a
biography of Dostoevsky, etc. They are either too long or too dry.
So I decided to make a hospital reading list – books to read if I was laid-up in hospital with both legs broken. In preparation I collected the following: a Wordsworth Classic The Seven Pillars of Wisdom for £2.99, (bargain!) and a nice new shortish biography of Dostoevsky by Prof. Richard Freeborn, which has been devoured already. Having gone this far with my list I thought – why not go for the Mandela and Pepys too? Not usually inspired by biographical writing, I’m finding the genre not as grim as expected. I’m already a quarter of the way through Nelson’s yarn and finding it very interesting. For someone (me) with very little knowledge of South Africa this is a great personal introduction to its history and culture. So now I won’t have to break my legs in order to read Tomalin’s biography of Pepys. Phew. Anyway, so long folks. (by Elaine Maslin) David Williams’ pick of our £4.99 Naxos Classical cds
Christmas always leaves me feeling in need of a spiritual detox, so once
again to the Naxos catalogue for some new, affordable (important in
January) listening. In this column I have chosen music both old
and new, that for me chases away the January blues. My first
choice is the latest release, Vol 3 ( 8.555991), in the ongoing series
of the Organ music of Dietrich Buxtehude played by Wolfgang Rubsam.
J S Bach held Buxtehude's music and his skill as an organist in the very
highest esteem and on this showing you can hear why. Fabulous
music very well recorded and played.
My next choice is James Macmillan's percussion concerto, Veni, Veni Emanuel (8.554167). This is great music, and the recording does it full justice; so much so that you may wish to turn the volume down, the opening is very loud indeed! Why isn't there more music for percussion of this quality on CD? Sparkling music from Spain next and a disc featuring less well known music. The gem, and headline, of this collection (8.557207) is a Symphony by Juan Arriaga, who died aged only 20, in 1826. This is a lively, shimmering piece full of light, colour and warmth. I have listened to it several times now and continue to find more in it each time. The rest of the music on this disc is also well worth a listen, but the Arriaga is the real thing. Finally my favourite release in this batch of discs, is in the Japanese Classics series, a programme of short chamber pieces by Torru Takemitsu (8.555859), whose death a few years ago robbed us of one of the finest composers of the last century. This evocative, seductive music is so beautiful it demands hearing again and again. The performances are in the top flight and the recording quality is stunning. Not surprising it’s on the Radio 3 play list as I write. If you like the films of Andre Tarkovsky I think you will like this music which has something of the reflective beauty of his images. Ravishing. Staying Alive–real poems for unreal times -
a review by Martin Newell
Like a policeman at the door, when poetry turns up, it usually presages grief of some sort. Poetry, especially modern poetry has a disastrous reputation: Wilfully obscurantist, incomprehensible, non-rhyming and often wrist-slashingly wretched.As a consequence, poetry remains the Cinderella of the arts. Bloodaxe Books for good or ill –mostly for good–have been championing the muse for some 25 years now and have brought out this weighty slab of over 500 poems by roughly as many poets. Throw enough mud at a wall and some of it’s gonna stick. Some of this kit is good –really good: Robert Frost, Simon Armitage, Edward Thomas, Bertold Brecht, Charles Causley. Much of the poetry is worthy. A swathe of it, in my opinion is awful. What for instance, is Geoffrey Hill for? Why do so many bad non-poets admire the even-worse Rilke? Why do tortured academics waste time translating eastern European poets, when all we find at the end of it is that we in the West don’t have the monopoly on self-indulgent misery?
If, as the cover-blurb proclaims, these poems are
"life-affirming" why the hell is there hardly anything
funny, smutty or rhyming in the whole thing? No wonder the general
public hear the word "poetry" and immediately stampede like
panicked wildebeest back to Betjeman, Kipling or Milligan. And yet,
Staying Alive is quite an achievement. It’s a very broad selection.
This anthololgy would be good value at twice the price. It may be as
bad as modern poetry gets, it’s also as good as it gets and we
shouldn’t let the over-reverential gravitas of its keepers put us
off dipping our toe in its holy waters. If there are ten poems in here
which you like – and there probably will be, then this book is worth
the cover price. If nothing else, it’ll tell you what to avoid.
Commendable.
LEILA BERG RECOMMENDS...
The Natural Death Handbook is brilliant. You don’t
expect a non-fiction reference-book to be inspiring, but the Natural
Death
Handbook is just that. Not only is it large, comprehensive, and enterprising enough to keep any reader browsing for months, maybe for years, but it is spiritual and practical, loving and tough, sad and joyous. Its range includes an annual Day of the Dead when we can remember and celebrate lovers and friends, a detailed list with descriptions of beautiful natural burial grounds, funerals of motor-bike friends, horse-drawn hearses, the law on scattering ashes on land or water, how to make your own cardboard coffin, how different people will deal with their grief, and much much more. But above all it is a book to help us to find again our own personality, our own courage, and our own humanity, to restore to us the understanding that we are all beyond our single selves, and beyond dictatorship, and are part of the universe. As far from a discussion about whether or not to join to European Community as you can get. No more a cult book. It is available in the Bookshop. In one weekend I read two extremely extraordinary books. What was remarkable about the first was its reliable unexpectedness. Everything about it was unexpected. Its content, each word as it followed the last, its heroine, its landscape, its last seven words, its very author. How could a white, male, academic professor, who, at the request of the government of Botswana is shaping and opening their first school of law, have written this slyly feminine and utterly enchanting book! I read it right to the end, walked straight out of the house and back into the Bookshop, and bought the next in the series. I read that, and back to the shop for the next. I became so happy. I loved humanity, in all its variety. I have lent this book, or sent it, to many people, and what is so typically unexpected is that they are all completely different, from me and from each other, it makes them similarly happy. “The world is a good place,” they evidently are now saying.
“It may not be a utopia yet, but with my faith and my
will I will make it one.” Considering the political mess we
are now trying to extricate ourselves from, this is surely unexpected.
It is The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall
Smith. The second extraordinary book was the saddest I have read in a long time. I read it right to the end, turned back to the beginning again, read it to the end, back to the beginning again… I am not given to such pronouncements but this may be the most beautiful book I have ever read, or indeed that has ever been written. After a few years of intense unhappiness and intense joy – for this is a memoir – the author dedicated his life to putting old people with very little education, many of tham already dying, hand in hand with William Shakespeare. These two women have both been friends for seventy years: At the moment I walked in, Dora was making a point by shoving a finger at Rosemary’s chest. “He’s a bum! No two ways about it. He’s a drunk and a bum and I don’t care how handsome he is. I wouldn’t stay with him for five minutes!” “She’s no saint!” Rosemary snapped. “Just look how she plays with him. He’s married! She should leave him alone!” One of the men looked over at me. “Listen to the two of them. They sound like they’ll kill each other. Must be fighting over some geriatric maniac in the bridge club.” “He’s a bum!” “She’s the bum!” “He is!” “She is!” “Shut up!” “You shut up!” “Ladies! What’s going on?” “What else? We’ve been at this all week… Anthony and Cleopatra.” Some of them follow the Shakespeare man from place to place, Senior Centre to Senior Centre. Joe, who is dying (he looks dreadful, smells sour, and hasn’t shaved or changed clothes for a while) walks from his own centre to another one to bring the Shakespeare man a last present, an old book. Joe bends down and kisses him: Nobody got impatient, they know there’s a contract. It’s mostly unspoken, but its in blood and the kisses are part of it Everyone loves the kisses. I love the kisses. This one is Hamlet’s Dresser by Bob Smith. These two books have nothing in common except love of humanity and the odd coincidence that both extraordinary authors should have the exceptionally ordinary name of Smith. The fourth book that gave me faith this autumn is an anthology of poems, so good and unusual it makes any other book of poems unnecessary for a long time. It is Poems for Refugees. It was assembled by Pippa Hayward, the actress, who, deeply moved and angered by the Afghan war, decided to get together a collection of poems that could be sold to raise money for the organisation War Child, and so got in touch with a hundred well-known people in the arts, and asked them for their personal choices. What a wonderful vibrant way to assemble an anthology! There are so many poems here that I know well, that already echo in my head, and so many completely new to me that are already joining them in this anthology that leaps and flames in the wind, never still. How poems echo and enrich one’s own private secret experience in a way solid prose can rarely do! And here is the Auden poem again. “September 1, 1939.” Yes, I remember it well. I quoted it, all nine stanzas of it, at the beginning of my book Risinghill, when Mike Duane and I spent two whole, abominable, gruelling years touring around lawyers in London to get a legal backing to cover the book Penguin were poised to publish. At last we got the backing, and were just going into print, when Auden banned the poem. Unusual for a writer to ban his own work. There was no appeal. It so happens that one does not need any kind of permission to quote just a few words from a work. Naomi Mitchison said to me, “Quote ‘we must love one another, or die.’” Auden countered immediately by altering this to “We must love one another, and die.” So I settled for “All I have is a voice…” which has been at the beginning of the book since it was published in 1968. What powers does an author’s Estate have to alter matters? The compiler of this fine anthology didn’t know how lucky she was to compile it after Auden’s death. And who would have known we would need that strong poem again so soon? Hamlet’s Dresser by Bob Smith £6.99 The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith £6.99 The Natural Death Handbook 4th Edn. £12.99 Poems for Refugees Edited by Pippa Haywood £6.99
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