Cornflower

Pleated

     I've been looking at Delphine Desveaux' mostly pictorial Fortuny to learn a bit about the creator of the fabulous Delphos dress. Spanish by birth but a Venetian by residence and inclination, he was one of those multi-talented people with an encyclopedic mind from which he drew inspiration from many sources for his work as an artist, set designer, photographer and furniture designer, only turning to couture at the age of forty.



    He invented and patented the silk-dyeing and pleating processes he used - "The pleating of the material was achieved by a process of evaporation: the wet and folded silk was laid on heated porcelain tubes, permanently fixing such tight pleats...so that the dresses looked carved, or pressed. The effect was that they elongated the women who wore them, just like Murano craftsmen draw out their molten glass." His clothes were so distinctive that they appear often in novels, such as L.P. Hartley's Eustace and Hilda.

   There is a Fortuny Museum in Venice (though it appears to be closed for renovation at present) and you can find out more about Fortuny on this website  - go to Gallery, then Fashion to see the clothes. I'd like the dark blue Delphos; how about you?

 

Burning question

     There was an item on the radio yesterday about the fate of Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novel The Original of Laura. Apologies if I'm mistaken, but as I understand it Nabokov left instructions in his will that the book (or such of it as there is) be burnt after his death. His widow couldn't bring herself to do that and instead stored it in a bank vault. His son now has control and has, apparently, swithered and dithered for years over whether to destroy the manuscript as his father intended or publish it as it stands. He has now decided to publish. Tom Stoppard was quoted yesterday as saying it ought to be burnt according to the author's wishes; John Banville abhorred the thought of anything less than a completely finished work being put out into the world when the writer was known to be meticulous.
     Apart from the matter of who will benefit financially if and when the book comes out, this raises interesting issues about how far and in what circumstances the terms of a will can be varied and what does a literary executor's role as guardian of a posthumous reputation require or permit or forbid them to do?
     What would we think if it were, for instance, an unfinished Jane Austen manuscript that had recently come to light with a "please destroy after my death" note attached? In the case in point, Nabokov scholars or biographers might wish to see the book while yet believing they ought not to. Would there be a different moral argument in favour of making something public if we were talking about, say, partially worked out theories by a great scientist which might, if preserved, lead to important, even life-saving discoveries? Tricky questions.

Later:

To answer Nan's comment, I think the will specified that any work unfinished at Nabokov's death be destroyed.

Rethinking

    It must be true that sometimes projects stall for a good reason, i.e. that there's a better use for the materials than that originally intended. I think I've found one for this lovely cherry yarn which was going to be a scarf until I changed my mind. Now with the flawed logic of those with diminishing resources, I'm knitting as fast as I can in the hope I'll have enough yardage to get to the end of the new 'thing'! Fingers crossed and more on it soon - if it works.

Gruntled

Two things to follow up from comments on yesterday's post.
Simon asked about the photograph - I claim no skill there as anyone can get that effect with Picasa (which is free). I have version 2 and I see there's a newer one which may differ slightly, but here's what to do: I took pictures of the books both individually and in a pile, then I arranged them by using the Picasa 'collage' function, specifically the 'picture pile' with 'background picture' option - you can play around with this to get the best order or combination. The patchwork of leaves in the previous post was another form of collage but this time 'picture grid'. Simple!

Nicola asks where Mr. C. suggests we start with P. G. Wodehouse - I've consulted the oracle this morning and here is his reply, verbatim:

"Where to start? It's like choosing between one's children! Here is the shortest list I can come up with:
The Inimitable Jeeves
The Code of the Woosters
Heavy Weather
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
Ukridge
Any of these will I trust give satisfaction, Sir."

   By the way, true Wodehouse afficionados may like to know that there is available an alarm clock which features the voice of Stephen Fry as Jeeves. His mellifluous, respectful tones gently waken our young master William every morning, and after a discreet cough or quiet suggestion that it may be time to greet the day, the switch off button elicits the response "Very good, Sir"!

What's new

 

  Time for a look at the new arrivals on the Cornflower bedside table (Mr. C. being deep in his millionth re-read of the entire P.G. Wodehouse canon - don't let that John Fuller commentary on W. H. Auden fool you as it's just for show, I reckon.....). Anyway, back to the semi-serious side of the bed, and here's what's on top of the pile:
    Gillian Slovo's novel Ice Road was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, now far from Russia she's looking at the question of belonging and fitting in in her new book Black Orchids. Beginning in 1946 Ceylon (as it then was) moving to post-war Britain bound in fog and prejudice and then back to the heat and vibrancy of 1970s Sri Lanka, this is the story of a mixed-race marriage and a family set apart by an unaccepting and narrow-minded community.
     Jhumpa Lahiri's short story collection Unaccustomed Earth takes it title from this quotation from Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots in unaccustomed earth." The stories explore the heart of family life and immigrant experience and "are infused with eloquent warmth and lyrical simplicity", and from the reviews I've read they promise much and do not disappoint.
     Lastly, a new novel by Alexander McCall Smith, published very fittingly on Remembrance Day. La's Orchestra Saves the World begins in Suffolk in 1939 when La, recovering from a the heartbreak of a failed marriage, forms an amateur orchestra. This is "an inspiring, gloriously atmospheric and deeply affecting novel which not only celebrates the nature of love and friendship but also explores the character of a nation at war and the extraordinary healing power of music." I can't wait!

 

Botanics - November

    Over at Books do furnish a room, Lindsay's latest "Quotidian" (see top right on his page) is Momijigari, and that's a coincidence because I was reading about the practice last night and decided then to go and find some leaves to illustrate the point this morning. My information on the subject comes from the excellent East Wind Melts the Ice which I've mentioned several times here already but which I turn to regularly for palate-cleansing refreshment when my reading diet is indigestibly heavy with novels.

In her seasonal essay titled "Leaves turn yellow and fall", Liza Dalby writes, "In Japanese, the word for maples, momiji, is written with two characters meaning "scarlet leaves". [In classical poetry] in the seventh century, the word referred to all plants that turned colour, not just maples, and the character meaning "yellow" rather than "scarlet" was used."



My pictures from the RBGE today are all maples, variously Acer griseum, A. davidii Ernest Wilson and A. palmatum Ozakazuki, the sun bringing out their reds and yellows.



For the ladies of the Heian court, maples had another aspect, as Liza Dalby explains: "Among all the numerous layered colour combinations of robes worn throughout the year, the most flamboyant were the momiji ensembles that came into season at the end of autumn. In these fashions a six-robe set was layered so that each robe showed a sliver of colour at throat and sleeve. For "Pink Maples" the top kimono was bright pink, layered over robes of gold, pale yellow, aquamarine, rose and pale pink. A set of colours named "Green Maples" arrayed layers of aquamarine, deep yellow, pale yellow, gold, pink and maroon.



 The most riotous of all was "Mixed Maples" in which each robe also had a lining of a different colour. The top aquamarine robe had a pink lining; then came a pale blue with a pink lining, worn over an amber robe with a pale yellow lining. Next was dark gold with a pale gold lining. Underneath everything was a pink robe with a pale yellow lining."
Gosh!

 

(There's a Quercus coccinea among the maples in the 'patchwork'  picture, by the way).

 

Less is Muir

    After last week's visit to the Jean Muir exhibition of course I had to get a book and Jean Muir: Beyond Fashion, by Miss Muir's former assistant Sinty Stemp, is it.
    Naturally there is much about the clothes, but also very interesting are the glimpses of this most private lady and her views on her craft and on the subject of design generally; for example, "Clothes are the way people make pictures of themselves - that others have to look at!" or "Life is for living and you might as well live it as attractively as possible!"


Then her tastes: "I love travelling, Elizabethan music, Persian carpets, Provence, Man Ray, Danny la Rue, Coral Browne, Mozart, Richard Strauss, Tommy Steele, Margot Fonteyn, Alec Douglas-Home, Lord Harlech, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Scots, Liverpool..."

    And the women who wear her clothes, attracted by their "cerebral and sensuous quality", are those with a keen sense of their own identity, such as the famous ladies below.


I once almost bought a Jean Muir dress. I put it back on the rack because I was pregnant at the time and although not in the advanced stages, still at some remove from my normal shape. I intended to return to London, post-baby, and buy it and as is the way of these things, I did not - which is to my great regret.

Whenas in silks

 

"Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
the liquefaction of her clothes.



Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!"


 
Silk shawl by Ratti, lyric "Upon Julia's Clothes" by Robert Herrick.

Gibbous moon

 

    Despite the teetering book piles, Lynne's post about Richard Burns' A Dance for the Moon compelled me to get a copy and read it straightaway and the impulse proved to be a sound one.
   I wrote last week about a very different book, John Waller's A Time to Dance, A Time to Die, and a passage in that which particularly caught my attention was then dramatised perfectly in Richard Burns' novel. Talking about shell-shock in the 1914-18 war, John Waller writes "...not everyone expressed the horror of attritional conflict in the same manner. Battlefront doctors were convinced that when nerves of officers and infantrymen snapped, they did so in very different ways....[a hysterical response] may just not have been an option for an officer class schooled in the absolute necessity for self-composure and emotional restraint."
   "A Dance for the Moon" tells the story of one young officer, the poet David Goodchild, sent to a sanatorium run by the progressive psychiatrist Dr. Penn. While David is at Winfell for the repair of his "broken mind", Dr.Penn and his wife Mary are keen to unravel the psychopathology of poetry, encouraging him to write and gently coaxing out memories and reflections in an attempt to heal. Meanwhile, ordinary soldier Jack Brough works nearby on the railway. His refuge from his war experience is a close relationship with the bottle: "Officers got shell-shock; privates got drunk", and his loathing of Winfell and all it stands for leads ultimately to dreadful consequences.
    It's a book about fragility, and not just the fragile minds of damaged men, but of life and love too. It contrasts modernity with the traditional and the comfortably understood, and it is underpinned by the enormous power of a failing or failure to break what appeared to be securely whole. The reader witnesses some truly painful scenes, all based on what really did happen to those who saw the worst of war, but it's a poet at work here and the pathos is brought out with marked sensitivity. At the risk of being pedantic and critical, I spotted an anachronism and a few pale purple passages, but I can accept those minor slips in what is otherwise a skilfully constructed, beautifully, economically written book, and a real find.
 Why is it out of print?

Cover stories

   

    Our Book Group discussion of The Mysteries of Glass raised the question of the cover design: some of us loved it, while it would have put as many off in other circumstances. My views on it are mixed: I like the colours and the wintery effect, but the skating picture doesn't quite represent the memorable scene at Burgage Manor, and the script used for the title is wrong for the period, I think. Had I seen it in a shop and known nothing about Sue Gee, I could well have passed over what for me was a very satisfying read.
    I felt similarly about Deborah Lawrenson's Songs of Blue and Gold which I raved about recently: for a book set largely on a Greek island and in which the sea plays such an important part and is described in all its moods so powerfully and evocatively, why such a bland and unrepresentative cover? Had I been idly browsing I doubt I'd have picked it up and so would have missed another star book.
    I know nothing about design and marketing, other than what appeals to me as a consumer, but there's something wrong surely when a book could miss what ought to be its target market by trying to appeal to a wider but less distinct readership.


    Persephone, with their identical plain grey covers, have avoided the design question - that is in terms of individual books, though their endapapers and bookmarks are always apt and attractive. They don't rely on the casual buyer just happening on their books, of course, and they don't aim at the mass market.
    Virago is another publisher which had a distinctive style, though more recent editions of their books have a very different look, and there was much debate about them a few months ago.
   I currently have some books from the library with perfectly plain hard covers, no design or illustration whatsoever - nothing to seduce or to repel - but then I knew what I wanted before I borrowed them so their look was of no importance to my choice. The same is not true of the bookshop customer, scanning a table full of potential purchases, waiting to see what catches the eye.
   Over at Nonsuch Book, Frances wrote about covers the other day and mentioned the differences between US and British editions - an interesting point.
    Do you judge a book by its cover, or are you impervious to the power of looks alone, and if so, what does influence your choice?

Later:

There's a very interesting interview with Deborah Lawrenson in which she touches on the marketing issues connected with her books over at Tales from the Reading Room. 

Remembrance : stone

     The 1931 book Hood's Pictorial Edinburgh. Camera studies of a great and historic city includes an extensive section on the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle (more here), but Hood's pictures are as nothing compared to the story he tells of his visit there:
"One enters with the reverent crowd, curious at first....but as one slowly passes the long, beautiful aisle of memorials...one is subdued by an anguished emotion not easy to define.
Later, and when almost alone, I was privileged to see an old Scotswoman asking the keeper to show her the record [in the books of remembrance] of her son; then she moved across to see the book containing the names of two other sons; then, after some little difficulty, son after son, until I learnt from the keper that he was able to disclose to [the lady] the recorded names of the whole of her seven sons whom the war had claimed."

Remembrance : music

   For an example of the music of war I've chosen a favourite piece of mine: the intense and very beautiful "Metamorphosen" by Richard Strauss. Written in 1945 and inspired partially by the bombing of Dresden, it is described in The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century as "dusky and doleful" with a mood of "wounded desperation" and "contrapuntal lines intertwining like kudzu on a ruined mansion". You can listen to the first part of it here, and follow the links there to the second and third parts.

Remembrance : words and pictures

    To mark the day, in poetry and in paint, here is Wilfred Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth,
and Art of the First World War, from which I've chosen "Over the Top" by John Nash



and a field hospital scene by Stanley Spencer.

Remembrance

For a moment's reflection.

Savoury

    

     Just out of the oven, a batch of savoury biscuits. The recipe comes from my parents' friend Robbie who served them with drinks at a lunch party last week. They are very good, crisp and moreish, and if I've mastered the 'extended entry' feature, you should find all the details below.