Leonora - a Novel by Elena Poniatowska (review)

This novel, expertly translated by Amanda Hopkinson, seems to me to capture the essence of this fascinating and sometimes troubled artist in a way that no straight biography ever could. Leonora Carrington was a true surrealist, though she rejected their political and sexist ideology; Surrealism was fundamentally about plumbing the depths of the human psyche and her depths were greater than most. So were her heights; she was the anarchic, ambidextrous child, the White Mare, the rebellious hyena and the Giantess.

Leonora’s imagery is extraordinary in its density, its obscurity and Elena Poniatowska, who knew the artist well in the last decades of her life, comes close to explaining Leonora’s meanings by divining the origins of her thinking. The author’s writing is densely descriptive, like the artist’s painting. It takes the reader on a journey beginning just below the surface of family life in Crookhey Hall, Leonora’s childhood home, where the infant Leonora is convinced she is a horse and ends with Leonora communing with dolphins in Mexico. That necessity for a journey is the novelist’s prerogative, there are no pictorial illustrations but why should there be when the writing is so vivid?

I have studied Leonora Carrington over a number of years and seen as many of her paintings as is possible in Europe; my knowledge of the subject has not been challenged by this novelization of her life. I picked up a single minor inaccuracy in the title of a painting, which faced with the sweep of the story is insignificant. I won’t read a straight biography of Leonora Carrington again, the basic facts are already known and for the rest, this remarkable, imaginative account by Elena Poniatowska will do for me.

Blanket - writing exercise

Blanket

Pink, quilted, brushed nylon with thin polyester wadding inside – brushed nylon was all the rage, my grandmother bought brushed nylon sheets to use instead of flannelette.

This blanket is double size, although it was bought for my brother when he had asthma and couldn't tolerate the feathers in the eiderdown. The blanket had to be folded to fit a child’s bed. As my brother is now forty-seven, this blanket which nestles in the bottom of my airing cupboard has been around for a while.

 

My brother developed asthma when he was seven. He got lost, after leaving the swimming baths in Chichester. Mother couldn't find him, she arrived home in a complete panic. She’d been to the police, they’d asked her for a description of the missing child. That was easy.

What I can’t remember is why I hadn’t gone swimming that day. I’m certain I wouldn’t have let him get lost. I was used to having to keep an eye on him. I was his big sister, he was the baby. The small, delicate baby, with a heavy, dark birthmark. On his face. By the time he was seven he had had three operations, to remove the mark.

I’m sure they’d do it better today but plastic surgery was a bit more hit and miss then. They left him with scars, shining skin grafts on his forehead, cheek and eyelid. And a strange black tuft of an eyebrow.  I was used to it, we all were, this boy was just our little brother, he was okay. We didn’t even notice, but other people did, they stared in the street. Pointed. Whispered behind their hands.

So there he is, this small, timid boy, lost in a big town. Where’s Mum? Gone, without him. He’s cold, his hair is wet. All the strangers around, they won’t talk to him. Won’t ask him what’s wrong, why he’s crying, scared. Because he looks funny. And they’re English, it’s not done to notice people who look funny. No wonder he has a panic attack. Wheezing, fainting. The police are called when the funny looking child collapses. Nobody tries to help the child. They might catch something. Compassion, perhaps.

 

*

 

The blanket is almost an international symbol of compassion.

This is a writing exercise based on a particular household object.

 

 

 

Why That Title?

What makes writers decide on a particular title?  What makes a big movie producer choose a particular title? In the latter case, it has as much to do with what won’t interfere with the visualisation of the movie poster. Unless the film is based on a well-known story, the title is seldom chosen by the script-writer.
 

This isn’t intended to be an academic discussion on the titles of the classics, it’s just my thoughts on what makes a good title. I’m interested in what makes writers choose their titles, but I wonder if some writers think about the important role the title serves. A title is the first thing the potential reader will see. If it doesn’t grab their attention, they will look at the next title in the bookshop, library, Goodreads, etc.. A freelance writer has a bit more freedom to use their imagination than a scriptwriting hack does.

Using the first line of a poem for the poem's title is fine, if that first line is good enough! If the first line isn’t good enough to be the title, it probably isn’t good enough to be the first line. Poems, unless they are epic length, need to be tightly wrought and a sloppy first line is the worst possible start – unless there’s a sloppy title too. It’s much the same with short stores, unless the writer has a very specific reason for a meandering title, they need a snappy one to draw the reader’s eye.

Finding the title for a novel or a full length play/film script is the hardest, some work brilliantly, others are more to do with era or current fashions. 'Persuasion' was fine for Jane Austen to use, it suited the slow, persuasive style of the writing and it hadn't been used before, but today it would just look lame on a book-jacket by anyone who isn't Jane Austen. I've heard that using the word 'love' in a title immediately reduces a book or film's chance of attracting a male audience, or conversely of increasing the female audience - I'd like to think this is untrue and just an idea based on outdated stereotyping. The novel 'Enduring Love' is a very un-typical book, by Ian McEwan, which is about a stalker and not what the stereotype would indicate.

To attract me as a reader, a title has to conjure an image in my mind, or it has to relate to the significant words and names in the story/poem. Hopefully the title has a ring to it as well – this ring is a difficult thing to define, I know it when I see it, the words sound in my head and I want to speak them aloud. My Cretan poem title, ‘Take the Road to Omalos,’ has that ring, looking at titles on many writing websites, some definitely don’t ring.  I’m not going to diss other people’s titles, I’ll stick to my own; my bit of Yorkshire Surrealism  called ‘Pie in the Sky,’ doesn’t ring, it’s just a cliché and clichés are unoriginal and usually worth avoiding, unless they perform a specific function or are used ironically. And every cliché you can think of has already been used as a title, often far too many times!

Personally I don’t like titles which generalise, to me they seem a cop-out and one word titles in particular are too often just generalisations. They seldom work unless they’re names; even then they probably aren’t original unless they are ‘Ozymandias’ and written by P.B.Shelley! Maybe that’s what I’m trying to get at, I have this idea that titles should be original. Probably impossible I know - as language has been written down since the Sumerians, most combinations of words have already been used somewhere along the line.

As I said, this is just my opinion.  Are there any actual rules? What do other people think?

Unsuitable Authors beginning with P - Terry Pratchett's 'Witches Abroad'.

The witches, Esme Weatherwax, Gytha Ogg and Magrat Garlik, were the first Discworld triple act created by Terry Pratchett. Witches have to come in threes. They are powerful women who know that actual magic should be used sparingly and mostly they don't need it. Granny Weatherwax can control most situations with a look, Nanny Ogg controls with tea and blackmail and Ms Garlik does her best with herbs or crystals or whatever is the latest craze.

In 'Witches Abroad' they have to leave their comfortable(ish) homes in rural Lancre and travel abroad to sort out a fellow witch who has an urge to bring order to the city of Genua by imposing the predictability of fairy-tales on the unsuspecting populace - Emberella has to marry the prince, even though he's a spoilt, snivelling runt. Abroad is not a place that Granny Weatherwax approves of, but "Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is." So they have to get close to see the detail, not just the mass, and find out what's actually going on.

The witches are amongst my favourite of Pratchett's creations. He enthusiastically wrote any number of great female characters into the Discworld, they were merely the first. He takes stereotypes, defys and builds on them to create full-blooded, comic characters. Needless to say the book is very funny and the dialogue between the witches is the basis of much of the humour.

My copy of this book is the Corgi edition of 1992, which was when I first read it, and has the original Josh Kirby cover. The later editions look very dull by comparison.
"https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/21777224-sue">View

Unsuitable Authors beginning with E; Ben Elton - 'High Society'

Ben Elton does write well, although his novels can seem similar to his stand up performances in that he is an excellent ranter in both contexts. And my spellchecker doesn't like the word 'ranter' - good! Spellcheckers need to be dully conventional, staid even. Novelists mustn't be staid and that's certainly not a term applicable to Ben Elton.

High Society was published in 2002
This is Ben Elton's novel about the illegal drugs trade and how to defeat it. The story is hardly staid, it has some graphic detail, some very graphic language and some excellent rants, once you get used to the idea that this is how the book is written.

High Society charts the course of a backbench MP who wants to take on and destroy the illegal drugs traders by making all drugs legal. It illustrates the problems created by drugs with the stories of two addicts, contrasting the lives of a successful pop star and a young runaway. Needless to say, nearly everything which can go wrong for every single character does go wrong and the author's central stand of the novel, the drugs bill, fails disastrously, but there is an almost happy ending, for a couple of people.

Ben Elton has been sneered at lately, as a former alternative comedian who has sold out, but High Society shows that, in 2002 at least, his ideas were as radical as ever.

In case you're wondering why he is 'Unsuitable,' my benchmark is what my grandmother would have considered unsuitable. It's not my judgement.

Would you buy this house?

House for Sale in the lovely Grimescar Valley, only 10 minutes from Huddersfield town centre and 6 minutes from the M62, junction 25 - hence twenty minutes to Bradford, forty-five into Leeds, an hour to Manchester. Also 12 minutes from Brighouse, where you can catch a direct train to London. So, the location is very convenient, which is why we came to live here. It's also only 4 minutes from the most wonderful bluebell woods.

The practicalities - four bedroom family home with a garage, on a corner plot, in a quiet cul-de-sac, built around 1980 by a Mr Barrett.  Full central heading, Bosch boiler 6 years old, regularly serviced. Cavity wall insulation and full depth loft insulation, some windows double glazed.

At the front of the house is a triangular lawn and a shared drive with parking for up to 4 cars on our side. The garage is attached to the neighbours' - this is what estate agents call 'link-detached.' No more estate agent speak, I promise. Through our red front door the small, white-painted entrance hall has a full height mirror and  hanging for coats and hats, staircase going up and doors into sitting room and dining room.

The sitting room runs right through, with good-sized windows at either end. The room has a light hessian colour carpet, white walls, soft brown curtains, wooden Venetian blinds to box window at the front and fabric blind to double glazed, hardwood rear window. There is a shallow flue suitable for a feature gas fire.

The dining room has a pine floor, walls painted in Tuscan hues, with Venetian blinds and ochre curtains at the window and double doors which fold back leading into the kitchen. Under-stairs storage.

Kitchen has a full range of beech units with doors, many drawers and work-surfaces all in beech, higher cupboards have glass/beech doors. Stainless 1 1/2 bowl sink, 5 burner gas hob, built in electric oven, tall family-size fridge freezer, Moon washing machine, plumbing & space for a full size dishwasher.

From the hall, stripped, varnished wooden stairs lead up to the landing with loft hatch (the loft is partly boarded and houses the TV arial) and doors into bedrooms and the family bathroom, which has a white bath, basin & WC with a new electric shower over the bath, a large mirrored cabinet, shaver light and a blind to the obscured glass window.

There are two large double bedrooms (one with airing cupboard), one small double-bed room and one single which is still big enough for bunk beds or a cabin bed. All rooms have curtains or blinds and plain, neutral décor and all except the smaller double have stripped floorboards - ideal for asthma sufferers.

Back on the ground floor, the rear lobby leads to the downstairs WC and to the back door. Behind the house, accessed from the back door and a side gate, is our mature and quite secluded garden with a lawn, a rustic patio, hedges and fruit trees. There's a water butt, outside tap, rear door into the garage and space for a shed or a greenhouse. There's room for kids to rush around or breed guinea pigs (or both!) and the side wall is an excellent site for a basketball hoop.

Our garden backs onto woodland, fields and streams and is only 50 yards from the Kirklees way, great for walkers and dog owners. Also great for bird lovers, more than 40 species have been spotted in or from the garden and regular garden visitors include nuthatch, goldfinch and redpoll.

Unsuitable Authors - where to start?

First I have to say that I don't regard any authors as 'unsuitable'. The word was applied, by certain adults, to some authors and types of reading matter when I was a teenager. I was addicted to reading and could get through four or five novels a week, on top of my school reading. I took delight in reading anything, especially books not aimed at teenage girls. I also took delight in reading books that I knew would horrify a certain family member. I read everything, but especially science fiction - I began with father's copy of John Wyndham's 'Day of the Triffids' and was hooked. The local library in Cheriton ran out of sci-fi, I read their resources dry! I had to get a bus to Folkestone library for my weekly fix of robots, dystopias and space opera. 

My parents were not the problem, they both read liberally, newspapers, magazines and books of all kinds were left around the house, neither of them ever told me I shouldn't read a particular book. When I was nine I picked up a book called 'Naked Under Capricorn' (by Olaf Ruhen) which was left lying around. Obviously, I was pruriently attracted by the word 'naked,' and by the nude on the cover, but the book seemed to be just about about a man wandering in the Australian desert and I soon got bored.


Instead I began reading Gerald Durrell's books, beginning with 'The Bafut Beagles,' about his explorations and 'encounters with animals', which included some mildly blue humour and innuendo, much  drunkenness and teaching monkeys to smoke. Apart from the hilarity of the drunken scene where the Fon of Bafut and his many wives danced the conga with Durrell, most of the 'unsuitable' content went right over my head. I just loved the animals, Durrell's wonderful sense of humour and his stories of finding and caring for his creatures. However these were not quite the first 'unsuitable', non-children's books I read.

The very first was probably my father's medical dictionary - author/editor lost in the mists of time - which I first dipped into when I was about seven and understood little of, but I was fascinated by the illustrations. In the centre of the book were outline figures of a man and a woman overlaid with transparent pages which you could slowly turn to reveal bones, blood vessels, muscles, internal organs and on the outside their very pink and hairless (apart from on their heads) skin. Despite this adult nudity the book wasn't hidden away from us under-ten's.

But when my mother's mother came to stay, things were different. Books were tidied away, papers and magazines containing anything which she disliked were put into the dustbin as soon as she could get away with it, under the guise of 'tidying up.' Reading was a battle when she was around. I shouldn't read in the evenings, it would ruin my eyes. I shouldn't read at the table, it was rude. I shouldn't read in the daytime, I should be outside getting fresh air. I shouldn't read in bed, I should go to sleep.

My grandmother was from earlier times when young people were told how not to speak, what not to wear, what not to read and probably who not to marry. Everything was proscribed. She would probably have forbidden me from reading any of the books and authors I've mentioned, if she was in charge. I didn't understand her because I remember she helped me to learn to read when I was a lot younger. But when I was fifteen she invaded my bedroom while I was at school, went through my wardrobe and binned all my NME's, rock and fan  magazines and posters. I had bought them all with my own money and I was more than angry, I felt violated.

I have detested censorship ever since, there are no unsuitable authors! This blog listing is to illustrate how much tastes, social mores and literary sensibilities have changed, and are still changing, since my grandmother grew up in the Edwardian era.