Granny Made Me An Anarchist by Stuart Christie - book review

 

  Granny Made Me An Anarchist

Sue's review

Dec 02, 2022  ·  edit

liked it

bookshelves: biog-memoir, non-fiction

Interesting and sometimes disturbing memoir of ideas, activism, establishment plots, political imprisonment and other events in the life of a young Glaswegian anarchist in the 1960's and 70's.
Those were times when so many young people really wanted things to change and didn't want to wait. I do know, I was there for some of it. Things certainly have changed, but not necessarily in all the ways which we hoped for.
Plenty of relevant detail in this well-researched, heartfelt and thoughtful book which anyone seriously interested in UK politics and activism in those times should read. This history isn't covered in conventional reports.

And the title is great!

Moab is my Washpot - autobiography by Stephen Fry - review

 

Sue's Reviews > Moab Is My Washpot

bookshelves: might-read-again, non-fiction, funny, biog-memoir

Four Stars - I don't know why only three of them appear below.

Stephen Fry is funny and rude, clever and incredibly knowledgeable. I know who he is, of course I do. He’s entertained me on the telly for three decades, but did I want to read his autobiography? Not especially, I don’t read that many biographies except of the artists I’m researching.

Stephen Fry is funny and rude, clever and incredibly knowledgeable. I know who he is, of course I do. He’s entertained me on the telly for three decades, but did I want to read his autobiography? Not especially, I don’t really read biographies except of the artists I’m researching.

However when I saw this salmon pink paperback on a bookseller’s shelf, I bought it for the cover. I might well have bought it even if I was quite unfamiliar with Stephen Fry and despite the obscure title. Who is Moab, why does he/she/they matter? And what in heaven or hell is a Washpot? Yes I guessed the reference was from the Old Testament, but I had no intention of re-reading that tome to find out.

My main reason for the purchase was because the cover was largely filled with the monstrous, wise, preposterously ugly but somehow charming visage of a bull elephant seal, with a proportionately tiny blackbird staring up his bulbous nose. An elephant seal, Lain name Mirounga angustirostris - there's my one bit of erudition. As a child I had seen one in Berlin Zoo, as far as I know Stephen never visited Berlin in his childhood. So why an elephant seal? Just why?

The autobiography encompasses the first 20 years of Fry’s life and no elephant seals are involved. It’s an intense, highly personal, self-deprecating book. He writes an eruditely meandering – or maybe I mean meanderingly erudite – and excruciatingly honest story.

He presents us with his family, who he basically loves but, especially as a teenager, refuses to get on with and who love him but find him often hard to comprehend. We see him in middle-class boarding schools, and how he coped with school life, not always well or honestly but mostly he coped, by using his wits to dodge the system and outwit authority. And we see his love life as his sexuality begins to emerge.

I did enjoy Stephen's book, it’s poignant, scathing, funny and engrossing, occasionally self indulgent bit I forgive him. I skimmed here and there, mostly through the meanderingly erudite sections. I don’t have the advantage of his classical education, if it is an advantage. The Washpot is mentioned in the afterword, as a metaphorical container for the author’s dirty linen, and I believe Moab was a sinner. But the vast elephant seal, I still have no idea because it looks nothing like him!

Will I read it again? I might , but probably only after I’ve read what comes in the next volume.

Garden Trees - the Fairweather Gardener

I have always planted trees in every garden I've had since student days, now in garden number four The first was a long, narrow, town garden, with an old wall all around the perimeter. We took down three laburnums and planted two plum trees so that was a net loss of trees, though I wasn't thinking in those terms at the time.. However the best thing in that garden was a massive, mature apple tree.  No idea what the variety was but it produced large red and green apples which were superb eaters or cookers.  

The second Garden wasn't so large and when we purchased it, the triangular back garden was unpromising, it consisted of a soggy, sloping lawn with concrete, North facing patio and the only trees were three whitebeam behind the sparse beech hedge, a couple of wild cherry and a lot of leylandii. 

When we sold after twenty-two years there were fewer leylandii, though we kept a hedge of them for the sparrows. But we'd planted lilac, two apples, a pear, hazel, stella cherry, morello cherry, damson, horse chestnut, two Norway spruce (ex-Christmas trees), two holly and no doubt some I've forgotten. Picture shows fruit trees in full blossom in April. 

Hawthorn had begun to occupy spaces in the beech hedge and more wild cherry had taken up residence behind the hedge. And out the back, the landowner had planted more native trees which we enjoyed watching grow into woodland as we lived there.  Our trees helped transform that garden from a slightly boggy area to a woodland edge garden which is what sold it! The purchaser wanted her kids to live with trees. 

In the next garden we took out a four-tree leylandii hedge which was too close to the building plus we needed to make a parking area. Then we took down a big ash tree and a laburnum which were in danger of pushing over the 8 foot high, stone retaining wall. We planted fruit trees, three apples - Cox's Orange Pippin, Braeburn and Egremont russet - also a Victoria plum, greengage, conference pear, stella cherry and apricot.

Where we are now, the back garden is just too small for so many trees. It already has an apple tree which is a very early producer and I think is a Worcester Pearmain. We've already finished harvesting the fruit - began end of July which is early even for Worcesters.  They don't keep well so the freezer is full of stewed apple. There's a rowan tree which began to also produce fruit in July, the weather was so hot and dry.  

We might plant a pear tree against the wall next to the rowan but need to improve the ground, there's a lot of rubble. And with deliberate optimism we've planted an olive tree, which is growing happily. Given the rate of climate change, we hope to harvest edible olives before the decade is out! 

The St Leonards' Writers

St Leonards-on-Sea -  Beach Huts 

My local writers' group, The St Leonards' Writers, of which I am currently the chair - which in this context means group leader - has after various changes of personnel and ethos, acquired a new website - www.Stleonardswriters.com 

Our new website is clear and uncomplicated which we wanted, and will hopefully attract a few new members to our friendly meetings. In the area? Do come and meet us or contact - https://stleonardswriters@outlook.com.

We are also on Facebook - (4) St Leonards Writers | Facebook

The site was made for us by Paul Gilbert, brilliant website and video producer at Welcome to Eventertainment.co.uk (lubbdupp.com)

Meet Gulliver, a great storyteller and our mascot.
He doesn't generally attend meetings.

Matter - A Culture Novel - By Ian M Banks

 When I was on page 305 of 'Matter' I wrote myself a note:-  

"So far so nearly good. Apart from a gory murder early on this Culture story (which isn't totally a Culture story as it's set on a world beyond the periphery of the Culture) is almost entertaining enough, actually funny in places. The shell-worlds are an interesting and convoluted idea which could only have come from Iain M Banks' fervent imagination. There's just a little too much description and back story/side story/technical and/or political and/or philosophical detail which holds up the narrative."

Now I've finished its almost 600 pages I still agree with my previous thoughts but I have enjoyed the novel, despite the convolutions which are mainly in the technological descriptions not the narrative. There is much humour, especially in the heightened dialogue and philosophical discussions between human and alien characters. Despite plenty of murder, gore and mayhem, 'Matter' is not as dark as, for example, Ian M Banks' earlier Culture novel, 'Use of Weapons'.

The three main characters are: Ferbin, Prince of the Sarl who does not want to be king,  Holse, the Prince's right hand man and probably the most intelligent human present, and Djan-Siery who is Ferbin's sister and not what she seems, having spent time visiting the Culture and being adopted by the Culture's Special Ops department.

With part Medieval cultural beliefs and steam-punk technology, the Sarl become embroiled in an unexpected conflict which nearly leads to the destruction of their home land and the entire colossal shell-world on which they occupy the eighth level. Only Ferbin, Holse and Djan-Siery can save the world...

Biscuit - Flash Fiction

Mike just wanted to have his cake and eat it and I wasn’t the cake. I was just a biscuit that he liked to nibble on sometimes. I didn’t even know if I was the only biscuit he liked and was I a Bourbon cream? Or a Lincoln biscuit, the one you nibble the dots around the edges? Hope I wasn’t a Garibaldi, all those squashed flies!

I first met Mike down the Bull Hotel. Not at the bar, girls didn’t go in bars then, it was in the back room where there was a folk night every Friday.  The Folkies weren’t welcome in the bar either, not really but the landlord wanted their money so he sent a boy in to take orders, then carry them back on a mucky tray. If you didn’t have the right change for your drink it would cost you. Pints of mild or bitter was all they’d sell. I drank a half of mild, it was ten-pence and I could make it last all night. I used to go with Billy, he’s my brother and he’d buy me the half and tell me to make it last. I didn’t really mind, I was only sixteen and I wasn't that keen on the beer anyway.

I did like the music though. There was a girl singer, she had long, dark hair. I so wanted hair like hers, mine’s ginger and fluffy and I can’t hardly tie it in a ponytail, like the other girls there. Anyway this girl, she sang like Joan Baez and she was good but I preferred the guys singing. Then that night Mike appeared, with his guitar, he wasn’t a boy he was older and he had a man’s voice and he sang like Johnny Cash.

I got off with Mike, even though Billy said he was married and I should stay away from him. So when he came back, after I hadn’t seen him for weeks,  I just told him we was finished. So that was that.

Come to think of it Mike probably had thought I was a biscuit,  I was his ginger nut.

Why Write?

I  write because I very much need it, to escape the mundane. I could instead have taken up pottery or channel  swimming, I used to be a good swimmer! But there used to be characters in my head wanting their voices and conversations to be heard, their stories to be out here, somewhere. It seemed to be my responsibility to let them out. There were days when I felt detached from reality, going through the motions during the day, impatient to get to the evening when I could just sit down and write down what I needed to write.

Some nights, I’d write till 2 or 3 at night, even though I had to get up at seven to get the day started, kids off to school, watch husband drive off to his job, get some laundry on etc. before going to work myself.

Those days I’d walk along the road talking to myself like a loony, the dialogue for the scenes in my head tumbled out. Writing was at times obsessional. But when I could just sit and the words ran away with me, the feeling was almost miraculous, it filled me with delight.

Later I began writing plays, taking my ability to write dialogue to its logical conclusion. That was a different kind of joy, it required far more concentration on the technical aspects because with playwrighting you don’t need too many long speeches, exposition is the theatrical equivalent of the info-dump. However unless you’re Samuel Becket some information is needed for plot development, has to be incorporated into the dialogue.

Now I write because I want to but very seldom because I have to. I can’t write in that first intense way and recapture that joy I used to have, because storytelling doesn’t work in the same way for me.  When I first realised I could no longer do that I was very upset, became convinced that I’d lost my imagination. It took me a long while to try again and joining a small, local writers' group has been immensely helpful in encouraging me. I can still get engrossed and write for fun, for personal record keeping which I do quite a lot, and I write for my blog, which has a small audience and that’s gratifying.

So my fiction writing is for pleasure and with the hope of publication. My poetry when I do occasionally write a poem is to catch the intensity of a moment, epic poetry is beyond me.

And I want to write more plays, I think for the technical challenge as well as for the magic of seeing my work onstage again, with clever actors bringing my words to life. That’s where I think the joy could be for me now.

The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday - book review

Sue's Reviews > 

The Girl on the Landing
by 

Paul Torday

Sue's review on Goodreads

did not like it

bookshelves: novels, tried-to-read

I did manage to finish this, it took a bit of doing. I just found it impossible to empathise with either of the main characters. We get both their first person viewpoints, in alternate chapters, but it just didn't work for me.

Sorry Paul Torday, you can write but this one's not for me. I do like the cover though!

Surfacing by Margaret Attwood -review

 

Sue's Reviews > Surfacing

Surfacing
by 

Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

Sue's review

May 14, 2022  ·  edit

liked it

bookshelves: might-read-again, mystery, novels

Read 2 times. Last read May 10, 2022 to May 14, 2022.

An extraordinary book, very unsettling. I may have to read it again to get my head around the meanings in the story and imagery. Her descriptive powers are brilliant.

No Fireworks by Rodge Glass

 

Sue's Reviews > No Fireworks

No Fireworks
by 

Rodge Glass

Sue's review

Jun 12, 2022  ·  edit

really liked it

bookshelves: might-read-again, novels

Read 2 times. Last read June 11, 2022 to June 12, 2022.

Read this in less than 24 hours. Surprising, very funny, confusing, moving and quite sad. Abe Stone alternates between endearing and repulsive, his story is always engaging. Great characters, all feel very real, there are no bit parts.

Absent Blogger

Day lilies in my garden

Have been un-blogging for a while, apologies. Health problems with which I will not bore anyone. But I have been reading, so I intend post some book reviews, starting at once.

Scooter - A Short Story written on New Year's Day

It’s nearly New Year’s and I’m laying in this road and my leg is really, like, fucking hurting and it’s his fault, my Dad’s. He’s feckless, that social worker said so. Mum’s a bitch, social worker didn’t say that, I did. My feckless Dad’s not fuckless, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here, would I? I wouldn’t be laying on this cold road, listening to Stacey screaming.

I wanted a scooter for Christmas. I mean I knew I’d never get one, they cost thousands and anyway I’m too young, can’t even get a licence, but Mum asked, so I just said, I want a scooter.

Scooter like those cool guys have, in them 1960’s photos, guys with smart jackets and properly made trousers. They’d go around, two of them on each scooter with the white thing on the front by the wheel to keep their trousers, clean and all I can get is cheap jeans. I got my hair like that Steve Marriott, only I can’t grow the sideburns, obviously, cos I’m a girl.

There’s this stupid old woman talking to me, she thinks I’m a boy.  So I says I’m a girl, obviously and she says, ‘I do beg your pardon.’ Like how old is that?! I’d laugh if I wasn’t hurting too much.

Stacey’s stopped screaming…

‘Stace, are you all right..?’

‘She’s all right,’ a man says, ‘we’re moving her off the road.’ 

I can’t see them, it’s dark and there’s a square light shining in my eyes, using their phone for a torch. Where’s my phone…? Mum gave me that, I mean it’s only her old one but it’s good enough for a bit. Better than when I hadn’t got a phone and I couldn’t talk to Stace.

‘What’s your name, love?’ It’s the stupid old woman again and it’s another problem. I mean, if I tell them Ayiishah they’ll write it down wrong. I should have been beautiful Ayisha, obviously, but stupid bitch Mum can’t spell, so I’m Esher. It’s a stupid town up near London, I never been. And  when I googled wrong, this this castle with people walking up square stairs that just goes on and on and never ending. The men going up can never stop going up, and the ones going down can never stop going down and they can’t do anything else, stuck on the same stairs forever. Scares me so much…

‘Esher we’re going to have to move you..’

No, please don’t touch me… no… ooowwww….

‘Sorry sweetheart, you’re safe by the wall now, lean back… ‘

‘Cars come very fast down the hill in the dark,’ the woman explains,  ‘You’re safer now,’

‘I’m all right,’ I say. ‘just my leg… need a ambulance.. for Stacey.’

‘Yes, we’re just talking to the emergency services…’

‘My foot hurts..’ that’s Stacey! She’s not dead! ‘And my arm hurts and my side hurts and…’

‘No no no..! She’s hurt so badly and I can’t get to her..!’

‘Esher listen, Stacey is breathing, she’s sitting up and talking to us, she’s going to be ok. It’s you I’m a bit worried about.’ The woman is putting a sort of cushion thing under my left leg that I can’t move. ‘Try to relax your leg onto that,’ she says but I can’t so scared to move it but it goes down slightly and  the hurting gets a bit less.

‘Esher,’ she says, ‘I’m Sarah and I’m going to my house, it’s just over there. I’ll bring a blanket to keep you warm. Only a moment then I will be with you until the ambulance comes. You’re going to be ok.’

Be feckless Dad’s fault if I’m not ok.  He got it off Ebay, sent it to Mum, and I’m not even there at Christmas, I’m in the home again, because bitch says I’m impossible. Just, she won’t understand. It started at school, she shouted at this teacher, Miss Darley, called her a fat dyke. I mean she is, but you can’t say that, obviously, not to a teacher. I couldn’t go in school after that, they’d all pick on me again, push me down in a corner and call me dirty lesbo.

So I wandered round town with Stace. She’s allowed to not be in school. She’s so funny, keeps me happy and she’s big, with lovely breasts and soft lips. If that man’s made her hurt, like scarred…

And it hurts again and so cold… the Sarah woman is holding my hand and I’m shaking and Stacey’s just laughing…

It was so fun, we laughed so much, so funny and scary and ex… excellent, coming down the hill on the scooter together. Not the sort of scooter I wanted, not even electric, just like a kids one. Only me and Stacey, we’re not kids, she’s sixteen. I’m not yet, but I’m tall like a boy. And on the scooter I hugs up close behind her and we shout WheeeeeeeeEEEEEEEE coming down the hill. And it’s so cool we walk up to the top and come down again and again. Four goes and it’s amazing…! But then it’s getting dark and we’re on go number five and I don’t know what we hit…

Hurts, I’m shaking and it hurts more… can’t stop...

Flashing light…   ‘This one’s in a lot of pain…’

‘Ambulance is here Esher,’ Sarah’s squeezing my hand, she’s so warm.. ‘In just a minute you’ll be fine.’

Stace says, ‘Happy New Year, Esher.’

And she’s still laughing, she’ll be fine.

                                                            *                                          

Daggerspell - by Katherine Kerr

Clearing a bookshelf and I nearly got rid of eight Katherine Kerr novels. There are a huge number of newer fantasy stories around these days and I wasn't sure I'd want to read them again.

But I re-read this first one in three days, not bad considering it's 528 pages. That's one of my gripes with fantasy novels, many are so damn long, I suppose because writers have to create a world, then inhabit it and create the mythology alongside the rest as well as considering the plot! Just setting a story in a familiar place with familiar attitudes, say London, is considerably easier.

Katherine Kerr does creates her world pretty well in Daggerspell, setting up for the whole stream of her Deverry novels to follow. Her world is Celtic, appears to be based on Welsh places, weather and language.

Nevyn the sorcerer is the foremost character, followed by Cullyn, a wandering swordsman, his daughter Jill and Prince Rhodry. These four are linked through the generations by their Wyrd - fate. The plot is complicated, inevitably. So far so fantastic, literally.

I've begun reading the second book in the series, I may finish it. Will I get through all eight? That's a different kettle of wizards. 

Empleomania - Word of the Day, Decade or ?

Taken from Susi Dent's Word of the Day -

‘Empleomania’

the desire to hold office or wield power, whatever the cost.

I shall say nothing else about the unfortunate Russians' overlord.

The Incoming Tide

 My mother wrote this poem in 1982, about two years before she divorced my father.  She had been reading Christina Rosetti. I'm not saying it's the greatest poem ever, but it was hers.

The Incoming Tide          by Pam Wilson      3.3.1982

The waves kiss the shore and hold it close

As I would thee, forever more

My world in a shell

Can be held in thy hand

As I stand beside thee, on the sand

Thine eyes are like stars

That shine on the sea

Bringing thee ever closer to me.

The moon in her glory

hangs in the sky

beckoning me down

I know not why

I bare my body and soul for thee.

 

My arms ache, my senses fail

My body yearns and in my ears

The sound of thy breathing, gears

My responses, more and yet more

Until the stars burs on this moonlit shore

And we come at last to rest in peace

Entwined in a love which will never cease.

Where Crows Would Die - by Mary Griese

 

Sue Gilbert's Reviews > Where Crows Would Die

Where Crows Would Die
by 

Mary Griese

Sue Gilbert's review

Feb 07, 2022  ·  edit

really liked it

bookshelves: mystery, novels

Described as 'Welsh noir', this novel has similarities to Wuthering Heights, if that was set in the 1950's-60's and in a remote sheep farming community in the Welsh hills. The Heathcliffe alter-ego, named Morgan, is a troubled and dangerous soul, however the story differs. Unlike in the Bronte novel, the woman he obsesses over is Bethan, a strong and independent minded young woman who has no intention of falling for him.
The author is a painter, her love of art spills into the novel and not just because Bethan's father is an artist and her mother's cousin runs a gallery. The wonderful descriptions of the Welsh landscape are bleak, dramatic and painterly. She also knows a lot about sheep and her unsentimental use of her farming knowledge keeps the tale grounded.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, it's very readable and I enjoyed it once I got into it. This is Mary Griese's first novel, I hope she writes another.