I see my mind as a tapestry woven through with memories, dreams and thoughts.

Thursday 26 July 2012

Beginning at the Latest ...

Beginning at the latest (and 'late' is the word for it) - thank you 'Fashion, Art and Other Fancies' and 'Paulita' for your comments on 'Snippets' (12th July).

The snippet that you both chose is the opening paragraph of  'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith who was primarily a playwright. She wrote this book 'in a fit of nostalgia for England' when she and her pacifist husband moved to California just before the outbreak of  the Second World War. She wrote film scripts for Hollywood movies but felt that California was 'meaningless' and scriptwriting a 'prostitution of her skills'. She went on to write other books, including 'The Hundred and One Dalmatians'.

I find it interesting that she wrote herself out of her misery and admire her spirit in so doing. Writing is often like that - therapeutic in its challenges. Here I am back writing a post and I can already feel the adrenalin; I had distanced myself from blogland, allowing more practical matters to prevail ... but it was rather like missing a limb.

Myself aside; when I began to read, I realised that I had seen the film and had enjoyed it. I could not quite recall the exact plot and wondered whether the film echoed the book or launched into a direction of its own. It was good to read the actual words for my own perspective of the story - and I enjoyed it. The main protagonist, in the view if a friend, changes character and becomes a different person. My view is that she is suffering as she heads into adolescence, coming out of poor and reclusive circumstances into a world of privilege. If you read it, you can decide for yourself, or perhaps you have read 'I Capture the Castle' and have a different opinion???

It is a well written book and the style appeals to me, so I became engrossed in Cassandra's world; her world as the story is written in the first person.

                                                         -----------------------------------

To those of you who commented on 'Monday Musings (11th June) and to whose comments I did not respond - Melissa, Linda Adelaide, Spangle, Agus, Style, Dancing Branflake and Dulce - many thanks! I shall dig out some more Irish delights for you. Everyone deserves to treat themselves to a visit to Ireland, whether it be in actuality or a virtual visit. And Dulce, you have probably been to Gogarty's as it is famous for its music - and its food.






 County Wicklow
and ...






... Grafton Street and Stephen's Green

In conclusion - thank you, Deborah for your comments on 'Thoughts' (23rd May) put so succinctly. 'Oh! Yes!' I must reread The great Gatsby .... and I have not yet read Lawrence Durrell's 'Prospero's Cell' nor Colette's 'Break of Day'

Mmmm! More to read - exciting ... and I am beginning to run down towards the finale of ''Discovering Jasmine T' ( the last book in the 'Violet Jelly Trilogy').

And now to read your latest posts!

Thursday 12 July 2012

Snippets


I am returning with snippets of some books that I have recently read. These are the opening paragraphs of each. Would you read on? Which snippets most appeal to you as a reader?


'When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathtakingly ordinary. When she left him two years later in favour of a Cuban motor racing driver, she announced that if she hadn't left him then, she never could have done; and Viscount Sawley made a special journey to his club to observe that the cat was out of the bag.'

'The greatness of Carne School has been ascribed by common consent to Edward V1, whose educational zeal is ascribed by history to the Duke of Somerset. But Carne prefers the respectability of the monarch to the questionable politics of his adviser, drawing strength from the conviction that Great Schools, like Tudor Kings, were ordained in Heaven.'

'On a Thursday morning we had spelling, and if you didn't get seventeen out of twenty, you were caned. Sometimes I scraped it but more often than not I found myself, along with Black II, Fumphy Friars and a serial misspeller named Denny Gibson, whose only mistake, it's frightening to speculate, was to be born dyslexic, bending over in front of the class for three of the best. I would cry a little, and afterwards I would run outside and round the back of the hedge to the woodworking shed for some comfort and solace from Willie Edgar, the school carpenter.'

'I did love someone … once.''

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting in the hen house.'

I shall reveal the sources in a later blog, but am interested in discovering what draws you.