Thursday, December 06, 2007
Rain
Kept out of the three quarters finished second potato trench by rain again, but still managed to get to Cheam. Old fashioned yellow capes really do what they say on the tin and they are not that sweaty inside. But the poor old fox who was hit by a car a few days ago is now nearly washed up. A wreck of leaves, twigs and fox all mushed together by the rainwater washing down the hill. On a more cheerful note, acquired a very fine pork chop which went down well for lunch with fresh white bread. Or to be more exact, acquired two pork chops but decided that two was a bit OTT for lunch with toad in the hole coming up for tea. Moderation is the secret of success once one can see the gray hair.
Advent service on Sunday evening at Guilford cathedral. Interesting to see a modern cathedral at work after our recent visit to Ely. In the dark, the place was suprisingly impressive inside - the absence of any kind of rood screen blocking off the centre of operations helping rather than hurting - although the detailing of the stone work was a bit uneven. Not as good, say, as that on the outside of what was County Hall. The nave seemed to me to be about as big as King's College Chapel - although with the weaker choir (about half of which looked to be teenage girls) and weaker audience there was much less noise. On the other hand, the choir was not into the show-off stuff that they go for in Cambridge (at Christmas anyway) and the more modest showing was somehow more holy. More humble in the face of God. And I liked the Advent antiphons - things I had never heard of before, never mind heard.
A little later well entertained by a fun costume drama called the Trumph of Love, based on a play by Merivaux. According to Wiki, despite being written in 1732, this 2001 film was the first screen adaptation in English and one which received only modest reviews and which did not, in any event, do very well. Fiona Shaw rather dominated the proceedings, to the extent that one thought that she was able to put a good deal of herself into her role as a love struck, middle aged blue-stocking.
And in between times tucking into Underworld by Delillo. I read Libra some time ago and rather liked it. Think I tried something else by him since then and didn't. This one is described as the 'number 1 international best seller' and was derived, I think, from my recent expedition to the charity shops around Battersea. It is also rather fat, in the way of books of that description, perhaps the same number of words as Ulysses and, to my mind, rather reflecting of the US fascination with Joyce. The burbling on about the daily workings - public and private - of entirely ordinary people. The capturing in print of things we might do and think, but do not, on the whole, expose to public or any other kind of view. Not altogether sure that so much exposure is a good thing. Another Delillo fascination seems to be capturing all the many threads that lead into and away from some notable - possibly entirely fictional - event. To try and capture that flapping of the butterfly wings in South Georgia which caused the ice cap in Surbiton to melt away (but which, is, of course, why you have never seen it). Another is his interest in how the maximum amount of use can be extracted from photographs or videos - usually but not always taken by furtive organs of government. The very modern fascination (one which I happen to share) with the relation between the thing and its sign. His language reminds me a bit of that of Cormac McCarthy so perhaps they went to the same creative writing course. His subject matter reminds me of another US fascination - or rather nostalgia, nostalgia for the life of first generation immigrants in their teeming tenements on Lower East Side, in Bronx and Brooklyn. Something for which I can think of no analagy for on this side of the pond.
On the down side, for me anyway, a rather pretentious flavour hangs over the whole book (or at least the two fifths that I have read) - but then, as my brother used to say, the line between being arty and being pretentious can be a bit tricky. Not reasonable to expect one to get it right all the time.
Advent service on Sunday evening at Guilford cathedral. Interesting to see a modern cathedral at work after our recent visit to Ely. In the dark, the place was suprisingly impressive inside - the absence of any kind of rood screen blocking off the centre of operations helping rather than hurting - although the detailing of the stone work was a bit uneven. Not as good, say, as that on the outside of what was County Hall. The nave seemed to me to be about as big as King's College Chapel - although with the weaker choir (about half of which looked to be teenage girls) and weaker audience there was much less noise. On the other hand, the choir was not into the show-off stuff that they go for in Cambridge (at Christmas anyway) and the more modest showing was somehow more holy. More humble in the face of God. And I liked the Advent antiphons - things I had never heard of before, never mind heard.
A little later well entertained by a fun costume drama called the Trumph of Love, based on a play by Merivaux. According to Wiki, despite being written in 1732, this 2001 film was the first screen adaptation in English and one which received only modest reviews and which did not, in any event, do very well. Fiona Shaw rather dominated the proceedings, to the extent that one thought that she was able to put a good deal of herself into her role as a love struck, middle aged blue-stocking.
And in between times tucking into Underworld by Delillo. I read Libra some time ago and rather liked it. Think I tried something else by him since then and didn't. This one is described as the 'number 1 international best seller' and was derived, I think, from my recent expedition to the charity shops around Battersea. It is also rather fat, in the way of books of that description, perhaps the same number of words as Ulysses and, to my mind, rather reflecting of the US fascination with Joyce. The burbling on about the daily workings - public and private - of entirely ordinary people. The capturing in print of things we might do and think, but do not, on the whole, expose to public or any other kind of view. Not altogether sure that so much exposure is a good thing. Another Delillo fascination seems to be capturing all the many threads that lead into and away from some notable - possibly entirely fictional - event. To try and capture that flapping of the butterfly wings in South Georgia which caused the ice cap in Surbiton to melt away (but which, is, of course, why you have never seen it). Another is his interest in how the maximum amount of use can be extracted from photographs or videos - usually but not always taken by furtive organs of government. The very modern fascination (one which I happen to share) with the relation between the thing and its sign. His language reminds me a bit of that of Cormac McCarthy so perhaps they went to the same creative writing course. His subject matter reminds me of another US fascination - or rather nostalgia, nostalgia for the life of first generation immigrants in their teeming tenements on Lower East Side, in Bronx and Brooklyn. Something for which I can think of no analagy for on this side of the pond.
On the down side, for me anyway, a rather pretentious flavour hangs over the whole book (or at least the two fifths that I have read) - but then, as my brother used to say, the line between being arty and being pretentious can be a bit tricky. Not reasonable to expect one to get it right all the time.
# posted by Jim @ 6:28 AM 
