UNDERGROUND LINES

The exercise in repetitious discomfort and inconvenience that is commuting is occasionally enlivened by a moment of magical transcendence. One such recent example was produced by reading an A.E. Housman poem (presented in the highly commendable series of 'Poems on the Underground', displayed in tube trains) with which I was not familiar.

Here dead we lie, because we did not choose

To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,

But young men think it is, and we were young.

Like much brilliant poetry, great power of thought and emotion are conveyed here in deceptively simple-seeming fashion. I love the way in which the most startling line (the third) is also that which most diverges from the iambic rhythm, embodying in sound the contrast between the more mundane, even perhaps naive, sentiments of the first two lines and the shocking philosophy behind this statement about life.

Since reading this poem, I have been tediously reciting it at people, and it has stayed with me far longer than have the quotidian irritations of people walking through 'no entry' areas in the tube and sitting on one and a half seats on the overground.

David

CAPUCHIN WRITER MAKES HAY

Julian Mitchell, author of The Undiscovered Country, which we reissued this summer, is appearing at the Hay Winter Festival on December 5th. Julian will be in conversation with Julia Gregson, winner of the 2009 Prince Maurice Prize for Romantic Fiction. Julian will be discussing the novel and his other work, and the Festival holds many other literary and other treasures in store.

My wife and I had a brief but enchanting holiday in the town one Easter, but narrowly missed the spring Festival itself (the second time I've achieved this feat) and I can certainly recommend Hay as a beautiful and magical pace for any lover of literature and landscape.



David

NEW WORDS FOR OLD

A friend of mine has shared a delightful article about a Washington Post competition, which invites readers to coin new definitions for existing words. I believe regular listeners to I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue are already regaled by the same practice.

Here is a selection from the splendidly ingenious current winners:

Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs

Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained
 
Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach

Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash

Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline 


Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.




Here's one from me:

Internet, n. A female intern.

Over to you......

David

ROYALTY STATEMENTS

As our trade organ The Bookseller reports daily on rushed announcements of new books related to the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton, I thought I'd get in early with a few examples of existing (albeit slightly modified) titles.

(No Longer) Just William

Kate Expectations

Gone with the Windsors

And for the more cynical -

Bored of the Rings.

But I'm sure you can think of better examples.....

David

U.S. PRAISE FOR PROSE FROM ROSE

The highly reputed American books magazine The Bloomsbury Review recently carried an enthusiastic response to our republication of Rose Macaulay's The Non-combatants and Others. The Review, which enjoys a readership of some 35,000, called the book

a valuable recovery

and say that author Rose Macaulay remains significant for

incisive portraits of a society during and between the world wars.

Dame Rose Macaulay was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, and educated at Oxford. She belongs to that noble but perhaps now undervalued tradition in British letters of writers who paid serious intellectual attention to Christian ideas and themes, and strove to weave these into their work. Macaulay had a problematic engagement with religious belief, and this was mirrored in her personal life by her affair with a former Jesuit priest. She reached the point of being able to return to the Anglican church in 1953, five years before her death.

Her strong interest in and involvement with the pacifist movement was reflected in her sponsorship of the Peace Pledge Union, and pacifism is an important element in Non-combatants, in which the heroine, Alix Sandomir’s, goes through a process of discovery, self doubt and reaffirmation of pacifist principles during the First World War.

Macaulay is responsible for what must be one of the best opening lines in literature, from The Towers of Trebizond:

"Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass

while a character in Staying with Relations asks:

"Is rabbit fur disgusting because it's cheap, or is it cheap because it's disgusting?"

David

FLANIMATION

I have, with superhuman restraint and forbearance, mentioned a mere 9 or 10 dozen times on this blog and other social networking outlets that Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is simply the best novel ever written. The thought has often occurred to me that this strange and wonderful story would make an excellent film, but that it would be difficult to realise on celluloid (or even, nowadays, in a computer's memory).

Imagine then, dear reader, my surprise on learning that Brendan Gleeson is working on a film adaptation of O'Brien's even stranger and apparently more unfilmable opus, At Swim Two Birds. This novel mingles various mythological charcters (including the giant Finn Mac Cool and Mad King Sweeney - who is transformed into a bird - and the Pooka MacPhellimey, "a member of the devil class" (who has a fairy living in his pocket)) with ones from everyday life. Among the latter is a student, who writes a book in which a man writing a book is imprisoned, tried and tortured by his own characters, who resent his treatment of him.

All this is used to comment on the relationship between fiction and reality, knowledge, learning and language, and to deliver some darned good jokes.

A rom-com it ain't, and I can't wait to see the results.

David

EDWIN MORGAN

I suppose we all have a list of writers whose work we have come across occasionally and enjoyed, but who we have never fully explored. One such poet for me is Edwin Morgan, whose death earlier this year was mourned by his substantial body of admirers, which includes Carol Ann Duffy and Alex Salmond (Morgan was named as the first ever 'national Scottish poet'). I frequently came across his work in anthologies - especially his quirkier 'science fiction' poems, and was delighted by what I read. Sadly, it has taken his passing to convince me finally to read more.

Here's one of the first works of his I met; it's both delightful and seasonal.

"The Computer's First Christmas Card" 1968.

jollymerry

hollyberry

jollyberry

merryholly

happyjolly

jollyjelly

jellybelly

bellymerry

hollyheppy

jollyMolly

marryJerry

merryHarry

hoppyBarry

heppyJarry

boppyheppy

berryjorry

jorryjolly

moppyjelly

Mollymerry

Jerryjolly

bellyhoppy

jorryhoppy

hollymoppy

Barrymerry

Jarryhappy

happyboppy

boppyjolly

jollymerry

merrymerry

merrymerry

merryChris

ammerryasa

Chrismerryas

MERRY CHRYSANTHEMUM

David

CONVERSATION MOVEMENT

Apologies for the long gap in posting; again, the pressure of grown-up work has been overwhelming my blogging intentions.

My attention was cheerfully drawn today to an article in The Guardian on the topic of saving endangered words. Savethewords.org, an offshoot of OUP, offers concerned lovers of rare linguistic specimens the opportunity to 'adopt' words and reintroduce them into - as it were - the wild of everyday speech.

Some examples given in the article are:

Oncethmus - The loud and hard cry of a donkey

Suffarcinate - Pack tightly

Weesquashing - Spearing of fish or eels by torchlight from canoes.

My own favourite underused word is

Poodlefaker - A man who seeks out the company of women (often for

selfish reasons).

Over to you.....

David