I am just now recovering from a week chock full of bibliophilia, good food, fine wine, Tori Amos and delectable conversations. The Alexandrians - Esther, Nic, Jo, Emma and I - have all been together, in the same house, for the first time in over a year. We converged upon York last Friday/Saturday (Jo flew in from the Czech Republic to Leeds-Bradford airport), after the Tori Amos concert on Thursday, and revelled in each others company until yesterday afternoon; we used the time in between to BBQ, picnic, take languid walks, peruse York's bookshops, watch the tennis and chatter, endlessly. Of course, we endeavoured to accrue a fine and mighty book pile, about half of which belonged to me. (Photograph to follow, since my camera battery died at the vital moment.) It was my birthday afterall! In lieu of a picture, I offer you a rundown of some of my delightful acquisitions.
The Book Stack: being a deluge of gifts -
- From Nic, I received Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living, 1900-1939 by Virginia Nicholson, a book that I've coveted for a good while. My interest in the period springs primarily (and inevitably) out of my obsession with Woolf, and with the Bloomsbury movement more generally. I'm hoping Nicholson's book will help me to contextualise the individuals I'm already familiar with and introduce me to the wider ideals of early twentieth century 'bohemia'. At the same time, I'm curious to see how Nicholson deals with some of the more sensitive questions arising out of the movement - of sexuality, for example - particularly given her family connections. (Her father is Quentin Bell, son of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf's nephew.) Also from Nic, Theodora Goss' first full length story/poetry collection, In the Forest of Forgetting. This won't be my first taste of Goss - I reviewed a chapbook of her stories from Small Beer Press - and I'm looking forward to delving further into her work, not to mention re-reading the stories from the chapbook. (I heartily recommend you try The Rapid Advance of Sorrow, which is available for free at Fantastic Metropolis.) The book is lovely too, and very elegant, published by Prime Books.
- From Jo (for both my birthday, and also for last Christmas, because we didn't get chance to see one another), two classics of Czech literature in translation, one of which is impossible to find in the UK: My Golden Trades by Ivan Klima (published by Granta) and The Grandmother by Bozena Nemcova, a Czech woman writing in 19th century. The latter promises to be very interesting, and its rarity fascinates me - it isn't available on Amazon and the publisher, Vitalis, doesn't appear to have an internet presence. It's so rare to stumble upon such a book these days. Also, a book of Russian fairytales, Vasilisa the Beautiful and Other Stories. This is wonderful, a classic Jo-ish present. It was published in Moscow in 1984, before the fall of the USSR, and is in wonderful condition, peppered with rough, crayon-esque drawings of Baba-Yaga, goblins, princes and water sprites. I'm looking forward to making a study of it. Finally, a book I've never encountered before, Speaking of Beauty by Denis Donoghue. He appears to be a literary critic and the book focuses on how language reflects upon, and creates, beauty, in writers from 'Kant to Keats, Hawthorne to Housman'. Yum.
- From Esther (along with a lovely chess set and some Nina Simone), Simon Armitage's new translation of Gawain and the Green Knight. I studied the poem in the original at St. Andrews, and enjoyed it immensely - who wouldn't? But am often daunted by the idea of re-reading that particular form of Middle English, with its strong tendency to Northern dialect, without a tutor as a guide. Chaucer is a walk in the park by comparison! The blurb promises me that:
'Simon Armitage's new version is meticulously responsible to the tact and sophistication of the original - but responsible equally to its own persuasive claims to be read as an original new poem. It is as if, six hundred years apart, two northern poets set out on a journey through the same mesmeric landscapes - acoustic, physical and metaphorical - in the course of which the Gawain poet has finally found his true and long-awaited translator.'
Which sounds fascinating. Perhaps, I should read the original alongside? Also, in a smaller, perfectly formed parcel, The Pirates in an Adventure with Whaling by Gideon Defoe. You may remember how much fun I had with the last Pirate adventure and I'm sure I'll write a Very Literary Post about this next one too.
- Finally, from Alex, a collection of essays from John Berger, Hold Everything Dear: Despatches on Survival and Resistance. This was an absolute surprise - it is only just out in hardback and I have never heard of it before - and promises to be a 'vital response to today's global economic and military tyranny'. And from Niall, a long-desired retrospective of the short fiction of James Tiptree Jr., Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. This last forms an essential part of my education in feminist and gender-themed sf, and a necessary companion to my continued interest in the eponymous Tiptree Award. (You can find my review of the Tiptree Award Anthologies here, here and here.) Tiptree, who wrote under a male pseudonym, was, in fact, a woman, Alice Sheldon. By turns, a child explorer, a WWII combatant and a CIA agent, she led the most fascinating life - I mean to invest in Julie Philips' award winning biography of her very soon.
I bought other things of course, but I'll save those to bore you with another day. For now, I have to ready myself for a birthday visit to my parents and grandparents this weekend, and get back to Pinkerton's Sister, which I've surely been reading for over a decade now (or perhaps, somewhere in the region of three weeks)!
~~Victoria~~