What are you reading now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Four minutes of Radio 4 time on the Sunday Morning Radio 4 news programme were given over to this music...with no talking over.

And your attention span managed to last for the entire four minutes??

[smittims]

There's a fascinating film by Michael Powell (he of 'I know where I'm going') about the de-population of a fictional Scots Island: The Edge of the World. It was, of course, also based loosely on the St.Kilda experience, and was filmed on Foula, which is (relatively) near to Shetland.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Geraldine McCaughrean's Where the World Ends. It's about the population of Hirta, which is one of the St Kilda island group. The story (which is loosely based on fact) is set in the century before the population of the islands had to be removed because living there was no longer tenable.

The reason I'm posting this now is because a rare St Kilda folk melody was played by Nicola Benedetti* at the recent Scottish musical event/service for the Royals...and by co-incidence I'd just read the book. The story is how all the teenage (and perhaps younger) boys of Hirta were landed...with difficulty... by boat on a remote rocky island 'Stac' in the company of two adults to 'harvest' gulls' eggs and the gulls themselves plus feathers to provide food and income for the coming year for the small population of Hirta. The suspense in the book rests on the fact that no-one came to pick them up again. Time went on, the seasons passed, and their struggle for survival against all the odds as seasons came and went (including a couple of deaths and extreme hardship) seems to have no reason. I won't do a spoiler, in case anyone wants to read this extraordinary book.

*Back to Nicola Benedetti. Fabulous playing, of course, from her and the RSNO. However, the folk song, which was passed down by aural tradition, was almost 'arranged' out of existence. How much more telling had it been played (or sung?) in its Gallic simplicity. A plus though. Four minutes of Radio 4 time on the Sunday Morning Radio 4 news programme were given over to this music...with no talking over.

I’m glad you mentioned this. Some of the “arrangements” of traditional Scottish music at the ceremony made Andy Stewart of the White Heather Club look like Beethoven. They were syrupy and excruciating in places.

[Mandryka]

Just finished Cormac McCarthey's Blood Meridian. I'm just posting here in case anyone's read it and has an idea about what it's "about"

[Pulcinella]

Just finished Cormac McCarthey's Blood Meridian. I'm just posting here in case anyone's read it and has an idea about what it's "about"

It's about the most violent book I've read.
Though that was quite a while ago.

I've just read The road for the first time (immensely depressing, and it's put me off tackling Demon Copperhead for a while) but I seem to remember finding The Border Trilogy much more gripping and readable.

[Belgrove]

Just finished Cormac McCarthey's Blood Meridian. I'm just posting here in case anyone's read it and has an idea about what it's "about"

Blood Meridian is one of the greatest works of American fiction, rendered in language of biblical weight and resonance. But as to ‘what’s it about’, I’m still unsure. I’ve read it several times, only having scratched its surface, let alone plumbed its depths. The writing of nature and the landscapes through which the Glanton gang pass is among the most stunningly beautiful I have read. It is totally nihilistic and deeply pessimistic about the human condition. Judge Holden, one of the most terrifying creations in literature, is not so much a force of nature, but Nature itself - utterly dispassionate to the fate of those whom he observes and manipulates into performing the most appalling atrocities. When recording the world into his book he says ‘In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon (the world) save by my dispensation’. The Kid is the only character to resist him, and to show some semblance of empathy for others, which is why the Judge targets him for destruction. By their final encounter, he is no longer The Kid, but The Man.

If you are interested, may I recommend Amy Hungerford’s two superb lectures, given at Yale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgyZ4ia25gg) which draw out the literary allusions (eg Moby Dick, inter alia), and the Gnosticism that underpins the book’s philosophy. As for what horror is revealed when the door of the jakes is opened, I am no longer certain, nor the meaning of the deeply symbolist epilogue. Perhaps another read is required.

[johncorrigan]

On holiday this year I read Michael Palin's 'Erebus', the story of the ship...I had picked it up in a charity shop and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would - very well written and researched, it seemed to me. Then a friend had given me a shot of 'For the Good Times' by Michael Keenan, a Scottish writer. This book concerns Sammy, a young guy brought up in the Ardoyne in Belfast who joins the local branch of the IRA in the 1970s and meets Tommy. The book was riveting in places and also very disturbing. It was very well written and gave a picture of some of the violence being perpetrated on all sides...I read the 350 pages in less than two days - I had to see what happened, but I was desperate to get out of that world as quickly as I could...the reason for the title of the book, by the way, is that they were all Perry Como fans. I then took up the second of McCarthy's 'Borders' trilogy, 'The Crossing', a year or so after I read the first one, 'All the Pretty Horses'. Unlike 'For the Good Times', I was happy to stay in that world on the New Mexico/Mexico border for a week or so...I travelled through some of those places in New Mexico, many years ago...a wonderful read, spoiled a bit by my lack of knowledge of Spanish which got in the way from time to time...my problem, not McCarthy's. Such beautiful use of language and imagery.

[Lordgeous]

Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile by Fiona Maddocks. Excellent read, well researched, as mentioned earlier. I feel I know the man and his music much better now.

[smittims]

I'm well into The American, possibly Henry James' easiest read, and a big success in its time. For the first half of the book it's intriguing, humorous, then suddenly dramatic, a superbly-structured novel that carries you along eagerly.

I try to re-read the James canon every ten-twenty years. I think one of the reasons he's such a good novelist is that he's impartial, he doesn't preach or tell you what to think.

[gradus]

Chopin in Kentucky by Eilzabeth Heichelbech (me neither), a third cousin twice removed of Catcher in the Rye with a female narrator whose imaginary companion is Chopin. Sounds odd and is written in very short chapters but makes me laugh as the author has a deadpan way of describing scenes that tickle me.

[oddoneout]

On holiday this year I read Michael Palin's 'Erebus', the story of the ship...I had picked it up in a charity shop and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would - very well written and researched, it seemed to me.

I thought it an excellent read. It was among the 45 strong book grab I did(the maximum allowed) just before the library went into Covid shutdown And I almost didn't even start reading it as I had picked up another Palin book as well, started reading it, disliked it, couldn't finish it and assumed Erebus would be similar.
There was a documentary (I think it may have been a repeat) on More4 about the search for HMS Erebus - "Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship" which made me think it would be worth reading the book again. The TV programme was one of these that has inserted reconstructed acting bits in - a format I dislike - which meant it was rather too long for the material in my opinion but interesting all the same. I could have done without seeing the 3 crew members that had been buried on a beach and preserved by the cold though - at least I assume that was real and not a reconstruction.

[smittims]

It was real when I saw a docoumentary about 25-30 years ago on the Franklin expedition. The significance of the finding of the permafrost-preserved bodies was firstly that they are (I think) the only found relics of the expedition (unless more have been found since) , and secondly, the tragic discovery that they were poisoned by their own rations, the lead sealant in the tinned food.

I suppose that, with the gradual melting of the snow and ice due to climate change, more discoveries will be made. I gather it's now possible to sail round the north of Canada in summer.

[oddoneout]

It was real when I saw a docoumentary about 25-30 years ago on the Franklin expedition. The significance of the finding of the permafrost-preserved bodies was firstly that they are (I think) the only found relics of the expedition (unless more have been found since) , and secondly, the tragic discovery that they were poisoned by their own rations, the lead sealant in the tinned food.

I suppose that, with the gradual melting of the snow and ice due to climate change, more discoveries will be made. I gather it's now possible to sail round the north of Canada in summer.

It would appear that there have been more discoveries over the years.As the ice melts it will affect what is found I imagine as the preserving effect will go. What struck me about finding the shipwreck was the part that Inuit oral history played in locating it, and the various other sites on land.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/14/what-happened-on-hms-terror-divers-plan-return-to-franklin-wrecks

[smittims]

Thanks. Those chaps must have been tough even to go there so inadequately clothed and equipped.

[oddoneout]

Thanks. Those chaps must have been tough even to go there so inadequately clothed and equipped.

From what I recall of the book the expedition was well equipped and supplied, but as with any such endeavour, even these days, circumstances and in some cases also bad decisions/lack of knowledge can change matters, perhaps disastrously. In climate and terrain as inimical to survival as the Arctic it doesn't take long for that to happen.