David Mitchell and Kurt Vonnegut on Addiction

We all have our addictions, some more persistent than others. Mine is an endless string of "complete works of..."s. Luckily though, authors die leaving me with serious withdrawal symptoms and the methadon of mediocre spin-offs and copycats.

One of this addictions is the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. (To be fair, it's really the narration of Kurt Vonnegut: one so compelling you find yourself nodding while reading). Sadly, though, Kurt Vonnegut died. He was planning to use his addiction to tobacco as a "classy way to commit suicide", but fell down his stairs before his addiction could get the better of him. 

Before this though, he had a collection of his essays published in A Man Without a Country. This is one of the few books I've consumed in under a day, in a secluded, vacant room on a slow cruise to which I was considerably less partial than to Vonnegut's laconic tone. In it, he presents an alternative understanding of addiction.

This little text was what caused a exquisite relapse in my literary five step program of recovery. I was suffering in silence, struggling through the nonentity Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, an author whose prowess had been extolled to me by a patently misguided Canadian girl in a Paris café, when in an effort to end the doldrums I read an article by David Mitchell in the Guardian. 

In it, he commented on revelations that an actress had tried drugs in the 70s, arguing that while this shouldn't really surprise anyone, the fact that she clearly didn't sustain any lasting addiction or harm from it caused some issues for anti-drugs campaigns. Lamenting never having been offered cocaine himself (so that he could vehemently refuse), Mitchell reached the nub of his argument, that most anti-drug campaigns, including those against tobacco and alcohol, focus on the wrong thing. 

This was when Mitchell and Vonnegut's shared trait of narrative persuasiveness and topic made a rereading of A Man Without a Country reappear to this listless reader as a beacon of light, an oasis in the desert or some such thing. 

Hopefully, the intellectual gymnastics in these excerpts will allow you to think about communication, addiction and yourself in a new way. Also, if you, like me, appreciate the wit of these two, you would read both Vonnegut's essay and Mitchell's article in full, or even read through A Man Without a Country and watch the episodes of David Mitchell's Soap Box.

But not until you have enjoyed these excerpts:

"

Kurt Vonnegut,
army portrait

I'm going to tell you some news.

 

No, I am not running for President, although I do know that a sentence, if it is to be complete, must have both a subject and a verb.

 

Nor will I confess that I sleep with children. I will say this, though: My wife is by far the oldest person I ever slept with.

 

Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only 12 years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me.

 

But I am now 82. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.

 

Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly a lot better than no drugs at all. That's what was said about prohibition. Do you realise that from 1919 to 1933 it was absolutely against the law to manufacture, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages, and the Indiana newspaper humourist Ken Hubbard said: "Prohibition is better than no liquor at all."

 

But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

 

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed, or tiddley-poo, or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 40. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

 

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

 

About my own history of foreign substance abuse, I've been a coward about heroin and cocaine, LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn't seem to do anything to me one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

 

I am, of course, notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

 

But I'll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver's licence ­ look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut!

 

And my car back then, a Studebaker as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused, addictive, and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

 

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialised world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won't be any left. Cold turkey.

 

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't the TV news is it? Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.

"

David Mitchell

If I tried cocaine, the worst outcome would be that I liked it and the best that I didn't. When not liking something is the most you can hope for from consuming it, that's a good reason to abstain. 

Do you like my logic? I was pleased with it and looked forward to delivering it to the twat I imagined offering me a 'line' (I lack the confidence to type that without inverted commas) at a party. But not once have I been given the chance! Clearly, I come across as too square even to be worth attempting to corrupt. I'm just not cool.

'Cool' is the key to all this. That's why the celebs are happy to make their admissions. They're boasting that they were the kind of people who were cool enough to be approached, to get involved, to try stuff. They were creative and experimental and dangerously unwise and there's no one alive who, at some point, didn't want to seem like that. Except maybe Ann Widdecombe. 

This is also the problem with anti-smoking campaigns. They persist in trying to persuade kids that smoking isn't cool. Come off it. Look at Sean Connery as James Bond or Béatrice Dalle in Betty Blue. We're trying to stop millions of young people from doing something that may kill them and we kick off with a demonstrable lie.

Smoking is cool. Addiction isn't (people huddling outside offices in the rain don't look cool so much as cold) and cancer certainly isn't, but smoking when isolated from these things obviously is. No, there's a harder but ultimately more persuasive message we need to find some way to convey: being cool doesn't really matter. We shouldn't let 'cool' become a direct synonym of 'good'.

The problem is that to the marketing and advertising companies this is heresy. Invoking 'cool' is how you make people do things they otherwise wouldn't: buy electric shavers that jizz moisturiser, endlessly drink mini-yogurts, douse themselves in a smell Kate Moss has reportedly made. Cool is why they're smoking, so it must be why they'll stop.

We'll never stop the young from wanting to be cool and it's worth promoting uncarcinogenic ways they can do this. But we might as well spend some time trying to undermine being cool as an aim, rather than pretending we know better than them what constitutes it.

It irritates me when teenagers in bad dramas or adverts say things such as: 'Your mum's cool' to mean: 'I like your mum.' The correct response should be: 'No, my mum is not cool - she doesn't wear sunglasses indoors or weird clothes. She is a middle-aged woman who is nice and good and wise and worrying about what's cool is beneath her.'

Unfortunately the reply to this would inevitably be: 'Cool!'

"

What do you think?

Is David Mitchell right in indicating that anti-smoking campaigns target the wrong problem, smoking and not addiction? Is this the position he is arguing? Does his attention to the word "cool" sit well with you in this context?

Vonnegut's argument can in some way be seen as contrary to that of Mitchell. Where Mitchell claims out understanding of addiction is too vague and covers too much, Vonnegut claims it's too definite and restrictive. Is he right when he points out that fossil fuels are our most threatening addiction? Are there other, more dagerous ones he does not mention?

Comments on The Tale of Sir Bob are always welcome! 

Sources: Text1, Text2, Pic1, Pic2, Pic3

Kurt Vonnegut's Backwards Movie

I am a slow reader, but Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country is to date the only book I have read all in a day. Kurt Vonnegut's innocent and quaintly humorous tone betrays a wit as sharp and piercing as an antibiotic syringe and this kept me rapt for an entire day. Expectations were therefore high before reading Vonnegut's most acclaimed novel, Slaugherhouse Five.

The novel figures on Modern Library and Time Magazine's lists of the 100 most significant English-language novels and the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged books 1990-1999 (i.e. books requested for withdrawal from libraries). It is also known as one of the great anti-war novels, as it follows the protagonist Billy Pilgrim's experience of the Second World War, the bombing of Dresden and their results for Billy's subsequent civilian life. Vonnegut, who experienced the Dresden bombing, created this compelling argument against war halfway through his semi-autobiographic novel. The protagonist, many years after the war has become somewhat peculiar. He can't sleep, and goes into the kitchen.

"

Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove. He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground., to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

"

If the significance of this passage eludes you, have no fear. The below illustration, accompanied by Kurt Vonnegut's reading of the passage succincly explains how contrary and illogical war is.

What do you think?

Do you think Vonnegut makes a compelling argument with this passage, or could it be read otherwise? Assuming it communicates an anti-war message, you agree with him and the way he presents it? Vonnegut is known for using short sentences meant for high reading speed rather than contemplation. Do you think this is a fitting style for discussing a topic as deep as war? Did the segment make you want to read more from Vonnegut?

Comments on The Tale of Sir Bob are always welcome! 

Sources: Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaugherhouse 5, London 2000, 60-61, pic, film, as given

My New Book: Marie Phillips' "Gods Behaving Badly"

I recently finished reading Christopher Brookmyre's All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye and as the book had been my constant companion since I bought it from a Copenhagen antiquarian bookseller who had not realised it was signed. Feeling slightly bereaved like I tend to do after good reads, I despreately browsed my bookshelf for something as sardonic as Brookmyre, preferably with the same level of clinical violence as AFaG.

I randomly picked Marie Phillips' Gods Behaving Badly, a book I had picked up after finishing Neil Gaiman's American Gods hoping for more of the same but never quite getting started on. As it turns out, it is currently being adapted into film starring Christopher Walken as Zeus, according to the author. What sold it to me, however, was not as much the prospect of being ahead of the film for once but the first chapter. Here it is, courtesy of the publisher, for your enjoyment and if you like it, buy the book.

Cover

 

Chapter One

ONE MORNING, WHEN Artemis was out walking the dogs, she saw a tree where no tree should be.

The tree was standing alone in a sheltered part of the slope. To the untrained eye, the casual passerby, it probably just looked like a normal tree. But Artemis's eye was far from untrained, and she ran through this part of Hampstead Heath every day. This tree was a newcomer; it had not been there yesterday. And with just one glance Artemis recognized that it was an entirely new species, a type of eucalyptus that had also not existed yesterday. It was a tree that should not exist at all.

Dragging the mutts behind her, Artemis made her way over to the tree. She touched its bark and felt it breathing. She pressed her ear against the trunk of the tree and listened to its heartbeat. Then she looked around. Good; it was early, and there was nobody within earshot. She reminded herself not to get angry with the tree, that it wasn't the tree's fault. Then she spoke.

"Hello," she said.
There was a long silence.

"Hello," said Artemis again.

"Are you talking to me?" said the tree. It had a faint Australian accent.

"Yes," said Artemis. "I am Artemis." If the tree experienced any recognition, it didn't show it. "I'm the goddess of hunting and chastity," said Artemis.

Another silence. Then the tree said, "I'm Kate. I work in mergers and acquisitions for Goldman Sachs."
"Do you know what happened to you, Kate?" said Artemis.

The longest silence of all. Artemis was just about to repeat the question when the tree replied.

"I think I've turned into a tree," it said.

"Yes," said Artemis. "You have."
"Thank God for that," said the tree. "I thought I was going mad." Then the tree seemed to reconsider this. "Actually," it said, "I think I would rather be mad." Then, with hope in its voice: "Are you sure I haven't gone mad?"
"I'm sure," said Artemis. "You're a tree. A eucalyptus. Subgenus of mallee. Variegated leaves."
"Oh," said the tree.
"Sorry," said Artemis.
"But with variegated leaves?"
"Yes," said Artemis. "Green and yellow."
The tree seemed pleased. "Oh well, there's that to be grateful for," it said.
"That's the spirit," Artemis reassured it.
"So," said the tree in a more conversational tone. "You're the goddess of hunting and chastity then?"
"Yes," said Artemis. "And of the moon, and several other things. Artemis." She put a little emphasis on her name. It still hurt when mortals didn't know it.
"I didn't know there was a goddess of hunting and chastity and the moon," confessed the tree. "I thought there was just the one God. Of everything. Or actually, to be honest, I thought there was no God at all. No offense."
"None taken," said Artemis. Unbelievers were always preferable to heretics.
"I have to say you don't look much like a goddess, though," added the tree.
"And what does a goddess look like, exactly?" said Artemis, a sharpness entering her voice.
"I don't know," said the tree, a little nervously. "Shouldn't you be wearing a toga or something? Or a laurel wreath?"
"You mean, not a tracksuit," said Artemis.
"Pretty much," admitted the tree.
"Times change," said Artemis. "Right now, you don't look like somebody who works in mergers and acquisitions for Goldman Sachs." Her voice indicated that the clothing conversation was closed.
"I still can't get over the fact that you're a goddess," said the tree after a pause. "Wow. Yesterday I wouldn't have believed it. Today ..." The tree gave an almost imperceptible shrug, rustling its leaves. Then it seemed to think for a bit. "So does that mean, if you're a goddess," it said, "that you can turn me back into a person?"
Artemis had been expecting this question.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but I can't."
"Why not?" said the tree.
The tree sounded so despondent that she couldn't bring herself to reply, as planned, Because I don't want to. "A god can't undo what another god has done," she found herself saying instead, much to her own surprise. She hated admitting any kind of weakness, especially to a mortal.
"You mean that guy was a god too? The one who ... did this. Well, I suppose it's obvious now. I kind of hoped he might be a hypnotist."
"No, he was a god," said Artemis.
"Um," said the tree. "Could you do something about that red setter? I don't really like the way it's sniffing around me." Artemis pulled the idiot dog away.
"Sorry," she said. "So what happened exactly?"
"I was just taking a walk yesterday and this guy came up to talk to me-"
"Tall?" said Artemis. "Blond? Almost impossibly handsome?"
"That's the one," said the tree.
"What did he say?" said Artemis.
The bark on the tree seemed to shift slightly, as if the tree were making a face.
"I, um ..."
"What did he say?" Artemis asked again, allowing a hint of command to enter her voice.
"He said, 'Hello. Do you want to give me a blow job?' "
A blow job. Why did people do these things to each other? Artemis felt faintly sick.
"I said no," continued the tree, "and then he said, 'Are you sure, because you look like you'd be good at it and I think you'd really enjoy it.'"
"I'm very sorry," said Artemis, "about my brother. If it were up to me he would not be allowed outside unsupervised."
"He's your brother?"
"My twin. It's ... unfortunate."
"Well, anyway, I just walked off, and he followed me, and I got a bit scared and I started running, and then the next thing I knew ... here I am."
Artemis shook her head. "This isn't the first time something like this has happened," she said. "Rest assured, we will be having words about it."
"And then he'll turn me back?"
"Absolutely," lied Artemis.
"No need to tell my family back home what happened, then," said the tree. "Good. Maybe I should call in sick at work though. I can't really go in like this. I had my phone with me; it should be around here somewhere. Could you dial my boss's number and hold the phone to my trunk?"
"Mortals aren't going to be able to understand you, I'm afraid," said Artemis. "Just gods. And other vegetation. I wouldn't bother talking to the grass, though. It isn't very bright."
"Oh," said the tree. "Okay." Artemis gave the tree time to absorb this information. "Why aren't I more upset about this?" it said eventually. "If you'd told me yesterday that I was going to be turned into a tree, I'm sure I'd have been really, really upset."
"You're a tree now, not a human mortal," explained Artemis. "You don't really have emotions anymore. I think you'll be much happier this way. And you'll live longer, unless it gets very windy."
"Except your brother's going to turn me back."
"Of course he is," said Artemis. "Right, then. I'd best be getting on. I've got to get these dogs back to ... my friends." "It was nice meeting you," said the tree.
"Likewise," said Artemis. "Bye, then. See you soon. Maybe."

The pleasant look on her face vaporized before her back was even fully turned. The dogs saw her expression and whimpered as one. But they had nothing to fear from Artemis. It was time to go home and find Apollo.

Sources: Text, Pic 

David Sedaris' "Next of Kin"

Recently, Lady Ariella Tyrold lent me David Sedaris' Naked. A collection of witty and slightly disconcerting  short stories of an allegedly autobiographical nature, it is dripping with black humour. Unsettling like Poe's Lionizing (see earlier post) but with the anecdotal and brash humour Poe lacks the following short story really made my month. If you like this short story too, you can enjoy the many others by buying the book.

Paperback Cover

"

Next of Kin

by David Sedaris

I found the book hidden in the woods beneath a sheet of plywood, its cover torn away and the pages damp with mildew. I read, "Brock and Bonnie Rivers stood in their driveway, waving goodbye to the Reverend Hassleback. 'Goodbye,' they said, waving. 'Goodbye,' the reverend responded. 'Tell those two teens of yours, Josh and Sandi, that they'll make an excellent addition to our young persons' ministry. They're fine kids,' he said with a wink. 'Almost as fine and foxy as their parents.' The Rivers chuckled, raising their hands in another wave. When the reverend's car finally left the driveway, they stood for a moment in the bright sunshine before descending into the basement dungeon to unshackle the children."

The theme of the book was that people are not always what they seem. Highly respected in their upper-middleclass community, the Rivers family practiced a literal interpretation of the phrase "Love thy neighbor." Limber as gymnasts, these people were both shameless and insatiable. Father and daughter, brother and sister, mother and son, after exhausting every possible combination, they widened their circle to include horny sea captains and door-to-door knife salesmen. Yes, these people were naughty, but at the age of 13, I couldn't help but admire their infectious energy and spirited enjoyment of life.

The first few times I read the book, I came away shocked, not by the characters' behavior, but by the innumerable typos. Had nobody bothered to proofread this book before sending it to print? In the opening chapter, the daughter is caught with her brother's ceck in her pissy, calling out "feck me hard, hardir". On page 33, the son has sex with his mother, who we are told possesses a fond par of tots. I showed the book to my sister Lisa, who tore it from my hands, saying, let me hold on to this for a while.

She and I often swapped babysitting jobs and considered ourselves fairly well read in the field of literary pornography. "Look in the parents' bedroom beneath the sweaters in the second drawer of the white dresser," she'd say. We'd each read The Story of O and the collected writings of the Marquis de Sade with one eye on the front door, fearful that the homeowners might walk in and torture us with barbed whips and hot oils. We know you, our looks would say as the parents checked on their sleeping children. We know all about you.

The book went from Lisa to our 11-year-old sister, Gretchen, who interpreted it as a startling nonfiction expose on the American middle class. "I'm pretty sure this exact same thing is going on right here in North Hills," she whispered, tucking the book beneath the artificial grass of her Easter basket. "Take the Sherman family, for example. Just last week, I saw Heidi sticking her hands down Steve Junior's pants." "The guy has two broken arms," I said. "She was probably just tucking in his shirt." "Would you ask one of us to tuck in your shirt?" she asked. She had a point. A careful study suggested that the Shermans were not the people they pretended to be. The father was often seen tugging at his crotch, and the wife had a disturbing habit of looking you straight in the eye while sniffing her fingers. A veil had been lifted, especially for Gretchen, who now saw the world as a steaming pit of unbridled sexuality.

Seated on a lounge chair at the country club, she would narrow her eyes, speculating on the children crowding the shallow end of the pool. "I have a sneaking suspicion Christina Youngblood might be our half sister," she said. "She's got her father's chin, but the eyes and mouth are pure Mom." I felt uneasy implicating our parents, but Gretchen provided a wealth of frightening evidence. She noted the way our mother applied lipstick at the approach of the potato chip delivery man, whom she addressed by first name and often invited in to use the bathroom. Our father referred to the bank tellers as "doll" and "sweetheart," and their responses suggested that he had taken advantage of them one time too many.

The Greek Orthodox church, the gaily dressed couples at the country club, even our elderly collie, Duchess, they were all in on it according to Gretchen, who took to piling furniture against her bedroom door before going to sleep at night. The book wound up in the hands of our 10-year-old sister, Amy, who used it as a textbook in the make-believe class she held after school each day. Dressed in a wig and high heels, she passed her late afternoons standing before a blackboard and imitating her teachers.

"I'm very sorry, Candice, but I'm going to have to fail you," she'd say, addressing one of the empty folding chairs arranged before her. "The problem is not that you don't try. The problem is that you're stupid, very, very stupid. Isn't Candice stupid, class? She's ugly, too. Am I wrong? Very well, Candice, you can sit back down now. And for god's sakes, please stop crying. OK, class. Now I'm going to read to you from this week's new book. It's a story about a California family and it's called Next of Kin."

If Amy had read the book, then surely it had been seen by eight-year-old Tiffany, who shared her bedroom, and possibly by our brother, Paul, who at the age of two might have sucked on the binding, which was even more dangerous than reading it. Clearly, this had to stop before it got out of hand. The phrase "Tight willin' gasshole" was growing more popular by the day, and even our ancient Greek grandmother was arriving at the breakfast table with suspicious-looking circles beneath her eyes.

Gretchen took the book and hid it under the carpet of her bedroom, where it was discovered by our housekeeper, Lena, who eventually handed it over to our mother. "I'll make sure this is properly disposed of," my mother said, hurrying down the hallway to her bedroom. "Panetration," she laughed, reading out loud from a randomly selected page. "Oh, this ought to be good."

Weeks later, Gretchen and I found the book hidden between the mattress and box springs of my parents' bed, the pages stained with coffee rings and cigarette ash. The discovery seemed to validate all of Gretchen's suspicions. "They'll be coming for us any day now," she warned. "Be prepared, my friend, because this time they'll be playing for keeps." We waited. I'd always made it a point to kiss my mother before going to bed, but not anymore. The feel of her hand on my shoulder now made my flesh crawl.

She was hemming a pair of my pants one afternoon when, standing before her on a kitchen chair, I felt her hands grace my butt. "I-- I just want to be friends," I stammered. "Nothing more, nothing less." She took the pins out of her mouth and studied me for a moment before sighing. "Damn, and here you've been leading me on all this time."

I read the book once more, hoping to recapture my earlier pleasure, but it was too late now. I couldn't read the phrase, "He paunched his daughter's rock-hard nopples," without thinking of Gretchen barricading herself in the bedroom. I thought I might throw the book away, or maybe even burn it, but like a perfectly good outgrown sweater, it seemed a shame to destroy it when the world was full of people who might get some use out of it.

With this in mind, I carried the book to the grocery store parking lot, and tossed it into the back of a shiny new pickup truck. I then took up my post beside the store's outdoor vending machines, waiting until the truck's owner returned, pushing a cart full of groceries. He was a wiry man, with fashionable mutton-chop sideburns and a half-cast on his arm.

As he placed his bags into the back of the truck, his eyes narrowed upon the book. I watched as he picked it up and leafed through the first few pages, before raising his head to search the parking lot. He took a cigarette from his pocket and tapped it against the roof of the truck before lighting it. Then he slipped the book into his pocket and drove away.

"

What do you think? 

Is this your cup of tea? Have you read anything else by David Sedaris and if so, are there short stories or collections you think are better than this? If this is the case, why? Are you aware of any similar authors in terms of content, tone or use of language? Naked conludes my sojourn through the Sedaris bibliography and I am on the lookout for more like it, so...

Comments on The Tale of Sir Bob are, as always, welcome!

Sources: Text, Pic.

50 Books Every Child Should Read

According to The Independent, Education Secretary Michael Gove has presented a goal that every 11-year-old should read at least 50 books per year. In the spirit of this optimistic suggestion, they had three children's books writers and two critics compile one list each of ten of the books they thought should figure on this list. Read through it and see how many you know!

Philip Pullman

* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Indispensable. The great classic beginning of English children's literature.
* Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. What effortless invention looks like.
* Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner. A great political story: democracy in action.
* Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. As clear and pure as Mozart.
* Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken. If Ransome was Mozart, Aiken was Rossini. Unforced effervescence.
* The Owl Service by Alan Garner. Showed how children's literature could sound dark and troubling chords.
* The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Superb wit and vigorous invention.
* Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson. Any of the Moomin books would supply the same strange light Nordic magic.
* A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna. A particular favourite of mine, as much for Richard Kennedy's delicate illustrations (in the English edition) as for the story.
* The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé. Three generations of this family have loved Tintin. Perfect timing, perfect narrative tact and command, blissfully funny.

Michael Morpurgo

* The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson. The heroine is blessed with such wonderful friends who help her through the twists and turns of this incredible journey.
* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The first few pages were so engaging, Marley's ghostly face on the knocker of Scrooge's door still gives me the shivers.
* Just William books by Richmal Crompton. These are a must for every child.
* The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. This was the first story, I think, that ever made me cry and it still has the power to make me cry.
* The Elephant's Child From The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. The story my mother used to read me most often, because I asked for it again and again. I loved the sheer fun of it, the music and the rhythm of the words. It was subversive too. Still my favourite story.
* Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson This was the first real book I read for myself. I lived this book as I read it.
* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. A classic tale of man versus nature. I wish I'd written this.
* The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono. A book for children from 8 to 80. I love the humanity of this story and how one man's efforts can change the future for so many.
* The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy The story of two children who go to find their father who has been listed missing in the trenches of the First World War.
* The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett. I love this story of a girl's life being changed by nature.

Michael Morpurgo, John Walsh and Michael Rosen

Katy Guest, literary editor for The Independent on Sunday

* Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah. Story of a young Ethiopian boy, whose parents abandon him in London to save his life.
* Finn Family Moomintroll (and the other Moomin books) by Tove Jansson. A fantasy series for small children that introduces bigger ones to ideas of adventure, dealing with fear, understanding character and tolerating difference.
* Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. It's rude, it's funny and it will chime with every 11-year-old who's ever started a new school.
* I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Written for a teenage audience but fun at any age.
* The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein. Be warned, these tales of hobbits, elves and Middle Earth are dangerously addictive.
* The Tygrine Cat (and The Tygrine Cat on the Run) by Inbali Iserles. If your parents keep going on at you to read Tarka the Otter, The Sheep-Pig and other animal fantasies, do – they're great books – also try Iserles' stories about a cat seeking his destiny.
* Carry On, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. A grown-up book – but not that grown-up.
* When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr. Judith Kerr's semi-autobiographical story of a family fleeing the Nazis in 1933.
* Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. Elaborate mythological imagery and a background based in real science. If you like this, the Discworld series offers plenty more.
* The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. The pinnacle of the wonderful Jacqueline Wilson's brilliant and enormous output.

John Walsh, author and Independent columnist

* The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Irresistible puzzle-solving tales of the chilly Victorian master-sleuth and his dim medical sidekick.
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Age-transcending tale, both funny and sad.
* Mistress Masham's Repose by TH White. Magical story of 10-year-old Maria, living in a derelict stately home, shy, lonely and under threat from both her governess and her rascally guardian.
* Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Inexplicably evergreen, trend and taste-defying 1868 classic.
* How to be Topp by Geoffrey Willams and Ronald Searle. Side-splitting satire on skool, oiks, teechers, fules, bulies, swots.
* Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz. First of the action-packed adventures with 14-year-old Alex Rider.
* Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. "Dulce et Decorum Est" for pre-teens.
* Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Lively, amoral, wildly imaginative debut (six more followed) about the money-grabbing master-criminal Artemis, 12. The author called it "Die Hard with fairies".
* The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier. Inspiring wartime story of the Balicki family in Warsaw.
* Animal Farm by George Orwell. Smart 11-year-olds won't need any pre-knowledge of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and 1917 to appreciate this brilliantly-told fable.

Some of the books

Michael Rosen

* Skellig by David Almond. Brings magical realism to working-class North-east England.
* Red Cherry Red by Jackie Kay. A book of poems that reaches deep into our hidden thoughts but also talks in a joyous voice exploring the everyday.
* Talkin Turkeys by Benjamin Zephaniah. A book of poems that demands to be read aloud, performed and thought about.
* Greek myths by Geraldine McCaughrean. Superheroes battle with demons, gods intervene in our pleasures and fears – a bit like the spectres in our minds going through daily life, really – beautifully retold here.
* People Might Hear You by Robin Klein. A profound, suspenseful story about sects, freedom and the rights of all young people – especially girls.
* Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. A book that dared to go where no one thought you could with young audiences because it raises tough stuff to do with race.
* Einstein's Underpants and How They Saved the World by Anthony McGowan. A crazy adventure set amongst the kids you don't want to know but who this book makes you really, really care about.
* After the First Death by Robert Cormier. Cormier is never afraid of handling how the personal meets the political all within the framework of a thriller.
* The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd. A book that allows difference to be part of the plot and not a point in itself.
* Beano Annual. A cornucopia of nutty, bad, silly ideas, tricks, situations and plots.

I got 22.
 
Source: The Independent Web Pages

Chess, Audiobooks and Reading Speed

I am a slow reader. Since I always have loved literature I realised this at an early stage but it was not until I read about learning strategies that I understood why this was the case. I am an auditive learner, which means I learn through my ears. I can easily remember things people have said, tunes, lines from films etc. The limitations of my reading speed turned out to stem from my use of subvocalised reading, i.e. I read aloud in my head. By transforming the words into sound impressions they became comprehensible for me.

This resulted in a low reading speed. Although I would register, remember and process everything I read, I was vulnerable to distractions and therefore needed to increase my reading speed. I divided this into two goals.

1. At the comprehension level, I had to learn to comprehend sound impressions faster.
2. At the registration level, I had to recieve the words faster.

The first goal could be achieved quite passively. By pitching up the speed of audiobooks and blocking out all other sensuous impressions I gradually increased my comprehension speed. The positive results I achieved using this method are the reason I keep using it to further improve in this area.

Audiobooks come in many forms

The second goal I approached in a somewhat unconventional manner. Based on a theory presented at the NKUL conference of 2010, I wanted to see if reading speed could be more of a mechanical phenomenon than one based in comprehension. If so, strengthening the muscles around the eyes, allowing them to move more quickly, would increase reading speed just like strengthening the muscles of an athlete would improve his efficiency.


Muscles around the eye.
Notice how they are able to move the oculus diagonally as well as up-down, left-right


Initially, I tried moving a pen ahead along each line of text but I soon found that I would automatically adapt the speed of the pen to that of the eyes. Abandoning this method, I changed tactics and started playing chess on the computer. I had previously seen great educational potential in games; first person shooters often improve the ability to make quick decisions while strategy games improves organisational and administrative skills. Chess is scientifically proven to be beneficial in all kinds of ways (see this collection of articles) and although its positive effect on reading speed has been noted by amongst others Drs. Albert Frank (1973) and Stuart Marguiles (1991), no clear link to mechanical eye movements was proven.

Initial layout of a chess game

Once I started playing the computer, I noticed how the potential trajectories of the pieces, especially the rook, bishop and queen, would have my eyes moving in way that would train the relevant muscles. Additionally, the original layout with the players at opposite ends would facilitate the same response, given the necessity of constantly assessing and reassessing your and your opponent's changing positions.

Trajectories of the rook, the bishop and the queen

After number of games, I noticed how my reading speed had increased. As these two methods seemed to give the desired effect, I still use it to improve further. The methods of course also have the added boon of being fun and entertaining as well as being beneficial in many other fields than just reading speed. This, of course make them efficient tools for education as well and I hope to be able to test them extensively at a later opportunity.
Sources as given

"A Trivial Comedy for Serious People" - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

I am a great admirer of Oscar Wilde's and although The Picture of Dorian Gray captivates my imagination in much the same enthralling fashion as Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, there is no work of his closer to my heart than The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People. With Wilde's sharp wit ever present, the light-hearted and playful tone coupled with the social intricacies of the play reminds me of a successor of his and a personal favourite of mine, P.G. Wodehouse (for my blogposts on everything Wodehouse, click here).

While the play can be found in its entirety here, this excerpt is one of my favourite scenes in which the protagonist Jack is being interviewed by Lady Bracknell for her daughter's hand in marriage.

"

LADY BRACKNELL [Sitting down.] You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing.

[Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil.]

JACK Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.

LADY BRACKNELL [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?

JACK Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

LADY BRACKNELL I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you?

JACK Twenty-nine.

LADY BRACKNELL. A very good age to be married at. I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?

JACK [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.

Oscar Wilde

LADY BRACKNELL I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income?

JACK Between seven and eight thousand a year.

LADY BRACKNELL [Makes a note in her book.] In land, or in investments?

JACK. In investments, chiefly.

LADY BRACKNELL That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land.

JACK I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, about fifteen hundred acres, I believe; but I don't depend on that for my real income. In fact, as far as I can make out, the poachers are the only people who make anything out of it.

LADY BRACKNELL A country house! How many bedrooms? Well, that point can be cleared up afterwards. You have a town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country.

JACK Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square, but it is let by the year to Lady Bloxham. Of course, I can get it back whenever I like, at six months' notice.

LADY BRACKNELL Lady Bloxham? I don't know her.

JACK Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably advanced in years.

LADY BRACKNELL Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character. What number in Belgrave Square?

JACK 149.

LADY BRACKNELL [Shaking her head.] The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. However, that could easily be altered.

Colin Firth and Rupert Everett as Jack and Algy in the
2002 film

JACK. Do you mean the fashion, or the side?

LADY BRACKNELL [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your politics?

JACK. Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.

LADY BRACKNELL Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at any rate. Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?

JACK I have lost both my parents.

LADY BRACKNELL To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did herise from the ranks of the aristocracy?

JACK I am afraid I really don't know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me … I don't actually know who I am by birth. I was … well, I was found.

LADY BRACKNELL Found!

JACK The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.

LADY BRACKNELL Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?

JACK [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.

LADY BRACKNELL A hand-bag?

JACK [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag – a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it – an ordinary hand-bag in fact.

LADY BRACKNELL In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?

JACK In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.

LADY BRACKNELL The cloak-room at Victoria Station?

JACK Yes. The Brighton line.

LADY BRACKNELL The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion – has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now – but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.

JACK May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's happiness.

LADY BRACKNELL I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.

JACK Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.

LADY BRACKNELL Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter – a girl brought up with the utmost care – to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

Sources: 1, 2, 3

First Editions and Other Marvels of Bibliophilia

During the summer vacation I succumbed to my bibliophilic streak and bought a monstrous number of books. In the course of this quest for literature, I visited many exciting bookshops. I went to Oxford and found a fantastic bookstore. Blackwell Rare Books in Broad Street seemed, in this bibliophile's opinion, to be able to cater to my every need. With a seemingly infinite number of departments spanning a number of buildings, a small café and an allegedly wonderful at ordering what they might not have they met my every need. Also, G. David Bookseller in Saint Edwards Passage in Cambridge proved to be a gold mine for old and rare books. I wish I had been able to spend more time there. Once you have held the first ever printed copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped in your hands there you know there are no limits to what you might find. Finally, The Haunted Bookshop in the same alley deserves to be mentioned not because of the staff, which was less than obliging, but because I spent quite a lot of money there.

I bought the following:

A first edition of Mulliner Nights by P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse -
Mulliner Nights
(London 1933)

This set me back £50, but it was worth it. I had considered buying a number of Wodehouse books, but there is something special about a first edition. This one, from 1933, would have cost ten times as much with its dust jacket which is fortunately missing. There is something relic-like over a first edition by your favourite author; imagining how it was first read by eager eyes in the interbellum years, how reader after reader inherited and enjoyed the book until it finally, surprisingly, is bought and soon to go international.

The plot revolves around Adrian Mulliner, a private detective who has not smiled since he was twelve. However, re-learning how to smile he finds that his smile has a most astounding effect on those with something to hide. As the book is packed with these individuals, hilarity, in the colloquial lingo, ensues.

I am looking forward to being the latest in a long line to enjoy exposure to the Wodehouse wit. In the end, many years from now, I will pass on the book. As the antiquarian said, "we do not own books, we borrow them."

Three More Wodehouse First Editions

P.G. Wodehouse -
Ice In the Bedroom
(London 1961)

P.G. Wodehouse -
Mr. Mulliner Speaking
(London 1929)

P.G. Wodehouse -
If I were You
(London 1931)

Of these three, only Ice in the Bedroom has still got its dust jacket. It turns out that the reason why first editions of Wodehouse books with their dust jackets are much more valuable than those without is because they have generally been popular enough for the dustjackets to get worn away. However, my reasons for buying them were not financial. These books were highly anticipated. People with bobs queued up to buy them and then passed them on to people they thought well of. The last in this line of vehemence is me.

P.G. Wodehouse -
The Heart of a Goof
(London 2008)

P.G. Wodehouse -
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
(London 2008)

And...

just to prove that I am not judging books solely by their covers, these are two other books I bought. Incidentally they were both bought at G. David's for half their original price although they were perfectly, crisply new.

Virgil - Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1-6 translated by H.R. Fairclough (New York 1925) 

Printed in 1925 and immediately bought by one J.W.D. Calman this is the first of two volumes covering Virgil's works. The other volume could not be found, neither could the dust jacket, which might explain the price of £3. Professor Fairclough of Harvard University spent the First World War years translating Virgil into English and the book nicely displays the original Latin text on the left side and the translated English text on the right.

The Eclogues is a set of text where herdsmen in a pastoral setting discuss and consider political, moral and even eroticist questions. They can be read as propaganda texts for Virgil's patron Augustus augmenting the political mythology he built for himself. The Georgics is a collection of four books in which a treatise on society and man is disguised as a handbook on agriculture. Analogically reminiscent of Hesiod's Erga the Georgics compare man to bees and emphasises the virtue of labour. Finally, the book contains the first six books of the Aeneid, the analogue of Homer's The Odyssey. Like The Odyssey the Aeneid begins with the fall of Troy and follow Aeneas, the mythical forefather of all Romans on his flight from Troy to Italy. I am especially looking forward to reading the better half of the epos, as I have not looked at it for 8 years now.

Edmund G. Gardner - The Story of Florence (London 1928)

St. Zenobius resuscitating a child
who has been hit by a runaway cart
(Domenico Veneziano - St. Zenobius Performs a Miracle (c. 1445))

I take a special interest in Florence and especially Renaissance Florence. This is where the Renaissance started and whence what I consider to be the most seminal works of art and literature of the period came. This is where Petrarch was born, where Michelangelo, Donatello and Botticelli made their David, Annunciation and Primavera, where Brunellesci built the first Renaissance dome atop the Santa Maria del Fiore. It is also where Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his The Prince and the setting of Dante's Divine Comedy and Boccaccio's Decameron (all available here). All this was funded by wealthy banker patrons such as the Medici who controlled Europe's largest bank. Culture flowed forth from Florence together with textiles and florins, which because of their purity became the standard coinage of Europe. Thus, Florence was the hub of Renaissance culture. For an astonishingly visual and appealing visit, play through the video game Assassin's Creed II. For a more toned down but still interesting approach, seek this book.

The book I have bought is not Machiavelli's Florentine Histories from 1532 although it refers to it. His style is unfortunately rather erratic and not fit for a travel guide such as the one I actually bought. However, it seems informative and I have already found the guide useful: during a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, I came across a painting of Florence's St. Zenobius and recognised the motif from what I had read. In seeking to understand human nature, such links are always most gratifying.

Christian is fed up with
the "City of Destruction"

John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress (London, date unknown)

This must be the weirdest box of frogs I've ever probed my nasal appendage into. The text can best be classified as a Christian allegory. John Bunyan wrote it while serving several consecutive jail sentences in 17th century England for preaching weird stuff. Like Hitler he found it necessary to write down his strange ideas while imprisoned and this book is further proof that pen and ink should be prohibited for those incarcerated, as weird or dangerous products are the result (Marco Polo excepted). It was published in installments between 1678 and 1686. The allegory's plot consists of the main character, Christian, who travels from the "City of Destruction" to the "Celestial City" (the pious Christian's ascension). On his way through "Plain Ease", "The Delectable Mountains", the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" and , interestingly, "Vanity Fair" he meets personifications like Mrs. Bat's-Eyes, Madame Bubble, Mr. Wordly Wiseman and even Beelzebub. The book certainly makes you both bewildered and uncomfortable but it is still curiously fascinating. For the full text, click here.

Gender and 18th Century Literature

Charlotte Lennox -
The Female Quixote
(My ed. London 1970)

Henry Fielding -
The Adventures of
Joseph Andrews
(My ed. London 1912)

This coming fall I will try to write posts about a number of 18th century novels offering different views of gender in contemporary England. I bought two of these in Oxford: Charlotte Lennox' The Female Quixote and Henry Fielding's The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. My edition of The Female Quixote has a special history attached to it. I had already bought a recent edition, but at Blackwell's in Oxford something happened which made me buy another edition. Having browsed for some hours, I came over all peckish and bought a scone with butter and jam and a cup of tea in the in-store cafe. An elderly, Ernest Hemingway-looking gentleman was seated all alone in a group of comfy chairs, so I asked whether one of them was taken to which he replied in the negative. We ended up conversing on this and that, as he turned out to be "a semi-retired professor". I told him what I was planning on reading, pointing to a second-hand edition of the above mentioned book on a nearby shelf. He told me that this was rather a happy coincidence as he knew the previous owner. He was a fellow at Merton College and had signed his name, unintelligibly for mere mortals, in the cover. So, obviously, I picked up the thing following our little conference and brought the Oxford Press product, formerly owned by an Oxford fellow.

Dara Ó Briain - Tickling the English (London 2009)

For those poor souls unfamiliar with the wit and down to earth sense of Irish stand-up comedian Dara Ó Briain, now is the time to expand your horizons. He is sharper than a carpet tack; he studied maths and theoretical physics, audited the local debating society, founded a newspaper, wrestled killer whales, won debating championships and is fluent in Irish. Also he makes sense. Funnily. Just look:

Dara Ó Briain -
Tickling the English
(London 2009)

He has been host and/or participant on most of the good panel shows on the British airwaves, perhaps most notably on Mock the Week, and has toured the isles with several stand-up shows. The book was written while doing this.

One of his routines involves asking the audience for adjectives that describe people from obscure countries. This resulted in highlights like "the Azerbaijanis are Crazy and Bouncy [...] the Bhuthanese are Happy and Unwashed [and] the people of Fiji are Well-read and promiscuous" (p.15). However, the audience could never do the same with the British and so, throughout his tour and book, Ó Briain tries to find his adjectives.

Tom Bryant (ed.) - Debrett's Guide for the Modern Gentleman (Richmond 2010)

From its beginnings in the 1780s, Debrett's has produced a who is who of British nobility and peerage. Originally the official publisher to the East India Company, they were well suited to gather material for their most famous 20/21st century products; their books on etiquette. The Guide for the Modern Gentleman informs such an individual on subjects as diverse as dress code, how to survive a plane crash, how to buy underwear and bed basics. Try, for instance, to find whether one should wear silk, satin or cotton in bed at their homepage. If you do, should the same material be worn at all seasons?



Lewis Carroll - The Hunting of the Snark (London 1928)

Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark or agony in eight fits is a delightful read. Being a mathematician and a wordsmith the poem is a metrical delight as well as a lexical one. In its absurdity the poem is highly reminiscent of the Alice books and even incorporates some of its characters (though unfortunately not my fravourite, the Red Queen). What is a snark, then? As Carroll explains in his preface:

"take the two words “fuming” and “furious.” Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. [...] if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say “frumious.” (p. xi-xii) 

Is it a snail, snake or a shark? The mind boggles. It does not really matter, of course, as long as the snark is not a boojum.

A crew of ten, all with occupations beginning with "b" apart from the lace-making beaver of course, departs on a fantastical journey to capture a snark. Throughout the poem, different situations arise with hilarious effects:

"He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
 When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only kill Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
 And was almost too frightened to speak:

The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,
 Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
 Could atone for that dismal surprise!" (p. 9)

"Whenever the Butcher was by, the Beaver kept looking the opposite way and appeared unaccountably shy"

Some of the characters such as the Baker also have hidden phobias:

"“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
 Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums —” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
 For the Baker had fainted away

They roused him with muffins — they roused him with ice —
 They roused him with mustard and cress —
They roused him with jam and judicious advice —
 They set him conundrums to guess." (p. 24-27)

For the reader who is into absurd literature or who simply likes the beauty and pleasantness of delectably metric poetry, the poem is available here in its entirety. You are welcome!

Saul David - Victoria's Wars (London 2007)

Having read George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series I was delighted to find Victoria's Wars at Waterstones in Cambridge. It was one of those books that tagged along. The book gives a reader friendly insight into some of the major conflicts of the British Empire while keeping a second focus on the responses of the monarch herself. Quotation from sources and numerous anecdotes make narration flow nicely and captivate the reader to such an extent that one tends to be reminded of the memoirs of the notorious cad himself. Indeed, the book covers much the same area as the Flashman books do; The Opium Wars (Flashman and the Dragon), The First Afghan War (Flashman), The Sikh Wars (Flashman and the Mountain of Light), The Crimea (Flashman at the Charge) and The Indian Revolt (Flashman in the Great Game).

Saul David -
Victoria's Wars
(London 2007)

Sir Harry Paget Flashman
VC, KCB and KCIE

The book includes all the central heroes, villains and incompetent fools of the era including respectively George Broadfoot, Sir Campbell and Toughguy Napier, Sher Singh and Akbar Khan and finally Macnaghten and Elphinstone. It also provides some analysis of the role of each of these personages perhaps a bit less subjective than the Honorable H.P. Flashman, although both are wonderful and vivid presentations of some of the most fascinating aspects of Britain's imperial history.

A Final Curiosity: Alexander Pope's Last Letters and Will (London 1776)

The WORKS of ALEXANDER POPE, Esq.
VOLUME the SIXTH.
Containing
The last of his LETTERS, and WILL
(London 1776)

Feast your imagination on this, dear reader! Not only does the book contain Alexander Pope's letters to his friend John Gay and his will but it is a historic relic as well a work of art in its own right. The pages are beautifully textured, the pages are wonderfully composed (like the title page above) and the book is old enough for the words to have modern "s'es" only at the ends of words and "f's" in their place otherwise. Also it is intriguing to imagine previous readers. The person who bought this book would probably not live to see the Napoleonic Wars, perhaps he would even have relatives fighting across the sea in America. Perhaps he also bought the first volume of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Perhaps he mourned the death of Edward Wortley Montagu or rejoiced in that of David Hume or Nathan Hale. Perhaps he expressed outrage in the House of Lords at the loss of the thirteen colonies on 4th of July or at the madness of the regent.

Of course, one cannot know these things but such a book can trigger quite a nice bit of intellectual exercise or plain imaginative pleasure through its content and its existence. As with all books, one can and should be somewhat awestruck.

Sources:
http://www.theoi.com/image/book_virgil_lg.jpg

http://www.lamdhabooks.com.au/large%20pix/37348.jpg

http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/florence.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/images/021209_catherine150.jpg

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=230496173698

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vMwdarNGL.jpg
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu:8080/DQIIMAGES/largeimages/472/1752-London-Millar-01-001-t.jpg
http://www.offthekerb.co.uk/images/artists/dara-obriain/Tickling-The-English-304.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/22/article-1059756-02C1C4FB00000578-479_233x307.jpg
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2008/01/03/flashman460.jpg
http://www.sauldavid.co.uk/photos/victoria%27s-wars.jpg
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/images/snark3.jpg

Other images from Wikimedia Commons