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Just Finished Reading: Three Tang Dynasty Poets [53pp] 

I wasn’t expecting to review a booklet of 8th century Chinese poets today. What I was expecting to review was a short selection of avant-garde works by Gertrude Stein on Food. But just a few pages into that I decided that it was essentially unreadable, or at least that I valued my time/effort in excess of what was required to power my way through her (very) short work. Life is too short and my review pile too small for that sort of thing – so here we are. I had promised myself that I would read ALL of the Penguin short classics, but I have failed. [sobs] Life, and reading, however, goes on. 

THIS short booklet held the works of three poets (from 8th century China) and broke down into three main themes – nature, the missing of/longing for a separated loved one and a few tales of combat from this rather violent age. Generally, I much preferred the nature poems. 

I think the one I liked best was actually the first one – Song of the Peach Tree Spring – where a fisherman stumbles upon an idyllic hidden community and is so entranced that he decides to live there permanently only to discover he can’t find his way back.  

As I’ve said several times now, poetry just isn’t my thing. There has been a vanishing few that have captivated my attention (some of which I memorised, at least in part, decades ago and can still recall with a bit of effort) but generally I see them – much like comic books – as just too short or ephemeral to appreciate. I guess my brain just doesn’t work that way. 

No doubt in either of the boxsets I’m presently working my way through there will be more poetry works to try to engage with. I wonder if any of them will ‘stick’?     

Translated from the Chinese by G W Robinson and Arthur Cooper 

Erm.... 'Drama free'? I really don't think this person has had a cat in their life before......... 

Just Finished Reading: 1946 – The Making of the Modern World by Victor Sebestyen (FP: 2014) [382pp] 

The celebrations were short-lived. The war was over but the dying, the hunger, the desperation continued. Across Europe, especially so in Germany, much had been destroyed. Many houses had fallen, power where it existed at all was intermittent at best, sewers had been smashed, hospitals lay in ruins and roads were only slowly becoming passable. As if the populations of central Europe needed any additional suffering, they realised all too well that winter was coming. Meanwhile, in vast areas of the devastated Soviet Union, millions had died and millions more did not know if they would survive to see years end. In the Far East, fighting continued in China in a resurgent Civil War whilst the survivors of defeated Japan struggled with food shortages and the shame of defeat. The global war was over but things, if anything, had gotten worse for many. 

A world war may have ended in 1945 but a new world, the world we live in today, began for many in 1946. With the battered but triumphant Soviet Union taking control of its occupied territories the conditions we now know as the Cold War began to take shape. US President Truman was becoming aware that America falling back into glorious isolation was not an option as the Soviets pushed forward at every opportunity and the Europeans had little power to resist. The US also saw that it could not, and would not, simply abandon Japan to its fate especially with the Soviets and now the Chinese becoming threats to US power projection.  

In the Middle East the Jewish settlements in Palestine were advocating for more say in their future and for unrestricted Jewish immigration especially with the growing realisation of the enormity of the Holocaust. Some groups advocated for independence and were both able and willing to use violence to achieve it. The British, meanwhile, had neither the resources nor the stomach for a fight. Likewise, in India, the British were determined to leave with almost unseemly haste to save money and its shrinking Imperial reputation. Many would die in the process of creating the three nations of Israel, India and Pakistan and the consequences of those fights would still be with us more that 70 years later. 

I had a fair idea that the end of the Second World War was bad and that the recovery was both long and hard. I had little appreciation of the levels of suffering – globally – of SO many people as the political and geographical tectonic plates shifted into a world more recognisably modern. The fact that MILLIONS of people in Europe alone (mostly German) were forced from their homes at gunpoint and at very short notice, pointed towards the border and told to leave or die is enough to give anyone pause. The fact that many thousands of people were housed in the concentration camps they had so far survived in because the Allies had nowhere else to put them again gives you pause. The best thing that could be said is that at least they got better food if not always better conditions and that it was ‘temporary’. The word GRIM just doesn’t do it justice. 

World War Two may have officially ended in 1945 but the suffering continued LONG after the guns finally stopped. The results in Europe, the East, the Middle East and the Far East still live with us today in the memories of those who lived through it and the headlines we see every day. This was an awesome work of modern history. Not only did I learn a great deal (I’ve hardly touched on much of the book) but it reset some of my thinking about the aftermath of the war. I’ll definitely be reading more about the post-1945 period and more by this excellent author. I already own his work on 1956 Hungary and will be collecting his other works too. Very Highly recommended and a highlight of the year. 

I was going to be jumping ahead to the 1960's next but plans change! so, on to the 1970's....

[Highest page count of the year so far: 382pp][+9pp]

Happy World Pizza Day...! Go get a slice!

7 Things I LOVE about Books 

Marian, over @ Classics Considered, has ‘challenged’ me to list 7 (oddly specific!) things I love about books. After MUCH musing on the topic as well as sleeping on it here they are: 

1. As a lifelong fan of the English language – the only one I can read in – I do love discovering new words. Mostly I can get them from context and their similarity to other, known, words but sometimes I need to look them up and LEARN things! FUN. 

2. One of the pleasures of reading Classics is coming across ODD spellings of words and realise that the accepted spelling of things is a VERY recent phenomena. That alone is interesting to contemplate. 

3. Most of the time characters in books are there to move the story, the narrative, forward and that’s about it. Even when they excel at this function, they’re pretty much pawns being moved around the board by the author who, to mix my metaphors here, are clearly pulling their strings. But sometimes, rarely, you come across a REAL character who is clearly above the string-pulling business and is, mixing again, the captain of their own ship/story. It's as if the character is living the adventure and the ‘author’ is simply documenting it. I LOVE that so much it's difficult to put into words and I’ve probably only come across that sort of thing a handful of times.  

4. One thing I discovered recently – this year in fact – was how much I really enjoy animal characters in novels. I don’t mean in Fantasy or even SF where the animal is a character in the story just like the humans (and aliens) around them, but an animal as we would recognise them. In both Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov (where the penguin - Misha - was an important plot element) and The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley (where the octopus – Albert – was very much a side character) I loved the way that the creature was a REAL person despite not being human and being mute. Both characters had personality and a well-earned place in the story.  

5. As I’m always looking for things to learn and new avenues to explore, I always like it whenever a novel presents a person, place or event that was previously unknown to or unconsidered by, me so I’m prompted to dig in the archives looking for non-fiction books on the subject/topic. It's ONE reason why my TBR is HUGE.  

6. I’m one of THOSE people who will drop a quote at the drop of a hat. Which means that I look out for them and ‘collect’ them whenever possible. Sometimes they’re from movies but also from books – fiction & non-fiction. Then all I need to do is wait for the appropriate moment and DROP it.  

7. I suppose, like most people, I often think that my ideas and perspective on the world is unique to me. Afterall, I’m unique, right? So, when I read a passage in a book that I could well have written which EXACTLY matches my beliefs, my thoughts and my deepest philosophical ideas it knocks me – metaphorically at least – off my feet. There’s almost nothing better than to discover that an author who might be LONG dead, from another country, has had the very same thought as you and that it has come into your life. LOVE it. It almost makes you believe in Fate. 

Happy Birthday: Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father John was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was a tireless letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms.

Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked Pickwick merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years, Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The installment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's podiatrist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her own disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every creative medium. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1853 novel Bleak House, a satire on the judicial system, helped support a reformist movement that culminated in the 1870s legal reform in England. A Tale of Two Cities (1859; set in London and Paris) is regarded as his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.