Hi Here I am as promised on a lovely Sunday afternoo with an Anna Trebenko concert playing on the TV which I recorded from Sky arts. Last evening I heard an opera I had never heard before Verdi's Ernani from the Met. It was wonderful. I only wish that I could have afforded to go to our local cinema in Crawley to see it. They are having several operas on screen and I hope to see Manon. I believe that's next month.
At 6.ooam I was listening to the omnibus edition on 4extra of 'Nicholas Nickleby' My favourite Dickens and I was struck by hao brilliant Dickens was at 'dopey' women. Dora Copperfield being one such and Nicholas's mother surpassing them all. She is so vacuous one has to laugh. Although the results of her vacuity for her daughter are not so clever.
As a result of 'Stuck in a book' I read Henry Green's 'Blind' which I ordered from the library stacks so it came free. I really enjoyed the beginning part of the book which is John Hayes journal at Noat public school. Can't help thinking was really Eton.Then in part 2 John is blinded whilst on a train looking out of a window. When he realises he's blind his reaction seemed too calm to me. There are no suggestions of blind school like St Dunstan's which was around in those days where he could have learned skills not least of which would have been braille.
The writing of the whole book is beautiful even if I struggled after part 2.The epilogue is a letter from John to his friend seymour asking him to visit afterall as he writes I can still talk.
Also read 'How it all Began' Penelope Lively. This was from the library but I own several of her
books.Really the whole book is an illustration of John Donne's 'No man is an Island entire of himself'. Charlotte an older lady is knocked down in the process of being mugged and breaks her hip. This leads to the entrance of all the other protagonists. Eventually we see howall arer linked'The delinquent, fourteen years old,male, as it happens despite equal opps' was himself set upon by a hostile gang and relieed of the £67.27..........Beyond him unknown of no9 interest. he had left Charlotte on her crutches.the embattled Daltons,Henry in his humiliation. Marion, Rose, Anton demonstrating that no0 man is an island not even a 14 year old with behavioural problems.
So well written and what I really like in 'Literary' novels so full of all sorts of intertextuality, which make one think or even reach for a source.
Lastly two relaxy novels set in 1837 just as Victoria came to the throne, Death at Dawn and Death of a Dancer by Caro Peacock are so well written. The heroine is 26 year old Liberty Laine who by the end of the second book is a kind of early private eye who sometimes works for Disraeli.I believe Caro also writes as Gillian Lipscott I might have the surname wrong but I have enjoyed those books too.I found Liberty via an audio book. I always have one of these on the go in the kitchen. What I listened to was book 3 in the series. These books are so worth listening to and reading. They have also sent me back to a biog' of Dizzy and his own novels.
Do hope the coming week is a good one. The weather for the last two days has been lovely. I have so much more energy when there is even a little bit of sunshine and warnmth although me and heat don't get on so I'd never go anywhere really hot although I go to Honk Kong at my son's expense but in its cooler seasons and it's not so bad there because everywhere is air conned almost to the point of madness.Only place where this falls down is the church St Josephs where I worshio every Sunday I'm in HK. That can become a trifle warm.
Hope to see The Artist on Thursday afternoon and Wed I'm meeting a friend and we are going to9 the Haj exhibition at the Brit. Mus. Monday I have 2 pupils a 19 year old and a new little girl starting who is 7. Her mum is my accupuncturist so we are swapping skills which is brilliant because ACCup. is so expensive but for me so effective. the cold has left my shoulders and hands in pain but a couple of hours will fix that.Tuesday, I'm visiting a friend who is a hypnotherapist. I try to look after her and the family like her mother my friend would were she not in a home where she has been along time with early onset Alzheimers. She has forgotten who we are and how to talk. Really sad.