Golden Lads and Girls

‘Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers, come to dust.’

These Shakespearean lines kept reverberating in my mind as I read and finished A.S.Byatt’s novel The Children’s Book. It’s a magnificently detailed book about the period between the end of the 19th century and the First World War, mainly in England but also Germany. It was a golden age for children’s literature. Adults were tempted to retreat to the imaginative world; the stern task of creating an Empire needed a healing refraction. Victorian doubt and morality were beginning to be seen as out-moded.

One central protagonist, Olive Wedgwood ‘a successful authoress of magical tales’ children’s stories based on fairy tales and folk-lore, appears to have it all. But Byatt’s novels are never simple. The apparent innocence and plenitude of childhood conceal actions and events that lurk like underground gnomes chipping away at feelings of security. Nothing is at it seems to be. The beloved tree house is chopped down. School is an abusive place. Adults are not to be trusted – they can be incompetent or selfish or predetory. Peter Pan is not real – it’s make believe. It was the adults who clapped their belief in fairies when they saw Barrie’s play. The artist creates his or her effect at peril to those around them.

It’s a novel jam-full of ideas and information. Too much some critics have said. The historian in me was enthralled. Keeping up with all of the novel’s children is difficult. There are about twenty. Today’s reader knows many of those golden lads whose childhood we share will be killed in the trenchs. But Byatt’s skill was that her characters did not know that. To them the war was an unexpected trauma. As mothers lost sons and the girls their young husbands and lovers the individual pain of that ghastly carnage is brought home. Those early romantic entanglements and sexual desires count for little when set against that backdrop.

Byatt writes well about those entanglements and desires. Her prose crackles with energy and passion only to slow down to describe a pot, a play, a scene, picking up the pace to describe a suffragette throwing herself at the king’s horse during the running of the Derby. It’s the stuff of life. It’s how things happen.

Edward IV and GeorgeV get a deserved, bad press from her, along with the Kaiser. They and their ministers created the war that destroyed the society she describes. I am pleased to have dwelt under her guidance in that society for a brief period. It was not golden, though its young people thought it was at the time. When the Great War began the producer stopped using a line from Peter Pan. That line was ‘to die will be an awfully big adventure.’

All the World's a Stage

Last night in my dream I strode along Lambton Quay with purpose and with confidence. Now it is day-light and I move at snail-pace around the house.

As a fourth former I had to memorise these lines from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Life on my childhood farms was cyclical. So it was easy to see human life in a similar if different pattern - we are born, we develop, we age, we die. Now as I hover between Shakespeare’s sixth and seventh stages that particular cycle rings true. The seasons repeat themselves though I admit each spring is different from the previous springs as are all the seasons. That natural cycle does not end. (Ignore the long-term prospects for the moment). But the human cycle does end. Our lifespan has closure. For the individual. Not the species. That goes on. I had a great-niece, Esme Isabel James, born in London two days ago.

Anyway, Shakespeare’s sevenfold division has lingered in my consciousness for decades. The appeal is partly the small vibrant verbal vignettes of each stage albeit with the difficulty of language from an earlier century. I especially like the school boy sketch and also the lover making his protestations to his beloved’s eyebrow; he dare not meet full gaze.

In the play the speech is a device to enable Orlando the hero to have enough time to go and pick up Adam, the faithful retainer who helped him run away from the tyrant ruler, and carry the old man to the camp. One legend has it that in the original production Shakespeare himself played Adam. The soliloquy is made by Jacques, a pessimistic courtier who is out of touch with those around him, a figure of fun, indeed, almost in need of pity.

A few blogs ago I wrote of Troillus and Cressida and my regret at never having seen a live production. Byatt’s novel, The Children’s Book which I am reading at present describes two weekend household productions, one of Midsummer Night’s Dream and the other The Winter’s Tale. My heart hurls to see them again.

I was lamenting the prospect of not seeing live Shakespeare when, (rather belately when think about it). I had a brainwave, why not get out DVDs of live productions. So I requested As You Like It with Helen Mirren as Rosalind. The pastoral scenes in the Forest of Ardern are some of the loveliest Shakespeare ever penned and it was a joy to see them well presented. It has always been to me the definitive romantic comedy.

After the power structures of the usurper’s court it is a relief to be in the greenwood where romantic dreams are fulfilled and life is presented as simple. It’s all make-believe but wonderful theatre to experience. The illusion that is the stage is rarely better fulfilled. And Jacques’ speech contains an irony. It’s a speech delivered from a stage.

The play abounds in irony and wit as well as romance. There are elaborate gender reversals. Rosalind acts the part of a boy, Ganymede. In Shakespeare’s times this would have been a boy actor who played the woman’s part. Orlando roams the forest hanging love-poems to Rosalind from the trees. Touchstone the jester who has run away with Rosalind and her cousin Cecilia clowns upon the lines. Ganymede offers to pose as Rosalind for Orlando to practice wooing upon.

And so the play chuckles it way to its anticipated happy ending, melancholy Jacques and ribald, jolly Touchstone ride shotgun to the lover’s courtship. The audience believes Rosalind and Orlando will live happily ever after. It is equally sure that Touchstone’s marriage to Audrey the goat-herd girl will not last for it is built only on amorous desire. But their wooing enables belly-laughs along the way.

I have never heard of Angharad Rees who played the part of Cecilia. She was good. I feel all the better for having watched the play two nights running. There are still good things out there in the world, despite the morose Jacques that inhabit the media and strut upon the stage.

Lavender

A tui comes several times a day to the orange abutilon (Chinese bells) outside the French doors. As the doors have been open for the last few days I’ve had fantastic views of the bird balancing on the slender branches as it tongues its nectar.

This November has been dry – about half the average monthly rainfall. Anne was keen to have some pots with flowers outside the doors, but she is finding the required daily watering a bother on top of all her other tasks – one big chore is looking after me. Wilting pansies are not a pleasant sight. I've suggested maybe a lavender bush to provide both colour and scent as well as requiring less maintenance.

If spring’s garden is best for colour, summer’s is best for scent – lavender, rosemary, catmint, rose, nicotiana, honeysuckle and sweet pea. In my previous existence, twice a week I’d pick a large bunch of sweet peas and their perfume would waft through the house.

One of the season's sensual delights is the sound of bees at lavender. As well as smelling wonderful and looking interesting, with their grey-green leaves and range of purple flowers, lavenders have the engaging quality of being hardy. They thrive on heavy pruning. Even neglect.

The name lavender comes from the Latin ‘lavare’ to wash. Lavatory comes from the same root. The Romans added lavender to their bath water and ever since its oil has been used in perfumes and toiletries.

In the previous garden we had several varieties. Cuttings from friend's plants, heeled in and nurtured, had flourished. In turn, when I pruned our bushes I often stuck several shoots into the veggie patch and usually they took root. Pinching out any flowerheads, nature's fling at ensuring that particular species’ survival, to ensure more root growth, I’d pot them up as presents for friends and neighbours. Over time the original plants become woody and scraggly, so my pots were also a source of replacement.

Not only are they easy to grow, lavenders need merely a dash of lime once a year to remind them of their Mediterranean origin. Also, reflecting their birthplace, they don't mind drought - indeed, they seem to flourish during one.

Reading Kassabova

How do poems happen? Juxtapositions create their own metaphors. Here’s an example from several years ago. I was staying with my mother in Ashburton and took her as usual to visit my brother’s deer farm near Mount Hutt. At the time I was reading Kapka Kassabova’s novel, ‘Love in the Land of Midas’. During the evening after the being on the farm this poem gestated in my mind. I’d been told about the stoats and the fact that Bruce had had to shoot a doe. Events coalesced, I made them first person, the poem appeared and needed very little further effort. Other poems can require considerable crafting.

Reading Kassabova On My Brother's Farm

Redpolls gather deer hairs
from the paddocks to line their nest

We are our own narrative, we neither
create the introduction nor the ending

That Balkan sadness
at the eternal slaughter

A doe is killing other doe's fawns
my brother has his rifle in his hands

Midas comes in many guises, as does love
that abruptly knots every nerve and blood-vessel

"She laughed for a fraction
of a second and velvet brushed his ear"

"We had bellbirds nesting here last year, but
a bloody stoat cleaned them out, I got the bastard though"

Emissions Trading Bill

I begin with two apparently irrelevant sentences.

My Ashburton niece, Janine, sent through by email recent photos of her two young children, Ryan aged three and Taylor aged two months. They look bonny youngsters. Certainly my sister-in-law Margaret is ecstatic about them. Even allowing for the fact that is the nature of grandmothers it is fascinating for me as an educator to follow from afar the development of skills and attributes.

The slave master went below to address the galley rowers. ‘I have good news and bad news’, he said. 'Which do you want to hear first?' ‘The good.’ The captain has ordered a triple tot of rum for each rower. And then some clot called out ‘what’s the bad?' ‘After that the captain wants to go water-skiing.’

It is one of the oldest political tricks, the release of good news to obscure the bad. Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett fronted with the good news – youth unemployment figures are down and she announced further initiatives. But in question time in Parliament the pack chased another target – the Emissions Trading Bill.

Then in the urgency debate over the bill, Rodney Hide described it as an ‘atrocious piece of legislation by a good government’, Labour said it was a ‘shambles’ and while the Greens were more polite they were just as vehemently opposed. Peter Sharples sat hunched and isolated. The deal hitched between National and Maori would allow the legislation to pass.

It is poor legislation, crashed through without much debate or consultation. It postpones payment. Ryan and Taylor will be paying off that debt for the remainder of their lives. The government tells us that we must cut the debt. It’s downloading this particular debt to generations yet to be born.

I am surprised that the Maori party agreed to such a back-room deal. The outcome will be to increase disadvantage. For a short-term gain the party has made more difficult the lives that their children will face. It would appear the deal is a sweetener for the Foreshore repeal. Can Harawira go on supporting the present policy. After I finished typing this draft I checked the internet. Apparently there is a grass-roots revolt in the party over the deal. Maybe the captain will not go water-skiing.

The USA

America – so most of us call the USA - looks forward to two very different anniversaries, Thanksgiving and last year’s election of President Obama. Yesterday’s Dominion had an article about Detroit – 28% unemployment. And yesterday’s New York Times had a column about Sarah Palin’s whistle-stop tour, ostensibly to sell her book but obviously a positioning for a tilt at the 2012 presidency. I quote a sentence. ‘Palin can be stupefying simplistic, but she seems dynamic. Obama is impressively complex but he seems static.’ Would Clinton have dealt better with the issues? The question is unanswerable. The unlikely possibility of a Hilary Clinton versus Sarah Palin campaign would have been very interesting.

Americans have a tendency to be suckered-in by enthusiastic evangelicals. Indeed Obama’s campaign contained to a considerable extent that strand. I wondered at the time whether he had the ability to translate the rhetoric into reality. Clinton's ads struck home to this observer. Obama did lack experience, but maybe that could be an advantage. This gave me some hope as it certainly did to his fervent supporters.

Detroit is symbolic of much of modern America. Manufacturing is in the doldrums. Despondency has replaced that sense of adventure and confidence that characterised the sector for over a hundred years. The recession that began in Bush’s last year has bit hard – the big banks do not seem to have learnt the obvious lessons. And the litany of outrage that greets any move by government to regulate makes it difficult for any intervention. Add to that the inheritance of two unwinnable wars - damned if you do and damned if you don’t – it’s a presidential nightmare. The tasks are Herculean.

There will always be that gap between rhetoric and reality. Time is a factor. An economy is like a big ship at full speed on a collision course; it takes time to alter course. Too sharp a turn can create chaos. Not sharp enough and the impending disaster looms larger. The criticisms – some from the right are so vitriolic they are downright scary; those from the left reflect optimism turning into gloom at the failure of their leader to deliver.

Add to that two yearly Congressional elections. In an effort to get elected the rhetoric cranks up. Promises are made that can never be effected. Strange alliances are formed. Lobbyists are back in force. Can Obama do a Roosevelt and override these difficulties. I must confess my hopes dwindle. I hope I am wrong,

Reading

Anne has been browsing through Stephanie Alexander’s magnificent coffee-table book, Cooking and Travelling in Southwest France. She is trawling for ideas for a dinner party. I used to delight in reading such books, this includes gardening ones. They added ideas for me to turn into practice in the kitchen or outside. Now, I have to balance frustration at my inability to work in either sphere with the interest of the subject matter.

Anne and I share a love of books. I don’t know when I first learnt to read but in my Granny’s words ‘that boy has always got his nose in a book.’ I’m grateful for my widowed mother who never stopped me except to make sure I'd got next morning's kindling in. Early on she bought me a reading lamp, waking in the night I would click it on and pick up a book. She’d growl but did not never remove the lamp.

One of my first books was Winnie the Pooh. That old favourite like nearly all the others was based in the northern hemisphere. I grew up on tales of Christmas snow and a land full of squirrels and elves. Even the Whitcombe & Tombs story books were about such characters as Hiawatha and Ivanhoe, full of breezy optimism and damnation to evildoers. There were gaps, I never received an Enid Blyton or Beatrix Potter, I presume Mum saw them as books for girls.

Very early on I began consuming books from the Little River public library. Exhausting the children's section, Arthur Ransome and Robert Louis Stevenson - (Kidnapped seemed boring, I lacked the necessary Scottish historical knowledge) - I turned to the adult section, Idries I particularly recollect, especially his tales about diving for pearls off the north coast of Australia. Then I discovered Westerns, Zane Grey and Max Brand, again a world of heroics and the triumph of good. This led me to Bulldog Drummond, the Saint and Edgar Wallace.

I wish my teachers had thought to get me writing but in those days there was no concept of creative writing. My reading assisted a tendency to day-dream without the discipline of writing to force me to assemble my thoughts. Give me a macrocarpa stump or a rock and I would sit introspective upon it rearranging the world to universal acclaim. After all Richmal Crompton's William who was one of my heroes used to do this, sending out conquering armies, despatching cutthroats with a wave of his arm, catching spies or giving lectures.

Sydney-based Dymocks reissued Crompton's books in cheap war-time paper. Each Christmas and birthday Mum put one in my pillow-case. (We never had stockings, just a pillow-case at the foot of the bed). I still possess a few William, battered, marked and marmite-stained, evidence of continual re-readings, a love-affair with fiction and a good plot that I still retain. Crompton's stories like Milne's Pooh tales are superbly crafted - they resolved the conundrum that had been set up, a Heffalump captured or William ripping up his school report to leave a trail to help his aunt out of the woods in which he convinced her they were lost.

I had no early sense of any scale of critical value - that came much later. In fact I have often secretly harboured the heresy that it was for the better not having an anatomy of criticism forced into me early. Unless one has read many books how can one work out which are the good books? Haphazardly I devoured my grandfather’s David Copperfield along with his John Buchan, Steele Rudd, Ryder Haggard, H G Wells and Left Book Clubs. It was not just books. There were as well paper-back Westerns, the Press, the Auckland Weekly News, simple school readers, Pop's Bulletin, Mum's New Idea and any comics I could scrounge. Mum brought me a Bible. I kept getting stuck in Levicticus, doggedly I'd set out to read it from cover to cover again.

Bill Manhire claims that such eclectic reading is a very New Zealand thing. The class system of the old country helped determine what you read. The fact people like myself read across all the boundaries reflects our classlessness and our artlessness. This last idea is mine, it would be unfair to put Bill's label upon it. I was and am a print junkie - more accurately a story junkie. I rarely fail to finish a book nor do I walk out on a movie, TV is fatal once I see the beginning of something.

From day one Anne and I had read together and argued about books. An ideal holiday was a bach at a beach, Anne on the sand on a rug with a book and I in a deck-chair up the bank also with a book. The day, after a few years living together, when we agreed to merge our books was a red-letter day, symbolising as great a commitment as a wedding ceremony. We each had treasures we wanted to retain. Decisions were made amicably but sometimes involved considerable discussion.

Having finished Humphrey McQueen’s book on Australian social history, I tossed up whether to re-read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility as I’d promised myself when watching the DVD of the movie or to start A S Byatt’s The Children’s Story which had been languishing on ‘to be read’ shelf for a while. I went for the Byatt. I should have read it earlier. It’s gripping. It’s the world of Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, William Morris, the Fabians and that strange assortment of Russian anarchists, artists and free-thinkers of the late Victorian era when childhood was seen as a magical place. In the William books these people were objects of interest and scorn. But they were real, they shaped an era, soon to be overtaken by the carnage that is called the First World War.

Byatt’s prose glitters. A description of a cottage garden ends with ‘a haze of forget-me-nots’. Exactly right. The book opens in the museum, which is now called the Victoria and Albert. It quickly switches the scene to the rambling place in Kent that is the home of Humphrey and OliveWellwood and their large weekend party. There are performances of Midsummer Night’s Dream and magic lantern shows. The extensive cast of children and adults reveal a complex medley of emotions, desires and needs. I, as reader, even at this early stage, sense below the bounty and illusion there are dark under-currents ranging from infidelities to incompetence and imperfection. Why? The children, each responding in different way to the changing situations, provide the hints. In their own world of make-believe they see through the make-believe of their adults. What is real and what is not? That is the question.