Maurice Sendak's other great work...

I came across this a while ago in my library, and I thought it was pretty horrific in terms of poor messages for fairy tales to carry, I'm talking of course, of Wilhelm Hauff's Dwarf Long-Nose - one of the more un-PC children's books I've stumbled across.

Apparently, in Germanic countries, this tale is as well-known as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. It involves a young handsome boy who is turned into an "ugly dwarf" by a "hag" who was "ragged and in tatters" after Jacob takes offense to the way she manhandles her mother's herbs (I know) with her "dark brown, ugly hands". After not believing that this new incarnation is her son, the mother sends him away calling him "an ugly monster".

  

The father is equally dismissive, and Jacob weeps.

  

And then masturbates with his nose.

To cut a long(ish) story short, he becomes a chef to the Duke (after turning down the chance to be court jester).

He then buys three geese, one of whom (Mimi), is spared of the chopping board because she cries and sings him a little song. Mimi helps Jacob find a herb that restores his height and good-looks and only then do his parents take him back with open arms.

I don't need to point out the obvious about the many levels on which this story is offensive, but I thought it was timely to share, as the illustrator for this particular edition is none other than Maurice Sendak who died yesterday. Obviously not his finest moment, but interesting to point out all the same, thankfully he will be forever remembered as the genius who brought us Where the Wild Things Are.  

Bog People

I have just bought The Bog People by P.V Glob, I read it years ago when I worked at Leeds University Library and have wanted a copy for yonks.



I first became familiar with the Bog People when studying Seamus Heaney in my undergraduate degree, who had a bit of an obsession with them, especially in his 1975 collection North. In a nut shell, bodies have been found in bogs in Northern Europe from as far back as the Iron Age, perfectly preserved due to the chemical balance of the bogs, often showing signs of torturous murders, presumed to be sacrificial.

This book by P.V. Glob is fascinating, and was groundbreaking in its publication in 1965, though has lost some of its edge over time, as views about the nature of the deaths (and in some case even the genders) of the bodies are fairly contested. Many now believe that some wounds weren't infact inflicted while they were living, but rather incurred due to the weight of the bogs above them. It's a gripping read regardless.

I bought it second hand on Amazon, unable to find a copy in any of the bloomsbury second hand book shops, and the seller included an article from the Guardian in 1998 inside of it, which was a very nice touch.

It's incredible the extent that these bodies have remained in tact (google them!), it's no wonder that when many of them were found, it was assumed that they were recently murdered people.

There's more information at this website, the site's a bit style over substance for my liking, but there are some oral histories and such on there which are quite interesting.

Also, an interesting read about Heaney's bog poems here.

And a more contemporary news piece about the bog people from the National Geographic.

Strange Fruit Seamus Heaney

Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.
Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.

They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair
And made an exhibition of its coil,
Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,
Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.
Diodorus Siculus confessed
His gradual ease with the likes of this:
Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible
Beheaded girl, outstaring axe
And beatification, outstaring
What had begun to feel like reverence.

Rosemary's baby

I need to gush about how insanely brilliant Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin is. The film is definitely in my top five horror films of all time (perhaps top three), but I’ve only just got around to reading the book, thanks to @_LadyAlex’s recommendation, as it was on her reading list for uni. The premise in a nut shell is that Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into a new flat in the ‘Bramford’, which has a fairly murky reputation of Satanist ex-residents and high numbers of suicides and dead babies in the basement and so forth. They are taken under the wing of their next door neighbours, Minnie and Roman Castavet- an eccentric 60+ couple whose kindness becomes a bit stifling to Rosemary. Guy is an actor who is having a tough time getting his big break, and misses out on a big part to another actor, who, soon after the Woodhouses start spending time with the Castavets, becomes blind and Guy gets the role by default. Rosemary falls pregnant in a feverish dream sequence, and that’s all I’m prepared to say without ruining anything. The thing that makes this such an exemplary example of brilliant horror fiction, is how compelling the characters are, and unlike many horrors, you really care about the protagonist. Also, the character of Minnie Castavet is perhaps the most subversive “protagonist” ever, she is endlessly infuriating, but her gaudiness and sheer campness makes her an incredibly endearing character. Rosemary is such a complex character in the most accessible way possible, she's bright but extremely niave, unfalteringly trusting, and hers is eventually a story of crushing loneliness. Definitely read it, it will blow you away. In spite of the fact I knew how it ends, the build up to the climax had my heart racing. The film is so faithful to the book, it’s so phenomenal, it's hilariously funny, pretty heartbreaking, suffocatingly dark and genuinely horrifying. I can’t gush enough.

the stranger's child

Finally finished ploughing through Alan Hollinghurst's newest tome (although ploughing suggests it was laborious, which it was anything but). I definitely recommend it, for me it was even better than The Line of Beauty and The Folding Star.



I won't toil through the plot too closely, just read it if you're interested, but it's divided into five parts and spans from 1913 to 2008, and like his previous works, it's focussed on upper class, highly educated literary sorts, and the main theme, for me, is the evolution of a literary reputation, in this case, of Cecil Valance, a poet who dies in the first world war whose fairly second-class poetry is subsequently romanticised by his death. The principle character, whose perspective is rarely the one the reader is privy to, is Daphne Sawle, unusually a female, as Hollinghurst's previous books have been notably short on female characters and certainly female perspectives.

It's a stunning book, a much more literary read than I'm used to, I feel more intelligent and self-aware just from reading it. It's also unquestionably queer as well, less forcibly so than his last books, and with less implicit sex, but I'd say 90% of the males are either definitely gay, bisexual or sexually ambiguous. But this isn't gratuitous, the fluidity of sexuality is an important aspect of the plot.

I was lucky enough to attend a book reading by Alan Hollinghurst at the New Bloomsbury Set which was hosted by Gay's the Word bookshop. He was a great reader, very funny and quite self-effacing as well. He also signed my copy of the book too.



Anyhoo, I definitely recommend this if you want something quite heavy to get your teeth into, it's extremely rewarding and the flow of the prose, as ever, is poetic.

beaaautiful things

Just been clearing out some old stuff from uni, and found a big pile of records I bought when I was in my first and second year (2004-2006ish). I went through a phase of buying them to stick on my wall, I don't have a record player so they're not a great deal of use to me beyond their aesthetics. Luckily, my favourites are all pretty beautiful.

When I first got into music (1994) Cyndi Lauper and Sinead O'Connor were the artists that excited me most, perhaps odd choices for an eight year old boy, but never mind. They still stand out as two of the best pop singers in the world for me, I've seen Cyndi Lauper live three times now, and get to see Sinead for the first time in July as part of the Manchester International Festival (also get to see Bjork for the third time the following day).













(detail)





I love the artwork for True Colors, particularly the back. The newspaper skirts is one of my favourite things she wore, nice little nod to her first album too in the bottom right hand corner.













She's so bloody beautiful:



I normally like quite abstract and concept-heavy album artwork, but I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is one of my favourite album covers ever, and it's just her face:





Here's a bit of miscellaneous:







Also, me and the mother went to Durham today (mainly to get my glasses fixed, but alas specsavers was closed). We went to the Oxfam bookshop and she bought me this:



If it's anything as good as the Naked Civil Servant or Englishman in New York then I'm in for a treat.

some of my favourite books

I've borrowed a camera from work (to take pictures of my room to get someone to fill it- which I've yet to do) hence the blogular influx of late. Thought I'd show off some pretty books of mine.

This is the Oscar Wilde short stories book with forewords by Stephen Fry, I went to a signing on Oscar Wilde's birthday, and he gave a talk about Wilde, and did an amazing reading of The Happy Prince. He was very pleasant and I was very starstruck to meet him.





I loved this book, and then heard that the author Kate Summerscale was doing a lunchtime reading and talk at Birkbeck, so I went along with my copy and managed to get her to sign it for me, she was also really nice- though needless to say I wasn't quite so starstruck with her.

This is the US copy of the first Harry Potter, which I got as a present on my 23rd birthday from Fiona and I love it, I'd really like to get all of the US versions. As well as having a different title and cover, there are illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. There's an interesting article here about different book covers being used in different countries.

This was another present, a selection of sketches/quotes and journal entries by my favourite transvestite Candy Darling.

So many brilliant quotes in this one, some of my favourites:

"I operate better as a woman"

"Tricky mother nature"

"This is my barbed wire dress. It protects the property but doesn't hide the view"

Another signed one here, although this was a present bought online- so I didn't get to meet Tracy Chevalier. For a long time this was my favourite book, infinitely superior to the much more well known Girl with a pearl earring.

I love this, I got it from a bookstall in Spittlefields Market, it's the perfect horror story and it's beautifully written and I really wanted this old-school penguin copy. It's a bit fragile, but lovely to look at.

We were weeding stock at work in the Library and I came across this little gem which I decided to keep for myself, it's dated dreadfully. I love it.

Here's my next look sorted:

This is the exhibition catalogue from one of the most bizarre and interesting exhibitions I've been to since I've lived in London. Basically the artist had collected hundreds of versions of the same portrait of a saint called Fabiola, and they were all displayed in two really small rooms in the National Portrait Gallery. There's more information here.

The first half of the book is about saint Fabiola, the second half is a complete catalogue of the portraits in the exhibition.

There are plenty more where these came from, so I will post some more soon :o)

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