Reflections Inspired by Thomas Hardy

This picture shows a house in Sturminster Newton, Dorset, where Thomas Hardy lived with his first wife Emma for two year from 1875.  They had been married just five years and were still very happy.  He wrote a poem about it called "The Two-Year Idyll".  His diary extracts from this period suggest that the maid they had at the time might have inspired his famous novel "Tess of the Durbervilles".  The maid was seduced, left their employ by climbing out of a window at night (the same window through which her seducer entered), had a baby which died, and then disappeared.

I've visited Thomas Hardy's birthplace at least three times, and the house where he died likewise.  They are both now owned and managed by the National Trust, and are filled with tasteful period artefacts (none of them original to Thomas Hardy).  This is the first time I have managed to track down Sturminster Newton and it has been on my "list" for about 10 years.

As a first wife myself, once much appreciated, but in old age resented and ignored, I had enormous sympathy for poor Emma.  Once adored, then neglected and despised, her story struck me as tragic but probably fairly typical. As Mrs Charles Dickens wrote in a letter " I was loved once."  Mrs Dickens, just a few years ahead of Emma in age and experience, was cast aside for a mistress, made to leave the family home, and forcibly separated from her children.  

Emma and Thomas had no children.  A diary entry from the Sturminster Newton interlude suggests that this was a source of sorrow to Thomas ... "Not a sign of one for us". 

A recently published book called "The Chosen", was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023. https://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/seven-strong-shortlist-announced-for-2023-walter-scott-prize/

This novel imagines the relationship between Thomas and Emma and how it deteriorated in the final years (Hardy's mistress Florence Dugdale was actually invited to the house and spent a Christmas with them).  I thought it was very well written, and well imagined except for one thing - Emma blames Thomas for the fact they never had children whereas his actual diary entry suggests otherwise.

It's well worth a read as an insight into their marriage.  I recommend it if you don't have time to read his diary, her "Recollections", their letters, and his awe-inspiring poetry.  After Emma's death he realised what he was missing and poured out a torrent of poetry re-creating their romantic meeting in Cornwall, their four-year courtship. Significantly, perhaps, he wrote nothing about their wedding, and not a word about their  honeymoon.  

I finally tracked down the house, and the porch where Emma used to wait for him in a white muslin dress at the end of a long, lonely day with no friends and virtually nothing to do. He immortalised this vision in a poem.

"..The dusky house that stood apart,  

And her white-muslined,waiting there 

In the porch with high-expectant heart..." 

 

The porch above is unlikely to be the original, as porches especially wooden ones have a short life. However, the position is the original one, and it is amazing that there are no new houses built up around this pair of semi-detached villas. Emma,dressed in white muslin, as she was not expected to do housework, was very lonely, waiting for her husband's return, and he knew this, as his poem shows.

 

 Guilty, but not enough to stop him doing so, he admitted that he dawdled on the way home, knowing that she was lonely and eager to see him.  He spent time looking at the river, and lingered on his walk over these meadows, which are virtually unchanged in 150 years.

We walked across this meadow, as he would have done.

I had thought that I would be overcome with emotion at finding myself at last treading in the footsteps of Thomas and Emma, and re-creating the feelings he wrote about.  He was actually quite good at imagining how Emma must have felt, after she was dead and it was too late.

This did not happen, however.  I was pleased to have ticked the visit off my list, took the above three photos, and then went off to find a pub for lunch.  I realised that something has changed.

 For those who wonder if I'm still here - having posted nothing for nearly a year.

Yes, I'm still here. About to celebrate my 70th birthday this month.  

The pandemic changed a lot of things in my life - some things have never recovered - my relationship with books has changed. After the compulsive reading and listening to audio books which spread over the two years 2020 to 2022, it no longer seems so vital to engage with other people's versions of the world.  My own, rapidly running towards its conclusion, seems far more important.

I no longer volunteer, since the pandemic closed all the outlets in which I did so - the museum, the local historic monument (English Heritage), plus a nearby National Trust venue.  I have not returned to volunteering, being that much older, being less mobile and active since two falls - one in 2021, one in 2022.

My mother-in-law died (unrelated to Covid). The last member of the older generation, and leaving a big gap in many people's lives. The world seems a little emptier, and it has definitely affected husband's outlook on life, not for the better.

I'm still reconfiguring, and trying to come to terms with the finite nature of existence, which didn't seem so finite whilst mother-in-law was still going strong at 97.

I still keep a record of every book I read, and every audio-book I listen to, but it doesn't seem to be so important to share.  Planting trees seems much more important.

Best wishes to those who have enquired, why not let me know how your views on life have changed, or not changed, since the events of the last few years.

Arthur Miller

Now, I have a love-hate relationship with Arthur Miller.  First, "Death of a Salesman" - it said just about everything there was to say about growing up in the world as a post-war baby boomer.  I first saw the play as a teenager, a very impressionable age. This work is a master-class in dramatic form, and never loses its power to move me to tears.

Then, as the years go by, realising that he was a misogynistic and arrogant man, a bundle of self-obsession and entitlement.  Realising that he married Marilyn Monroe because he could, because he wanted to own that beautiful dream, come home to it every night (in his own words), until he found out he had got a wounded bird on his hands, a fragile thing which he couldn't handle at all.  Utterly unable to offer the support an insatiably needy creature demanded.

Then going back to the genius Arthur Miller again, who simply expressed, apparently  with effortless clarity, a lifetime of being  an American.  (Although it was, of course, hard and dedicated workmanship that lay behind the flow of words).

And the MacCarthy witchhunts, which inspired that awfully depressing play "The Crucible" which I had to study at GCE O-level.  Again crafted to a particular and predictable conclusion, Thomas Hardy -esque in the inevitability of the hammer blows of fate which mount up to a tragedy.

Last week,  after hearing a dramatisation of the relationship between AM and his director Elia Kazan, on Radio 4's afternoon play slot, I took out of the library the playscript of  "After the Fall".  This, written by AM  and first directed by EK, "takes place entirely in the mind of Quentin" - it is thus the voice of the author.  All three of his wives appear in the play, as does his relationship with Elia Kazan.

You first think - the ego!  To write a play all about himself and taking place all inside his mind!  But then you have to respect his ability to read into the minds of women.  Particularly his first wife, who has left no lasting memory in the minds of the public, and therefore might appear as  a nobody, unlike his second, Marilyn Monroe, and his third, who outlived him and bore two children, one of whom is married to Daniel Day-Lewis.

As a first wife myself, (albeit still in situ, after more than thirty years), I could identify with a lot of what this  first wife character complained about.  Her complaints seemed entirely reasonable to me.

And here is how the errant and rebellious husband reacted to her complaints - his aide-memoire of things he could do better on:

"Know all, admit nothing, shave closely, remember birthdays, open car doors, pursue her not with truth but with attention."    

He's got it all there, and I have had issues with my husband on every one of those points. 

Of course, being a genius, he felt no need to take his own advice, but went out there and did exactly what he wanted (owned the blonde of the century).

Of course, being ordinary mortals, we ourselves at BB house could add to the list : "accept that your wife knows best on everything to do with the household, particularly kitchen management"  - but that's too mundane for AM (although the whereabouts of the household phone list did appear as a dialogue several lines long).

Probably AM  speaks for most of the husbands of the Western world.  That's genius.

A Perfect Afternoon

Started at the Oxfam shop, where I was due to meet my friend after her Saturday morning volunteer shift ended at 1.00pm.  Any excuse to visit a charity shop is most delightful, and to add to the pleasure there was an Age Concern shop right next door.  I bought "My Dear, I Wanted toTell You" by Louisa Young, in the Age Concern shop.  This is a novel set in the First World War, by the grand-daughter of Robert Falcon Scott's widow, Kathleen, (from her second marriage), and was serialised on Woman's Hour on publication, so I am looking forward to reading it.

Passing next door to the Oxfam shop, I was delighted to find there a set of two cassette tapes of Shirley Williams giving talks to Woman's Hour (didn't realise the common link until this afternoon), in 1996.  She is talking about her childhood, about being the daughter of one of my favourite authors of all time, Vera Brittain, and then moving on to her life in politics.  Great listening- thank goodness we didn't throw out our last ghetto blaster in a recent clear-out, as it is the only machine in the house which I can play the tapes on.

Next I picked up a copy of "The Mitfords, Letters between Six Sisters" (published 2007), edited by Charlotte Mosley, a Mitford daughter-in-law (the surname tells you which one).  This, I nearly said, would add to my collection of Mitford books, but I don't actually have this collection.  I have passed every book on to elder daughter, and she has enjoyed them just as much as I have. Jessica Mitford's famous "Hons and Rebels", two novels by Nancy, a biography of all six sisters by Mary Lovell, and lastly, Debo Devonshire's memoir, "Wait for Me".

The last is very recent, and I purchased it following a visit by elder daughter and me to Chatsworth, which we both enjoyed very much.

I was about to leave with my friend, when I spotted  W Somerset Maugham's "Cakes and Ale", a very old book first published in 1930.  I don't find WSM interesting in himself, but having just read some biographical works about Thomas Hardy, I have come across a reference to this book several times.  Apparently it contains a descriptive parody of TH, which caused great offence to the latter's widow, Florence.

To my surprise, my friend told me her book group  had read this book.  As she is thinking of leaving her book group because they persist in picking boring books, this was not a great advertisement.  However, as I said, I have a particular motive for buying this, and may not read all of it.

My friend and I then went for lunch and spent the next three and a half hours talking non-stop.  This was most enjoyable.

Later, after I returned home. I was still in non-stop talk mode, and this annoyed hubby during "Strictly".  He put up with it for so long, and then could stand it no longer. "Will you PLEASE stop talking!"  He is, as I have said before, a man of few words.

However, nothing could detract from the pure pleasure of an afternoon spent with a very old friend, which included two charity shops, a kitchen shop, and much talk about books, our daughters, our holidays, families and a long shared history.

My Library Book

So I now owned two copies of Thomas Hardy's "Life and Art", two copies of Thomas Hardy's "Life"  and two copies of "The Young Thomas Hardy" by Robert Gittings.    I had been searching for this last on Amazon, because our local public library had the companion volume, "The Older Thomas Hardy".  I read "The Older", and returned it to the library with a suggestion.

Would they like to accept my donation of the younger?  I explained my disappointment, on finding that only half the material was available.  "I feel that other people who are studying TH may wish to have both the volumes available".  The third person I spoke to (having been passed along a chain of command) agreed.

I was pleased.

Amazon Marketplace

Secondhand books!  One of the greatest pleasures of life.  I ordered 14 books about Thomas Hardy. Such was the enthusiasm with which I pressed "buy" that I later found out I had ordered the same book in different editions in three cases.  Never mind, three of the duplicates cost the enormous sum of £0.01 each.  I can scarcely believe that anyone finds it worthwhile to trade in books that they can only sell for one penny.  I suppose that they make a small profit on the post and package costs which are £2.80 per book.

The most expensive book in the collection was only £7.49.    Two are individually numbered copies of a book published in a limited edition of two thousand.  That feels rather special, even if they are both ex-library books, with the old date-stamps still intact.  The older of the two has date stamps going back to 1938. That is almost antique!  They are from university libraries.  One of these cost £3.99 and the other £2.49.

Another book cost £0.87.  How does that work? How did someone arrive at that figure for an out-of-print copy of TH's Notebooks? 

I am not complaining.  It has been like Christmas here for the last two weeks - exciting parcels arriving by almost every post, and an absolute feast of interesting reading.

Electronic Equipment Seduces Me, but I Resist

I've commented before on the strange dissimilarity between myself and a very old friend  (32 years and counting), concerning her dislike of second hand books. Second hand books are one of the greatest joys of my life. She already has a Kindle (150 books on it waiting to be read, when I saw her last week), and has now bought an I-pad.  I asked her what she was going to use if for, and she didn't know.  You can read books on an Ipad, as well as play games and do emails.  She already has equipment to do all that, and I have to conclude that it was the aesthetic beauty of the I-pad which she could not resist. I thought the same myself, whilst waiting in PC World recently for the stock department to cough up a result for a new laptop I was considering purchasing. I was drawn to the display of Ipads, and picked one up.  It was lovely to hold, lovely to look at, and the clarity of the graphics was just so brilliant.  I was terribly tempted, but had to keep telling myself, "You cannot run Microsoft Office on this equipment, and the whole reason I wish to buy a new laptop is so that I can run the full suite of Office equipment and send documents electronically with ease to others using the same programmes."

The possibibility of reading books on an I-Pad was not a factor at all in my thinking.  I love the feel of old books, I love the colour of old paper, and the distinctive character of different type faces.  The physical weight of a real book tells you something about the contents.  After Hilary Mantel won the Booker prize a second time last week, I retrieved from my bookcase my copy of her first win, "Wolf Hall". It's a hardback, which cost £1 in a charity shop.   About eighteen months ago, charity shops were flooded out with copies of "Wolf Hall", presumably because people had found it to be unreadable, after being given copies for Christmas.  The heavy, solemn dimensions give a preview of what the book will be like to read - not light or frothy.

At the present time, I am reading a copy of "A Pair of Blue Eyes", by Thomas Hardy.  My copy, sourced in the excellent "Oxfam" Bookshop in Guildford, was printed in 1895.  It is not a "First Edition" (the book was published in 1873), but a first "new" edition of the version printed by the American publisher, Osgood, McIlvaine.

Well over 100 years old, the spine is weak, and bits of old brown paper drop out of the binding when I prop it up in my book stand to read over meals.

The paper is yellow, the margins wide, the cut edges of the paper uneven, and the typeface small,  hard to read without my reading glasses.

Wishing to find out more about the book,  I went to the local library and took out a modern edition, "The Oxford World's Classics"  version.  This gives two maps of Wessex, a preface, an Introduction, a Note on the Text, a reading list, other historical notes, and an Appendix.

This is a pristine paperback, with a colour picture on the cover, and only one borrower has taken it out before me. It is printed in the Oxford Classics typeface, exactly the same as that used in its companion, "Jude the Obscure", also in my library pile.

The book smells of nothing, and gives out no atmosphere.  I have read all the introductions and notes, but not the text (even though it differs slightly from the earlier, as TH revised it frequently during his lifetime, and this version has taken into account revisions later than 1895).

It does not stimulate my imagination.  Reading the yellowing pages of the older book conjures up a time when women wore long skirts, had no vote and little chance of any education, and had to rely on marriage for a chance to leave the family home.  Ladies, in particular, had to be shy, modest, able to play the piano and ride a horse, and had to have a spotless and unkissed past in order to impress a gentleman suitor.  It is easy to connect with that long ago time when the book connects you with it.  The new book, a uniform edition, has no such effect.

I do feel that a Kindle would have an even more dampening effect on my imagination. 

Not long ago, on one of my now frequent visits to the library, an assistant approached me and tried to interest me in attending a lecture by Miriam Margolyes on electronic books. This lecture was free, and apparently designed to stimulate interest.


I was shocked, and told her I had no intention of moving over to electronic.  This being in the actual library, I was rather worried that in ten years time there will be no books left on the shelves.

More encouraging was a small book I saw recently in the shop in the British Library.  It was by former Booker Winner Julian Barnes, and was a hymn of praise in favour of real books, and particularly of second hand ones.  I vowed to continue building up my stocks!

Thomas Hardy

Have just found out that the film title "Dead Man Walking" is actually a quotation from a Thomas Hardy poem.  Fancy, never knew that before.

"A King's Story", by HRH the Duke of Windsor

A Book for Every Occasion - that's me.  This year, I've followed all the big celebrations. 

The 100th Anniversary of the death of Scott in the Antarctic - I own a dozen books on this subject, the latest being the newest, published late last year in time for the Xmas market:  "The Last Photographs of Captain Scott", a Christmas gift from elder daughter.  The author is David Wilson,  great-nephew of Edward Wilson, Scott's close friend and fellow explorer.  So poignant.

The 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens - yes, I own most of the novels, and the latest biography, "Charles Dickens, A Life", by Claire Tomalin.  Again a timely publication ready for this anniversary.

I've been to two Dickens exhibitions and two Scott of the Antarctic exhibitions.

Then it was the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  Never one to do things by halves, I bought six Jubilee mugs and two Jubilee tea caddies.  I've also been to Sandringham twice and last week, (courtesy of darling elder daughter once more), to Buckingham Palace.  Darling daughter is an actuary and earns more than her father, although only 27.  She has bucked the trend of the Generation Y-ers as being lamented in the press this week and last.  She presented us with vouchers for Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle as Christmas presents.  Windsor coming up.

So I dug out my maroon-coloured dog-eared hardback, "A King's Story" by the late Duke of Windsor.  The book is dedicated  "To Wallis", but the late Duchess doesn't appear much.  When the book was written in 1950, it would have been highly inappropriate to detail the progression of the relationship from initial meeting to sexual obsession.

What is really interesting is the first two-thirds of the book, where we are given an intimate insider's view of life growing up in the Royal Family.  Having been to Sandringham, it was lovely to read of the author's childhood spent largely in that rural residence, whilst waiting for his father, George V, to inherit the crown and thus move to Buckingham Palace.

Another fascinating insight is the royal protocols and fancy dress parades, which really don't seem to have changed at all since Queen Victoria's time.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  I see absolutely nothing wrong with spending some of the nation's cash on things which will entertain and bring a smile and a diversion to our boring mundane lives.

Which brings me to the Olympics.  Marvellous spectacle, and didn't we do well!  A big hand for Great Britain, and let's hope that now we can stop being so miserable all the time, stop downplaying our achievements and instead celebrate our strengths.  The organisation was absolutely impeccable, and that alone is a skill we should be marketing around the world.  I haven't seen any books about the Olympics yet, but will keep a look out. Bradley Wiggins is due to bring a book out in October, I believe).

So, there is only one more anniversary this year that I am aware of.  This will be the 100th anniversary of the death of Emma Hardy, the first wife of Thomas.  As she inspired many of his greatest poems, I hope that we will be treated to some celebration of her otherwise quiet and unremarkable life.

Am keeping a look out.

Alan Bennett "The History Boys"

I've seen the film twice, and the stage play once.  I bought the DVD in Sainsbury's about a year ago, and have never yet watched it.  I rarely get complete control of the remote, but this weekend Hubby has gone North.  Yesterday he watched Leeds play and today he is taking his mother out for lunch.  As he has never acknowledged Mother's Day in his own mother's case in all the 33 years I have known him, I was pleased with the plan, and did not utter about being left here on my own.  Actually, it has been a blessing. I am suffering from an acute eye infection, and feeling very sorry for myself.  I would rather wallow in self pity alone.

So, out of the drawer came the DVD, and I fast-forwarded to the private tutorial between old fat cultured English teacher and sensitive, loner, Jewish boy.

Each time I have seen the full production, I have wanted to dwell on this section and enjoy it in more depth, but because it is just part of a fast-moving whole, have never felt that I really got it.

Really, Alan Bennett is a genius.  To pack all that into a few minutes and to package the whole thing up and sell it as mass entertainment is nothing short of full-blown mind-altering brilliance.

The boy actor, stiff and mannered while reciting the poem, liquid with sentience as he absorbs the teacher's guidance, is masterfully directed.

The fat old man, who dismisses Hardy's life in two words., "saddish" but "appreciated", leads in the true sense, educating the youngster into the history of the plebs on the battlefield, (hitherto un-named, now for the first time given a memorial), the link forward to the First World War and Rupert Brooke, and finally, the magic of a communicated thought coming down the ages, like a hand reaching out of time, to touch you on the shoulder.

Perfect.

Bad Books

Yes, I am in bad books at present, because I suggested that, as an alternative to spending so much money, we save more.  Thus we can plan to retire before we are too worn out to enjoy it.  Hubby discussed this idea with his golfing partner, (also his business partner, one and the same man).  Predictably the advice was to "Do what you like".  Which is, in both their cases, to enjoy expensive hobbies and meals out, and carry right on moaning about how stressful their business is.

That's not what this post is about, however.

I rarely pick up a bad book.  I can tell by the covers whether I am going to enjoy a book or not.  Anything that looks like mass-produced science fiction or detective stories or chick-lit or Mills and Boon just screams out what is inside, and is easy to avoid.  Misery memoirs - you don't even have to look at the cover design - it's all in the title.  I have never read a misery memoir and never intend to do so.

Occasionally, however, I am deceived.  I've been noticing a book coming beneath my radar three times over recent months.  It is called "The Last Dickens", by Matthew Pearl.  I've considered buying it both new and second-hand, but in the end got it out of the local library.  That's not something I do often, either.  I prefer to own a good book.  Something must have told my instincts that it was not a book I would want to keep.

This book was billed as an imaginative recreation of the last days of Dickens, an investigation into the "Mystery of Edwin Drood" (Dickens' last and unfinished novel) and maybe an uncovering of the secret of the intended ending of that last book.

This book was truly terrible.  I started off by reading every third page, having established before I was half-way through the first chapter that it was unreadable.  By about a quarter of the way through, this had given way to only looking at a page which had the word "Dickens" on it, and scanning it for anything of interest.  Half way through and I was reading a word or paragraph about every ten pages.  By the end I  knew that I had not missed anything, but felt that I had not wasted my journey to the library.  I had given the book a chance, but it had not lived up to the billing.

The only interesting thing about this book is that the main character is an American publisher called Osgood.  The author's note at the end indicates that this man is an actual historical character. 

I have an 1895 American first edition of Thomas Hardy's "A Pair of Blue Eyes"  (provenance Guildford Oxfam Bookshop).  The publisher is Osgood.  That made a connection.