Public Private Libraries

The History Group to which I belong has reached the time of the English Civil Wars and at the moment we are all busy researching the period around 1650. Because I know almost nothing about him other than that he wrote the poem To His Coy Mistress, I offered to explore the life of Andrew Marvell, who was not only a poet but also a man active in many different aspects of public life; indeed, if the rumours that he was a spy are well-founded, also active in less public aspects of government enterprise as well.

I have to admit that there was a second reason why I offered to carry out this research, namely, that I wanted an excuse to read the new and highly praised biography, Andrew Marvell: the chameleon, written by Nigel Smith. This book came last Autumn to stunning reviews and I've had it on my radar ever since.

This week I've been reading about Marvell's early years with his family in Yorkshire where his cleric father served as Master of Charterhouse in Hull. Andrew Marvell senior seems to have been a man of some vision and certainly very aware of being a public servant. He also clearly understood the value of books. As Smith tells us,

Marvell senior wanted to build a ceiling in the [Charterhouse] hall and above a new room that would function as a library, no doubt warmed by the large fireplace below in the hall. The library would be open to any in Hull who could make use of it.

Marvell left a very large part of his own collection of books as a foundation for this library.

If you live in the UK you cannot have escaped over the past few months the phrase, 'The Big Society', the current government's idea that the public at large should step in to replace the services that are being forced to cut back as a result of their (the government's) financial stringency. No doubt they would have heartily approved of the Rev. Marvell's actions. As, it should be said, (as long as you don't therefore draw the inference that I approve of the government) do I. But in the 1620s and 30s, which is when this was being discussed, there were far fewer books and far fewer readers. I can't think that there are many private libraries now that could seriously be made available to the public in this way. Despite the fact that many book bloggers probably feel they have more books than they can ever hope to read, maybe even more books than they can ever hope to count, if we were to open our doors we'd soon be forced to recognise that not only could we never satisfy the sheer volume of the demand we'd also be lacking the necessary variety required.

Certainly, there are still some wonderful private libraries around in various stately homes. I remember my father gazing longingly at shelves full of racing form books going back centuries in one such establishment. He would have given anything to have taken them down and buried himself in their pages for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the entire year. But, of course, he wasn't even allowed within breathing distance of them for fear his working class breath might damage a collection that didn't look as if it had been disturbed by the gentry in decades.

Realistically though, opening private collections to the public, whether they are yours, mine or those of the British aristocracy, isn't going to solve the dilemma that our library services face today. However, it is heartening to know that in the past there have been people like Andrew Marvell's father who have been far-sighted enough to recognise the importance of books to the public at large and who have done something practical to advance a vision of a wider reading community. I only hope that we can find the equivalent answer for our own times before our smaller, local public libraries have been allowed to vanish undoubtedly never to return.


Annie

Gifted ~ Nikita Lalwani

This month's Bookworms' read was the first novel by Nikita Lalwani, Gifted. The book is the story of Rumi Vasi, a young Hindu girl growing up in Wales in the 1980s. Rumi's parents have come to Britain, immediately after their marriage so that her father, Mahesh, could complete his studies and gain his PhD. Mahesh has promised his wife, Shreene, that as soon as he has completed his thesis they will return to India, but this hasn't happened and so the opening of the book sees the family settled in Cardiff with Mahesh travelling each day to his post as a lecturer in Physics at Swansea.

Rumi has always been fascinated by numbers and one day her teacher accompanies her back to the family home to explain that the school think that she is 'gifted'. Despite the antagonism he feels towards the teacher, who he sees as interfering in his family life, this prompts Mahesh to take an even greater control over his daughter's development than he has done previously as she is groomed to become the youngest child ever to gain a place at Oxford to study Maths.  Initially compliant, as she reaches puberty, Rumi finds more and more ways of subverting her father's strictures. And, though she does make it to Oxford, the results are not what anyone in the family was expecting.

Unusually for Bookworms, we found ourselves discussing the issues raised by the book in greater depth than the book itself. In part, this was because we are mostly educators in one field or another and so the question of what is meant by a gifted child and what the implications are for the child so labelled was pertinent to us all. However, I think we also followed this line because we all felt that the book itself was typical of a first novel and flawed in many ways. To give just one example, while the ending is certainly not unexpected to the reader and is, in fact, based not only on an actual case but also reflective of Lalwani's own life (she dropped out of a medical degree at the end of the first year) it is unconvincing in the writing mainly because of problems with pace and the sudden switch of character focus.

We could, I think, have completely deconstructed the book had we focused just on the text itself and as a group we don't like doing that, so instead we found ourselves debating the difference between the concepts of gifted and talented and asking if it is ever to the child's ultimate advantage to be labelled as being gifted. It is clear in Rumi's case that while she may have a facility for numbers and for recognising patterns, she doesn't have the capacity for original thought that goes with real genius. We all felt, I think, that she would have been far better left to move through the education pathway at the same pace as her peers, broadening her understanding of the world outside Maths and then moving on to Oxford at a time when she had greater emotional maturity and could have handled the expectations that surround her more successfully.  Too many of us had horror stories to tell of children who had been pushed by their parents, beyond their physical, mental and emotional capabilities to the point where their health and in one cases their mind, had broken down completely.

We also spent time discussing the question of whether or not the first generation immigrant (whatever race or culture) isn't inclined to cling to traditions and social expectations long after the families they have left behind have moved on. Certainly, when Rumi and her mother return to India it is clear that their relatives there have a far less rigid approach to western influence than do Mahesh and Shreene and ultimately Rumi is damaged as much by the difference in cultural expectations as she is by the rigid regime of study.  Whatever we thought of the book, the reader can't help being sorry for this teenager who is caught in the double bind of having to meet the expectations of both a culture she doesn't understand and a label she doesn't want.

If Lalwani writes an second novel then I will read it, because I think she has some promise, but when, as a group we look back over our reading year, this book is one that we will remember for its subject matter rather than for the quality of the writing.


Annie

Power to the Reader

I'm simply passing through today, having just got in following an extremely hair-raising and foggy drive through the Warwickshire countryside.  However, I thought I would share this with you.  We discovered last night at Bookworms that if you order Nikita Lalwani's book 'Gifted' (last night's read) from the UK branch of Amazon they automatically ask you if you want to order a copy of 'Daniel Deronda', which is next month's book.

Now how is that for the power of one small reading group to change the thinking of a multi-national company?  More power to the little reader's elbow, that's what I say!

Ink in the Blood ~ Hilary Mantel

Book browsing round the internet can be every bit as serendipitous as browsing round a bookshop or a library.  The other evening I came across something I hadn't realised existed, the text that is available in e-book form only.

I was actually looking to see if there was any indication as to when the sequel to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall was likely to be published.  What I found instead was a book by her that came out at the back end of last year, about which I'd heard nothing, Ink in the Blood.

Why hadn't I seen copies of this when I was bookshop mooching last week? Well, the reason soon became apparent.  The book is only available in digital form.  And, I assume it is only available this way because, even in quite a large print format, it only runs to twenty-four of my I-Pad pages.  Now I can't see any publisher putting out a print run of a book that has just twenty-four pages.  It surely wouldn't be economic.  But, issuing it via the e-reader is another matter entirely, suddenly all sorts of vistas open up.  I can foresee a renaissance of that stalwart of previous centuries, the pamphlet and it would be a wonderful way of reaching a wider market with short stories.  No more waiting until you have enough for a collection, issue them one at a time.  Perhaps this is already happening and I've just not yet caught up?  Any way I'm glad to have discovered this example, which I have to say is nothing at all like Wolf Hall.

Ink in the Blood is, as its subtitle says, A Hospital Diary.  I hadn't realised but apparently Hilary Mantel was extremely ill last summer and in hospital for a very long time after surgical complications.  Indeed, she was lucky to have survived at all.  During her recovery the combination of pain, infection and the medications that were supposed to be fighting her illness induced the sort of hallucinations that you really wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.  With typical Mantel humour she calls them her 'hallies'.

Later the hallies, as I think of them, become less threatening, but more childish and conspiratorial.  I close my eyes and they begin to pack my belongings into a pillow case, whispering and grinning.  One sharp-faced dwarfish hally pulls at my right arm, and I drive her off with an elbow in her eye.  After this they are more wary of me, intimidated.  I see them slinking around the door frame, trying to insinuate themselves.

And then there are the nightmares.

Sometimes I incorporate the sensations into nightmares and imagine, for instance, that the bed is on fire.  One night in my dreams I meet the devil.  He is 32, 34, that sort of age, presentable, with curly hair, and he wears a lambswool V-neck with a T-shirt underneath.  We exchange heated words, and he raises a swarm of biting flies; I wake, clawing at my skin.

Well, you just know, don't you that anyone who combines a lambswool V-neck with a T-Shirt has to be up to no good.

Her grasp of the guilt that I'm sure we all feel when we are sick is so exact; that 'I shouldn't be here causing all this trouble' reaction.

The staff are there to reassure me, and I am there to reassure them; in this way we shield each other from the experience of darkness.  One day soon after the surgery I vomit green gunk.  'Don't worry!' I exclaim as I retch.  'It will be fine!  It's just like 'The Exorcist,'' I say, before anyone else can.

I could go on quoting from this wonderful book all afternoon.  There isn't a page without something memorable to be enjoyed.  But what about the writing of all this.  I can't imagine that I would be able to put two words together let alone something as sharp and telling as this.  For Mantel it was her life line.

The black ink, looping across the page, flowing easily and more like water than like blood, reassured me that I was alive and could act in the world.  When Virginia Woolf's doctors forbade her to write, she obeyed them.  Which makes me ask, what kind of wuss was Woolf?

And I find something very reassuring in this small book that is the result of Mantel's need not to be wuss.  I loved Wolf Hall and eagerly await the sequel (presumably now, somewhat delayed) but I missed the dark humour that is to be found in books like Beyond Black.  If that sort of Mantel is to your taste as well then you really should get hold of a copy of this and while sympathising with her suffering relish the writing that has resulted.

Term Begins

And so term begins and from hereon in I won't be able to post every day.  Although my duties are now only honorary ones, I do take them very seriously, being well aware of the privilege that it is to hold a fellowship such as mine.  In practice, what it means is that I spend Tuesdays with our English Language postgrads and Thursdays with those doing their research in the Shakespeare field.  On both those days I'll crawl in too late to be able to write here, although the seminar sessions we have, with expert speakers from all over the world, will furnish me with a lot to think about and to write about  as well.  This week we have talks on 'Business English' and 'Performing Despair on the Early Modern Page and Stage'.  On paper I can't say that the first topic exactly thrills me, but I know from long experience that something which sounds as though it's going to be as dry as dust can turn out to be the most insightful lecture of the entire term.


Some Wednesday's might be a problem too as occasionally I creep into the seminars presented by the Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies to catch up with the latest thinking in the historical world of Shakespeare's time.  Just before Christmas we had a brilliant paper on the gynaecological text books published in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.  With Pictures!  I bet you didn't even know those existed?  If anything like that turns up this term then I promise that I will scan the relevant documents and let you see them.  Although I have to say that some of the notions of a woman's anatomy doing the rounds in seventeenth century London would have turned your stomach over and made you very glad indeed that you weren't depending on their accuracy for your survival.

The Staffordshire Hoard

I've been meaning for some time to write here about The Staffordshire Hoard which, for those of you who haven't heard of it, is one of the prime examples of evidence that the Dark Ages were anything but Dark.

It was discovered, little more than twenty miles from here, quite by chance, in the summer of 2009, by a metal detector user working on what he thought might turn out to be the site of a Roman villa. The amazing thing was that it had not been discovered earlier because a major road development had cut through the countryside a few years previously only yards from where the find was eventually made.

Initially the work to uncover the hoard had to be carried out in complete secrecy for fear that the site would attract thieves. Once the news was allowed out, however, interest was immense and for weeks there were queues of people snaking round our local museum in order to get a look at treasure which had been buried over twelve hundred years earlier.

Money has been raised locally to enable us to keep the hoard in the area where it was discovered and members of our Archeology Department are now involved in its conservation and in finding out as much about the treasure as they can. I was discussing this with a colleague the other day and latest speculation is that the various pieces, almost all made of gold, were probably the battle spoils of a senior military man who hid them with every intention of returning to collect them after whatever campaign he was on was over. For the most part the hoard is made up of the gold decorations from swords, which he would have taken from the men he had defeated. The swords themselves would most likely have been melted down to make more weapons for the fight. The gold would have been seen as the equivalent of a portable pension pot.

Not everything is military, however. There is a stunning gold cross and several very beautiful rings. One remarkable feature of many of the pieces is that they are studied with beautiful garnets which apparently would have come from India. How did such remarkable gems find their way to England? We can do no more than guess.

Conservation is going to be difficult. The hoard was found in plough soil and, as those of you who know about these things will be aware, this means that the individual pieces have been subjected to a fair amount of bashing about. Some items, such as the cross, for example, are so folded back in on themselves that it would be dangerous to try and bring them back to their original form. In those cases the plan is to make sure that no further distortion takes place and to display them alongside digital representations of what the piece would have looked like in the seventh century when it was carried in front of the army to give hope and encouragement to the troops.

Now you can see various exhibits from the hoard in the museums in Stafford and Birmingham and because of the money raised by local people that is where they will remain. I think this is so important. Too often finds make their way into central collections rather staying in the location with which they are associated. They are part of our history and I'm very proud to have them here where they belong.

Annie

Dickensian Kindred Spirit

I can't claim, as Susan Hill does in Howards End is on the Landing, to have ever read one of Dickens' novels while seated behind the sofa. In fact, I don't think I've ever read anything behind the sofa. I've always lived in houses where sofas stood flush against the living room wall. However, in the chapter headed Great Expectations behind the Sofa Hill does admit to having the same three favourite Dickens novels as my own.

[I]t is time I went back to Little Dorrit. Is it the best? I sometimes think so. Then again, I change my mind. Bleak House is the greatest of all the novels. But Our Mutual Friend has, I think, absolutely no flaws, and there is something about its description of London's river at its blackest, most secret, most terrifying, and the low life that lurked about its quays and alleys and pot-houses, that takes me back to those Michaelmas terms, and the chill mist drifting off the Thames.

And, with Anne Shirley, I want to exclaim at the finding of a kindred spirit.

Which is the greatest? I couldn't possibly say but, while I love most Dickens, it is these three to which I find myself returning time after time. If not to read the entire novel then to comfort myself with favourite passages or to spend the evening in the company of a much loved character, Arthur Clennam, or Mr Wilfer.

While I love most of them, you will have noticed. And again Susan Hill and I walk hand in hand. My husband, she says, is welcome to laugh at Pickwick because I never could...
Me neither, me neither.

However, one of Ms Hill's pronouncements has given me pause for thought.

In the silly game of which authors to throw overboard from the lifeboat and which one - just one - to save, I would always save Dickens. He is mighty. He is flawed. His flaws are huge but magnificent - and all of a piece with the whole.

Could I really save Dickens at the expense of Shakespeare? Could I manage with just Shakespeare if there was no Dickens to add narrative variety? The question has been tormenting me all day, much to the puzzlement of the friend with whom I had lunch, who pointed out that unless I was extremely unlucky it wasn't a decision I was ever likely to have to make. Well, I know that. But what if I did? Sometimes the most unlikely things do happen, otherwise they wouldn't be simply unlikely, they would be impossible.

Which should I choose? I'm going to fret about this all night. Be blowed to questions of international finance and political corruption. Let's stick to the really important dilemmas in life.


Annie