Wednesday 30 October 2019

Book Review: Ten New Poets by Bernardine Evaristo

Ten New Poets Ten New Poets by Bernardine Evaristo

Borrowed this as an ebook from the library and found a few poems I really liked

By Karen McCarthy Woolf
Mort Dieu - available in the author's essay
White Butterflies - see here

By Seni Seneviratine
Roqueburn

By Mir Mahfuz Ali
Bidisha on the Wall - see here
My First Shock at School
Still Birth


Monday 28 October 2019

Book Review: My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

My Name Is Lucy Barton My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short novel, not even as long as its 191 pages would suggest. It is told in the first person voice of the Lucy Barton of the title. Growing up in a very poor, somewhat ostracized, social excluded rural family, she finds her escape route through education finally becoming a New York based writer.

This conversationally toned story is based round her extended stay as an adult in hospital following a post operative infection during which her long not seen mother visits. In her way her mother loves her, but I have to say I found their relationship weird to say the least, certainly nothing like my experience of mothers. I couldn't relate to any of her familial relationships. She sees adrift in the city without much in the way of solid relationships. I didn't actually like Lucy. She repeats herself a lot, she is vague where I wanted her to be precise - both in terms of things she mentions has having seen, which are no doubt real, but she doesn't name them, so the reader either just goes with the flow or heads of to Google the place, the person eg she talks about a sculpture, she meets an author Sarah Payne - I still have no idea why as a writer she used a named real author - maybe Payne is more famous in the US, but not here.

The dysfunctionality of her birth family, mother, father, siblings strings out throughout the book and tumbles over into a dysfunctional marriage family which with the only show of gumption - ruthlessness as she calls it - in the whole book she leaves, but again the read doesn't really know why. So she is and the book is unsatisfactory because its so vague. Yes I understand she didn't want to write about abuse - how often has that been done - but her childhood trauma, being stuck in the van with the snake - real, imagined or metaphorical - only puts me into the pragmatic, down to earth mother's voice - Silly girl!

Near the end of the novel she writes "I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can't even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mine, this is mine, this is mine." For me this sums up this book and what the author has achieved in writing this story, and shows how the horros and deprivations of childhood impact the manner of adult lives. As her charcter says in the book So sad, so sad.

ashramblings verdict 3* I read this prior to reading the short story collection Anything Is Possible with my face to face book group. I know several friends who have recommended her writing to me, but this didn't exactly 'blow me away' more likely to be like the cheese her character's college room mate gets from her mother, will not throw it away, but doesn't want or like, so leaves it on the window ledge to overwinter. Let's see how aromatic the novel is after a period of 'maturation' and as an intro to her short stories.


Wednesday 9 October 2019

Movie Review – Woman in the Dunes (1964) Dir. by Hiroshi Teshigahara, from the book by Kôbô Abe

Woman in the Dunes
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Writers: Kôbô Abe (novel and screenplay)
Tonight our local Arts Centre The Cut had its weekly cinema night. The movie was the Oscar Best Picture 1966 nominated Woman in the Dunes directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara with screenplay written by the author of the novel of the same title,  Kôbô Abe. I read the book several years ago see my blog post. At the time the book had quite an impact on me I borrowed it from our local library  @HalesworthLib – I gave it 4* , so when I saw the movie was to be shown I had to go. I was not disappointed. A fantastic arts cinema movie full of exacting cinematography, stunning close ups of sand grains, dunes, skin, facial pores, bodies, hands. Filmed in black and white, the movie is full of light and shade, shifting landscapes, contours, curves both of the sand dunes and people. The score is trident, sharp and cutting, never letting you as the audience settle. Very apt.  For a great review of the movie you can't beat Roger Ebert’s which I think is spot on. Not a full house but well done for whoever choses the movie selection at The Cut for this brave and beautiful choice. A great cinematographic experience.

@newcut.halesworth @CutHalesworth