Geeky Thursday

I could not resist. In case you cannot read what it says on the cover: A New Zealand sheep farm .. espionage .. and death.

It does not get better than that - except it does: one of the main (human) protagonists is called .. wait for it .. Flossie.

I know I said I was going to read David Mitchell's latest next, but that was before I came across this gem. I actually do not think it will as bad as it looks. Ngaio Marsh was an acclaimed female crime writer of the same ilk as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Just don't ask me how to pronounce her first name as I had been reliably informed by a New Zealand friend it was "Nyree" but the internet claims it is "Nie-oh". Huh.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is due to be announced today. Nobody really knows what to expect and I am so far out of the literary buzz loop these days that I won't even offer an opinion. I'm just mildly amused by the number of journalist clinging to whichever name they actually recognise out of the many names bandied about.

In other news, this week I made it to the top of the Glasgow Necropolis for the first time in three years. This is a personal triumph for a number of reasons - but realistically I think I could have done it ages ago. The climb through Mugdock Park was steeper and longer and I managed that without problems. I do not know what held me back from 'scaling' the Necropolis because the ascent is really just a gentle slope. Some things just linger in my head as "insurmountable challenges". Silly, silly Karie.

Finally, if you want to feel stupid, have a go at BBC's Only Connect quiz. It is a Monday night staple here at Casa Bookish and thankfully(?) there is an online version so you can try the 'connecting wall' yourself.

The idea is simple: you get a wall of sixteen clues which you need to sort into four distinct groups. The execution is far less simple because you need to think in all sorts of directions at the same time; clues which may look as though they belong together are simply red herrings. The actual TV quiz is entertaining too and often attracts people quite well-known in their fields. This week saw Geoff Ryman appear (to my Other Half's geeky delight) with Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell (to Stuart's geeky delight).

Enjoy the quiz and do not blame me if you suddenly feel significantly less smart.

Damaged Sentences

Tom McCarthy's C is my current commute + night-time reading. Except that I am so scatterbrained at the moment that I only manage a few pages every other day and it is almost due back at the library. Still, I am really enjoying it as I suspected I would. Except it is not the book I thought it was going to be. This is an enjoyable thing too. I have only read the first part - the part which outlines Serge Carrefax' childhood - which is set amongst silk production, deaf children and mad-cap amateur scientists in the early parts of the 20th Century. Interestingly, this first part is strongly, strongly reminiscent of AS Byatt's latest novel, The Children's Book. The plot similarities are there: vague mothers, precocious children hiding in the woods, unsettling amateur theatre productions, bizarre charity work, and unravelling bohemian family life circa 1900. Stylistically the two books are oddly similar too and use many of the same tricks: fragments of verse flowing through the narrative, the dichotomy of muteness/speech, and a certain learnéd verbosity knowingly reined in.

I think the book might be about to change. Serge is heading for a sanatorium in Eastern Europe. I shall expect echoes of Joyce and Mann. So far I like C a lot even if it is not a high-flying avant-garde homage to Modernism but rather a literary book about ideas. I like literary books about ideas.

Incidentally, I googled Byatt + McCarthy and found this lovely review from The London Review of Books. I particularly take great pleasure in this tidbit:

Like McCarthy, I used to get exasperated by the self-impoverished narrowness of mainstream British so-called ‘literary’ literature, its obsession with Amises and McEwans, its deliberate ignorance of so much else; after a while, I realised this was not a literary but a cultic matter, to do with fertility rites and myths of social renewal. I remember that in the early 1980s on Channel 4 there was a chaotic late-night chat show, which my memory frames as having on it Vi Subversa from the Poison Girls, crowning Boy George as the young god of the year just out. As she did so, she warned him that the promise of regeneration embodied by his figure could be made good only with his sacrifice. As with hindsight, it duly was, as for Jesus and Osiris and Gazza and Martin Amis.

Recently I also found Sell the Girls, a blog entry about the old chestnut known as "dead white men and poor suppressed women writers". I happen to like reading books and poetry by Dead White men and I've often had to defend myself against outraged feminist students who thought I was betraying my gender. Seeing as these outraged feminist students frequently did not show up to extracurricular seminars because they had to do the dishes before their boyfriends came home (true story), I rarely paid them much attention.

However, the blogger behind Sell the Girls is vastly more genuine in her outrage and brings her own experience from the publishing world to the table:

I suggest that perhaps what we ought to consider is the presentation and the representation of the female author, because—and I speak from hard experience here—a female author is simply marketed and presented differently. From the color and tone of the cover, to the review coverage, to the placement, to the back cover copy, to the general perceptions of female issues.

Jane Austen was "girlified" a few years back, of course and, famously, Joanne Rowling was advised to call herself JK Rowling or no boys would want to read Harry Potter. Other than that, I struggle to recognise a world where Dead White Men are taught to the exclusion of female writers. I remember being taught Mary Sidney, Lady Mary Wroth, Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft (and her daughter), Fanny Burney, Austen, the Brontës, George Eliot etc and that is even before we get to the 20th C. Maybe I was just lucky with my tutors.

Scatterbrained. I meant to say something profound about Sell the Girls but I lost it.

Sunday Round-Up

"Is Toíbín's Brooklyn a chick-lit novel?" ponders the Anti-Room. Oh, but I have Opinions with a capital O. The commentators at The Anti Room mainly regard the novel as being a relationship novel, a novel about families. "An old-school Maeve Binchy novel", remarks one commentator. I am wondering whether the commentator has read any Maeve Binchy novels or, indeed, if any of the commentators have read Toíbín's book. Brooklyn is not a sentimental book about family and settling down - it is an uncomfortable book about being an emigrée, about the loss of personal identity, and about cultural identity. I wonder if the chick-lit question would have been asked if the protagonist had been male?

Self-Stitched September is bringing out some old knits (as is the crispy weather). I uncovered the very first project I completed after getting back into crocheting/knitting. I am not sure I ever blogged about it at the time (and my current readership would certainly appreciate a refresher, I am sure).

The pattern is Jennifer Appleby's Hot Cross Slouch Beret from Interweave Crochet Winter 2007. I modified the pattern slightly - on purpose! - as the hat was coming out rather dreadlock-sized. I used around 1.2 balls of Twilley's Freedom Spirit - a middling yarn I  use for crocheting rather than knitting - and originally I had added some ceramic buttons from Injabulo but they have since been re-purposed for another project (which I'm tragically still to do). It's a cosy little hat. I just feel very Bohemian every time I wear it.

I also need to do something about those layers my hairdresser put in against my will.

Full SSS update: Serenity (Thursday), Haematite (Friday and Saturday) and Green Crosses/Millbrook (Sunday)

We went bramble-picking yet again today. Last week D put together a bramble crumble which turned out too dry. We'll have a second go (top tip: always use more fruit than you think you need) tonight. My fingers are stained with berry-juices, my stomach is full of lemon drizzle cake from Auntie M's Cake Lounge and I think I'm going to try out for world domination once more.

SSS + C

Self-Stitched September is going swimmingly despite the lack of updates. It helps that the weather in Glasgow is unpredictable at best, so I get good use out of my woolly projects despite it being early September. SSS also helps me focus on what I need to make for myself and not what I would really like to make. Anyway, a photo of today's outfit. Forecast is a perennial favourite of mine and at the moment it makes for a great jacket. Depending upon the season I either use it with vintage looking shirts peeping out (like the one I am wearing today) or I stuff several layers underneath it and button it up. Either way, I love wearing it and the fit continues to be great. I'm also wearing my Vancouver socks. I need to knit more socks. Despite my unease about knitting socks, I like wearing them on autumnal days.

I look really tired in the photo. I'm actually okay, so I presume lack of makeup + lack of enthusiasm = tired face.

SSS round-up: Kaiti/Kiri shawl (Saturday), Snorri (Sunday - in the evening I switched to a Rowan Kidsilk Aura vest I haven't blogged about), Dragonfly (Monday) and Serenity/Haematite (Tuesday).

I am obsessed with knitted dresses at the moment although I know I don't have time nor the willpower to knit a dress, let alone the confidence to wear one. I love this Drops pattern and think that Kid Classic would make the perfect substitute. Imagine this dress in deep red or maybe dusky purple? Oh yeah. I'm also loving the 1960s vibe of the Grouch pattern and there's a terribly cute cabled dress, Georgia, in the recent Homestead Classics booklet. I think I might just stick to buying a knitted dress (if I find one I'd feel comfortable wearing) because I have too many things to knit already.

Finally, some non-knitting content: just like ten years ago I put Joyce's Ulysses aside circa page 250 only to find myself being engulfed by Life. I tried returning to the novel earlier this week, but my head was not in it. If I find my life slowing down, I shall restart the novel because apparently that is what happens when I try to read it. So I have decided to squirrel it aside for the moment and focus on Tom McCarthy's C which is on this year's Booker short list. All I know about C is that its author rejects the realist mode of late 20th British fiction (HOORAY), claims a kinship with early 20th C High Modernism (HOORAY) and that a review ended thus:

"Will he turn out," McCarthy asked recently of the French writer Jean-Philippe Toussaint, "to have been deconstructing literary sentimentalism or sentimentalising literary deconstruction?" It's a sign of his writerly horse sense that this skilfully realised, ambitious, over-literary book finds the time to leave a similar question hanging.

Clearly my kind of book.

Linkage & More

My commuting project is zipping along nicely. I'm currently knitting the Larisa scarf for myself in Kidsilk Haze, shade 582 (Trance). The beads are teardrop-shaped beads from The Bead Company. Recently Rhiannon finished knitting Larisa and seeing somebody else's version of your own design is the coolest thing imaginable (it felt even better than when I got published some years back and that felt pretty good). I have no deadline for this scarf - it is just a portable project and if I can sneak in one or two repeats of the lace pattern on the bus, I'm happy.

I'm currently waiting for the new Kim Hargreaves book, Touching Elegance. Clever people have tracked down some blurry photos from eBay and I've been trying to guess which yarns were used for the various designs. Straight off the bat, I'd say that Patsy is my favourite. Not that long to wait, though, as the book should be arriving in stores next week (should being the operative word). I was wearing my Icelandic jumper earlier today in anticipation of proper autumn knitting (the weather is still a bit too warm, though) and I cannot wait to get started on some lovely woollen cardigans.

Mmmm. Wool.

Some linkage:

• Frank Kermode has passed away at age 90. Absolutely devastating. In the words of one of the Guardian's commentators: "On behalf of English Literature graduates the world over, thank you Frank. R.I.P."
• Morrissey's 13 Favourite Albums are exactly as you'd imagine: glam rock, Iggy Pop/New York Dolls, Jeff Buckley and people who sound like Morrissey.
• Delivering Gatsby - "How effective is it to use literature to seduce men?" (Thank you, Emme).
• Sympathy for the Devil - Looking at the Facebook fan groups for British killer Raoul Moat, this article is as far removed from tabloid sensationalism as you can get whilst still not budging an inch. Highly recommended read.
• Bree Sharp: 'David Duchovny' (youtube). I showed this to D last night as a response to a certain pop song about Ray Bradbury (no link: very NSFW, very crass, very funny - go seek it out). I could not believe D had not heard of Bree Sharp's 'the man, the myth, the monotone' song. It was huge in my student hall circa 1999.

Turning Pages

James Robertson is a writer whose books I enjoy very much, but I do not see him mentioned much. I was surprised and delighted to see a two-page feature on Robertson in The Guardian this past Saturday; the feature coincides with a new novel, And the Land Lay Still. I could have done without the Guardian proclaiming that Robertson was aiming to write the Great Scottish Novel that this country 'so desperately needs', though, partly because I think the Great Scottish Novel has already been written and partly because I think Robertson is aiming for something else. I picked up Robertson's The Fanatic on a whim some years ago and thought it a great, complex read about Scottish identity, the Scottish psyche and Scottish history. A very clever and entertaining book. I was less enamoured by Joseph Knight which read more .. postcolonial, if you like, and I am mildly allergic to postcolonial novels after certain university courses (long, sad story). The Testament of Gideon Mack was Robertson's big breakthrough novel and I really enjoyed its sinister humour and subversive take on a psychological thriller. It felt more mainstream/accessible than The Fanatic and also reminded me a bit of Mikhail Bulgakov's marvellous The Master & Margarita.  I'm yet to read And the Land Lay Still (I'm still reading Ulysses and then David Mitchell's latest will be next) but, yes, I'm really looking forward to a new James Robertson book.

If you are in the UK, I warmly recommend watching Women's Institute: Girl Talk. A simple premise: visiting the educational HQ of Women's Institute and talking to some of the ladies participating in the courses. And then as you learn a bit about some of the nice ladies, your eyes might just get a bit misty. One of the best hours of television I have watched for quite some time. Yes, I feel profoundly middle class now, thank you.

(I have also just checked out some of the available WI courses and am drawn towards Victorian Corset Making and Copperplate Calligraphy which should surprise absolutely no one)

Finally, my parents recently went to the Czech Republic on holiday and as a souvenir they bought me a book on Czech cooking. I was very amused to find a recipe for "Home Pig Feast" which starts: 'put the pig's head, knee and tongue in a pan..' The entire thing is served with a sauerkraut salad which is basically some sauerkraut mixed with horseradish. I think I'll politely give that one a pass.