Interview with a new blogger (and happy birthday me)

On 10th April 2007, Stuck-in-a-Book was launched... I don't know whether or not I thought I'd still be blogging six years later, I hadn't really thought about it, but I certainly hadn't imagined that I'd meet so many wonderful people (online and offline) or have such fun.  Thank you for making my first six years so lovely!

I've done a few retrospectives, or thanking posts, at various anniversaries - so I'll do something a bit different today.  It seems appropriate, on a blog birthday of a longstanding blog (six years feels very longstanding in the blogosphere!) to welcome the recent arrival of another beautiful baby blog.  Also, although this is far from a unique-to-me quality, I hope that one of the dominant characteristics of Stuck-in-a-Book is an encouragement of community, and a celebration of other bloggers.  With that in mind, I have interviewed a new blogger - Washington Wife.

Washington Wife is one of my very dearest friends, and I'm thrilled that she has entered the blogging world.   Hers is not a book blog, but she loves books about as much as I do, so I'd be surprised if they don't make an appearance now and then.  Her reasons for starting blogging are below, so I shan't explain them for her.  (And, because she is a journalist, she is keeping herself anonymous on her blog - I will have to work hard to remember not to include her real name, and shall refer to her as Washington Wife, or WW.  In the interview below, I am ST - you can decide for yourself whether it's short for Stuck-in-a-Book or Simon Thomas.)  Oh, and do, of course, check out her blog and say hello - it's really brilliant so far, and I'm not just saying that as a close friend!

ST: So, what made you decide to start blogging, huh? HUH?


WW: Well, at the beginning of February, my husband got a job in Washington D.C, and we've just (at the end of March) moved there from Paris, where we've both spent three years as journalists. I'm sure there are innumerable 'new to the US' and even 'new to Washington' blogs (there were certainly lots of 'Brits abroad' ones in France) but I thought mine would be an interesting viewpoint given I'm comparing the US not only to my native land, the UK, but also my adopted homeland for the last three years, France.

I think it was also a combination of my wanting to record how I felt about living in such a talked-about country, about which everyone has an opinion, and the fact that it was a lot easier than sending dozens of separate emails to all the people who would want to know said thoughts. I was a bit scared to start though because I'm not always very good at seeing projects through... but I'm really enjoying it so far!

ST: What are your first impressions of living in America?

WW: Well - you'll have to look at my blog ;) Mainly though, everyone really is helpful and friendly (compared to Paris, where I was living before!) and everything is bigger. The roads are wider, the buildings are taller, the portions are larger, the billboards are higher, the packets in the supermarket are heavier... Paris, and even London, will feel miniature in comparison!

ST: Anything super-amazing-exciting happened to you yet?  Just a question out of the BLUE, not something I know about already, obvs.

WW: Well it's funny you should mention... but (again, see my blog for full account!) on Easter Sunday, my husband and I decided to try a little church not too far from our new flat in downtown D.C. The church is opposite the White House and the website said it has a pew reserved for the President. We thought that was rather sweet...but we arrived to find the whole building sealed off, secret service everywhere and the First Family on the way there! Amazingly, we managed to get in for the service, and, sitting in the gallery, had a wonderful view of Barack Obama, Michelle and the two girls. We even got within a foot of them when we went up to communion. Not bad for our first week in D.C!

ST: Do you have any thoughts about the direction in which you'd like your blog to go?

WW: Well, as I said, I was a bit nervous about beginning as I'm rather feeling the pressure to continue, but I keep finding, as I wend my merry and very uncertain way around Washington, that new ideas and thoughts for blogging keep occurring to me. I think it's made me a slightly better observer, so that's a positive thing I'd like to continue. I think eventually it may have to stop being about my perspective as a 'newcomer' (I don't know when you stop being one of those though - in English country villages, I think it takes about half a century) and be more about the city itself and - hopefully - the more unusual, off the beaten track things I'm discovering (if I do!) One thing I don't want it to be about is work - it's nice to do something separate from journalism!

ST: Could you pick one thing you miss about England, one thing you miss about France, and one thing you're loving about America?

WW: Hmmm... one thing in each category is difficult! I think I most miss English understatement and sarcasm (I missed it in France too!), because here everyone is very sincere and a bit earnest and sometimes I just long for a little putdown or self-mockery.

I rather miss the Paris metro - it smelt of wee, but it was very efficient and there was a train every 3 minutes most of the time. The other day here I had to wait 10 minutes for a metro train, and it took a bus I was on over an HOUR to get from downtown to the National Cathedral, a distance of about four miles, because of the ridiculous amount of traffic and lack of public transport options.

But one thing I am really enjoying about America is how convenient everything is (apart from public transport!) Everything's open all the time, the customer service people really do attempt to help you, the roads are easy to cross... everything is designed to make your life a little bit better. And that is refreshing.

ST: And, since Stuck-in-a-Book is a book blog, cards on the table: what are the best English novel, French novel, and American novel?

WW: Ooooh. Toughie. Best French and American novels are hard because I'm woefully under-read in those categories, and English because there are too many to choose from. I'd say that the novel that had me most gripped at a young age, and I always love re-reading, is Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. Stylistically, it might not be Middlemarch, but the plot is superb and the narrator compelling.

Regarding French novels, can I cheat? It's not really a novel, but when I was a child, my Godmother gave me one copy of Antoine de Saint Exupéry's book Le Petit Prince in French, and another in English. I loved the English version at the time, but, later on, was doubly delighted by its whimsy in French. But it's definitely not just for children!

As for American novels, although I loved The Great Gatsby and Lolita, and Little Women will always remain one of my favourite children's books (I especially remember my childish British puzzlement at some of the quaint American words and traditions!) I might have to pick one I know Simon hates... The Catcher in the Rye. It had a real effect on my writing style for a while after I read it - not necessarily for the better! - and Holden Caulfield continued to intrigue me long after I put the book down. But I also loved The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

ST: Now choose one English author, one French author, and one American author that you're looking forward to trying out.

WW: Now this is easier! My 'to be read' list is huge.

In French, I always meant to try out Michel Houllebecq, in translation OR in the original... I just never got round to it. So I'd probably start with Les Particules Elémentaires (or Atomized, in English), which won several international awards.

As for American authors, there are so many! I have joined the local library here and browsing the shelves made me realise just how much I have to catch up on... For starters, I borrowed one Anne Tyler (Digging to America) and one Gore Vidal (appropriately enough, Washington, D.C  - I didn't realise he'd written a series of historical novels.) But also keen to start reading more Philip Roth (only ever read Portnoy's Complaint!) and Jonathan Franzen.

And an English author I don't yet know... Well, my policy when trying to cut down the number of books for shipping over here was mainly to bring ones I hadn't yet read. So there are plenty to choose from! Including A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett, an author much recommended by a certain friend who's always StuckInABook. So I'm hoping to start enjoying that one soon. Another book I'm really excited about - and this is cheating a bit - is by an author I already know and deeply love, Elizabeth Jane Howard. Apparently, the fifth volume in her series The Cazalets is coming out in the autumn; I can't wait!

ST: And the question I ask everyone - what are you reading at the moment?

WW: Well, slightly naughtily, given everything I wrote above, I'm reading an author who's neither French, nor English, nor yet American, but Israeli. It's a book I borrowed from the library near our new flat, called The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, by Shani Boianjiu, and it's about three Israeli girls who are conscripted into the army, and how they get on. Given that for much of the time, they are very bored, the book itself is quite a page turner, and very strangely and beautifully written. It certainly gives you an insight into the lives of Israeli teenagers.

The photo, by the way, shows the ONLY books we currently have on our new living room bookshelf (The People of Forever Are Not Afraid being upstairs!) This state of affairs won't last, once all our worldly goods arrive by ship from Paris via Bristol via New York City... I thought Simon would be pleased to note the stack of OUP Very Short Introductions as well... on offer in W.H Smith on the rue de Rivoli...

Innocent cat grabbed in garden

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook will have seen these already, but I thought I'd share some pictures of me playing with Sherpa when I went home for Easter...  My hair, incidentally, is much shorter now.  I think Sherpy's is the same length.  (Photos taken by my brother Colin.  I deleted the ones he took of his feet.)

Sherpa 'runs into my arms'.

HUGS!

Revenge of the cat...

 

"I claim this land for cats!"

  

She's looking a wee bit drunken in this pic...
but I reckon it's just happiness :)
That's certainly what's lighting up my silly face!

I was going to write a film review tonight.  You got cat photos instead.  Who's to say which is better?  (Spoiler alert: you'll probably get the film review soon, too.)

Some recent books...

I thought I'd do a little round-up of various books that I've bought and been given, because... well, why not?  You usually have something fun to say about them.

That Sweet City: Visions of Oxford - John Elinger and Katherine Shock
Kathy Shock is Our Vicar's Wife's dear friend from school days, and also lives in Oxford (my experience of Oxford for the first 18 years of my life was chiefly visiting Kathy and her family) - she is also a brilliant artist, and sent me a copy of That Sweet City.  It has poems by John Elinger and illustrations by Kathy (one of which you see in the photo above) - I'll write more about it in due course.

Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm
Continuing the Oxford them - so many people have told me that I must read this (and been rather outraged when they discover that I haven't) that I'd better snap up this Penguin edition when I saw it.

The Teleportation Accident - Ned Beauman
I loved his first novel Boxer, Beetle (even though I didn't expect to at all), so I was excited to receive the paperback edition of this Booker-longlisted second novel.  And isn't it a fantastic cover? Thanks, Sceptre!

The Secrets of Bredon Hill - Fred Archer
I had to bring this home, when I saw it in a Headington charity shop, since it's about the year 1900 in Aston-under-Hill - which is the village in Worcestershire where I went to Bredon Hill Middle School for three years.  Quite a curious coincidence to find this in Oxford...

The Crack in the Teacup - Joan Bodger
When I wrote about Bodger's brilliant account of touring literary sites in England, How The Heather Looks, the blogger at Leaves and Pages (sorry, can't find your real name, I feel bad about that) recommended that I try Bodger's autobiography - and I immediately ordered a copy.

C.S. Lewis: A Life - Alister McGrath
When Sophie at Hodder offered me a copy of a new C.S. Lewis and mentioned that she'd found my review of Lewis's beautiful book A Grief Observed, then I couldn't say no, could I?  I've seen Shadowlands, but I've never actually read a biography or autobiography of Lewis, some I'm excited to get my teeth into this one.

Any comments on any of these very welcome!  What is the latest book you've bought?

Song for a Sunday

A band I'm fond of, Texas, have come back with a new song I can't stop listening to - The Conversation:

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy weekend, everyone.  It's finally starting to look a bit sunnier and - dare I say it - a touch less freezing here, so I'll be spending my Saturday... at work.  Oh well, it'll be nice to say hello to Bodleian people, and then I'm off to spend Saturday evening at my friend's house, watching The Voice.  Very classy, me.  You can treat yourself better, by reading a weekend miscellany.

1.) The blog post - check out Hayley's response to my recent On Not Knowing Art post, entitled On Knowing Art.

2.) The book - came courtesy of lovely Folio books, and is a beautiful copy of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - which I've been intending to read for ages.  Has anyone read it? (Follow that link to see the details of the Folio edition I was kindly sent.)

3.) The link - is silly. It just is silly. But I love it. Click here to ask one of nature's great questions.

Alberto Manguel on.... Reading Aloud

The Library of the Palais Lanckoronski, Vienna (1881) - Rudolph von Alt

"The humanist teacher Battista Guarino, son of the celebrated humanist Guarino Veronese, insisted that readers should not peruse the page silently "or mumble under their breath, for it so often happens that someone who can't hear himself will skip over numerous verses as though he were something else.  Reading out loud is of no small benefit to the understanding, since of course what sounds like a voice from outside makes our ears spur the mind sharply to attention."  According to Guarino, uttering the words even helps the reader's digestion, because it "increases heat and thins the blood, clean out all the veins and opens the arteries, and allows no unnecessary moisture to stand motionless in those vessels which take in and digest food."  Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the more mine."

--- Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, p.179

Leaves in the Wind - 'Alpha of the Plough'

Leticia gave me the very best kind of recommendation earlier in 2013, on this post - a recommendation for a book which I already owned, and was keen to read.  Perfect!  The book was Leaves in the Wind (1918), the author was 'Alpha of the Plough'.  Not, as you may imagine, the author's real name.  Alpha is, in fact, A.G. Gardiner (not E.V. Knox, as I thought at one point) - who chose the name when writing for The Star, as several contributors were named after stars. What a serendipitous recommendation, seeing as I'd bought the book out of (a) curiosity and (b) frustration at the lack of decent books in Dorchester's charity shops.  And I ended up doing rather well.

It's that variety of gem which doesn't really exist any more (and how many times have I lamented its demise in my posts here!) - the personal essay.  All sorts of wonderful people wrote them, from Rose Macaulay to J.B. Priestley, and there seemed to be no lack of audience for them in the first half of the 20th century - even (maybe especially) during the First World War.

Gardiner covers a great number of jovial topics - from his companions of a bus to giving up tobacco, from smiling in the mirror to famous conversationalists - but there is also a hefty portion of the book given over to soldiers and war.  Difficult to avoid during wartime, and perhaps it is only to the 21st-century reader that the combination of the frivolous and fatal seems incongruous.  Gardiner was nearly 50 when the First World War began, and did not see active service in it - but he is a kind, insightful observer of soldiers, blinded neither by patriotism nor cynicism:

A dozen youths march, two by two, on to the "up" platform.  They are in civilian dress, but behind them walks a sergeant who ejaculates "left - left - left" like the flick of a whip.  They are the latest trickle from this countryside to the great whirlpool, most of them mere boys.  They have the self-consciousness of obscure country youths who have suddenly been thrust into the public eye and are aware that all glances are turned critically upon their awkward movements.  They shamble along with a grotesque caricature of a dare-devil swagger, and laugh loud and vacantly to show how much they are at ease with themselves and the world.  It is hollow gaiety and suggests the animation of a trout with a hook in its throat.

A central thread of Leaves in the Wind is humanity in the midst of war - the minutiae amongst the vast and awful.  The collection would be worth hunting down for that alone.  But I don't want to give the wrong impression of Gardiner's tone - because Leaves in the Wind is very often an amusing book too, and wanders onto the sorts of topics in which A.A. Milne would have delighted in his pre-war sketch writing days.  Such as gentlemen's fashion:

I am not speaking with disrespect of the well-dressed man (I do not mean the over-dressed man:  he is an offence).  I would be well-dressed myself if I knew how, but I have no gift that way.  Like Squire Shallow, I am always in the rearward of the fashion.  I find that with rare exceptions I dislike new fashions.  They disturb my tranquillity.  They give me a nasty jolt.  I suspect that the explanation is that beneath my intellectual radicalism there lurks a temperamental conservatism, a love of sleepy hollows and quiet havens and the old grass-grown turnpikes of habit.

Quite frankly, I adore the idea of calling someone 'an offence', and will be putting it into practice asap.

This has been a speedy overview of a book which, though slim, is very varied - and, like almost all collections of personal essays, covers so many topics that an exhaustive review would be impossible, unless it was almost as long as the book.  Gardiner proves himself, in Leaves in the Wind, to have an impressive range of tone - from funny to solemn, and (more impressive still) sometimes both at once.

Thanks, Leticia, for pushing this to the top of my tbr pile - I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for any more furrows ploughed by this particular author.