John Carey : A Little History of Poetry

If music is sound organised in a particular way, poetry is a way of organising language. It is language made special, so that it will be remembered and valued.

Invisible Book

Gert very much enjoyed reading recently a description of Elizabeth Tonnard’s Invisible Book, one of a limited edition of 100, unsigned and costing € 0. The original manuscript was said to be stored in an undisclosed facility, but it is, apparently, no longer there. Here it is on show at the National Library of The Netherlands:

A Severed Head : Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch wrote many novels (twenty-seven or thirty, depends on your source) beginning with Under the Net published in 1954 and coming to a sad end with Jackson’s Dilemma published in 1996 three years before her death. She also wrote books on philosophy, but it is the novels I have read. Recently I re-read A Severed Head, classified as ‘Romantic Suspense’ as are most of her novels.

I was hoping it involved the main character being decapitated. No such luck.

Let me give you some idea of it

Fleur Jaeggy: Sweet Days Of Discipline

Claire Harman : Sylvia Townsend Warner : A Biography

Sylvia Townsend Warner is best known for her book, Lolly Willowes, published in 1926 when she was thirty-three years old. It is the story of a woman, moving towards middle-age, who decides to leave her conventional family and live alone in a small village in the Chilterns, Great Mop. Once she is living on her own, she attends witches’ sabbaths and becomes friends with Satan whom she describes as a

A kind of black knight, wandering about and succouring decayed gentlewomen.

Catts coom mawwin’

Murray Bail : He.

Fay Weldon: Affliction and Worst Fears