Books for Christmas Part II
How are you? Imagine if, last Christmas, you had been told: in a year's time you will all be masked, you will not be able to touch, to hug friends, to dance. You will have been locked up in your houses for months. You will be separated from your loved ones indefinitely. Many of you will lose your jobs. Some of you will die. The brutal pandemic has the quality of a curse in a fairytale - it still seems unreal, that life on this planet has altered so completely, if temporarily - let's hope. This time next year may we all be hugging with abandon, packing the theatres, restaurants, clubs and places of worship.
*(I just deleted a paragraph on politics. Let's not go there, shall we?).
Where were we? Hope. Books as ever have been an enormous solace, and I've read over eighty this year for fun it seems, aside from research. It's the first year I haven't travelled since January. That Berlin notebook is full of sparky ideas, and cuttings, and the joy of the new. I miss that. As lovely as our part of the world is, and I feel truly lucky to be here, escaping through books has been a saving grace. Thank you Isherwood and O'Brien, Eyre, James, Atkinson, O'Farrell, Tyler, Strout and Patchett for getting me through the year. Here's a shelfie of my 2020 favourites. Any are recommended, but for me 'The Dutch House' has set a new goal of beauty within and without the pages. If you haven't read it yet, it's my recommendation of the year. The paperback came out in April, but I love this Bloomsbury hardback edition and see it every day on the way to sit down and write:
When my brain ceased working on occasion this year, (yours too?), I read poetry. Much as Marina Benjamin said at the National Creative Writing Conference a couple of months ago: 'always keep writing, even if only notes'. Keep putting good things into your creative heart. Keep ticking over. If you can't read prose at the moment, read poetry, if not that watch films, look at art, listen to music. This year I loved Rimbaud and Ginsberg, Cummings (as in E E definitely *not* the other one), and Rilke:
"Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final."
Resilience is a central theme in 'A Season of Secrets', newly published this month by Orion (in ebook, the paperback follows in February). The publisher has given Grace and Fraser's story a fresh new title and cover, and I've loved revisiting this story set around an antique WW1 tiara and twelve gemstones.
"Ideas make me happy - making beauty out of ideas" Vivienne Westwood. That was one of the things I wrote down in my daily notebook this year. The idea of this book - the tiara, the cavalry charge at Mons, the glimmer and glitter of Grace's jewellery - it's as tangible as real life, still. In the picture above is the tiara I made when I wrote the story - I couldn't find a photo of exactly what I had in mind, and it helped writing Grace's character to understand a bit about the feel of her work. It's so true that as a writer you get to live many lives. I feel lucky to have had other worlds like this to escape to this year.
I thought I'd share some of the ideas about writing I scribbled down over the last twelve months below. I hope some of them chime with you. Since the early days of this blog, I've talked about the importance of carrying a notebook with you, always. Ideas like this are the 'diamonds in the dustheap' Virginia W talked about. In my case, the notebooks are less 'dustheap' and more shopping lists and drawings of willies c/o the children.
Meanwhile, if you'd like something to read over Christmas, just RT the link to this post on Twitter @katelordbrown and I'll pick someone on Monday who'll receive the new Kindle ebook.
As a small Christmas present for everyone, 'The House of Dreams' is also being put out for free on Boxing Day for a couple of days. The story of 'the artists' Schindler' is the ultimate story of resilience. I think one of the great consolations of hist fic is that it shows us how people who came before us navigated difficult times, and that is a comfort. Especially now.
Happy reading, and Happy Christmas.
" Concentrate on reminding us of our strength - we don't break as easily as we think we do." Neil Gaiman
"Be generous, be delicate, and always pursue the prize." Henry James
"Do not hurry, do not rest." Rose Tremain
"Only begin and then the good things will come." James Joyce.
Everything is Going to be All Right
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
From Being Alive and Derek Mahon's New Selected Poems. Derek Mahon 1941 - 2020
Exmoor, 2020
