Contexts for chaos, imagination past and present: “Memoirs of a Survivor” (1981) Somewhere in this blog I wrote about trying to capture the things I responded to as a child, the things which grew and developed into the portals of the imagination that have stayed with me, and how they shapeshifted over time, with different … Continue reading Frosty winds made moan
From 1968 until the turn of the century, John Fowles lived at Belmont, his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset. Author of The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the latter is a post-modern take on the spirit of Thomas Hardy, an investigation of the Victorian psyche written in the midst of the 1960s’ liberating atmosphere. … Continue reading John Fowles has left the building: Belmont, Lyme Regis
I’ve posted a few H E Bates covers before, but just to say again, I’ve no idea why he isn’t more appreciated these days. My own feeling is that he was too prolific and easily able to turn his hand to many genres, and much of his work was eclipsed by the Darling Buds of … Continue reading Writers in covers: H E Bates
The jury is out these days on D H Lawrence, and yet he was as much a part of the Swinging Sixties as Mary Quant or Christine Keeler, and it’s quite entertaining to see them in the same sentence. Rightly so it would seem, as there are those who think the trial over the publication … Continue reading Writers in covers: D H Lawrence
Followers of WhistlesintheWind will know that Jane Eyre and Rebecca have come up a few times in posts, usually exploring the gothic allure of rambling houses – the kind that are as much a character as the inhabitants themselves. They are both fascinating, now intertwined novels, and one actress lived both in the 1940s. As … Continue reading Joan Fontaine – missionary of gothic
I hear you’ve been going out a great deal,” said Lady Waters, with that air with which lesser women prefix: ‘A little bird told me’ – but her confidante would have been an eagle. – From To the North by Elizabeth Bowen, 1932 This is one of the touches that make Elizabeth Bowen really enjoyable. … Continue reading Setting the graphic equalizer with Virginia Woolf and Stella Gibbons
I think some people discover Lawrence Durrell having read My Family and Other Animals when small… and so can’t quite forget the satirical portrait by his brother. Interesting that My Family and Other Animals was published in 1956, just before Lawrence (below, centre) produced his best work and secured the literary world’s respect and recognition. Continue reading Alexandria Quartet: a lion in the family
Savagery waited so close on the margins of life; one day it would engulf all… The World My Wilderness isn’t the book I was expecting now I’ve read it. We’re told this is Barbary’s story: a girl transposed to post-war London from a life shared with her mother’s villa in Southern France and bands of … Continue reading The World My Wilderness Revisited
A view of St Paul’s through wasteland, cover artwork published in 1950 for Rose Macaulay’s story of a girl who is sent to live in London after years in occupied France (jacket design by Barbara Jones). I’ve yet to read it. The inside wrap reads: “London and the ordered formality of English life seemed to … Continue reading Post-war wilderness, 1950
Following on from the Billy Liar post and the theme of escape in the sixties, here’s playwright Shelagh Delaney talking about Salford in 1960. All of it is great, but from around 8.30 minutes in she starts to talk in particular about restlessness and the conflict of belonging/not belonging to a place. It’s again suggesting … Continue reading Shelagh Delaney, 1960
WHISTLES IN THE WIND 