heliopausa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heliopausa) wrote2016-08-23 06:09 am
heliopausa) wrote2016-08-23 06:09 am
Entry tags:
Listening and reading and thinking about writing.
There's been more listening than reading happening for me lately. Music, for starters - a terrific Bach concert, and another of unthemed scraps from all over, which began with Octet for Eight Strings (Prelude and Scherzo) by Shostakovich which was new to me, and brilliant.
But I've been listening to literature, too, courtesy of Librivox - to Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company , with Sir Nigel Loring, the most chivalrous of all literary knights - at first I wondered if he was a model for Reepicheep. (I can be very nearly certain that Lewis read it - I bet pretty well every boy of his age and class got a copy somewhere along the line. It's very strong on how the clean living of the hero (not Sir Nigel - his squire) wins the day, and also very determined in predicting great future empire for England, along the lines of "realms that Caesar never knew". It's also got solid research in it, as far as types of ships, and armour and things like that; it's probably a bit more less bolstered by research in terms of social attitudes (but what do I know? Not much about this period.) And, as mentioned, the hero's hero is immensely chivalrous, perpetually seeking honour through battle or single combat , and with such a respect for women that he forebore to even attempt to hamper the one throwing lime in his eyes. (I can't help wondering if Kipling was replying directly to this with Sir Richard's very grim line (in Puck of Pook's Hill) referring to the noblewoman who feared being "turned out into the fields to beg" - that "She had never seen the face of war.")
But back to Lewis - it's worth noting that The White Company includes this sentence, uttered by a seasoned archer who's been in the Hundred Years' War:
"We have had great good fortune in France, and it hath led to much bobance and camp-fire talk, but I have ever noticed that those who know the most have the least to say about it."
Bobance! (That was my added emphasis, of course.) Yes, I know Lewis would have known the word from Middle English in good time, but .. well, here it is! So that adds to my conviction that he'd seen the book, and that leads back to where I was some minutes ago, as to whether Sir Nigel was a model for Reepicheep - but no, after all that, I don't think so! Reepicheep is so much more a visionary, trembling in ecstasy as he draws near to the source of his vision. Sir Nigel does have a vision of sorts, but it's so much more earthbound - and I can't imagine Sir Nigel standing back untroubled as Lucy took on a perilous quest - though his own Lady Mary is clearly a woman of great valour. (It is a pity that there's not more of her in the book.)
I've started reading The Edge of the World, by Michael Pye, about the influence of the North Sea traders in European history, but haven't got far yet, just to Frisians in the Dark Ages. More in a later post. (Has anyone else read it? Or know the period? - roughly 700-1350, I think.)
I've dipped into Maria Edgeworth, thanks to a post by blueinkedpalm on LJ, and found her much more fun than I'd expected - previously I'd only read Castle Rackrent, and hadn't much enjoyed it - they were such very unappealing characters, and I couldn't see or couldn't enjoy the social comedy. But blueinkedpalm gave a link to some easy-going didactic stories, intended as hints for parents on how to raise children - it included the Good Governess who took her charges to the Rational Toyshop (not nearly as horrible as it sounds). There was bucketloads of Lessons to be drawn throughout, but also wry and amusing social observation. Here's a basically decent young man, but vastly full of himself, mansplaining to a polite young woman:
Pow! Take that, all bumptious young men who have ever tediously and instructively wasted Maria Edgeworth's time when she could have been having fun at a party!
(What great days we're living in! Where so much is freely available on the internet.)
And then there was Shakespeare. I'd been playing with the idea of entering the StageofFools fic exchange - but when I came to consider which plays I knew anything like well enough to offer to write from... oh, then I had to scurry to the invaluable internet and find the plays and read them all again. Not them all, no, but to skim from one to another, (reading one for the first time; it was better than I'd thought - good work, Shakespeare! Keep it up.) until I thought I'd read enough to be able to get to the stage of offering some, and prompting some, and hoping for the best - which I now have, recklessly.
So that's the thinking about writing part - just thinking idly at this stage, because the prompts have yet to descend.
(Consumption of pulses, in honour of the Year, continues. Recently: falafel with hummous, and at another meal tofu with peanut sauce - quadruple score!)
But I've been listening to literature, too, courtesy of Librivox - to Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company , with Sir Nigel Loring, the most chivalrous of all literary knights - at first I wondered if he was a model for Reepicheep. (I can be very nearly certain that Lewis read it - I bet pretty well every boy of his age and class got a copy somewhere along the line. It's very strong on how the clean living of the hero (not Sir Nigel - his squire) wins the day, and also very determined in predicting great future empire for England, along the lines of "realms that Caesar never knew". It's also got solid research in it, as far as types of ships, and armour and things like that; it's probably a bit more less bolstered by research in terms of social attitudes (but what do I know? Not much about this period.) And, as mentioned, the hero's hero is immensely chivalrous, perpetually seeking honour through battle or single combat , and with such a respect for women that he forebore to even attempt to hamper the one throwing lime in his eyes. (I can't help wondering if Kipling was replying directly to this with Sir Richard's very grim line (in Puck of Pook's Hill) referring to the noblewoman who feared being "turned out into the fields to beg" - that "She had never seen the face of war.")
But back to Lewis - it's worth noting that The White Company includes this sentence, uttered by a seasoned archer who's been in the Hundred Years' War:
"We have had great good fortune in France, and it hath led to much bobance and camp-fire talk, but I have ever noticed that those who know the most have the least to say about it."
Bobance! (That was my added emphasis, of course.) Yes, I know Lewis would have known the word from Middle English in good time, but .. well, here it is! So that adds to my conviction that he'd seen the book, and that leads back to where I was some minutes ago, as to whether Sir Nigel was a model for Reepicheep - but no, after all that, I don't think so! Reepicheep is so much more a visionary, trembling in ecstasy as he draws near to the source of his vision. Sir Nigel does have a vision of sorts, but it's so much more earthbound - and I can't imagine Sir Nigel standing back untroubled as Lucy took on a perilous quest - though his own Lady Mary is clearly a woman of great valour. (It is a pity that there's not more of her in the book.)
I've started reading The Edge of the World, by Michael Pye, about the influence of the North Sea traders in European history, but haven't got far yet, just to Frisians in the Dark Ages. More in a later post. (Has anyone else read it? Or know the period? - roughly 700-1350, I think.)
I've dipped into Maria Edgeworth, thanks to a post by blueinkedpalm on LJ, and found her much more fun than I'd expected - previously I'd only read Castle Rackrent, and hadn't much enjoyed it - they were such very unappealing characters, and I couldn't see or couldn't enjoy the social comedy. But blueinkedpalm gave a link to some easy-going didactic stories, intended as hints for parents on how to raise children - it included the Good Governess who took her charges to the Rational Toyshop (not nearly as horrible as it sounds). There was bucketloads of Lessons to be drawn throughout, but also wry and amusing social observation. Here's a basically decent young man, but vastly full of himself, mansplaining to a polite young woman:
"After he had told her all that he knew concerning the fossils, as they were produced from the cabinet — and he was far from ignorant — he at length perceived that she knew full as much of natural history as he did, and he was surprised that a young lady should know so much, and should not be conceited."
Pow! Take that, all bumptious young men who have ever tediously and instructively wasted Maria Edgeworth's time when she could have been having fun at a party!
(What great days we're living in! Where so much is freely available on the internet.)
And then there was Shakespeare. I'd been playing with the idea of entering the StageofFools fic exchange - but when I came to consider which plays I knew anything like well enough to offer to write from... oh, then I had to scurry to the invaluable internet and find the plays and read them all again. Not them all, no, but to skim from one to another, (reading one for the first time; it was better than I'd thought - good work, Shakespeare! Keep it up.) until I thought I'd read enough to be able to get to the stage of offering some, and prompting some, and hoping for the best - which I now have, recklessly.
So that's the thinking about writing part - just thinking idly at this stage, because the prompts have yet to descend.
(Consumption of pulses, in honour of the Year, continues. Recently: falafel with hummous, and at another meal tofu with peanut sauce - quadruple score!)