Reading, Watching, Doing

This is a place for me to hold forth on matters both serious and silly. You are invited to participate. 

Much has happened in both a bookish and non-bookish respect since my previous Three Things post in April. I have enjoyed a handful of pleasant staycations, allowing me the occasional breather between visits to see my nonagenarian mother in hospital, where she has been holed up for nigh on four months with little sign of returning home. (I first mentioned this here in WUTW #413.)

There have been moments of light relief: meals out, nights at the theatre, the company of lovely friends and the occasional (ahem!) revivifying snifter-lifter at our local pub, but unfortunately, Covid reappeared in our lives towards the end of May. First Mum became poorly, followed by my stepfather, who was subsequently hospitalised, then Mrs Jotter (whose elderly mother is also in poor health) and finally, me. Thankfully, we are all still here, if somewhat ‘done in’, as my dear old Nan used to say.

Anyhow, before this post turns into a complete gloom-fest, I shall move on to cheerier matters, which as you must know by now are a fusion of:

Reading, Watching and Doing: An Amalgamation

“Evolution was all over my childhood… with music as a background for emotion and books as a reality and a great deal of eating as an excitement and as an orgy… Most of all there were books and food, food and books, both excellent things.”
– Gertrude Stein

At long last, it is off my nightstand and nestled amongst other cherished biographical works – at least, those I regard as out-and-out, can’t-do-without ‘keepers’. Alas, since downsizing just over three-years-ago, I no longer have space to cling Gollum-like to every book that passes through my hands, which is fortunate because my personal library had expanded well beyond anything even our rambling old house could contain (and that was with shelves built into every cranny, including the downstairs loo). Anyhow, I digress… I refer, of course, to Diana Souhami’s No Modernism Without Lesbians, a lively but comprehensive jaunt through the lives, loves and achievements of an extraordinary group of women who made a deep and lasting impression on literature and art in the twentieth century. After revelling in their company for the last few months (during which they appeared in a triplicity of TTs), it is likely I will sporadically slide this volume off the shelf on the pretext of looking up some fact or quotation. So, with me it remains.

“I’m afraid that if I admitted I’d enjoyed even a short rest or some diversion, I would lose the reputation I have of dedicating every second of my time to the family. No one would remember the countless hours I […] spend in the kitchen or shopping or mending but only the brief moments […] I’d spent reading a book or taking a walk.”

I recently finished reading Forbidden Notebook, a story by the late Italian Cuban feminist writer Alba de Céspedes (translated into the English by Ann Goldstein), which reveals the interior life of a discontented 43-year-old housewife living in postwar Rome with her husband and two young adult children.

Such a restricted life does Valeria Cossati lead, she may just as well be incarcerated in the Tullianum – but it is a married woman’s lot to be servile yet serene, diligent and dutiful, always seemingly grateful and fulfilled – while ensuring the needs and wishes of family and husband are placed above any personal consideration.

Told in the first person, we meet the narrator as she does something rash, something out of character, something seemingly innocuous but utterly subversive, something that will gradually change the way she regards herself and those around her. On impulse one day, she steps into a shop and buys a notebook.

The notebook becomes her diary. A repository for honest thought, self-scrutiny and personal opinions she can never openly express. It must therefore be hidden. Her family must not know of its existence. The consequences of its discovery would be unthinkable.

“I haven’t had a moment’s peace since I got this notebook.”

Published in 1952 (before going out of print for several decades), my copy of the book was reissued by Astra House in 2023, with a perceptive foreword by Jhumpa Lahiri (she of Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake and other literary goodies). It is an excruciating study of a housewife trapped in a life of domestic drudgery by the expectations of a deeply traditionalist society. It is also a stunning novel about a woman finding herself through writing. One of my favourite books of the year at this half-way point.

“It’s strange: our inner life is what counts most for each of us and yet we have to pretend to live as if we paid no attention to it.”

Lastly, book-wise, I return to a work originally purchased in the early stages of lockdown but which I was frustratingly unable focus on. Reading became a task when it should have been a joy and though I could do little about it, I knew full well that under normal circumstances I would have relished reading Tove Jansson: Letters from Tove. That same book is now seductively arranged on my bedside table next to a fresh pack of sticky notes and a sharpened pencil. I will reread it at a leisurely pace with the intention of writing something about it for my ongoing Tove Trove project (the hub of my ambition to become a Jansson completionist). It is a moderately fat book, so naturally, as with all my ‘slow’ reads, I will dip-in before nodding off at night – though on this occasion, I intend to absorb every word.

As for the articles and essays I enjoyed reading that didn’t for one reason or another make it into my weekly wind up (you will find an explanation of sorts as to why in TT #5), I have dwindled my finds down to a single one as I also have a few holiday snaps to share with you.

I receive regular email notifications from Beyond Bloomsbury, “an ongoing anthology” created on Substack by “historian, writer and doctoral scholar,” Victoria K. Walker, whose chief interest is in “the intersections of early twentieth-century art literature and history, with a particular focus on the life and work of the Bloomsbury Group and their contemporaries.” I’m always eager to see the latest additions to her historical artist and writer biographies and the gallery and library collections, which she puts together so wonderfully. Indeed, it is an era that enthrals me, but since her public (i.e. free) posts appear with some regularity, I haven’t attempted to upgrade to her paid content – not because I’m too tight-fisted to shell out for such top quality offerings (well, maybe I am a little) but because there are simply squillions of talented Substack creatives on the scene these days, each one clamouring for attention (generally deserved). Many of them charge for access to at least some of their work, and I would need to be a wealthy woman to subscribe to all of those I read and enjoy. I therefore assuage my guilt by promoting some of the best on Book Jotter and various social media platforms whenever the opportunity arises.

Anyhow, I’m going off at a tangent again… Now that I’ve got the matter of subscriptions off my chest, I will return to my original point, which is, I’m particularly partial to the artworks Victoria shares. In her Gallery there are paintings by the likes of Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Dora Carrington, Laura Knight, Roger Fry, Stanley Spencer and many others, but I will draw your attention to her most recent selection in Branching Out: The Art of the Railway because I so like representations of the old steam locomotives. They were withdrawn from normal railway service in Great Britain in 1968 (when I was barely three years old) but I do love a bit of nostalgia.

To conclude, I leave you with a few photographic memories of a recent visit to Liverpool:

The Royal Liver Building

Liverpool Central Library

Mathew Street

The Cavern Club

The Beatles

Superlambananas

One for my Australian readers (found hanging in The Pumphouse @ the Albert Dock)

Why not let me know what you’ve been doing with your days, or better still, compile your own Three Things-type post.

Categories: Three Things

Tags: #ThreeThings., Alba de Céspedes, Ann Goldstein, Diana Souhami, Finnish Literature, Gertrude Stein, Italian Literature, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lesbian Biography, LGB Non-Fiction, Liverpool, Liverpool Central Library, Modernism, Nordic Literature, The Bloomsbury Group, Tove Jansson, Tove Trove