Anna Karenina

This is an absolutely gorgeous film.Of course I'm biased. Kiera Knightly is my favourite actress and Joe Wright is one of my favourite film directors. The fantastic script by Tom Stoppard, the acting, the costumes, the music, the choreography, the play on theatre and opera, the breathtaking scenes - all of it: stunning. A masterpiece. Wright is such an interesting film-maker. He can re-make a classic while keeping its heart and soul completely intact. And he has sent me back to the book which I haven't read since I was a teenager. At that time I went through the Russian greats to prove myself an intellectual and have to admit I didn't enjoy them. Now I'm savouring Anna Karenina, thrilled that it's a big fat book that will last for ages; amazed  to discover that it isn't turgid and boring (my youth? the translation?) but beautifully written, lyrical, modern in sensibility, moving, compelling ... a joy to read.

Cloud Atlas

I'm rarely au fait with the latest literary sensation and tend to discover wonderful works long after everyone else has, but better late than never! Was alerted to this 2004 Booker contender - who the hell beat him?! - by its film trailer which was run before The Hobbit (more about that anon). I knew immediately I had to see the film and then I realised it was originally a book. Mirabile dictu. Off to the library and had it read in two days (would have been one but Finn was home and her thesis had to be proof-read. Omigod, I barely grasped what it was about - she's an Earth and Ocean scientist - but I was a great help with the syntax). Could hardly believe the writer is a young man and this is only his third work. Will be getting the others pronto. Apparently he lives in Ireland though he's English. I doubt it's for the tax haven as artists are only left unscathed up to €40,000 and he's definitely made more with film rights alone. Anyhoo, it's one of those curl-up-on-the-sofa-all-day- or lie-awake-all-night-in-your-bed-because-you-can't-put-it-down sort of books. Delicious stories. Brilliant characters. Nail-biting moments. Exquisite writing. My only quibble: though the pearly string of the universe (yes that is an allusion to string theory) is beautifully drawn, the necklace itself - ultimate Reality - and the neck upon which it is hung - the One! the One! - is left unwritten. Well, he's young and probably doesn't believe in answers, only questions.

Canadian Journey - Into the Past

I'm not long back from a flying visit to Canada where I attended three reunions and a wake. As in that wonderful film Four Weddings and a Funeral, there were tears and laughter and many many magical moments. The 40 year reunion of my Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde group - Malaysia Year One - was held in the Muskoka region of Ontario. Yes, that particular experience was the inspiration for My Blue Country. Hilarious to see all the photos from way back then and to acknowledge with some consternation that despite all the wear and tear of life we were not really that different! Here's a pic of me at 19 years of age with my first true love. Un beau jeune homme, n'est-ce pas? In fact, he was the inspiration for Jean in The Book of Dreams and it was after our 30 year reunion that he helped with the mythology of French Canada, sending me books about la chasse galerie (the flying canoe) and the loup-garou (French Canadian werewolf). My next post will tell of another reunion in Ottawa with my old navy gals.

Doris Lessing's Canopus Series

I'm reading four books at the moment (not bragging, I just need variety) and this is one of them. It's the fourth in the truly brilliant series Canopus in Argos Archives by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. She calls the series "inner space fiction" and it is breathtaking in its scope, beginning with the microcosm of humanity and ranging out into the vast reality of the universe and universes. (In the second one, she has dimensional 'zones' attached to Earth or Shikasta/Rohanda not unlike the Buddhist notions of bardo realities.) Each book is quite different in tone and subject matter though loosely joined together by the over-arching presence and observation of Canopus. I thought at first this last one was boring and 'small' in comparison to the others, but the more I read it the more hilarious I realise it is. A scathing attack on the folly of humankind, more particularly man-kind, and the machinations of politics and the absurdity of sentimentalism. Most of all I have learned, myself, a lesson in the dangers of rhetoric and how one can get carried away by one's own words. She presents rhetoric as a form of illness, of madness. One has only to think of the ridiculous nature of political conventions with their meaningless speeches and infantile flag-waving calculated to rouse the rabble.

AS Byatt at her Best

Just finished this book a short while ago. Normally I wouldn't read AS Byatt as she's so self-consciously and tediously 'intellectual' and so obviously aims to show off her knowledge. She's also the green-eyed writer who attacked JK Rowling and Rowling's adult readers - google Harry Potter and the Goblet of Bile, lol. But I liked the cover of this book and I was told it's based on the life of E. Nesbit, one of my favourite writers as a child. (C.S. Lewis was my favourite writer, still is, and when a librarian told me that Nesbit was his favourite writer as a child, I read all of hers. He didn't steer me wrong!)This is a great fat read, the kind you curl up with in an armchair on a rainy day. A cast of thousands, all memorable, amazing artists and theosophists and Fabians and feminists. You envy the children their childhood if not their parents. It's all about art and creativity and politics and people. You sense the shadow of WWI and then it strikes tragically. Yes, Byatt occasionally lectures on topics to show off her knowledge but one can just skip those bits if necessary. Two things struck me with a powerful lash; the desperate state of the poor and the working classes only a short time ago and the suffocating strictures on women of all classes. My God, we don't know how lucky we are!

Chronicles of Faerie in eBook form!

The Chronicles of Faerie (revised and expanded editions) are now available as ebooks for Kindle readers at Amazon.com, for the Nook ereader at bn.com, and for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone) on Apple's iBookstore. I haven't one of these myself - yet -but I'm rather pleased that I foresaw their existence in a passage in The Light-Bearer's Daughter, first published 2001. Dana meets the Chronicler, the Teller of Tales, who is leading a donkey laden down with panniers filled with books: There were paper scrolls and Egyptian papyri, tablets of wax and clay, manuscripts of vellum, hand-sewn texts bound in calfskin, some even inscribed on thin sheets of gold. There were modern books printed with glossy covers as well as talking books, computer disks and videotapes. A metallic box that glowed and hummed contained strange unrecognisable devices: laser, electronic and holographic books which Dana surmised belonged to the future. Have I changed my tune about ebooks? Of course I have. It just takes us old fogeys a bit longer to adapt to change.

I Want To Know

Here's an excerpt from People of the Great Journey, my new adult work of spiritual and speculative fiction. (Publisher and publication date to be announced shortly!) This is "Olwen's Song" from Chapter 32:
I want to know that there is a God or some Source of Love that cares for the world.
I want to know that there is a reason why everything exists; that life is not a random array of matter.
I want to know that the suffering and sorrow woven into the very fabric of life is not meaningless, but serves some good and noble purpose.
I want to know that evil, like suffering, also serves the Good.
I want to know that humanity is here for a reason.
I want to know that my life, regardless of whether it is a success or a failure, is of value in and of itself.
I want to know that I am not here by accident.
I want to know that I am loved by life.