Fiction and Representations of Sexuality

Admittedly not a book post, but this is still something I feel is an important issue in all writing.
 
Tumblr often points out how important equality is in books, on TV. Despite the flaws it has, I find that it often raises some very good points, and really does help to make people aware of diversity, and also a much broader diversity than is commonly imagined. Just because places like Tumblr talk about LGBTQA+ people on the internet does not mean that they only exist on the internet. Nor does it mean that people, who say, identify as pansexual or asexual, are fictional or internet identities.

In fact, the internet is one of the only places where these people are visible.

I think it's important to consider that from an objective point of view. I don't believe that to believe there are people who self-identify (since, I would argue, self-identification is the only form of identification that truly matters) as LGBTQA+ means you have to be part of those letters. I feel that they are all equally valid sexualities, and they are seriously underrepresented within fiction. I don't read as widely as I should, so perhaps I'm missing out on a lot. I know that there are sections on Amazon, say, dedicated to Gay and Lesbian Fiction (although I could debate pros and cons for whether needs to be relegated to its own section - is it indeed relegated?), so clearly there are inclusions for people of all sexualities. But - in mainstream literature, TV and film. The bestsellers lists, the blockbuster films, the most-downloaded Netflix TV series - is that representation there?

In TV, increasingly, yes. I'm aware of more representations in more shows. Just recently, a cartoon generally intended for children (which I won't name in case people are yet to see it) confirmed two of the characters as bisexual. Shows are being made where people of multiple sexualities are vital to the plot, for example Orphan Black. I could easily go on about the amazing representation of all the characters in Orphan Black, but for this blog post, I'll keep it basic. One of the main characters is gay, is a rent boy, and is marvellous. Another of the characters, Cosima, is either gay or bisexual and it generally depends who you ask, and her girlfriend Delphine is bisexual. A trans character was introduced in the last series. That is representation. And the thing is - it's not like that's over-representation. In life, you come across people of all sexualities, and so that's what it should be like in television and in literature. TV has been doing it for a while, beginning, truly, from Russell T Davies's Queer as Folk in 1999/2000, and being drip-fed into soaps and dramas since then. In novels, for example, Will Grayson Will Grayson, a novel partly written by hugely successful author John Green. It's not his most well known novel - but it's there, on every bookshelf in every bookstore, in the teen fiction section. A novel about two guys with the same name that fall in love.

So representation is there. But this blog post is here because every day I see, and reblog, posts about heteronormativity and "queerbating", and there is still a fundamental lack of proper representation. These are not internet concepts, just as sexualities the wider public may not be as aware of are not internet sexualities. They are not modern ideas. They've always  been there, they're just emerging, because like-minded and "forward thinking" people have a common ground to discuss it. And those people are watching TV, are reading novels, and writing the future TV and novels. So naturally, a wider representation is being, pardon the current meme pun, craved.

There's the whole thing of shipping, which could be another blog post or twelve. Shipping is great. People having OTPs is great. People imagining OTPs and writing fan fiction is also great. People craving (sorry again) the need for two characters of, for example, the same sex to be together and having to infer their relationship and sexualities is less great. It's less great because they have to infer it. Why not say? Sherlock, for example, has one of the best opening TV episodes of any TV show. A Study in Pink is marvellous. There's the scene at the restaurant where Sherlock confirms he does not like women romantically and does not confirm he does not like men. John does not confirm this either - but Sherlock says he is married to his work. So, asexual? Possibly gay? Was his fake relationship in Series Three totally passionless - meaning could he be bi? The thing is - we don't know. How easy would it have been for the writer to tell us? The fan fiction could still exist even if both characters were confirmed as straight - that's not what matters. It matters that the opportunity was there yet it almost feels misleading because the lack of confirmation has created speculation. Maybe that's a petty argument - but lots of people don't think it is. And it's my opinion. But that whole lack of speculation, the little hints and nudges, the lack of confirmation even now - is where "queerbating" stems from.

I understand that in today's age, still, it's hard for, on an American 'kids' show, the writers to overtly have a character say "I am [insert sexuality here]". That's, unfortunately, the way it is. But the writers still confirmed it afterwards, away from the series, and stopped the speculation there. An indiscreet will they/won't they storyline (that was more understated than even that) in a show that has never had conversations about sexuality is different to a show that has and still won't own up. People do have the opportunity to be honest, and to say that "yes, this character is pansexual" or whatever - or at least make it as clear as they can. But dangling it in front of the audience isn't really acceptable. And hopefully, by writing more about diverse characters, it will soon reach the stage where kids shows CAN talk about sexualities, properly.

This blog is very directly about sexuality because if it was about feminism or any other wider topics of equality, I wouldn't stop talking. The representation of females is again, only sporadically great. But this is something that pops up every single day, and as someone who writes, it's something I think about a lot. Me and my friend, when creating a project to work on, consciously discussed characters, personalities, looks (more outfits, to be fair) and sexualities (in no particular order, I might add). Our desire to write characters or to create them a certain way ended up, coincidentally, with a group of main characters who have various sexualities. It was only afterwards we realised we had only one heterosexual main character. (I'm reminded of a Tumblr post that mockingly complains about the lack of them on TV at the moment.) It's not a problem. It just is and it's wonderful.

Despite all this though, and quite paradoxically, it is key that the sexualities are the "least interesting thing" about the characters (to quote Cosima, there). It is a part of them but it is not them. Connor Franta, YouTuber, recently came out as gay and said in his video that he would not let his sexuality "confine or define him". I feel this is as it is for characters. It is a part of their personality, it tells them and the writers who they look to love, and that's it. The thing is - that's all it needs to be. Having LGBTQA+ characters on screen is, in a sort of unfortunate way, a statement if it needs to be, (they should not be just a statement) but it is enough to have the representation that people feel is mostly missing. As long as they're properly good characters, but that's an essential for every character ever created.

People just need to be there. People of all races, of all genders, of all sexualities and beliefs. And that's it. And not just suggested. Proudly confirmed. Confirmation doesn't need the direct words - it can use images, passing comments, but that is still confirmation, and can still be proud. Writers should be proud of their characters and be proud of people enough to strive to equally include people in their writing. It's not a burden. If it's not a burden to easily write heterosexual white men, or not a burden to write a family, or a group of space pirates, it's not a burden to write people that we pass every day on the street.

And I hope people do more of that in the future.

Literary Advent Calendar | Christmas Eve

24TH DECEMBER
"'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore

There's only one poem suitable for Christmas Eve and it's this one. This is the proper version where St Nick smokes a pipe. One more poem to go! Merry Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Literary Advent Calendar | 23rd December

23RD DECEMBER
"Song" by Allen Ginsberg

This is the much happier Ginsberg that I think I said would appear. It's a great poem by a really great writer, and there are some wonderful phrases within it. "Be mad or chill, obsessed with angels or machines, the final wish is love." That is possibly the best line of any poem ever, it's awesome. So here it is, much longer than I remembered and superb all the way through. This Advent Calendar will be posted on the 25th (or at least, for the 25th) too, so there are two more poems to go!
  
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born

Literary Advent Calendar | 22nd December

22ND DECEMBER
"The Hollow Men" by TS Eliot

I was looking back over the Advent Calendar was very surprised to learn I hadn't included Eliot. There's probably a few others that I've forgotten over the course of the month as well, but Eliot definitely needs to be included. I love his poetry, and it's particularly apt today, when me and a friend spent ages talking about this poem in particular. As with most other poems I've blogged about, it's not happy, but it's very good. But it's actually the whole poem today. See you tomorrow!

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

      A penny for the Old Guy

      I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

      II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

      III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

      IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

      V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

 

Literary Advent Calendar | 16th-21st December

Here's some more literary stuff!

16TH DECEMBER
"Strange Meeting" by Wilfred Owen

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,— 

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.” 

“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something had been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress. 

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: 

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, 

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now. . . .”

Definitely not Christmassy, but my favourite Wilfred Owen poem. And it seems appropriate while it's still 2014, the centenary of when WW1 began.

17TH DECEMBER

An Extract from "Howl I" by Allen Ginsberg

 I 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the

machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of

cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement

roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light

tragedy among the scholars of war...

I love Howl, and this is a very very brief extract from the opening of its first part. It's a great poem that caused uproar at the time it was written (always a good thing in my opinion), and Ginsberg is one of my favourite poets.

18TH DECEMBER

An Extract from "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti

 

Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpeck’d cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,

Swart-headed mulberries,

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pine-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;—

All ripe together

In summer weather,—

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy.” 

Again, this poem goes on for longer, but this extract contains the wonderful rhythm that goes on throughout. There are some really good moments later on, and once more, it's worth a read of the whole thing.

19TH DECEMBER
"The Oxen" by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,
“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

It's quite hard to find poems actually about Christmas, and although I'm pretty sure I've done Hardy already in this countdown, this seems to fit well. My (brief) Times subscription is paying off, and informs me that this poem shows Hardy perfectly balancing his agnosticism. So there you go.

20TH DECEMBER
"They Flee From Me" by Thomas Wyatt
 
They flee from me, that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger,
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
 
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once, in special,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
Therwith all sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said: “Dear heart, how like you this?”
 
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned, thorough my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served:
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

I'm not a great fan of Wyatt by any means, but this is yet another poem I studied last year. It's got a bit more flair than the average poem by Wyatt, and there's much less hyperbole in this than his other poems. Incidentally, there is a pretty interesting hypertext somewhere (where you choose your own journey through a story online) of Wyatt watching Anne Boleyn's execution, and its tied into the poetry he wrote on the subject.

21ST DECEMBER
"Sad Ones" by Max Harris

  The gentleness of Jesus
And the meekness of the child
Are false ideas. Christ was fierce
And we breed our children wild.

The spring girl who is dreaming
In the branches of a tree
Knows something of the charnel-house
And modern psychiatry.

The poor old ancient dribbler,
Cigar ash on his vest,
Thinks his seventh stage of life
Not much worse than the rest.

There is an ache of discontent
In milktooth and aged gum,
So let's give praise for coming days,
For Kingdom-Bloody-Come.

I discovered Max Harris's poetry yesterday and it's pretty awesome. This is one of his most powerful ones, and I'd recommend reading more stuff by him (there's a website with a whole list of it on).

 

Literary Advent Calendar | 13-15th December

The latest literary update is here!

13TH DECEMBER
A Haiku by Me
 
No moments to capture,
Except the brief candlelight spark
In the rising grey.

I know I said there should only be one thing by me, but I came across this again earlier and felt it would be nice and quick to include. So enjoy my very loose take on a haiku.

14TH DECEMBER
Unprotected by Simon Rich

A short story! Rather than going for a poem every day, I thought of this short story by Simon Rich. It can be found at the link below, and it's wonderfully concise and witty. I've read a few of his stories and a friend is buying me one of his books for Christmas, which should be awesome.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/30/unprotected

15TH DECEMBER
"Night Subway" by Katha Pollitt
 
The nurse coming off her shift at the psychiatric ward
nodding over the Post, her surprisingly delicate legs
shining darkly through the white hospital stockings,
and the Puerto Rican teens, nuzzling, excited
after heavy dates in Times Square, the girl with green hair,
the Hasid from the camera store, who mumbles
over his prayerbook the nameless name of God,
sitting separate, careful no woman should touch him,
even her coat, even by accident,
the boy who squirms on his seat to look out the window
where signal lights wink and flash like the eyes of dragons
while his mother smokes, each short, furious drag
meaning Mens no good they tell you anything –

How not think of Xerxes, how he reviewed his troops
and wept to think that of all those thousands of men
in their brilliant armour, their spearpoints bright in the sun,
not one would be alive in a hundred years?

O sleepers above us, river
rejoicing in the moon, and the clouds passing over the moon.

I've only found this today on The Guardian and they have a much more indepth article on it here. I'm not overly keen on the last two stanzas, but I feel the first one manages to capture real life well, and it's written in a wonderfully fluid way. There's also a deeper message in there, for those who like that kind of thing in poetry.

 

Literary Advent Calendar | 8th - 12th December

Everything should be caught up after today, so enjoy this installment of poems. I'm hoping to expand them into other forms as well after today's blog.

8TH DECEMBER
"Leda and the Swan" by WB Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

And how can body, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

                                  Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

 

I discovered this poem over the summer, and it's one of the only Yeats poems I've actually read. Leda is also a big theme throughout Orphan Black, so that's another plus to the poem.

 

9TH DECEMBER

"Brand New Ancients" by Kate Tempest

 

 

Short of a Christmas song, I was wondering how I was gonna get a video into this Calendar. But then I remembered this, Kate Tempest's very modern and critically acclaimed poem. It's delivered by her (she's also a rap artist by the way) with filmed inserts telling the story. I'd highly recommend watching all of it, it feels so alive.  

10TH DECEMBER

"You Only Live Twice" by Ian Fleming

 

 You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.

 

Written "after Basho", Basho being the famous haiku writer, I was going to pair this with a poem by him - but then I couldn't find any I actually like. So I stuck with just this, Fleming's attempt at a haiku, written in Chapter 11 of You Only Live Twice (and also before the novel starts). I think it's really good and it's definitely stuck with me. While we're on the subject of Fleming, I'd say Casino Royale was definitely worth a read if you haven't already.

 

11TH DECEMBER

An extract from "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe

 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

''Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door-

Only this, and nothing more.'

 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-

Nameless here for evermore.

The poem goes on for a lot longer and is definitely worth a read. When the raven starts speaking it definitely gets even more strange. It's an odd poem, and I've never particularly adored the way it's written, but there's something irresistable and mystical about it, so here it is.

 

12TH DECEMBER

"The Sun Rising" by John Donne

 
 BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
      Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
      Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
      Late school-boys and sour prentices,
   Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
   Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 

      Thy beams so reverend, and strong
      Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
      If her eyes have not blinded thine,
      Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
   Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
   Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

      She's all states, and all princes I;
      Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
      Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
      In that the world's contracted thus;
   Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
   To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Another poem I studied last year and another favourite. I'm not a fan of all of Donne's poetry, but this is definitely a highlight.

No doubt I'll throw some Shakespeare in here in the future or something similar, and other than that, who knows! But I'm now fully caught up, so it'll be a new blog a day or, if I run behind, a couple of days.

Literary Advent Calendar | 4th-7th December

So my plan to catch up went completely out the window.

To avoid that happening again, this blog will mostly catch up on the days missed. Tomorrow's blog will (hopefully) cover the 8th-12th and then it will be up to date.

4TH DECEMBER

"The Voice" by Thomas Hardy

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me,

But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

      Thus I; faltering forward,

      Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

      And the woman calling.

This was the poem that we studied in my taster lecture for UEA, and I used it after that for my A2 exam. It is a really great poem, and I would certainly have no problem analysing this if I had to.

5TH DECEMBER

"Doomsday" by JR Mortimer

  

The violins for the old photos,

The dead footprints in Europe snow,

The grey monuments eternalised,

The hats brought out the same day.

The bright sun blighted in haze,

The eyes shut and intermittent,

The beach, the beach, the beach,

The sacrifice from my window.

The floorboards bearing weight,

The ending of time has come,

The clock sparks on its fall down.

The beach, the beach, the beach,

The statement in forgotten rain.

So I said I may end up posting some poems by me and here one is! I'm planning to do a new author every day, so this may end up being the only one, but I hope you enjoy.

6TH DECEMBER

"Terminal" by Thom Gunn

 The eight years difference in age seems now

Disparity so wide between the two

That when I see the man who armoured stood

Resistant to all help however good

Now helped through day itself, eased into chairs,

Or else led step by step down the long stairs

With firm and gentle guidance by his friend,

Who loves him, through each effort to descend,

Each wavering, each attempt made to complete

An arc of movement and bring down the feet

As if with that spare strength he used to enjoy,

I think of Oedipus, old, led by a boy.

I studied this briefly last year, and it's a heartbreaking poem, but it's so well written. I'll try and move onto slightly more upbeat poems after the last three, none of which have been happy, but I really feel this is a poem everyone should read.

7TH DECEMBER

"This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

 

I'm not sure about happy, but there's always an argument amongst family at Christmas, isn't there? For pure audacity, I really do like this poem, and I can't see many writers tackling it. It doesn't surprise me that Larkin did.

 

A Literary Advent Calendar | 1st-3rd December

My big plan for this year was to blog about a poem every day leading up to the 25th December.

Unfortunately, I only remembered a few days ago - so it's been a little delayed. So in this blog post I'm going to talk about three poems, in the next another three poems, and then in the next another three poems, which means I'll finally be up to schedule by the 9th December. There will then be a poem published every day on here and I'll say some stuff about it. Some of them might even be written by me, who knows?

1st DECEMBER
a haiku by Bob Boldman

mirror     my face where I left it

So, obviously, that's a pretty short one. According to The Haiku Anthology, people are starting to write less and less haikus in the traditional format, and I think this one typifies that. It's also really powerful, despite the fact it only takes seven words to create something that really resonates.

2nd DECEMBER
"Musee des Beaux Arts" by WH Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.


In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

A much longer poem than the first, clearly, and a recent discovery. I'm pretty sure I'd read it before, but I've recently written 1500 words on this, so it's still fairly fresh in my mind. It's a great poem with some great phrases, "dreadful martyrdom must run its course" being one that really sticks out, but it also conveys a great message. It this kind of capturing of reality I'm trying to do when I write scripts and dialogue, and Auden does it brilliantly in this poem. If you haven't come across this before then it might be worth taking a look at Breughel's paintings, although I think the poem works really well without ever looking at them.

3rd DECEMBER
"Text" by Carol Ann Duffy

 
I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird

We text, text, text
our significant words.

I re-read your first,
your second, your third,

look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.

The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.

This isn't my favourite Duffy poem, but it comes from a 'Rapture', which is a great collection of her poetry. It's also probably the one I remember most clearly from the collection, so it felt right to share it here as well.

Tomorrow - three more poems!

Foyled Again | A Shopping Trip

mirror   my face where I left it
-a haiku by Bob Boldman

Yesterday (4th September) me and a friend went up to London (I say "went up", she lives in Woodford which I still count as Practically London), to go to Foyles. Following its move earlier this year into what looked like a massive, new (and shiny) store, I wanted to go and delve into books for hours. Which is exactly what happened.

The new store isn't as tall and stretching as I'd expected it to be. The floors are only one small flight of stairs away from each other, hence the lifts need doors on both sides, but although the height isn't there, the depth is. The shelves seem to go on forever, forming a sort of book maze. The first floor is more open and more like a sort of balcony, but seems manage to weave in and out with endless fiction. I've been to so many bookshops lately that buying more prose to read seemed unappealing. I knew what the new books were, I knew which ones were meant to be good and not, and I knew that I had enough to be getting on with already.

We worked through the shop from the top to the bottom which worked very well for this. It meant I was able to pick up books that were stranger and more interesting. And it also meant we had ages to explore the play section, which we could easily have spent a full day at.

I did come away with quite a lot of books. The first of which is The Awesome Story Generator, which is much better and much less useless than all the rubbish internet generators out there. It's simply three different flip options, forming a logline for an often completely random and quite entertaining story. I've no idea if it's ever going to help, but for pure fun and appeal, it was the best £10 I spent.

I then found the Philosophy section, which would have taken me hours to plough through. At the end of this, I discovered a rack of Graphic Introductions, which seemed very appealing, and useful for all kinds of subjects, so I bought ones on Postmodernism, Modernism and Critical Theory, which should all be in some way useful for when I head off to Uni.

Then onto the Plays, which are the most exciting. I was planning on buying a completely random modern play, but I didn't really know where to start. So after much time deliberating, I picked up ones that I'd heard of/read extracts of for my A2 course. Bent by Martin Shearman's an exploration of homosexuals and Auschwitz, which looks awesome. And the first production starred Ian McKellen, which is even more awesome. The second play is Edward II, because I felt I needed more of a classic. I'd read an extract of this last year, and was amazed by how bold Marlowe had been for the time - so I think I ought to give the whole thing a read. I know the conclusions to both plays (neither happy), but I'm interested in finding out what happens before that.

The final two purchases stemmed from books I'd intended to buy before I went there. I'd originally planned to buy Philip Larkin and Frank O'Hara's Collected Poems - and was very close to buying the latter. Eventually though, I stumbled across The Haiku Anthology, and bought that instead. It's lovely to have a collection of haikus, as they aren't poems that people generally come across through investigating poetry online. They're not quite as dramatic as some of Ginsberg's Haiku's (which you can find online, and which are really powerful and modern), but they capture the spirit of what Haikus are meant to be. They also explain the different forms of the poem - which up until yesterday I didn't know existed.

The only prose I purchased is something I had intended to buy - Crash by JG Ballard. Controversial, dramatic and strange - so the perfect book for me. It was also inspiration for one of the best Hurts' songs, so I couldn't really say no.

When I eventually work through the plays and Crash, I'll review them on here. I may blog about the Anthology and highlights from the Story Generator - but there's a lot less to write about comparatively. I'm pleased I was able to find different books that will be useful, but that I already have some sort of interest in. I've looked for Bent in every bookshop for about a year, so it was great to find it at last. I have really high hopes, for that especially, so I hope it lives up to them.

It was great to be able to rekindle my love for plays, most of all. I got slightly obsessed with them during Year 13, but then over the very long summer break, I've got bogged down in prose. Not that that's a bad thing - but it's easy to think that prose is the only, or the main, element to literature, when it really isn't. There's so much more, and plays are an exciting part of literature for me, so I'm very glad to have rediscovered them.

And so many of them as well.

The Cement Garden | Review

I'm a tiny bit obsessed with Ian McEwan books.

I'm not entirely sure why though. I last read On Chesil Beach for English Literature at A Level, and I wasn't particularly impressed. I can't remember, in fact, anyone other than my teacher liking the book particularly. Parts of it felt sluggish and unnecessary, and for a book that was focussed very much in the moment - it's heavy use of flashbacks to fill in the story felt out of place and not very interesting at all. (For those who don't know, it's about a married couple in 1962 on their wedding night. One of them, Edward, is very keen to finally lose his virginity, and Florence, his new wife, is definitely not. It doesn't end well.) I can confess that a lot of us skipped to the bits set in the 'present', because the backstory just didn't grab us.

Yet after this, my interest remained in the author. One draw is perhaps that he was one of the first to do UEA's English Literature and Creative Writing course. I think the main draw is probably just that the books look so good. They feel 'grown up', essentially, and they feel gentle and really quite posh. Plus, books with embossed text on the front are always lovely. So maybe it's that.

With this in mind, I was randomly searching for books (I've done that a lot this summer) and found myself investigating McEwan's pretty vast portfolio. This led me to The Cement Garden, a book about four teenagers who slowly descend into a weird twisted spiral of... stuff. I should point out, as one of the first books McEwan wrote, I'm going to discuss "spoilers" and full plot details. However, I knew the full plot before I started the book - and I still got to the end. So even if you haven't read it and want to read this, it doesn't matter too much.

In The Cement Garden, the parents of four children die. It's the 1960s, as with On Chesil Beach, and the book is narrated by Jack, the second oldest sibling. His older sister, Julie, is, in Jack's opinion, rather pretty. He has a younger sister, Sue, who matures a lot through the book (although I'm tempted to call it a "novella"), and Tom, a six year old who likes dressing up as a girl. The father of the children, a grumpy and brisk man that you would expect to find in a book about a family in the 1960s, dies first. He's bought a great deal of cement for the garden to finally create the landscape he's dreamed of. After this, the mother eventually grows weaker and takes to bed. The children's lives begin to centre around her in the bed, until the moment that she also dies.

They then bury her in a trunk in the cellar, using the leftover cement, and the cellar becomes the centre of the children's lives. Threaded throughout the book, especially the latter half, are references to a "sleep", where the children drift through the house until the moments they visit the cellar, when they suddenly feel awake and connected to the world again. Time passes greatly and without being defined, and the long passages of prose give a sense of a lucid dream that the children find themselves in.

"Lucid" is a good word for the book as a whole. In the decades between writing The Cement Garden and On Chesil Beach, I don't feel McEwan has changed that much at all. They're both novellas, of about the same length, and both set in the 1960s, so they're relatively easy to compare. Although On Chesil Beach is focussed on the one moment with flashbacks, where as The Cement Garden pulls through time quite easily, with references to the past. The prose style is very much the same. Elaborate but not particularly stuffy or suffocating. The words do occasionally drag on, but less so in The Cement Garden. The majority of the prose is interesting and feels important. I'm still not convinced Jack wandering round not demolished and later demolish prefabs is that important, mind.

The writing is similar in lots of other ways as well, and not all of them good. McEwan seems to present men (and boys) who have a constant obsession with sex. Both Jack in The Cement Garden and Edward in On Chesil Beach think about it a great deal. Edward just seems childish, but it fits Jack, who's growing up. Even still, there do seem to be too many references to it. In a way that's good, because McEwan chooses not to shy away from anything within Jack's psyche. He's not the most straightforward character, he has outbursts of anger and he seems distanced from just about everything, yet this is presented in a believable way. In a way, it's not good, because it just feels like McEwan is focussing on the wrong aspects of the character.

The prose is inviting and sort of warm, which means that some moments feel more uncomfortable. This feeling is both good and bad. By having prose that's warm, it makes the less expected moments to stand out and feel as they ought to. But it occasionally also jars with the prose. There's one moment where Jack, not adverse to a bit of swearing, is narrating in the elaborate way that McEwan  he does, when he suddenly writes "Tom did a shit in his pants". I'm not sure there's a phrase quite as blunt as that anywhere else in the prose - so it feels odd and jarring. It's almost laughable, it's so sudden and unpoetical. As if McEwan suddenly realised he was writing in first person as someone else, then forgot again afterwards.

Though Jack is a distinct character, I don't think he's as well developed as characters like Julie or Sue. They appear as complex characters, hovering in Jack's sight but never fully engaging - much like the murky tower blocks seen from the back garden of the house. There's a greater distance between the siblings as the book goes on. This gap is further widened by Jack's refusal, for about three quarters of the book, to wash. It's tiny details like that, and the flies described in the kitchen, and McEwan's constant use of smells, that mark how enclosed the characters become after the death of their parents. They don't want to alert anyone or they'll be taken into care, so they keep it a secret, and they grow into themselves.

As a system, I don't think it's disastrous. There are the expected problems - the failings to wash or clean up as one example - but they don't seem to ever really struggle. Tom cries a lot, though this is more for attention than to express actual grief. The subject of their parents goes unmentioned, and Julie becomes the mother, distributing money and buying food. Apart from the squalor, the kids don't really seem to struggle. In that sense, the book also feels like it's drifting. It drifts from one moment in Jack's mind to another - and they're often similar moments. Thoughts about Julie and Sue, or sex, or Julie's boyfriend Derek, and then occasionally to the state of the house. The challenge, in a way, never seems difficult enough for them. They manage.

That brings me onto Derek. He's a strange character. For me, the trip he and Jack take to the snooker club seems out of place. It's as if it was suddenly decided the characters needed to leave the house to expand the story. But they don't. The effectiveness of the book, the engaging quality I found within it, is that characters like Jack feel stuck in the house. It's what they do and how they cope within that situation that's interesting. Going to the club felt slow, almost as if "teenagers need to threaten Jack at some point" was a tick box for a book containing anyone under 18. It wasn't needed and was useful purely for a few lines of Derek's questioning about what was in the trunk. It's noted by Sue at the close of the novel that Derek, who's twenty-three, knew all along about the mother in the cellar. Yet he didn't do anything. There's no sense of threat, he's just a bit irritating about the whole thing. It's only the end that he finally becomes a truly useful character.

A twenty-three year old snooker player feels strangely out of kilter with the rest of the book anyway. He's too world wise, too knowledgeable. Perhaps this is a deliberate contrast to the clueless children - who aren't really all that clueless. But he brings a sense of the outside world that doesn't fit with the rest of the book. He remains as a permanent outside feature, an outcast in the house, to the extent where he's just not as interesting as what is going in between the siblings in the house. Despite the repetition of moments in Jack's psyche, it's still fascinating to see where it will go next. Derek just comes along and (metaphorically) puts a snooker cue in the works.

The twisted spiral the children fall into, or the "strange and unsettling ways of fending for themselves" the blurb promises don't really reach their full potential. All they do to fend for themselves is go to the shops to buy food, dress Tom up as a girl, and think. Julie gets a boyfriend, who poses no real threat, and the only truly unsettling act happens at the very end of the book. It feels like the book could have done a lot more, it could have been to more places - and yet it kept enclosed. This enclosed feel works - after all, it's mainly a book about four people staying in one house - but the enclosed nature never feels scary or unsettling. Just a bit weird, on occasion.

The end of the book sees Julie and Jack have sex. This was kind of inevitable (or more for me as I knew it happened), and it does feel like the most unsettling moment of the book. It feels as if now, the characters are finally forming unnatural bonds in their solitude. It's finally having an effect. The most extreme thing Jack does prior to this is strip out his room and shove everything in a wardrobe. (In fact, the game that Sue, Jack and Julie play at the start of the book feels more extreme than anything that happens after their parents have died.) It's perhaps because everything in the book is normalised and rationalised by Jack that it doesn't feel as extreme as it could. But it does feel as if the book definitely did have more potential than was explored.

In summary, The Cement Garden is overall a good and engaging book. I wanted to know what would happen, how they would cope, and books that explore and push relationships are always the most interesting for me. It's the psychology of the book that is most fascinating. The prose, if a little tiresome at times, makes the book feel complicated yet simple. It's developed and elaborate, which (on the whole) only draws you into the world more. However - it does have the tendency to feel like a weird fanfiction at times. The weirder moments tend to be, in the majority, misplaced, and it feels like the children could have been pushed further in the course of the book (as sadistic as that sounds). Despite the fact it doesn't reach its potential, it is undeniably fascinating to read, and McEwan has a very strong sense of character. Fundamentally, what I would say I loved about the book, is that the characters do get so thoroughly examined. Even if the events don't live up to what I expected, the characters (again, on the whole) do. Even if that sense of (male) character doesn't change much in the decades McEwan's been writing for.

I would be interesting in reading more of his though. Then I could tell you if the male characters were all like that.

7/10