Since I started this, I may as well not neglect the last notebook. These were gems to me (what I have time for before going to work!):
Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.
(of Topaz) ...her voice quite barotone with tragedy.
Deserts do not seem to be deserted in America.
Perhaps it gives you a glorious, valuable feeling to wear little black suits of fabulous price.
I will pause and search my innermost soul ...
I have searched it for a solid five minutes.
I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and obviously one has to try them sooner or later.
There used to be two of us always on the look-out for life ... now there is only one, and nothing will ever be quite such fun again.
I remember my astonishment at being called a Christian.
I always enjoy the different feeling there is in a house when one is alone in it.
What a difference there is between wearing even the skimpiest bathing suit and wearing nothing! After a few minutes I seemed to live in every inch of my body as fully as I usually do in my head and my hands and my heart. I had the fascinating feeling that I could think as easily with my limbs as with my brain — and suddenly the whole of me thought that Topaz's nonsense about communing with nature isn't nonsense at all. the warmth of the sun felt like enormous hands pressing gently on me, the flutter of the air was like delicate fingers ... I expect it was what Topaz means by "pagan." Anyway, it was thrilling.
Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.
The one piece of Bach I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.
(dancing with Simon) I seemed to move with a pleasure that was mindless.
It was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.
Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me.
If only I could have been more fascinating!
I think Americans kiss rather easily and frequently.
I expect Americans are affectionate, as a nation.
How words weave spells!
I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.
Then I began to think: "Who am I? Who am I? Whenever I do that, I feel one good push would shove me over the edge of lunacy.
I don't believe the villagers really like good works being done to them.
I said aloud: "I don't want to miss anything."
I had never realized before that it (luxury) is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different.
.. but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow.
I felt a sadness quite separate from my personal ton of misery.
How mixed people are — how mixed and nice!
Really, the puzzlingness of people!
It gave me a stab in which happiness and misery were somehow a part of each other.
Watching sleeping people makes one feel more separate than ever from them.
She was so scared that she forgot to be a contralto.
Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.
Apparently I was all wrong about father. Apparently it is very clever to start a book by writing THE CAT SAT ON THE MAT nineteen times.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Happy MidSummer
It is Midsummer Day--and as beautiful as its name.
What did you think of the traditions Rose and Cassandra had on Midsummer's eve? Were they just schoolgirl games or something more important?
We were always fascinated that such a tiny flame could make the twilight seem deeper and so much more blue--we thought of that as the beginning of the magic.
By the time Simon and Cassandra leave the mound to go to Scoteney for supper she says,
I stood at the top of the steps for a moment, trying to capture the feelings I usually have on Midsummer Eve--for I had been too occupied in entertaining Simon to think about them before. And suddenly I knew that I had been right in fearing this might be my last year for the rites--that if I ever held them again I should be "playing with the children."
Did that surprise you? What do you think made her want to abandon them? Did she have a premonition about what the rest of the night would hold?
What did you think of the traditions Rose and Cassandra had on Midsummer's eve? Were they just schoolgirl games or something more important?
We were always fascinated that such a tiny flame could make the twilight seem deeper and so much more blue--we thought of that as the beginning of the magic.
By the time Simon and Cassandra leave the mound to go to Scoteney for supper she says,
I stood at the top of the steps for a moment, trying to capture the feelings I usually have on Midsummer Eve--for I had been too occupied in entertaining Simon to think about them before. And suddenly I knew that I had been right in fearing this might be my last year for the rites--that if I ever held them again I should be "playing with the children."
Did that surprise you? What do you think made her want to abandon them? Did she have a premonition about what the rest of the night would hold?
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Kisses
We've talked a little about Cassandra's kiss with Simon and its role in the story and in her coming of age, but the kiss with Stephen in the woods, which was physically, if not emotionally, way more intense, seemed somehow just as important in Cassandra's developing awareness of "the facts of life" and love. Any thoughts on this? And what about Stephen's objection — men are so damn weird sometimes! — to the fact that she was "letting" him? Was that just a bit of midcentury male sexism that there was something wrong with a woman who would actually "let" you? Like sex is way more exciting for a man if the woman appears to not want it or demands the steep price of a wedding ring in exchange? (I mean, I know it would have been wrong for the story for them to do it, but didn't Stephen's reaction to that whole situation seem kind of strange? Or maybe, given the time period, it was supposed to make him look rather noble, like he, despite his intense desire, was protecting their "honor" when she was so recklessly neglecting her womanly role to do so? Or maybe he sensed that she didn't return his feelings and considered her loveless participation in the act repugnant? (hence the "XXXXXX but only when you want them" of his letter?)
The Shilling Book
Thinking of death — strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off made me feel happier than ever.
All day I have been two people — the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in — the me in what is going to happen next.
(of Mrs. Cotton) She is just wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right looking.
Topaz tall and pale, like a slightly dead goddess.
(of Stephen’s gaze) It was more like being touched than being looked at.
But then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself.
“I’ve no use for antiquity in bathrooms.” (Mrs. Cotton)
(of Leda Fox-Cotton) She barely bothers to open her mouth — the words just slide through her teeth.
Dear me, dancing is peculiar when you really think about it. If a man held your hand and put his arm around your waist without its being dancing, it would be most important.
(Cassandra to Rose) “It’s enough just to mention things, you know. Long prayers are like nagging.”
I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.
(of Topaz) It really is agony to talk to her about books. When I was longing for a calm discussion of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she said, “Ah, it’s the overlapping dimensions that are so wonderful. I tried to paint it once, on a circular canvas” — and then she couldn’t remember who Natasha was.
… there were some reflections about life I wanted to record. (I never did record them — and have now forgotten what they were.)
(of Simon) It was the queerest feeling — changing the man I had imagined to the real man. I had made him so fascinating, and of course he isn’t really.
“I think I felt a beard kept me in touch with literature.” (Simon)
I am an honest liar when I take my time.
“Original? Rose?” (Cassandra)
Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes.
Oh, it is amicable being with someone who knows the poems you know!
“Did anything as beautiful as this ever happen before?” (Simon)
American men are used to being just friends with girls.
Oh, I long to blurt out the news in my first paragraph — but I won’t! This is a chance to teach myself the art of suspense.
When things mean a great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn’t safe.
I don’t believe that church prayers are particularly efficacious, but one can’t waste all that kneeling on hard hassocks.
Miss Marcy isn’t the woman of the world Topaz and I are.
I ought to have recorded that second visit to Scoatney immediately after it happened, but describing May Day had rather exhausted my lust for writing.
He told me lots of interesting things about life in America — they do seem to have a good time there, especially the girls.
Americans are wonderfully adaptable — Neil and Simon helped with the washing-up. (They call it “doing the dishes.”)
All day I have been two people — the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in — the me in what is going to happen next.
(of Mrs. Cotton) She is just wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right looking.
Topaz tall and pale, like a slightly dead goddess.
(of Stephen’s gaze) It was more like being touched than being looked at.
But then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself.
“I’ve no use for antiquity in bathrooms.” (Mrs. Cotton)
(of Leda Fox-Cotton) She barely bothers to open her mouth — the words just slide through her teeth.
Dear me, dancing is peculiar when you really think about it. If a man held your hand and put his arm around your waist without its being dancing, it would be most important.
(Cassandra to Rose) “It’s enough just to mention things, you know. Long prayers are like nagging.”
I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.
(of Topaz) It really is agony to talk to her about books. When I was longing for a calm discussion of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she said, “Ah, it’s the overlapping dimensions that are so wonderful. I tried to paint it once, on a circular canvas” — and then she couldn’t remember who Natasha was.
… there were some reflections about life I wanted to record. (I never did record them — and have now forgotten what they were.)
(of Simon) It was the queerest feeling — changing the man I had imagined to the real man. I had made him so fascinating, and of course he isn’t really.
“I think I felt a beard kept me in touch with literature.” (Simon)
I am an honest liar when I take my time.
“Original? Rose?” (Cassandra)
Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes.
Oh, it is amicable being with someone who knows the poems you know!
“Did anything as beautiful as this ever happen before?” (Simon)
American men are used to being just friends with girls.
Oh, I long to blurt out the news in my first paragraph — but I won’t! This is a chance to teach myself the art of suspense.
When things mean a great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn’t safe.
I don’t believe that church prayers are particularly efficacious, but one can’t waste all that kneeling on hard hassocks.
Miss Marcy isn’t the woman of the world Topaz and I are.
I ought to have recorded that second visit to Scoatney immediately after it happened, but describing May Day had rather exhausted my lust for writing.
He told me lots of interesting things about life in America — they do seem to have a good time there, especially the girls.
Americans are wonderfully adaptable — Neil and Simon helped with the washing-up. (They call it “doing the dishes.”)
The vicar
What were your thoughts on the vicar? And, particularly, Cassandra's conversations with him about religion in the final part of the book? She had encounters with him and with Miss Marcy as she was trying to figure out what to do with her lovelorn self and trying to determine whether there were worthwhile ways of life wherein "suffering" could be avoided. I don't have the book in front of me, but she comes to the conclusion that if you build a life around not suffering that you miss too much.
Remember this early description of the vicar? He is the nicest man — about fifty, plump, with curly golden hair; rather like an elderly baby — and most unholy.
Remember this early description of the vicar? He is the nicest man — about fifty, plump, with curly golden hair; rather like an elderly baby — and most unholy.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Sixpenny Book
Cassandra used "speed writing" in her diaries so that no one else could read them. I liked that because it meant she didn't have an audience, not even an accidental or prying one. She was writing for herself only, without regard to what anyone else — family or posterity — would think. This produced a wonderful candor.
Early on, she writes: I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.
Here are some truths that flowed out in "The Sixpenny Book" that I found delightful: (Erin, we talked about the time span of this book. I just noticed that the notebooks she fills are labeled with months. The first one is March. And the last one is June to October. So it's less than a year, and there's no winter).
I have decided that my poetry is so bad that I musn't write any more of it.
As she only cries about once a year I really ought to have gone over and comforted her, but I wanted to set it all down here. I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous.
... but she soon made herself take an interest in country things, and now she tries to make the country people interested in them too.
I shall go down and be very kind to everyone. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.
Now I come to think of it, I am judging from books mostly ... But some characters in books are very real — Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of "Pride and Prejudice," simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.
I like seeing people when they can't see me.
Rose's exuberance has risen higher and higher. I regret to say that she is now whistling.
Early on, she writes: I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.
Here are some truths that flowed out in "The Sixpenny Book" that I found delightful: (Erin, we talked about the time span of this book. I just noticed that the notebooks she fills are labeled with months. The first one is March. And the last one is June to October. So it's less than a year, and there's no winter).
I have decided that my poetry is so bad that I musn't write any more of it.
As she only cries about once a year I really ought to have gone over and comforted her, but I wanted to set it all down here. I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous.
... but she soon made herself take an interest in country things, and now she tries to make the country people interested in them too.
I shall go down and be very kind to everyone. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.
Now I come to think of it, I am judging from books mostly ... But some characters in books are very real — Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of "Pride and Prejudice," simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.
I like seeing people when they can't see me.
Rose's exuberance has risen higher and higher. I regret to say that she is now whistling.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Amy's pick
"The Book of Dahlia" by Elisa AlbertFor our next read, slight change in protagonist. From our witty, romantic, wry English teen to Dahlia Finger—a 29-year-old, pot-smoking, chronically underachieving Jewish-American princess with a brain tumor.
Not necessarily light summer reading.
It's only in hardcover but Amazon's got it for $15.
A light in the kitchen
I loved the narrator's sensuality about food. She wrote, before the kiss, "I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much of them." Hehe. But, even after the kiss, she retained a passion for food.
I love that Stephen bought her, on credit, a "two-penny bar of nut milk chocolate," saying "I know how you like to eat in the bath, Miss Cassandra." (He won me right there)
And then the hot chocolate with the Americans: "Cocoa, cocoa! — it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is."
The London lunch with Rose: "But I did like the restaurant; most of the people eating there were unusually ugly, but the food was splendid. We had roast chicken (wing portion, two shillings), double portions of bread sauce (each), two vegetables, treacle pudding and wonderful milky coffee [emphasis added out of sheer euphoria - kc]. We were gloriously bloat."
At the Cotton's: "but I wish I could have had that food when I wasn't at a party, because you can't notice food fully when you are being polite."
"It suddenly seemed astonishing that people should meet especially to eat together."
"Ham with mustard is a meal of glory."
"Cherry brandy is wonderful. [emphasis in original]
The picnic by the sea: "It wasn't like an ordinary English picnic, because Neil cooked steak over the fire — this is called a 'barbecue.' I have been wondering what that was ever since I read about Br'er Rabbit. The steak was burnt outside and raw inside, but wonderfully romantic."
"The idea of herbs is so much more exciting than the look of them."
"...food helps quite a lot, unromantic as that sounds. I have grown more and more ravenous as I have grown more and more miserable ... Surely it isn't normal for anyone so miserably in love to eat and sleep so well? Am I a freak? [this, among many other lines, made me think of Erin's kid diary, hehe]. I only know that I am miserable, I am in love, but I raven food ..."
The visit to the vicar: "I never had madeira before and it was lovely — the idea almost more than the taste, because it made me feel I was paying a morning call in an old novel."
The chocolate ice-cream soda at the restaurant while she's miserably waiting for Stephen to come pay her bill. "Then I sat back and just wallowed in relief — it was so great that I forgot how unhappy I was."
And at the end, as she's filling the margins of her notebook with "I love you," it happens to be tea time — how lovely — and "there is a light down in the castle kitchen."
I love that Stephen bought her, on credit, a "two-penny bar of nut milk chocolate," saying "I know how you like to eat in the bath, Miss Cassandra." (He won me right there)
And then the hot chocolate with the Americans: "Cocoa, cocoa! — it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is."
The London lunch with Rose: "But I did like the restaurant; most of the people eating there were unusually ugly, but the food was splendid. We had roast chicken (wing portion, two shillings), double portions of bread sauce (each), two vegetables, treacle pudding and wonderful milky coffee [emphasis added out of sheer euphoria - kc]. We were gloriously bloat."
At the Cotton's: "but I wish I could have had that food when I wasn't at a party, because you can't notice food fully when you are being polite."
"It suddenly seemed astonishing that people should meet especially to eat together."
"Ham with mustard is a meal of glory."
"Cherry brandy is wonderful. [emphasis in original]
The picnic by the sea: "It wasn't like an ordinary English picnic, because Neil cooked steak over the fire — this is called a 'barbecue.' I have been wondering what that was ever since I read about Br'er Rabbit. The steak was burnt outside and raw inside, but wonderfully romantic."
"The idea of herbs is so much more exciting than the look of them."
"...food helps quite a lot, unromantic as that sounds. I have grown more and more ravenous as I have grown more and more miserable ... Surely it isn't normal for anyone so miserably in love to eat and sleep so well? Am I a freak? [this, among many other lines, made me think of Erin's kid diary, hehe]. I only know that I am miserable, I am in love, but I raven food ..."
The visit to the vicar: "I never had madeira before and it was lovely — the idea almost more than the taste, because it made me feel I was paying a morning call in an old novel."
The chocolate ice-cream soda at the restaurant while she's miserably waiting for Stephen to come pay her bill. "Then I sat back and just wallowed in relief — it was so great that I forgot how unhappy I was."
And at the end, as she's filling the margins of her notebook with "I love you," it happens to be tea time — how lovely — and "there is a light down in the castle kitchen."
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
America
Dodie Smith lived in America while she wrote this book. When I learned that I thought it made sense because there's a certain tone of nostalgia that's easy to associate with homesickness. Plus, she also seemed to have a kind of sympathy for the Americans that you'd only get from living among them. Did you feel that? The book came out after World War II, too, a time when the Brits maybe held Americans in a little more esteem.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Repressed romance
Did you suspect the Rose/Neil connection? At some point it crossed my mind, so when it was revealed I wasn't terribly surprised. Do you think the author handled that well?
Saturday, June 07, 2008
The family jewel
Topaz is really a secondary character, and yet she strikes me as central to the mood of the book. what's your take on her and her role in the story?
(One of my favorite scenes with her is when Rose says she's going to walk the streets to make money and Topaz, in lieu of the moral indignation most mother figures would offer, merely assures her that she's not cut out for streetwalking, which is really quite demanding work).
(One of my favorite scenes with her is when Rose says she's going to walk the streets to make money and Topaz, in lieu of the moral indignation most mother figures would offer, merely assures her that she's not cut out for streetwalking, which is really quite demanding work).
Like father unlike daughter
What is your feeling about the Mortmain plot? It figures pretty largely in the story, but did it hold your interest in and of itself? (I sometimes wondered whether Mortmain was actually a literary genius or whether Simon, his biggest fan, was just a literary naïf.)
I also saw something pretty wonderful in the fact that Mortmain was completely stymied in his attempts to express himself and his brilliance and his "deep truths" about life while Cassandra could easily fill notebook after notebook with her everyday observations and "small truths," which were really big truths in the end, because HERS is the book we have and love and actually read. Do you think the author is saying something about what makes for good literature? hehe. Or maybe just something about the nature of teenage self-expression?)
I also saw something pretty wonderful in the fact that Mortmain was completely stymied in his attempts to express himself and his brilliance and his "deep truths" about life while Cassandra could easily fill notebook after notebook with her everyday observations and "small truths," which were really big truths in the end, because HERS is the book we have and love and actually read. Do you think the author is saying something about what makes for good literature? hehe. Or maybe just something about the nature of teenage self-expression?)
First impressions
I ended up truly loving this book. I had a few reservations at the outset, before I started reading, that it might basically deal in British quaintness and eccentricity and not have much else going on. (I've come to be leery of "quirkiness" as a selling point in fiction/film). But this struck me as authentically odd and wonderful. (I don't know if I really have a question here other than did you like the book? Were you surprised by it in any way?)
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