And still more Howards End while listening to Sibelius's Valse triste:

"Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible. The businessman who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. 'Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway between,' Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility."

And "' It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven. That is not imagination. No, it kills it.'"

And as Leonard walks fatefully to Howards End, he is passed by a motor car:

"In it was another type whom Nature favors -- the Imperial. Healthy, ever in motion, it hopes to inherit the earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as soundly; strong is the temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country's virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is not what he thinks or seems. He is a destroyer. He prepares the way for cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions may be fulfulled, the earth that he inherits will be gray."

And, speaking of Donaldson's Palilalia, here's one of the poems from same. Some of my favourites are the longer poems in the collection, but this one is great, too.

Let by Jeffery Donaldson

For Richard Outram, in memoriam

God was good with words. He knew it.
He turned a phrase, and said, Let there be light,
held it up in the darkness, then threw it
down before our dazzled sight.

Not, "It's time, light! You should start to be!"
or "Stand back folks, I'm gonna make some light!"
But just the right words to set, oh, nothing free
at the right time. A calculated ought.

He knew the secrets of our wistful "Let,"
The "what would happen if . . ." subjunctive spell.
Not the ex nihilo Erector Set
of scaffolding and girders, where the hell

you fashion from hard iron's bound to break,
for aught made out of naught's illusion still.
But now, say "let . . .," for mere allowance's sake,
and openings will fill with . . . what you will.

Flash back to mathematics class in school,
the teacher brooding tall at his blank slate,
like a deity, makes you seem a fool
by writing out long formulas of great

impenetrable equations, undefined,
a Sanskrit algebra of xy pairs
ramified in patterns out of mind,
a sprawling orrery of whirling stars,

that I must somehow solve, when teacher says,
in his English brogue . . . "Let x equal light"
Did I hear that straight? "Come again, Sir, please,"
and his patience thins, "Let it equal . . . eight!

What is your answer now?" I stare in the abyss.
It escaped me then, the longed-for solving grace,
that the world is nothing but hypothesis,
its great unknowns, the cosmos, time and space,

all algorithms of what might appear
were worlds made out of would-that-it-were-so.
I might have just replied, had I God's ear,
"Better than nothing, Sir, for all I know."

The gift card that afforded me an opportunity of frivolously picking up a Spark novel I had never read has also provided me with a new Byatt. Little Black Book of Stories sits happily beside the keyboard, waiting for me to delve. In fact, I've already read the first two short stories in the collection, "The Thing In the Forest" -- which is very familiar to me as I've taught it several times for university intro English courses -- and "Body Art." These short stories promise to be such a treat. I'll be writing more about them, that's for sure.

I'm also working my way through a few more poetry collections. I've finished the next on the review pile: Palilalia by Jeffrey Donaldson is just full of verbal gymnastics. Fascinating stuff. Perhaps I will even go so far as to say 'brilliant.'

Forster's Howards End quotes, just because:

"'What? What's that? Your universities? Oh yes, you have learned men, who collect more facts . . . They collect facts, and facts, and empires of facts. but which of them will rekindle the light within?"

And this . . .

Actual life is full of false clues and signposts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent. It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself a good, and that men, like nations, are the better for staggering through life fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essences is romantic beauty.

Margaret hoped that for the future she would be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in the past.

What I love about E.M. Forster is the effortless way in which the story unfolds, the way the characters are revealed, the way the social agenda is woven into the narrative (Forster seemed to want to point out the ills of society as much as Dickens did, but he handled it so much better). Howards End not only highlights the plight of the less fortunate classes when they bump into the unconcern of the privileged, but really gets into some of the fundamental gender divides of Forster's day.

Margaret Schlegel, Helen Schlegel, and their unpromising brother Tibby are intellectuals living on their own in cosmopolitan London. They cross paths first with the sporty, hearty average family of Wilcoxes while abroad and then with intellectual wannabe Leonard Bast at a concert. These two worlds, which meet at the vortex that is Howards End, collide with disastrous effect while Margaret heroically maintains what she can while inspiring the idea that if we 'only connect' all will come right in the end. I love Margaret! One of the best female characters ever imagined by a male author, in my opinion, even if she does have an initial tendency to mistrust "the periods of quiet that are essential to true growth." Though Forster does such a great job at female characterization that one hardly ever remembers he is a Victorian male writing Victorian women.

Another interesting quote resulting from a rather humourous scene involving the debating club Margaret Schlegel and Helen Schlegel attend. They discuss the fate of those overworked, underfed clerks like Leonard Bast:

The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul. She answered, 'Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until he had gained a little of the world.' Then they said no they did not believe it, and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul in the superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the deed, but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this world, will ever know the rarer joys of the the body, or attain to clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had attacked the fabric of society -- property, interest, etc.; she only fixed her eyes on a few human beings, to see how, under present conditions, they could be made happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the many-colored efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in universal gray. To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was the utmost she dare hope for.

Digging Out Of: yet another winter storm. The evergreens in our front yard are almost completely buried under the cold weight of all that snow. Mr. Inkslinger was snowed in for the day yesterday and while the feathery flakes were pretty to look at early in the season, the novelty has long worn off for both of us. Spring can't come soon enough, but it has not even hinted at an appearance.

Listening To: Jean Sibelius' Finlandia . . . in an attempt to make the best of the weather.

Recently Watched (Again) and Definitely Enjoyed (Again): Enchanted April starring Josie Lawrence and Miranda Richardson. There are, in fact, few movies to equal this one for me. The acting is so superb, detailed and unerring. Joan Plowright is absolutely wonderful.

The film is based on Elizabeth von Arnim's novel of the same name and centres around two dissatisfied women in post WWI London. They are dissatisfied with life in general and their husbands in particular. When Lottie Wilkins (played by Lawrence) and Rose Arbuthnot (Richardson) see an add for a castle to let in Italy they jump at the chance to get away. Since they can't afford to rent on their own, they advertise for castle-mates. Only two reply to their add, Mrs. Fisher (Plowright) a tight-hearted Victorian castoff and an exhausted socialite named Lady Caroline Dester (Polly Walker). Their encounters with one another, as well as the transformations that occur in Italy once the castle-living has commenced, are funny and moving. A period piece that remains relevant, this film is much more than a pretty story.

Finished Reading: E.M. Forster's Howards End. Having never read this particular Forster novel before (though have long been a fan of A Room With A View and Where Angels Fear To Tread), I wasn't sure what to expect other than good, solid Forster prose. I'd seen the Merchant/Ivory film based on the novel and knew that the plot was sure to interest. The novel, however, has become a firm favourite. The two Schlegel sisters, so alike and yet completely different, confronting the world of the Wilcoxes is so much more vivid on the page (and considering one of the Schlegel sisters was played by Emma Thompson in the Merchant/Ivory film that's no small praise). How Forster blends dialogue and exposition is something to behold. I wish all novels operated on this level. More to come.

Started Reading: A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark. Yes, I picked this up because of the funky fifties-design cover. Though I've heard of Muriel Spark -- having seen bits of the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie years back -- I'd never read any of her novels. I've been wanting to read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but the copy our local book purveyor had for sale was a sloppy paperback which cost about the same as the slim little hardback of the aforementioned. So, I decided on this instead. While it started slow and I wasn't sure I was going to continue reading, I'm now fully engrossed in the world of Mrs. Hawkins and the publishing landscape of London in the fifties. There are threatening letters, careers ruined, employers imprisoned and that's just the first fifty or so pages. I may have to return and buy more Spark novels, sloppy paperbacks or not.

Reading David Hickey's first book of poetry, In the Lights of a Midnight Plow, has definitely been a pleasure. While in the midst of writing a review of same, I thought I'd share one of the poems from this collection.

Evenings by David Hickey

I want two mornings a day.
-- Marlene Cookshaw

I want two evenings a day, overlapping
like blankets on a couch, and for it
not to matter which I find myself under,

the stars being more or less the same
when it's time to shovel the walk.

Two evenings to watch salt eat away
at the pavement, the packed snow,
for the dog to warm its head a bit longer

in the dryer's grey fume, for water
to boil on the stove and the kettle's slow

come-on: for steam to fill an empty
house, for kitchen chairs to sit
around the table in silence, and for

the moon, rehearsing itself in the window,
to gather such frost in the dark.

I was definitely hooked by the time I got to "the kettle's slow // come-on"! And so atmospheric, those last two lines.

And the garden-dreaming continues with yours truly leafing through some of Mr. Inkslinger's favourite garden books. The book opened to the gorgeous photograph (right) is The Gardens of Japan by Teiji Itoh. And the entire volume is filled with equally magnificent photos and interesting prose. And the other text is just a nicely photographed and informative Sunset book by Hazel White.

I've been poring over these and other tomes in an effort to inspire my waning green thumb to action come thaw time (actually, my thumb and/or thumbs have never been very green; perhaps 'all thumbs' would be a more apt description of my efforts in the garden). And I've planned to recreate/reinterpret lovely images of gardens before with little result. This year, however, I am determined to do something with the garden. I have roped in the help of husband and sister and hope reigns. Print catalogues and online catalogues are getting a lot of attention.

There's a small corner where an apple tree might like to grow, and I'm determined to add a burning bush! It's all starting to sound very Biblical. :) We'll see where plans and anticipation will take me.

Listening To: Dvorak's Piano Concerto No 2 in E-flat Major. Gotta love Dvorak.

Enjoying: A new blog find. I'm sure I'm late to the party, but I found this site (and its attendant links to the blogger's fashion finds and art -- which feels kind of Amelie-meets-Tim-Burton in terms of style) rather charming.

Still Reading and Loving: The Secret Garden (just finishing this up) and The Hemingses of Monticello (I've followed them to Paris in the lively text by Gordon-Reed and we've all just arrived back at Monticello to great, though not unexamined by Gordon-Reed, excitement and celebration). The feel of the latter volume's pages is quite delightful, by the way. If only publishers would spend the money for every book to be dressed so well.

Recently Watched and Didn't Hate: Body of Lies. Political, not badly acted by most (Crowe's performance is faultless and interesting, as always), and diverting during a winter afternoon when writing is not going at all well. Focussing on the machinations of a spy manipulating and being manipulated in the Iraq, Syria, and Jordan areas, I found the film lacked the depth I was hoping for. But then so many of the films I've seen lately -- of a political nature -- have lacked depth (I won't even bother lamenting the superficial treatment of subject that was W. . . . not right now anyway).

Planning To: finish up a review of Hickey's poetry collection In the Lights of a Midnight Plow (well worth spending time and money on).

Outside there are blue jays and juncos gliding and fluttering from naked branch to naked branch, perhaps restless in the lingering winter chill, anticipating signs of Spring in the less frigid temperatures of the past few days. Impatient crows have been complaining from the top limbs in our birch grove lately and I can't blame them. I, too, am dreaming of tulips and daffodils, but still find myself staring out at grey skies, budless branches, and hills of snow.

This has driven me to books about gardens and if there's one seminal novel that centres gardens and gardening it has to be Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Each Little World had a great post about The Secret Garden at her gorgeous blog awhile back (see here) and it inspired me to pick that volume up after twenty-five years or so and revel in its Magic once again.

The sour little Mary Lennox, the angelic Dickon Sowerby, the imperious Master Colin Craven, and the weather beaten Ben Weatherstaff are such delightful companions during a cold winter's afternoon! And all that talk about the creeping green veil and the buds pushing up into the spring air has driven me to seed catalogues and bulb suppliers, imagining what can be done in my mother's garden. {As well, Mr. Inkslinger bought me a miniature rose bush for Valentine's Day and that has added to my plans for the garden.}

This novel really is timeless and ageless (despite certain confusions about Indians on the part of the endearing Martha Sowerby) and I'd forgotten what a joy the narrative is. The small cantankerous orphan from Colonial India arriving on the English moors (Bronte country) and being born again in the wuthering wind, inspiring the virtually orphaned, invalid Colin to break out of his fears and follow in the wake of animal charmer Dickon to live forever, as it were.

An excerpt:

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live for ever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender, solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvellous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange, unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun -- which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark-blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.

Wonderful!

Not only is the narrative causing me to think garden thoughts, but it also has me pondering what Burnett is doing with class and language. It's interesting that Mary wants to learn broad Yorkshire and compares it to an Indian dialect that 'clever' people learn and yet the housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock, points out that the Yorkshire accent and lack of accepted grammar in the speech of Mrs. Sowerby is what has held her back from being a truly clever woman (which the narrative shows is rather more nonsense than not). There's so much to glean from Burnett's lovely story.


What I love about the edition I'm reading (although my heart will always be with the battered, inexpensive paperback edition with illustrations by Tasha Tudor I had as a child) is the ease with which the paper falls open (sewn binding!) and the feel of the cover and spine (Folio Society edition from 1986). Books that feel good in the hand as well as in the mind are rare indeed.

I'd completely forgotten about this series until I stumbled across the following clip on YouTube. Titled Gardens of the World, the series featured the wonderfully elegant and serene Audrey Hepburn as she talked and walked about various gardens. If I'm remembering it correctly, all was beautifully connected to various pieces of art and architecture.

I'm sharing this YouTube snippet because it reminds me of Spring and flowers and loveliness and, right now, in the midst of harsh wind chills and icy roads, I could do with some of that.

February is shaping up to be a month of poetry for the Inkslinger household. And that's definitely a good thing. The manuscript is chugging along, and I have a new pile of TBR Canadian poetry on my desk! I'm currently enjoying a meander through David Hickey's In the Lights of a Midnight Plow. Such great sounds, observations, images so far.

And, still in the poetry vein, I'm nearing the end of the Conceit re-read. I think I've figured out what bothered me last time. It was the characterization of Ann Donne. I didn't quite buy the idea that she would have been dissatisfied with John Donne's devotion to God, that she would have believed it would somehow threaten his love for and devotion to her. Admittedly, I know very little of the historical Ann Donne, but I'm not speaking of historical accuracy. Something about that inherent competition between loves left me dissatisfied. That having been said, I'm still loving this novel even more the second time around.

An excerpt from the novel (Ann on Donne and Plato):

"He taught me what Plato had to say, and then he corrected Plato, for he had no modesty. He talked so much that my head ached, but when he was near me his meaning was not hard to grasp. Ecstasy, Plato said, was to be found in the conjugation of souls, but John Donne said that ecstasy found pretty entertainment in the body before it rose up to the mind. This is where he differed from Plato, who kept the flesh well out of it."

Recently Watched: (and enjoyed) Nobody's Fool. Probably the best performance by Paul Newman I've seen thus far. It's a 1994 film, but I'd never seen it until Mr. Inkslinger wanted to watch it again the other night (it's one of his favourites). The story revolves around Newman's character and his 'failed' life, what it means to his community. That sense of community, of perseverance and possible redemption, and the brilliant performances -- not to mention the writing -- make it well worth the viewing.

Currently Contemplating: raiding the 'fridge for some strawberry yogurt.

Listening To: icicles dripping outside the office window.

Recently Read and Can't Get Out of My Head:

The Prediction by Mark Strand

That night the moon drifted over the pond,

turning the water to milk, and under

the boughs of the trees, the blue trees,

a young woman walked, and for an instant

the future came to her:

rain falling on her husband’s grave, rain falling

on the lawns of her children, her own mouth

filling with cold air, strangers moving into her house,

a man in her room writing a poem, the moon drifting into it,

a woman strolling under its trees, thinking of death,

thinking of him thinking of her, and the wind rising

and taking the moon and leaving the paper dark.

Two things today:

1. I came across some Suzanne Hill paintings online recently and loved them. More here. And here.

2. It feels like a Browning day. I've been leafing through the love letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett again, enjoying the use of language as well as the sentiments expressed. The invalid Elizabeth (Ba) and the passionate Robert, forced to clandestine ends by a tyrannical father (hers). I wonder what they really thought of one another in the first years of marriage after all that drama?

Here's the last letter from Ba to Robert before they eloped the next morning (from September 11, 1846):

Dearest, I write one word, and have one will which is yours. At the same time, do not be precipitate -- we shall not be taken away on the Monday, no, nor for several days afterward. George has simply gone to look for houses -- going to Reigate first.

Oh yes -- come to-morrow. And then, you shall have the ring . . soon enough and safer.

Not a word of how you are! -- you so good as to write me that letter beyond compact, yet not good enough, to say how you are! Dear, dearest . . take care, and keep yourself unhurt and calm. I shall not fail to you -- I do not, I will not. I will act by your decision, and I wish you to decide. I was yours long ago, and though you give me back my promise at this eleventh hour . . you generous, dear unkind! . . . you know very well that you can do as well without it. So take it again for my sake and not your own.

I cannot write, I am so tired, having been long out. Will not this dream break on a sudden? Now is the moment for the breaking of it, surely.

But come to-morrow, come. Almost everybody is to be away at Richmond, at a picnic, and we shall be free on all sides.

Ever and ever your BA.

This is a great idea! Following the example of the Best American series, Tightrope Books has instituted a Canadian series of the best each year in new poetry (published in the plethora of Canadian poetry journals).

The first one, The Best in Canadian Poetry 2008, has some brilliant verse and is a pleasure to read through or open and read at random. Some of my favourite poets included in this year's collection: Anne Compton, Helen Humphreys, Don McKay, Margaret Avison, and Brian Bartlett. And there were other stand-out poems from Maleea Acker, Yvonne Blomer, and Meira Cook.

Once I started reading this collection I couldn't put it down. It's fascinating to see the various styles and approaches to language and verse all collected. I'm already looking forward to next year's edition.

Having just finished the long, but fascinating, journey through Tom Holland's Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (and looking forward to reading more by this historian/author), it strikes me that it must have been a mammoth task to keep the lines of narrative straight while writing this wide-ranging history of a complex time period. Centring on the time when Christianity met empire in the midst of great fears about the imminent end of the world (i.e. the Medieval period), we hear about the rise of the Saracens, the pushing back of the pagans (or the conversion of same), Vikings like Olaf Trygvasson, the fractious builders of the Holy Roman Empire, and the rise of the office of Pope (and more). Holland cleverly connects it to current musings about the second millennium (with chapter titles as well as just keeping it relevant throughout). Ambitious, but successful.

There is a useful list of important dates at the back of the book, but, really, it is difficult to get lost while reading and this is largely to his credit as an author not my ability to keep dates and names straight (the latter being virtually non-existent from years of just not having to). Very impressive. And he keeps it interesting throughout.

Holland successfully maintains a focused approach to the largely political beginnings of Christendom while jumping back and forth between the principal players in the game of empire-building. And in between the seemingly infinite numbers of Henrys and Ottos, fascinating mini-portraits of strong women emerge (like Theophanu, wife of Otto II).

It really felt like the reader and the author were having a good long conversation about this topic, so engaging was the writing style. After all, some heady stuff takes place in this era (this is when William of Normandy plows into England, after all, as well as a time when huge changes took place in the Church -- like celibacy for priests) and one could get lost in the chaos. But one doesn't.