Ah, Yes, Virginia Woolf

She, of the strong nose and distinctive style. An experimenter and innovator, as stated by Jeanette Winterson in a foreword to my favourite novel. A lover, so I presume, of words. But, in fact, they may have been a foe, even if she did enjoy them so. Friend and tormentor in equal measure, with Virginia in-between.

Between the Acts is, besides being her last, her finest work. Fictional work. Yet the manuscript hadn't been revised and may have been destroyed if Virginia's wishes had been carried out. She was full of doubts about it.

Like her, I'm sure you're (as she did with her publisher) questioning the statement I just made. Favourite novel! Finest work! As well as possibly my authority to make it. I haven't dissected it as you might in a English Literature course, and with it pulled all her other previous works apart. I like to mostly glide along the surface. That's how all literature should be read; you can try to understand too much.

Ah, yes, Virginia Woolf, I've read, struggled with as well as drank copiously from, forgotten, remembered and very occasionally come back to. All as a reader, a simple reader with no BA (Hons), Masters or PhD to my name.

This is just a view and views change. Even I may not agree with myself in future, but at present Between the Acts, is, for me, a work I still think of and turn to – in mind if not to its physical pages – since it provides a side of Virginia we don't often see.

Oh, but what about Flush and Orlando, and To the Lighthouse?

I'm not that fond of Mrs Dalloway, I don't know why. And as for The Waves, I don't think I would choose to read it again should the opportunity ever arise. My sole memory of it is this: complicated. Orlando was a romp. Mrs Ramsey and Lily Briscoe are firmly fixed on the Isle of Skye, and Flush was a delight from beginning to end, though sadly less remarked upon, either in praise or criticism. I don't remember much about Jacob's Room, though it's supposed to be moving; so why don't I recall being moved? I must have been! No, all that comes to mind is a feeling of irritation, something grating...a lingering dissatisfaction.

Oh, it's all a state of mind: what state it's in, what else is interfering or influencing your impressions, and what data is essentially stored and what is lost.

But Between the Acts has always been (pardon the pun) a hard act to forget. In essence. How I long for a brain that could quote from memory! No, instead I'm left with sensations, a mark of my enjoyment, which, it's true, in some cases have proved false. Or it could be that on re-visiting I'm not susceptible to the tone or language that once spoke to me, on which I was borne along. Between the Acts left me with itch.

An itch that was only recently scratched, after an interval of some years – a good five years, I think - though it had occurred to me to scratch more than once during that time. A second, a third, a fourth reading of anything can often diminish the delicious sensations, spoil the first impression made on the mind; changes, instead of deepens your appreciation, and so I'm always hesitant to give in.

When I've done so in the past it's been a disappointment. The same reading spirit couldn't, or wouldn't, be captured. So if I do now it's rare, and only if the compulsion is strong or chance conspires to lay the same novel, read only once, again in my path, in a different printed edition to that which originally read.

That's how I came to re-read Between the Acts. By chance: finding a Vintage Classics edition where it shouldn't be. On the wrong shelf, in the wrong library. Serendipity!

I'm glad I took the hint. I almost didn't, but it being a nice legible copy persuaded me, as did the fact that it had no explanatory notes which I seemed to remember the Oxford World's Classics having.

And? Ah, yes, Virginia Woolf. Here you are, again, at your most lyrical, your most poetical; looser in language and freer in tone; in every character committed to the page.

Picture credit: Virginia Woolf, 1927 (source: Wikimedia Commons)

This post was penned in 2019 (I've since revisited Mrs Dalloway and had a change of heart.)

A Nose Like No Other

A mouth, through a mouth and through another mouth, has Cyrano de Bergerac say:

'Out of the question!

It makes my blood run cold, the mere suggestion

Of changing a comma.'

Why so many mouths to utter these simple lines? Because they were issued first by the playwright, then the translator and then the character, based on a real person but played by an actor, so actually I'm missing a mouth. There should be four, or maybe five, since the the real person and the character aren't entirely one and the same, and the actor, when he's not acting, is his own person, unless his whole identity has become inseparable from this being he plays on the stage.

But why these lines when there are others that are more comical, particularly those in reference to his nose, or those composed as he duels?

All in good time, gentleman. In good time, ladies. Time, people.

Kiddies, run off and play. Watch Pinocchio. Save Cyrano for when your noses too have grown a little.

I guess I should comment – while we're on it – on noses. The Jewish, the Roman, the button, the beak, the conk, the snout. The Jewish are said to be hooked, the Roman, aquiline, which also means hooked but is a nobler sounding word, or is described as over-pronounced or over-projected, and I think there's the Greek too although I don't know what that sort is said to look like. Apparently, there are fourteen types. As well as plenty that have broken away from their original owners to, as in Gogol's story, lead lives of their own, except they didn't decide to, no, they were forced to by accident or design.

What of my own? Well, I can't say I've ever been fond of it. Its size, its shape, but it's mine and doesn't do too bad a job detecting smells. My paternal grandfather's pet name for me was button-nose, but I always thought that was in jest because as far as I could see it wasn't a button at all. Not cute or small, but long and prominent. And to my dismay, a feature that couldn't possibly, through my eyes, be overlooked or denied.

Another pet name given to me around about this time, or maybe a little later, was Erica Snozz, but that came to me from the maternal side.

So who was right? Who was telling the truth and who was veiling it?

And the winner was: The Snozz, which made it take on Gonzo-like proportions, except with oversized nostrils that flared like a bull's. Gonzo (formerly the Great), if you're aware of the muppet of whom I'm speaking of, doesn't have any nostrils or any nose-hole at all that you can see, just a baby elephant trunk planted on his face. However he still maintains he's a handsome devil.

Was mine, is mine really like that? No, I should think not. But my nostrils are flared and if you stare at things long enough, well...

Peace now reigns. Although I don't suppose I would appreciate cracks about it or, like Cyrano, anticipate them and so make them myself. Cyrano excels in quick repartee; I don't. He also likes to issue challenges to fight and assembles poems as he does so: And at the Coda's end I hit! I can't say I possess the sword-fighting or the couplet-writing skill.

Yet the real, historical Cyrano de Bergerac had in all likelihood a most average-looking nose. The myth of its unusual longness was invented by an enthusiast, posthumously, after a new edition of his writings had been published and now outshines even his most enduring work, ably assisted of course by Edmond Rostand's heroic comedy. The latter, too, has withstood the test of time.

And finally, it's time to explain my opening scene, which actually comes in Act II The Poet's Bakery, on page 54, chosen not because they are the finest sparring lines Cyrano speaks, but because they are the truest. He's as proudly wedded to his nose as to the lines he writes. 

Recommendation: Cyrano de Bergerac, Emond Rostand (Translated by Christopher Fry, Oxford World's Classics)

Picture credit: Actor Benoît Constant Coquelin dressed as Cyrano de Bergerac. Illustration by Percy Anderson, 1906 (source: Wikipedia)

This post was penned in 2019.

Mouthpiece

In an email dated 7^th March 2019 I commented to my uncle: 'I still struggle sometimes with the Choruses in Greek drama. I like them; I like them not. In Phoenician Women, they're a distraction from the action of the two sons/brothers of Oedipus coming to blows.'

Basically, what frustrated me in relation to that particular Euripidean tragedy was the delay and interruption to the dramatic action; my uncle however (and to be fair I could have expressed myself in clearer terms) interpreted the above remark literally, and via a different mouthpiece - my mother - said to tell me: they were essential to, something, something, time and setting. This is what happens when messages are passed on. But then it could be I closed my ears, if, for my example, my mother chose to communicate this when my thoughts were otherwise engaged.

Their essentialness was not what I was disputing, if it was, as it now seemed, I was disputing it at all. No, I didn't think I was. What I was attempting to understand was why sometimes I enjoyed their collective voice and at others I didn't. And then I realised this Shakespearean-like refrain: I like them; I like them not, occurred mostly with Euripides, though not with all his tragedies, just some, and I didn't think the blame could be laid at the translator's door, for if that was the case then surely this dislike would arise with all the plays contained in one volume, or whenever I read those translated by the same translator. And it hadn't. It didn't. It doesn't still. Therefore, I reasoned it must be something peculiar to Euripides.

In this supposition at least, I was right.

For I found an opinion which supported that conjecture (though whether it's widely held I couldn't say for I know very few who share my fever for Greek plays), in which it was claimed Sophocles' choral writing (as compared to Euripides) was superior. My only misgiving was that the author of this article might have based this solely on Sophocles winning more competitions, which, on its own, is not a sound base for any argument – the winning of or the losing of, for victors of such contests are determined by the favour of the public and the judging panel. It's all a little too whimsy; Sophocles was just more successful on more occasions than Euripides (if I am to believe the article) which could be for any number of reasons. Perhaps, as a person, he was better liked? Or courted the right people? Or maybe the spectators also grew tired of and frustrated with Euripides' choruses. Would they have heckled? I haven't found any accounts of any such displays.

Grecians were civilised peoples, weren't they? With lofty ideals? Anyway, this wasn't exactly cabaret and 'bring on the dancing girls', though the chorus did, in its own manner, dance and, in unison, spoke or sang its lines.

H'm, lamenting 'dancing girls' then, although sometimes they weren't women but men, who would comment in a collective voice on the unfolding drama: expressing what couldn't be said, providing insight where it was needed, or giving a hist-myth lesson to the uninitiated or to refresh the memory of the initiates. It's the latter that causes me the most vexation, because there are instances – in Euripides – where it doesn't seem very relevant to the plot and is an unnecessary interlude. I never skip pages, but I'm tempted to, for it usually comes at a moment when the action has reached a peak or a crucial point, and then goes on and on.

Yet in spite of that, I love Euripides' 'meaty' monologues and the voice he gave to political themes. As well as to women, particularly that of Medea, although there's a view that this monologue was made in defence of himself and put in the mouth of his heroine. Even if that's true, his Medea has a potency that's hard to forget or equal.

His choruses just fall short of the mark, a little flat, that's all (as do at times his too-neat conclusions), when they could have been more built-in into his plays, but I'm sure he would have been aware of this weakness. How could he not be if on occasion Sophocles beat him?

A chorus was expected but could their essentialness have strangled Euripides' creativity? With the result being that Sophocles (and dare I say Aeschylus too?) was the better choral master.

Picture credit: Their Master's Voice, Michael Sowa (source: WikiArt).

This post was penned in 2019.

Tongues

“Of what the heart is full, the mouth runs over”, as the saying goes, and mine is full as you already know of Greek, though I don't, unlike Virginia Woolf, know of any birds that speak it, and if I did I wouldn't be able to converse with them for I don't speak it either. Of French and German I know a little. I should know more since in my more youthful years I studied both - the former to the equivalent of an A-level and the latter to GCSE – though I was never what you might call fluent, or comfortable or at ease. Of Italian, I know nothing, though according to an incorrect and never corrected BTEC certificate I speak it with distinction.

Of French and German I've retained the odd phrase and word, not enough for a two-way conversation since I don't think my ear would cope with the other person answering back, certainly not if it was at their native pace; even subtitles sometimes move too quickly. Yet it's comforting to still have some knowledge.

In listening I do better, as in I like the sounds of that being spoken. The different modulations of tone, the abruptness or the jollity, the way the tongue has to wrap itself around words or press itself against teeth or the mouth's roof. But can I understand any of that being said? Not in its entirety – a whole sentence, for example – unless it's a phrase book classic. However, you do get to recognise similarities between languages you know and those you don't, like when a word which sounds similar also shares the same meaning, which is, for me, a University Challenge moment: I was right!

Surprisingly, the written is where I come apart, utterly, if the writing that is has to be done by yours truly. I get all tangled up in verbs and nouns, regular and irregular, masculine and feminine. The accents. The umlaut. If written by another hand I can often comprehend the meaning, or at least grasp it and derive some sense of it. All then is not lost. Although I sometimes wish in printed text there were more footnotes and less assumptions that you'll know how to translate or interpret a foreign verse or phrase suddenly inserted, say, in an English language novel. That's one area I think new editions of classics could improve upon, because though you read on you wonder what you've missed: was it a witty remark or a reprimand?

We're not as well-versed (or as well educated? Perhaps 'drilled' is a apter term) in European languages as people were, if you were of a certain class, that is, and had access to schooling, in the form of private tutors, governesses or boarding schools. Or possibly had ambitions (and the finances) to embark on European tours as some of them had (and did!), where it would have been prudent to have been able to speak with the locals to settle your own arrangements, especially if you foresaw staying months at a time. I could be entirely wrong, but phrases, including those written, seem to trip off their tongues. Some of the, ahem, more socially mobile even seem to use this skill as a 'secret' language, in correspondence, for example, where their meaning might be hidden should the letter be opened by someone other than the intended or maybe just better expressed.

Was this the product of rote learning, I wonder? And did it prove to be of some, or no, help, when in the land of its origin, if, as I'm presuming European travel was de rigueur? But then, perhaps the advantage of being able to speak another language was solely, at that time, in setting yourself apart from the lower classes and getting ahead.

Whatever the case, as I'm no (as you may have guessed) scholar on the subject, the English now are lazier in this regard. In learning and speaking. In comprehension. (And yes, also in our mother tongue!) Such conversational skill is really an art, which I think is the crux of the matter for the English tackling anything foreign. It's a confidence issue – it was and still is for me at any rate - yet I enjoy subtitled dramas and films and translated works. I get as close as my brain will permit me to appreciate languages i.e. in forms I can readily absorb through my eyes and ears, where nothing is asked of my tongue and where no, or very few, demands are made on my brain's underdeveloped language department.

Picture credit: The Two Knights Sat and Looked at Each Other Without Speaking, 1970, Peter Blake (source: WikiArt).

This post was penned during 2019.