Guest Post: Wendy Scott

Continuing a month-long focus on authors from RWISA:

the Rave Writers International Society of Authors. 

Throughout August we'll be showing extracts from the work of these authors. 

For more information about any particular writer click the link under their photo.

Note: Wendy is a fellow-New Zealander, a writer who first introduced me to the Rave Reviews Book Club. 

Navigator by Wendy Scott

Luke's body whirled through the portal in a kaleidoscope of starlight and rainbows. Burnt ozone stung his nostrils, and his stomach roiled as if live dragonflies flitted inside. He clutched his grandfather's palm tighter, the only connection anchoring them together while they spun into the void, guided by the compass in his grandfather's other hand.

"We're here." His grandfather's words whistled with wheeziness.

He released Luke and turned away, pocketing the compass, but his old man's movements weren't quick enough to hide the tremors or his shortness of breath.

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A mountain breeze, tinged with smoke ruffled the tussock grasses underfoot. In the valley below, Luke pinpointed a chimney on a cluster of shacks beside fenced paddocks. Had the old man's sense of direction faded and cast them adrift?

"Follow me." His grandfather rolled his shoulders back, lifted his head high, and led the descent.

Mindful of their journey's mission doubt dragged at Luke's feet. At only twelve, would he be found worthy? He didn't want to think about his grandfather's declining health if their bid was rejected.

Metallic scent tainted the air as they skirted past the dwellings; a one-room cottage, barn, and a smithy. Orange coals smoldered on the forge, hammers, and tongs lined up in military precision, but the pockmarked leather apron hung empty from a hook on the open door.

Without pause, his grandfather guided Luke out the back to the horse corrals. A bear of a man with arms like anvils leaned against the fence. Leather pants and knee-high boots sheathed his legs, but his chest was bare except for a star patterned tattoo, staining his chest muscles indigo and cobalt. At their approach his head swiveled, snaring the pair with a deep ocean gaze. Dryness etched Luke's throat.

"Navigator, so many years have passed, I feared you would not return."

Luke's grandfather bowed his head. "Farrier, events have been unkind, but I keep my promises. My grandson had agreed to assume the responsibility in the place of his father who died when he was a babe."

The men spoke as if Luke were a phantom, but he remained silent, remembering his grandfather's instructions only to speak when asked a direct question by the otherworld farrier.

Grass scented warmth huffed through Luke's hair. A midnight coated horse towered above his head. A white star marked the stallion's forehead.

Luke clambered up the railings, but he still had to stretch to trail his fingertips along the horse's snout. His breath caught when he gazed into the depths of the creature's starlight eyes.

Firm fingers clasped Luke's shoulder, and the farrier bowed towards the steed.  “Kasper approves of you. Come inside."

The temperature in the smithy scorched the hairs inside Luke's nose, and sweat trickled beneath his tunic, but the farrier worked the bellows until the coals combusted into flames. Next, he sprinkled a handful of sand into the hearth, and the fire danced into violet and malachite hues.

"You understand, old friend, without the enchantment your life span will be reduced to mortal years?"

My grandfather nodded."These old bones grow weary, and the pathways are becoming muddled. My time is past. Luke is young, but he is pure of heart. "

The farrier studied his friend for a moment before he reached out with his palm. "Navigator, of your own free will do you relinquish your powers to your grandson?"

The old man answered by dropping his compass into the farrier's outstretched hand. "I do."

The farrier's otherworld stare scrutinized the boy, and although the being didn't touch him, a prickling sensation rippled up Luke's spine. After several heartbeats, the farrier inclined his head. "Your soul is free of darkness, but perhaps you are too young yet for any temptations to have challenged your values."

"He's a good lad. I vouch for him and will guide his path." His grandfather squeezed Luke's shoulder.

Calloused fingers gripped Luke's chin. "Are you sure you want this? It's not too late to back out and live a normal life. Be warned, once you accept you are bound for life. Each time you enter here seeking my help a non-negotiable toll must be paid."

Before crossing over doubts had plagued Luke's thoughts, but after tasting magic, he couldn't settle for a dull life on the farm when his world had been opened to the lure of other realms.

Luke moistened his lips. “Navigator blood runs in my veins. I'm young, but I'm ready."

The farrier released him. "Do I have your solemn vow you will only guide your passengers by the way of the light?"

Heart thundering, Luke focused on the compass. "I swear I'll follow the true pathways."

Light glinted off the chain as the farrier dangled the compass into the sparking coals. “Hold out your hand.”

Luke flinched, expecting his skin to sizzle when it touched the metal, but the compass was cool. He didn’t feel any different. Had the transfer worked?

The farrier clasped forearms with the older man. “You owe me one last favour, but I will redeem what’s due at another time.”

“As always it will be an honour to serve.” Luke’s grandfather stepped away.

“Navigator, peer into the fire.”

Several moments passed before Luke responded to his new title. Within the flames, he spied a young woman’s face, whose striking features seared into his memory.

“One day she will seek your skills, and when she does you must bring her to me.” The farrier crossed his arms.

Questions burned in Luke’s mind, but he’d been schooled on the protocols, so he suppressed his curiosity, and lowered his eyes. “As you command.”

The farrier ushered them into the yard and bid them farewell. “Keep your promises, follow the light and your direction will always be true.”

Outside Luke paused, blinking. A glittering path lit the way up to the portal.

Unshed tears gathered in his grandfather’s eyes. “The navigator’s sight is now hidden from me.”

Grasping the compass in one hand, Luke held out his other hand. “Come grandfather, I will guide you home.”

***

(Navigator is a prelude and companion scene to Fire Hooves – yet to be released by Wendy Scott).

Thank you for supporting this member along the WATCH "RWISA" WRITE Showcase Tour today!  We ask that if you have enjoyed this member's writing, to please visit their Author Page on the RWISA site, where you can find more of their writing, along with their contact and social media links, if they've turned you into a fan. We ask that you also check out their books in the RWISA or RRBC catalogs. Thanks, again for your support and we hope that you will follow each member along this amazing tour of talent. Don't forget to click the link under the author's photo to learn more about her.

Scott and Bailey

We've been watching the first series of Scott and Bailey, starring Suranne Jones and Lesley as the two detectives Bailey and Scott respectively, with Amelia Bullmore as their boss. Bullmore gets most of the best lines, but Suranne Jones is excellent as the detective whose clever in the detective area but hopeless in her love life. Sharp is great too, with a nice line in sarcasm, and a good deal more wisdom than her sidekick.

The blokes in it get the thin edge of the wedge: they play most of the villains, of course, but in general they show the worst side of men, the juvenile, the sulky husband, the sergeant who's in love with Sharp's character and keeps pestering her (he's actually played by Sharp's real life husband, Nicholas Gleaves) and worst of all, the barrister who keeps twirling Jones' character around his little finger (Rupert Graves at his slimiest).

The stories are almost secondary to the characters, and some of them are spread out over the whole six episodes, while others are tidied up within one.

Enjoyable over all, and they make a change from the far more frequent bloke detective series, though at least the English produce these kinds of series and focus on characters more than action, in general.

Catch up on some movies

We've watched three movies on DVD over the last week or so that have been worth noting.

Let me put in a plug for our local library while I'm at it: they provide DVDs at $2.00 a pop for a week, and $2.00 a pop for TV series, which you can have for a fortnight. I wanted to catch up on the first series of Broadchurch the other day, because I'd missed some episodes. In the end we got it from a video store, and it cost $10.00. I found it in the library yesterday as one of the 'top of the picks' at $4.00, and I could have had it longer...  It's a great service, and we've made some really interesting discoveries as a result, even watching two entire series of DVDs in Italian: Inspector Montalbano was one of them. And then we went on to learn Italian as well...but that's another story.

First up on the movie front was Last Passenger. It's about a small group of people who get left on a train that's refusing to stop - the driver turns out to be someone, they think, who wants to commit suicide in a spectacular way. Dougray Scott and Kara Tointon star, and do a good job. The whole film takes place on the train and for the most part maintains its sense of tension. There are a few spots where things could have moved along a bit, and the plot probably doesn't want to be investigated too strongly, but overall this was a nicely tense ride. There's an affecting performance from the seven-year-old boy, Joshua Kaynama, a little boy caught up in a situation he doesn't understand and who's asked to do the impossible at one point.

The second movie was much more sure of its pacing: the tension barely let up for a moment, even when there were conversations between various baddies. This was 7 Boxes, a film made in Paraguay, which apparently isn't well-known for top quality movies; in fact several of the cast seem to have started their film careers in this movie (!)

It's about a young man whose job is wheelbarrowing purchases for customers in a market. (The wheelbarrow isn't your garden model but a long flat thing that obviously takes muscle to handle.) These wheelbarrow boys have to compete with each other to get the work, and it's tough. When the boy, Victor (Celso Franco) gets an opportunity to take seven boxes 'around the block' for some devious characters, he jumps at it, because it's going to be very well paid. The boxes of course contain something much worse than he imagines, a nasty fellow-barrow boy has been shunted out of the job by accident and wants to get it back, and those sending the boxes on their way have got things considerably tangled, much to their horror. The piece is well plotted, and all the elements keep crossing and intercrossing until there's a violent climax in which Victor almost dies.

In spite of the tension and violence there's quite a bit of humour, lots of fun with cellphones changing hands, a nice bickering relationship between Victor and Liz (Lali Gonzalez) his know-all friend who obviously thinks girls can do anything, and all manner of other enjoyable details. This movie also takes place in a fairly confined area: small in South American terms, anyway. Everything happens in a huge (and I mean huge) market area, a market that seems to go on in a maze for miles in every direction.

The last movie was Saving Mr Banks. Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks star, Hanks playing a generous second fiddle to Thompson's wonderfully arrogant performance. Thompson is P L Travers, the creator of the Mary Poppins stories. Her books are sacrosanct and the idea that Walt Disney (Hanks) should make one of his awful animated movies out of them appals her. She's been holding out for twenty years, but now she's starting to need the money, and is finally persuaded to go to Los Angeles and meet Disney, and see if she can agree to anything. There's almost nothing she wants to agree to, which makes it difficult for the Hollywood people, but in the end...well, you can imagine the end because you know Mary Poppins got made and was one of Disney's most successful films ever.

Interwoven with the modern story (set in 1961) is Travers' childhood. She had an imaginative father of Irish stock, in Australia, but he was an alcoholic, and for all his intentions to keep his promises, seldom could. In spite of this Travers, as a child, adored him, and shared his wonderful fairytale view of the world. Her childhood is a tragedy, in fact, and this has affected her adulthood, so that in spite of writing a wonderful set of stories she has become a bitter old woman. Perhaps she wasn't quite as difficult as the filmmakers make her out to be, but she was certainly opinionated, and the 'family' (the Banks family in the book, and Poppins herself) were extremely precious to her.

It's a classic Hollywood movie in the old style, with a cast of great actors (Colin Farrell plays the relatively small part of the father, and Rachel Griffiths makes a brief appearance as an aunt who obviously was in part a model for Mary Poppins). Very enjoyable, and emotional.

Gripping and gritty movies

Taking a punt on movie choices can mean that often you wind up seeing something that's a bit of a dud. I usually prefer to have some idea about a movie before I watch it, even if it only costs me a couple of dollars from the Public Library.  However, last week I picked up three movies (we haven't watched the third) and the first two turned out to be crackers. 

One was Nothing but the Truth, which apparently didn't get much of a theatrical distribution for reasons that are beyond my understanding, in spite of having a top-notch cast: Kate Beckingsale, Alan Alda, Matt Dillon, Noah Wylie, Angela Bassett and Vera Farmiga, an actress who plays her roles with such intensity that the television screen threatens to go on fire. The film is based on a true-life case about a political reporter who refused to reveal the source of her story, and wound up in gaol for months.  However, the scriptwriter and director, Rod Lurie, has rewritten the thing from the ground up, changing all the details and the background, so that the film is presented as a proper drama, not as a piece trying to fit around a real-life episode.  It's all the stronger for this, and allows Lurie to write excellent roles for his cast, none of whom let him down.

Beckingsale's character is given the chance to write a piece for her major newspaper that will expose a female CIA agent, but refuses to name her source. This refusal gets her into deep trouble with the Government, and she is thrown into jail by a heavy-handed judge (the actor, in real life, was an attorney in the original case). This causes havoc to the CIA agent and her family, to the reporter's own family and doesn't, in the end, let her off the hook.  It's a tough film made tougher by the insistence on principles that the reporter clings to, and which she finally brings her lawyer around to. You may guess the surprise ending - my wife did, but I didn't; it neatly rounds the film off. 

The other film was originally played over four nights on British television. It's called Father & Son, and stars Dougray Scott, Sophie Okonedo, Ian Hart and Stephen Rea. It's a gripping piece that doesn't turn out the way you might expect; it's violent and dark, but it's about integrity and the idea that eventually the choices you make in life have to be for the sake of others or else you die from the inside out.

The story concerns a career criminal, Michael O'Connor, who wants to put all his bad behaviour behind him.  Unfortunately things aren't as easy as that, and he's forced to decide whether he will amend things he's done wrong properly, or only partially.  His teenage son, Sean, (Reece Noi), the child of a mixed marriage, is accused of a gang retaliation murder, though we know from the beginning that he's innocent. O'Connor hasn't seen his son in a while after his wife was murdered about five years back and there's considerable bitterness in the boy.  But behind the bitterness, we eventually learn, there's a great deal more going on than we first suspect, and part of the story is about the reconciliation required between O'Connor and his son, a reconciliation that needs to take place before things can be healed. There are father and son connections throughout the story, none of them very satisfactory at the start, and a host of brilliantly drawn and played characters.  Part of the story is also the truth about the murder that took place some years before, and how it fits into all the other elements.

Scott plays a tough man who seems at first to have matured; but we learn that his seeming vulnerability towards his new wife and unborn child is only skin-deep.  It takes far more to bring his true self to the surface. He's surrounded by duplicitous characters - the links between different people turns out to be nastier than we expect - and it takes a good deal of sorting out.  The writer was Frank Deasy - he died about the same time the series aired.  He had written the last episode in the Prime Suspect series, and the same grittiness is apparent here.

Two and a half movies

From the sublime to the ridiculous and back again.   One might say.

I watched about two-thirds of Peter Watkins' 1974 made-for-TV movie, Edvard Munch, the other day.  I'd never heard of it, and it took me some time to connect the director's name up with the somewhat notorious pseudo-documentary, The War Game - and the even earlier, Culloden.   Watkins makes documentaries that use amateur actors and mix drama and doco styles in such a way that it's hard to tell which format is being used at any one time.   In Edvard Munch, the characters/actors often look at the camera even while they're in the middle of what seems to be a relatively dramatic scene.  After a while this became irritating; the sly or awkward glances at the audience conveyed nothing additional to the scenes, and kept tripping us out of the historical context.  Plainly this is what Watkins wants, but I'm not sure that it always works.

I gave up on the movie, as I say, about two-thirds of the way through.  It was repetitive, and slowly-paced, and jerked back and forth between childhood scenes and painting scenes and love scenes, and scenes with other characters who were only incidental to Munch's life.  Some of these spent time talking to an off-screen director, as people do in reality shows.  In fact some reality shows are more dramatic than portions of this movie were.

It was beautifully filmed, with a lighting style all of its own, and the scenes in which paintings were gradually formed were wonderfully done.  But by the time we'd been told for the umpteenth time that women were subjugated to men and that marriage was some sort of horror, or seen one or other of Munch's siblings or relatives choking up blood (from tuberculosis) yet again, the whole thing began to outstay its welcome.

Considering that the cast consisted of amateur actors, there were actually some very good performances, in particular Geir Westby in the title role.

Coming down a peg or two, we watched Nativity!, with Martin Freeman as a dull and stale teacher who's been landed with having to produce the annual school nativity play, and Marc Wootton as a temporary classroom assistant who's manic in the extreme, and everything that Freeman isn't.   It's a predictable piece, with some moments of considerable humour (not all of them involve the kids, some of whom are great and down-to-earth; one of whom is an irritating little twerp whom the director obviously thought was funny, and who gets into scenes where he'd be better not to be).  Wootton, by overplaying everything to the max, actually makes his role work; Freeman has done his role any number of times before, but somehow finds some real emotion in it, and makes us have sympathy for this rather annoying little man.  The rest of the cast do their bit, and there's a splendiferous performance of the Nativity in the old Coventry Cathedral at the end.  Considering that the school is obviously on its bare bones and that it appears to have only one class (Freeman's - other teachers appear but not other kids), it's a bit surprising to find at the end that the show is so spectacular, and that somehow Freeman and Wootton are doing everything backstage: make-up, dressing, management, lights, flying kids from the steeple and so on.  Don't apply the logic meter to this one.

And back to something with a bit more content and class: Twelve Angry Men.  Not the Henry Fonda version in black and white, directed by Sydney Lumet (though that was what I thought I'd got out of the library's collection), but a later made-for-TV version from 1997 with a very respectable cast headed up by Jack Lemmon and George C Scott (both looking pretty old, I must say: Scott was 70 and Lemmon 72 at the time). along with Tony Danza, James Gandolfini, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Hume Cronyn (88 at the time of production), Courtney B Vance, Ossie Davis (80), Mykelti Williamson (Bubba, in Forrest Gump, but a much tougher character here) and others.

The combined experience of these older and younger troupers shows: they take this top notch script and give every line its due.  William Friedkin's direction is spot on most of the time: keeping twelve men in focus throughout an entire movie is quite some feat, and there are a couple of shots in which one character or another is unintentionally obscured, but in general we not only have a sense of the claustrophobic atmosphere, but also manage to keep track of who's who and where they stand (not only physically, but on the case in hand).  I suspect the piece was put together at a quicker pace than full-scale movies are, which may account for its occasional visual lapses.

The original script is a little adapted for this version, with some references to colour and race, and some changes to occupations, but in general it sticks closely to the original.  The Wikipedia article on the play (which began life on television, was adapted as a stage play shifted to the movies, and has been subsequently adapted and altered into a number of different versions since) is interesting in regard to the way in which this piece has taken on a life of its own, even becoming Twelve Angry Women at one point.

Stats - so, only if you're interested in such things

For a long time now, I've been getting the stats from the two Orble blogs that I write on (less and less, as it happens, but then there's a lot going on that stops me from writing blog posts each and every day at the moment).

Surprisingly, in spite of the fact that I'm not writing very much on these posts, the two blogs still seem to be getting read regularly.  Not sure who's all catching up on them, but someone amongst the millions of blog readers in the world must be.

But the interesting thing is that it's almost always the same two or three blog posts that appear at the top of the lists.   On the blog called WorkReport.net there are two posts that vie with each other to appear first time and again.   One of these is a piece I wrote when I was in the middle of my pre-prostate operation time, a time I don't look fondly back on except that it provided me with a good deal of material to write about.    The other is an oddball post that I only wrote because I was getting paid to include a link in it.  It relates to the Titanic Museum in Branson.  This has been one of the most popular posts I've ever written, which no doubt speaks of the ongoing enthusiasm people have for the Titanic disaster.   Curious.

On the other blog, Webitz.net, one particular post has been in the top spot a great deal since it was written.  This is one on what I called the 'Geocities revival.'

Geocities, for those who don't remember, was an enormous site that allowed people to create their own websites on the geocities portal, way back in the dark ages of the Internet.  The site I had was the first website I'd ever put together.  It wasn't exactly WYSIWYG but it was close enough.

At some point in the geocities history, Yahoo took over the whole caboodle, presumably thinking either they were going to make lots of money out of it, or that it was better to put your rival in a corner and beat him to a pulp in due course.  They put him in a corner all right, and then threw him out of the ring completely by closing down geocities, to the horror of thousands of people who'd put hundreds of hours of work into their particular space.   The problem was that if you didn't act quickly enough, all your work would be gone for good - according to Yahoo.  And of course, thousands of people (including myself) didn't act quickly enough - or didn't know what to do to save their material, especially if there was a lot of it.

The result was that suddenly thousands of virtual documents and photographs and so on vanished.  However, the amazing thing about the Internet is that it's not quite so easy to get rid of stuff as all that.   Various groups formed to collect all the data and put it back on line in a different format.

At the time I wrote the blog post, one of these was ASCII by Jason Scott.  This is still functioning, I think, though the most recent update seems to be 2010.  Jason has a lot of other things on his plate.   Another group, OOCities also worked on keeping the geocities material.  I mentioned them too, but like ASCII, they seemed to have moved onto other things, and their geocities material is only partial.

This wasn't good news for those of us who seemed to have missed out.  In particular I was very saddened because two or three short stories that had actually been published elsewhere had gone AWOL in the process.

And then along came reocities.  I explain about them here, in another post, called From geocities to reocities.   Reocities seems to have managed to rescue practically everything that was on geocities.  At least that's the impression I've got.  They certainly rescued my old site (which now looks very cluttery by comparison with more recent webpages), and these days, when you click on the link, it comes up very quickly, compared to the sluggish pace you endured when it was first revived.  

Thank goodness for their perseverance (it must have been an enormous task).

What do you notice about the following extract?

What do you notice about the following extract?  ...except for some trimming here and there and the shifting of the gold deeds of the Black Knight to the shoulders of Ivanhoe.

It comes from a review of the movie, Ivanhoe, by Bosley Crowther, which I copied to Evernote recently after I'd read the book by Walter Scott.   It seems to me in this sentence from the review that Bosley has mixed up his good with his gold.  Perhaps it's because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is also mentioned in the review a couple of times.   

It's interesting how often the word gold is used more as part of a metaphorical expression than in terms of itself as a precious metal.  Gold and gold bullion has been around so long in human history that we tend to equate it with its value rather than its actual physical self.  (If 'self' is the word I want.)

Looking through my famous clippings (again, on Evernote - not that I'm trying to promote Evernote today, particularly) it's intriguing how rarely the word turns up just as plain old ordinary gold.  Much more often it's within an expression: he turned his company to gold; such and such is the gold standard of the business, or the mission, or the something else.  

In our minds, gold is much more than itself.  I'm sure there are other words like this, though I'm not sure that silver has got quite the same clout, though diamonds comes close.   Although what do you make of this sentence?  We make our lives tiny diamonds in the cosmic sands.  (It comes from an article on Ronald Dworkin written in The Guardian.

Books, Bags and Barnaby Rudge

I was going past the Library yesterday, heading towards the Moray Place post office (crowded as usual, now that two post offices I used to use have been closed) when I found myself walking alongside the librarian who does the Interloans.   She commented that I hadn't used the Interloan service in a while, and I had to admit I hadn't.  (I used to be always ordering books through Interloan when I was in my last job.)  I said I was tending to read the Kindle mostly, at which she tutted a little (rightly so for one whose trade is in real live books), and that I was carrying my library of books in my pocket at the moment.

For many years I carried a backpack with me pretty much wherever I went, and there would always be at least one book inside, if not two.   I was reminded of this because the people who sell Jansport mesh backpacks have one style of backpack called the Book Pack.  I think basically it's just a backpack for school kids to carry their books and such in, but I've never owned a Book Pack, and am rather tickled by the idea of it.

When I went to Sydney a couple of weekends ago I didn't take a single book with me.  In the past I would always have had at least two or three - even for a weekend.  In fact, I don't know that I took any books to the States with me when we went over for my son's wedding - although I did bring one back.   Instead of paper books, I've been carrying the Kindle.  One of its many advantages is that if you find you're not enjoying one of the books you've got on it, you can easily switch to something else you haven't yet read that's sitting in your 'library' of books.  Or you can even dip again into something you've already read.

And another advantage I'm finding (and found on the dimly lit airplanes) is that you can crank up the font size until it's comfortable for your eyes.  At night I often read with a bigger font size than in the daytime - it overcomes the issue of older eyes struggling to focus on smaller print.

And a third advantage is that you don't have to hold a tightly bound book open against itself.   I'm slowly reading my way through one of Les Murray's poetry collections (The Vernacular Republic) at the moment, and apart from the print being too small (though not unreadable) the binding is very tight.  It can't be forced open too far otherwise it'll split - another disadvantage of tight binding.  However, the not inconsiderable advantage of real books is that you can take them in the bath without trepidation  -though I've never dropped a book in the bath yet.  I'm a lot more wary about taking the Kindle in the bath, though I have tried it.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I finished reading Ivanhoe recently.  It was the first Walter Scott book I'd read, and while some of it was quite gripping, some of it was rather turgid in style.   Since it's Dickens' bicentenary this year, I thought I should catch up on that writer again, and am now reading Barnaby Rudge, one of the few Dickens titles I've never read.   What a glorious difference!  Occasionally the more upper class characters ponce on a bit in their language, and Barnaby himself (a person with some intellectual disability, as we'd say now) has a tendency to the rhapsodic, but for the rest it's like a wholesome meal, or a dip in a cool stream on a hot day, or going to the circus after listening to a whole CD of serial music by Webern.  Dickens' prose is so alive, and his characters so delightfully drawn - and furthermore they speak in their own inimitable Dickensian way, a style that no other writer has ever quite achieved.  Many of them have that joyously bubbling humour in their speech even when they're at their most serious.  As you can see, I'm thoroughly enjoying this book.  (Sorry, Sir Walter!)

Ivanhoe

I know 2012 is a major Dickens anniversary - the bicentenary of his birth - and I fully intend to read or re-read at least one or two of his books this year, but somehow I managed to get waylaid by another great 19th century author, Sir Walter Scott.   I picked up Ivanhoe late last year at the library.  It was an edition with a considerable introduction to it, and that encouraged me to get on and read it.  However, when I hadn't got very far through it (the first chapter) before I went to the US for my son's wedding I found I could get the book for free on Kindle, so I did.  Even then I didn't get round to starting the book (again)  until I went to Australia the weekend before last.

Though the writing style isn't on a par with Dickens', and is hampered in this particular novel by being full of words that were in current usage in days long before Scott was writing, words used to give colour to the period in which Ivanhoe is set (the 12th century), I found the book very readable.   However, it seemed to lose its grip about two-thirds of the way through, and I found myself skimming a good deal, mainly because Scott seemed to think some of his characters should speak at length just because they were important, or because they were expressing something of importance.   And at about the same point in the book, many of the characters seemed to start talking as though they were all cut from the same cloth.   It's as if Scott had lost the drive that got the book off the ground in the first place.

Furthermore, Ivanhoe, the supposed hero of the story, spends increasing times off the page after being wounded in the great tournament that occurs early in the piece.  This section is wonderfully done, incidentally, as is the great battle that takes place between the besieged Normans (the baddies) and the Saxons, who consist mostly of Robin Hood's men.  Yup, Robin Hood, or Robin of Locksley as he's more often known in this book.

Scott's novel is a major reason why we now think of Robin Hood (and Friar Tuck and Alan-a-Dale) the way we do.  Robin Hood had been the stuff of legend for around four centuries, but Scott managed to bring the various ideas about him into a cohesive form.   Robin and his band of 'merry' men rob the rich - who utterly deserve it in this novel - to give to the poor.  The act of robbery is barely seen as illegal; indeed Richard overlooks the criminality of it.  But what Scott does that really pulls together the idea of Robin as a worthwhile character is to align him to the Richard the Lion Heart story, making him another 'hero' (alongside Richard and Ivanhoe himself).  It's generally regarded that the legend that arose about of Robin Hood was related to a person who lived two centuries after Richard. Now anyone who thinks of Robin Hood thinks of a man who's Richard's contemporary.  This view of Robin Hood has been endorsed by subsequent movies and television series about him, turning someone who actually lived into a kind of legend.  The splitting of the arrow at the archery contest is Scott's invention; yet it too has now become thoroughly connected to the Robin Hood story.

Apart from Prince John (who disappears at a vital point in the book) I found the baddies all a bit too early-Hollywood to be convincing; Scott never seems to get into their psyches somehow.  And the heroine of the piece, Rowena, remains distant as well.  It's left to Rebecca, the 'other' heroine, to come alive, which she does for the most part, although even she gets some pretty long-winded speeches that are worth skimming through.  Regrettably there's no way she and Ivanhoe can get together: Rebecca is a Jew, and as we're informed on umpteen occasions through the book, the Jews are utterly despised and a blot on the face of the earth.  Whether it's Scott being a 19th century writer, or Scott detailing the way people thought in the 12th century, this has to be the most anti-Semitic book I've ever read.  It knocks Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice well and truly into the corner.   Not only is Rebecca's father a conniving, greedy usurer, he equivocates constantly: forever telling people who want money off him that he has none, that he's the poorest man on earth and that having to spend a cent will bankrupt him - and then being willing to lend the money he does have (and he has plenty) at great interest.  The anti-Semitism is alleviated by the character of Rebecca, who is aware of the hatred the Jews of her time experience, but behaves in a much more compassionate way than most of the Christians around her.

And then there are the clergy:  almost to a man they're unpleasant, greedy and unscrupulous.  The first one we meet is described as a man whose Order is supposed to be all about poverty, chastity, charity and so on.  He's the direct opposite in every respect.  The famous Friar Tuck makes an appearance about half way through the book, and seems at first a sympathetic character.  However, Scott seems unable to make his mind up about him, and by the end of the book, we dislike him greatly.   But the top of all these corrupt clerics is the Grand Master of the Knights Templar who comes into the story late in the proceedings; he's the world's most legalistic and uncompassionate creature who has no scruples about sending poor Rebecca off to execution as soon as possible.   If he didn't ramble on so much, he'd actually bring the book back to life at a time it badly needs it.

Ivanhoe struggles to be the 'hero' of his own story: he appears in disguise early in the piece, having been ousted from his family by his Saxon father before the story began, and then remains disguised at the tournament at which he beats everybody in sight - until he's wounded and has to be rescued by the Black Knight (Richard the Lionheart, also in disguise).   He spends a good deal of the rest of the book in the recovery room, being rescued from death by Rebecca, and then - again - by the Black Knight.  Rebecca falls in love with him, but can't do anything about it, because, of course, she's a Jew.  Not that Ivanhoe seems very aware of her love for him!  And then, at the end of the book, when Ivanhoe, in spite of his wounds, decides to go and fight on Rebecca's behalf at the tourney in which he must defeat the only remaining baddie of the original three, he's knocked off his horse by his opponent's lance, and, like everyone else, is surprised to see his opponent also drop off his horse - not because he's been damaged by Ivanhoe, but because he's been struck down by the hand of God, as one character decides must be the case.  This deus ex machina is perhaps the worst moment in the book.  There's been a terrific build-up to the rescue of Rebecca, and it all falls flat within a couple of pages.  Though, if God hadn't stepped in, the Black Knight was literally just around the corner ready to rescue Ivanhoe yet again!

There's one other awful moment, that even the footnote attached to it says everyone finds incredible.  Ivanhoe's rival for Rowena's hand, Athelstane, is a food-loving dolt, though he can fight decently in a battle.  He's been killed in the big siege, and taken off by the local priests to await burial.  We next hear about him at his family home where he's being mourned by everyone under the sun.  In the middle of it all, he turns up, not dead after all.   Please, Sir Walter!   I know you loved this character (he actually brings much of the real humour to the book, and Scott plainly enjoys writing about him) but this is just too fantastical for words, and his revival adds nothing to the book.   All he does is renounce Rowena as a possible bride, leaving the way open for Ivanhoe (yet again, the latter does nothing to deserve this success!)

This long criticism might indicate that I didn't enjoy the book.  I did, up until about three-quarters of the way through, when if seemed to run out of steam.  I finished it because there were still sections that were worth reading, and anyway, I wanted to see how it all panned out.

Ivanhoe's popularity over two centuries shows that it's got a good deal to offer (it's been filmed and televised a good number of times) and of course it's hard to gauge now just how popular Scott was as a writer in his day - for me, at least.  I obviously need to read some of his other novels to see how Ivanhoe compares, and there's no doubt that Scott is a great storyteller when he's on a roll.  Like other 19th century writers he was capable of stuff that was written for the sake of it.

PS. I've just been reading the review Bosley Crowther wrote of the MGM production of Ivanhoe back in 1952.  It's interesting to read that the main female role in the movie is that of Rebecca, not Rowena.    And the final battle between Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor) and De Bois Guilbert (George Sanders) is played out in full, as "....a wild go with axes and maces that would put a couple of angry blacksmiths to shame," not dribbled away as Scott deals with it.   Note also that the Black Knight (Richard the Lion Heart) in the original, becomes here Ivanhoe himself, meaning that he does his own heroic work.  Hollywood knows a thing or two when it comes to telling a story.  You can see a trailer for the movie here. 

Concert: More New Music

MORE NEW MUSIC

Mike Crowl will be presenting a second collection of his recent compositions - songs, piano pieces, and music for cornet and piano - at the Mornington Methodist Hall, in Dunedin, on Saturday the 12th September, at 7.30 pm.

Admission $10.00 per person - sorry, no eftpos available, but supper is included.

Several of the pieces will be receiving their world premieres, including a group of eight short songs set to words by the nationally renowned Dunedin poet, Peter Olds.

John Lewis, the champion New Zealand and Australian cornet player, will be performing two pieces specially written for him.

Other artists include: Nicola Steel, Helen & Justin Scott, Arnold Bachop, Cara Thomson, and Nadine Kemp.

Piano courtesy of webweaver.nu

Mr Woodcock

Went to see the rather odd comedy, Mr Woodcock, today. It’s a little offensive in spots, but never pushes the boundaries in any real way.

It concerns a young man who’s made good by writing a popular self-help book. When he arrives home to accept the town’s honorary award, he discovers that his mother is dating his former – and very unpleasant – PE teacher. The rest of the film is dedicated to the young man’s attempts to get rid of this potential step-father, and the latter’s ability to stop him in his tracks every time.

I found it funny enough, occasionally laugh-out-loud. It probably would have been better if we’d watched in on DVD, since it has that sort of quality, really. But we saw it on the big screen because it was the only movie that was showing in the next period of time. In fact the session had already started, but English cinemas being what they are, we only missed about a quarter of an hour of ads.

Billy Bob Thornton does his usual grumpy, morose character – with a suspicious twinkle in his eye; Sarah Sarandon shows that comedy can be found in any character, and Sean William Scott is a likeable and energetic character who pushes the thing along.

Not a world-shattering piece, but it was better than sitting outside reading in the cold.