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Wordly Obsessions

~ … the occasional ramblings of a book addict …

Wordly Obsessions

Tag Archives: Italy

Travels with a bookworm – Weird encounters at the airport…

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by mywordlyobsessions in 50 Books A Year, Travels with Books, Uncategorized

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Tags

Bookhaul, books, Donna Tartt, female authors, Gatwick, Humor, Italy, Laura Purcell, literature, Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively, Shopping, Summer Reads, The Secret History, The Silent Companions


Gatwick Airport, inside Gatwick International Airport, London, England, UK. Image shot 2013. Exact date unknown.The summer holidays have come around, and like most teachers I have aimed to get out of the country as soon as humanly possible. It’s been a grueling 10 months of secondary education – stressing over grades, dealing with poor behaviour, becoming a marking machine for the last two terms (firstly with an endless stream of year 11 PPEs followed by end of term Year 10 PPEs and assessments for other groups).

It’s fair to say 2017-18 academic year has been more hellish than normal – but that’s OK, as I’ve put 2’235 miles between me and London and am now happily sweltering in the dry, Mediterranean heat! As always, I aim to over-achieve my pledge of 52 books a year, but must admit that I’m only ahead because I’ve cheated with only reading comic books for the first half of the year! I’m a bit disappointed with myself really…

reading challenge

I can’t read as much as I could or would like to during term time, so the summer holidays for me is perfect for full-on literature immersion. Mind, body and soul I make a commitment to getting through as many titles as possible, making up for the rest of the year when my brain is so tired it can’t even deal with children’s fiction.

We arrived at Gatwick Airport respectably early, did our ‘liquids shop’ as it’s bloody impossible to take any shower gels or shampoos with you (unless you pay an exorbitant amount of money to Easyjet for hold luggage!) Once this was done, I called it ‘my time’. I dumped my stuff with whoever I was travelling with and half-ran, half-skipped to WHSmith’s (or even better) Waterstones.  Here, I allow myself one minute to just wonder-gaze at the spines of  books before I  tally up how many I’m getting – this is 5 weeks after all, a looooong time.

Then comes the choosing of the bloody things, and this time round I really struggled. I bloody hate fresh fiction – and I’m not good with snap decisions either. I usually wait for a siren call, a beckoning from the shelf, but Gate 111 awaits and my group have already started making their way over. I agonise over a plethora of things: ‘Is this intellectual? Will this stretch-and-challenge me? Do these books reflect the reading journey that I am on? Does the subject matter serve a purpose? Is this book too ‘simple’? Is it too ‘new’ and thus the praise for it from the New York Times too misleading? From me to you, never trust the New York Times!

I don’t know whether half of what I buy is spurred on by a sense of self-worth, genuine discernment of literature or pure vanity of ‘looky here at what I’m reading, aren’t I a clever cow!’ – however I walked away with three titles, all of which are female authors. To my horror, I discovered my reading diet had thus far consisted of white male authors, which I seek to rectify this year. I have a colleague to thank for that as he has also embarked on a similar journey.  But eventually I was able to make all three of my personalities happy, by opting for The Secret History by Donna Tartt, recommended to me by a dear colleague, The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell which is fairly new yet has a gothic twist (if the blurb is to be trusted), and the Booker Prize winning Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, which sates the intellectual in me that craves for ‘literature of meaning’.

books

 

Time was ticking, and I was stuck behind three Italian ladies and a child trying to pay for some silly quitter strips with red buses on them and a couple of metallic pens with gold and silver crowns (c’mon! c’mon!) It didn’t help that the Jamaican lady behind the counter was also serving them begrudgingly – one of her idiosyncrasies of serving being the question: ‘Where are you flying today?’

Now normally there would be a speedy answer, money would change hands and off the customer would go. But there I am behind the Italian ladies who don’t know 5 words of English between them and do not understand what is being demanded of them. The Jamaican lady’s question, which at first appears to be a social filler, actually turned out to be a legitimate question. She genuinely wanted to know where each passenger was going. Absolutely insisted. How bizarre! At first the Italians looked at one another baffled, she demanded a second time to know where they were going, then a third, tone of voice hardening to a point akin to a Home Office interrogation. At this point the child sensed the tension in the air and began squirming. It was jarring – the ladies managed to stammer a response of ‘Italia’, hoping that would save them. However this didn’t quell her thirst for knowledge. The woman went full on MI5. ‘Are you travelling with this child? Is this child your child?’

The women were flustered like chickens who have had their hen-house disturbed. This isn’t customs – why can’t they just pay and walk away with their books? Why was the poor little bambino being pulled into all of this? Did they look like kidnappers?

At this point, I began to get irate as I’m in danger of not making it to the gate if it carries on in this vein – but eventually again the women manage to say the right thing and walk away quickly, glad to be released from the interrogation.

Relief turned to anxiety as now I realised it would be my turn. I hand over the books, quickly whip out the card ready to pay and leave as quickly as possible. But no… she wants to know where I am going too. Shit. I read her face – there is a ‘the shutters are down’ look to it and I realise maybe this idiosyncrasy has deeper roots. She certainly couldn’t read the body language and emotions of the Italian ladies, yet she insisted that her questions be answered, as if they were part of a cycle that helped her to get through one customer after another. A mechanical routine that helped her negotiate unexpected requests. Asperger’s maybe? Play along with it came the voice inside me. Indulge her.

So I went the opposite way – answered all her questions, made light conversation, watched her from behind the counter, and then realised with sadness the look in her eyes as I walked away with my book load. All she probably wants is to go away somewhere too – maybe asking where people are going to is a way of coping with a summer stuck serving customers at Gatwick. At that moment I tried putting myself in her shoes – all those people, jetting off to fabulous places, while you are stuck in an inbetween space, watching the world go by. Working in airports must be hell…

After a fleeting twinge of regret I exited WHSmith with a stoopid grin on my face, again half-skipping, half-running to my other fellow travelers, only to find that the gate closes in 10 minutes.

Shit! I’ve never been this late before – and I vowed I’d never do it again. Getting to Gate 111, as further insult to injury, turned out to be the mother of all journeys. Up and down a flight of stairs, escalators, you name it. I hate you Gatwick! Why can’t you be like Stansted?

Long story short I almost missed my bloody flight for the love of books, a strange Jamaican lady and some flustered Italian tourists. And all I wanted was some reads to tide me over for a couple of weeks till my next book haul…

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Book Review | ‘A Room With A View’ by E.M. Forster

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by mywordlyobsessions in Book Review, Excerpts

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

a room with a view, E M Forster, em forster, Florence, Italy, romance


A Room with a ViewA Room with a View by E.M. Forster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”

EM Forster, where have you been all my life? I tell you where; mouldering unassumingly on the shelf buried in anonymity, that’s what. I, the one who gags at the mere mention of romance novels may possibly, possibly have been won over with ‘A Room With A View’. But how? What sets this novel apart from others of its’ kind?

First off, it is wonderfully absent of the dewy-eyed, sugary prose that is the staple of romance novels and which ultimately makes my stomach churn. No ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ for me, thank you very much (two words: strawberry picking). There are no embarrassing outpourings of love, one-dimensional suitors or fainting maidens (okay, there is one, but for good reason!) Neither does it flog around the familiar, old-fashioned clichés commonly associated with the genre. It looks at love from an angle of improbability and tries at least to keep up with the kind of love we might experience in our day-to-day lives; the type that is fought for and jealousy guarded BECAUSE it is so hard-won.

“When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.”

The characters are flawed and unconventional, because Forster is a wonderful analyst of personalities and knows exactly what combinations produce the most interesting chemistry. His grouping of characters therefore is delightfully uncanny and quirky, which reflects precisely what we all come to know and love about the ‘quintessential’ Edwardian era. This social comedy has its’ fair share of stiff-upper lips in the form of Charlotte Bartlett (a spinster cousin), Cecil Vyse (the socially appropriate suitor) and his awful mother Lady Vyse. However Lucy, our heroine, is a sensible lass and despite having been brought up in this inbred atmosphere of social rights and wrongs, realises that sometimes rules must be broken and that the real folly is to live one’s life according to what society expects from you.

But let’s talk a little of the story itself and how this odd romance begins in the best of all possible places; an Italian pensione. It is here that Lucy Honeychurch and her chaperone Miss Bartlett enter the scene and promptly bemoan that they have been denied their promised ‘room with a view’. It is also here that they meet the elderly socialist Mr. Emerson and his morose son George, who in a moment of rash chivalry offer their rooms to the ladies instead. This offer seen as gross lack of manners is kindly but firmly rejected. But after much insistence the ladies get their ‘rooms’ and begin their exploration of Florence thanks to a trusty Baedeker.

After this encounter Lucy gets to know the Emerson’s a bit better and decides that poor Mr. Emerson is a misunderstood soul whose heart is in the right place. His quiet, sullen son however is enigmatic in a way that both intrigues and repels her. Yet fate has it that their paths should collide at the plaza where a terrible, random tragedy unfolds. The event jars and awakens both of them to emotions that had hitherto lain dormant. Yet before Lucy can be sure of her feelings another event takes place; one where George makes it very obvious how he feels. This ultimately causes a small crisis that is resolved by a speedy escape to Rome.

There Lucy meets Cecil and his mother Lady Vyse; influential family friends who below to the upper echelons of English society. Needless to say Cecil falls for Lucy, deeming her a worthy mate (even though she is socially beneath him, but never mind, his mother says he can bring her over to ‘their side’), and begins to pursue her persistently. After they return from Italy his determination is rewarded with an eventual ‘yes’ and everyone deems it a very good match.

However betrothed bliss is short-lived, as Lucy’s nervous cousin Miss Bartlett intrudes into her life once more, bringing with it the scandalous ‘incident’ that caused her to run from Florence in the first place. In the wake of this bad luck harbinger, comes the shocking news that Cecil (out of subtle cruelty or irony) has brought the Emerson’s to Lucy’s neck of the woods. Of all the places! Tension surmounts as Lucy tries to keep a cool head, yet fate has a way of uncovering the truth and one of those is the obvious fact that Cecil simply is not and cannot ever be husband material.

And so the story goes, of which I will NOT talk, for fear of giving away too much. But before I end the review I just want to say how much I liked Lucy. This is probably because our heroine is far more able than her previous counterparts. Lucy Honeychurch is NOT dumb, she is not some silly lopsided caricature of femininity. Lucy has her own thoughts and feelings, can make decisions for herself and is aware that she needs to expand her horizons. She’s tough and once she makes a decision she tries to follow it through. In fact, Lucy might be said to have her own code which comes about after her fateful trip to Florence and Rome, where the hot-blooded continental spark for life fires her imagination and imparts the gift of transforming her into a ‘thinking woman’.

“This desire to govern a woman — it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together…. But I do love you surely in a better way then he does.” He thought. “Yes — really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.”

As George puts it, love is not about controlling anyone, it’s about loving them just the way they are. I think this will always be the case, as George and Lucy do love each other completely; warts and all. Cecil’s sneering attitude grated on my nerves and the way he looked down on everyone was just bad manners even though he was supposed to be the most well-bred out of the lot of them.

Through reading this novel I have discovered that I can definitely do this kind of earthy love story, that has its’ share of ups and down and is tempered by well-timed comedy. If you are like me too in that you can’t stand most romance novels, give this one a try. You might be surprised!

View all my reviews

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  • Captain Tuttle’s #CBR4 Review #18 – A Room With a View by E.M. Forster (cannonballread4.wordpress.com)
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Book Review | ‘The Snow Goose’ by Paul Gallico

25 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by mywordlyobsessions in Book Review

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

book review, childrens fiction, Dunkirk, Italy, Paul Gallico, Small Miracle, Snow Goose


The Snow Goose (Essential.penguin)The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Paul Gallico is a man who understood the art of story-telling not from a modern authorly angle, but rather from its more ancient verbal roots. The two simple tales of ‘The Snow Goose’ and ‘The Small Miracle‘ are beautifully crafted literary gems, with the former being about a hunchbacked artist, his relationship with a wounded goose and his act of bravery at Dunkirk and the latter a ‘contemporary fable’ inspired by St. Francis of Assisi about an orphaned boy and his donkey.

In both stories, Gallico’s writing is so simple and poetic that it demands to be read aloud. There are many scenic passages that I delighted in as he brought out the colours of the settings. In ‘The Snow Goose’, the cold, bleak marshy landscape of the Essex coast was brought to life using language reminiscent of watercolour paintings.

“Tidal creeks and estuaries and the crooked, meandering arms of many little rivers whose mouths lap at the edge of the ocean cut through the sodden land that seems to rise and fall and breathe with the recurrence of the daily tides.”

In ‘The Small Miracle’ the rustic ochres and olive greens of Italy give the story a Quixotic flavour as the young protagonist finds himself on the path to Rome which will eventually lead to the Pope, all for the sake of his beloved little donkey.

“Approaching Assisi via the chalky, dusty road that twists its way up Monte Subaiso, now revealing, now concealing the exquisite little town, as it winds its way through olive and cypress groves, you eventually reach a division where your choice lies between an upper and a lower route.”

I find that good and bad writing can be divided by this simple method of ‘sounding out’ a narrative. When you think about it, almost all stories these days are put together in silence. While the plot may be a good one, it is often the author’s ‘inner ear’ that may let him/her down when it comes to setting a rhythm to the work as a whole. The strong flow of the narrative, it’s sure-footed approach to the story and its clear visuals make this an ideal bedtime book for children. The fact that it also highlights the magical bond between humans and animals makes it a very pleasant alternative to some of the other stuff that is currently out there. Before picking this up, I didn’t realise how much I’d missed seeing animals in stories. A lovely read, highly recommended.

View all my reviews

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