My grandparents lived for 47 years in what was an end-of-terrace council house in Harlow's Churchfield, just a short walk from The Stow. The Stearn family were the second to live in that house - with Harlow built as a New Town following the Second World War, my grandparents and their three children (the youngest being my mum) moved out of London in 1956 to a place promising large green spaces. My mum remembers her aunt Gwen holding the goldfish on her lap in the removal van. Now, Harlow can't be described as green.
Sooner or later they would own 18 Churchfield. It had a hallway, a living room with burgundy settees and pink carpet. For a month of the year the room would be stringed with Christmas cards from the ceiling. Behind that, there was the kitchen/diner, with a larder that smelled of marmalade and a dark wooden table with six chairs with grey geometric-print cushioned seats. Upstairs: three bedrooms and a bathroom. The same fluffy carpet throughout. Later on, they got french doors installed, and they had a downstairs loo. In the garden there was an apple tree and a greenhouse for tomatoes.
I spent lots of my childhood in 18 Churchfield. I would sit at the small red desk in the back bedroom where I kept a tube of Smarties (one for every visit), watch a recorded version of Mary Poppins on Channel 5 on a VCR, jump with a skipping rope in the kitchen (not allowed to do that at home).
In 2002, my Nanny suffered a severe stroke in the nighttime and from then on had to be cared for in hospitals and care homes. My Grandad spent another two years living in Churchfield alone, until he was convinced to move to a flat closer to us. The day Grandad moved they dismantled the greenhouse and he told me he had found something under the concrete. He placed a tiny mouse skeleton in the palm of my hand and I cried fat angry tears. I discovered the Smarties I'd been eating had gone out of date in 1999. Grandad's 97 now and still living in that flat.
It's been over ten years since I have been in that house and I've obviously done a lot of growing up since - it annoys me that I can't quite remember little details about the house (was the carpet really pink?). 18 Churchfield has continued to be present in my mind, however, and never more so than when I read fiction.
It's strange, I know, and probably telling of how unimaginative I am, but so many books I read are set in that house. From the age of ten, that living room would repeatedly prop up in mind as a setting for a character's home. I imagined families that weren't mine sitting around that dining table (the same table was my desk throughout secondary school).
For example, Callum's house in the whole Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman is set at my grandparent's house. Even though Churchfields doesn't fit Blackman's brief, I made it so it did. I bent the dimensions of the house in my head, and my grandparent's narrow hallway was stretched into this imaginary family's living room.
So many books, short stories and moments in poems take me back to that house, or rather I map that house onto these texts. It is something I assumed I would grow out of, when the house and my experiences there would slowly slip from my memory. But again, at 20 years old reading Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo last year, I imagine the main character Barry to be sat at my grandparent's dining table with his wife's Antiguan friends, eating Caribbean food. In my grandparent's living room I had replaced their burgundy furniture with Barry's white leather suite covered in plastic. I had transported this Harlow house into East London.
But why does this house appear so prominently in my imagination? We of course all use our bank of memories to construct fictional worlds, but why this house? Perhaps I spent my most imaginative years visiting 18 Churchfield, and it's structure has been glued to my mind ever since. Perhaps it was my young mind's way of making sure I did not forget this house which I loved?
Does this happen to anyone else, I wonder? Do settings repeat themselves in your mind between texts?
Friday, 6 March 2015
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Literary Links I Love 22.02.15
Can Fifty Shades really be considered in the context of centuries of literary theory?! Think again.
Jean Rhys' novel is muse to Suno designers.
3. A Guy Found A Homeless Man Reading The Same Book Over And Over For Months So He Gave Him His Kindle
In praise of Ereaders!
Accurate right now!
The mystery of the lost Sherlock story!
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Literary Links I Love 03.02.2015
Why Gone Girl? Why Not Gone Woman?
(Publishing Perspectives)
#ReviewWomen2015: It's Time To Take Commercial Fiction Seriously
(Huffington Post)
The top 10 stories of mothers and daughters
(Guardian)
A Short History of the Word 'Serendipity'
(interestingliterature.com)
(Publishing Perspectives)
#ReviewWomen2015: It's Time To Take Commercial Fiction Seriously
(Huffington Post)
The top 10 stories of mothers and daughters
(Guardian)
A Short History of the Word 'Serendipity'
(interestingliterature.com)
Sunday, 25 January 2015
Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj (Verso Books)
Four years ago, I visited Russia on a school organised trip. I was studying Russian history for my A Levels at the time, and I jumped at the chance to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg. We visited many landmarks in the two cities, including the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. I remember being so impressed by this looming structure set against a crisp blue sky, naive to the way it symbolised the hierarchical nature of the Orthodox Church and its ideological investment in the Kremlin leadership (Introduction, Michel Eltchaninoff).
After I returned, I liked to smugly yell 'Been there!' at the TV every time the Kremlin came up on the news. Then Pussy Riot caused a storm in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2012, and I yelled 'Been there!' again.
Fast forward a few years and I've spent the last week getting trains back and forth from Nottingham to visit family before university lectures kick up again. My train reading this week has been Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj (2014), a slim volume of correspondence between Slovenian philosopher Žižek Slavoj and Nadya Tolokonnikova, a Pussy Riot member imprisoned for hooliganism following that performance in the cathedral. In spite of international protest, Tolokonnikova spent over a year in prison.
Prior to the letters, Tolokonnikova's account of prison conditions, and her reasons for going on hunger strike because of these conditions, portrays the shocking realities of Russian prison for women. Forced to work in a sweatshop making police officers' uniform, female prisoners work sixteen to seventeen hours a day and live in constant fear of resisting the prison's orders. If you were to ask for more than four hours sleep per night, you would be humiliated by prison officers. There were times when prisoners were not allowed to go to the bathroom or eat and drink if a warden disagreed with one prisoner's request or behaviour. Worked to exhaustion, the female prisoners alongside Tolokonnikova were easily manipulated and would turn against each other. Before she arrived, Tolokonnikova mentions in the chapter, prisoners beat a fellow inmate and she later died in the prison's infimary.
With these horrific conditions in mind, it is amazing how Tolokonnikova could maintain such insightful levels of thought in her exchange of letters with Slavoj. Many of the letters give the reader an internal look at the philosophy behind Pussy Riot's protest and you get a sense that Slavoj acknowledges Tolokonnikova as his equal. He appears to admire her, for her actions outside of prison and her thoughts cast into letters from inside of prison. Slavoj appears to be truly caring towards her political cause and well-being, sometimes asking personal questions that Tolokonnikova leaves unanswered, choosing to not dwell on her condition but determined to write about what inspires her philosophy.
Despite the linguistic barriers set against these correspondents, this volume is touching and leaves the reader with an inspired sense of urgency.
After I returned, I liked to smugly yell 'Been there!' at the TV every time the Kremlin came up on the news. Then Pussy Riot caused a storm in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2012, and I yelled 'Been there!' again.
Fast forward a few years and I've spent the last week getting trains back and forth from Nottingham to visit family before university lectures kick up again. My train reading this week has been Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj (2014), a slim volume of correspondence between Slovenian philosopher Žižek Slavoj and Nadya Tolokonnikova, a Pussy Riot member imprisoned for hooliganism following that performance in the cathedral. In spite of international protest, Tolokonnikova spent over a year in prison.
Prior to the letters, Tolokonnikova's account of prison conditions, and her reasons for going on hunger strike because of these conditions, portrays the shocking realities of Russian prison for women. Forced to work in a sweatshop making police officers' uniform, female prisoners work sixteen to seventeen hours a day and live in constant fear of resisting the prison's orders. If you were to ask for more than four hours sleep per night, you would be humiliated by prison officers. There were times when prisoners were not allowed to go to the bathroom or eat and drink if a warden disagreed with one prisoner's request or behaviour. Worked to exhaustion, the female prisoners alongside Tolokonnikova were easily manipulated and would turn against each other. Before she arrived, Tolokonnikova mentions in the chapter, prisoners beat a fellow inmate and she later died in the prison's infimary.
With these horrific conditions in mind, it is amazing how Tolokonnikova could maintain such insightful levels of thought in her exchange of letters with Slavoj. Many of the letters give the reader an internal look at the philosophy behind Pussy Riot's protest and you get a sense that Slavoj acknowledges Tolokonnikova as his equal. He appears to admire her, for her actions outside of prison and her thoughts cast into letters from inside of prison. Slavoj appears to be truly caring towards her political cause and well-being, sometimes asking personal questions that Tolokonnikova leaves unanswered, choosing to not dwell on her condition but determined to write about what inspires her philosophy.
Despite the linguistic barriers set against these correspondents, this volume is touching and leaves the reader with an inspired sense of urgency.
Literary Links I Love 25.01.15
Some articles that have caught my eye this week...
1) This Character From 'Wolf Hall' Looks Just Like Edna Mode From 'The Incredibles' (BuzzFeed)
2) 17 Signs You Like Books More Than People (Her Campus)
3) Why Asymptote Matters Today (asymptotejournal.com)
1) This Character From 'Wolf Hall' Looks Just Like Edna Mode From 'The Incredibles' (BuzzFeed)
2) 17 Signs You Like Books More Than People (Her Campus)
3) Why Asymptote Matters Today (asymptotejournal.com)
Sunday, 18 January 2015
Literary Links I Love 18.01.15
A new blog series! The most fascinating, funny, thought-provoking articles about literature and publishing I've stumbled across this week.
1. Burned - The White-Hot Deaths of 8 Literary Movements
Source: interestingliterature.com
2. The Strange and Brilliant Fiction of Hilary Mantel
Source: Guardian
3. Who Said 'The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword?'
Source: interestingliterarure.com
4. 24 Things No One Tells You About Book Publishing
Source: buzzfeed.com
1. Burned - The White-Hot Deaths of 8 Literary Movements
Source: interestingliterature.com
2. The Strange and Brilliant Fiction of Hilary Mantel
Source: Guardian
3. Who Said 'The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword?'
Source: interestingliterarure.com
4. 24 Things No One Tells You About Book Publishing
Source: buzzfeed.com
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
My Favourite Books of 2014
Admittedly, it's been a while. I've been brimming with ideas for this here blog but with the avalanche of commitments that rudely fell upon me at the beginning of September (e.g. big-scary-final-year-student-things-gross), The Old Curiosity Blog was set aside reluctantly. Determined to get back into the swing of things, I thought I'd write a little something about my favourite books of 2014 (with a particular focus on new books that have been published in 2013/14).
Consider this a shortlist of my favourites - the books that made me laugh, think, and admire the writers for their ability to create characters with voices that launch off the pages.
1. Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
With her acting background and experience as a poet, Evaristo's mix of lively, vibrant dialogue and beautifully lyrical moments makes Mr. Loverman a striking read. This novel follows Barrington, an elderly member of the Caribbean community of Hackney, living with his religious wife of 50 plus years, who has kept a secret for most of his life. He is homosexual, and has been having an affair with his soulmate, Maurice, since childhood.
I fell in love with Barrington - for his wit, for his ability to shock, for his way of talking - and I read this novel with a pang of sadness in my stomach that I would eventually have to finish it and leave Barrington's colourful world behind. That said, there are moments in the book where Barrington can strain your willingness to love him - Evaristo does not create a victim of circumstance. She makes you question the impact of Barrington's double life on his wife, and her missed opportunities at receiving love.
2. Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood
Although I've never read Hemingway, my nosey nature drew me to this book. It cleverly traces the pattern of mistress to marriage to mistress to marriage throughout Ernest Hemingway's life, giving voice to the women who had all, at one point, become Mrs Hemingway. For Hadley Richardson, the first Mrs Hemingway, I felt a surge of sympathy; so much so that when I read about Fife (Pauline Pfeiffer, the soon-to-be Mrs), I wanted to protect Hadley from the oncoming heartbreak. It's a feeling that does not last; each woman that comes into Hemingway's life charms you and makes you want to guide them away from the inevitable damage their marriage will bring. Wood's novel made me question my loyalty to these characters; am I cheating on the current Mrs Hemingway by warming to the woman that will take her place?
3. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
This is a book that has received a huge amount of hype, and I'm glad to say it has not disappointed. It croons Dunham's voice, and her ability in the HBO series Girls to depict the unsettling to the hilarious comes through in this book. Not That Kind of Girl should spark questions in the reader and bring out conversations to share with others. What I have "learned" from the book is a whole other matter (and a whole other blog post, coming soon).
4. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Speaking of books with a hype, The Miniaturist has dominated this year's bestseller lists and was recently announced as the Waterstones Book of the Year. Early on in the summer break from university, I was doing work experience placements in the publishing industry, and there seemed to be a buzz about this book in the various offices I worked at. Curious, I started reading the book on the commute to and from London. The Miniaturist transported me away from the those boring commutes. It maintained mystery, and as a reader I felt the same sense of eagerness to unlock the secrets of the Miniaturist as the protagonist, Nella. At times I felt the repairing of Nella and Johannes' relationship was rushed in the scheme of the novel, and I felt the reveal of the Miniaturist's circumstances could have gone further.
5. All the Days and Nights by Niven Govinden
Over the summer I was asked to review Govinden's latest novel for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, and you can read the article here. All the Days and Nights tells the story of a dying artist and her muse-and-husband in the final months of her life; we see their relationship strain under the pressures of illness and her obsession to make art, and his escape to track down the portraits he sat for over the course of their marriage. I have included it on this list because I happened to read this book at a difficult point in my year, and this novel guided me through the difficulties of grief. I guess it proved that sometimes it's the time in your life in which you read a book that makes it all the more special.
Consider this a shortlist of my favourites - the books that made me laugh, think, and admire the writers for their ability to create characters with voices that launch off the pages.
1. Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
With her acting background and experience as a poet, Evaristo's mix of lively, vibrant dialogue and beautifully lyrical moments makes Mr. Loverman a striking read. This novel follows Barrington, an elderly member of the Caribbean community of Hackney, living with his religious wife of 50 plus years, who has kept a secret for most of his life. He is homosexual, and has been having an affair with his soulmate, Maurice, since childhood.
I fell in love with Barrington - for his wit, for his ability to shock, for his way of talking - and I read this novel with a pang of sadness in my stomach that I would eventually have to finish it and leave Barrington's colourful world behind. That said, there are moments in the book where Barrington can strain your willingness to love him - Evaristo does not create a victim of circumstance. She makes you question the impact of Barrington's double life on his wife, and her missed opportunities at receiving love.
2. Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood
Although I've never read Hemingway, my nosey nature drew me to this book. It cleverly traces the pattern of mistress to marriage to mistress to marriage throughout Ernest Hemingway's life, giving voice to the women who had all, at one point, become Mrs Hemingway. For Hadley Richardson, the first Mrs Hemingway, I felt a surge of sympathy; so much so that when I read about Fife (Pauline Pfeiffer, the soon-to-be Mrs), I wanted to protect Hadley from the oncoming heartbreak. It's a feeling that does not last; each woman that comes into Hemingway's life charms you and makes you want to guide them away from the inevitable damage their marriage will bring. Wood's novel made me question my loyalty to these characters; am I cheating on the current Mrs Hemingway by warming to the woman that will take her place?
3. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
This is a book that has received a huge amount of hype, and I'm glad to say it has not disappointed. It croons Dunham's voice, and her ability in the HBO series Girls to depict the unsettling to the hilarious comes through in this book. Not That Kind of Girl should spark questions in the reader and bring out conversations to share with others. What I have "learned" from the book is a whole other matter (and a whole other blog post, coming soon).
4. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Speaking of books with a hype, The Miniaturist has dominated this year's bestseller lists and was recently announced as the Waterstones Book of the Year. Early on in the summer break from university, I was doing work experience placements in the publishing industry, and there seemed to be a buzz about this book in the various offices I worked at. Curious, I started reading the book on the commute to and from London. The Miniaturist transported me away from the those boring commutes. It maintained mystery, and as a reader I felt the same sense of eagerness to unlock the secrets of the Miniaturist as the protagonist, Nella. At times I felt the repairing of Nella and Johannes' relationship was rushed in the scheme of the novel, and I felt the reveal of the Miniaturist's circumstances could have gone further.
5. All the Days and Nights by Niven Govinden
Over the summer I was asked to review Govinden's latest novel for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, and you can read the article here. All the Days and Nights tells the story of a dying artist and her muse-and-husband in the final months of her life; we see their relationship strain under the pressures of illness and her obsession to make art, and his escape to track down the portraits he sat for over the course of their marriage. I have included it on this list because I happened to read this book at a difficult point in my year, and this novel guided me through the difficulties of grief. I guess it proved that sometimes it's the time in your life in which you read a book that makes it all the more special.
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