A Valediction to Seamus Heaney

In the empty classroom,
The dust specks settle.                                                                              

Ink dries, paper stains.                                                                            

The great poet comes before us.
His carefully chosen nouns chiming out                                                      

Sense and wisdom.
Speaking in weighted nuance of the everyday,
With truth unblinking. 

Lost boy, watching child, 

They of the measled shins and dipping knives

Old man with papery skin

The girl, the mother, the wife.

These whisping ghosts take to the air.  

They climb the walls,

Casting shadows so long
That nothing else remains. 

But the tense has changed. 

The story makes to its end.                                                                                               

And as the last bell rings out,
It is safe to leave, unseen.                                                                    

Knowing as the door closes,                                                                      

What rises up within.

Up.

Up. 

Passing   

Changing

Everlasting. 

by M. Burrowes

The Secret Passion of Jane Austen

Something that I cannot understand is why the Bronte sisters did not like Jane Austen, Emily especially. She felt that Austen lacked passion and her female characters lacked spirit. But a close reading of Austen's novels reveal how many of her female characters are fighting against the norms of the day and are trying to find a balance between living within society and being accepted as a lady in that world, and being true to their own desires and passions. 
Lizzy, in Pride and Prejudice, P&P, is nothing if not passionate when she reels against Lady Catherine de Burgh's admonishments. When she tells her that she has nothing more to say to her and must beg to return to the house, it is tantamount to social suicide. 
In fact it is just what a young Catherine Earnshaw would have done in Wuthering Heights. Similarly Lizzy's refusal of both Mr Collins and Mr Darcy showed that Elizabeth Bennet was equally willful, refusing to bend to her mother's will. 
And then we have the Dashwood girls, Marianne and Eleanor, who resemble something like the two sides of the same coin, one being wildly passionate and carefree, the other being more sensible and cautious in all things. 

Here, with these two characters  Austen openly debates how difficult it was for women of her day to deal with emotions of passion, and yet display the decorum that society insisted upon. And here we have a crucial point. The careless passion displayed by both Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, for example, or indeed by Rochester and to an extent Jane in Jane Eyre, was only possible because they were living in secluded rural communities in the middle of nowhere. Austen's heroine's on the other hand have to contend with life altering passions and emotions in the midst of society, be it in London, or in Lambton. 

Jane Bennet does not run off to the nearest cave to reveal her true feelings to Mr Bingley as Cathy does with Heathcliff No, here's is a much more difficult plight, for she must restrain herself, and disguise her deep feelings, even at times, to her sister Elizabeth. The fact that she cares deeply for Bingley and suffers a great deal when he spurns her cannot be, for a moment doubted. 

A similar situation arises for Marianne Dashwood, who must suffer the consequences of exposing her emotions too freely. She actually comes close to death, her spirits having been brought so low by her uncontrolled passion for the inconstant Willoughby. So it could, in fact, be argued that the heroines in Austen's novels are just as passionate as those in the Bronte novels, suffering equally for their passion. Just because Austen's characters must display decorum, it does not mean that they do not or are not capable of, feeling passion. 
As Austen sees it, you may feel the passion, but must learn to control it. We know this because of Austen's depiction of Marianne Dashwood, who lives to regret her unbridled display of love for Willoughby.
By Michelle Burrowes

Transatlantic ~ by Colum McCann

'Transatlantic' is a novel that sparks.
Colum McCann tells the story of a group of characters, all linked in some way, though they live in different periods of history.  So, we have a black, runaway slave turned abolitionist preacher;  a passenger on board a famine ship; a daring pilot making the first transatlantic crossing in an airplane; a politician trying to make a difference in the Troubles of Northern Ireland; a mother coping with the loss of her home as the bank repossess her house. Each character has a  riveting story to tell, but what I find most interesting, and indeed inspiring about this book, is the poetic way in which the author shapes their stories.  

Like the Irish landscape itself, the book's structure resembles that of a patchwork quilt; a text made up of small, individually sound sections, each one connected to the others by interwoven threads, their tones and colours impinging on those nearest to them, yet all possessing a matching tone that suggest Ireland.  Indeed, if these stories were to be given a colour, to represent the nationality of the main characters in each, and were then laid out side by side, I suggest that they would create the Irish flag:  green, for the the Catholics, white for the neutral Americans and orange, for the Protestants.  Ireland is the theme of the book, and Ireland is spelled out across every page, in the language, the imagery and even the structure.  

McCann sets out to analyse what it is to be Irish and recreates a sense of that reality, not in a arbitrary way, of statement followed by statement.  As the rule goes, a writer should not tell but show, and here McCann does precisely that:  he shows, through the senses, through imagery, what it is to be Irish.  Instead of preaching about the horrors of the Great Famine, he shows us the young, starving mother, cradling a dead child amid a bundle of rags, begging desperately for food to feed the child, denying that all hope is gone. The child is already dead. One tiny, grey arm, flops out at the passing gentry, as if begging still; ghost-like, way past starvation, an assault on moral decency, reminding us all of the horror that took place.

There is no need to show us hoards of starving people: one tiny, outstretched arm will suffice.  One image is enough to convey to the reader what starvation does to a mother, a country, a nation.  Like a poet, McCann places before us an array of startling images, each one working on so many levels, yet sparse in their way.

The overall effect is to create something that is uniquely Irish and fresh, making this mostly historical text feel very contemporary. I think McCann manages this by submerging the text in echoes and filling it with mirrors. For example; one story relates the death of a boy on a lake by the family home in Northern Ireland, while another describes the tragic demise of a father and his sons on a frozen lake in North America.  While each story happens miles apart, one impacts upon the other, changing it in some way.

We see this mirroring effect again when we read about three long walks that take place in the book; one from Dublin to Cork where a famine ship awaits; another across miles of pitiless ground, during the American Civil War, in search of a soldier son; and lastly a modern journey, sometimes by car, sometimes on foot, from Northern Ireland to the south, looking for a home, or the promise of one.   While these journeys are important in themselves,  taken together, they speak of a people constantly on the move, in search of something better, and prepared to do whatever it takes to survive.

Of course this image of humanity on the move reminds us of displaced people all around the world. especially during times of famine and war.  In this way, McCann cleverly approaches his themes by visually layering imagery.  Indeed, how can one tell the story of Ireland without discussing the often hackneyed topics of famine and war. But by using this original approach, the author requires the reader to make the connections and draw their own conclusions.

For me such mirroring of imagery and meaning is best explained when we consider the pivotal arrival of black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, towards the beginning of the book, arriving in Ireland in 1848, just as the Irish Famine began and the image of a likewise venerated Barack Obama near the book's end.  Both men appear to mark a huge shift in the world's thinking, offering hope against prejudice and hatred. It cannot be simply a mere coincidence that McCann brings these two images together.   Perhaps it was the similarity between the two events which was the imaginative starting point to this extraordinary text.

The book deals with migration and eviction, past and present, one caused by famine, the other by greedy bankers, and all the things that make us Irish - prejudice, war, hunger.  It seems that we are continuous beleaguered by the same tragedies.  Yet, through it all, women are at the coal face, struggling through and surviving. McCann seems to be saying that the survival of the Irish race is dependent on Irish women, making strong parallels between the female supporters of the abolitionist movement in Victorian Ireland and the Women's Alliance in Northern Ireland during the negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement, and noting the enduring power that can be found in a cup of tea.

Images spark off other images to create new meanings in this book, as McCann bridges the gap between novelist and poet.  Like Heaney's most recent publication, 'Human Chain', McCann writes of the links that unite us, not only today, but forwards into the future, back the the past and even, sideways, beyond time and space. I urge you to read this book, especially if you are Irish: it may teach you a thing or two about who you are and what it truly means to wear that sprig of shamrock on St. Patrick's Day.  It certainly did me.

By Michelle Burrowes

Available on Etsy!

May Lou and Cass - Jane Austen's Nieces in Ireland ~by Sophia Hillan

'May, Lou and Cass - Jane Austen's Nieces in Ireland', by Sopha Hillan, is an extraordinary book about one of the world's favourite authors and her connection with Ireland, generally, and Donegal, specifically.   This book charts the life of Jane Austen and her association with the Knight family, her brother's children.  Of course, these children should have inherited the famous 'Austen' surname, were it not for the fact that Jane's elder brother, Edward, was adopted by wealthy cousins who had no child of their own to inherit their fortune and large estate at Godmersham in Hampshire.   A stipulation of the inheritance agreement required that Edward take the name of Knight for his own, which he duly did.  

This book follows the lives of the Knight children, some of whom were very close to their spinster aunt who lived near their large house at Chawton.  Jane was often called upon to help care for the large number of Knight nieces and nephews, when their mother was expecting a child, for example, but especially when Mrs Knight died suddenly and unexpectedly,  just weeks after having given birth to her last baby.  

Jane's letters to her relatives reveal a great deal to us about her, her letters to her eldest niece Fanny especially.  However, what I found most interesting about this book was the uncanny way that the plot lines of Jane Austen's novels mirrored, so exactly, the future lives of her relatives, particularly those of her nieces, Marianne, Cassandra and Louisa Knight.  Indeed, because their aunt was long dead when some of these events occurred, one might be forgiven for surmising that Austen was some kind of clairvoyant.  But I think not; it is just a case of life imitating art and uncannily so.  

Like Anne Elliot, one niece falls in love and becomes engaged, only to face serious censure from  her family and that of her beloved. The engagement is terminated, then unexpectedly rekindled, eight years later, just as she is preparing to marry another man.  The similarity to her Austen's novel,  'Persuasion',  is unmistakable.  

Then there is the secret elopement, in the style of Lydia Bennet, but this time the marriage does indeed take place in Gretna Green.  The similarities are considerable, and are cleverly detailed by Sophia Hillan.  Again and again, she finds parallels between Austen's novels and the lives of her extended family, much to the delight of her readers.

Hillan also tells the story in chapters, each one beginning with a scene from an Austen novel, which perfectly reflects the theme of the chapter.  In this way, the text is very focused, yet feels not like a work of non-fiction at all, but something akin to a novel itself.  Character after character is shown to have lead a life stranger than fiction, making this book very difficult to put down.  Anyone who I have spoken to about this book has said that they read the book in only a couple of days, and I found that I too read it continuously.  
For me, the sections that dealt with Donegal were particularly interesting, especially since I was visiting in that part of Ireland at the time, which really brought the book to life in my imagination.  As an Irish woman, I was very surprised to learn that three of Austen's nieces came to live and be buried in County Donegal, with a grand-niece being born there in fact, who was fluent in Irish and was very much involved with the local community.  

This text is full of historical references and facts, and must be applauded for its attention to detail.  However, one need not have an knowledge of Irish history to understand the cultural context of the book, as Hillan expertly fills in much of the necessary background information on the period for her readers.  Jane Austen herself famously fell in love with a young Irish man who later left England, to settle in Ireland and became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.  Whether or not he left her with a good impression of the Irish, we will never know, but she did once famously warn her niece, who was writing a novel of her own, to beware of writing about life in Ireland,especially when one did not know what style of manners they had there.  Regardless, it is clear that her nieces adapted to their lives in Donegal and brought something of the Austen refinement and sensitivity with them when they came.  

If you like Jane Austen, and are interested in the strange lives of those long gone, I urge you to read this book.  It will have you amazed and bemused at the strangeness and sometimes cruelty of life, and more than anything, it will make you realise how grateful we, as women, should be to live in this century, with the power to determine how and where we live, whom we love and marry, and how we earn our own living.  Times have certainly changed since Jane Austen and her nieces were alive, and I believe all would be glad to learn of how life has changed for many women in today's world, and thankfully much for the better.  

By Michelle Burrowes

Instructions for a Heatwave ~ by Maggie O'Farrell

Flicking through these pages was like taking a stroll down a familiar path, into the past.  This latest novel, by Maggie O'Farrell, is about a family, called the Riordans - an unusual choice of name, considering that it was the name of a long-running tv drama that ran throughout the 1970s on Irish television, something akin to the BBCs 'Emmerdale Farm'.  Perhaps the author did this intentionally, because theirs is a very Irish family, complete with suffocating mother, sexual repression, religious fervor and fiery tempers.  (Please forgive any unintentional stereotyping, I speak as I find!).  The fact that this particular family actually live in London is quite surprising, considering how Irish they still are.
O'Farrell picks a particularly hot summer, 1976, in which to set her story, adding stress to the predicament that the family finds themselves in.  Mr Riordan, has disappeared and the children, who, for various reasons, are not as close as they once were, must return to the family home and face each other and their past, to work together to find him.
The idea is quite simple, but with the added element of the relentless heat, the old Riordan homestead begins to resemble something of a pressure-cooker, about to explode at any moment. In this way, the text could be easily adapted to the stage, and is reminiscent of Tennessee Williams's 'Cat on a Hot Tim Roof', in places.  She cleverly uses language to re-create the heat on that infamous year, writing long, meandering sentences that force the reader to slow down, as she evokes the stifled atmosphere of summer:

 'But now the grass is a scorched ochre, the bare earth showing through, and the trees offer up limp leaves to the unmoving air, as if in reproach.' 

(O'Farrell, Maggie)

She also uses her prose style to create the character of one of the Riordan daughters, Aoife.  This, the youngest of the three children, cannot read and was always a 'problem' child.  The author is not explicit, maybe intentionally so, but it is clear that Aoife has some sort of intense, sensual relationship with the world. Perhaps she is autistic, perhaps not, but she loves libraries and books, not for their words, but because she likes to touch their covers and look at their visual images.  When she looks at words, they jump out at her and attack her.  O'Farrell brilliantly describes her return to the old home in the highly visual style of Virginia Woolf.

'And yet here she is. Here is the row of trees, roots rupturing the paving slabs. Here are the tiled front paths. Here is the triangular-capped concrete wall that runs along the fronts of five houses. She knows without putting her hand on it the exact rasping, grainy texture of the concrete, how it would feel to try to sit on its unyielding, unfriendly ridge, the way the inevitable slide off it would catch and mark the fabric of your serge school skirt.' 

(O'Farrell, Maggie)

 Here O'Farrell brings us right inside Aoife's head by describing the way she experiences the world, through her senses.  This was the most enjoyable aspects of the novel for me.  I also liked the way she described the inner-life of Michael Francis, the only son in the family.  He continually disguises his true feelings and says and does things that he did not mean to say and do.  In this way, it make him a very likable character, who, just like his father, keeps his true self locked up.  Of course, the reason why these characters repress their true emotions becomes clear as the story is revealed and family secrets begin to reveal themselves.

The 1970s setting of the story really appealed to me, surprisingly so, and the whole ambiance of the novel was strangely familiar.  Because of this, I would recommend this book to my friends, especially any who grew up in the 1970s, and especially who are Irish, or have an Irish mother.  This is a fine summer read - buy it for your sisters and girlfriends and  take a trip down memory lane together.

By Michelle Burrowes

Painting the Darkness ~ by Robert Goddard

'Painting the Darkness' is a novel about identity and family, set in the late Victorian period.  The premise is simple, and very compelling: a man, James Davenall, who everyone thought was dead, suddenly reappears after eleven years, surprising his family and especially the girl who had once planned to marry him, Constance Trenchard.  Of course her new husband, Willian Trenchard, instantly distrusts the prodigal son, and sets out to prove that he is a fraud.  His family refuse to recognise him, as does his doctor, old school friends, and even his mother.  Only his old nanny believes that he is who he claims to be.

The plot is complicated by the fact that the stranger is very knowledgeable about many facts and secrets that only the true James Davenall could have known, so, just like Constance, the reader begins to believe that James truly was not driven to suicide on the eve of his wedding, as was originally believed.  How can he know so much and NOT be James Davenall?  If he can prove his case, he will inherit a huge fortune and a position of high social rank.  But most important of all, to him and the reader, is whether or not will he convince Constance to leave her husband and young child, and return to him, the only man she ever truly loved.

The appeal of this story is obvious, but most surprising is the beautiful, eloquent language that Goddard uses to tell his tale.  For example:

 'A moment later came the brief yellow flare of a match, a faint sigh of pleasure at the first inhalation, then the sound of his footsteps as he moved away, a mobile shadow in the stationary night, leaving only a drift of smoke and an acrid scent among the moon-blanched leaves.' 

Every line is phrased for its musical affect on the ear, which is why the audiobook version of this novel, read by the masterful Michael Kitchen, is a treat indeed.

 If you enjoyed the 'family mystery' genre of authors such as Kate Morton or Natasha Solomons, then you will love this book.  Every generation of the Davenall family have an horrific secret hidden away, as do most of the minor characters.  The fun is unraveling their mysteries, page by page.
 
Moreover, the plot of this text is never predictable or run of the mill.  Goddard spins a web of interrelated connections and links, that will require you to pay close attention from the word go.  In this, he always goes for the unexpected option, changing narrative point of view if he must, to take the reader places, and engender feelings, that we never expect to feel.  Do we want the stranger to be the real James Davenall?  Do we want Constance to give up everything to be with him?  Can she live up to her name and be constant to her husband?
Or do we side with the narrator, the hard-done-by husband, William Trenchard?  There are countless other characters, each with their own stash of secrets, providing countless subplots to keep even the most demanding reader guessing til the very last page.  Indeed, this is a book that I wanted to go on forever, the best testament for a book, I believe.  So please, do not be put off by the novel's non-descript title, the one over-sight by Goddard and his publishers, and give this delicious book a try.
By Michelle Burrowes

Agnes Grey ~ by Anne Brontë

'Shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I...will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend.'  Thus proclaims the novel's protagonist, Agnes Grey, in the first paragraph of the novel of the same name.

Author Anne Brontë is often over-looked by modern readers, and I must admit to being such a one, until now.
After spending a weekend reading her first novel, I can easily declare that she is a writer equal to, and deserving of, the admiration often only the preserve of her sisters, Emily and Charlotte.

The story recounts the experiences of Agnes Grey, the novel's narrator, who indeed, 'candidly and honestly' relates her experiences as a governess in the North of England.  And here is where Anne Brontë differs from her sisters, in the veracity of her tale.  Not that Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre lack truth or insight, but rather Agnes Grey reads more like a piece of non-fiction than fiction.

Anne Brontë spent five years working as a governess, a fact easily gleaned from the pages of her book.  She presents the reader with tiny details of the daily activities, fears and responsibilities of one who lived among her employers, but not as one of them.  At the outset, Agnes declares that she wants to be a teacher, to influence the minds of her pupils and direct them in the ways of good behaviour.  But she fails to foresee how she will be perceived in the eyes of the families she will administer to.  Repeatedly, she is regarded as little more than a servant, her own needs and desires playing second fiddle to the whims of her selfish charges.  In this way, the novel contains a sense of injustice that is in common in the books written by her sisters.

It is clear that the events that she relates are based on fact: the arguments at the homes of her employers, their treatment of one another and herself too, all sound so real as to be better placed in the genre of autobiography.  There is one scene, in particular, which tells of a disagreement between husband and wife over the quality of the beef supper.  Mr Bloomfield declares that the meat is too tough.  Mrs Bloomfield retorts that the cook is to blame.  He counters that she cannot be much of a wife if she leaves all such domestic matters to the whim of a mere cook!  Despite all his complaints, he still manages to eat a few mouthfuls.
I like to believe that Brontë was inspired to write this scene by the memories of a real event and I take even greater delight in imagining how the man and woman in question, Anne Brontë's former employers, must have been so scandalised and horrified to read of themselves in the novel by their old, hopeless, governess.  Little did they suspect that the world would soon learn of their selfish pettiness.
The first few chapters do not read like a novel at all, but a diary.  It is not until she leaves the Bloomfields and moves to a situation some miles from her home place, that the book takes on the tones of a novel, in the truest sense.  Agnes's mother seeks out a position for her daughter in the upper classes of society, and so our heroine goes to live with the Murray family.  At Horton Lodge, she mixes with the very wealthy and discovers that here too, people think very little of paid subordinates.  She is chaperon and teacher to Miss Rosalie Murray and her sister Matilda, both of whom have little interest in learning.  While one sister prefers the company of grooms and curses like a trooper, the other delights in teasing local, respectable men, with her tantalising beauty and winning ways.  Agnes's plainness and honestly come into even clearer focus when in their company.
In this elegant society, the narrative style is more in keeping with that of Jane Austen than the Brontë sisters, although the hero of the piece is neither a Darcy, nor a Rochester, nor a Heathcliff indeed!  Anne (and Agnes's) choice of hero is small in stature and not at all handsome:

'In stature he was a little, a very little, above the middle size; the outline of his face would be pronounced too square for beauty, but to me it announced decision of character... but from under those dark brows there gleamed an eye of singular power, brown in colour, not large, and somewhat deep–set, but strikingly brilliant, and full of expression...'

Given the same name as a character from two Austen novels, Mr Weston is a respectable curate, and not at all unlike many of Austen's leading men.  There are no brooding, tormented, high-born men riding out of the mist for Anne Brontë.  Her choice of hero is a good, Christian man, who visits the sick, is charitable to the poor and kind to animals.  A character more unlike the Byronic Heathcliff there could not be.  The feelings that that slowly develop between the unassuming Agnes and Mr Weston is every bit as fragile and tender as the primroses that he gives her when out walking.  But is happiness in store for Agnes?  That I cannot tell you.  But I will recount how much Agnes desires it.  She prays:

 'I have lived nearly three-and-twenty years, and I have suffered much, and tasted little pleasure yet; is it likely my life all through will be so clouded?  Is it not possible that God may hear my prayers, disperse these gloomy shadows, and grant me some beams of heaven’s sunshine yet?  Will He entirely deny to me those blessings which are so freely given to others, who neither ask them nor acknowledge them when received?  May I not still hope and trust? '

 What I find so moving about this piece of prose is how it relates to Anne Brontë in real life.  What a tragedy to know that none of life's little pleasures came true for Anne, nor her sister Emily either.  They did not find love, were not married and did not bear children.  Indeed, they never found independence in a home of their own.  One can see from this passage how desperately Anne desired these simple things.
Her interest in the position of women in Victorian society is clear from the plot line of the novel.  It begins with Agnes's mother, Mrs Grey, who turns her back on a privileged life, for the sake of love.  Agnes relates that her mother, 'would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in the world.'  But the story goes on to relate how the daughters of Mrs Grey were the ones to bear the brunt of such a decision, having little income to live on as they got older.

 Then Brontë considers the plight of the wealthier women in society. Mrs Bloomfield is ignored and disparaged by her husband in turns, for being a bad mother and a woeful housekeeper.  Mrs Murray has little sway over her daughters behaviour, but it is her daughter Rosalee's fate, that Brontë plays particular attention to.  The author notes how Miss Murray's only desire is to be mistress of  Ashby Park, caring little for her husband, Lord Ashby.  Her mercenary feelings on the subject of marriage ultimately come back to haunt her.  She indeed does come to live at the great house, but is imprisoned there by her husband who distrusts her flirtatious temperament and is fearful of scandal.
The irony is that while Agnes is  free to come and go as she pleases, the once beautiful Miss Murray, now the wilting Lady Ashby, is not.  What is Brontë, then, saying about the institution of marriage?   I believe that she means to warn young women about the dangers of giving away their liberty too easily, without first taking stock of the man to who they will be legally and spiritually tethered, all the days of their life.  Indeed, the novel begins with this honest statement about her reasons for writing the book ...

'All true histories contain instruction...I sometimes think it might prove useful to some...'   

Here is the sentiment at the heart of the entire novel:   Brontë is trying to teach, to instruct, and the moral she means to impart is that women do have choices to make, however limited they might be.  Where Austen might say, 'by all means marry for love, but take care that you marry a man of good fortune', Brontë seems to believe that marrying for love is the right thing to do, and that monetary cares will not be so burdensome when shared with those you love.  

Brontë has also much to say about beauty in this text.  She states unequivocally that the doling out of beauty to one person, but not another, is a fact of life, and that there are clear advantages to being so well-favoured.

'If a woman is fair and amiable, she is praised for both qualities, but especially the former, by the bulk of mankind: if, on the other hand, she is disagreeable in person and character, her plainness is commonly inveighed against as her greatest crime...'

And then she makes a moving plea for the case of one not blessed by beauty, using the metaphor of a glow-worm to press her point.  

'As well might the humble glowworm despise that power of giving light without which the roving fly might pass her and repass her a thousand times, and never rest beside her: she might hear her winged darling buzzing over and around her; he vainly seeking her, she longing to be found, but with no power to make her presence known, no voice to call him, no wings to follow his flight;—the fly must seek another mate, the worm must live and die alone.'

This description of a woman passed over because no one noticed how much love she had to give, is all the more poignant because we know that Anne Brontë was just such a woman.  She never got to show the love she had the power to bestow, never got to 'make her presence known'.

This novel is no mere tale of a slighted governess, bitterly revealing the scandals and secrets of past employers.  No.  It is a very thoughtful, thought-provoking book about family, love and the desire to live a full and honest life.  Is not that something we all can relate to?  I urge you to read this wonderful, wonderful book, if for nothing else but to let the words of Anne Brontë not go unnoticed, and to redress the neglect of such a fine writer who has gone uncelebrated for far too long.

By Michelle Burrowes

A Blooming Moomin Read ~ The Moomins and The Great Flood by Tove Jansson

I thought it was time that I told you about a beautiful series of books that I have been reading recently with my 8 year old daughter.  Written and illustrated by Swedish author Tove Jansson, the books were first published in 1945 at the end of the Second World War.  It is therefore not difficult to notice the war parallels in the story-lines, especially in the first book, 'The Moomins and The Great Flood', where Moomintroll, the young moomin protagonist, and his mother, Moominmamma, wander through the dark forest, trying to find Moominpapa.  This often unsettling and uncertain plot-line must have been the childhood narrative of so many children's lives in Europe around the time of the war: where was daddy?  Would he be coming home safely and soon.  ' "Tell us something about Moominpapa", asked Moonintroll', as it had been so long since he'd seen his papa, that he couldn't quite remember him.

As adult readers, we can appreciate the poignancy of this line, and recognise what a clever writer Jansson really was.  She uses children's literature to work through all the emotions experienced by a generation of children living in wartime.  It is all in the imagery:  the dark forest, the strange creatures that you cannot quite trust, the strangers watching from the shadows, and the tiny, helpless folk, just trying to keep safe.



But for my young children, it was just a thrilling, adventure story.  They were simply enthralled, if not flabbergasted, to think that a fully-grown, respectable papa could suddenly go missing like that.

The landscape of the book is dark and mysterious, inhabited by large snake-worms, shadowy hattifatteners, and countless other nameless little creatures, all just eerie enough to appeal to a child's imagination, but not enough to completely terrify.
The illustrations are wonderfully detailed, especially in the hardback edition, published by 'Sort Of' Books, making this particular publication a collector's item for book and art lovers alike.

And what ever happened to Moominpapa?  Do Moointroll and Moominmama ever meet him again?  Well, you will just have to read it to find out.  By Michelle Burrowes

Gone Girl ~ by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl was our book club choice this month, so was a must read.  However, I probably would have made my way to it regardless because of the considerable media hype about the book.  Did I like it?  Would I recommend it?  Both questions are difficult to answer.  As always, I will try to discuss the book without giving the story away, suffice to say, the plot deals with a woman who has gone missing.  Her husband comes under increasing suspicion as the police try to decide whether or not he killed her.

The most interesting thing for me about this book was the double narrative structure of the text.  Nick, the husband and Amy, his wife, both get to tell the story from their separate perspectives.  Each court the reader until, finally, we are not sure who we suspect and who we are rooting for.  As such, the novel cleverly plays with the trust that naturally exists between narrator and reader.  

The plot itself is complicated and very detailed, which challenges the reader to be alert at all times, so do not expect a sleepy saunter through this book.  Flynn leaves nothing to chance and keeps the reader in the dark much of the time, which is quite compelling.  Yet, for me, I found the relationship between the married couple very interesting in itself.  The plot traces the highs and lows of a love affair, and how Amy soon comes to notice the 'dust on the furniture of love', as poet Adrienne Rich once put it.  But even a feminist like Rich never went to such lengths to put a man in his place.  There are moments in this book that are quite terrifying and Flynn certainly knows how to keep a reader guessing.  The setting of the book moves from New York to Missouri, but the true landscape of the book is in the inner world of the characters' minds, as Amy and Nick psyche each other out, and take the idea of a 'mind game' onto another level entirely. 

That said, I did not really care for either Nick or Amy by the end of the book, which is never a good sign with a novel.  So, I would have to answer in the negative regarding the questions asked earlier, and although I do appreciate the skill Flynn possesses as a writer, I endured the book rather than enjoyed it and I would not go so far as to give it a recommendation, despite all the clever plot twists and media hype.

By Michelle Burrowes

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower ~ by Rumer Godden

'I've got a doll's house.... do you want it?'  I couldn't believe my luck when I went to collect a beautiful doll's house that my good friend and neighbour was trying to find a home for.  It just happened that I had a little girl who would love such a perfect home for her collection of dolls and figures.  

I felt that a book was needed to inspire my daughter on the wonders of playing with a doll's house.  Now would be the perfect time for 'Miss Happiness and Miss Flower', I thought,  Rumer Godden's children's book published in 1961; one of the most magical books there is on the subject of dolls and their houses.

The plot: a girl from India comes to a strange land to live with her aunt and cousins. Nona Fell is lonely in this chilly English village, and feels out of place.  

But just then, she is given a set of Japanese dolls, to share with her spoilt cousin Belinda.  The arrival of the dolls transforms her relationship with her environment and her relatives.  The entire family, with the exception of Belinda, join together to help make a Japanese doll's house for the dolls, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.  

That is the story.  It is simple, but what is so charming  is how the dolls speak for themselves in the narrative.  We hear them talk to one another, learn of their anxieties and feelings, although the humans never do.  In this way the book enters into the child's world of play, echoing how children the world over interact with dolls, giving them a secret voice of their own.

Just as enchanting are the descriptions of the Japanese doll's house, as it is planned and slowly comes into being.  The tiny tea cups, the paper sliding doors, the minute cushions and side tables, made me want to grab some four by four and get hammering! 

This was a perfect read for myself and my daughter, but really, this could be a great read for dads and sons too.  One of the real heroes of the book is Tom, the kind cousin who builds the house for Nona.  If ever there was a book to inspire DIY, this is it. 

But luckily, thanks to my dear friend Sarah, my lucky daughter has her own beautiful doll's house, perfect and finished,  just waiting for little figures to fill the rooms with fun and laughter, and her days with happy hours.  

By Michelle Burrowes

Krapps' Last Tape with John Hurt in The Gate Theatre, Dublin

Photographs: © Matthew Thompson 2013 

The curtain just seemed to evaporate and John Hurt was suddenly there.

I've just returned from a visit to The Gate Theatre in Dublin, having seen John Hurt perform in Beckett's wonderful, short play, 'Krapp's Last Tape'.  A friend once said to me that there are special times when drama on stage is just magical, and this was one of those times.

The play shows  Krapp, an old man, returning to tapes that he has recorded throughout his life, recounting experiences, much in the same way as a diary.  The voice on the reel to reel recording sounds younger and is full of bravado about future plans and the good choices that he has made.  To the older Krapp, now listening to the tapes, the younger Krapp on the recording is foolish and has made many mistakes.

The premise is simple, yet, as always with Beckett, there is much going on beneath the surface and even more questions are asked than answered.
You are left wondering, why would someone spend so much time recording the events of their life instead of going out and living it?  But then, isn't that what we all do every time we write a diary entry, a poem, or even take a picture?  I knew a man once, who made countless audio tapes about his life.  When he died, they were just discarded on a rubbish heap; no one ever got to listen to them.  It still saddens me to think of it.  I didn't rescue them to have a listen, feeling I would have been prying nosily, and also believing, that once I started to listen, I would be compelled never to stop.
Aren't our own memories loud enough, ringing eternally in our own ears?  Do we really need other people's memories drowning out our own?  But then, I think, it is the act of telling one's own story, that has a purpose in itself.  It is a way of re-evaluating and taking stock of one's life.

What is so poignant about this production of Beckett's play, is that John Hurt was cast in the role about a decade ago, and the tapes that he used on stage, seem to be from that other show, as they sound so much younger than the voice of  the actor on the stage in 2013.  In that way, we are witnessing the real and actual ageing of the actor before our eyes, or at least we are very conscious of it.  It makes the drama seem more real somehow.

This is a play full of invisible mirrors; we hear a voice from the past and imagine the events he describes, then we watch the older Krapp's face and we see him reliving the moments described by his younger self.  The effect is magical.  If we are the secret voyeurs, he is also one; a voyeur of his own life, constantly revisiting his younger self, re-living a time gone by.

But why does he do this?  Why is he so caught up with the past?  Is this some kind of self-motivational tool?  Some kind of therapy?  Perhaps it is, but I feel it has a lot more to do with memory and how so much of our memory is lost over time.  Perhaps this is Krapp's attempt to undo the damage, the real damage, caused by ageing: memory loss.

Knowing people who live with dementia, it seems like a sensible thing to do, to capture life on tape for future reference.  Yet, sometimes, such preparation is in vain, as one's sense of self vanishes and self-recognition is not possible.

It interests me how Krapp is so hard on his younger self, but aren't we all?  Don't we all dismiss the style and fashion of our teenage selves as awful and embarrassing, with phrases such as, 'what was I thinking?'  In this way, Krapp is a universal figure, someone we can all relate to.

Ultimately, I believe that this play is particularly suited to being reviewed on a blog, because blogging is the equivalent of what Krapp spends the entire play doing, recording thoughts, for some imagined reader, perhaps as a means of working through one's thoughts, and making sense of the world.  But as the curtain goes down, and Krapp disappears once again in to the darkness, we know that there will be another 'last' tape, as the hours go on and the magic continues.

By Michelle Burrowes

Forget-Me-Nots ~ a Victorian Book of Love, by Cynthia Hart, Tracy Gill and John Grossman

In the 1990s I was an avid fan of Cynthia Hart's Victorian calendars, so when she published this little book on the history of the Victorian Valentine, I had to have it.
It's full title is 'Forget-Me-Nots ~ a Victorian Book of Love' and it tells the story behind the Valentine tradition.  It documents how the typical young, strait-laced Victorian men and women used the complicated symbolism of flowers and visual metaphors to express their feelings for one another.  Lovers would create their own cards and love tokens for their sweethearts, be they simple paper hearts or elaborate, bejewelled creations of ribbons and pearls.
In the era that invented Christmas card, the humble Valentine was taken to new heights.

Every page of the book is crammed full of flowers and lace, arranged on the page in the découpage tradition; each image and object a contemporary piece that has been lovingly treasured down through generations, for our enjoyment today.

Love poems are interspersed throughout, from contemporary poets like Emily Dickinson and  Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  The factual information too is very interesting.  For example, did you know that as well as Valentine cards, the Victorians kept autograph books, that they would have family and friends sign, in which they might often place pressed flowers, plaited hair and other mementoes to keep their friends memories alive?

In today's world of digital photography and social networking sites, it is easy to forget how in the Victorian period, long separation often made it difficulty to keep a mental memory of a loved one alive.  Collecting signatures in an autograph book was a desperate act against time and distance, a vain attempt to hold someone close, even when they were far away.

'Forget-Me-Nots' is a special book for me, it's name evoking all that is best about Valentine's Day.  It is the one day every year that is given over to the idea of love; be it love of a child, parent, friend or partner.  That alone has to be a good thing.  The simple thought of remembering loved-ones annually on 14th February, really appeals to me.  We remember the symbolic meaning of flowers: the red rose signifies eternal love; the daisy, loyalty; the purple tulip, forever love.  How often do we, as a population, dip, en masse, into metaphor?  I think this alone is worth celebrating.

Valentine's Day does not need to be a glitzy, commercial affair; such a thought would horrify the sensible Victorians.  But I do think it is a tradition worth keeping, and this little Valentine's Day treasury helps keep the magic of February 14th alive.  Even though the book has been sitting on my shelf for some twenty years now, it is a St. Valentine's Day treat that I will return to again and again, and now that I have shared it, I hope you will too.  Happy St. Valentine's Day.

By Michelle Burrowes  

A Valentine for Sylvia Plath ~ Ariel revisited

It is the eve of St. Valentine's Day and I have been dreaming of Sylvia Plath. She died fifty years ago this week, on February 11th, 1963. One cannot help but note the poignancy of the date; how this poet, who wrote so much about the affairs of the heart, should die so close to the feast of St. Valentine.  That Plath suffered from mental illness all her life, is undeniable, but the unique way she looked at the world was also her gift. In her final book of poetry, published two years after her death, Plath deals with many issues, but somehow, she keeps returning to one theme: love.

'Ariel' is an outstanding publication, beginning with one of my favourite Plath poems, 'Morning Song'. In this poem she celebrates the love between mother and child, and those precious moments of bonding in the early months of a child's life.  What a fitting poem to begin a collection. But Ted Hughes, Sylvia's ex-husband and renowned poet, must take the credit for that, as it was he who collected Plath's poems together, arranged them and oversaw this posthumous publication in 1965.  Other poems such as 'Nick and the Candlestick' and 'The Arrival of the Beebox' deal with a similar theme.  Hughes fittingly dedicated the book to their children, Frieda and Nicholas, knowing, I am sure, that Plath would have wanted it that way and recognising that these poems read like a long goodbye letter to her little ones.  Image after image helps to unravel the inner-workings of their mother's mind, a gift to any bereaved child.

How extra-strange it must have been then for Hughes to see his wife's genius leap from the pages of these poems, recognising, finally, that she had perfected her voice as a poet, and earned her place on the world stage of writers.

Plath was nothing if not a personal poet, her poems drip with minute details of her life and on reading her biography, the reader can appreciate the poems all the more.  The breakdown of her marriage to Hughes is well documented and one cannot help but think of him when we read the poems in this collection.  He so often is a real presence in them, casting a long shadow of regret and unhappiness cross the page. As often, in matters of the heart, love and anger are often intimate bed-fellows. In poems like 'Elm' or 'Poppies in July', she speaks of pain and sorrow, and we think of lost love and Ted Hughes.

 The collection also contains poems about Plath's complicated relationship with her father, 'Daddy' being the most famous of all. In this poem she rages against her father's ghost, for abandoning her when he died. Love here is inverted, and we can measure how much she loved her father by the utter devastation she feels at his departure.  The irony of course cannot be lost on us as readers, considering how history repeated itself for Plath's own children.

'Ariel' ends with a poem entitled 'Words' and again we must praise Hughes for this editorial decision, because, ultimately, all that remains of a poet when she is gone, are her words.

She writes, 'Words dry and riderless, the indefatigable'.

Like Shakespeare, Plath seemed acutely aware of the legacy she was leaving behind in her work, and perhaps she found some comfort in that thought during her final days.

But as it is the season of the Valentine, and the anniversary of Plath's death, let us consider how Plath lived and loved with passion. She was the candle burning at both ends, beautiful and fierce to behold, yet bound to burn out all the sooner because of that. So let us end, as we should, with Plath in her own words:

Letter in November
by Sylia Plath

Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns colour. The streetlight
Splits through the rat's tail
Pods of the laburnum at nine in the morning.
It is the Arctic,

This little black
Circle, with its tawn silk grasses -- babies hair.
There is a green in the air,
Soft, delectable.
It cushions me lovingly.

I am flushed and warm.
I think I may be enormous,
I am so stupidly happy,
My Wellingtons
Squelching and squelching through the beautiful red.

This is my property.
Two times a day
I pace it, sniffing
The barbarous holly with its viridian
Scallops, pure iron,

And the wall of the odd corpses.
I love them.
I love them like history.
The apples are golden,
Imagine it ---

My seventy trees
Holding their gold-ruddy balls
In a thick gray death-soup,
Their million
Gold leaves metal and breathless.

O love, O celibate.
Nobody but me
Walks the waist high wet.
The irreplaceable
Golds bleed and deepen, the mouths of Thermopylae.

(Ariel 1965)

By Michelle Burrowes

The Surprise Book Club ~ sisterly love

It was my turn to host the book club.  I asked my sister to do a little baking for it, cheating I know, but I figured that if my guests knew what my baking was like, they would not complain if I bent the rules.
My sister, Ally, elder than me by just two years, has always had a passion for surprising people.  Her children are the lucky benefactors of her kindness these days, but I still remember my 13th birthday party, not for the embarrassing hair styles or the horrific 1980s fashion, but the surprise party that Ally organised for me.  

We lived some miles from the school and my friends never really found their way to our house - it was a bus ride away.  But this was nothing to Ally.  She rounded them up after school and took them to a neighbours house, where they were stowed until I was lured away and they could be safely manoeuvred into my house to take up their positions.  

And I was truly surprised, screams, tears, the works. My 13th birthday was the best of my childhood by a long-shot. How can you repay a sister for that?

This all came back to me when my sister arrived, just minutes before my book club guests, brandishing a tray of cakes and a smile.  It was a particular smile she was wearing that day ... one that screams out with anticipation.  When she unveiled the cakes, I was gob-smacked.  

She had made ten little cupcakes, each with a book on top made of sugar icing.  Each book was complete with cover and artwork from the original title.  They were ten of my all-time favourite books: 'Wuthering Heights', 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Birdsong', 'The Book Thief' etc.   She had done it again - winded me with her kindness, staggered me with her thoughtfulness.

And while I was clearing up the empty wine glasses, and my friends were safely returning home, I thought of my sister and how I was ever going to repay her... 

But do you know what, I think I've just made a start! xx

     

Remembered Kisses - an Illustrated Anthology of Irish Love Poetry~ Ed. by Fleur Robinson

Ten years ago, when I was newly married and expecting my first child, I bought this very special book for my husband on St. Valentine's Day.  Each year, he and I buy each other a book of poetry on the 14th February, it is the only annual tradition which has lasted over the years.  The little book shop where I found this particular volume has long since closed down, but I have not forgotten it.

I was hot and bothered with my ever-growing bump and was almost ready to leave the shop when a helpful shop assistant took pity on me and came to my aid.
'I'm looking for something for my husband, for Valentine's Day', I said.  'He likes poetry'.  She offered me a collection of various books, all with serious, dour-looking covers, but nothing said 'love', to me.

So I moved to the 'art interest' section of the shop.  Perhaps a book on the Impressionist painters, I thought.  But the books looked so large and heavy, as art books always do.  I thought of my pinching shoes and my thickening ankles.  I didn't think I could face hauling a giant tome all the way home.

I would have to come up with an alternative idea, breaking the tradition, just this once.

But then, I saw a a title, 'Remembered Kisses', peeking out me.  When I pulled the book from its hiding place, I felt the surge of joy that I am sure you too, dear reader, have known: the pleasure experienced on finding the perfect book.

The book was a collection of Irish love poems, each one paired with a complementary painting by an Irish artist, which explains why it was categorised as an art book in the first place.

I fairly skipped home that day, bump and all, rejoicing at my find.

Yeats, Mahon, Heaney, they are all here, as are Lavery, O'Conor and Orpen.  Great poets and painters alike; a sensory heaven for the poetically minded.  Every time you open a page, the reader is presented with a beautifully delineated image and a finely crafted poem, each one adding layers of meaning to the other, regardless of whether poet or painter ever intended it that way.

This is a book to dip into and to marvel at.  It is said that Ireland is a place of saints and scholars.  I know nothing of that, yet this book reads as a testament to the many wonderful artists and poets that Ireland has given birth to over the years.  The theme of the poems and paintings reflect the themes of Ireland itself: a country coming to terms with its colonial history and its emergence as an independent state; its violence and its passion; its personal triumphs and national failures.

Yet each poem and every painting presents something unique and ultimately very personal, an artists experience of the world around them, making this anthology an especially important account of life through the discerning eye of master analysts; an diary in words and pictures, of Irish live over the last 300 years.

But for me, every time I pick up this beautiful, richly presented volume, I always remember the manner in which I came upon it, and think to myself that sometimes the best things in life are found in the most unexpected of places.
By Michelle Burrowes

The Last Post ~by Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End Book 4)

It seems more than fitting that my first blog post of 2013 should feature a book entitled 'The Last Post'.  I like that kind of symmetry.  This, the final novel by Ford Madox Ford in the 'Parade's End' series, did not feature in the recent, lavish BBC/HBO television adaptation, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which only added to my enjoyment when reading it.  I can understand why it was omitted from the dramatisation, which was ultimately Christopher Tietjens's story, because this book follows a day in the life of Mark Teitjens, elder brother and heir to Groby.

The story is set on a fine summer's day in June, significantly the same month that Christopher and Valentine met and took that unforgettable journey through the early morning fog.  And here again, you could argue, we are surrounded by a deep fog, this time figuratively speaking, as the story is told mostly from Mark's point of view, who we can only gather, has had a stroke of some kind, suffered on armistice day, the very day that Christopher and Valentine finally came together as a couple.  It is very difficult at first to figure out who is speaking and to what they are referring, making this the most Modernistic novel in the sequence.  But perhaps Madox Ford does this intentionally.  Perhaps he is trying to recreate the feeling of disorientation that a person who has suffered a stroke feels, making the reader experience a similar sense of bewilderment.

The entire book could be read as clever analysis of what it is like to have suffered a stroke - or perhaps not?  Mark lies on a bed in a wall-less hut, outdoor, day and night, being tended to as an invalid, mute and unable to communicate but by blinking. Why is Mark silent and motionless?  He claims it is his decision, an act of defiance, but perhaps he is only fooling himself.   He clearly has physical symptoms, such as sweating and having seizures, but Mark seems sure that it is his stubborn desire not to speak that prevents him from doing so. Either way, the reader lives inside his head, sees the arrival and departure of characters through his eyes and 'reads' his thoughts as they meander back into the past as he re-evaluates decisions made and moments past.
This technique allows Madox Ford to return to earlier scenes in previous books, to explain characters' actions and revisit key moments.  It is a delightful return journey for readers, yet painful too.  The references to Christopher are all the more poignant because the character himself is missing from this, the final novel.  He only appears briefly near the end of the novel, carrying sections of wood from Groby tree, telling his brother of its demise, looking every bit a defeated man.  It seems wrong somehow.
Yet, the author manages to bring all of the main characters from the series back together, in an orchestrated assault on Valentine and Christopher's rural home, as Sylvia attempts to destroy her husband's domestic bliss once and for all.
Their son, young Michael, who now confusingly calls himself Mark, is there, as is General Campion, now Sylvia's paramour.  Even Lady Macmaster is present, now a widow, come to sell her illicit love-letters to Christopher in an effort to gain access to her late husband's estate, which is bound-up in debt repayments to his old friend.  And if it all sounds confusing, it is meant to, as Madox Ford creates a dramatic climax to the series of books, that borders on Shakespearean and slapstick all at once.

Of course it is Sylvia who has plotted the entire scheme, in one last attempt to gain her husband's attention.  But things do not go in her favour this time.   Her character is shown at its worst - nothing is beneath her as she plots to destroy Valentine and Christopher, but ultimately she cannot bare the thought of hurting their child.  Valentine's pregnancy is the source of great joy and concern for the reader, making our beloved suffragette a nervous wreck and a social pariah.  Thankfully, it is Sylvia's Catholicism that comes home to roost as she faces the malevolence of her actions.  In an ironic twist, considering how she used a child to trap Tietjens in the first place, it is the unborn- child, that causes Sylvia to check herself.  She is swamped by guilt and cannot leave the scene of domestic bliss quick enough.  She will divorce Christopher, finally allowing him to marry again, her passion for revenge suddenly abated.  The reader almost likes her at this point... but not quite.

So, it may be possible that Valentine will go to Groby after all - once she has married Christopher, because Lady Tietjens, Mark's French mistress, now his wife, has agreed to live in the dower house, making the way clear for our beloved couple to take their place at Groby.  It may not be probable, but it is left to the reader to decide.  He might not live with her as Lady Groby, but he may finally live there with her as his wife.  There is finally a way for them to live there together, without shaming the family name.
It is heartbreaking to see Valentine chide her beloved over money   It is awful too to hear how she has been reduced to a nervous wreck, having been badly treated by acquaintances, spending much of her time locked away in the house, for fear of meeting people.  This is a terrible image of our fearless suffragette. Some have argued that Madox Ford, should have left Tietjens and Valentine on Armistice day.  I, for one, am glad that he did not, because we learn that the couple are to have a child, that Sylvia will finally divorce her husband and that Valentine may live with Christopher in his beloved Groby.  For that alone, I think it is worth it!
Christopher has promised that he will take Mark's money if his furniture business does not go well, so it seems probable that his archaic principles are bending and they will not be without means for long. He has a child's welfare to think of now, and Valentine's mental state too.  His duty to them far outweighs his outmoded Victorian codes of gentlemanly behaviour.   It seems, that finally, there is a happy ending in sight.

And so, 'The Last Post', while sounding the final battle cry of Sylvia Tietjens, actually heralds in a new beginning for Christopher and Valentine.  What a happy thought to take with me into a new year, as I say a last goodbye to Tietjens, as he sits quietly with his Valentine, in a small cottage on a rising hill, the light sinking beyond the horizon, and birdsong echoing through the trees, clamouring to be heard.By Michelle Burrowes

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