English Language, Exams, Literature, Teaching

Meaning over Method

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The most interesting part of a book or an extract is in fully understanding what it says, rather than how it says it. I realise that comprehension is a skill which we focus on almost exclusively up until the end of Key Stage 3, but often we stop at a surface understanding of the text. The analysis of the text which we ask students to undertake is not the analysis of meaning, it is the analysis of how the author created the meaning. We don’t ask, is this right? do we feel the same way? what follows from this if we believe it? what would another way of looking at this be? Is that how someone might really feel in that situation? Instead we ask, how did the author make us feel like that? What techniques did they use? How did those techniques affect they way we reacted to the text? Those seems to me to be the less interesting questions.

Don’t get me wrong, when you’re discussing a text you usually end up by talking about the techniques used at some point. When discussing why the text is able to make us change our minds without providing either evidence or a credible expertise, we will have to talk about techniques. When asking ourselves what benefits there might be in reading poetry, we may well come to the conclusion that the poet can use language to express our own thoughts in a way we could not, using language and structure techniques. It is the evidence we need to justify our reaction to the text, not the point of reading it.

The highest level of English most people will ever study is GCSE. At GCSE the focus is so heavily on the infinitesimal detail of how authors produce effects that many ordinary students barely note the meaning or point of the text before launching into why alliteration is used in the second paragraph. Is this the most important skill we want to pass on to our students?

I love language. I revel in different types of words and go away astounded and amazed by the beauty of the language authors use. I appreciate the effect the structure and form of a work has on its readers or audience, and I am certainly in favour of helping students understand how authors have manipulated both to create a specific effect in our minds. I don’t want to throw away that love and joy. I don’t want to detract from the marvellous talent authors use in creating their work. But Dickens did not write A Christmas Carol so that generations of children could remember the simile ‘solitary as an oyster’ and remember that he likes to use lists when describing people. He wrote that book in order to get us to realise that we need to be generous, to care about others, to behave as if we are part of one race of people and not individuals. He wanted to get rid of poverty and the rich person’s indifference to its effects. We still need that lesson today.

Every time we read a paragraph that starts ‘Dickens uses language and structure to engage the reader’ I think we need to think about what on earth we have done to the student to make them write such a load of vacuous nonsense. Which writer could ever write anything without using language and structure? Which writer ever wrote anything without wanting to engage the reader? If this is the starting point of our mid-range students, then we are doing something dreadfully wrong.

These works of literature exist outside in the real world. They are loved and appreciated. They change the way we see the world. They change our opinions and our actions. How can we teach them in such a way that they lose all of that power? We pin them down like butterflies on board, and they die in the process.

Instead of focusing on language and structure techniques, why don’t we compare different views, philosophical perspectives, bias and expertise? Why don’t we get the students to engage their brains and try and make them think about the big questions writers were trying to tackle? The answer, of course, is that our exam boards force us into a narrow route, and the accountability in our schools means we coach children into passing the exams instead of trying to raise their literacy level and inspire a love of reading and of learning which will last them their whole lives.

What is the answer? I have no solution. But the formulaic, meaningless essays I read from GCSE students, with no jot of authentic thought or personal response, are enough to make me start to hate the subject myself!

English Language, Literature, Reading, Teaching

What is English for?

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One of the complaints most frequently heard from children at school is that the work they have to do is ‘irrelevant’. Why study algebra? Why study Macbeth? You will never have to use your knowledge of either in the world after school. I would firstly dispute the truth of that. Anyone who works in engineering or maths will have to use algebra (and many who build, craft, renovate should also know), and Macbeth teaches lessons about ambition, power, regret and honour which are relevant to us all.  And, in fact, the talk about ‘knowledge’ is missing the point. What both these subjects teach is a mindset, a group of skills, which are essential in everyone’s life. But I see the point those students are making. There seems to be a gap between the world and the classroom. I am wondering two things: firstly, how can we make our subjects reflect the world the students will go out into and equip them with the skills they need?; secondly, how can we persuade the students that this is what we are doing?

To answer the first question, we have to ask what education is for. The assumption is that it equips you to work. Of course, it should do that. But that is only a fraction of what it ought to do. That issue is far too big to squeeze into a paragraph in this humble blog, so let me focus on the point of teaching English. What is it we are aiming to do? Essentially, we want to teach our students to be able to understand the written word, communicate effectively, both in written and verbal form, and to become lifelong learners. We want to acquaint them with the culture of our country, open their minds to the cultures of others, and create a love and understanding of language and its uses. We want them to understand the world around them, a world dominated by language.

Do we do this?

I think we try. But I fear we are not successful. To be a good citizen, you must understand what is going on around you. If we look around us we can see that people are fooled, time and time again, by inane political soundbites, advertising campaigns and empty rhetoric. To be able to see the connotations of a word is to be able to see the bias behind a headline. Take, for example, this seemingly innocuous offering from The Daily Mail: Jeremy Corbyn plots tax raid on parents’ gifts to children. The use of ‘plot’ which suggests something underhand and dangerous, and ‘raid’ which suggests violent theft, paints Corbyn as an evil thief attacking poor little parents who just want to be generous to their children. A headline from the other side of the political spectrum might have been: Corbyn aims to fund NHS by targeting the Mega Rich. A middle path might be, Corbyn seeks to reform inheritance tax. My point is, without looking at the bias, the use of words and their connotations, the reader is lost in a sea of words, tugged this way and that by minds and interests beyond their understanding.

English Language GCSE tries to teach this to some extent. Does it, though, make the students into readers who habitually interpret the meanings of words and think about their uses? I seriously doubt it. Sadly, many students struggle to get the basic meaning from a text, never mind the reason why it was written and the effect it has on the reader. The fault here, is not with the content of the course or with the quality of the teaching. It is rather the low level of literacy of the students who have failed to read much since the end of primary school. Another reason why concentrating on making children readers is not a ‘nice to have’. It is essential in equipping them for life after school.

The second question – do we convince the students that what we are teaching has relevance outside of school – I think can be answered very succinctly: no. There is an educational school of thought that suggests that we must create willing learners before we start to teach anything. I don’t know if that is possible, but I think we should try a bit harder than we do. It is part of teaching teenagers, I know, but we need to get away from the idea that we are there to torture the students with irrelevant and useless tasks for our own pleasure and enjoyment. Of course the truth is that we are trying to help and support young people to get the best from their minds (not to mention the rest of them) so that they can be happy and successful in their lives.  If students truly believed that the education they were given was in their best interests, then half the battle would be won. Some students do believe that. Most have days when they might doubt it. But too many truly think that teachers and the state are there, not to help, but to constrain, constrict, oppress and persecute.

Much of that might come from the silly rules school insist on enforcing – “Take your coat off in the corridor!” “No drinking in the classroom” “Conventional hairstyles only” and so on. Some of it comes from the attitude of teachers to their students, and most of it comes from the natural rebellion that teenagers feel towards authority figures.  But do we try hard enough, or, even at all, to persuade students that school and education is good for them? I fear not. Schools are an incredible resource, expensive to society, essential to the wellbeing of young people as well as to the economy of the country and to the health of society and culture. Not everyone has the opportunity to go to school, and they are at a huge disadvantage for all of their lives. It may be an uphill battle, but I think it is worth spending a bit of time trying to help students understand this.

In summary, I think we in education try to give students what they need to live and work in our society. We don’t do it well enough and we don’t persuade the students of its worth. We need to try and change that. In the end, only the student can decide to work, decide to care. If they don’t, they will never succeed, however good the school, however good the teacher. Perhaps we need to focus on this more.

Reading, Teaching

Why does GCSE English repel rather than inspire students?

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Even before I taught English myself, while I was a librarian in a school, I frequently heard of students who had loved reading and had spent hours with me in the library, who, once they had started studying for their GCSEs, declared that they hated English and would never read another book if they could help it. My heart always sank, as you can imagine, since I spent my entire working day, every day, trying to inspire the love of reading and development of literacy in everyone in the school. To reflect on the fact that someone who actually loved reading had been put off reading altogether is disheartening to say the least, especially considering that so many people never get interested enough to read in the first place. I used to speculate as to why this could be so, as my own two children started going through the system, both of whom hated the way English was taught, despite loving reading. After I started teaching English myself, the reasons why became clearer. These, at least, are two of the issues we face:

The choice of the works we study.

The choice of the literature the students study is the first problem, I feel. I love Shakespeare, I love Dickens and I love poetry, but all are so difficult that a good proportion of every mixed ability class will struggle with even the basics of the plot and characterisation without a blow by blow account by their teacher. This is not what literature is for!  The plays are to be watched, not dissected. Novels and poems are to be read and enjoyed. The problem is that those who wanted to read and enjoy are bored with the book long before they finish studying it, while the students who struggle, still get next to nothing from it. Even the 20th century novels or plays are often taken from the middle of the century, making them difficult to understand for many.

What is the answer? I hate to suggest making the works of literature easier, but I wonder if this would help? Or I could even suggest a tiered examination system. Cleverer and better informed people than me discuss this frequently, but I think we can agree that what we have now is not working. The truth is, without knowing about the historical, literary and biographical context of a work of literature, it is sometimes tricky to fully appreciate its merits or meaning. The students often know little of life in the trenches in World War I, the nihilistic attitude prevalent after the horrors of World War II, or the religious, gender-based, or political ideas of the 17th century. I’m not saying we shouldn’t study all or any of these things, but the curriculum across all subjects should interlink so that students have some hope of knowing about the history, geography, philosophy and religion of the literature they are studying.

The skills we expect students to display.

The other problem is what we ask of the students in the exams. We could still teach Shakespeare, but why do we need to do language and structure analysis of something the students barely understand? In fact, why this emphasis on language and structure at all? Discussion of how an author creates a particular effect flows naturally from discussing the effect. But we don’t allow students to come to their own conclusion about what effect it has on them. (This is because it is too difficult for them, so they have no authentic response, awaiting their teacher’s interpretation which they attempt to learn.) If they did have an authentic response to the text, then we could start to ask, why does it make you feel that way? Essentially, we have got the cart before the horse. What happens is we read the story to them, tell them what it means, point out the language and structure features to them and then give them a formula to write about them. How is that stimulating either understanding of literature or pleasure in reading it?

The fact is, the students haven’t read enough to answer the questions they are asked. How can they know what to expect in a fantasy novel, if they have only read this one? How should they know what is a good image or what a cliché is if they have no experience of either bold interesting ideas or common, clichéd ones? Taking that further, how can students evaluate texts, which they are asked to do, when they have so little experience?

I remember one student saying that an extract from a classic novel was boring and badly written because it used too many old-fashioned words and so it was difficult to understand. It had been written in 1896. Clearly, that is not an effective evaluation of the text, only of the understanding of the student. So, we teach the students only to pick out good points about the extracts and say they are successful and why.  This is only a part of what evaluation is, but it would be ridiculous for them to say that Charles Dickens or Wilkie Collins was a poor writer. If, however, they had read many Dickens novels, and also books written by a dozen or so of his contemporaries, they could, with some sense, talk about how the characterisation of women in Dickens was in line with that of Trollope and Collins, and was weaker than that of the female novelists like the Brontes and Austen. However, our students have often read nothing much since they finished The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series in Year 7. Great as that is, it is not preparation enough for an evaluation of a nineteenth century extract from a classic novel. That is not their fault. We are asking them to do something far beyond their ability. And because they can’t do it, we have to coach them through every step of the way, making a mockery both of the text and of the skill they are supposed to be learning.

I wish I had the answer. And I, now, have become part of the problem rather than the solution. If your head of department is on board, if you have a forward thinking Head of School, maybe some of these issues can be smoothed away. If not, you are a lone voice, shouting in the wind. But even with support, the issue is that the exam syllabus, government expectations, and education system are so flawed that, instead of turning out readers with open minds ready to carry on learning throughout life, we turn people away from the very thing we are trying to encourage a love of.

Literature, Novels, Reading

The silence of the girls by pat barker

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Despite having finished my ‘book a week’ for the first time in a while, I have felt disinclined to write about it. I think this is because it is my habit to synthesise and summarise the books I have read and try and neatly package them. I didn’t want to do that with The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. The confusion of thoughts and emotions I felt reading it seemed a better reaction to the book than the tidy little bundle I will be tempted to sweep them up into. Nevertheless, here I am trying to articulate my thoughts.

I was tempted to buy the book in the Autumn in a beautiful bookshop in St Andrews – the wonderfully named Topping and Company Booksellers on Greyfriars Gardens. If you’re ever in St Andrews (Fife, Scotland) (and I would really recommend a visit if you haven’t yet been), then treat yourself to a visit to one of the most evocative bookshops I have been to. I defy you to go in and not buy a book (and not want to buy at least 10!). Rows of books, floor to ceiling, a world to get lost in.

Why did I pick up this book in particular? I have read Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy about the First World War and had been disturbed and struck by it. That was the first reason to pick up The Silence of the Girls. The second was a recommendation from one of the friends I was with. The third was the fact that it is based on the story of the Trojan Wars, Achilles, Agamemnon, Helen, Paris and all the heroic, romantic things we associate with them. So I bought the book and it has sat patiently on my shelf for 6 months before I finally picked it up this week. (There are many other books who have had to exercise far more patience than this, and are still waiting…)

My knowledge of the Greek and Trojan Wars is sketchy, to say the least. I have not read the Iliad or the Odyssey. I have not read any books derived from them. I have watched a wonderful monologue called Radio Argo based on five characters from the Trojan Wars – Agamemnon, his sacrificed daughter Iphigeneia, his wife Clytemnestra’s lover Aegisthus, his son Orestes and Cassandra who Agamemnon took as a war prize after sacking Troy. This, though, was my only preparation for the story, though it is astonishing how much expectation and prior knowledge has seeped into my consciousness simply through the saturation of these stories and ideas into our culture. My knowledge was enough to be satisfyingly overturned by Barker’s book.

It is the story of Briseis, captured and made a bed-slave to Achilles after she watched her young brothers murdered by him. In the swirl of my confused thoughts, the thing that bobbed to the surface most often was the idea of the female perspective. Instead of the honour of war, the bravery and male comradeship, this story focused on the loss, powerlessness and enforced silence of women. It was unrelentingly unforgiving. At no point did the perspective shift to the prevailing societal view, either of the day or of now. I hesitate to say it, but it seems to me that it takes a woman to write this well about a female perspective. And not all women could do it either. Our society’s persistent focus on the glory of war, of the importance of status, of the liberty of men infects us all, men and women alike. Even when we try to maintain a female view, the mask slips a bit at times. I have been reading The Name of the Mother (Il Nome della Madre) by Erri De Luca which tells the story of the annunciation and the birth of Jesus and professes to be from Mary’s point of view. For me, centuries of male thinking about women, their role, their bodies, the way babies are born, kept creeping in until I was muttering in frustration that a writer of such beautiful prose could be so blind to how it feels to live inside a female body. So, reading The Silence of the Girls, it felt unusual, and uncomfortable even, to have a truly, uncompromisingly critical female view of what is considered to be such a male subject.

How conflicted Briseis is, her ways of coping with unimaginable trauma, and how it becomes normalised in a society where it is a common experience, these things made me keep reading, even when the pain of it, the distress it made me feel, was sometimes hard to bear.

Another element of the experience which bobs to the surface of the soup of my emotions is the power of the physical in the book. I remember this aspect of Barker’s writing from the Regeneration Trilogy. What I mean is that foul smells, ugliness, repulsive sights, bodily reactions like sweat, vomit, blood, are so vividly portrayed that the world becomes a solid, physical presence. The book does not shy away from the rancid, disgusting aspects of humanity and of the world around us. That sticks with me, stays in my memory. When the emotions that the characters feel seem shadowy and insubstantial, the vile stench, putrefaction, the sticky feel of sweat and metallic taste of blood pulls you back into the minds of the characters.

I’m not going to sum the book up. I’m not going to try and pigeon-hole it. It was an uncomfortable read; it opened aspects of my own mind and my own attitudes which felt obtrusive and new. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Literature, Novels, Reading

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

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I can’t imagine my little review of this great book will make much of a splash amongst all the thousands of others out there, but, as I have some comments to make, I thought I may as well add my few ideas to the pile.

There aren’t many characters I would be willing to spend so much time with, but Mantel’s Cromwell is an interesting companion. Not a nice man or a good man, but comprehensible and shot through with humanity as well as ruthlessness. He has little compunction, would do almost any terrible thing if it were expedient, and is allied (by others) with the ideas in Machiavelli’s The Prince. His crimes are legion, and he himself admits his end is not unwarranted or surprising. Despite this, through Mantel’s genius, he is thoroughly human. His affections, for his family, for his friends and associates, are genuine and deep. His loyalty to the Cardinal, and to the King, despite his seeing their faults as clearly as anyone could, is admirable and touching. In the end, it is his weaknesses that touch me most. His memories of his wife and daughters, the debt he owes to his drunken, violent father, his desire to save others (though never at his own expense), these are the things that make him a man and not a figure from history.

The deftness with which Mantel weaves his story into the fabric of recorded history is truly magnificent. Never does it feel like these are remote characters from a time so long gone that they scarcely seem human. The ideologies and preoccupations of the time – religion, power, wars, succession – are clearly delineated by Mantel, making us truly understand in a way the history books have not always succeed in doing. After all, the struggle for power, which is at the heart of all the political manoeuvrings, is as relevant today as it ever was. Politicians are still willing to sacrifice their ‘subjects’ and change the face of life for all in order to gain and maintain power. The honesty of Cromwell’s personal religion is beautifully portrayed. Never does he declare himself a gospeller, always keeping on the right side of the prevailing religious mood, but he promotes and helps those he agrees with, which is ultimately a significant part of his downfall.

The other issue which strikes me as remarkably current is Cromwell’s low birth and the hatred, derision and persecution he suffers as a result of having risen so far without an ancient family name. It may seem that this is not relevant now. After all, who cares about social class in these modern times? But, it seems to me, that British society is still dogged by that restricting and narrow vision. I only need to mention a few examples, but, if you look, there are so many more. I am thinking of the abuse Steph McGovern has had over her regional accent, about prevalence of white middle class men in power in our country, of the thoughtless way the government have asked people to go back to work but not use public transport (favouring white collar workers who can work from home and wealthier people who have cars) and there are so many other instances. In any case, Cromwell’s downfall is perhaps inevitable since the ruling class cannot abide to be outdone by a commoner.

The last thing I want to write about Mantel’s amazing book is the quality of the language. She writes the whole book in the present tense. What a feat! It doesn’t seem stilted or like a running commentary of the everyday. Instead in feels immediate. It also feels like it deals with the surface of things, like the light on the mirror, on the water. She does, however, delve into the depths of Cromwell’s mind. The dreamlike sequences which deal with his past, his fears, his nightmares, are some of the most memorable and astounding in the book. The imagery, the sensuousness of the prose which makes you feel the Italian heat or the creeping cold of a grey winter day, and the lightness of touch used to fuse these into seemingly real conversations between friends, enemies, servants and kings, is truly incredible.

So, I recommend that you spend a good number of your hours reading this tome (and if you can, reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies as well). There were times I wished for a lighter experience, but the book rewards your determination to face the ugly things in life as well as the beautiful.

Literature, Novels, Reading

She is not invisible by Marcus Sedgwick

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I can’t plead that I haven’t had the time to read. I have had more than enough of that. I can’t say that I don’t have enough means or choice. My bookshelves are packed with books that I have been meaning to read. From where I sit, I can see four piles waiting to be tackled. In any case, the number of books you can buy digitally, online and so on is vast. But still I am finding it hard to pick up a book. Sometimes it is the thought of diving into a completely new world and learning to care about a whole set of new people, who will inevitably feel pain and will suffer, making me feel the same. The emotional exhaustion I feel when even contemplating this, is a serious barrier to picking up that book I have been longing to read.

I have had She Is Not Invisible on my ‘to read’ list for more than a year. Sitting in the audience at the North East Book Awards a year or two ago, I noted down on my phone some of the books the authors and students recommended. This was one of them. And, by the way, if you are ever interested in which Young Adult and Middle Grade books to read or recommend, the North East Book Awards and North East Teenage Book Awards (run by the most impressive librarian I have ever met – and there is fierce competition in that category) are a great place to start. They celebrate the best books published that year, voted for by students from local schools. The authors come along to speak about their book, groups of students come and say why they chose a certain book from the short list, and the winner is announced. It is a fantastic exercise in celebrating children’s authors, reading, and young people and their passions. It is also a great way to find out which books you should read, from the current year and also from years past.

Finally, a couple of months ago, I borrowed She Is Not Invisible from the library. (I’m looking forward to the next time I can go into the library and borrow another.) I am so pleased that I got around to reading it.

It is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl, Laureth, her seven year old brother, Benjamin, and his toy raven, Stan. They have a quest and have obstacles to overcome, which they do with courage and determination. It’s a fast-paced story. We’re swept along by it. I think novelists who write for an adult audience could really learn something from children’s writers. The hook, the plot, the tension has to be strong or the young reader will lay the book aside. Sometimes it is great to let a story unfurl slowly and meticulously, but too often, I think, writers are self-indulgent, including extraneous details, relying on the determination of the adult audience to follow them through a labyrinth of unnecessary description or sub-plotting. But it is the characterisation, and the interplay between the characters which I found most compelling. However experienced a reader you are, I defy you not to learn something about yourself when reading this.

The other thing I enjoyed was the list of ‘reading group questions’ at the end of the book. How fantastic to have a set of ideas which we can think through and wonder about. The best thing, of course, is to create our own interrogation into the book we have just read, digest it and ponder it. But how often do we close the book, put it down, and forget it? If all we take from reading is the immediate experience of the flow of the story and the companionship of the characters, then that is perhaps good enough. But there is so much more we can learn about ourselves, our world and how we can change, if we take the time to think a little. As often is the case, books for young adults are more thought provoking than many that are aimed at an adult readership.

So, I recommend She Is Not Invisible, and also recommend other books by Marcus Sedgwick (My Swordhand is Singing; The Book of Dead Days; Blood Red, Snow White; Floodland to name a few I have enjoyed).  I also recommend that you try reading books written for children and teenagers. Truly, they can surprise, entertain, teach and challenge. Why not start with Marcus Sedgwick?

Literature, Novels, Reading

Why Reading is worth the effort!

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I spend a lot of time telling people to read – exhorting, encouraging and enticing them to read. From those who see the benefits of reading, but don’t find the time to do it, to those who never pick up a book and don’t see the point of it, I try to promote the idea that books and reading are worthwhile.

Reading takes a bit of effort. We’re not always good at that. I’m as bad as anyone. Trying something new, something that makes me feel inadequate, or tests my abilities, is something I probably avoid rather than embrace. I love reading, but even I feel it is difficult to get started at times.

Over this lockdown period I promised myself that I would read at least one book a week. I set myself that challenge. I failed. It may be that I was too ambitious, both with the number and the type of books I chose. I don’t know why I imagined that I could finish Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light and Boccaccio’s Decameron within a couple of weeks. But the truth is, recently I have found it very difficult reading anything at all. From the beginning of this quarantine period, I have found my concentration wanders. The small amount of work I have to do takes a herculean effort. I find myself, even more than usual, missing links in what people say and do, forgetting things, and finding myself staring out of the window rather than listening to what people are saying. I know I am not alone in this. The strangeness of these times has hit us all in different ways. For me, the solidity I based my actions and my thoughts on has dissolved. I float along, but there is no reason behind anything. I am caught in a vacuum between a fast disappearing past and an unknowable future. As are we all. So, reading has been a struggle to say the least.

But I still maintain that it is worth the effort.

Above all, in these strange times, we need care for our mental health, entertainment and distraction. We need to make sense of things. Though I have fallen into the trap of reading too many of the panicky, cynical and aggressive posts on various social media, and thinking too often of the inane stupidities of those in power (who we were hoping might guide us safely through this crisis), I admit that what I am doing is not helpful. At the beginning of all this, I wrote that the wisdom of the great writers will help us more than the vacuous comments we see daily on the news, on Twitter and pronounced by our leaders. I still believe that.

It is taking more effort for me than it normally would, so I imagine that many others who are not such book lovers might be finding reading even more difficult. I say to them, as to myself, it’s worth the effort. Let’s continue to try!  There will be those who perhaps are reading more than ever, or are taking up reading for the first time. To them I say, well done! It’s your turn now to encourage us.

So this week, I did manage to read a book (as well as marching on with The Mirror and The Light). It is She Is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick. If you’re interested, you can read my review here.

Novels, Reading

Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo

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My reading this week has been eclectic to say the least.  I continue to read Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light (which I am thoroughly enjoying). I have stalled in my reading of The Decameron, partly because the story I’m currently reading is the most misogynistic I have read for a very long time. Essentially a beautiful woman is captured, raped and kept by a succession of men who cannot talk to her but are ‘in love’ with her beauty. I haven’t the heart to continue reading to find out what happens to her in the end. Whatever it is, it can’t make up for the men who have treated her like an object which they can own, not a person they can know. Instead I have been reading a short story by Leonardo Sciascia called Western di Cose Nostre.  My excuse for it taking me most of the week to read, despite it just being a few pages long, is that I am attempting to read it in the original Italian! I had intended to read another short story by him this week, but I haven’t managed it. The third thing I have been reading this week is Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. I told you my reading diet is a strange and eclectic mix!

I truly love Michael Morpurgo’s books. I have loved reading them to my children, recommending them to the students when I was a librarian at a school, and reading them myself. For books written so simply, both in their language and the range of subjects they tackle, they are beautifully crafted and incredibly moving. I can barely think of a book by Morpurgo that hasn’t made me cry. I remember reading Cool! to my boys – or maybe with them – and being in floods of tears at the thought of this little boy in a coma unable to communicate to his parents, but aware of everything that was said around him. Toro Toro! is another book which had me sobbing.  My elder son was reading it to my younger one when we were on a car journey.  I was driving, and finding it increasingly hard to see the road through my tears.

It may seem perverse to love being made to cry, but a story that touches your heart is one which is immensely powerful and unforgettable. There are so many books available for children, and new ones are published all the time. I am less up to date now than I was when I was working as a children’s librarian, but looking at websites like Scottish Book Trust, The Book Trust, World Book Day website and National Literary Trust can help you find tips on encouraging children to read and lots of suggestions for different books to read for different interests and age ranges. But you really can’t go wrong with Michael Morpurgo’s books.

Kensuke’s Kingdom is a true adventure story, a story of survival, of hope and perseverance. It is also a very human story, of how we get used to anything, how we react to disaster, how we protect ourselves from pain. The touching friendship between Michael and Kensuke is beautifully and touchingly drawn. The story is real enough to ground you and fantastical enough to entrance you. I am not ashamed to say that I can add this book to the list of Morpurgo’s that have made me cry!  If you want a lovely few hours of escape from our all too stressful world, why not give it a try? And if you have a child to recommend it to (ideally 8 or 9 years and upwards), then I wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

The question is now, do I attempt the second Sciascia story in Italian, aim to overcome my current struggle with The Decameron, or start something entirely new? My journey with Thomas Cromwell in The Mirror and The Light, however, will probably keep me entertained for a little while yet!

Literature, Reading

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

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‘As the year turned to spring, the plague began quite prodigiously to display its harrowing effects.’

As predicted, I have struggled to finish a book a week.  Not surprising, probably, considering the books I have chosen.  I am currently reading The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio at the same time as working my way through Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light. I may give myself a break and read and review a shorter book next week while I continue to revel in reading those monsters. In the meantime, I thought I might give a little review of the beginning of The Decameron.

You may wonder how on earth I chose my ‘to read’ pile so that the third of my books is a translation of a 14th century collection of stories from Italy. The Decameron was referred to many times in sources and comments I read both at university and since then. The two works I am most familiar with which were influenced by it are these: it was the source, and possibly the inspiration, for Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; Keats used one of his tales in writing Isabella: or the Pot of Basil. So, I had heard about it and never read it. “If I don’t read it now,” I thought, “when will I ever get around to it?”

In addition to having the time, the obvious reason to think of it just now is, of course, the plague.  The book is set just outside Florence during the plague of 1348.  Three young men and seven young women go to a castle outside the city to escape from the ravages of the Black Death and pass the time together telling stories to each other. It seemed to me to be appropriate that I should read the stories in my isolation too.

Boccaccio was one of the first Italians to use the language spoken by the people instead of Latin when writing his literary works. He followed in the footsteps of Dante in that regard. Both of them Florentines, it is argued that their works have affected the growth of the Italian language as we know it today. At the same sort of time, William Langland when he wrote Piers Plowman and Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales and his poetry were writing in English rather than French, which was then the language of power in England. This was the time when the language spoken by the ordinary person was first written down in a literary poetic way, giving a voice, a status and a pathos to common individuals. Their stories were written, and so all could read of their preoccupations, their hopes and dreams, their faults and foibles.  For the first time, we see society’s layers, from the nobility to the peasants in the fields and beggars on the streets. It was a time when the middle classes were gaining in power and influence, partly due to the decimation of the population as a result of the plague. For the first time, we can read – not of the noble feats of heroes and kings – but of the struggles, loves and losses of the people who made up the majority of society.

If I’m trying to persuade you to read The Decameron, that would be the first reason I would argue. My next might be the fascinating insight it gives into the human reaction to the plague. As we all struggle to hold onto our sanity in the face of global panic and personal isolation, it is interesting to see that the human beings who faced a much worse pandemic had similar reactions to ours. While we wait inside, or fight the disease on the front line, we are backed up by scientific knowledge, good remote communication and a strong governmental infrastructure – not to mention (here in Britain at least) the NHS. In those days, they had no notion how the disease worked, and therefore no idea how to combat it. In the introduction Boccaccio writes of the plague, ‘It was proof against all human providence and remedies’. However bad things seem, we cannot say that of COVID-19. 

People in 14th century Florence reacted as many are doing now, either with extreme caution or a complete lack of it. People felt that death would come for them and there was no remedy, so they either focused on the life to come and tried for piety or did whatever they wanted knowing they would not have to face the consequences. It is so easy to see how people would fall into both of these camps. I learned at school that a third of Europe’s population died of the plague in those years; never before has that seemed to me to be more of a human and horrific disaster.

The third reason for reading Boccaccio’s Decameron is the nature of the stories themselves.  I realise that reading a modern English translation is not coming close to the tone of the actual text, but the informality and humour of the stories is charming. The familiarity of venal, greedy, lustful humanity albeit in a Renaissance setting is reassuring and almost always funny. ‘Bawdy’ is a word often used to describe these tales, but essentially that just means they are Game of Thrones level rude and violent. What the bawdiness shows, however, is the humanity, both of the characters and of the writer.

And that last point is what I want to leave you with.  People are the same now as they ever were. The fact that they wore funny clothes and spoke in a funny way does not change the fact that they had emotions, reactions, hopes and passions, just like us. Perhaps today’s Boccaccio will write a modern day version of The Decameron, an isolation diary, which will help people 700 years from now to imagine what our lives are like now. I’d like to believe that.

Reading, Uncategorized

Women and Power by Mary Beard

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This is the second of my book reviews for the lockdown. So far I’m managing to keep to my book a week target, though I fear I may struggle to do that every week!

I was bought this book by my son for Mothers’ Day. I have already bought it myself for two other people, but had not yet had a chance to read it. I am not well enough versed in either the history of feminism or the classical world to fully appreciate Beard’s arguments, but her main points certainly resonate with me. They reflect a world I have lived in and live in still.

The voicelessness of women, their silence, is something I have noticed in life and in literature. The Duchess of Malfi, is a play about a powerful woman who uses her power in the domestic rather than political sphere; she is silenced by her brothers. In their presence she is restrained and quiet, while they berate her and insult her undeservedly. The Cardinal only yearns for total power, Ferdinand is offended by his sister’s lack of obedience to him and warped by his own incestuous feelings towards her, blaming her rather than himself for his passion. In the end, they kill her, her husband and some of her children. The ultimate way to silence someone. Of course, Webster was a man living in the misogynistic world of the mid-16th century, and could only write from his perspective and historical situation.

In my life too I have seen, time and again, that women are silenced by men. Concerns seen as ‘female’ are treated as less important, comments made by women are brushed aside, ignored or reworded by men. Beard calls this the ‘Miss Triggs treatment’ after the Riana Duncan cartoon set in a boardroom where the chair of the meeting says, “That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Triggs.  Perhaps one of the men here would like to make it.” I have worked in professions which are seen as female and have predominantly female workers – librarianship and teaching – but I have seen women silenced in meetings, in the workplace, in private, so regularly that I barely seem to notice it any more. I would be astonished if any woman said they did not.

Mary Beard talks about how, from the Classical world, we think of speaking as in itself male. If a woman speaks, she becomes less female. It is an interesting idea, and a way of understanding why the world is as it is. How do we change it, I wonder?

The second part of the book is about the nature of power and how women fit into that idea. Again, Beard talks about power and how it is defined as intrinsically male. Women who achieve positions of power are described as grabbing, as fighting, and breaking through, as though the men hold the power and the women must seize it by force. She suggests that what we view as power should be changed; ability to change the world around us rather than public prestige is the way she describes this new idea. To me, it brings to mind Dorothea’s life as described in Middlemarch as one who ‘lived faithfully a hidden life’ and rests in an ‘unvisited tomb’. This idea of power as the ability to make life better (or worse) for others without self-aggrandisement or even being lauded or celebrated beyond that very specific sphere of influence, is an interesting one, but it is hard to see this idea taking over the more exciting, intoxicating feeling of direct power over others.

Women & Power presents a familiar world by tracing its origins in the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome. It does the invaluable job of defamiliarizing the familiar enough that we see the way our society is structured. Under this searching light, we can clearly see the imbalance of power and its causes. Essentially, speaking in public and power as it is currently defined are seen by society as intrinsically male. This is the hurdle we have to overcome. We can not just fight to have the same rights to be heard, to be listened to. We have to rebuild our ideas of what society is!

Exploring, discussing and revelling in reading.

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