Sakuntala by Kalidasa and other renderings (4th - 5th C)

 This is a Folio Society volume, including as main piece Michael Coulson's translation of Kalidasa's play. It also includes the relevant small section of the Mahabharata translated by Peter Khoroche, William Radice's translation of Tagore's cousin's Bengali version for children, as well as a set of beautiful colour reproductions of twelve illustrations of the story (from an original group of fifty-four) which apparently date from the early nineteenth century, with accompanying explanatory text. It's a fine story, and I can see why Kalidasa's is the prime one. The play has a lot of rich texture and is by far the longest treatment. There is, however, still a feel of long bending and twisting through use - certain themes and plot-moments feel like they might have been given greater or lesser magnification in previous iterations. I wonder what the history of written/printed versions of it might be? Fifteen centuries must have produced stresses and strains in its fidelity to the original, and varying versions must have abounded. It has an unusual combination of the proto-erotic and the pastoral for Western eyes, but that is welcome for this observer. I guess some of the attitudes that may have accompanied it may not have been as free. 

The Score by Lucas Malet (1909)

 This is two short novels entitled Miserere Nobis and The Courage of her Convictions. They are quite disparate, aside from one aspect, that of concentration of time. Both take place over a very defined short period, where a great situation, requiring facing of the truth, is confronted. Miserere Nobis recounts the period of the dying of a soldier in an convent-infirmary in Italy. He lapses in and out of clarity whilst making his last confession to a priest. The power of the confession arises from the fact that he has been led into wickedness by his stepfather. This inwardly bitter but outwardly suave man convinces him of the wrong done by and to his dead mother. His father is the culprit in this man's twisted mind; he uses his extraordinary power of influence to lead his stepson to hatred. The stepson has benefitted enormously from the admiration and patronage of a mystery lordly benefactor who sees his prowess at a fencing school. It slowly dawns that the man could be his father and he first begins to question the story his stepfather has always promulgated. He goes through uncertainty but remains under the spell of his stepfather's charm. Stressed and burdened after another interview with his manipulative second parent, he steals into his father's house and, almost deranged, plunges a knife into his heart to avenge his mother for the abandonment she suffered at his hands. Only after his father is dead does he understand that he actually loved his mother, and that, though his father wasn't perfect, his stepfather has orchestrated the whole thing in a simple act of hatred, presumably because he detected that the mother also still loved her deserter, and had seen through the stepfather before her death. This one is marred a little by the sense of lack of basedness in the lead-up to the murder. Though the stepson is growing aware of his stepfather's double-nature and his newly discovered father's redeeming goodness, he still goes ahead with the murder, just because he's 'under baleful influence'. It doesn't quite ring true. The Courage of her Convictions takes the story of Poppy St John, from Malet's previous novel, The Far Horizon, on another step. There are several references to her thoughts about her friendship with Dominic Iglesias, detailed in the prior book, here, seeing it in terms of a benevolent force which influences her actions for the better. With Poppy is Malet's recurring worldly gentleman character, Antony Hammond, from several earlier works, now grown a little portly and middle-aged. They are staying at an elegant hotel in the south coast town of Compton Regis, and working together on rewrites for Hammond's latest play, which the now world-famous St John will bring to the stage, and make her peak starring role. But Poppy has been attracted to a young bull of a political candidate, Lucius Denier, who, having won his contest, races down to the town in his dangerous new motor car to ask Poppy to marry him, feeling that he can finally offer her the life she deserves. Thus ensues a removal from the restaurant of the place to the dense gardens above a chine by the two, with the tide coming in way below, black-purple deep night atmosphere prevailing, and the tufted tips of pine trees just visible ruffling in the wind. On a grass platform with a bench, they go through a soul-searching few hours, coming to terms with his proposal and what it might mean for each of them, he fighting to keep it alive, she wanting badly to agree but knowing in herself that it won't work. She battles with temptation sorely in various scenarios which emerge in their talk. In the end she faces the truth which she wishes wasn't the case, and which Denier can't accept - that she will lose so much status by their union, becoming a politician's wife and despised for brazenness by his wealthy family, as well as the agency in her career which sustains her, and which she would need, for his sake, to give up. She finally forces him away, dog-tired and emotionally drained. Hammond finds her the following morning, shrunken-faced, her usual shine utterly dulled. His will be the task of restoring her to herself, loving her himself a little. These two display Malet's ideas on short pieces clearly - they require foreshortening of time elapse and superintensity of wrangled emotion. Her style is profoundly elegant always, and contrastingly never quite leaves hothouse territory. But here it does feel ever so slightly overheated at times, with its richness the saving element. 

Zami by Audre Lorde (1982)

 This book feels a little 'dressed'. I wish it could have discarded this. The author's often sensuous, direct recording of experience is so striking and affecting. But sometimes she'll launch out from this brilliant space and head off into what I would call grandstanding, where the typical excesses brought about by Beat and associated movements of the mid twentieth century twist and snarl up that freeflow. Of course this would not be seen as snarling, rather as amazing poetic enhancement. Grrrrrrrr. But that part of this book, I can happily relate, is minor. Most of it is sumptuously rich with straightforward colour and feeling. Even when it discusses negative emotions or events, it tastes distinctive and is profuse with energy. It is an autobiography, tracing Lorde's life from first understanding in the 30s to the beginning of the 60s. She deals very honestly with family life in New York in the 30s and 40s, her younger self bewildered sometimes, angry sometimes, coming to terms with what it was to be a black girl in a world which felt strongly inimical, even inside her family unit. The weight of history is something to be thrown off in the case of constrictions from her mother (for example), or just felt, understood and fought in the case of the extra belabouredness of being black at that time. Her throwing off also included the realisation of her lesbianism, and a slow progress toward positive celebration of that fact, and, most importantly, a deep picturing of the delights of women, to her mind. In many ways it's a naked book, the aroused body is close by often, registering. The dressing spoken of at the beginning, for me, undercuts this exceptional plain-spokenness. And it exists even in the second subtitle - why should this be a biomythography? It's quite a simple book for almost all of its length, albeit a beautiful and major simplicity. But, despite these small niggles, it's a corker.

An Abdication by JS Mitchell (1969)

 This forgotten book falls into the remit of the deep pocket of novels coming under the heading of 'Late 60s/Early 70s Experimental', a few of which are still celebrated, most gone like this one, but a very defined period which needs expanding for modern readers. It consists of a series of scenes in the life of a thirteen year old schoolboy: nags at school, socially among the boys, and politically with the temperaments of teachers; nags at home with parents who are perhaps a little distant and disconnected; nags more broadly in the world with angers, small bursts of sexual feeling, fears, cussedness and bewilderment. It displays a coolness, where emotions are seen without positivity or heat or need of warmth - more in the zone of curious encrustations on being. Its form is alphabetized, with each section having a heading, and arranged from "Abdication" on the first page to "Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z" on the last. None seems all that much more important than any other, which emphasizes the random quality of using alphacode as the arrangement. Many have sees and see alsos at the end, meaning that one can choose to jump ahead to another section which is somewhat related, or resist the urge and stay alpha-consecutive. Mitchell sometimes has some fun with these, sending the reader on long goose-chases through the book, back and forth until they end up back where they started. This quality of randomness makes me wonder about the intention. Could this have been another example of the novel-in-sections-in-a-box, the most notable example of which is BS Johnson's The Unfortunates? It would certainly work that way, though I don't feel it suffers from being bound together by Faber in the ordinary mode. In the end, it is enjoyable and quietly plangent, its random and overly even quality being the only (and expected) issue, where there's the feeling of a distinct lack of umbrella of arc. It has arcs - only they're tucked away within the confines of each section.

The Lady Paramount by Henry Harland (1902)

 This is the second iteration of what I call 'Harland 3'. Harland 1 was the pseudonymous works by "Sidney Luska"; Harland 2 was the early works under his own name. Harland 3 had by far the most success, being the most primary-coloured and concentrated. And the most romantic. I identified the previous iteration of this last group (The Cardinal's Snuff-Box) by saying that it had chocolate- or cigar-box brilliance of hue. This one's the same. A scion of the current ruling family of a mythical Adriatic island, which has been incorporated into the new Italy, decides she will seek out her cousin, of the denuded branch, regarded as the 'true' one. He's living the life of a gentleman in England. As with The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, in some senses, the action centres around fond deception, falling in love, the test of the other's genuineness of feeling, above and beyond the call of money and position. It also has the same concerns with the Catholic church. It clips along very brightly, the intensification of focus keeping it clear and essential. Their relationship leaps along with playfulness and some charm, until the inevitable revelation, and the melding back together of the parts of the family into a royal whole. My interest has been piqued as to how Harland suddenly 'got' that he could achieve this far greater clarity and pointedness. My suspicions lie with his wife as a potential co-writer. Aline Merriam appears to have been a sculptor, but she did apparently complete his last novel after he died. Is she the person responsible for the escalation of definition?

Lives of Houses edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee (2020)

 This is a themed anthology which suffers from the usual disease - the effort of compiling such disparate material is a tokenistic one. It is meant as a revelation of what houses mean in human lives, and has a very particular bent toward writers. As such, it's a slightly middling affair. The writing itself being the core of these people's lives, any talk of their houses, however influential in glancing ways, feels like an outer layer of a secret we've already penetrated. Outer layers of course retain their interest, though it doesn't feel particularly essential: one's fascination briefly flares (in some cases) and then dies down without much permanent increment. To do the volume justice, a couple of discoveries have stayed with me: the fact that Lear's nonsense wasn't always brilliant, rather drab, is a reality-check - all tikky-wikky and witchy-wee; and that the Disraelis were seen as arrivistes; and the sad story of Yeats' tower, which is the only more lasting memory associated with the subject matter. Like most subject anthologies, this is just OK. 

The Whisperer in Darkness by HP Lovecraft (2007)

 This is the first volume in a paperback reissue of all of Lovecraft's works. I'd been directed toward him many a time over many years, via the interest in him of people I knew. I finally got there, and my responses are mixed. There are nine pieces in this first volume, among them some of his most famous, like The Dunwich Horror, Dagon and At the Mountains of Madness. Initially, with short pieces like Dagon as a first exposure, I was quietly impressed; there seemed a strange place he occupied, full of landscapes empty of obvious life but which harboured it in hidden places. A fascination with archaeological records persisted, showing lost civilisations and the possible influence of vaguely hinted at others, either of a previously unknown prehistoric intelligent species, or visitors from elsewhere, surviving secretly. This was riddled with the author's queasiness at such things, which was elaborately explained. I could also see where the prejudice against him has received its energy, through the hackneyed adage "show, don't tell". There's a lot of telling here. But also a lot of showing, so that relation is an interesting one. As the volume progressed, though, that criticism gathered some weight, I will admit. It foundered in the middle of the volume in his longest piece (at least as far as I am aware) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which really did chug back and forth in a tiring sargasso sea of blasphemous this, and stench-laden that. It would have been better if those elements had been searing, and capable of raising the ghost of Giger, but they were less horrifying by quite a way, mainly because they were so often referenced as "nameless" or  "incapable of description" or whatever. And the treatment was profoundly repetitive. Surviving behind though was a peculiar atmosphere. The depth and specificity of his imagining of these others and their alien cultures still has great underlying charm. It seems to me that his pulp origins are most betrayed in this element: these stories would be much better not read all together in omnibus volumes, but encountered periodically, at good distances from one another. He seems to me almost the paragon of a little going a long way. So I'll no doubt pick up the second volume at some point, but at the moment I'm Lovecrafted out.