Day 20
I have been reading:
In the Land of the Long White Cloud by Sarah Lark, translated by D.W. Lovett.
This is a book on a huge scale. It reminds me of those magnificent Technicolor epics made in the late fifties and early sixties with Burt Lancaster or Charlton Heston as pioneers in the Old West, except that In the Land of the Long White Cloud is set mostly in New Zealand rather than the USA.
The book mainly concentrates on the lives of Helen Davenport, a governess in her late twenties drawn to New Zealand in search of the husband she is unlikely to find in Victorian London, and Guineira, daughter of Lord Silkham, who, in effect, loses her in a bet with a New Zealand wool baron. Helen is put in charge of six orphans destined to be servants. She and Guineira meet on the journey to New Zealand and their lives are entwined from that point on.
New Zealand is not what either was expecting, Christchurch being little more than a village, and their prospective husbands are not really what they were expecting either, but there is little option but to proceed as planned. So we follow their lives and watch how society in New Zealand begins to develop, thanks to the efforts of pioneers, entrepreneurs, rogues and misfits.
It would be impossible to give a summary of the plot without either diminishing it or acting as a spoiler. Suffice to say that what happens is often exciting, sometimes upsetting and always plausible. The characters of Helen and Guineira are sympathetic and you can identify deeply with them. Although they are strong characters, they are not those intensely irritating heroines who can overcome every travail put in their way. They are nineteenth century women living nineteenth century lives. Some of the other people you may feel you have met before, but it doesn't really matter as the story is strong enough to sustain them.
Initially I was a bit daunted by the size of the book - it is over eight hundred pages long and is heavy - but it reads at a rollicking pace and I finished it in a much shorter time that I had expected, having been completely immersed in the story, really enjoying the experience.
A word of warning - if you like your historical novels to be written in a form of language that sounds authentic to the period being written about, you may find that this book grates. The language is contemporary and uses words and idioms that are completely foreign to the nineteenth century.
This started me thinking. Does that matter? I suppose it depends on where we, the readers, place ourselves. Are we looking back at events that happened in the past or are we right there, with the characters, watching what is happening in their time? If we feel distanced from the time and place of the action, if we are looking at the characters through the filter of time, then I suppose we need to be distanced from the language as well, and quoth, sithee, and gadzooks have their place.
I used to believe that the language should be contemporaneous with the action, then I realised how silly that was, because there is no way that I would be able to understand King Arthur’s English and Shardlake would be much tougher to read and not nearly so much fun if he were speaking 16th Century English. I then realised that I wanted historical characters to speak slang-free, formal 21st Century English, but that is a ridiculous form of snobbism, because people only use formal English in particular circumstances and, for instance, the dialogue in an 18th Century pub brawl would not be conducted in formal English.
I have now reached the conclusion that the language should be a neutral 21st Century English, but the register must be correct - the sort of language the equivalent character would speak today. So, I have no problem with the language used in this book.
There is, however, an added twist, as the book was originally written in German. The translation is first-rate as it doesn't fall into any of the traps that renditions from the German usually set. I think the translator, D.W. Lovett deserves a mention because he/she has done an superb job.
So, this is an excellent book for Lockdown - it will transport you to the much more exciting and stirring times of nineteenth century pioneer life on the Canterbury Plains and the uplands of New Zealand - a really good read . . . and there are two more books in the series.
Music
Richard Strauss: Don Juan, Op 20, TrV 156
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DESm1r8uRVY
Lovely lush music
Food
Caponata
Caponata comes from Sicily. It almost has the status of the national dish. Every family has their own recipe which is fiercely guarded. It has infinite uses. It can be a meal in itself, served hot or cold, or you can use it as a side dish or a salad. It is good hot, chilled from the fridge or at room temperature. It, like Sicily itself, is a combination of Italian and Arab influences.
To make a large bowl of Caponata:
Ingredients
4 large aubergines
2 large onions
Inner leaves and stalks of a large celery plant
400g tomatoes, tinned or fresh
1 small handful salted capers, rinsed well
1 small handful chopped black olives (stoned)
1 large handful pine nuts
1 large handful basil, plus more to garnish
Nutmeg
1 tablespoon caster sugar
60ml sherry vinegar (or white wine vinegar if you can't get sherry)
Salt, pepper
Olive oil
Method
1. Chop the aubergines into smallish cubes.
2. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a large, thick-bottomed pan until it starts to give off its fragrance.
3. Add the aubergines. Fry, keeping everything on the move, until the aubergines are soft and turning brown. Remove them to a bowl.
4. Chop the onions roughly and fry them in some more oil in the same pan until soft.
5. Chop the celery heart and stalks and add to the pan.
6. Add the pine nuts, capers, olives and chopped tomatoes, and stir until the celery is tender - about five minutes.
7. Add the cooked aubergines and shredded basil to the pan and cook, stirring gently, for another ten minutes.
8. Add the vinegar and sugar, cook for another five minutes to take the edge off the vinegar, and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
Serve as a side dish or a main with focaccia or a crusty baguette.
Today’s Painting
Self-portrait, Giorgione
Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, usually known as Giorgione (Big George) was born in the late 1470s in Castelfranco. There are only six paintings that can be certainly attributed to him, but he was an immensely influential painter.
As a youth he moved to Venice to study painting under Bellini. Even though painting religious commissions was the bread and butter of artists at this time, there is no evidence, apart from an altar piece in his home town, that Giorgione was involved with religious work. He seems to have specialised in private commissions – portraits and scenes from the classical myths. He is credited with painting the first landscape, The Tempest.
He also produced the first reclining nude in western art. Sleeping Venus shows the goddess sleeping, naked and vulnerable in a lush and rolling landscape that echoes the eroticism of her body and evokes the language of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. His close friend, Titian soon follows suit with his Venus d’Urbino.
The fact that he worked for private clients rather than the Church may explain why so few of Giorgione's works remain – the Church taking better care of its works of art than the rest of us.
What Giorgione is most famous for is the way he developed the art of the portrait. His portraits convey emotion and character and his subjects engage the viewer by staring out of the picture plane. His portrait work was so successful that at only twenty-three, he was asked to paint the Doge of Venice.
One of the problems in attributing Giorgione’s work correctly is the closeness of his friendship with Titian. They were both students of Bellini, and as his apprentices worked together on a number of projects. It is also known that Titian completed several of Giorgione’s commissions after he died.
We know very little about Giorgione’s life. It is believed that he was interested in astronomy from notes and sketches that have been discovered, but there is no definitive evidence about his life.
In the Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari implies that Giorgione died of the plague in his mid-30s. Recently discovered evidence supports this. There is a record of his death on the island of Lazzareto Nuovo, where Venetian plague victims were quarantined.
Comments
Post a Comment