Back from the Nether World of Castles

I have spent the last 3 or so days and 4 very long nights half dead in bed from stomach flu, which I could have done without.  If you were to ask me what is the very worst thing about having children I would have to say 'being sick' because it is so hard to recover from anything when you have to attend to their every need and that, combined with guilt that you are not attending to their every need in a remotely satisfactory way, renders the whole experience twice as bad.  Mind you I was fully delirious for one whole day so I didn't much notice how hungry they were.  (Only joking, I did have a husband who can in theory look after them.  But to this day one of my fears which cannot be stilled is the fear of becoming chronically ill.   Who would make sure that the children are really okay?)

I did manage to do a lot of this though:

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (with some weak tea)

Kate Morton is now an 'Internationally Best Selling' author, trumpet her publishers.  Her first two books also received the little golden 'Great Read' sticker handed out by the Australian Women's Weekly which usually guarantees mega sales. It also connotes girly chick lit whirlwind slightly bitter romance. And her work is better than that.  Still pretty fruity in its language, perhaps searching for the less well known word when the ordinary one would do just fine, it's true, but I have loved all her books, resonant with secrets, dark English houses, overgrown gardens, pre and post War romances, and the tragedies and misunderstandings of family relationships.   

Have you ever wondered about your mother's life before she married and had you? I have, and like most people I have never really broached the topic with her.  The Distant Hours explores the life of the heroine's mother as an evacuee to a castle located (I think) in Surrey which was inhabited by three sisters and their mad brilliant writer father in the depths of World War 2 and the secrets the sisters then keep there for 50 years. 

Here is Kate Morton at her desk at home in Brisbane.  Yes she is Australian, but writes so well about England.

photo via The Australian

And most wonderfully The Distant Hours features a castle with a tower and a filled in moat.   Kate Morton recently said in an interview 'I wanted to write something that made me feel so enveloped by a story that the real world dissolves around me'.   I would say that is the secret to all great writing, that transportation into another world, and another point of view.

 

Whilst Kate Morton was apparently inspired by Sissinghurst Castle in her depiction of the fictional Milderhurst Castle, I pictured this castle as the home of the Blythe sisters, Juniper, Persephone and Seraphina.  This is Herstmonceux Castle (Tudor, constructed from 1441) at Bexhill in Sussex, taken I suspect, before it was refurbished. It now houses an outpost of Canada's Queen's University.   

How I wanted to live in a castle when I was little.  And the Distant Hours made me think back to some other favourite castle books.  

I read Dodie Smith's 'I Capture the Castle' many years ago, and when the film was released in 2003 I rushed off to see it by myself.   The film was set here, at Manorbier Castle (Norman, constructed from 1140) in West Wales, a castle which has now, like so many others, fallen into disrepair.

No post about English castles in books would be complete without Malory Towers.   I have read that the real life inspiration for Malory Towers, the four towered school in Cornwall, was this castle, Lulworth Castle (built in 1610) in Dorset.   Isn't it funny that as a child I so fervently wanted to go to boarding school. I probably would have hated it, but the idea of school in a stone castle was just so exciting.

I do often wonder if Brideshead Revisited would have died a quiet 20th century death were it not for the BBC TV series from the early 1980s.  After all, I have to say I found the book a bit turgid.  Far away, at Melbourne University at the time of the TV series, people got up in boaters and blazers channeled Sebastian Flyte in their every utterance.  But the setting, in this, the castle of all castles, Castle Howard in North Yorkshire (built from 1699 to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh), makes up for almost everything else.   

Other castles of my dreams? I prefer them craggy and stormy, like this one, Eilean Donan Castle (originally built in early 13th century as a defence against the Vikings):

Have I missed any other great castle books?

(Photo of Manorbier Castle by Stephen J Franklin)

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Stacks and stacks and shelves and shelves of painted books

I am really drawn to paintings of books.  Is it because of my library obsession? There is an undeniable cosiness to shelf upon shelf of books. Especially shelves that go sky high.

(When we put shelves last year in I had a crazy idea of raising the ceiling into the roof and having two levels, like a mezzanine, of shelves, a bit like something out of a Jules Verne book - you know those be-whiskered men who always have wonderful studies full of leather bound books, telescopes, globes, stuffed animals, a brandy balloon, a sextant, lots of framed maps etc. Like that. People looked at me like I was insane when I suggested it.)

I have the same feeling when I am in a bookshop, all those wonderful titles and covers, just waiting to be devoured. Or perhaps it is because really, aside from what is inside, like a magical package, the outside of a book is also often a thing of beauty.

Important note: all of the images in this post are paintings, not photographs, mostly oil or acrylic on canvas.



First up, Donald Bradford, an artist originally from California. Amongst other things, he paints piles of books and also open books.

(Stack of Books Spanish Still Life 1995)

(Open Book Francis Bacon 1995)


You can see more Donald Bradford here.

His foreshortened books make me think of this painting,  Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c.1480). When you realise that the Gothic flat no perspective style was still being practiced over many parts of Europe at this time the revolutionary nature of this image really hits you.  Of course pedants point out that a truly foreshortened image would have meant that the feet were enormous, large enough to block the rest of the body. This is in the Brera gallery in Milan. Worth seeing in real life, as they say.





These works are by Holly Farrell. She also does paintings of hats, couches, shoes, bowls etc, which sounds mundane but is not.   See her work here.

(Gardening Books 2009)

(Cookbooks 2009)

(Books 2009)

These photorealistic paintings are by Paul Beliveau, a Canadian.  Some of his works are found here.

A painter I have posted on before is Australian Victoria Reichelt.   This is a very recent work (White Pages) which is being exhibited in Fitzroy at the Diane Tanzer Gallery. 

Here are some works from last year:

(Purple Haze 2009)

(Green Room 2009)

These more traditional still life style works are by Christopher Stott. He also has a blog here.

These are by Jane Mount who also sells good value prints of her work on Etsy.

If you look closely you can pick out the books, including a biography of the wonderful Bruce Chatwin.

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A pink book collection - are you what you read?

Herewith is a post for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Who amongst us has not been touched in some way by this terrible disease?

The colour theme for such a post must of course be pink.

I firstly thought about posting some pink flower images, like these Snugglepot and Cuddlepie flowers (Banksia? Australian readers will know)

But then I realised I live with someone who lives in an entirely pink world. My daughter, for whom I have all those hopes. My hope for my daughter is that she lives to an ancient age, is surrounded by family and friends who love her, retains a good quality of life and is not visited by any cancer. Who knows, in 70 years time they may have cured breast cancer, or at least found a less invasive way to treat it.

In photographing my daughter's pink possessions it then struck me how different all our respective book collections were. So, on the theme of you are what you read, which is one which is close to my heart (see my post on this here), I have photographed our respective bookshelves, to see if they represent a window into our souls.

Here is one of my daughter's many pink shelves of books:

My son:

Me:

My husband:

We may have merged our money, CDs, crockery, furniture, toothpastes, linen, photos, DVDs, rugs and carpets, crystal and glassware and silverware but for some reason we have not merged our books......

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Metro 5 Gallery - Library Art - Victoria Reichelt

Metro 5 Gallery in High Street runs an annual young artists competition and exhibition with a not inconsiderable prize of $40,000.

Here is the amazing 'Self Portrait' by Victoria Reichelt which won the People's Choice.

The painting needs to be seen in real life (like most art, as the detail is incredible). Bear in mind, this is a painting (oil) not a photograph.

She has painted some of my favourite books including Richard Dawkins 'God Delusion' and Donna Tartt's 'Secret History'.

I fully subscribe to the the idea that you are what you read.

If one could create a bookshelf for one's life, what would it contain? I am working on my list. It should definitely have categories - childhood, pretentious French, saccharine, life changing, scientific, detective, airport, history and art \ design. This will be the subject of a later post, because I think it needs some consideration.

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