Cornflower Books

Bella Figura

    Bella Figura: How to Live, Love and Eat the Italian Way is a light-hearted, diverting read, one for those days when you feel like coasting.

    It's an account of a year Kamin Mohammadi spent in Florence, licking her wounds after the loss of a job and the end of a relationship, and yes, there's a degree of transformation as she learns to eat better, feel more comfortable in her own skin, re-establish her sense of self after the bruising events which led up to her move, but beyond a few basic recipes and tips about celebrating beauty in all things, it's less lifestyle manual than 'love in the sun' memoir. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy in my old age but I found the account of an affair with an unsuitable man - to which much space is given - tiresome; others may be more enthralled.

    Pleasant as the book is, I was left wondering how much of its detail is faithful record and how much is 'creative re-enactment', in other words a collage of events, conversations, observations, all based on fact but assembled with artistic licence. It doesn't matter either way, of course, for it's the author's story to tell as she chooses, and she does so nicely, but I sensed a degree of convenient conflation which leads me to think about authenticity in its wider sense in the genre as a whole. 

Looking forward to reading ...

   

    ... The Secret Commonwealth, the sequel to Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage and the second part of his The Book of Dust trilogy, out on the 3rd. of October.

    This picks up Lyra's story seven years after the end of The Amber Spyglass. She is now twenty and venturing across Europe and into Asia "in search of an elusive town, said to be haunted by daemons. She is at odds with her own daemon, Pantalaimon, after they unwittingly witness a murder."

    The author says, “Things have been biding their time, waiting for the right moment to reveal their consequences for Lyra Silvertongue. The Secret Commonwealth tells the continuing story of the impact on Lyra’s life of the search for, and the fear of, Dust. I found it intriguing and deeply exciting to discover how great events can turn on a little moment, and how revenge can be nurtured and fed and watered till it grows beyond control.

“Life is not easy for Lyra. It was enthralling for me to remember how powerfully and passionately our minds and opinions can be turned by reading a particular book at the right time. Lyra, as a student, is finding that out. She is also discovering a new and difficult aspect to her relationship with Pantalaimon, and other things about dæmons that she never suspected.

“But those things are background. At the heart of the book are Lyra, the young woman we saw first as a girl of twelve and then as a baby, and Malcolm, whose life as a boy became involved with hers and who now finds their lives helplessly entangled again; and how some emotions can last a lifetime, and others change beyond recognition. It’s the story of some people we know, and others we’ll meet for the first time. Their journey is going to take them far from their homeland towards a mysterious desert in Central Asia, where they hope to find, at last, the secret of Dust.”

Ikigai and other Japanese words to live by

       

    You'll be familiar, I'm sure with the recent trend for gimmicky, more-style-than-substance books on concepts from other cultures. At first glance Mari Fujimoto's Ikigai and other Japanese words to live by* might seem to be part of that group, but in fact it's much more considered, reflective, informative and useful.

    Granted, it's a short book and it aligns itself with modish mindfulness and paying attention to the here and now, but there's more to it than a bitesize, buzzword-based borrowing designed to simplify Japanese philosophy for a western audience. 

    Mari Fujimoto is Director of Japanese Studies at Queens College, City University of New York, but her early life was spent in Japan and the beliefs and traditions of Shinto, "the indigenous spirituality of the Japanese people" were highly influential. Informed by animism, a profound respect for nature, a view of beauty which accepts and celebrates its inherent transience and imperfection, the cultural wisdom of the country incorporates concepts as valuable to all of us as they are novel to many, and here they are presented via brief definitions of over forty words, each one embodying a way of looking at life which can enrich and sustain.

    The book is illustrated by atmospheric black and white photographs by Michael Kenna, images of simplicity and stillness which complement the text perfectly. What I found less compelling were the so-called 'essay pieces' by David Buchler, vignettes which preface each of the seven sections; while they sit alongside haikus by the poet Matsuo Bashō, other readers may better appreciate them as "a frame for the words that follow".

    Those words themselves are grouped under headings such as 'harmony', 'gratitude', 'time' and 'respect', and range from shibui - beauty enriched by the passing of time, enryo - thoughtful hesitation, to kotodama - spiritual greeting, and zazen - a form of healing meditation "to refresh your sense of purpose, restoring the potential simplicity of existence". Altogether, and especially if read slowly and absorbed before moving on, they serve to bring our awareness to ourselves as part of a greater whole, and provide guidance, perhaps, for a more balanced way of being within that bigger picture.

 

*From which there's an extract here.

Appreciation

 

    "Where sensei denotes the respect you owe to your teachers, go-on is a more general respect you owe to anyone who has taken good care of you. The concept of go-on developed in an ancient feudal era to describe the bond between the lord and the samurai. The price of the lord's protection was paid in go-on, gratitude expressed through absolute loyalty.

    Today, on is a feeling of appreciation towards the people who have been a friend to you or looked after you. You would go beyond your calling to help or support the giver of on - not because you are motivated by guilt or obligation but by the genuine desire to return the help that you have received. On is everywhere, between you and your parents, friends, co-workers, maybe even strangers. It is a beautiful tie that strengthens the connections between people in society."

    From Ikigai and other Japanese words to live by by Mari Fujimoto.

    I'll write more about the book soon but I wanted to post this extract now as it expresses our appreciation of all those who helped us in our recent difficulty.

Counting our blessings

    I've been away on what was planned as a relaxing family break in the Alps but turned out to be anything but when Mr. C. had a bad fall skiing and ended up in hospital with three broken ribs and damage to a lung and a kidney. 

    The good news is that he will mend fully, and though he's not allowed to fly while the lung heals, he managed the 1,000 mile train journey back yesterday in relative comfort and is very glad to be home.

The Time by the Sea

   

    Ronald Blythe's reminiscences of his time spent in Aldeburgh in the 1950s, helping with the running of the Festival there, reads like a Who's Who of the arts world. The Time by the Sea includes affectionate vignettes of friends such as Benjamin Britten, John Nash, E.M. Forster, but is as good on the 'walk-ons', the people who were not household names but who were nevertheless a grounding or enriching presence among the artists, writers and musicians: " ... Connie Winn who I used to think had escaped from a novel by E.F. Benson," "Millie the housekeeper, a mite unsteady by seven o'clock."

    Cedric Morris is one of those with a chapter to himself, and this line particularly caught my eye: "I was always intrigued by his catlike satisfaction with present time. It caused his days to become so long that, in spite of a stream of visitors, an enormous amount of painting and gardening - and teaching - managed to get done." That's an attribute worth cultivating.

    Ronald Blythe clearly has a gift for friendship, and his intimates and acquaintances - whether direct or at one or two removes - stretch across the years to form a web of connections as distinctive as the East Anglian landscape it overlays, his memories as evocative of person and place as any artist's rendering.

    He has spent most of his life inland, but when he initially went to stay on the coast at Thorpeness it was to get on with a book: "Setting down the first words of a first novel was not unlike putting a toe in the North Sea when the weather warmed up. How far dare I go? There was a page of Quink then a page of Olympia typewriter letters. I saw that I was methodical if nothing [...] I had never slept so near to the sea before, not even in Cornwall. It was marvellously monotonous and apparently safe, unable to make the few yards to where I lay, a sea on a cosmic leash, rushing at me then pulled back. Yet it sucked at my pillow and clinked its shingly trinkets at my ear. It bayed and hissed and implored, and would do so for ever. I felt it dragging my new purpose from me. I told it, 'Wait until after breakfast and then you can have me, gale or no gale.'"

    For more from Ronald Blythe, here's a post on In the Artist's Garden.

This and that

    I hope you can access these if you don't take the paper, but yesterday's Financial Times had a couple of interesting book-related articles: Erica Wagner on the (Man) Booker Prize, and Edwin Heathcote's piece Tome Management which includes the good line, "Books are the structure of the life of the mind."

    Meanwhile here's Tracy Chevalier on titles, (and her forthcoming novel sounds very promising indeed).

Hearing things

 

    

    "Listening has been a large part of my craft. [...] Listening in the strict sense of the word means to hear attentively. Yet literature abounds with remarkable things which the writer heard because he was not paying this kind of classroom attention, and by this I do not mean inner voices and the like, but actual sounds, usually sentences, gloatingly acquired. Those speaking these sentences, did they but know that they were being so effortlessly intercepted, could say, 'I am not talking to you!' But as every writer knows at such a moment, they are! - and in riveting tones. His thoughts build up around these syllables which he could have missed had he been listening 'attentively' and his creativity comes into play."

    Ronald Blythe, The Time by the Sea: Aldeburgh 1955-1958