No, I’m
not actually sitting at my computer on Christmas Day; I am downstairs, reading.
I’ve no idea what I’m reading as I don’t yet know what books I’ve been given
for Christmas. But yes, I’m pretty sure I’ll be given books, and you’ll
probably hear about them in due course.
However,
because I’m old-fashioned, I like the idea of twelve blog posts for the Twelve
Days of Christmas, so I’ve scheduled a few posts for while I’m mostly away from
my desk.
Today’s
post consists of links to things I’ve found interesting lately, some of which
may suit the festive season.
·
Writ Small
– Naomi Stead (architecture and children’s literature)
“Houses in
fairy tales are never just houses; they always contain secrets and dreams.” Three
imaginings of the architecture of fairy stories:
·
Fairy Tale
Architecture: Snowflake
·
Fairy Tale
Architecture: The
Little Match Girl
·
Fairy
Tale Architecture: Monkey
King
And a
fairy-tale landscape of a different sort. A remnant
of primeval forest, Białowieża Forest, on the borders of Poland and
Belarus, complete with European bison (or wisent, which is your word for
today).
I used
to be one of those people who read Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising
every Christmas. The habit lapsed after a while but when I tried to revive it a
couple of years ago, I found I could no longer find the same pleasure in the
story. I had finally moved on to other things. However, Cooper is still an
interesting writer and Susan
Cooper: A Life In Writing is worth reading.
The
Dark is Rising is notable for snow, lots of
it. As I write this, the aprés-apocalypse seems to consist of rain, lots and
lots of rain, and flooding. To redress the balance, snow drawings (via
P.D. Smith, whose latest book, City,is
brilliant).
Also, from Letterology, Yule type and Edward Bawden’s Christmas catalogues for Fortnum and Mason.
And
that’s probably enough Crimble goodness for one day.
Same here with The Dark Is Rising, though "moved on to other things" seems a bit harsh. Perhaps I've just read too much discussion and deconstruction of it, so I finally see the inherent nastiness of the Light that I've always been able to gloss over (heck, it's the Light, how can it be unpleasant?) Some Cooper fanfic actually does a better job because it has the right atmosphere but avoids the inevitability, the predestination, and gives scope to the people.
ReplyDeleteIt's disconcerting not to have a designated Christmas book, though; I'm making do with Dorothy Sayers for Englishness.
(Oh, and thank you for the HTML parser, saved me from having half of my reply in italics)