Writers – Page 6 – My Own RE:public

There are authors and there are authors

Coincidental to the racism discussion whirling about us in recent weeks; one thing leading to another, to another and so forth … then to Jesmyn Ward (see my last post), her picture in The New York Times today almost jumped out upon me.

In short, a #PublishingPaidMe has been making an impact (hesitate to say “gone viral” [sic]) highlighting as it does the disparity in advances given to white and black (and minority) writers in the United States (only the US?). Many writers are risking the ire of their publishers (and maybe even agents) and shining a not terribly flattering light on apparently inequitable structures in an industry that generally speaking tends to the liberal side of things. In respect to Jesmyn Ward the NYT reports:

Jesmyn Ward, a critically acclaimed novelist, said on Twitter that she “fought and fought” for her first $100,000 advance, even after her book “Salvage the Bones,” for which she said she received around $20,000, won a National Book Award in 2011. After switching publishers, she was able to negotiate a higher advance for “Sing, Unburied, Sing” — for which she won a second National Book Award, in 2017 — but, she said, “it was still barely equal to some of my writer friends’ debut novel advances.”

A spokeswoman for Bloomsbury Publishing, which published “Salvage the Bones” and Ms. Ward’s memoir “Men We Reaped,” said that the company does not comment on advances paid to authors, but that it was honored to have published her books.
The New York Times, June 8, 2020.

Love that:“…honored to have published her books”! So they god damn should be!

Waiting on …

“Jack” by Marilynne Robinson (29 September 2020)

Hallelujah! Something to look forward to still! (The truth is, look hard enough, and there is more than enough!) Some time ago I blogged on the confirmation of another Gilead novel from Marilynne Robinson, and schedule-wise not much has changed in the interim – what after all is a couple of weeks in these trying times! But it does now indeed have a cover – and, it seems, an author’s name typeset to the same dimension as the title. Presumably “Marilynne Robinson” sells! And so she should!

“Jack” by Marilynne Robinson, pub. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

In any old time I would be awaiting this book, but the circumstances and constraints, under which we are at the moment so struggling, particularly cries out for the grace and quiet and fortitude that emanate from Robinson’s prose.

First reflections

“The Mirror & The Light” by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror & The Light is out today! Welcomed by Wolf Hall fans everywhere, and in London with long queues – though why that should be necessary in this day and age I really wouldn’t know – and with various degrees of mostly ecstatic reviews. Ms. Mantel it seems has survived the hype – alone that, a feat! At almost 900 pages I will need some time, but time that will absolutely be found, and sooner I hope rather than later. I had pondered some time last year returning to the first two of the trilogy in preparation, unfortunately…! Perhaps a browse back is in order, and the hope that knowing we are rid (to put it crudely!) of More and Boleyn and approximately how we got there is enough! Maybe a little more than a browse.

Here is a NY Times review, and also an informative magazine piece on Mantel. Should you have access, The Time Literary Supplement review by Edmund Gordon will surely persuade the unpersuaded.

*Portrait of Thomas Cromwell*,
Hans Holbein the Younger (1532–1533), The Frick Collection.

By the way, Holbein, whose portrait of Th. Cromwell is perhaps the most recognisable reproduction, and whose rising star in the Tudor court was courtesy of the patronage of Cromwell, has again a recurring presence in this final novel of the series and with psychological dimensions beyond the historical or purely narrative; another NY Times review (this time from Thomas Mallon) makes the interesting observation:

“…For all its political and literary plotting, “The Mirror and the Light” is most memorable for its portraiture, with Cromwell acting as our Holbein, challenging us to weigh his interpretive assessments against our enormous accumulated knowledge of his concerns, biases and kinks.”
The New York Times, Book Review, Feb. 25 2020

Jack’s story

Expected, but still thrilled by the formal announcement of Marilynne Robinson’s new Gilead novel – the fourth. Finally (and is this the final word?), we are going to hear Jack’s side of things – at least the St. Louis story, for I recall Robinson stating last year that the new instalment would go to Gilead; though in some respects the place “Gilead” – real and mythical – and its effect on the characters, is always present.

A folk’s jester goes to war

“Tyll” by Daniel Kehlmann, original pub. Rowohlt, Germany, 2017

Coming to my notice via The New York Times is publication of the English translation of Daniel Kehlmann’s Tyll. Only a couple of years old in original, I seem to recall it as being well received, and ‘Daniel’ is a bit of a “Publikum” darling anyway – hence the familiarity of a first name being enough to identify him by many literary minded sorts in Germany. My interest piqued, I have just visited the local library and duly got myself a copy; begging the question exactly where to fit it into my reading agenda!

Coincidently some of my favourite UK podcasts have recently lured Kehlmann into their studios for interesting chats that further whet my appetite. Firstly, the Arts & Ideas podcast available directly from BBC Radio 3 or at Apple Podcasts, and then there is the Times Literary Supplement Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon podcast also at Apple.

For a little more context and historical background, here are the Wikipedia entries for the Thirty Years’ War and Till Eulenspiegel. I’m very much looking forward to the read.

& still more from Mecklenburgh Sq.

This must be it surely it! The TLS podcast Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon has a bonus episode (an Apple link is the best I can do) of their extended interview with Francesca Wade about book Square Haunting that I have previously blogged on. Nothing here that she hasn’t necessarily said elsewhere, but just another nudge in the direction of reading about this really interesting collective (of four people – women) that Wade has put together (in one place – a London square).

Until I read the book, one final thought, it occurs to me how often Virginia Woolf uses “haunting” and associated words – things like “my old haunts” or “something/somebody haunted by” and of course “haunted houses” – and there is a wonderful 1927 essay entitled Street Haunting (I would guess this inspires Wade’s book title) which I know from The Death of the Moth, and Other Essays a collection published in 1942 by Leonard Woolf after his wife’s death, and which takes us on a delightful walk of London – and at the haunting hour! (A beautiful 1930 US edition is at The British Library, and here digitally.) I will keep this in mind as an idea to be pursued further, because I think there is a lot more to be said about Woolf and the ghosts that haunted her, and those that haunt us all.

More from Mecklenburgh Square

Certainly a most talked about publication in the UK at the moment! Further to my previous post, BBC Radio 3 has also given Francesca Wade’s Square Haunting (amongst other things woman, classical & academic) consideration on their Free Thinking program or the “Goddesses of Academia” episode of their Arts & Ideas podcast.

And, yes, the Jane Harrison, Hope Mirrlees relationship which I remarked upon does indeed come up, as does her modernist poem “Paris” printed by the Hogarth Press in 1919. The British Library has digitized a first edition for all to see, and what a delight it is. Literary wise – why has Mirrlees been forgot? (perhaps because she forsook poetry for “the novel” and other interests) – and in terms of handwork – the Woolfs had only been doing this stuff for a couple of years (they bought a printing press in 1917) for goodness sake!

Interesting, is that Mirrlees’ poem spans just one day in Paris, portraying the vast, ever-changing cityscape and the tempo of a new modernity, all set against the dark shadows still cast by war and an uneasy peace. The much better known “one dayers” are a few years away – Joyce’s “Ulysses” in 1922 and Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” in 1925.

Five Women & Mecklenburgh Square

Just published and brought to my notice by The Guardian, this interesting podcast from The Spectator (and embedded below) informs further on Francesca Wade’s just published first book Square Haunting (Faber, January 2020).

For the curious, the five eminent women are Virginia Woolf (writer, 1882–1941) Hilda Doolittle (or H.D. writer, poet 1886–1961), Dorothy L Sayers (writer, 1893–1957), Eileen Power (economist, historian 1889–1940) and Jane Harrison (classicist, 1850–1928), and the place is Mecklenburgh Square in Bloomsbury, London. Wade presumably explores the changing role of women at the beginning of the 20th century through these exemplary lives, and in doing so discovers shared aspects of their lives.

Jane Ellen Harrison, Newnham College (Augustus John)

Without referring to either book or podcast, off the top of my head I actually know of one obscure more than crossing of paths, being that between Woolf and Harrison. Virginia Woolf’s diaries (favourite often returned to reading of mine) reveal something of the relationship between her friend Hope Mirrlees and Mirrlees’ former tutor and then partner Harrison — their shared domestic and working lives and travels abroad. The Woolfs’ Hogarth Press in fact published Harrison’s memoirs in 1925.

Also, while Eileen Power may draw a blank with some (or many) I have actually come across Medieval English Nunneries in another context … but there must surely be more to tell, and I am looking forward to reading about it.