End of Year Ruminations

Well, what can one say. Some regular readers here might recall that I am most certainly tapped into the ideas around Hauntology, a philosophy that maintains that, as individuals but perhaps more importantly as a society, we are haunted by the ghosts of what could have been, along with another idea that seems to me to be becoming more evident with each passing year, The Slow Cancellation of the Future, and this philosophy pretty much sums up how I feel about our current society.

In 1994 the Manic Street Preachers released their magnum opus, The Holy Bible, an album that is arguably the most powerful ever recorded, and which will, in time, if humanity remains, I maintain be viewed in a similar light to Picasso's Guernica, and which has a devastating song on it entitled 'The Intense Humming of Evil.' I am a member of a Music League competition where the contestants submit a song for a different themed round each week, and the theme for the last round of this season is to submit a song that sums up the past twelve months. Is it any wonder that 'The Intense Humming of Evil' is the song that immediately sprang into my mind. The wars and carnage and intense cruelty and callousness our species has inflicted on each other and on the non-human world has been on a scale far beyond what I expected to see in my lifetime. And not only does the whole situation break my heart, but it also reminds me of why I am so interested in and almost soothed by the music, art and ideas of Hauntology, for it at least helps me make some sense of our insane, late-Capitalist world, but it also transports me back to when I used to watch programmes like Tomorrow's World, which promised us a glittering future where there were no diseases, technology did all the shitty jobs and chores, meaning that human beings would have more time that they could devote to the worship of art and beauty, for meaningful things and for solving problems. Space travel would be as normal as flying on a plane, and there would be no more war or hunger or starvation. And these are the kinds of mesmerising, new sounds that sound-tracked it all. The future seemed like it was going to be the greatest place in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPp_xImWYRs

But how different and precarious it all seems now.

And which brings me back to the Manics...
It is now five years since I last saw them in concert (the last time I was able to was in 2019 because I had to shield for so long because of the pandemic), and I missed their 2021 Ultra Vivid Lament tour (the first one I've missed since 1997), and I also couldn't attend this year's glorious double-header with my equally beloved London Suede, as outdoor venues are also a no-go for me. Thank the stars, however, that I was able to attend a very special, one-off additional screening of Be Pure. Be Vigilant. Behave concert film of their 2016 Holy Bible concerts that had a Q&A afterwards with the one and only Nicky Wire.

Being in the second row for the film was truly extraordinary, and the power of the music, the words, the Manics' delivery and everything around the performance was off the radar. I have a wonderful connection with birds - we have two gorgeous seagulls (Mr and Mrs. Kehaar) who nest each year on the roof just outside our window - but this year I think all three of their chicks fledged too soon and didn't make it, which is almost too distressing to reflect on in any depth - and when James Dean Bradfield was singing the terrifying and heart-breaking refrain, "No birds!" in 'Mausoleum', I literally thought I was going to shatter. Those lines hit me so incredibly hard, and I could feel the tears streaming down my face. But Mr and Mrs. Kehaar have taught me a vital lesson, for as I am writing this, right now, in December, I can quite literally hear them pretty much every afternoon arriving to inspect their love nest ready for next year's brood. And every time they arrive to inspect and tidy up their nest it is accompanied by the most exquisite sounds (if anybody ever tells me that herring gulls can't communicate with each other I'm afraid I will have to tell them to go and give their head a wobble), of excited cries, and the most wonderful, genuinely happy little chatter that they exchange with each other. It absolutely melts my heart. It is devastatingly sweet and romantic, and to my mind it is their version of how I feel when my fine lady and I are getting ready to go out on one of our occasional dinner dates, and we have our favourite music playing (The White Lotus soundtrack, for example), and my neurons are firing off rapidly in my brain making me feel decidedly tipsy and ecstatic even before a drop of wine has passed my lips. And for the past week or so they have done this every single day, and I can actually feel their love of life and their love for each other emanating from them. They did quite obviously grieve in the summer when their chicks didn't make it as it was very subdued when the nest was suddenly empty, but my goodness, they have shown astonishing resilience and are now as bouncy and energetic as they were when I first saw and heard them in May 2023. Mr and Mrs. Kehaar, you are an inspiration and a refuge from the insanity and cruelness of human society and I salute you.

As well as the Manics' incredible concert film I have also managed to connect with some very fine art this year, and going to the cinema or a theatre still seems such a novelty after four years of not being able to attend due to the pandemic, and this makes the occasional visits I can now make seem even more like a gift from the gods (which, it actually is, and always has been). 

First up were three quite incredible films that I was able to watch in our local, beautiful art deco cinema. The first one was Poor Things, and I loved every second of it. The storyline, the script, the performances, the very decadent (darlings!) Oscar Wilde inspired set, it really did tick all of my boxes. There was also The Zone of Interest, which was so immensely powerful it almost became too painful to watch, and was made all the more relevant by the horrific atrocities that are being visited upon people in far off places that seems to show absolutely no signs of abating. And then, saving me from complete misanthropy and despair, and giving me hope and belief in the species homo-sapiens when it had almost all but disappeared, there was All of us Strangers. Oh my goodness. Be calm my trembling heart. I am not going to say much more of it right now as I intend to do an in depth post on it in the near future, but what a searching, soul-shattering (and then putting it back together) film it truly is. Just extraordinary.

I have also had the immense good fortune to read some wonderful books this year, of which my favourites were Walter Pater's Sebastian Van Storck, which although only a short story, contained a wealth of meaning and symbolism, and I am still going through the very many articles and chapters that have been written about this strange and haunting story. And a sensational novella by Guiseppi de Lampedusa called The Professor and the Siren, which was utterly enchanting. If any of you faithful readers have a taste for exotic and decadent storytelling, I can recommend both of these works very highly. They have a world that you can almost disappear into, and I have found that very consoling during this year of, even by human standards, intolerably high levels of barbarity. I have also spent some quite glorious time with the poets John Milton and William Wordsworth this year, thanks to two utterly fascinating zoom classes with Peter Brennan, a splendid teacher and Shakespeare scholar whom I met through an online course in 2022, and who has become someone I consider a genuine friend. Lydia and me actually got to meet him and his lovely wife in person, in the wild and not on screen, for the first time this summer, and it was as lovely as the wine we all indulged in. I sincerely hope there will be many more meetups in the future.

When I think of this year from a cultural perspective, however, the fact that I can now attend the theatre again has led me to explore more of a type of music and performance which I have always loved, but which has never quite been central to my aesthetic radar: opera! I started the year by finally reading a book I have wanted to read for what seems like a million years, aeons and aeons, in fact; The Queen's Throat by Wayne Koestenbaum.

If I had a tenner for each time this extraordinary book has been quoted or referenced in the many, myriad readings that are contained within my musical library - especially when discussing the truly great pop/rock/torch singers that I adore such as Freddie Mercury, Billy Mackenzie, Marc Almond and Scott Walker - I would be able to stay regularly at the Cafe Royal and take afternoon tea in the Oscar Wilde bar whilst I was there. It has been on my radar for so long that it had taken on mythological status in my ever enquiring mind, and when I finally had a copy of it in my hands (a magical gift from another dear friend of mine, Phil, who also happens to be a musical maestro), I could hardly believe my eyes and senses, and hoped beyond hope that the actual book itself wouldn't be a crushing disappointment compared with how I had built it up in my imagination. Dear reader. I needn't have worried. Take a quick glance at these few quotes...

'For a diva, difference is power; she finds power in her deviance. For the non-diva, however, difference only leads to ridicule.' 

'In the auditorium, I seek refuge from the contemporary world, as I hide, immersed in opera, from life's failure to be operatic.'

'The diva's home, a stage, is a shrine to itself: it teaches the fan that home should be as grand as opera, that home is not a place in which one should tolerate diminishment.'

"Dorothy, in life that first impression is very important. So, always, at all times, exude confidence and let your bosoms lead you." (Veteran opera singer Mary Garden's advice to up and coming opera singer, Dorothy Kirsten.

These are just a few that I have chosen to share, but the book is filled with glorious, camp, moving, and hilarious passages about opera, opera divas, and the pains and joys of being an opera fan. It increased my knowledge of opera considerably, and then, to my great joy, my beautiful innamorata and myself were able to attend a live performance of Bizet's Carmen at our local theatre. I was in seventh heaven and to my eternal delight, a friend of ours who joined us at the theatre took this rather splendid picture of my fine lady and I on our way into the theatre. Not only is it one of my favourite photos of the two of us from this year, it is actually one of my favourite pictures of us altogether...

Which pretty much brings me to the end of this year's ruminations. 

Many thanks to all of you who have spent time reading my words this past year, and I look forward to regaling you with more thoughts and cultural ramblings next year. Here's to a more peaceful world in 2025 (as unlikely as that seems), but it's something I will never stop hoping for, and I very much hope that the year ahead will bring you much enchantment of the heart.

I remain, your Nocturnal Butterfly

xxxx

The Voice: Richard Burton

The great Welsh actor, Richard Burton, died forty years ago today. I recall hearing his incredible, rich baritone speaking voice for the first time when I was about eight or nine years old, as he was playing the part of the narrator in Jeff Wayne's LP, The War of the Worlds. I can even remember asking my mum if she knew who he was as his voice did something to me, even back then. And I recall my mum's sense of pride when she replied to me, "That's Richard Burton, cariad. And do you know what? He's Welsh."

I have listened to The War of the Worlds album so many times since then that I could probably recite his lines, word for word. Some kind soul has edited the album so you can listen to all of his bits in one go. Here it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjWWs81QAYY

And even more fascinating is this collection of outtakes, which I am mesmerised by...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Wpi2TWCVA

It may be a coincidence, although I'm pretty sure it isn't, that two of my all time favourite films, both of which I have so obsessed over that I could probably recite those word for word, also, Sydney Lumet's version of Peter Schaeffer's Equus (1977), and Mike Nichol's version of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), both star Richard Burton. He is magnificent in both, yet very different qualities stand out in each film. In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as George, Burton is full of life and vigour, as he swings between total love and total war with his wife, Elizabeth's Taylor's Martha, a woman who is most definitely in touch with the chthonic elements of her femininity (to paraphrase Camille Paglia). In Equus, he is magnificent as the world weary, yet still hungry for life psychiatrist, Dr. Dysarth, who has his beliefs turned upside down when he encounters Alan Strang, a young man who has blinded six horses with a metal spike, is sent to him for analysis and treatment. This is one of my favourite scenes in the film...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDajCkGmXSU

His life has been quite an inspiration to me, also. His interviews are staggeringly honest and vulnerable when compared with the anaemic, "I'm only here because I have a new film to promote" interviews with actors today. Whereas Burton talks openly about his love for and struggles with alcohol, his guilt at the death of his younger brother, his passionate, fiery relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, and his belief that his enormous success as an actor wasn't just down to his talent and himself, but some mysterious kind of "diabolical luck", today's actors, in comparison, in the main are crashing bores. He was a socialist, talked of the Welsh miners as being the "princes of people," and even wore red socks (the colour of the Welsh rugby and footy teams) for luck.

There are other films of his that I adore, too. He is magnificent in The Medusa Touch, devastating in 1984, and compelling in the very odd production of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. But, most of all, he was a lover, and he and Elizabeth Taylor, As Antony and Cleopatra, in my eyes in real life and on a mythological level, too, reside with the immortals up there in the stars. 

gorffwys ymhlith y sêr (Rest among the stars).

Mirror Images

- Stills from Brett Ratner's Film
'Red Dragon' (2002)

I am truly fascinated by mirrors. I am of the opinion that sometimes they can retain the image of what they reflect, and this is one of the principal reasons why they are so otherworldly, for, if I am correct, this would mean that a mirror can unknowingly reflect an incident from any time of its actual history. During my life, I have found them both fascinating and uncanny, and although my reason always informs me that the afterlife, the Other Side, call it what you will, doesn't exist, there is something fantastically eerie, yet magical (not to mention, indispensable for a dandy like me, darlings) about them. And  the fact remains that some of my most uncanny experiences have happened via mirrors. For example, in the spring of 2023, following what can only be described as one of, if not the most harrowing experiences of mine and my fine lady's lives, a time when we very nearly forced into homelessness due to being a victim of the hideous "section 21: no fault eviction" law, at the behest of our previous, greedy landlord, we were, to our everlasting gratitude, rescued at the final hour by a couple who have become dear friends of ours, and who, like a miracle (the CF social worker at the hospital at the time actually called it that), offered us a property they owned to rent. It came after we had spent the previous four months frantically trying to find somewhere to live in the town, down by our beloved sea, that we had worked so hard over the previous ten years to build a life in and make our home. Just a few short weeks after the immense relief of finding out we did indeed have somewhere to move to, we were then in Brighton to see James perform with a full orchestra, the first concert we had attended since 2019 because of the pandemic. And then, after the extraordinary concert, as we were having a quick nightcap at the Grand Hotel before we went back to our room at the Travelodge, I happened to glance in one of the old hotel's many mirrors, and very naturally announced to my fine lady that, "I've just seen Oscar in the mirror." She, understandably, suddenly went cold and said, "Oh my god, don't say that, I'll never get to sleep tonight," but I had mentioned it to her in all innocence, and was simply relaying who and what I had just glimpsed: Oscar Wilde. As I was still in such a heightened state of emotion after everything that had happened to us in the last few months, not to mention the heart-somersaulting concert we had just attended, who knows if it was my imagination or actually Oscar that I saw in the Grand Hotel's mirror.  But I had also mentioned it so casually because, to this day, I am convinced it is Oscar that I saw. As any regular readers will already know from these pages, Oscar Wilde is a huge influence on my life, and he and Bosie actually stayed at the Grand Hotel in the late nineteenth century, so there is every possibility that his spirit lingers there, and it felt like he had been one of the many energies fighting in our corner during those previous hellish few months. Was it actually him or my overheated emotions? Who knows how these things actually play out, but, when all's said and done, why not? And, who among you, dear faithful readers, with hand on heart, would not feel a tremble of uneasiness if you looked into a mirror, during the bewitching hour, at an old hotel or theatre that is steeped in over a hundred years of history? 

Mirrors, like eyes, and photographs, are full of strange, hidden depths, and can anybody say for absolute certain that mirrors don't somehow retain an imprint, of everyone, and perhaps even everything, that they have at some point reflected? And what if these reflections are then, perhaps, somehow visible to us, even if it's only during rare, perceptive moments, when we are in an emotionally overwrought state or when the soul in question is desperately trying to make itself known and visible to us, from beyond that silvery veil?

Anyway, with all that in mind, here are a few of my favourite pictures of Lydia involving that spectacular, eerie, and magisterial phenomena that is human beings and mirrors. Oh, the magical mysteries they contain!

'Mirror Images'

"I love mirrors. They let one pass through
the surface of things."
- Graham McNeil

World Book Day

 Happy World Book Day, everyone! These are my shortlist for the next couple of months on our shelf - some already read and adored awaiting to be reread, a few others waiting patiently for their turn.

 

Happy Birthday, Lord Byron

Happy Birthday, Byron. Here we are at your glorious home about ten years ago. When we arrived we had to stay in the car for ten minutes as we were greeted by a sudden, ferocious thunder storm complete with forked lightning. How very apt, we thought. And how unnerving it was. And I still get a shiver down my spine when I recall how that beautiful peacock looked right into my soul when our eyes met. xx

 

Nobody Reads Gogol Round Here

I recently discovered that a book by a writer called Mark Hodkinson had been published with the rather humorous title, Nobody Reads Tolstoy Round Here. I haven't actually read it myself, but reading a Guardian review, it certainly got my mind racing. The premise of the book seems to centre on Hodkinson's "addiction" to books, and how he even sought advice from a therapist because he felt that perhaps there was something wrong with his great love of books. Sadly, this very fact has probably put me off actually wanting to read it, as it stands in direct opposition to the heartbreak I sometimes feel when it comes to my actual collection of books (my library, darlings). If it were possible, I would dearly love to actually have every single book I have ever owned (or borrowed from a library, for that matter). But, for financial, and particularly, actual available physical space reasons, that has been impossible. My wife and I lived in bedsits for almost ten years and the space we had was minimal, with most of my books stored with friends or family members. In 2014, we were able to move into a flat and we had more room, and thus, a good many of my favourites were able to be back at home with us, and this was a wonderful feeling. But, then, in 2022, I had a very dangerous severe allergic reaction to mould, which hospitalised me for over two weeks and, because of which, we discovered our flat had appalling damp problems that had been completely ignored by our landlord, who then had to rip out entire parts of the flat and refurbish it before it was safe enough for me to return home to. As well as the shock of my health situation, this also led to the heart-breaking discovery that pretty much three quarters of my library had become mould-ridden and would be unsafe for me to hold or be within breathing distance of. I can recall with great sadness how my wife went through the titles of each book in our little garden, with me sitting about fifteen feet away, as she inspected each one and I wrote down the titles of the many that simply had to go. I was just relieved to still be in the land of the living after the severe allergic reaction I'd just had, so it didn't quite hit me at the time how tragic a situation this actually was, but once the dust had settled (so to speak), and I looked at what remained of my severely deleted library and looked through the now absent list of a deeply loved (not to mention the rare actual value, and even greater irreplaceable sentimental value) collection of a lifetime, and the heart-breaking reality of the situation truly hit home. And just as an added bit of salt in that gaping wound, the allergic reaction that recently had made me so unwell had also left me with a much higher sensitivity to mould, thus meaning that treasured older editions of books (a type I dearly love), would be too risky for me to not only own, but even risk borrowing from a library. Ah, Life can indeed, at times, be a Pigsty, as one great lyricist so accurately wrote. 

But, there is a silver lining to this black cloud, and it came through a type of reading that I was initially extremely mistrustful of, and resisted until I realised it was a consoling way of soothing my aching heart:

Online reading.

Of course, it's not like the real thing. Nothing can ever beat that entire sensual experience of reading a physical book. Especially when it's a treasured edition. One of the greatest losses from my library was a 1949, Secker & Warburg first English edition of Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. I still feel this loss deeply, even though I have replaced it with (thank goodness, a very handsome hardback Everyman's Library edition), as it just radiated magic. I remember buying it in Manchester, around 2000, in a second hand book shop where it was waiting for me, in a glass cabinet, where it proceeded to somehow choose me, rather than me choose it. The dark green caught the eye immediately, and the gold lettering gave it a genuine sense of mystery and class. It also felt wonderful to the touch, as it was made of a soft felt material, despite it having the sturdiness of a hardback edition, and because it had been so well cared for, the pages had a subtle smell, and it felt like I was holding a sacred charm in my hands whenever I picked it up. And then there was my history with it. The first time I tried to read it, I had to give up about half way through as it was just too dense for me to make sense of or connect with. And so it sat on my bookshelf, like a diamond, patiently waiting for the time when I was ready to take it up again. Which happened, I would estimate, about 2006, and by this time I was in a place where I could understand and appreciate its strange wonders, and as I read I became utterly enthralled yet terrified of its haunting contents. To this day, it is one of my favourite ever reads, and I am looking forward immensely to taking it up again, in the Everyman's edition I now own, in the not too distant future. But, I digress slightly, back to online reading! For to my utter delight, most of those beloved books are available in their entirety online, via websites such as Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, and Scribd, and I thought it might be a nice thing to take a little personal journey through them here, in no particular order. 

1. Robert Wernaer, Romanticism and the Romantic School in Germany (1910)

I will forever recall finding this treasure chest of a book whilst in Edinburgh, and being captivated by its contents. I was still in the relatively early days of my coming to understand the different strands of Romanticism, and this glorious book was the key to unlocking so much of its majesty to my ever hungry, enquiring mind. I had heard of the writer Novalis before, but this book introduced me to the hypnotising symbolism of Novalis's Blue Flower (it represents "sehnsucht," that is, deep longing or desperate yearning), and made my heart and soul almost explode with overflowing emotion and made me truly realise just how out of step with the times and my contemporaries I really was. Here was a book published in 1920, written by a commentator fervently praising these rebellious, passionate young poets and writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, with names such as Novalis, Tieck and Eichendorff, and I felt like I had far more in common with them than with the culture of my time. This was my stepping stone into the haunting worlds of Dark German Romantic Fairy Tales, such as Motte la Fouque's devastating, mysterious tale Undine, about a mermaid in search of a soul, Friedrich Schegel's erotic, feminist (and banned at the time), Lucinde, which dared to propound the fact that women actually had sexual desires, too, and, of course, the tragic but transcendental Novalis, with his Blue Flower tale, Henry von Ofterdingen, and his gothic masterpiece, Hymns to the Night. I simply can't imagine not having these influences in my life, and the door to them was initially opened for me by this long out of print, 1910 hardcover edition that I discovered on a trip to the Festival in Edinburgh in 2001. Knowing it is available online certainly helps minimise the sadness I feel at having to lose this book that would still have such a treasured place in my library.

https://archive.org/details/romanticismandr00werngoog/page/n12/mode/2up?view=theater

2. Molly Lefebure: Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Bondage of Opium (1974)

Again, this is a book that opened my mind to the greatness and tragedy of one of my favourite poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Just the cover grabbed my attention when I first saw it. There was Coleridge, aged just 42 years of age and looking like the perfect Romantic with his white ruffles, and yet, looking so much older with his full head of bright white hair. As he said of himself, at 42, "In all but the Brain, an old man!" But, again, there was something seductively gothic and even risque about it. The sleeve was coloured opal grey, and the two words, "bondage" and "opium" suggested something decadent and secretive about its contents. Again, this was a glorious hardcover addition, and as I read about the often very melancholy aspects of Coleridge's life and how he first became addicted to opium, at a time when there was no knowledge of how addiction actually affects the body physiologically, I found, at the same time as learning a lot about addiction, about Coleridge's struggles with illness (one chapter is called 'The Tyranny of the Body'), and unknowingly discovered another much admired hero figure. For despite his struggles, Coleridge touched the divine. It was fleeting, admittedly, but without doubt, here was a figure who had been in direct contact with the sublime, and it is there in his 'Kubla Khan' and 'Christabel' (among others) poems, of which my own appreciative knowledge was now greatly deepened. Understandably, this book is also a great loss to me, and it is a great comfort to know that I can still open it and read it online whenever I feel the urge to do so.

https://archive.org/details/samueltaylorcole0000lefe_i6w3/mode/2up

3. Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba and Other Tales (1962)

This was a treasured, pocket sized Everyman's Library hardback edition from 1962, and it was because of one particular story in it that I loved it so much: The Mysterious Portrait. Gogol has been a figure that has a special place in my heart, for when my very fine lady and I were in our courting days, I serenaded her with Gogol's fabulous and fantastical tales, and Diary of a Madman, and The Nose had us both laughing till the tears rolled down our faces. But they were in a Penguin Classics edition I had, and nowhere else was that strange, eerie tale, The Mysterious Portrait available, than here. I did read Taras Bulba, trouper that I am, but it wasn't that main story that I loved about this little edition. It is another that I am greatly relieved is available online, as it is a story I will return to many more times, I am sure.

https://archive.org/details/tarasbulba0000unse/mode/2up?view=theater

4. Joachim Mass, Kleist: A Biography (1983)

This incredible biography of the tragic genius, Heinrich von Kleist, left an indelible mark on my psyche that will remain for as long as I am on this earth. Having previously read the Penguin Classics edition of Kleist's stories and novellas, I was intrigued to know more about this unusual and uncanny German post-Romantic writer. His stories had left a very deep impression on me, as they often explored situations that put his human, all-too- human characters in very extreme situations, thereby challenging pretty much everything we as a liberal society consider to be the morals of our reality. But Kleist's writings became clearer to me after I read this brilliant book, for his life actually unfolded in an eerily similar manner to the characters in his absorbing but unsettling stories. I look forward to rereading Kleist's tragic biography once again in the future.

https://archive.org/details/kleistbiography0000maas/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater

5. William Anderson, Dante the Maker (1980)

This was one of my favourite books around 1997/98, and it was invaluable in helping me try to get a deeper understanding of Dante's La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. Those works, particularly The Divine Comedy, are rich in allegory and symbolism, and I can clearly recall reading it and making copious notes during a two week admission to hospital in Liverpool for an exacerbation of my CF. For this reason alone it contained links to my past that were very precious to me, not to mention that it helped me have a better understanding of Dante himslf, and it saddens me hugely that this was another book that simply couldn't stay with me. But, to soften the blow, it is available here in its entirety. Another precious book to add to my reread list.

https://archive.org/details/dantemaker0000ande/page/n5/mode/2up

6. Hermann Hesse, If the War Goes On (1971)

My Taid loved reading, and during the last few years of his life, he moved into my mum's place, and many were the evenings there were when he and I sat up talking about pretty much everything under the sun, from politics and history through to the Welsh international footy team, Everton F.C and how money was destroying the game that we had both once loved so deeply: top flight professional football. I had bought If The War Goes On by Hesse in a huge, famous second hand book shop in Llangollen, and I recall very fondly reading aloud a couple of chapters to my Taid, which concluded with us discussing what I'd just read in great detail. For a moment, it was almost like being in a Thomas Mann novel. Hesse's If the War Goes On, a diatribe against fascism and imperialist war machines, struck a very deep chord with both my Taid (a lifelong socialist), and myself. That particular evening remains to this very day a very special memory for me, and I always remember my Taid's parting words before we said goodnight (well, nos da!) and I headed off home, "It's brilliant that you're reading incredibly important literature like this, but make sure you don't get depressed, as often this subject can make us feel like the situation is hopeless and helpless. It isn't."
He was a wise man, my Taid.

https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780374509255

7. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels (1899)

Last, but certainly not least, was an 1899 edition of the Romantic Bible of the eighteenth century, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, translated by Thomas Carlyle. Once again, this was another book that I bought from that trip to Edinburgh Festival, and reading it was a transformative experience. This contained a world I wanted to luxuriate in, and the fact that the book itself, not just Carlyle's language, felt so archaic made me feel such a willing inhabitant and therefore considerable outsider to the culture of my own time. My main memory is reading it in the late summer of 2001, often with Debussy tinkling away in the background, and again feeling transformed and changed by the experience. Its loss is a very sad one to me, but at least I know, that at the opening of a laptop or a fire tablet, it is there in all its glory for me to peruse and enjoy once again. Grateful is not a big enough word.

https://archive.org/details/wilhelmmeistersa02goetuoft/page/n9/mode/2up?view=theater

Treasure your precious libraries, fellow readers.

Until next time, I remain...

Your Nocturnal Butterfly