Damaris Hayman.

 So sorry to hear the lovely Damaris Hayman has passed. I know doctor who fans had a special place in their hearts for her and will never forget her honorary position as a member of the UNIT family when things went bump in the night at Devil's End.

             She off course had a very long and varied career, through stage and screen, small and large. And could count some absolute icons of British cinema as close friends and collaborators. In many ways she embodied a very sweet Englishness which is passing from this world. I can hear Larry Adler's harmonica in the distance or maybe it is just an autumnal breeze stirring the old English oaks.

              In the garden of Damaris the lark will forever be ascending. 

Dune Messiah.

 First published in 1969, Dune Messiah is set a dozen years after the events of the first book in which Paul Atreides ascended to the role of Emperor of the known universe, the seat of his power base being the sand blown world of Arraxis, the Dune of the title. As leader of the Fremen, the holy desert warriors of that world, he oversees a jihad which spreads across the galaxy, a purge of those who came before, the sympathisers of the previous regime, or simply those who do not share their faith. By this reckoning more than six billion people have perished in the resistance to the Fremen's holy war. It is not even the worst possible outcome, given the scale and population of the known universe. Yet, Paul Atreides knows worse will follow as he is gifted with the ability to see, to perceive future events. 

                Paul, "Muad' Dib"  had to overcome many obstacles to get to where he is and yet had no wish to see his new found leadership after so few years, in relative terms, descend into stagnation or the degeneracy that can come under the conquering boot. His enemies and those who set out to wipe his lineage from existence were many and very powerful. The Harkonens, The Bene Gessirrit Sisterhood and the mysterious Guild Navigators were prime movers in the conspiracy to bring down House Atreides. Those that survived his climb to the throne are more determined than ever to bring him down and have woven a complex web of deceit and betrayal to bring this about, to bring their plans to fruition. Once before House Atreides was undo by betrayal from within, only time will truly tell if the lesson has been learnt. 

               Despite his unquestionable status as a visionary an sense of impending tragedy builds and builds throughout this book. The well covered and adapted events of the first book hardly prepare one for this almost overwhelming sense of melancholy which pervades this sequel. The use of power on such a vast scale reduces the personal to the almost microscopic. The bright sharply focused vision that drove the Fremen rebellion becomes fogged, out of focus, obscured by the seismic upheaval of galaxy wide change.

                And to think I thought the first novel was writ large on a vast canvas, this one reveals that canvas to be stretched in every direction. Ambition, politics and religion make for strange bed fellows. Ah, twas ever the way. Mind you, society in general has undergone much change since the book was first published in nineteen sixty nine. The word jihad almost certainly seemed so much more exotic for the western tongue, conjuring vague notions of an honor based war in the stars. Its wider use through the main stream media has diluted that idea somewhat. 

                 Always intriguing, almost messianic It is the stuff of myths and religions.Is there room for anymore in this troubled old world of ours.

                  I would say ; YES. 

Son Of Rosemary.

Talk about your bad pennies. You only just meet the Son of Satan as a baby and then you bump into him once more, only this time he is a fully grown man, and boy has he grown. Once in a lifetime,eh, from the cradle to the grave. A grave as wide as the world. Sounds like hoop-la, off course, but when you are writing about the presence of an Anti-Christ, you can. 

             This sequel to Rosemary's Baby begins in 1999, with poor Rosemary awakening from a decades long coma. A long sleep induced by the witches coven which caused her to get pregnant with the devil's baby. After the death of the final member of the coven the spell is broken , Rosemary is able to sit up and step into a very different world from the one she fell asleep in. While she lay in a long term care facility her child Andy grew to manhood, raised by her neighbors Minnie and Roman, with her son taking their surname; Andy Castavet. he has become the figurehead of a world famous international charitable organisation. Hmmm, the head of a world famous charitable foundation which is suspected of having less honorable intentions for mankind, where on Earth do they get these ideas?

              Anyway, when the identity of the awakened coma patient is made known to the world Rosemary is instantly propelled to international fame and celebrity. Mother and son are reunited and Andy convinces his mother he takes more after her than his pa. He truly believes himself to be a force for good in the world but he is after all the offspring of the prince Of Lies. Rosemary wants to believe. Andy wants to believe. We, the reader, are lust along for the ride. 

               Charismatic and charming, Andy at 33 is a fine young man, all his mother could hope him to be, but at her core lurks the fear and the suspicion that he might well be all his father could wish him to be. Ira Levin has been a highly successful and influential writer, one wonders why the rights to this very engaging sequel were not snapped up for a movie or perhaps a lenghty mini series that will allow the story to breathe. The subject matter would certainly lend itself to many interpretations..

                 Some might say legion...

 

Thomas Hardy's Tales From Wessex.

 Geography not being one of my strong points (do people actually have strong geographical points?) I found myself looking up Wessex on Wikipedia. The entry ran; Wessex ( Old English West Sussex/ The Kingdom Of The West Saxons.)was an Anglo-saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Aethelstan in 927.  Hmmmmm...

           Was expecting something a wee bit more than as an introduction to a Parte Of Olde Englande I Am Not So Familiar With. Maybe I should have looked it up in the Hitch-hikers Guide To The Universe rather than Wikipedia. I imagine it would probably have an entry such as ; Mostly Farmland.

             That is certainly what comes across in these six stories by Thomas Hardy. Plain old country folk going about their business in their old country ways. Yet simmering always beneath the surface are raging passions, some of which prove to be heart breakingly frustrated by the social norms of the day. Despite the wildness of the surrounding country side man made repression is everywhere. Emotions stifled and smothered under the weight of religious oppression. 

              Life is hard in the place and times these stories bridge. even the road to the end of life is not an easy pathway. Unrequited love abounds, as do melancholy hussars and frustrated farm workers, all mixed ina heady brew of insane landed gentry. These are sad tales which lean at times to the macabre.tales of foolish but very human hearts who awake to the possibilities of love just in time to be too late. Men and women who expire in despair or who perish of ennui. I found myself smiling grimly at one twist in a tale that would not have been out of place in a Roger Corman Edgar Allen Poe adaption, inspiring a head shaking ghostly reveal and all. 

               At this point I wonder if I am underselling or overselling this collection.

               Thomas Hardy is very hard on the characters he created. Always providing the readers with more insight than he ever gives them. As such, we know the cures, the answers to their predicaments, but they being fictional and we being all too real, cannot share those answers with them. 

                Six tales of the rum and uncanny. Good company during this or any other lockdown. 

                                                    (Thomas Hardy's cottage.Probably.)

1599; a Year In the Life Of William Shakespeare.

"How did William Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived?" In this one exhilerating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw and who he worked with asw he invests in the new Globe Theater and creates four of his most enduring pieces of work, the plays; Henry The Fifth, Julius Ceasar, As You Like It and  most remarkably Hamlet. Enough for any one lifetime yet but a rounded 365 days for the man who lived and breathed them. James Shapiro "illuminates" Shakespeare's staggering achievement and also what Elizabethan's experienced in the course of 1599, sending off an army to crush an Irish rebellion (BOOO!), weathering and overcoming an armada threat from Spain, gambling on a fledgling East India Company and waiting to see who would succeed their aging and failing queen. its packed to bursting with what feels like authentic Elizabethan era nitty gritty. Or perhaps it might be more accurately described as the Shakespearean era as he is the best remembered human being of his day.

His life bridging two ruling dynasties, The Tudors and The Stuarts. In some ways completely different, in others a much of a muchness.

            James Shapiro manages to captivate the reader with his encyclopedic  epic of historical forces in collision. This is after all the sediment of ages passed, the foundations of the here and now. He digs down deep into the historical strata of the Elizabethan age, the rich vein that layers the foundation all else rests upon.  1599 is perhaps not perceived as a vintage year in her reign, more of a Buckfast than a Merlot. A tonic for the troops. As Elizabeth and William Shakespeare are so caught up in the daily struggle for survival and the possibility of prospering in one's chosen affairs, they fail to reckon themselves as the fixed spots in the shared cultural history of The British Isles. Too busy creating history to realise they were living through it. 

             A bit of a joy.

             I think I am drawn to books about the daily life of William Shakespeare in the hope I will have a moment; "yes, There You Are! "That I might see the man quite clearly through the fog of history, to see the actual man standing there in his muddy real world shoes rather than an anachronistic casting decision on my part, for the BBC drama department view of history I cannot seem to shake, but the truth is I cannot see that man unless I put him there. It is as though there is a William Shakespeare shaped hole in the historical image of Elizabethan England. There are less well known members of Queen Elizabeth's Court who feel more real to me. Although I have never fully ascribed to The Shakespearian authorship question I fully understand why such doubts persist. 

             I continue to look..

             I reserve the right to be unconvinced.

(Midsummer Nights Dream was not one of the plays Shakespeare wrote in this remarkable year but I cannot resist this beautiful painting based on that very play.)

 

Alan Cumming; Not My Father's Son.

 Just this Wednesday I found myself up all night with Alan Cumming, not in the Biblical sense but certainly in the autobiographical sense. I had just been gifted a copy of this book by a friend and started to read it just before bedtime. Found myself in Alan Time shortly thereafter.And what a place to be. Was not quite sure what was going to happen next and I found myself boggling at the notion this was not fiction...

             These were the details of a life well lived. Not always in the way you would wish anyone to have to endure but by God it was a life lived in the moment, poignantly humane. People throw around the description "beautiful and brave" with no regard for diminishing its accuracy but this story warrants it. It is pointed out in some of the cover blurbs, from Stephen Fry to Scotland On Sunday, and these are not just luvey chummy compliments, barely strong enough to defend themselves, they are right on the money.

             Alan Cumming's memoir is a fantastic read. Well written, page turningly engaging and a celebration of humanity with all its flaws. This old world of ours is so full of tears at times I believe its a wonder we do not all drown. Instead somehow we learn to swim in theses salty seas of our own making, all waving, not drowning. Alan Cumming's fearlessly recounts the details of a fearful childhood, from the perspective of the older child speaking for the one he was. It is a spirited account of a traumatic time, shot through with a cheeky humour that just refuses to give into shame, while preserving the innocent expectations of any human child. You will read this and you will want to reach into the pages and shield the child he was from the cruel blows inflicted by the one who surely should have been willing to take those blows on his account, not bloody dish them out.What that poor wee boy had to endure, him and his brother Tom, its heartbreaking. Even to recall it, to rewrite those events must have been so painful and yet here they are; Sharing.Not in the grotesque current world use of the word, so undermined by endless wiffle waffle of reality television but one that will encourage and in the very best sense of the word; illuminate.