The Book Thief
I've just finished reading
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. And I mean "just finished", which means that I'm still steeped in the smoke of burning Himmel Street in a small German town as the second world war turned against Germany, still caught in the mesh of words echoing the words of the book thief herself, regretful and bereft because it's finished.
This book is beautifully written. It's quirky and unusual and the narrator is Death - a narrator you soon learn to trust utterly. It tells of the wartime experience of a young girl, living with foster parents, learning to read after she steals her first book. In the end her books and her writing save others, save herself and have a profound effect on Death himself.
It's the best book I've read in ages.
Labels: books, brilliant, Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, war
Chimney pots but no smoke
No white smoke from Dunoon, but a tale of five chimneys - or rather, five Victorian chimney pots, the organist, and the organist's wife.
Yesterday, as the candidates for the post of Rector here were shown round the church and rectory, we noticed that the builders working on the roof had removed the massive chimney pots and set them in a row in the back garden. Now, it is a fact that these pots are much prized around these parts - indeed, the one that survived from our own chimney now stands in my garden with a small thyme bush growing in the top of it, and very ornamental it is too. It is a sadder fact that such objects left untended around these parts will be nicked - especially if no-one seems to be around.
It was decided, therefore, that the pots should be moved into what was once the coal-hole at the rear of the rectory. Now, for reasons I'm not going into, it came about that Mr B was unable to meet one of the three able-bodied men in the congregation at the hour appointed for this bit of heavy lifting, and rather than leave them out for another night he and I decided we would do the deed ourselves. As the light faded this afternoon, we headed for the back of the rectory - the very place where those entrusted with choosing our new incumbent were still closeted with the Dean. We crept inconspicuously up the slimy bank. The pots sat there, dauntingly large, at the top of the back green. We laid hands on the first one. The top of it turned out to be in two parts, the outer of which moved disconcertingly. Our hands were already covered in a noxious mix of soot and green slime, but we began to manhandle the brute towards the door, rotating it over the soggy grass.
I can't keep it up, this blow-by-blow account, but must hasten to the good bit that didn't quite happen. By the third pot I had hit on the brilliant idea of letting it topple onto its side and rolling it down the slight incline to just beside the step of the coal-hole. By the fourth, I was feeling bolder: the pots really moved quite rapidly if you helped them with a shove. But I have to tell you, Best Beloved, that the fourth pot almost got away. And if it had, it'd have careered down the bank and into the unfamiliar green car that presumably belonged to the Dean. So picture, if you will, the organist and his lady wife, doubled up in mirth, diving to restrain a slimy Victorian chimney pot while smothering hoots of laughter like a pair of naughty weans.
I have to report that a coffee-seeking church official saw us and opened the door, and that the chimney pots are now safely locked away with the dwindling supply of parish booze. But where, pray, will the white smoke come from?
Labels: Holy Trinity Church, humour, Victorian chimneys
Let us begin ...
Tomorrow Piskies in this corner of the church - Dunoon, Rothesay and Tighnabruaich, acting in their linked charge capacity for the first time - begin what we hope will be the last act in finding a new Rector. Tomorrow the visit to Rectory and church, the meeting with the Vestry and worship leaders, the informal conversations; on Tuesday the formal interviews. Three people are putting themselves through this process, and ten or so of us here in Dunoon are praying hard for guidance and harmony.
We're praying especially hard because it's been a long year, counting back to when we first heard of the impending departure of the previous incumbent. Some of us are beginning to feel a real hunger for the nourishment that wise leadership can bring. Today, because a former rector celebrated
and preached, we were actually fed. I should have been preaching, but you can't run on empty. Tonight I'm thinking of all of us whose lives are about to be changed one way or another.
For now, anyway.
Labels: Holy Trinity Church, incumbents, Scottish Episcopal Church, selection process, vacancy
Contrasts recalled
Found myself thinking back to our trip to las Vegas two years ago - one of our "let's escape the tail-end of the Scottish winter trips", another of which I shall soon be off on. A quick look at the
flickr set of photos from the trip revealed a pleasing patchwork of colour; I've reproduced a section of it here.
The interesting thing for me is that this particular section represents what I most recall about the trip: the huge contrast between the silent tranquillity of the desert and the frenetic sounds and lights of the city. The desert is all pale blues and greys - even the vegetation has a blue-grey tinge - while the city, and in particular the Strip, is alive with colour. The liveliness, of course, is artificial, as fake as the interiors of the casinos replicating Rome, Venice, Paris. There, the noise is constant: the background of the tunes the one-armed bandits play incessantly, the changed chords for a win, the hum of machines rather than the sound of conversation.
But in the desert there is nothing. No birdsong, no sound of water, no wind, no smells. A purity of place that I have experienced nowhere else. And it is the desert that I remember.
Labels: contrasts, desert, Las Vegas, noise, silence
Attitudes to nukes
My February copy of "Nuclear-free Scotland" came yesterday, and two items caught my attention in such a way to remind me of my ongoing paranoia about the place in relation to the peace movement of the church to which I belong. The first was the poster replicated above. It's three years, I think, since last I attended a demo, and I feel the urge to do so again. This one looks as if it could be combined with a pleasurable family visit - though I don't know if her parents would allow my granddaughter to come with me. But the best bit of all came when I saw that tiny, red badge at the right of the list of supporters, just beside the nasty Trident sub. If you don't recognise it, it's the badge of the Scottish Episcopal Church. My church. And I think: yes, things
have changed. I don't think I'd be chucked out of the Brownies quite so readily nowadays for being too vocal against nukes.
The second item of interest was chilling. In 1958, Prime Minister Harold MacMillan sent a memo to a member of his Cabinet, Dr Charles Hill. It read:
"It is most important that we should find some way of organising and directing an effective campaign to counter the current agitation against this country's possession of nuclear weapons. This is a question on which the natural emotions of ordinary people would lead them to be critical of the Government's policy, and to accept without question or reason the arguments which our opponents use. ....
...Can we persuade some influential publicists to write articles? Are there any reliable scientists? Or Church of England Bishops?"
Apparently MacMillan "considered whether (he) might write to the Archbishop of Canterbury asking him to warn local clergy not to help the (Aldermaston) demonstrators"
A week later, in a memo of April 2nd, he reported:
"Active steps are being taken to identify the intellectuals, Churchmen, scientist and others who support the Government in the controversy over this country's possession of nuclear bombs."
By the following year, Hill reported that "a modest beginning" had been made towards mobilising church support for the H-bomb programme. The folder which produced most of this information (PREM 11/2778) is followed by four others marked 'Closed for the next 100 years'.
Fascinating stuff. But not really so long ago - at a time when our churches were full on Sundays and clergy held in respect by most of society. Makes you wonder, really. I think we're a lot healthier nowadays - as long as senior clergy feel able to resist the temptation to climb onto fences.
Labels: Anglican Church, CND, demos, Harold MacMillan, Nuclear weapons, Trident
Thoughts of a domestic goddess
An unusual start to the day: three loads of washing done, and a pot of soup on the stove, and some niggly bits of cleaning in the kitchen - all before I allowed myself to come up to the study. Ok, I admit checking my mail and playing a move in Scrabulous before I even went down to breakfast ... but that doesn't count. Anyway, as I did all this virtuous labour, I thought about why it's not my usual pattern in these my declining years.
It's not that I like working in a scabby environment. I don't feel proud that the toaster as often as not is covered in crumbs, that the breadknife still bore the sticky remnants of the hot loaf it sliced yesterday, that the rings on the hob had burnt bits lurking round them even though I cleaned them - oh, must be a week ago. It's not even that, as I used to pronounce dramatically, I hate housework. Per se, it's even satisfying, in a quiet sort of way. And if vigorous enough it uses up a satisfactory number of calories. So where's the rub? (And isn't that a lovely pun?)
And today I reasoned that there are simply too many other things I'd rather be doing. When you're scrubbing a worktop or washing up the myriad bits that soup-making seems to produce you can listen to the radio, you can sing, you can, I suppose, recite poetry at the top of your voice. But you can't read, do a sudoku, write, surf, play Scrabulous, check Facebook/Twitter, go for a walk, swim, talk on the phone ...
In fact, most of what I did for that hour was think about housework. But at least my kitchen looks clean. For now.
Labels: housework, limitations, preferences
Distracting hands
'Straordinary. The BBC's political correspondent was talking tonight on the news and I haven't a clue what she was reporting on because I was totally distracted by ... her hands. No, she wasn't really waving them about much - no unseemly sempahoring - but rather kept them for much of the time discreetly hidden below the frame of the picture.
No, the distracting factor lay in the unsuitability of the woman's gloves. Dressed becomingly in a pale cream coat and an extremely pleasant pale blue scarf, fetchingly shot through with a gold that matched her hair, the reporter was sporting what looked like a pair of gardening gloves. In blue, with dark blue bits round the fingers. And they didn't even look like her own gloves, being large and cumbersome and rendering her fingers like a bunch of blue bananas.
Had some kindly cameraman lent her his gloves after a long wait in the cold? I think we should be told. But
what was she talking about again...?
Labels: BBC news, gloves, reporters
I've just finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. And I mean "just finished", which means that I'm still steeped in the smoke of burning Himmel Street in a small German town as the second world war turned against Germany, still caught in the mesh of words echoing the words of the book thief herself, regretful and bereft because it's finished.
