Any Excuse for a Picture of Venice...

Born on this day in 1697, Giovanni Antonio Canal. Surname Canal, nickname Canaletto, special subject canals (Venetian). There is no disputing that his early paintings (and his etchings) tend to be much more rewarding than his often repetitive and formulaic later work. We are lucky to have his wonderful (early) Stonemason's Yard in the National Gallery. When Canaletto was working in England, he was certainly not at his best, and the critic George Vertue even questioned whether the artist representing himself as 'Canaletto' was in fact the real thing. The poor man had to give public painting demonstrations to establish that he was...
Meanwhile, Venice awaited Turner.

Reading and Reviewing and Rereading and Transparent Things

I see that tomorrow - or probably, by the time you're reading this, today - this bizarre project reaches its triumphant end: Nina Sankovich will have read and reviewed 365 books in 365 days. What the? you may well ask, followed by Why the? Is there a book of anything like book length that can be truly read in one day, let alone sufficiently assimilated to be usefully reviewed? Me, I've just spent a week's reading time on Nabokov's Transparent Things - a novella of little more than 100 pages. I suppose, if I'd had nothing else occupying me and my eyes weren't in their permanent state of screen-strain, I could have read it in a day, conceivably even 'reviewed' it on the same day, but to little effect. 'Let us now illustrate our difficulties.' Transparent Things is one of those books I return to again and again, am never disappointed and always find new wonders, new beauties and new mysteries. I first read it in the pages of - Playboy was it? Or Esquire? - and have been rereading it at intervals ever since. It seems a perfect condensate of Nabokov's genius, his late masterpiece, containing a hint at least of everything that makes him great, while striking out in what seems a novel and strange direction. On the face of it (those who know it, forgive the rehearsal), it is an account of four visits to Switzerland, separated by 20 years or so, by a sullen, gawky misfit of a publisher, in the course of which his father dies, he (himself) has a professional encounter with the immensely distinguished and morally derelict writer R, falls in love with the icily promiscuous Armande, marries her, and, on the last visit, returns self-widowed to meet his own end ('This is, I believe, it; not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed to pass from one state of being into another.'). Along the way... Along the way, what? Transparent Things is an agile, beady-eyed, seriocomic meditation on time and memory and dreamlife and loss, and on the 'transparent things, though which the past shines'. It's a tale told by whom? Even such a basic question is not easily answered... But this is not a review. Even this slim volume was not read, reread, rereread, in a day. 'Easy, you know, does it, son.'

And Timothy Dexter

Before the day is over, I guess we should commemorate this fellow, who died on this date in 1806. There's really nothing to add to the extraordinary story outined here, except perhaps a few !s

The Best Time of Year?

Today being one of those perfect autumn days that seem almost too good to be true, I was out of the house like a shot to continue my Picturesque Tour Through Ye Whole Countie of Surrey - or rather those of its more agreeable parts that are within reach of the railway network. A day of duckegg blue skies, warm golden sun, the trees in all their autumn beauty. My first destination was Great Bookham, one of those cosy, low-slung, brick-built and tile-hung, well-fed and prosperous Surrey villages that still retain a villagey character and life, with plenty of shops, plenty of people about, plenty of smiles and good cheer and unsolicited Hellos - at least on a day of such cheering weather. I wanted to see the church, which stands at a crossroads in the middle of the village, a big stocky weatherboarded tower at the West end, a neatly restored 14th-century chancel at the other, the body of the church still recognisably Norman, with short fat scalloped piers, the general effect very charming. Some surprisingly grand monuments of the 17th and 18th centuries dominate the interior - and the best of these is a gem. It commemorates Cornet Geary, killed in the American War of Independence, in 1776, at Flemington, New Jersey. Britannia mourns over a portrait medallion of the young man, beneath which a delicately carved relief depicts his death, in an ambush. Pevsner raves over it- 'a composition as elegant and tender as an early Mozart symphony' - and accords it a photographic plate (sadly I cannot find anything more than the relief online, and that too small to reproduce). Well, Cornet Geary alone was worth the trip, but I carried on, walking by tracks and byways over to Westhumble, ending with a brisk climb up the dip of Box Hill to admire the view. Ah those trees - every shade from the blue-black of yew and box, to tired deciduous greens, through every tint in the yellow-orange palette, copper and bronze, pink and claret and burgundy and fierce splashes of blazing red. Glorious. This time of year, in warm sunny weather, is surely the best of all - apart from the lack of butterflies (though I saw a couple of lingerers - a Painted Lady and a Red Admiral)... I made my way down to Westhumble station - also admired by Pevsner - and so, warmed and cheered and sustained, home.

Scepticism (again)

I'm happy to say I haven't seen the piece of alarmist TV propaganda (paid for, presumably, with my money and yours) skewered here by the redoubtable Gaw. If I had, I would probably have thrown something at the telly; those of a more practical bent have, I gather, complained in large numbers to the ASA, which is good. It just shows the level of hysterical stridency with which the propagation of the warmist gospel and the onslaught on the 'deniers' (see also Gaw's How to Ruin a Word) are now being conducted. As I've argued many a time, the only intellectually respectable position on the subject of anthropogenic climate change is one of scepticism. For that reason, I was especially glad to hear Clive James also making the case for scepticism on Radio 4 - making it eloquently, wittily but forcefully, while at the same time introducing a startled nation to the possibility that we might have been eating sliced golf balls in our potato crisps. The trouble with scepticism, of course, is that it is liable to get drowned out when debate is conducted - or rather evaded - in the manner exemplified by that TV ad. Perhaps, in the end, the warmist onslaught will, as Gaw suggests, become entirely counterproductive, and that might, just might start a general drift towards scepticism. Let's hope so, for everyone's sake.

Cravat Heroes, No 3: Clark Kent

See - even Superman wears a cravat. I rest my case.

Shaving News

Long-term readers of this blog may recall my dalliance with the improbably futuristic Azor... Since then my ardour has cooled, to the point where I gave up on the thing altogether and reverted to the trusty Gilette Fusion. However, the other day I spotted Azors on sale at half price - yes, half price, and with two spare blades thrown in. Who could resist? Not me - but, before ripping the plastic casing off the new Azor (no easy feat), I thought I'd see if there was any shave left in the old one. To my surprise, it's still shaving well - indeed it shows no sign of blunting. That Endurium coating must work, after all... At this rate the new Azor with its two spare blades will see me out - or certainly last until there are no more Azors to be had. Which, I fancy, won't be long. It's a razor ahead of its time.