Encore

Happily last year's Lime Hawk Moth encounter repeated itself this morning - same place, same tree, just 11 days later (as I was beginning to give up on seeing any Lime Hawks at all this year). And it was a magnificent specimen, looking very much like the one in the picture. A glorious surprise on a cool wet Sunday morning.

'We ate a Kendal Mint Cake...'

On this day in 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest. In his diary, Hillary permits himself an exclamation mark:

'Tenzing and I shook hands and he so far forgot himself as to embrace me. It was quite a moment! We took off our O2 and for ten minutes I photographed T holding flags, the various ridges of Everest and the general view. I left a crucifix on top for John Hunt and T made a little hole in the snow and put in some food offerings, lollies and biscuits and chocolate. We ate a Kendal Mint Cake and then put back on our O2. I was a little worried by the time factor so after 15 min on top we turned back at 11.45am.'

When the two men at length arrived back at camp. Hillary summed up the day's work with the words 'Well, we knocked the bastard off.'
 News of the conquest of Everest was sent back to The Times in London (in coded form) by their correspondent with the expedition, James Morris, later to become a justly famous travel writer and historian and, in 1972, to transition into a female identity as Jan Morris.
 Hillary Rodham Clinton, born 1947, was of course named after Sir Edmund by her clairvoyant mother, who sensed that the obscure New Zealand climber and beekeeper had greatness in him.

'Sometimes I heard him emit a small sigh...'

I must admit I've never read the New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell (despite his being a favourite of Patrick Kurp's), but I heard his name mentioned on the radio this morning, a propos a biography - and a propos writer's block. For Mitchell was known not only for his writings but for his non-writing, a phase of his literary career that began in 1964 and lasted until his death in 1996.
 Mitchell built his reputation through the Thirties (the New Yorker hired him in 1938), Forties and Fifties as a chronicler of city life in New York, of its street characters, bohemians and others living more or less on the margins. One of these was Joe Gould, aka Profesor Seagull, who claimed to be writing a vast, encyclopaedic Oral History of the Contemporary World (or Oral History of Our Time), for which he was constantly taking notes and collecting material. In fact, this book did not exist; Gould was disguising an extreme case of writer's block.
 Mitchell wrote two profiles of Gould, then fictionalised his plight in a novel, Joe Gould's Secret. The novel was published in 1964, and that same year Mitchell fell prey to an equally extreme case of writer's block. The amazing thing is that the New Yorker continued to employ him. This is a colleague's account of Mitchell's 'working day':

'Each morning, he stepped out of the elevator with a preoccupied air, nodded wordlessly if you were just coming down the hall, and closed himself in his office. He emerged at lunchtime, always wearing his natty brown fedora (in summer, a straw one) and a tan raincoat; an hour and a half later, he reversed the process, again closing the door. Not much typing was heard from within, and people who called on Joe reported that his desktop was empty of everything but paper and pencils. When the end of the day came, he went home. Sometimes, in the evening elevator, I heard him emit a small sigh, but he never complained, never explained.'

An extraordinary and sad case - though surely a journalist with writer's block is better described as an ex-journalist.

Today...

I offer a few thoughts on Carl Larsson over on The Dabbler. The pictures are wonderful...

Going Forward

This Future Library project - is it a good idea? An interesting idea? Maybe the latter, but it's a project that's bound to reflect literary fashion rather than quality, and to favour prolific authors who have plenty of stuff to (effectively) discard. Those contributing in the early years will never see their works printed, but the archive is being added to each year, so the later contributors will be alive and (more or less) currently fashionable. It might have been more interesting to make a time capsule of the whole thing by rounding up all the writings now - what would they look like in 100 years? At least they would be of historical interest. Imagine if a literary time capsule from 1915 were opened now - it would probably leave us largely baffled by the state of literary taste and fashion 100 years ago, and things might be rather worse if a 2015 capsule were opened in 2115... The Future Library project seems to be inspired by some notion that literature is forever looking backwards, when it should be looking forward. But surely literature - real literature - goes forward by looking backwards, not by projecting into some notional future. Also very, very few books last 100 years.

Urbanising?

My impending retirement and the still more impending visit of the New Zealand branch of the clan have combined to create a veritable Perfect Storm of busyness - and I fear it's not over yet. However, while shopping the other day, I was cheered to spot my first urban Grey Wagtail. This beautifully coloured, most unfairly named bird is close kin to the Pied Wagtail - which, as I've noted before, is now very much an urban bird. The Grey is a little larger and more elegant, longer in the tail and even more active, especially in the tail-wagging department. I often see Greys in their natural habitat beside the now clear and free-flowing Wandle - but this one was down a little alley beside a high-street shop, seemingly quite at home, fossiking around to see if there was anything worth eating. I wonder if this was a one-off, or an early sign that the Grey, like the Pied, is moving into town. It would certainly add a welcome touch of lively beauty to the urban landscape.

Over on The Dabbler...

There's a new review by me of two recently published volumes of short stories from the enterprising Turnpike Books.