Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day when, in commemoration of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples before the Last Supper, our monarchs used to wash the feet of the poor – a practice that was sadly discontinued early in the eighteenth century, replaced by the doling out of specially minted coinage to a selection of deserving recipients. The image above is Tintoretto's Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, which hangs, somewhat ravaged by time and restorations, in the National Gallery, and used to live in the church of San Trovaso in Venice, where it hung opposite a Last Supper by Titian (which is still there). 
  Talking of Last Suppers, the most famous image of that event is the most problematic – the mural painted by Leonardo for the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Because of the materials Leonardo used, various environmental factors and intentional damage over the years, very little of the original painting survives, and what we see today is the product of numerous restorations. Even in the artist's lifetime, his Last Supper was beginning to disintegrate, as Dick Davis recalls in his short, eloquent poem, 'Leonardo' (collected in Seeing the World, 1980) –

My years were given
To permanence –
The arrested dance,
Emblem of heaven. 

Decay invades
The icon of
Eternal love:
My emblem fades

Like human skin:
The wrinkles grow
As if paint too
Partook of sin.

Late, late I see
The meaning of
Incarnate love,
Eternity.

Beckett In Utero

 Today is the supposed birthday (in 1906) of Samuel Beckett. He liked to claim that it was not only Friday the 13th but also Good Friday, though in fact Good Friday did not fall on that date in 1906 – and, to add further confusion to the picture, Beckett's birth certificate gives his date of birth as May 13th (a Sunday). Never mind – Beckett tended to regard his birth as an altogether regrettable event anyway. As for what came before it, he claimed to vividly remember life in the womb – a dark, frightening and constrained space, from which his eventual expulsion was painful, even more frightening, and lastingly traumatic. He had one particular in utero memory, of being at the dinner table shortly before his birth and being obliged to overhear the banal conversation of his parents and their guests. That supposed memory surely plays into this passage from the first chapter of Watt, in which a respectable couple, 'Tetty' and 'Goff' (Johnsonian names: Tetty being Mrs Johnson's pet name – not 'Titty', a Macaulay has it in his unsympathetic essay on Johnson – and Gough Square the site of Johnson's house), converse with the hunchbacked Mr Hackett, another one who apparently remembers his own birth. Tetty and Goff regale Mr Hackett with the story of their son Larry's birth...

Well, said the lady, that morning at breakfast Goff turns to me and he says, Tetty, he says, Tetty, my pet, I should very much like to invite Thompson, Cream and Colquhoun to help us eat the duck, if I felt sure you felt up to it. Why, my dear, says I, I never felt fitter in my life. Those were my words, were they not?
  I believe they were, said Goff.
  Well, said Tetty, when Thompson comes into the dining room, followed by Cream and Berry (Colquhoun I remember had a previous engagement), I was already seated at the table. There was nothing strange in that, seeing I was the only lady present. You did not find that strange, did you, my love?
  Certainly not, said Goff, most natural.
  The first mouthful of duck had barely passed my lips, said Tetty, when Larry leaped in my wom.
  Your what? said Mr Hackett.
  You know, said Goff, her woom.
  How embarrassing for you, said Mr Hackett.
  I continued to eat, drink and make light conversation, said Tetty, and Larry to leap, like a salmon.
  What an experience for you, said Mr Hackett.
  There were moments, I assure you, when I thought he would tumble out on the floor, at my feet.
  Merciful heavens, you felt him slipping, said Mr Hackett.
  No trace of this dollar appeared on my face, said Tetty. Did it, my dear?
  Not a trace, said Goff.
  Nor did my sense of humour desert me. What roly-poly, said Mr Berry, I remember, turning to me with a smile, what delicious roly-poly, it melts in the mouth. Not only in the mouth, sir, I replied, without an instant's hesitation, not only in the mouth, my dear sir. Not too osy with the sweet, I thought.
  Not too what? said Mr Hackett.
  Osy, said Goff. You know, not too osy.
  With the coffee and liqueurs, labour was in full swing, Mr Hackett, I give you my solemn word, under he groaning board.
  Swing is the word, said Goff.
  You knew she was pregnant, said Mr Hackett.
  Why er, said Goff, you see er, I er, we er ––
  Tetty's hand fell heartily on Mr Hackett's thigh.
  He thought I was coy, she cried. Hahahaha. Haha. Ha.
  Haha, said Mr Hackett. 
  I was greatly worried I admit, said Goff.
  Finally they retired, did you not? said Tetty.
  We did indeed, said Goff, we retired to the billiard-room, for a game of slosh.  
  I went up those stairs, Mr Hackett, said Tetty, on my hands and knees, wringing the carpet-rods as though they were made of raffia.
  You were in such anguish, said Mr Hackett.
  Three minutes later, I was a mother. 
  Unassisted, said Goff. 
  I did everything with my own hands, said Tetty, everything.
  She severed the cord with her teeth, said Goff, not having a scissors to her hand. What do you think of that?
  I would have snapped it across my knee, if necessary, said Tetty. 
  That is a thing I have often wondered, said Mr Hackett, what it feels like to have the string cut.
  For the mother or the child? said Goff.
  For the mother, said Mr Hackett. I was not found under a cabbage, I believe. 

Another Centenary, etc.

 The boy in the portrait is Oliver Postgate, who later in his life would create, with Peter Firmin and other gifted collaborators, some of the greatest, most enduring children's television programmes ever made. Indeed one of the lesser, but very real, pleasures of grandparenthood has been rediscovering the wonders of Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog (The Clangers never really did it for me – nor for any of the grandchildren, oddly enough). Postgate was born 100 years ago today, and this morning Radio 3 had a delightful tribute to him, focusing mostly on the music which contributed so much to the charm of Postgate's creations. 
  The portrait above was drawn by the Australian-born artist Stella Bowen in 1934. Bowen was one of the women in the life of the ever amorous Ford Madox Ford. She met him in 1918, when she was 24 and he 44, and they were together for nine years, in the course of which Stella gave birth to a daughter – none of which rates a mention in Ford's memoir, It Was The Nightingale, where Stella isn't even named. Bowen's life was never easy for long, and she struggled to make a living from her art. However, her career revived somewhat with the coming of World War II. She published a well received memoir, Drawn from Life (1941), and was appointed as a war artist.  Her brief was to chronicle the activities of the Royal Australian Air Force stationed in England. The remarkable painting below, Bomber Crew (1944), shows the members of a Lancaster bombing crew from 460 Squadron RAAF. Bowen sketched them on the day they set out on a raid over Germany, in which their plane, like so many Allied bombers, was shot down, and only one of the crew survived.  (In the course of the war, 460 Squadron dropped more tonnage of bombs than any in Bomber Command, and suffered the heaviest losses of any Australian squadron.) Bowen's picture shows men who knew that they were likely facing death. 

Nature Notes

 A day of summer heat in early April – this spring has been wonderfully warm and sunny, in marked contrast to last year's relentless rain and cold. The Orange Tips are flying in numbers, along with newly emerged Holly Blues and Speckled Woods. Peacocks also seem to be off to a good start this year. The birds are singing lustily too, and this morning my generally useless birdsong app correctly identified a Blackcap singing away near the cathedral, its song 'full, sweet, deep, loud and wild', as Gilbert White described it. 
Meanwhile, the RSPB reports that its annual Big Garden Birdwatch recorded the lowest number of Starlings visiting gardens since the survey began in 1979, and the species, which you might have taken for one of our commoner birds, remains 'endangered' and on the Red List. This is on the basis of a steep decline in numbers since the 1960s, but you could argue that there were too many of them then (I remember when Starling roosts were so numerous and so productive of guano that they could bring tree branches down) rather than that there are too few of them now. They are certainly still abundant around here, and plenty of them have been visiting the garden, feeding voraciously and extremely messily on the bird feeder. 
Also in the news today was a story about salmon being affected by anti-anxiety drugs that are finding their way into our water, in minimal concentration, of course, but sufficient to have remarkable effects of salmon behaviour.  Tests in Sweden with drugged and undrugged fish found that the former, freed from their fishy cares, laughed at all obstacles in their way, and outpaced their more anxious brethren. As a result of their carefree attitude, a higher proportion of the blissed-out fish made it out to sea and on with their migratory journey. So I guess that's one thing you don't have to worry about as you take your anti-anxiety drugs – somewhere downstream you might be helping a salmon make it to the sea. 

A Centenary

It was on this day 100 years ago that The Great Gatsby was published. Fitzgerald was aiming to create something altogether superior to his earlier works – 'not trashy imaginings as in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere yet radiant world'. With Zelda and their young daughter he left New York for Europe to work intensively on the new novel while staying somewhere quieter and less expensive (though his idea of quietness was somewhat flexible: on a 1926 visit to the Riviera he wrote that there was 'no one' at Antibes, except 'me, Zelda, the Valentinos, the Murphys, Mistinguet, Rex Ingram, Dos Passos, Alice Terry, the MacLeishes...' etc, etc. – the list continues.) Fitzgerald wrote most of The Great Gatsby on the French Riviera, and finished it off in Rome. 
When it was published, it had mostly good reviews, but didn't sell well. The initial print run of 20,000 sold out, but a second printing of 3,000 didn't sell, and copies were still in the warehouse when Fitzgerald died 15 years later. He blamed the title, which he'd never liked – and, interestingly, the lack of strong female characters, as women were the ones buying fiction. Then as now? Surely more so now, though...
After publication Fitzgerald wrote to Edmund Wilson that 'of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about'. I'm not entirely sure I do, either, despite having read it several times over the years. It has a strongly distinctive feel – it seems to be the feel of a masterpiece – but is it one? Does it have the substance? I'm not at all sure. It certainly has a great, if enigmatic ending, though: 'Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And then one fine morning – And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'

'The land of spices; something understood'

 George Herbert's resounding sonnet 'Prayer' is surely the greatest 'list poem' in the language, a sequence of glorious images, all evoking that mysterious, essential thing, prayer. 

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,

God's breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth

Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

When the American poet Dana Gioia wrote his own poem of the same name, he must have had Herbert's in mind. It begins as if it's going to be a list poem, but then develops into something else – a heartfelt but enigmatic elegy or lament. It is itself a prayer, rather than a poem about prayer...

Echo of the clocktower, footstep
in the alleyway, sweep
of the wind sifting the leaves.

Jeweller of the spiderweb, connoisseur

of autumn's opulence, blade of lightning

harvesting the sky.

Keeper of the small gate, choreographer

of entrances and exits, midnight

whisper travelling the wires.

Seducer, healer, deity or thief,

I will see you soon enough—

in the shadow of the rainfall,

in the brief violet darkening a sunset—

but until then I pray watch over him

as a mountain guards its covert ore

and the harsh falcon its flightless young.

'Watch over him...' – who? The tragic background to this poem is the death of Gioia's infant son, who is commemorated also in this moving poem, 'Planting a Sequoia' –

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.

In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son’s birth –
An olive or a fig tree – a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father’s orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant’s birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

We will give you what we can – our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother’s beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.

More Samper

 Having had to do some rather heavy-duty intensive reading lately – those bird books and The Maias, among other things – I found myself in need of some light relief, preferably comic. Happily I had just spotted another novel by James Hamilton-Paterson, whose Cooking with Fernet-Branca had me laughing immoderately last year. The one I'm reading now is called Amazing Disgrace and turns out to be a sequel to Cooking with Fernet Branca, featuring the further exploits of that great comic character, the appalling Gerald Samper. This time he has been commissioned to ghost-write the autobiography of one Millie Cleat, one-armed sailor (she lost it to a shark) and national treasure, whose solo round-the-world voyage has made her the toast of Britain. The project is, of course, giving Samper much grief, and he is desperate to get out of writing the sequel, which will be devoted to Millie's 'spiritual side'. What he really wants is to write the memoirs of the celebrated conductor Max Christ (short 'i', mercifully), but he seems to have blown his chances of that, in truly spectacular (and laugh-aloud funny) style. Meanwhile, Samper is rashly trying out some tablets of Chinese origin called Pow-r-TabsTM which promise great things in the trouser department – and Nandy, the addle-pated boy-band leader last seen in Cooking with Fernet-Branca is back, wanting Gerald to write his memoirs...
  This is a sequel that is every bit as funny as the original – and I've just spotted yet a third entry in the Samper saga, with the promising title Rancid Pansies. I've bought it to keep in reserve for when I next have need of a cheering dose of top-quality comic fiction.