Nearing the End of the Big Read

It's getting on for two months since I embarked on my latest Big Read – The Maias by Eça de Queiróz, a hefty Portuguese classic of which I've written briefly before (here). I'm now nearing the end, having been swept along enjoyably by Eça's superb storytelling, marvelling at how he manages to do so much with so little: for a novel on such a grand scale, it has surprisingly few characters and surprisingly little action, and yet those characters come fully alive, and there is plenty going on under the surface. The succession of apparently static set pieces, often with a satirical edge, add up to a rich panoramic portrait of life at a certain level of Lisbon society in the later 19th century. But what else is the author up to? For a long while, The Maias seems (or seemed to me) to be going nowhere in particular – but, oh boy, is that a misleading impression! This novel turns on what is surely one of the most breath-taking twists in fiction. Even though I'd half guessed what it was going to be, it still came as a jaw-dropping shock, so brilliantly does Eça choreograph the scene in which the big revelation is made, and such is the excruciating moral dilemma it presents. Twists being what they are, I cannot reveal any more. All I will say is that, if you feel like a big read from the field of classic European fiction, make it The Maias – you won't be sorry.  And stick with it... 
(You might like to get the flavour of Eça de Queiróz by reading one of his shorter novels first – Cousin Bazilio is probably the best, or for something really short you could try The Yellow Sofa.)

Natural Ignorance

 There's a passage in a book I'm currently reading (for review) where the author, a professor of biology at an English university, tells how, when he gets a new batch of first-year undergrads embarking on his ecology course, he takes them out for a walk on the campus, pointing out common trees and birds and finding out how many they can name. The results are depressing: these 18-year-olds, who have been through 13 years and more of school and have elected to study ecology, know almost nothing about the natural world around them. Around half of them can identify the likes of robins and blackbirds (though they might also apply the latter name to jackdaws and starlings). A very few can identify wrens and blue tits – and, when it comes to trees, almost none of these budding ecologists can identify such common species as sycamore and ash. What on earth is happening? Presumably these youngsters are being taught nothing of such matters in school, and have developed no independent interest in nature. When did 'nature study' cease to be a part of every child's education? And why? There are surely few more rewarding fields of study. It seems the more wildlife documentaries there are on television, the less anyone knows about the nature that is actually out there in the real world around them. 

Hedgehogs – What Can You Do?

 I thought for a moment it must be a novelty boot scraper, especially as it was just by the front door – but no, it was a genuine, living hedgehog. Living, but strangely torpid, not moving and barely breathing, with its snout poking through the fence into next door's front garden. This was the first living hedgehog I'd seen in these parts for some years, so it was quite exciting – but also worrying, as this was clearly not a well hedgehog. 
  After a while wondering what to do, I scooped the poor thing up onto a sheet of cardboard and moved it into a sheltered position in the shrubbery, even providing a saucer of milk in case it stirred and felt thirsty. A couple of hours later, I came out to have a look, and the hedgehog had gone. Excellent, I thought: it has rallied, come to its senses, and wandered off to resume its urchin* life. But no, as I soon discovered when I came out of the house again: it had only rallied sufficiently to plonk itself on the pavement in a still more exposed position than it was in before. Once again I scooped it up and put it in a safe and secluded place – and once again, as I later discovered, its hedgehog death wish kicked in and it headed straight back to the pavement.
  This, apparently, went on all evening, with concerned passersby carefully returning the hedgehog to safety, only for it to reappear in short order on the pavement. I found this out when, some time after 10 (when, as it happens, I was in my dressing gown and pyjamas following an early bath), a woman from up the road, with a dog on a lead, knocked on the door and told me what had been going on. The hedgehog was, of course, back on the pavement yet again. We debated what to do, and in the end I put the hedgehog in a box and she took it off to her house to see if she could coax it back to something more closely resembling life. She told me that this particular hedgehog was well known on our road and was often seen about the place. Which begged two questions: How come I haven't seen it? And, er, how do you know it's the same hedgehog?
  Anyway, I hope the poor creature recovered – and, it if did, I hope it didn't head straight for the road. 

* 'Urchin' is an archaic (indeed Middle English) word for hedgehog. 

Converted to Pyjamas

 For most of my adult life I have unthinkingly dismissed pyjamas as a kind of sartorial analogue of Horlicks, most definitely not for me. Then, earlier this year, I had, for no evident reason, a sudden conversion and, at last, I saw the point of pyjamas. Not, I hasten to add, the cosy brushed-cotton jimjams of my boyhood with the white drawstring, but light pyjamas of thin cotton (or ideally, if I could afford it, silk). As with my less recent conversion to the cravat (see early Nigeness, passim), I seem to have discovered the virtues of pyjamas just as they are falling out of use. Standard sleepwear these days looks more like some kind of sportswear, with various combinations of T-shirts and what I believe are known as 'sweat pants', all pretty unattractive and surely uncomfortable to wear in a warm bed. Pyjamas, on the other hand, allow the skin to breathe and air to circulate around the body – and they do look rather good, they have a certain elegance about them. What's not to like? Apart, that is, from the odious habit of tucking the pyjama jacket into the trousers, but I'm sure my discerning readers would never do that. 
  The word 'pyjama' or, in the American form, 'pajama', is of Persian and Urdu origin, and originally meant only the trousers ('pae' leg, 'jamah' clothing), 'worn by both sexes among the Mohamedans', as the OED puts it, 'and adopted for night wear by Europeans'. 
  As it happens, I have a pair of pyjamas very similar to the ones in the above painting, 'The Conversation' by Matisse. This only confirms me in my new-found love of this stylish and versatile garment, perfect alike for sleeping in and lounging about in before addressing the vexed question of what to wear for the day. As Beerbohm puts it in his essay on Dandyism, 'So to clothe the body that its fineness be revealed and its meanness veiled has been the aesthetic aim of all costume.' Pyjamas, correctly worn, seem to me to achieve that aim rather well. And, if not, they can always be covered by a dressing gown.  
 

Dark Green and Marbled

 Life is proving very busy, or at least time-consuming, just now, on several fronts – domestic, grandparental, medical (don't ask), literary (ditto) – hence the relatively sparse posting. Today, however, I did manage to get to one of my favourite local butterfly haunts. The sun was shining intermittently and it was warmer than it has been for some while, so I was hopeful of seeing good things. Sure enough, soon after I arrived, I spotted two Dark Green Fritillaries sparring vigorously in the air, about six feet above the flowery downland. As I watched, a large blue dragonfly that was cruising nearby charged them and sent them packing. Soon afterwards I saw a few more DGFs, two of them settled and nectaring, allowing me to get close enough to have a good look. The more I see of these fritillaries, the more beautiful they seem to me, with their chequered tawny-white-and-black upperwings and the subtle green patterning of their underwings. Quite large, fast-flying, bright and distinctive, they are always a joy to see.

Also a joy to see were my first Marbled Whites of the year. This is another uncommonly beautiful butterfly, one of the cheering sights of high summer, and one of our butterflies that is increasing its range – or at least it was until this year's dismal spring and early summer. 

As there were still Small Blues flying, and I saw my first Large and Small Skippers of the year, I headed home with my spirits much lifted, to resume the busyness of life. 

Subnivean

 It seldom profits a man (especially a man) to listen to Radio 4 these days, but this morning I caught the new Book of the Week, Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. A natural, social and cultural history of the Arctic region, this seems to be quite interesting, and is, I discover, something of a classic in its field, having been around since 1986 (the author died last year). But my point, if I have one, is this: listening to it, I discovered a new word – which is always a pleasure. The word is 'subnivean', which means under the snow: the 'subnivean zone' is the world between the snow surface and the terrain below, in which many creatures live at least some of their lives, relatively insulated and relatively safe from predators. 'Subnivean' – I like it...

Unmasked

 A reader has written to ask me if I have stuck to my resolve – expressed in this post from last year – to resist the government's mask-wearing edicts. The answer is, mostly, yes. If it's a question of putting on a mask for a very short time, e.g. when entering a restaurant or popping into some mask-insistent shop for a few minutes, I'm not going to make an issue of it. However, I'm not going to suffer the entirely pointless discomfort of wearing a 'face covering' while doing a supermarket shop – still less while doing anything outdoors. The science (not to be confused with The Science) has not changed: no reputable study has shown that mask-wearing has anything more than a marginal effect on Covid transmission (similarly, no study has shown that Covid can be transmitted from contaminated surfaces, and yet hand sanitising is still being enforced on a huge scale, library books 'quarantined', etc.). Mask-wearing is clearly little more than a ritual observance that reassures the anxious and terrified – which is no reason at all for mandating it for the rest of us, in any circumstances. If people want to wear the things, that's fine – though the masking of toddlers and young children strikes me as a kind of child abuse – but the legislation is in essence arbitrary. 
  I have only been challenged a few times, and then weakly, for not wearing a mask. My usual response is to point to my chest and say I have breathing problems (which has a grain of truth in it); officials who know the law will know they can't question anyone about exactly what is wrong with them. The main thing, I think, is comportment – well, comportment and age: it probably helps to be older. As I am 6ft 4in at full height and can pass for 'distinguished', I have an inbuilt advantage, but it is still important to stand tall, to cultivate the air of a respectable senior citizen rather than a troublemaking refusenik – and, important this, to appear lost in one's own thoughts: this deters people from approaching. Keep the gaze focused on the middle distance and don't catch anyone's eye, at least if they look at all unsympathetic, and you should be fine. 
  My correspondent writes that she sees people driving around on their own in their cars, wearing masks and gloves. So do I. It is a sign – one of many – of the state of irrational fear to which the government's panic reaction to Covid has reduced much of the population. Many people will continue in that state of fear whatever happens next – 'Freedom Day, if it ever comes, will be wasted on them. But the rest of us should not be corralled into an anxious, anonymised, atomised and alienated future for no good reason at all. 
  By the way, the 'mask' I use when obliged to, is a slip of patterned silk with ear loops – about the most breathable option, and no more ineffective than other models. I recommend it.