Category Archives: literature

Book Review: The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson With A Memoir By Arthur Symons

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I can not quite recollect when I first came across the poet Ernest Christopher Dowson. Perhaps it was while listening to one of the many recorded anthologies of verse which have delighted me over the years. Possibly I read his “They are not long the weeping and the laughter” while browsing through the Oxford Book of English Verse. Be that as it may, I was delighted to come across The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson With A Memoir By Arthur Symons as a free download in the Amazon Kindle store, http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000JQUZY6?ie=UTF8&ref_=oce_digital_UK.

Dowson was born in 1867 and died in 1900 at the tragically young age of 30. During his short life he produced some of the most moving poetry in the English language including his often quoted “They are not Long”

“They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,

Love and desire and hate;

I think they have no portion in us after

We pass the gate.

 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses,

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.”

Indeed Dowson’s life was not long which serves to add poignancy to this beautiful poem. Whoever said that poetry has to be complex in order to be meaningful was wrong. As with “They are not long” verse can be a mere few lines and yet stir the emotions in a manner not achieved by more lengthy poems.

The brevity of existence and love is a constant theme in Dowson’s work. Take, for example his poem, April Love which touchingly describes the fleetingness of an affair

“We have walked in Love’s land a little way,

We have learnt his lesson a little while,

And shall we not part at the end of day,

With a sigh, a smile?

A little while in the shine of the sun,

We were twined together, joined lips, forgot

How the shadows fall when the day is done,

And when Love is not.

We have made no vows–there will none be broke,

Our love was free as the wind on the hill,

There was no word said we need wish unspoke,

We have wrought no ill.

So shall we not part at the end of day,

Who have loved and lingered a little while,

Join lips for the last time, go our way,

With a sigh, a smile?”.

Prior to reading “The Poems and Prose” I was not aware that in addition to his poetry Dowson had produced a number of short stories and one play. As with his poems the stories and play describe unattainable love or, in several of the stories the inability of men to take the plunge and express their love to their beloved.

In the play a man falls asleep in a beautiful garden to be awoken by a moon goddess. They indulge in romantic play for the few hours of night and at the end of their sport the lady leaves her mortal lover behind. Ever after he remains enthral to his moon goddess and is unable to find happiness with a mortal woman.

I could list the delights of this anthology until the cows come home, however I will cease my scribbling here and leave you to explore Dowson’s work for yourselves.

The Joy Of Feedback

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Yesterday evening I met up with my friend Brian for a couple of pints and a curry. Brian has just returned from France and I was delighted that while there he read my story Samantha while relaxing in the grounds of a beautiful French chateau (now there is a man who knows how to live the good life)! Brian was extremely complimentary about Samantha stating that the story is exciting and well written. Receiving feedback from close friends is wonderful particularly when they express a liking for your work. Of course there is the danger that friends and family will hold off when providing their opinion due to not wishing to cause offence (how many mothers would tell their son that they don’t like their literary or other artistic creation for example?!). However I have known Brian for many years and I know that he would not hold back in providing feedback irrespective of whether or not he liked my writing. For my story Samantha please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samantha-ebook/dp/B00BL3CNHI

Waiting for the Rain

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Lethargy holds sway. People mop their brows, move reluctantly onwards trying in vain to escape the deadening blanket of heat. Like a giant hand held too close to the face the heat stops our breath, we gasp longing for the blessed rain.

The over heated brain yearns for quiet, a shady nook in which to find relief from the myriad thoughts and fears that pervade it, but the rain when it comes is warm and heavy providing little restbite from the giant’s all encompassing hand.

Book Giveaways

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This month’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) newsletter contains a link to a blog post on Create Space which suggests that authors give away free copies of their books in order to raise their profile and build up a loyal following, https://www.createspace.com/en/community/community/resources/blog/2013/06/24/find-advocates-with-free-books?ref=822525&utm_id=6002&cp=70170000000bgWg&ls=Email&sls=KDP_NL. I can see the advantages to such an approach, however the difficulty is that only US-based authors can provide gift copies of their books via Amazon (the facility is not available to UK-based authors such as myself). I would love to be able to give away free copies of my books via Amazon, however, at present my only option is to promote my books free of charge using the KDP Select promotion tool which authors can utilise for a maximum of 5 days in each 3 month period. I sincerely hope that Amazon extends the facility to gift to UK-based authors!

Amnesia – a story by a writer other than me worth checking out

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I came across this story, Amnesia which is rather thought provoking http://markovicharts.com/2013/07/20/amnesia/. There exist philosophers who argue in favour of the procedure outlined in the forgoing fictional account. See, for example the following link to the philosopher David Pearce’s website http://www.hedweb.co.uk/.

The Case Of The Flying Laptop

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I will soon be famous. Let me rephrase that. I will soon be famous in my own locality for at least 15 minutes. It will be as a consequence of my writing. The reason I hear you ask? Have I written a short story which will wow the inhabitants of Crystal Palace and it’s environs when it appears in the local newspaper? No not quite. I am however fed up to the back teeth with my laptop which is not behaving as it should. To take just one example when I visit websites the machine frequently freezes and the only way in which I can close the internet is by resorting to the use of task manager! I have on several occasions been on the point of hurling the hapless computer out of the window. What a satisfying crash that dratted machine would make as it hit the ground. I can see the headlines now

“Mad writer flips his lid and throws laptop out of window accidentally braining neighbour”!

Well on the basis that all publicity is good publicity can someone open the window please, there is a mad writer on the loose.

Twitter Ebook Voted Onto The Man Booker Prize Long List

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One of the contenders for the Man Booker Prize, The Kills, started life on Facebook and Twitter where the first section was given away free. I must admit to having been surprised on first reading the article in the Telegraph that a 900 word story is classified as a novel, however on re-reading the piece I see that it runs to 900 pages so can legitimately be so classified. That will teach me to speed read articles! For the Telegraph’s article please visit http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booker-prize/10198682/A-Twitter-e-book-voted-on-to-the-Booker-Prize-longlist-How-very-novel.html

Reading Aloud

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On Monday one of my colleagues mentioned how he reads to his 2-year-old daughter using a Kindle. His little girl likes to look at the pictures on screen, however my colleague said that he prefers print books as the photographs are bigger.

I was heartened to learn that parents still read to their children as it brought back happy memories of visits to W H Smiths with my grandfather. Most Saturdays we would pop into Smiths and buy (well my grandfather would do the purchasing) a book. On reaching home I would sit on my grandfather’s knee or lie in bed as he regailed me with the adventures of The Famous Five or other classics of children’s literature.

Today most of my reading is done using the text to speech facility on my Kindle. After a while I forget that I’m being read to by a dalek and enjoy the experience of listening to the classics of world literature, however there is no substitute for the human voice, of being read to by a much loved parent or grandparent. Sadly my grandfather died many years ago but I often think of him reading aloud to me or of our walks together in the woods near to where he lived.

The Long Shadow of the Past

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On 16 July I published a story entitled “An Act of Mercy” (http://newauthoronline.com/2013/07/16/an-act-of-mercy/). In “An Act of Mercy” the government has introduced a eugenics programme under which those with mental and physical disabilities are eliminated as in the opinion of the authorities they are unproductive and place an unacceptable burden on society.

The view of disabled people as “useless eaters” and “life unworthy of life” lead to the forced sterilisation and (later) murder of many mentally and physically disabled people under the so-called Action T4 Programme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4), however the atrocities of the Third Reich where forshadowed in other countries long before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In the United Kingdom legislation was introduced in 1912 aimed at segregating the “feeble minded” from other “healthy” members of the community. Feble minded could mean anyone a doctor deemed to fall into that category. Thus unmarried mothers became lumped together with people with mild learning disabilities and where segregated from their fellow citizens.

Support for eugenics was not a matter of party politics. The Webbs (both prominent members of the socialist Fabian Society) where strong supporters as was Winston Churchill (in 1912 a Liberal but later a Conservative politician).

In both the USA and the UK eugenics societies played a leading role in arguing for eugenic measures. In the USA legislation went further than the measures introduced in the UK with many sterilisations of the “unfit” being carried out on individuals against their will. Nazi Germany modelled it’s sterilisation law on US legislation and at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals accused of forceably sterilising the disabled the accused pointed to what had been happening in the USA in their defence.

Some supporters of eugenics where no doubt genuinely horrified at the use to which their theories had been put by Nazi doctors and the term eugenics fell out of favour largely as a consequence of the abuses perpetrated by the Third Reich. However some have argued that proponents of eugenics such as Leonard Darwin (the son of Charles Darwin) helped to create the atmosphere in which atrocities could be commited. The leading American eugenicist Charles Davenport openly expressed his admiration for the German’s eugenics programme (see http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/themes/25.html).

Eugenics is a fascinating subject and I will write more on it in future.