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Sunday, November 28, 2004

What a winner!

Yes Non

Posted by Nick @ 18:30 GMT
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Tuesday, November 23, 2004

and now for something completely different

Someone came across a recent article quoting Oscar Wilde's dismissal of fox hunting - too good not to pass on - "the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible."

renders all further discussion on the topic redundant, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by Laurence @ 11:55 GMT
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Sunday, November 14, 2004

Black Dog Follow Up: Why Don't You Marry Me?

Wayward daughters. Missing Husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you've got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective. Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she's got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J.L.B. Maketoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger ...Delightfully different, THE NO.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY offers a captivating glimpse of an unusual world. THE NO.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY introduced the world to the one and only Precious Ramotswe - the engaging and sassy owner of Botswana's only detective agency. TEARS OF THE GIRAFFE, McCall Smith's second book, takes us further into this world as we follow Mama Ramotswe into more daring situations ...Among her cases this time are wayward wives, unscrupulous maids, and the challenge to resolve a mother's pain for her son who is long lost on the African plains. Indeed, Mma Ramotswe's own impending marriage to the most gentlemanly of men, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, the promotion of Mma's secretary to the dizzy heights of Assistant Detective, and the arrival of new members to the Matekoni family, all brew up the most humorous and charmingly entertaining of tales. * TEARS OF THE GIRAFFE was selected as one of the GUARDIAN's top ten 'Fiction Paperbacks of the Year, 2000 The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency published in 1998, introduced the world to the one and only Precious Ramotswe, the engaging and sassy owner of Botswana's only detective agency. 'Ex-CID. Ex-New York. Ex-cellent' reads the sign outside the Satisfaction Guarantee Detective Agency. Cephas Buthelezi certainly talks the talk, Precious discovers, but would he have the wherewithal to deal with her current case - a man who has been attacked by ostrich rustlers, and is eager to reassess his life? Meanwhile, there are difficulties at the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, where one of the apprentices has discovered the Lord, problems at home with the mysterious death of a hoopoe, and romantic complications when Mma Makutsi sets up a typing school for men ... Mma Ramotswe, who became engaged to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni at the end of the first book, is still engaged. She wonders when a day for the wedding will be named, but she is anxious to avoid putting too much pressure on her fiance. For indeed he has other things on his mind - notably a frightening request made of him by Mma Potokwani, pushy matron of the Orphan Farm. Mma Ramotswe herself has weighty matters on her mind. She has been approached by a wealthy lady - whose fortune comes from successful hair-braiding salons - and has been asked to check up on several suitors. Are these men just interested in her money? This may be difficult to find out, but Mma Ramotswe is, of course, a very intuitive lady ...

Currently reading The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and the above titled Chapter 13 opens thus:

"Happiness? Mma Ramotswe was happy enough. With her detective agency and her house in Zebra Drive, she had more than most, and was aware of it. She was also aware of how things had changed. When she had been married to Note Mokoti she had been conscious of a deep, overwhelming unhappiness that followed her around like a black dog. That had gone now."

Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of 'traditional build', is well-known to millions across the world through the best-selling No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Those who have been following her exploits in five previously published novels will soon be able to savour the next instalment, in which, as usual, circumstances are never as straightforward as they seem and events take a more than unexpected turn. Precious Ramotswe, is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea which is made to her by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle, and by a spectacular disagreement between her assistant, Mma Makutsi, and one of the apprentices at the garage. This apprentice has found a fancy girlfriend who drives a large silver Mercedes-Benz. How can he be rescued from his folly? And as for Mma Makutsi, she has found a dancing class, and a man who may not be able to dance very well but who admires her greatly. And all of this happens against a background of quiet sessions of bush tea, and of a land that stretches out forever under mile upon mile of empty sky.

Posted by Nick @ 13:17 GMT
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Finding The Book Club Blog through a search on Yahoo

Can anyone explain why a search for "The Book Club Blog" on the main yahoo site rightly returns The Book Club Blog at number one in the results. Whereas a search on the UK Yahoo site fails to mention The Book Club Blog anywhere in the results? At least Google and Google UK always know where The Book Club Blog is.

Posted by Nick @ 09:00 GMT
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Wednesday, November 10, 2004

A Question: How did depression come to be known as the 'Black Dog'?

“For he was speechless, ghastly, wan,
Like him of whom the story ran,
Who spoke the spectre hound in man.”
Sir Walter Scott, The lay of the last minstrel, Canto VI, v.26.

"Like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread... because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread."
Samuel Taylor Colleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Sir Winston Churchill - A sufferer of depression which he referred to as 'a black dog on his shoulder' and refused to take any medication for. A collection of essays from one of England's distinguished psychiatrists. Its theme is creativity. What internal dynamic forces artists, scientists and politicians to devote so much time and energy to creative invention? It examines the impulses which drove such figures as Churchill and Newton. The Black Dog Brewery in Whitby.
Ever since Sir Winston Churchill used the phrase ‘black dog’ to refer to his own periodic bouts of depression, the term has become a cliché for describing dark moods and melancholy.

However, the term did not originate with Churchill. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1870, cites the expression - ‘a black dog has walked over him/me’ – to describe being in a state of mental depression.

Earlier still, Samuel Johnson used the term to describe his attacks of melancholia. In a letter to Mrs Thrale, 28th June 1783, he wrote:

“The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me. When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking, except that Dr Brocklesby for a little keeps him at a distance. Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from a habitation like this?”

(R. W. Chapman (ed.) Letters of Samuel Johnson (1952) vol. 3)

It is thought that the earliest origins of the expression date back to the myth described by Horace (Roman poet and satirist, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC) in which the sight of a black dog with pups was an unlucky omen.

In Horace’s SATIRE VII. Davus says the following:

“Then too you cannot spend an hour alone;
No company's more hateful than your own;
You dodge and give yourself the slip; you seek
In bed or in your cups from care to sneak:
In vain: the black dog follows you, and hangs
Close on your flying skirts with hungry fangs.”

Immediately hereupon, there appeared in a most horrible similitude and likenesse to the congregation then and there present a dog as they might discerne it, of a black colour; at the site whereof, togither with the fearful flashes of fire which were then seene, moved such admiration in the minds of the assemblie, that they thought doomesday was already come. This black dog, or the divil in such a likenesse (God hee knoweth all who worketh all) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed betweene two persons, as they were kneeling upon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in so much that even at a moment where they kneeled, they strangely died… There was at ye same time another wonder wrought; for the same black dog, still continuing and remaining in one and the self same shape, passing by another man of the congregation in the church, gave him such a gripe on the back, that therewith all he was presently drawen togither and shrunk up ,as it were a peece of lether scorched in a hot fire; or as the mouth of a purse or bag, drawen togither with string. The man albeit hee was in so strange a taking, dyed not, but as it is thought is yet alive: whiche thing is mervelous in the eyes of men, and offereth much matter of amasing the minde... It was a brave man who would cross the Devon moorlands in darkness. For the ancient legend of the hound of the Baskervilles had persisted in family history for generations. It was Sir Charles's mysterious death in the grounds of Baskerville Hall that brought Sherlock Holmes to the scene. This self help manual is for those for whom depression arises from the impact of exceptional circumstances such as childbirth and menopause, commercial and professional failure, accident, grief, divorce or debt as well as for those more permanent owners of the Black Dog.

Black Dogs in folklore and literature

Quite apart from their descriptive association with depression, black dogs have for centuries been fiendish and threatening symbols in the superstitions and folklore of various cultures.

In Henry Gilbert's "King Arthur's Knights", chapter II, "How Lancelot was Made a Knight", part 2, Lancelot has his adventure to the Chapel Perilous foreshadowed:

"Then he rode a great while in a deep and dark forest, and as he followed the winding ways, suddenly he saw a black hound before him, with its nose to the ground as if seeking a scent. He followed the beast...."

Merlin later tells Lancelot, "All that hath befallen thee hath been done by evil magic. The black dog that led thee to the manor was a fiend...."

The Encyclopedia of the Celts has a brief entry on "Black Dogs":

"Stories of Black Dogs are to be found all over the country. They are generally dangerous, but sometimes helpful. As a rule, the black dogs are large and shaggy, about the size of a calf, with fiery eyes. If anyone speaks to them or strikes at them they have power to blast, like the Mauthe Doog, the Black Dog of Peel Castle in the Isle of Man."

The entry on "The Devil in Wales" says:

"He was sometimes known as Andreas or Y Fall and was always described as black or very dark, appearing sometimes in the shape of a man with horns and cloven hooves or even taking animal form. Often he was said to resemble a hegoat and in witch-lore he appeared as a very black male goat with fiery eyes. In some old stories of Wales he took the form of a raven, a black dog, a black cock, a horse or a black pig. In fact it was believed that he could assume any form but that of a white sheep. However, he could easily appear as a black sheep or lamb. Sometimes he appeared in the shape of a fish or as a ball of fire or a huge stone rolling downhill, or as a mysterious and terrifying presence without form. ..."

Such beasts recur throughout Britain’s folklore, with almost every county having at least one example: the Yorkshire legend of the "Barguest" (The Barguest is a large, black hound or bear with sharp claws and eyes like embers. It appears during the night on roads, and the mere sight of it can bring disaster or death to those unfortunate enough to see it. The Barguest's howling would provoke all hounds in whatever city could here it, heralding the death of an important figure); the Lyme Regis Black Dog Legend (commemorated in the sign of a small roadside inn there, "The Black Dog"); and another that appeared in Bungay in 1577).

In Catalan myth, Dip is an evil, black, hairy dog, an emissary of the Devil, who sucks people's blood. Like other figures associated with demons in Catalan myth, he is lame in one leg. Dip is pictured on the escutcheon of Pratdip.

In Goethe's story of Faust a black dog represents the host of Mephistopheles, the infernal deity that is sworn to challenge God in an attempt for Faust's soul. The dog is found following Faust and Wagner (Faust's student) through the streets and manages to get through Faust's sigils in front of his studio, then hiding behind the stove soon turns himself into Mephistopheles who immediately proposes to Faust redemption of his boredom by the exchange of his soul for the power of youth and experience.

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, taking the form of a huge black dog Dracula leaps from the deck of his ship as it crashes onto the beach at Whitby. Landing on the sand it races up the 199 steps and disappears among the gravestones of the churchyard. Today, The Black Dog Brewery takes it name from the tale.

Arthur Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes's adventure with the Hound of the Baskervilles was the folk tale of a phantom black dog on Dartmoor.

Does anyone know any more about the origins of the association of the term 'black dog' with depression? If so, please add what you know in the comments to this post.

Posted by Nick @ 20:34 GMT
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Boris Vian, L’Écome des Jours, 1947, Translated by Stanley Chapman as 'Froth on the Daydream'1967, 1970, 1988

Current Book Club Book on the Back Burner

Herman Melvills's 'Moby Dick

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Previous Book Club Books

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

Senhor Jose is an official in a registry office, with a passion for unearthing every detail and reconstructing people's lives from the bare data in the archive documents. One file in particular challenges him: a woman's date and place of birth are missing, and so he begins his research in earnest.

The school gives them an education. I give them the wherewithal to resist it. Examine a boy and he is tamed already. Only examine him and you can tax him, empanel him, enlist him, interrogate him and put him in prison. You have only to grade him and you have got him. An unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university. A maverick English teacher at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher. A headmaster obsessed with results and a history teacher who thinks he’s a fool. In Alan Bennett’s new play, staffroom rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how you teach it; about education and its purpose.

A panoramic vision of America at the beginning of the 21st century, seen through the turbulent lives of the Lambert family. This novel is a moving family drama and a dissection of American society in an age of greed and globalism.

A collection of poems from a tenderly observant poet who writes about what all of us can understand. The title poem describes the poet's journey by train from Hull to London, using the tones and rhythms of ordinary speech and focusing on the urban landscape of the industrial north.

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, Persian poet Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alledged crime. He is spared, and thus begins the blend of fact and fiction that is 'Samarkand'.

Half-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else. This is the story of two brothers, but the subject of the novel is in its dismantling of society and its assumptions, a dissection of modern lives and loves.

A debut collection of short fiction blends elements of Indian traditions with the complexities of American culture in such tales as

Koestler's story, first published in 1940, of an old-guard communist who falls victim to Stalin's purges, yet attains a personal freedom in his destruction.

This novel opens with the narrator in hospital after a serious car crash in which he killed a doctor's husband. When he leaves hospital, he revisits the scene of the crash, and meets the doctor. They begin an affair which involves sexual experiments on London motorways.

Georgie Jutland is a mess. At forty, with her career in ruins, she finds herself stranded in White Point with a fisherman she doesn't love and two kids whose dead mother she can never replace. Her days have fallen into domestic tedium and social isolation. Her nights are a blur of vodka and pointless loitering in cyberspace. Leached of all confidence, Georgie has lost her way; she barely recognizes herself. One morning, in the boozy pre-dawn gloom, she looks up from the computer screen to see a shadow lurking on the beach below, and a dangerous new element enters her life. Luther Fox, the local poacher. Jinx. Outcast. So begins an unlikely alliance. Set in the wild landscape of Western Australia, this is a novel about the odds of breaking with the past. a love story about people stifled by grief or regret, whose dreams are lost, whose hopes have dried up. It's a journey across landscapes within and without, about the music that sometimes arises from the dust.

Writer Jake Donaghue's adventures in London and Paris include falling in and out of love, kidnapping a canine film star, and trailing a onetime friend.

Like its noteworthy ancestors (Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, the Ancient Mariner and Moby Dick) Life of Pi is a tale of disaster at sea. Both a boys' own adventure (for grown-ups) and a meditation on faith and the value of religious metaphor, it was one of the most extraordinary and original novels of 2002. The only survivor from the wreck of a cargo ship on the Pacific, 16 year old Pi spends 221 days on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker...

Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious Third Force. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch.

Patrick Bateman is Harvard-educated and intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom - doing impermissible things to women. He is living his own American Dream.

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