Literary Minds

"Young love, I feel you know me better than most. In spite of real distance, we'll always be close." Keaton Henson

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Stone houses though harsh to touch make warm cold hearts. 

First proper annual leave this year and the Cotswolds has offered both a real and model village to escape to. 

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Today the sky made some art and it urged me to reconsider how for 99% of our days we take for granted our surroundings and fates. Let’s eke out that 1% of a day — to look up away from the screen of your phone; take five minutes from your desk to stroll in the crisp breeze by the river. Breathe in the scent of spring struggling through — not the fumes of cars on the busy roads. Take the long route if it’s prettier. Most importantly, capture this moment: but with your eyes and minds as well as your cameras. Remember “I am a camera” also.

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The other night I was reading Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight and it struck me how much listening to music influences how you respond to prose. I thought back to the various times I’d studied Rhys’s short stories, novels and autobiography then compiled a little playlist based on how it made me feel. 

Florence and the Machine’s Hunger, for example, is fairly evident. For me, Florence’s response acts as a 21st-century answer to Rhys’s 1924 short story ‘Hunger’ (a must-read). More generally, however, the female artists - Kate Bush, Grace Jones, even Renée Zellweger’s singing in Chicago, is simply another way of voicing the complexity and trials of female experience Rhys documents in her work. To begin with 21st-century alt-pop and end with the modernist contemporary Rachmaninoff, is the inverse of how Rhys’s work evolved from stories such as the urban, commercial world of ‘Mannequin’ to the postcolonial novel Wide Sargasso Sea; Rachmaninoff’s Isle reflecting the body of water which separated Rhys from her home in the Caribbean. 

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I’ve missed the watchful gaze of New Hall Art: I never quite appreciated having Europe’s largest collection of women’s art right outside my door. These two guided me through my final year (although I always seemed to get something fish-themed...)

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Just a little post to liven up my account -- if you are ever in need of a reason to put a smile on your face/ have a shy boogie, listen to this playlist. I know this is probably the most off-brand thing for me ever (let’s not start on the juxtaposition of Ed Sheeran against Virginia Woolf). 

For those curious -- mostly directed towards my future inquisitive self -- this was mostly gleaned from hours after dark in small college rooms dancing under tiny fairy-light shadows et cetera...

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An exciting solo appearance from Daughter’s lead singer Elena Tonra! Album is out on 30 November ✨

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Happy is the day whose history is not written down.

May 1934, Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner.  (via nearly-curtains)

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“To escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures. Still, as we approach our own doorstep again, it is comforting to feel the old possessions, the prejudices, fold us round, and shelter and enclose the self which has been blown about at so many street corners, which has battered like a moth at the flame of so many inaccessible lanterns, sheltered and enclosed.” — Virginia Woolf, ‘Street Haunting’.

In my momentary return to Cambridge, I felt some of the conflict Woolf writes of in her essay ‘Street Haunting’. The sense of escape from the comfort of one’s home appears at first to be a thrill when wandering around any city. For me it was a different sensation as I filled a liminal space between tourist and student. Yet this liminal space is also exposed to the “flame” of now inaccessible spaces. The street is no longer my own. Finding pleasure in wandering around Cambridge, now no longer a student, is at once simple and incredibly difficult. We have time to escape but are no longer free to enter the turrets of wisdom. Perhaps feeling a bit more like Woolf herself did when she wrote ‘A Room of One’s Own’.

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florence’s music and virginia woolf’s writing give off the same kind of energy

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This weekend’s exploration of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire - filming home of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice!

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🌸Life after exams 🌸 Going through my ma’s original groovy vinyls ready to get funky for summer!

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You don’t need to save this moment, it will just vanish into nothing.

Florence Welch to the crowd of BBC Biggest Weekend. (If only I could have the energy of Florence + the Machine in a fraction of my life!)

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After first hearing this at the end of BBC’s The Split on Friday, I can 100% attribute this song to any motivation that has got me through having an exam on a bank holiday (yes I know this is grim...). It’s got me very contemplative but also hopeful about the future. So:

Here's to the things you love Here's to those you find in love

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Lily Allen has taken a lot of shtick for her music and behaviour but honest to god, she offers such a brilliant social commentary if you listen to the music carefully. Read through the irony and sarcasm; it’s real tragedy:

1) Everyone’s At It - importance of talking about mental health and medication

Why can't we all, all just be honest Admit to ourselves that everyone's on it From grown politicians to young adolescents Prescribing themselves anti-depressants Now how can we start to tackle the problem

2) Knock ‘Em Out - using humour to deal with persistent male attention on nights out

You can't knock em out, you can't walk away, Try desperately to think of the politest way to say, "Just get out my face" " Just leave me alone", "And no you can't have my number", "'cause I've lost my phone". "Aw, no, I gotta go, my house is on fire."

3) F*** You - calling out racists and homophobic behaviour

So sick and tired of all the hatred you harbour So you say it's not okay to be gay Well, I think you're just evil You're just some racist who can't tie my laces Your point of view is medieval 

4) LDN - the London dream, masking inherent crime culture

There was a little old lady, who was walkin' down the road She was struggling with bags from Tesco [...] Then a kid came along to offer a hand But before she had time to accept it Hits her over the head, doesn't care if she's dead [...] Walkin' round London town Sun is in the sky oh why oh why? Would I wanna be anywhere else [...]

When you look with your eyes Everything seems nice But if you look twice You can see it’s all lies

5) Everything’s just wonderful - magazine culture and body image

Why can't I sleep at night Gonna say it’s gonna be alright I wanna be able to eat spaghetti bolognese And not feel bad about it for days and days and days

All the magazines they talk about weight loss If I buy those jeans I can look like Kate Moss I know it’s not the life that I chose But I guess that’s just the way that things go

Her lyrics are much cleverer than so many people make out -- reading her irony as a social commentary is so interesting!

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If you’re familiar with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, I’ve just discovered the recording conducted by Bernstein. It may be recorded in 1959 but it’s still absolutely STUNNING. I heard it live at the Proms a few years ago, and the detail and intensity of this version almost gets close to hearing it performed. 

Have a listen to my new playlist of my favourite (mostly Russian) composers around the turn of the 20th century; perfect for modernism revision (she tells herself)... 

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Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West enjoying an afternoon under the sun in 1933. Pictures found in Virginia Woolf’s private photo album.

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Petrichor: the smell of rain

Yesterday felt quite unreal; wandering around town I felt a profound sense of fulfilment. Being loved: reaching a point in my life where, for once, I appreciate the fullness of love from my family, friends, those who inspire me, and my surroundings. It was a day for smelling the rain and letting such sensations sink in.