Tired-Looking Kotek

A tired-looking Kotek jumped up on the wardrobe to catch forty winks.

'Thomas Hardy' (Routledge Guides to Literature) by Geoffrey Harvey

Find it difficult to convey just how much I'm enjoying and getting out of reading this truly fantastic book.  Thought it would be just a light-type introduction to or summary of Hardy's work, but it really is much, much more.

The book is divided into three sections about Hardy's life; his well-known and lesser-known fiction and poetry; and how different schools of literary criticism approach and view his work.  In other words, the book offers a wonderfully balanced view of Hardy.

When I saw how the book was structured, I immediately headed for the third and last section on different critical approaches to Hardy's work.  This section summarises how different authors have approached Hardy's work from liberal humanist (traditional 'lit-crit'); structuralist; deconstructionist; psychoanalytic; marxist/materialist; feminist and gender study perspectives.  Needless to say, I found the liberal humanist; psychoanalytic; and structuralist perspectives most interesting as they most closely correspond to how I tend to approach, interpret and understand Canonical Literature as offering a thorough examination and exploration of the complexity of the human condition.  However, I also surprisingly got something out of reading the feminist and gender study perspectives on Hardy which often go into depth about the systematic oppression against and suffering of Hardy's main female characters, especially Tess, of course.

I'm now reading the part of the second section that deals with Hardy's more famous work, and I can already see that there's a chronological development from a kind of compromised maintenance of the pastoral idyll (against outsider intrusion) in 'Under the Greenwood Tree' to a louder celebration of the survival of an ideal-type rural setting (against more robust outsider opposition) in  'Far From The Madding Crowd'.  From here, outsider interference in local rustic matters intensifies in 'The Return of the Native' and seems to reach a peak in 'The Woodlanders' and 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' where rural communities can now be seen to be coming under increasing threat (and even being broken down and potentially destroyed) by outsider intrusion.  Also love the sub-section on 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' which points towards an individual's character being as much responsible for his/her fate as any external forces (a person's character = his/her fate).  Indeed, what is becoming clearer for me through reading Harvey's book is that 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'; 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles'; and 'Jude the Obscure' may be viewed as case studies in (tragic but probably avoidable) individual self-destruction process.

The picture below shows that Harvey's book is never far from my hand at the moment, as my understanding of Hardy thankfully becomes more lucid through encountering detailed insights into the work and complex ideological outlook (e.g. Hardy being an agnostic humanist who couldn't emotionally let go of the pastoral brand of Anglicanism that he had been brought up on as a child, and who also had some kind of fetish for pre-Christian, pagan beliefs and customs/rituals that often lay beneath the surface of 19th century, Wessex, agricultural life) of Thomas Hardy.

Can't wait to find the time to delve some more into this wonderful book.

John's Shots of Scotland

Couple of shots from my friend John's trip to Scotland.  He came back raving about Fort Augustus; Loch Ness; the Isle of Skye etc., and I must say the place looks fantastic.

Haven't been to Scotland since I was a teenager, can still recall being driven round Loch Lomond with it absolutely lashing it down.  Still, John's shots have wet my appetite for a possible future trip to Fort Augustus; Loch Ness; the Isle of Skye etc.

Warsaw: The Witold Pilecki Memorial

This wartime memorial sprang up in the Zoliborz district of Warsaw recently.  As soon as I saw the name Witold Pilecki, I had to check out what his story was:

From the memorial, it was obvious that Pilecki was a wartime hero who'd played some kind of significant role at combating the Auschwitz death camp.

And on the Internet, I found the following information about Pilecki's involvement in the 2nd World War:

* He was a cavalry officer in the Polish Army and co-founder of the Secret Polish Army in German occupied Poland

* He provided the first comprehensive Allied intelligence report on the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Holocaust (he volunteered to go inside Auschwitz as a prisoner to gather such information, and ended up being imprisoned there for over two years before he escaped in 1943)

*  He was a combatant during the Warsaw Uprising (August-October 1944)

* He remained loyal to the London-based, Polish government in exile after the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland

Pilecki was also a devout Catholic which may well have helped drive his heroic wartime actions.

However, in 1947, he was arrested by the communist secret police on charges of working as a spy for 'foreign imperialism' (British intelligence) and was executed after a show trial in 1948.

Moreover, until 1989, information about his exploits and fate was suppressed by the communist authorities in Poland.

 

The information above the pictures only comes from a few basic Internet accounts about Pilecki's life.  It would be interesting to read something more detailed about his life.

Bury (Lancashire): A Catholic Whit Walk Picture

Love this old picture of what I guess has to be a (Roman or possibly Anglo-) Catholic Whit Walk from yesteryear, as it just contains so much rich cultural information.

The statues of Christ, His Mother, and the Apostle John are absolutely amazing with the men proudly and solemnly carrying them.  

This just couldn't be imagined in the current age of political-'correctness' (cultural marxism) where Christian religious imagery/symbols seem to have been banished from public view in many British urban environments.

The dark, factory-type building in the background shows that Bury town centre had far more northern, working-class character back then.

Also interesting to see a picture of a Catholic Whit Walk passing the now sadly gone, red-bricked, Congregational church building on the left above.

Just think there's a beautiful symmetry between the Congregational church; Catholic Whit Walk procession; and dark building and almost mystical-type sky in the background.

Yeah, this picture helps to remind me of just how much more character my hometown of Bury, Lancashire had in the past.

My Mental Jukebox Part 4

Many of the thousands of tunes inside my mental jukebox are songs from my school years (1977-1982), quite a few of which are by the late 1970s/early 1980s incarnation of Roxy Music ('Dance Away'; 'Angel Eyes'; 'More Than This'; 'Avalon' etc.).  However, the most prominent Roxy Music tune in my mental jukebox has to be 'Oh Yeah' (above), closely followed by 'Take a Chance with Me' (below):

  

Kotek: A Close-Up Shot

A close-up shot of the equally innocent and mischevious, Kotek.