The past is another country. Or is it?

Friar Barnadine: "Thou hast committed--" Barabas: "Fornication-- but that was in another country / And besides, the wench is dead."                      Christopher Marlow (The Jew of Malta) What made people like Guy  Burgess or Anthony Blunt rebel against their society, betray their  country and spy for the soviet union?  Was it a reaction against... Read more »

Design for Living? I don’t think it will work.

It should be easy, you know.  The actual facts are so simple.  I love you.  You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto.  Otto loves you.  Otto loves me.’ Oh My God!   Or as Mrs ‘Odge might say,  ‘Well, ‘eres a pretty pickle.’      So why isn’t it easy?    Why shouldn’t... Read more »

The Real Thing

I thought it was going to be too clever by half, a criticism so often levelled at Stoppard and parodied in the character of Henry, the playwright.  Was his writing the real thing or just or just the defensive manipulations of an expert wordsmith, obfuscating, confusing, keeping everything ambivalent.  Or... Read more »

Running from women with reindeer and other obsessions.

The U boats lay in wait for us as soon as we rounded North Cape.  There was only a narrow passage between the tundra and the ice, and as they closed in on the convoy underwater,  Stukas from their Norwegian bases, dive bombed us from above.  It was hell!   The... Read more »

Capturing the Look of Love; Waterhouse’s Women.

   The long neck is bent, the skin pale, the gaze serious and sustained, sad yet determined, the lips are slightly parted, the body lithe, nubile, not a child but not yet a woman.  Waterhouse's depictions of women express an ambiguity, an inscrutability, a mysterious, thoughtful reflection that enthrals and captivates.... Read more »

Show! Don’t tell! An appraisal of The Reader.

Show! Don't tell!  Let the reader decide why the characters behave as they do.  Keep them guessing. It's what can turn a good book into a great one.  But, to be honest, I didn't think The Reader was a great book when I first read it about three months ago. ... Read more »

Sex in the Woods

The breeze softens and fades down where the Blackbird's beguiling flute stirs the heavy scent that lingers across the trance of summer's eve.   April has lain a fragrant quilt over the moss that clothes the limbs and secret belly of the darkening wood.   Nodes of eager bracken thicken, uncurl and thrust through cobalt covers.   Subversive tubers reach into damp... Read more »