The naming of children

  C J Sansom's  Shardlake novels convey a distinct impression of the disturbed and disturbing atmosphere during the reign of Henry the Horrible when conscience was literally a matter of life and death. In"Dissolution" there is a scene where the Tudor problem solver visits a family who have adapted to the new times by giving their children names such as Zealous, Perseverance and Duty.

I was strongly reminded of similar practices in other tyrannical situations. A Chinese parent  at the time of the so-called Cultural Revolution  would be placed in a difficult situation. Give a child a generation name and you were backward. Best just to call the child Hua (China) and be done with it. No criticism was then possible.No doubt there would be similar patriotic names in the Soviet Union. 

Recent reading

On Saturday morning in Blackwell's I was tempted by their 3 for 2 deal. But I couldn't find a third book. I have been wanting to read "Cabinet of Equals" since I first heard of it. My partner's interest in Lincoln has certainly rubbed off on me. My second choice was to have been "The Rest is Noise" which is Alex Ross's account of 20C music. But, what to do? I couldn't find a third choice. In the end I left it.

Imagine my delight on finding a copy of Ross's book in my local library later on the same day. It is an excellent read -I was tempted to say that it is journalism of the highest class but in a way that would be unfair. Yes, I have skipped the sections on music in America but I will read them. If they are half as good as the pages on  Schoenberg they will be very good indeed. There are plenty of amusing and  piquant anecdotes such as the passage in which Ross lists the occasions when Schoenberg and Stravinsky were known to have been present at the same event/meeting in Los Angeles and never met.

The problems of bookbinding

Peter Hunter-Blair has a story about the bible text known as the Codex Amiatinus that prodigy of the Northumbrian golden age which now resides in the Laurentian Library in Florence. He notes that one scholar who was allowed to consult the volume found that it was delivered by two men struggling under its weight because it is so massive. It weighs 56 kilos. This makes one wonder about the physical struggle which must have been part of the binding process-if not for the sewer at least for the  person who constructed the housing for the book. The Codex Amiatinus must have been one of the largest insular manuscripts ever made and it could not have been manipulated with the ease with which the Stoneyhurst Gospels could be handled.

Imagine also Abbot Ceolfrith  setting out from Wearmouth/Jarrow on his way to Italy with this monster on June  4, AD 716. It is now the oldest surviving copy of the Vulgate-the Latin Bible.Of the other two bibles made at the same time only fragments  remain.

 

Peter Hunter-Blair,"Northumbria in the Days of Bede".

Signs of the times

Six months ago our local evening paper would boast that it had 900+ jobs available in its Thursday supplement. Last weeks supplement featured a third of that number and this appears to be the  norm.

On another note, and just possibly saying something about Newcastle, I have been interested to observe the lack of sales of finest Spanish jamon in a local delicatessen. When the product went on display, well before Christmas,  the price was £20.00p for 100gm. The ham is still on sale but the price has dropped gradually to £9.50 for 100gm. I doubt if 300gm has been sold in total during the months this admirable product has been on sale.

De Kooning

I have been re-reading some of  David Sylvester's art criticism and one of the topics is Willem de Kooning. Looking also at Hess's 1959 paperback on the artist. The quality of the illustrations is very poor but then, so it seems to me is the quality of the work. When it was made, Excavation may well have seemed raw indeed. But the work that followed it-including the Woman series now seems distressingly inept. The photographs of the early stages of Woman I are the work of a truly clumsy painter who is trying to suppress the bland and mannered side of his art. That aspect of his work was commonly present when he dealt with figures . Artists make art out of chaos but there is a limit to what can be done and Woman I is  abandoned  rather than completed.