To read, or not to read?

World Book Day has come and gone with barely a rustle of turned pages, but it has produced something which my rag bag mind loves: lists.

The lists are derived from the rather paltry figure of ‘over two thousand’ people who logged onto the World Book Day web site and produced their lists for 'the ten books the nation can’t live without.'

Before getting to what the people thought, here is my list (without, as the lawyers say, prejudice) – in alphabetical order of author:

1. Old Saint Paul’s – Ainsworth
2. The Foundation Trilogy – Asimov
3. Emma – Austen
4. Jane Eyre – Bronte
5. Heart of Darkness – Conrad
6. Great Expectations – Dickens
7. Catch 22 – Heller
8. Stalky and Co – Kipling
9. Winnie the Pooh – Milne
10. Lord of the Rings – Tolkien

This compares with the national list which was

1 Pride and Prejudice – Austen
2 Lord of the Rings – Tolkein
3 Jane Eyre – Bronte
4 Harry Potter – Rowling
5 To Kill A Mockingbird – Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Bronte
8 1984 – Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Dickens

I’m not quite sure of my reaction finding three of the national choices are mine exactly and another choice is my choice of author. Now say I lack the common touch!
You can access the web site and find lost of other lists which are broken down by sex, age and region at: http://www.worldbookday.com/documents/10%20books%20wbd%20news%20story.pdf

One has to wonder about the sort of people who access these ‘minority’ cultural websites and (if you check the lists) actually choose some fairly unreadable books as their absolute favourites.

I always distinguish between Books Which Should Be Read and Books You Actually Read.

Foremost among the former is the exquisite example of Joyce’s ‘Finnegan’s Wake’; a classic, no doubt, but absolutely unreadable by normal human beings. The only other creature that I have met who said that he had read that foetid book all the way through (and I believed him) was a Mechanical Engineer. ‘Nuff said.

In the latter category you find books like one of my choices: ‘Old Saint Paul’s’ by William Harrison Ainsworth. I’m not sure that I could make a convincing case for this author to be regarded with the same veneration as his contemporary Dickens, but for Old Time’s Sake and the wonderful chapter headed, “What befell Chowles and Judith in the Vaults of Saint Faith’s” I am prepared to waive my full critical judgement and just enjoy!

Another of my choices, “Stalky and Co” by Kipling, is a book I have enjoyed since I was a child. My copy is falling apart through re-reading and, according to one of my more perceptive students who read it after I had told her it was one of my favourites, “explains a great deal about your character Mr Rees!”

In the national list, how the hell does “To Kill A Mocking Bird” get into the top ten? It’s a good book and full of ‘important’ themes, but I think it’s more a function of the book having been chosen for GCSE English Literature that it gets into the top ten, than for any real literary merit. In the same company as Charlotte Bronte? I don’t think so!

In my list, if I had to choose one to recommend to someone as ‘A Good Read’ then I would probably choose the one written by a Pole in his third (third!) language: Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness.’ It’s a jewel of a book, beautifully crafted and, although ‘only’ a novella, it packs more of a punch than many novels of ten times its size.

Of the top 100 books (of the ten thousand suggested) I had not read twenty five of them. One quarter. I’m sure that some of the classics (especially the Russian classics) had been put down as image-boosting examples of the Books Which Should Be Read kind, rather than books which have actually been read and enjoyed. It was the same sort of cultural snobbery that a while ago managed to produce the unlikely finding that ‘Ulysses’ was the most valued, or popular book in Britain. I think that is an example of aspirational thinking rather than reflecting the reality of what is actually enjoyed asl the eye peruses all those pages which it takes to describe that single day!

The programme for ‘Discovering Music’ at the concert hall in Broadcasting House, Llandaff was a performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto Number 1 (which was actually his second, but, you know what these talented musicians are like!) with an encore of a Nocturne.

The programme was introduced by the same presenter who introduced the Nielsen flute concerto and, once again, I was more than impressed with his musical knowledge and his ability to answer and develop audience questions and comments with effortless intellectual rigor.

The performance was exceptional with the soloist’s fingers flashing up and down the keyboard: I know, I had the best seat in the house and was able to look at his hands directly from the front in line with the keyboard!

The orchestra was less than impressive. The acoustic seemed dead with the sound of the orchestra flat and lacking resonance. The exposed strings were weak and the ensemble was poor. Once again the principal horn was lacking in confidence and created tension every time there was an extended note.

It was just as well that Chopin's 1st Piano Concerto is the almost exclusive property of the soloist with the orchestra being very much the accompanist after they have had their moment of prominence with the extended prelude which introduces the pianist in the first movement.

I enjoy these informative, illustrated performances like "Discovering Music" - programmes after Sir John Reith's heart, I would have thought! This one provided an insight into the effect the type of piano that Chopin used had on the way the music was written. It turned out that the period pianos were less able to sustain high notes, which was one of the reasons that Chopin used octaves together with decoration to emphasise and extend the notes. The popularity of bel canto in opera also had an effect with the piano mirroring the human voice and providing a sort of decorated sung musical line.

I realise that what I’ve just written sounds like pretentious rubbish; you really have to be there for it all to make sense. Honestly!

Tomorrow, more planting. If the weather allows. Some hope!

Roll on Spain!