Thursday, January 18, 2018

Jacob's Room is Full of Books - January


I have read Susan Hill's other book about books twice. Howards End is on the Landing is one of my all time favorite books. I've written about it twice in my letters, here, and here.

Because Jacob's Room is Full of Books is divided into months, I decided to read it that way. But I'll tell you, it was very hard to stop when I reached the last page of January!

Again, I feel like this woman is inside my head. I called to Tom twice as I read her January entry because she put into words thoughts I've had for a long time.

One is about the Kindle.
I had a Kindle. I read books on it for maybe six months, and then I stopped and went back to printed books. I did not do this for any reasons whatsoever other than organic ones. I prefer holding a real book.
But this is the part that got to me.
I gave up reading on a Kindle because I found I wasn't taking the words and their meaning in, as I do those in a printed book. They went in through my eyes but seemed to glide off into some underworld, without touching my brain, memory or imagination, let alone making any permanent mark there. I was puzzled by this, until I learned that if we use an e-reader or a laptop before going to sleep, our brains are affected so that we are more likely to sleep badly. It is something to do with blue light. I've forgotten. The e-reader is cold, and what I mean by that I cannot put into words or explain. I can only feel that it is the right way of describing the experience, as against the warmth of a physical book.
Well, even though she says she can't really explain, I understood. I have gone on probably too much in various blog entries about my relationship with the Kindle. I began using one, and a Nook, though I didn't like it as well, for one reason alone. Well, really for two, I guess. The first was because I got a shoulder injury from lying on the same side, holding my book the same way. It was so bad that it was a few years before I could sleep on that side again. The little e-reader is perfect. It just sits there and I don't have to do anything but 'turn' the pages. So, for that I am completely grateful that it exists. Before the Kindle, I listened to audio tapes for years and years. Yes, tapes. Once tapes weren't around anymore, I tried books on CD but I couldn't control it like I did the tape. I'd go too far forward or back. I know a lot of people now use their phones and listen via Audible or some other company, but I just can't do it. I'm not a phone person. I don't have many apps. I use it mainly for texting and photographs. I have Instagram, but I don't have Facebook on my phone. I hate doing searches or going to web pages on the phone. I like my big screen on the desktop computer.

My second reason why I am so very grateful that e-readers exist is all the old books that are available for them. Books I used to search all over the internet for, and often not find, are right there in the Kindle store. I have discovered so many older authors and my reading life is much, much richer.

Still I understand what she means about not "taking the words and their meaning in." I simply don't remember what I read on the Kindle as well as what I read in print. Maybe it is the blue light thing Susan Hill talks about. When I'd fall asleep listening to audio books I never had this trouble, so it can't be drifting off as I read on the Kindle. I remember the audio books almost better than print books. " 'Tis a puzzlement." But I feel like I understand a bit better after reading her words.

The second time I called Tom into the room, she was talking about May Sarton. Now there's an author I've always thought I 'should' like. I've read a few of her books, and try as I might I don't like them much and I especially don't care for the author, but yet, I continue to read her occasionally. Susan Hill is re-reading Sarton's Journal of a Solitude.
I have never known such a self-regarding, self-indulgent author. Yet isn't writing a journal bound to be an outpouring of self? No. I can think of so many diaries and journals that of course are about the writer and her or his life and experiences, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, friends... but which do not seem self-centered in this way. May Sarton was, by all accounts, including her own, the most infuriating woman to know. She believed she was a major poet, that poetry was her form. She was wrong. She thought she was a fine novelist. She was an OK one. How harsh this is. But she is dead and cannot read me.
She was a woman tormented by her own temperament, by her rages, storms of tears, hysterical outbursts, jealousies, passionate, possessive love affairs with other women; a woman who complained about the interruptions from her readers, her friends, her daily domestic routine and said all she longed for was to be left alone with her art. But when she was, she was lonely and miserable and craved company, as she had always craved attention and affection. Her well was so empty, no one could ever fill it.
But I am enjoying this one of her journals all the same. She has an eye for beauty, an ability to describe a sky, a snow storm, a plant, a bird, a wild cat, the antics of her parrot Punch, so that one is there with her, and she was respectful of her country neighbours, whose lives were rough and poor and harsh but who had a dignity and a pride in manual work and an honesty she valued. 
There you have it. I quoted the whole portion on May Sarton because she is writing what I've so often thought. And yet, we both keep reading her for those reasons in the last paragraph. If you type her name into my search bar, you will see several poems I have put up over the years. I do like them, and she does capture the natural world in a way that I admire. I've waited for many years to read a book that I plan to begin on February 25, the day I turn 70, May Sarton's At Seventy.

The January entry isn't all about books. Susan Hill has a wonderful section about a particular type of British comedy, " the sort of humour beloved of old-fashioned vicars and their wives." This American had never heard of Joyce Grenfell or Flanders and Swann, but I will be looking them up on YouTube.

Walking outdoors and seeing a woman picking up trash reminds her of a friend of her aunt's who, in her retirement used to go out for two hours each day doing the same, "with a black sack and a stick with a prong on the end." And then as she remembers this woman, she thinks of two women who taught at the same school, one of whom is the poet U.A. Fanthorpe whom I have heard of, and her partner Rosie Bailey, whom I haven't. More to look up.

She ends by telling the reader that she receives many questions from prospective writers on how to write. They all want to know how to do it. I won't tell you how she writes, but she ends with, "I would never achieve an MA in Creative Writing."

I've been wondering why it was hard for me to stop at the end of January, but not hard for me with Gladys' book. I think the reason is that though Gladys Taber writes of many things, she does spend a lot of time on the actual weather and life in a particular month. Susan Hill mentions the outdoors a little, but mostly she is writing about literature and people and memories. I did love this bit.
The last day of January, apropos of which a friend said, 'Now that can't be bad.' Yes and no. Yes, we are on the right side of the year - a little lighter in the mornings and evenings, more birds singing. And yet February and March and often April ('the cruellest month') can disappoint, and even May can be wet and windy and cold.
Her England sounds much like my New England.

Although I didn't re-read Howards End when I read Howards End is on the Landing, I do intend to re-read Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room this year. I haven't read it in a very long time.

33 comments:

  1. I've read all of Susan Hill's crime series and loved them. Have not read her non-fiction. However, I usually get so bored with non-fiction. The Kindle - well, I use mine to change the size of the font. It's easier on my eyes. And the books on audio help with that too. I'm not blind, certainly, but I may be at some point. In any case, I try not to do things that will put strain on my eyes and I find 'large print' books too heavy. I also am delighted that more and more of my 'old favorites' are beginning to be available in e-book format. I really don't want those books to die off.

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    1. And I think I am almost the opposite. Nonfiction is what I love the most. And I sure get it about the fonts and heavyness.

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  2. I've read Howard's End is on the Landing a couple of times too and it is one of my favorite books. I must go looking for this one now.
    I like my Kindle. I eat when I read and have to have a book when I'm doing that, hate to get the Kindle dirty. So I read about 50/50 with books and the Kindle.

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    1. What I want to do is read more during the day, and that would be my print books. I have a million that I haven't read yet. Well, not quite a million. haha. When I eat I read a magazine I subscribe to from England called The Oldie.

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  3. Jacob's Room sounds just the type of book I would enjoy and I noted down Joyce Grenfell and Flanders and Swann to look for on youtube. I see you like Wodehouse too, I am on 2 Facebook Wodehouse groups. Did you see the TV series about Michael and Jack Whitehall traveling together in Asia? It was great fun.

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    1. Yes, I did see it. That's when I was introduced to both of them. I enjoyed it immensely. Then watched Jack's standup, and then bought this book and Michael's new one. I think they are two of the funniest people I've ever seen. Naturally funny. And together they are such a team.

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  4. I use the iPad to read when we travel so I don't have to pack as many books. And it is true about the blue light before bedtime. Not good for sleeping.

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    1. I'm wondering if the Kindle paperwhite which is what I have has that blue light. It seems like a very good light to me, and I don't think I have trouble sleeping.

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  5. For starters, I had no idea that this was the same author who wrote the Simon Serrailer mystery series, which I love! These two books you mention sound like books to own and not borrow from the library. Here I go with more book purchases! :)

    Like you, I remember audio books better than those in print. I think because I'm visualizing the scene as it's read to me. I listen while I walk, so I'm rarely ever distracted. I think if I had a commute and listened in my car, I wouldn't pay such close attention to the reader/narrator. Who knows. I just know that the audio books stick with me FOREVER. I can picture scenes from audiobooks that I listened to a decade ago. I can barely remember the details of a print book I read last year!

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    1. It may mean that we are more auditory learners. I used to listen in the car when I was driving Michael to and from school.

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  6. Morning Nan. I am neither an old-fashioned vicar nor his wife. But about that American who had never heard of Joyce Grenfell or Flanders and Swann? I hope you will love both, but particularly Ms Grenfell - when you are searching on YouTube, I hope you find a little sketch with her talking in a most peculiar accent, describing "posting" an animal through an open car window. Or perhaps the afternoon dance "As Stately as a Galleon"...... And Flanders and Swann too. Hope you will post again to say what you found and what you enjoyed.

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    1. I look forward to them! So lucky that YouTube exists just for this reason!

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  7. My kindle, which I love because of the arthritis in my hand, is not backlit. It's a 7th generation. So there is no blue light. I now have more than 2,000 books on my kindle. Which means wherever I go I have 2,000 or so books in my purse. It is astonishing to think of this.

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    1. It is truly amazing! I recently read an article by a person who thought she was sleeping better because of her Paperwhite Kindle. She would turn the light down and find herself drifting off. I haven't noticed any sleeping problems. I would think a phone or any device that connected to the internet would be much more worrisome in terms of not sleeping.

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  8. I enjoyed reading this post, Nan, and now must get a copy of Jacob's Room is Full of Books! Howards End is on the Landing was a favorite several years ago, and Howards End is still on my list of books to reread. I love my kindle voyage (and my old paperwhite, too) and am quite certain they do not emit blue light. The iPad does emit that light, which is why I cannot read on it for any length of time. Journal of a Solitude was my first experience with May Sarton. Read it at a time when I had three children aged 3 and under and was enraged by her self-indulgence... maybe a little jealous, too, as I had so little time for myself then. Yet I also continued to read her. The House by the Sea is my favorite. Also like the idea of reading the book in monthly sections. Think I'll check the island indie today and see if they have a copy...

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    1. That's what I've been wondering. The light on my Paperwhite seems natural to me. Susan Hill thinks House by the Sea is her best book.

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  9. I think I'd like this book but I can't find it at any of my libraries or apps so I'll have to pass. I don't want to pay so much for it and end up not liking it.

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  10. I have a Nook and it doesn't bother me to read before bed or in bed. When I get sleepy I go to sleep. If I have an engrossing book it doesn't matter what type of read I am doing I can't put it down. I have never found a book by May Sarton that I could finish. I gave up. Looking forward to hearing about your next reads.

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    1. This was great to read, Lisa! Love the line about MS. I'll let you know how the At 70 is. I just ordered it.

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  11. Wonderful post, Nan. I loved this book so much and couldn't stop at just January, read the whole thing through in a few days. Think I've read Howards End is on the Landing three times now and will probably read Jacob's Room as much if not more. I loved it. As to ereaders, I have three and don't use them all the time, preferring, if I'm honest, real books. But I wouldn't be without my Kindles and Nook. I personally think that the reason things don't sink in as much with them is the speed with which I read when using one. Hugely faster than real books, so fast that I know I'm not taking it all in. I put it down to small pages and a font that's perfect for my eyesight, so I whizz through books in half the time it takes me to read a real one. Not necessarily a good thing.

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    1. Thanks, Cath. That is a very interesting theory. Something I hadn't thought about at all.

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  12. Lovely post, Nan. I enjoyed Howards End is on the Landing very much (must re-read it sometime), so I'd like to read Jacob's Room. I like my Kindle - it's great for those long, heavy books with small fonts, and I love being able to check back easily using the search, but I do prefer to read a 'real' book in bed. I wonder if it's the blue light - not sure at all about that. I went to an 'Evening with susan Hill' some years ago. She read extracts from Howards End is on the Landing and had some sharp words about e-readers and also about bloggers. I got the impression she wasn't that comfortable giving talks.

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    1. Thanks! I wonder what her concern was with bloggers. She dedicated Jacob's Room is Full of Books to one!

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  13. Lovely post Nan ..so much to talk about but I must rush to catch the library before it shuts! So I'll confine myself to saying You are in for a treat with Joyce Grenfell her books are lovely too ..I especially enjoy her book of letters "An Invisible friendship" she exchanged with a lady called Katherine Moore...

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    1. Thanks, Val! I will certainly look into JG's books as well. Sometimes I feel like I'm still doing my college degree in American and English Literature. I'm learning all the time about new-to-me people. As I keep saying, I was born in the wrong place.

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  14. I'm always reading about books here that I want to buy, all too easy now with the computer so I have to restrain myself. I've read all of Sarton's journals, and I enjoyed most of them because of her descriptive powers as she talked about her gardens and her surroundings. I think I just ignored or skimmed over her histrionics, although I do relate to her approach-avoidance relationship with people. I'm often the same way, I enjoy all my friends and leisure activities and volunteer causes that bring into contact with quite a few people, but soon I long to be by myself and don't welcome intrusions.

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  15. Now this is an amazing post! You know that I've quoted May Sarton a lot on my blog, and that I loved her journals. But Susan Hill is right...she was not a great novelist (I really didn't like any of her novels, except perhaps The Fur Person). Some of her poetry resonated with me, but not all by any means. But I did love her journals for exactly what Susan Hill said -- she described her home, her garden, her neighbors, the town, all so beautifully. I planted tons of daffodils at our old home because of her descriptions of planting them at her home. Susan Hill really nailed her in that passage! I must read more Susan Hill! And, I too, have been saving At Seventy for my 70th birthday next January. Kindred spirits...

    Regarding e-readers... I love my Kindle because it's easier on my eyes. I have a paperwhite, so the light is very nice, especially for reading in bed. Did you know that the iPad has an adjustable setting to remove the blue light, and can be set to automatically come on at a certain time? I've set mine to change at 5:00 in the evening until 7:00 the next morning. No blue light at night!

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    1. I have a paperwhite too, and I find the light just fine. I fall asleep reading it, and it just goes off. I love that. I also love what you wrote about May S. Thanks so much for your words. And I'm kinda amazed about the At Seventy connection!

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  16. You encourage me onward, so many books at my cottage, brought a few to this (what should I call it)
    my vacation home, where I can sit for hours and read and could not at my cottage by the woods as I was always working, baking, hands in the dirt, etc....My son will bring a small bookcase and more books when he arrives
    I WANT TO REREAD THEM ALL....

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    1. There! That's just what I meant about the lemonade! This is your silver lining for being away for a bit. I love that "vacation home"- the perfect name.

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  17. Dear Nan, your post brought up so much I wanted to say that I turned it into my own blog post - it would have been way too long for a comment. From my post, I have linked to yours and I hope that is OK for you.

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