Category: Book Reviews

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Book Reviews Uncategorized West Cornwall (and local history)

Glass, The Strange History of- by Lyne Stephens Fortune

In this panoramic view of two Cornish families spanning two centuries all sorts of characters make an appearance. Not only are we educated in the ambience of English Merchants in Portugal but people as diverse as Southey, William M.Thackery, John Lemon and Canning, to mention but a few, all make an appearance. It begins by relating the making of a fortune by William Stephens, grandson of the Vicar of Menheniott and an enterprising genius. Her is the story of a merchant who becomes a manufacturer of glass.

William was educated at Exeter Free Grammar School, having left the area near Saltash, where he grew up. He went on to serve on the Lisbon packets upon arrival in Portugal became involved with the intrigues of Carvahlo, the Marquis of Pombal. He was next to witness the destruction of Lisbon by the great earthquake in 1755. As Jenifer Roberts interestingly points out, high waves from the latter were still above 8 foot when they made boats in St Ives rise more than eight feet. Then William opened a glass factory in Marinha Grande and securing exemption from taxes, charmed princes and queens so as to build a fabulous fortune.

The profits from the Stephens fortune passed also into the hands of their Lyne relations also living in both Portugal and Cornwall. The author outlines the family history, which involves wars and rebellions and diverting interludes. Eventually some of the fortune ends up in the hands of a feisty French ballerina and into the hands of various lawyers settling claims upon it. This is a splendid tale, well written and for those who find truth stranger than fiction, a great historical and biographical account.

Glass-
The Strange History of the
Lyne Stephens Fortune

 

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Book Reviews Penwith Poetry Uncategorized

Bardhonyeth Kernow,Poetry Cornwall (Volume 27)

Bardhonyeth Kernow

This issue contains a wide variety of contributions from over sixty poets from Scotland(which also provides the lichen encrusted wheel arch cover image from Callander) to Germany, from Wales to Spain. Naturally the emphasis are on Cornish poems and it is the landscape of Kernow which provides the inspiration for many of these verses in dialect and Kenewek with a translation and interpretation section carefully chosen by Grand Bard, Mick Paynter. It is good to see the enthusiasm for good poetry in the Duchy from such various sources as French, Scots Gaelic and even the Romany language of Gurbet. This is a collection which is not afraid to approach the edge, like Sam Harcombe, who at Warren Cliff approached, ignoring stakes and danger signals:-

Hoping to catch sight of seal,

I wanted to look closer at the inlet far below, but

riddled with rabbit holes and

cracks it was obviously dangerous.

I went a few steps past the stakes

And still saw not enough

Bernard Jackson prefers the sylvan safety of the Sunlit Leaves as the sun sinks and he wanders entranced by the magic of a slow watered stream:-

Eternal is the flame that ne’er consumes,

Yet blazons leaves, nor shall one instant fade.

From woodland reign that readily assumes

This seasoned garb, immortally arrayed.

In traceries where sunlight shines between,

God’s glory is a miracle of green.

Bardhonyeth Kernow’s Editor Les Merton

Besides such nature poems form Perranuthnoe to Predannack, there are some moving poems inspired by the cheerful and encouraging words from the nursing staff on Geevor Ward which as Donald Rawe puts it “Restore humanity to the clinical desolation”. There are sad, human reflections on Casualty and Geriatric Wards. There are too the lifting memories of repairing with his father My Pink Bicycle by Graham Rippon:-

“Paint it any colour you like”

But the only colour we had was Pink

This little collection is a gem and a tribute to the current interest in poetry in our Duchy.

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Book Reviews Literature Uncategorized

Disputed Land by Tim Pears

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Disputed-Land-Tim-Pears/dp/0434020818/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298808607&sr=1-7

Genre: Literary Fiction

In this engaging novel, Tim Pears tackles many challenging themes: sibling rivalry, time and change in the countryside, facing terminal illness, reflections on the isolation of academic life and undertaking risky financial investment. This is not a portrayal of a rural idyll although much of the most lyrical writing concerns the colours of the Shropshire countryside and this is strengthened by reference to the layers of the archaic past that underlies this disputed borderland territory. In attempting such a multi-layered narrative in a relatively short novel, it is not surprising that for instance, the traumatic shocks in the epic tale are diminished by random, experimental shifts in the tone of the narrative.

‘’Disputed Land’’ is seen through the eyes of thoughtful young Theo who is taken by his parents, both Oxford Academics back to Rodney’s, his father’s family home in the Welsh Marshes for Christmas holiday. This is not the relaxing Christmas to which they might be looking forward. Leonard and Rosemary, Theo’s grandparents have been considering their foreshortened future and tasked not only Rodney, but also his younger materialistic and brutish brother Johnny, and his preoccupied sister Gwen with the division of the family goods.  Theo’s arrival is made more challenging again by Baz and Xan, two feckless and brazen twelve year olds, just one year his junior, the offspring of the philistine Johnny and his attractive, zippy South American wife, Lorna.

Much of the most engaging writing concerns Theo’s burgeoning adolescent sexuality. Firstly, from an admiring distance in relation to his Aunt Lorna whose trim figure undertaking early morning jogs through the countryside thrills him with ecstatic admiration of her athletic charms. Secondly, his fellow feeling for his tomboyish cousin Holly, about Theo’s age, leads him into a sympathetic relationship and subsequently, some maturity. This is despite being in the midst of the many conflicts and pressures by which he himself, Holly and her older sister,Sydney-divorced Gwen’s children -are surrounded.

As Christmas progresses the warm relationship between Theo and his grandfather, Leonard is strengthened in activities in and around the ancient farmhouse. Pears evokes the bucolic smells beneath the eaves of the stables, in Theo’s untidy workshop in the Coach house, and wandering around the variegated woods with Leonard’s lolloping  dogs and listening to his grandfather’s tales of ancient divided loyalties. Theo’s granddad is an ardent enthusiast for every aspect of local history such as tribal incursions across the border hills and the stanch affiliations of the Civil War. Leonard too encourages Theo’s interest in husbandry, forestry and ornithology.

It is Leonard’s practical enterprise that won the hand of Rosemary, Theo’s grandmother, who was born into the parochial gentry, and an accomplished horsewoman. Unfortunately, her imperious manner and disposition to frankly speak her mind causes pain particularly to Auntie Gwen’s partner, Melony. Her energetic advocacy of green issues including views on population, are so vigorously expressed that it reduces the latter to tears after Gwen proudly announces her partner’s surrogate pregnancy has reached 12 weeks. However, further catastrophic shocks occur on the discovery that in fact Rosemary is not just being just her usual difficult self. Her disproportionate railing is exacerbated by the incursions of a terrible illness.

Some of the difficulty in the flow of Pears’s prose is due to the fact that the novel is written in reflection from a time some fifty years in the future, by the middle-aged Theo. When occasionally reminded of this, the otherwise absorbing story is momentarily disturbed and the flow unpleasantly disrupted. Fortunately, this does not happen often. Pears indulges himself in bouts of strange mysticism, which may appeal to some readers since it adds a dynamic of menace and mystery. Others may just find it somewhat silly.

Fortunately, there are other constituents which make this a very worthwhile read. Tim Pears has imaginatively reconstructed the past, invoking such treasures as the splendid library of Leofric, Bishop of Exeter and the mossy redoubts of the Norman knights, the Marcher Lords. The poetic atmosphere is heightened with descriptions of the altering winter sunlight on the crimson mountainsides and the song of a solitary woodpecker. Pears, too has been a filmmaker and excels at sculpting figures, interiors and props, like the kitchen where the difficult, dominating Grandmother lays her hand upon the Aga, from where she conjures recipes and dominates the set. Then there is control of pacing, producing convincing drama. The dark and poignant quarrels and losses are heightened by their contrast with the hilarious descriptions of a football match that highlights, and for a moment, reconciles the loopy idiosyncrasies of this odd family.

Langland, not far away to the south on the Malvern borderland once wrote in ‘Piers Plowman’, ‘’And with Mammon’s money he hath made him friends’’. Tim Pears in ‘’Disputed Land’’ has written with a similar urgent exhortation, to slay the false gods of growth and greed; to show how issues around grasping and grabbing can tear a family apart.

 

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‘’A Senseless Squalid War”

The reappearance of ‘’A Senseless, Squalid War’’ in paperback will afford wider access to the balanced and detailed scholarship of Prof Norman Rose. This is a sad story of the Palestinian Mandate is retold through the viewpoints of politicians and proponents; Arab, Jewish, British, French, German and American. It energetically conveys an understanding of the character of figures as disparate as David Ben Gurion, Richard Crossman, Haj Amin and David Lloyd George. Organisations, conferences and sticking points are deftly expounded. It does not lose sight the overarching motives and machinations of International Politics.

In 1915, Herbert Samuel, later Viscount Samuel, the first member of the British cabinet to retain his membership of the Jewish community, put forward a memorandum which proposed the possibility of a British mandate over Palestine. This became the famous Balfour Declaration. The response from the Prime Minister, Asquith-who like him had been at Balliol-was that Samuel’s suggestions were ‘’dithyrambic’’.  A classicist’s way of saying they were Dionysian, even drunken ramblings.

Asquith, himself known to his opponents as ‘‘squiffy’’, went on to say, in his memoirs, that the carving-up of the Turk’s dominions would lead to the scattered Jews of the diaspora swarming back to claim Home Rule. He proceeded to disparaging remarks about his younger rival Lloyd George, whose motives Asquith put down to jealous rivalry for control ofPalestineby the atheistic, agnostic French. Scarcely two years later when World War broke out,Palestinewas occupied and theOttoman Empiredismembered in the defence of the British oil supplies and the passage toIndia. The French gotSyria.Lawrencehelped prepare the Arabs to attack theHejazrailway supplying the German’s Turkish allies.

Norman Rose’s lucid and masterly history chronicles the rise of Zionism, the Palestinian Arab response and the bloody consequences which were soon to follow. This was indeed destined to become a senseless and squalid struggle;Britain’s last act of imperial aggrandisement, despite the fact that the mandate was approved in 1922 by theLeague of Nations.

Control was not consistent. Indeed, much depended upon the character of individual High Commissioners of the Mandated territories. Prof Rose in a few concise paragraphs sheds light upon appointments such as that of General Sir Arthur Wauchope, whom Ramsey Macdonald somewhat fecklessly,  assured Ben Gurion is ‘ a good man, a fellow Scot’ and indeed has a passion for music which guarantees that he entertains more Jewish guests. However, this was at a time when Palestinian Arabs feel threatened by the huge influx of Russian and European Jews. Sadly, when the Nazi persecutions multiply after ‘’Kristallnacht’’, the British policy had reversed and as war approached, later governors some of whom were brutish, authoritarian and overtly anti-semitic  limited Jewish settlement at the very time when a safe haven was not just necessary but crucial.

Pace is maintained and attention engaged by the description of eccentrics like Orde Wingate whose fanatical zeal for Zionism inspired him to develop techniques of guerrilla warfare that would become adopted by the strike forces of the ‘’Palmach’’. After the war, as the levels of desperation rise, such military prowess would later be devastatingly employed in the insurgency against the British.

The narrative leaves the reader with a series of clear, memorable and often bitter images. There is the sadness of the conditions on the ships where Jews from every part ofEuropesought refuge and were faced with further persecution again just after the Holocaust. Escaping ill-nourished families crowded beneath decks whilst a lone singer sang and rocked to a heart rending Hebrew song. Their immediate fate was to be transferred to a grim old small, dark and dank freighter, the ‘’Akbel II’’. Eventually they were arrested as ‘’illegals’’ by the Navy.

Another impression retained is that of patient wisdom epitomised by Chaim Weizmann who was destined to become the first President of Eritz Israel. Unforgettable too are the often impatient figures on both sides who advocated violence. Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, for instance, having encouraged riots went on to seek support for his version of the pan-Arabist cause from fascist Italyand finally settled for a while in Hitler’s Germany. The text is loaded with enduring facts about the numbers of divisions deployed by the British by 1938 in Palestine. This was severely to restrict support to the French in the event of Nazi attack. Then too there was the dubiously illustrious ‘’gloire’’ of the last cavalry charge led by the future General Sir John Winthrop Hackett into the Beisan valley ancient home to the Mizrahi Jews. Later and most indelible was the counter insurgency of hardliner General Barker which became known as Black Sabbath which was quickly followed in the bloody response left in the smoking ruins of theKingDavidHotel.

This graphic narrative has three essential features of quality historical writing. Firstly, subtitled ‘’Voices from Palestine (1890-1948)’’,it draws upon striking remarks, letters and diaries by major proponents and eyewitnesses. Secondly, it constitutes a pacey but clear exposition of the principal features of Zionism, Pan-Arabism with central concepts like partition elucidated. Indeed, it includes a useful glossary and ample notes for further research. Finally, it illustrates the woefully sad ironies of human folly. Not fully thinking through the consequences of an action in pursuit of an objective defeated both able administrators and astute politicians. The local population suffered. Sadly such mistakes have since been repeated over and again in theMiddle East since 1948.

Voices from Palestine 1890s-1948. A clear history of the troubles in the Promised Land from Herzl’s development of Zionism to partition and civil war.
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Art Exhibition Reviews Book Reviews Uncategorized

Hugh Stoneman –The Master’s Master

Available from your local bookseller

“Hugh Stoneman inspired a renaissance in fine print making in Britain and the artistic scene in Cornwall”, according to Fiona MacCarthy in The Guardian and looking through the splendid 144 pages of this book, you can see just why this is the case. The 99 works illustrated include those of Sandra Blow, John Hoyland, Martin Leman and Sir Terry Frost. Many techniques-from woodcuts to photographs, linocuts to carborundum –silicon carbide grit mixed with acrylic binders- are employed. As well as an introduction, showing photographs at work in the seclusion of his purpose built house in the tree lined valley below Madron, there is a biography and a useful and instructive glossary of print terms.

The works illustrated  now belong to the Art Fund Collective and were on display at the Falmouth Art Gallery. The text indicates,”Hugh’s links withCornwall, were always strong . He was first based at Dod Proctor’s previous studio and later he bought Orchard Flower Farm, Madron in the early 1980s with his second wife Linda, which was to become the family home –Hugh commuting toLondonto his studio inLondonevery week”. Hugh was also deeply involved in an endeavour which is about to reach fruition in St Ives, the renovation of the Porthmeor Studios.

More details at http://www.breon-ocasey.co.uk/biography.php

Among the attractive variety of prints in this volume there are several which are of striking interest. There is the darkly mauve, purple and black image from Patrick Heron’s Brushworks Series, an etching made in his last year.  This is printed alongside the contrasting botanical, Spring 1957 by Dame Barbara Hepworth. Among the prints by Breon O’Casey, the vibrant simplicity of Four Circles 2003 stands out as does, for quite different reasons, the unusual vibrant simplicity of Little Girl on a Lion by Andrew Murray. This is an inspiring collection worthy of extended perusal; the fruit of many years of work by this masterful print maker.

Details of the Stoneman Gallery in Chapel Street, Penzance may be found at http://www.stonemanpublications.co.uk/

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Book Reviews Poetry Uncategorized

Heidegger Reframed By Barbara Bolt


 

Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889– May 26, 1976is renowned for the complexity and subtlety with which his thoughts on the philosophy of being (ontology) is expressed. His ideas are inspired by numerous sources from the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle and much of his thought dependent upon his early training as a Jesuit. He read and imbibed St Augustineand Duns Scotus. He trained under the phenomenologist, Edmund Husserl at Freiburgand his approach is deeply engaged with German philosophers like Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He also read Kierkegaard with close attention.

His ideas about the nature of being are in stark contrast with those of Descartes which involve a split between consciousness and the external world. This Cartesian framework or dualism is embedded in modern science and Western thought generally. One result of Descartes philosophy is that Nature is subject by the mind to measurement and calculation and also to manipulation. This borders on what is termed instrumentalism and indeed the consequent exploitation of the environment. This, Heidegger with his alternative view of the direction of philosophy, he deeply and radically opposed. The implication of Heidegger’s thought for the creative artist and the making and meaning of art forms the thrust of Barbara Bolt’s text. His project is illustrated with specific reference to international artists like Sophie Calle, Anish Kapoor and Anselm Kiefer.

Generally considered as a great classic of Twentieth Century philosophy Sein und Zeit, 1927 is not an easy book to read even if you are thoroughly fluent in German. Concerned with existence and the nature of being, it is equally interested in associated questions about time. This central text focuses on the nature of reality and the being-right-there of existence for which Heidegger uses the term Dasein. Part of the difficulty of understanding this central work is that language almost seems to break down under the pressure of difficulty in communicating the awesome nature of human existence, which many would see as essentially spiritual. Barbara Bolt provides a thoroughly useful glossary to such terms in support of her guide.

This glossary contains some eighty terms; it is relatively clear but illustrates some of the difficulties in expounding Heidegger’s collected work, Gesamtausgabe, which itself runs to more than eighty volumes. Barbara Bolt explains in her early chapters concepts associated with Dasein which involve care for the self and other beings, Sorge, and in the face of personal and certain knowledge of death, the termination of existence on Earth, anxiety or Angst. For Heidegger there are two possibilities, it seems either falling into immersion in the day to day, which he terms ontic existence or striving with resoluteness for authenticity. This bears upon artistic endeavour in several ways; the acceptance of strife when faced with unsettling artworks, the necessity of praxis in art education and research which hopefully produces a practical and respectful understanding of materials by a heuristic approach. Bolt is interesting and thought-provoking in her exposition on this.

A perhaps greater difficulty in appreciating Heidegger, which Bolt mentions, perhaps too briefly, continues in current debate. This was his active involvement with Nazism and his eulogy of Hitler involving praise for his moral regeneration of the Fatherland. This has been, not surprisingly, a sticking point in the appreciation of the Heidegger canon. A discussion of this may be found in Inauthenticity: Theory and Practice, contained in JP Stern’s essays on literature and ideology, The Heart of Europe. There is particular concern over his treatment of his German-Jewish teacher, a Christian convert and former colleague, the proponent of phenomenology Husserl, to whom Sein und Zeit had initially been dedicated. He also took a renowned student, Hannah Arendt as his mistress and she it was who later to testified on his behalf at a denazification hearing in opposition to Karl Jaspers.

In a key chapter, Barbara Bolt uses two central concepts of Heidegger to evaluate particular art works. These are ‘enframing’ (Gestellung) and ‘poiesis’-a Greek term for making from which the word poetry is derived. Enframing, according to Heidegger, has negative connotations and is applied to methods like those of modern technology which treats nature solely as a means to an end and shows Heidegger to be an early proponent of environmentalism and certainly a critic of agribusiness. This seems to be echoed by concerns about the manner in which the business of art has been cheapened and debased by commercialisation and celebrity culture. There is, she explains an unholy alliance developing between advertising in late capitalism as evidenced, for instance, by Tracey Emin selling Bombay Sapphire Gin. Enframement also appears to include a criticism of managerialism; disapproval of the manner in which humans are treated often with statistical techniques as mere available resources. Before examining the concept of ‘poesis’, it is worth noting that this book is actually entitled ‘Heidegger Reframed’ and is one in a general series. This tends to give framing a different, presumably positive connotation that sits uneasily with the particular use of the term by Heidegger. Unfortunately, there appears to be no general series editor that could add guidance and cohesion to this demanding project of applying the thought of modern philosophers to art.

Bolt sometimes writes convoluted sentences in a somewhat orotund style which may be an understandable effect of propounding the concepts of this demanding, intriguing philosopher. Nevertheless, the style invites the reader to question some of the propositions expounded. There is no doubt that Heidegger had a particular view about the dominance of the scientific method as he conceives it. Also mathematics seems deemed uncongenial, whereas language, and also history with its different conception of time and certainly etymology are viewed by Heidegger as more relevant to his project. It is interesting to speculate how much he might have responded to philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn whose views on paradigm shift, and those too of Paul Karl Feyerabend, might have influenced him had he been fully aware of them. Heisenburg, a contemporary and also a controversial figure, might have influenced Heidegger on his notion of how preconceived theories operate in science.

Heidegger as Bolt explains was inspired by poetry and must have been sensitive to its lyricism. This makes the reader question his apparent failure to respond to the beauty of mathematics which is in a sense a universal language. In general he was at pains to oppose certain notions of aesthetics associated particularly with the Enlightenment and Romanticism and the artist as an inflated, self-dramatising subject. In his conception of poesis, Heidegger approaches another mode of artistic appreciation and indeed gratitude which is guided by sympathy. The term, as Bolt makes clear is Greek in origin and involves openness to the bringing-forth or unconcealment of being. It is, for example, the sense of wonder when a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis or in the transformation when a flower blossoms from a bud. Heidegger spent a year in 1942 lecturing on Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister” which relates to theDanubeand examined the limitations of a metaphysical interpretation of art and appears to argue the case for spiritual values in art together with a feeling for place attained by intimate journeying. George Steiner emphasises elsewhere how Heidegger’s titles are those of peregrination and comments, “He has been an indefatigable walker in unlit places”.

Barbara Bolt has written an interesting book on a difficult topic. The publishers might have supported her with somewhat better illustrations than the few disappointing images provided. However, she has shown how Heidegger can illuminate the work of prominent international artists. She has provided an introduction to a highly influential and controversial thinker supported with a sound biography. This work encourages the reader to bravely question art and promote radically innovative ways of observing and researching related issues.

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The Hidden Landscape

The purpose of this book is to explore the connection between the landscape and the geology underlying it, which in one of many vivid similes Fortey  compares, the surface personality with the workings of the unconscious mind beneath. He starts by describing a journey he once made from Paddington Station to Haverford West, a market town in Pembrokeshire and with it a passage back into the plutonic depths of geological aeons, indicated by the large 60cm monster trilobites that have been found in the Cambrian rocks near St David’s. Fortey describes the magnificence of the Cathedral constructed from the local purple sandstone and mottled with moisture loving lichens. He contrasts this with the anonymous character of a nearby brightly coloured service station, anonymous and synthetic, an invader cheaply built and out of context.

Fortey’s tour begins with the ancient Lewisian Gneiss of theNorth-WestHighlandsand the formation in their complex metamorphic variety. He explains how these were penetrated by dark dykes of igneous Scourie, the action of glaciers and how in places the Gneiss has been overlaid by the local mountains which are masses of sediment. These latter layers are called Torridonian. They are some 1000 million years old and contain single-celled algae. Whilst describing the full complexity of this ancient scene, Fortey provides a useful glossary of key The Hidden Landscape by Richard Forteydefinitions which reassure the reader wanting to understand this full detail. He proceeds to explain the fundamental divide of theIapetusOcean. (Illustrated also in the accompanying photographs.) This once separated northern from southernBritainsome 500 million years ago, the closure of which created the magnificent Caledonian mountains.

The reader is swiftly conveyed through the Caledonian landscape which is economically characterised, ”This is where population density plummets, and where the Gaelic language lingers in patches. This is the country where metamorphism rules.” Crossing the MidlandValley, he is brought to the Southern Uplands- attract of land which sweeps across through the Irish Seato Down and Armagh. Here the rocks are dark sedimentary shales, paler grits and green mudstones. What makes the account engaging to the reader, is the digression into the fascinating history of geology where Fortey takes us back to the discontinuities in the rock, specifically at Siccar Point, which led to the discoveries of Hutton in the mid-Eighteenth Century of the processes of folding and overlaying with later Devonian sediments. We are shown with clarity how the early discoveries were made and the modern comprehension of geology as a subject derived. Fortey writes about the fascinating early episodes of making geology with the same skill as Roger Osborne in his excellent book, ‘’The Floating Egg’’

In the softer rocks and slates ofWales, the fossil trilobites are altered in shape in a manner which gives evidence of the deformations to which the rock has been subjected. In brief and characteristically diverting remarks, the connection between the geology of with Avalonia (Newfoundland),Canadaand theAppalachiansare mentioned. Additionally, Fortey notes that Cambria-Roman Wales, the Ordivicians, the tribes whom the Romans conquered and the barbarian Silures have all given there names to the internationally recognised geological divisions of the Lower Paleozoic. Fortey writes with poetic feeling for that land which also inspired Dylan Thomas to write:-

The heavenly music over the sand

Sounds with the grains as they hurry

Hiding the golden mountains and mansions

Of the grave, gay seaside land

‘’’The Hidden Landscape’’’ conducts the reader on an extensive tour that joins the primeval geology with the soil and the lie of the land as it now exists today. The flora, fauna, the occupations and lifestyle of recent generations are explored in detail. So in a later chapter the reader is introduced to the gentler morphology of the Weald. Even, the taste of the waters in Spa towns like Tunbridge Wells depends upon the sensitivity of human taste to very small amounts of iron salts. Water from ferruginous beds and the ions it contains gives it a medicinal taste- the reason the wells were established there in 1606. InKentthere are cretaceous chalks, sands and the blue Weald clay that forms the vale to the west of Romney Marsh.

This intriguing book finishes with a chapter encouraging respect for the visible landscape. ‘Texture is bequeathed by time’, Fortey urges attention to the local building materials that contribute to the individuality of vernacular architecture. He praises the use of these resources by traditional craftsmen. This beguiling book finishes with praises for the campaigns of Natural England, for protection of Sites of Scientific Interest and congratulates the hard working volunteers of Regionally Important Geological Sites, in their endeavours to preserve the variety nature has produced in the countryside over aeons. Well written and pleasingly presented this is a grand introduction to a popular subject.

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Book Reviews

Proust and other such neuroscientists! A cross-cultural investigation

In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare wrote,” Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherin he puts alms for oblivion”. This fully accords with the discoveries of modern brain science. Proust in his famous novel, ‘’In Search of Lost Time’’ anticipates such discoveries by neuroscientists, such as Rachel Hertz, that smell and taste are the only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus. Thus the taste of a petit madeleine evokes a rediscovery by Proust of Combray and a flow of associations- it is the part of the brain in which long term memory is centred. Lehrer in ‘’ Proust was a Neuroscientist’’ weaves an intriguing argument about the relationship between recent neuroscientific discoveries and the novels of George Eliot, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. A scientist, who has researched with Nobel Prize-winning, Eric Kandel, has a taste for philosophy; Lehrer intends to heal the rift between what C.P.Snow termed the ‘Two Cultures’. He wishes to accord respect to the truths and the intuitive discoveries, especially of modernist writers and painters.

‘’Proust was a Neuroscientist’’ illustrates how researchers have, for instance, located those receptors that are responsible for discerning new tastes and smells. In an interesting and amusing chapter, Lehrer explains how the latter discerning receptors take up a huge amount of DNA-about 3 per cent of the human genome. The nose contains at least 350 receptor types. Millisecond pulses have been detected in fruit flies have been doctored with fluorescent proteins which flash when an odour impinges. Scientists have studied the resulting flashes under high powered microscopes and mapped the resulting patterns as neon flashes in the fly brain. This is part of the melange contained in a light-hearted chapter about the French gastronomic chef, Auguste Escoffier, who created culinary symphonies by means of glutamate laden veal stock sauces that so delighted the Parisian haute bourgeoisie in the Hotel César Ritz.

In classical philosophy there exists the Hericalitean concept of the flux, a neo-Platonist view concerning chaos. This has certain parallels in the research by Kimura concerning random changes in DNA. Further discoveries by Elowitz on colourful bacteria in 2002 and fruit flies suggest that their variation is due to random atomic jostling. Jonah Lehrer quotes further research by Gage on junk genes that have the wonderful name of ‘’retrotransposons’’. Essentially this shows how individual diversity is created in line with evolutionary logic. These findings along with others on neural plasticity appear to accord with George Eliot’s belief, as exemplified by her treatment of character, that people have free will and this inspires her to produce a rich text such as ‘’Middlemarch’’, exemplifies this. A text which itself is open to alternative personal interpretations.

The chapter on Cezanne plunges into perception beyond impressionism; how the brain engages in an imaginative act when structuring forms out of ambiguous brushstrokes. The development of photography pushed Cezanne’s investigations in a new direction –with new postimpressionist studies he was attempting to figure how the mind creates the sense of external reality. In effect, Lehrer argues that this corresponds to how the conscious brain is involved in structuring the impressions which arrive onto the layers of the cortex. This part recently has been discovered to be sensitive to contrast and stripes. Thus Cezanne engages the viewer in a challenging and more ultimately satisfying process. From the abstract impasto, fresh to each viewer, the reality of adamantine structures emerges as Mont St Victoire or succulent green apples. Then, the reader is treated to an interesting coda on the clash between Zola’s naturalistic writing and Cezanne’s reaction to it when the latter finds himself, previously a close friend, reduced to an unflattering characterised in a novel as an unstable and wild artist.

‘’Proust was a Neuroscientist’’ teems with ideas and makes demands upon the reader tying together unfamiliar themes in a manner which finds a parallel in the author’s treatment of the music of Stravinsky. Yet it is mostly very clear in its exposition of complex physiology, although a glossary might have been usefully employed for physiological structures. Lehrer writes from a tradition which includes William James, and of course his brother, the esteemed novelist Henry. Pluralism and pragmatism, Rorty and Wittgenstein are all positively appraised. Dissecting self-awareness, as in his chapter on Virginia Woolf has harrowing aspects, however, two factors make this a thoroughly engaging read; it’s energetic pace and its provocative style. For instance, Lehrer doesn’t mention that Woolf was a victim of child abuse and this will have deeply traumatised her lonely sense of herself. However, being moved to sometimes argue with an exposition does not make it any the less valuable experience.

There is a growing interest; it would seem in both Proust and in neuroscience. In Nicholas Carr’s ‘’The Shadow lands’’, he poses the question whether new internet technology etc. and how it actually changes the brain. Merzenich and Kandel have both emphasised the plasticity of the organ. As we get more adept at scanning and highlighting in the new media, we are also damaging our ability to read, concentrate and thoughtfully reflect. The implication for child development adds to such concerns, as Maryanne Wolf has pointed out in ‘’Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain’’. This being an investigation into word poverty and dyslexia; learning literacy for which there seems to be little in built genetic planning. Hence, this short and accessible book of Jonah Lehrer is a valuable contribution to this debate and the fascinating discussion about how truth is variously constructed and validated in science and in literature.

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Enlightening -Isaiah Berlin’s Letters from 1846-1960

A stenographer unscrambles taped musings of the polymath
A stenographer unscrambles taped musings of the polymath

Isaiah Berlin wrote in tribute to the memory of Dorothy de Rothschild of her personality, ”…..overwhelming charm, great dignity, a very lively sense of humour, pleasure in the oddities of life, an unconquerable vitality and a kind of eternal youth and an eager responsiveness to all that passed…” Reading this second volume of letters, now available in paperback, covering Berlin’s most creative period, these same characteristics might be aptly applied to Sir Isaiah himself. However, as this most self-aware of intellectuals recognised, his loquacity and compulsive socialising were driven by a persistent need to escape a sense of unreality, an inner void. In these letters he writes, ‘’my quest for gaiety is a perpetual defence against the extreme sense of the abyss by which I have been affected ever since I can remember myself…’’

He is at his clearest when actually writing rather than using the Dictaphone. His use of this device adds interest to the resulting text, transcribed by a sometimes confused stenographer. Here he is writing from Harvard to another editor of letters, in what he elsewhere termed his wretched Colefax-like hand,’’…my blindness to Mrs W’s true character makes you think of me as gazing through a telescope at remote, dimly distinguishable, dwarves round whom I construct mythologies which sometimes fit & sometimes don’t but always smother the subjects: I do that a little: I like rounded vignettes:& I cling to my hypotheses: it is the only sense I attach to understanding about people as opposed to moment-to-moment reactions to, or impressions of them…”

Berlin’s tendency to construct an overarching, grand scale view of people is interesting, indeed notable. When it comes to political philosophy it is the construction of universal systems, Marxism and Monism, theories he later studied and to coin the term, the ‘’counter-enlightenment’’, which overarching theories Berlin most deplores. The hesitancy and multiple qualifications in his communication, often results in a diffuse and difficult prose style. However, the thick impasto and layering of shades of meaning can also reflect, like some sort of rich expressionist painting, the intention of conveying a lasting and deep impression. If you can tolerate very lengthy sentences, laced with subordinate clauses, which are richly punctuated with colons and semi-colons; then memorable and multifaceted observations on the people, politics and those interesting times, emerge.

These were indeed both interesting and difficult times.The move from diplomatic service in the States to the daily grind of teaching and lecturing in post-war Oxford, Berlin found particularly irksome. Advising Chaim Weizmann and defending the newly found state of Israel in the period after the King David Hotel attack was a duty on which he focussed his considerable abilities and influence. Later he was to meet and to like Ben Gurion. However, as his interest turned once again to Herzen and Russian intellectual history, he was careful not to get side tracked. He was involved in Paris with the setting up the Marshall plan and frankly admitted his limitations when it came to discussions on economic practicalities. Yet he began to translate his beloved Turgenev and still found opportunities to advise government propagandists on what he saw as the dangers of mentioning Hegel and the imperative of countering Russian territorial ambitions. In addition to this involvement with high level politics he was pleased to be consulted by Churchill on his memoirs. When it came to making predictions, he agreed with his fellow don, Trevor-Roper on the accuracy of those proposed by that interesting Swiss cultural historian Joseph Burkhardt based on his study of the Italian renaissance.

At Oxford his coterie included brilliant talkers that included his mentor, Maurice Bowra, the witty Warden of Wadham; here described as having felt jaded in Greece, found Athens heavenly, full of jolly poets, and himself adored there. Sir Isaiah found a warm spot for that ‘’loveable scamp’’ Bob Boothby, talking over appeasement with which he recalled All Souls to be more than a little complicit. Then there was the scintillating company at lunch of the novelist Elisabeth Bowen. He entertains with the witty and erudite Lord David Cecil at New College, the renowned conversationalist and author of the brilliant biography of Lord Melbourne. We have only just begun the alphabet of Berlin’s extensive and amusing friends which extended far beyond the University to journalists, politicians, policy wonks (as they are termed in a less deferential age ), diplomats and heads of state. One of the pleasures of reading these letters lies in this investigation of this, the social hinterland of this philosopher of secular pluralism.

A supplementary reason for reading these letters is the insight they afford into Berlin’s relationship with women and otherchanging social attitudes. In 1956, he married Aline Halban, an exile from Russia, at the relatively late age of 46. There are indications of a developing maturity but there are also lapses into donnish backbiting, for instance A.L.Rowse is repeatedly characterised as a Malvolio in the fractious atmosphere of All Souls. This kind of gossiping is ultimately a sign of inanition and unworthy of an esteemed philosopher. However, it was a feature of the academic ambience at the time and Leslie, as Rowse is known amongst his Cornish friends, would probably have relished Berlin’s further remarks about his open emotionalism, ‘’Curious. In a way better than the stiff English upper lip, & stoicism, hypocrisy and inner rages..’’

Reading ‘’’Enlightening’’’ is no substitute for the study of Berlin’s works if you are interested in his approach to the history of ideas. On the other hand, given the range of his achievements, from founding Wolfson College to his friendship with Pasternak(he smuggled out ‘’Dr Zhivago’’ to the West) and also with the great poet Anna Akhmatova, these letters shine an interesting light on the author’s effervescent persona. In this splendid tome, his peculiar sort of Englishness, his fondness for vigorous debate and his concern to counter and defeat the monster of totalitarianism are sparklingly displayed.

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Book Reviews

Seahorse – the Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth and illustrated by John Lawrence

Chris Butterworth lives in Penwith and loves the sea and the amazing things that live in it. “A seahorse looks as magical as a mermaid” she says, ”but while mermaids are made up, seahorses really exist.” This informative and well-designed children’s book was written with the expert advice of Colin Wells of the National Aquarium inPlymouth. The seahorse or in Latin “Hippocampus” (horse-like sea monster) is a very unusual type of fish whose tenuous existence depends upon a curious kind of gender swap. It is the male seahorse that has a pouch in which the young grow to maturity whilst his wife wanders the territory further away from home. Dad has to keep squeezing and pushing out all the little delicate seahorses all day long, and by night there may be hundreds of them! The seahorse is a light and tiny creature, who can only cope with gentle undercurrents. The movement motions are delightfully described, as are the various devices by which the little creature has evolved to avoid its predators. The text, in a gentle manner, encourages a tolerant attitude towards nature and a sense of the urgency for conservation as well as respect for marine ecology.

The illustrator, John Lawrence, has produced a fine series of dark and subtle coloured images that show the intriguing variety of life forms under the sea. This includes the variegated changes of tone during the mating dance of the seahorses. This is a well-crafted and informative book, which could be taken out and read again and again with pleasure.