An Island Treasury of Verse

Lynn New is an artist living on the Isle of Wight. I picked up a copy of her first book of poetry, ‘An Island Treasury of Verse’, inspired by her life experiences, and flipped through it in a charity shop over the summer. I was immediately captivated by the beautiful illustrations and calligraphy that accompanied the text. Simple but lovely, the page on the left would be a picture relating to the poem, and then the poem itself on the right, outlined in intricate, eye-catching borders. It was a modern day version of what I imagined medieval texts would have been like. It was apparent that the writer had spent hours slaving over this labour of love. Even if the words were gibberish, the beauty of the book itself attracted me, and I took it home (along with some other ten books. Terrible places, charity shops. They make one feel far too justified in spending money.)

Alas, the portents were correct. As pretty as the pictures are, the poems themselves are fairly basic. They’re very personal and heart-felt, but the form for every single poem throughout is a rather unstructured ABAB verse pattern. It never wavers – not a one of the thirty-odd poems deviates from this pattern. The themes throughout are obviously personal ones – dedicated to a daughter, a son, Jersey (which she illustrates particularly beautifully), and these are more an exploratory self-discovery than anything else. I’d have to say that her artistic skills far outstrip her poetic.

I checked the publisher’s name, West Island Printers Ltd, confirming my suspicions. It’s a vanity piece (vanity in the self-publishing sense, not in the narcissistic), and thus was probably not meant to be a best-selling new post-modern piece, but something to distribute amongst family and friends. Picking it up gave me a sweet, if shallow, glimpse into that life. I bought it for the cute images. I got what I bought, nothing more. I wouldn’t really recommend this, although I feel awful for saying so. They’d make great cards, but apart from that, the literary value is rather low. But – um, pretty colours?

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is about as controversial as one can get; rejected by four publishers in a row before being finally picked up in America. As the years have passed, it has become two films, a musical, various stage-plays, an opera, and even a ballet! It’s spawned fashions (albeit ones totally unrelated to anything that the character may have worn) and is used in a variety of ways, such as shocking media revelations. It’s interesting that very few children nowadays have her name.

It’s become an icon of modern popular culture, especially with the current obsession with sexualisation and the ways its creeping into younger and younger lives. Take those Bratz dolls, for example (in my day it was Barbie, boys and girls, good ‘ol Barbie!) – aimed at prepubescent young girls, can be bought with a Pole Dancing version. Pole dancing is all very well, and I hear it is gaining popularity as a great abdominal workout, but meanwhile, the connotations it contains are inappropriate for young children. Lolita, on the other hand, almost argues that it comes of their own initiative, or from another viewpoint, awakens the reader to the dangers that hide behind the narrator’s handsome exterior.

Humbert Humbert is wonderfully creepy – it’s hard to not sympathise with him, yet at the same time, his narrative makes one aware of the perverted way he’s justifying the twisted incest he tricks his step-daughter into. The way he portrays Dolores Haze allows us to view her only through the dark reflection of his mind, as he shows himself as a victim of her seduction. He makes her afraid of turning elsewhere, demanding sexual favours in return for presents, and presenting their journey as an inevitable destiny.

He repents and yet defends his actions so that one can look closely into his psyche and judge for oneself how hard he really tried, and all the minute little details that he so carefully preserves. He is in love with an ideal and obsessively continues to try to recapture the moment that he desires. Well worth reading. It reminded me a little of Ken Kesey, or Chuck Palahniuk. I suppose that’s because they all have an intense focus on the inner workings of the mind, rather than any thematic or stylistic similarities. Read on!

One always receives these emails...

I was 'tagged' in one of those Facebook memes that basically make you feel a little superior when you realise that you are above the average statistic that is supplied. This one, for example, is a list of books by the BBC that the average Briton has only read six of. I find there are only 98 books, but I supposed two won't matter that much. I find it hard to believe that people have only discovered six books out of those that are mentioned, although to be fair there are one or two that I've never heard of. The meme requires that the ones that the poster has read are emboldened, and those that one is currently reading or has read excerpts from are italicised. I've forgotten how many I counted, but it's certainly easier to add up those that I haven't read, rather than those that I have! I shall try and revisit, reread and review them sometime in the near future. What about yourselves? I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be a top-100 list of some sort. I don't agree with some of the books that are on here if it is, and there are other more deserving pieces that have floated off into the void, but it's interesting nonetheless.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (ah yes, Austen. This list seems to be fairly Victorian; I think the majority of the literature sticks to this particular time period. Admittedly, that's because literature was evolving with the catalyst of modern publishing techniques, but whoever wrote this either likes Victorian fiction a whole lot, or simply thought back to whatever they studied in their school-days and remembered the good ol' days)

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (whatever people say about this book, I first read it when I was ten. No, I didn't understand it. However, I was proud of myself for reading it! It was only later when I read it more slowly and as an older reader that I began to understand it properly. It's a bit of a struggle at first, I'll admit, but it's a good idea to start with The Hobbit and go from there.)

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Hm. Overrated, but not bad. I'm not fantastically keen on the books, but that's more because of the way it's been publicised. I enjoyed them when I was younger; what child hasn't dreamed of being accepted into Hogwarts? I did always wonder why they didn't have proper lessons, though, as they always had to write essays, yet didn't have any English classes? Maybe it's a Muggle mundanity, but I couldn't have got through my school life without some form of literature.)

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (Another childhood classic)

6. The Bible (but then again... How many people have read the Bible cover to cover?)

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (OF COURSE I HAVE READ THIS, ORWELL YOU GOD)

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I was in my early teens and the ending simply made me sad. I had no idea about the religious background to it all, and that simply makes it more intriguing now!

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (this is my literature course staring at me. I love how Dickens follows Pullman as well; I think Dickens is a great influence on the latter. Then again, Dickens is an influence on pretty much any British writer, and one could even extend that to Europe if one was so inclined.)

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (depressing stuff, Hardy)

13. Catch22 - Joseph Heller (to be honest, I'm fond of a good psychological thriller, but I found Catch-22 a bit much. I'm determined to get my teeth into it sometime, though!)

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (ask me in, oh, ten years. There's hardly anyone who will have read his complete works, unless one is a Shakespeare specialist. His plays alone are meaty, not to mention the sonnets etc.)

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (and it was a bit of a load of twaddle. Not a fan, I'm afraid)

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (ah yes. Just what the doctor ordered)

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

24. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (The answer to life is 42. I quote that far too often in my everyday life. The good thing is, everyone always knows what I'm referring to!)

25. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky(I am actually in the midst of re-reading this. Expect my next review to be on Russian crime!)

26. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

27. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (and of course, the lesser known sequel.)

28. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

29. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (Tolstoy/Dostoyevsky stand-off, anyone?)

30. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

31. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (I shouldn't admit that I used to dream of Narnia being real. But I just did. It took me years to get over it.)

32. Emma -Jane Austen

33. Persuasion - Jane Austen (enough with the Austen!)

34. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis (repeat of 31?)

35. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (is this a movie? I've heard of it, but being mired somewhat centuries behind in literature means that I tend to ignore modern fiction unless it's non-Western - i.e. colonial or Asiatic)

36. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (hur hur A-levels)

37. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (I thought the preface was a real introduction of historical events until I realised it was categorised as fiction)

38. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

39. Animal Farm - George Orwell (I love Orwell. I cannot repeat this enough. If someone were to give me his complete works I would not come out of my room until I had read it, cover to cover.)

40. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (clever, but too recent to be a classic, really. I think it's well-written in terms of explanation, with some good plot points, but there's something about it that I can't quite put my finger on. It's somehow written for a moment that's now past, and has simply been given to charity shops in the hundreds. It's not a keeper in that sense.)

41. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

42. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

43. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (I would actually argue that Collins and Dickens should be equally regarded. Dickens is obviously the more famous one nowadays, but Collins was one of the forerunners in detective and sensationalist fiction. The Moonstone should be on this list too.)

44. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (pure childhood glee, this was. Like Pollyanna, it never failed to send a good, moral, happy message that the unconscious me always enjoyed.)

45. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

46. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

47. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (I remember studying this back in my GCSE days. Funnily enough, I even liked it!)

48. Atonement - Ian McEwan (This has been recommended to me; I promise to read it, J! Eventually...)

49. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (This book does deserve a mention. I enjoyed it thoroughly as a relaxing Easter book one year)

50. Dune - Frank Herbert (sci-fi is underrated. As a professed fantasy and sci-fi geek, I wish Asimov, Wells, Wyndham and the rest of the genre would get more recognition.)

51. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

52. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (this shouldn’t count, really. Pride and Prejudice is her reworking of this title)

53. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (it’s terrible of me but I think I’ve read it and simply can’t remember what it’s about)

54. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

55. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (honestly?)

56. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

57. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

58. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

59. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

60. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (I've been meaning to read this for a while, actually. To the library!)

61. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

62. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

63. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

64. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (hearts fly across my eyes. Kerouac's Satori in Paris was what inspired this blog, at some insane hour of the morning.)

65. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (In one word: depressing. As was Tess of D'Ubervilles.)

66. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (erm... perhaps one day...)

67. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (yes. Yes. YES!)

68. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I was going to buy this in a charity shop but I already had about ten other books, oops)

69. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (why the Dickens does Dickens come up so much?)

70. Dracula - Bram Stoker (which leads me to question - where's Bryon? Stoker always makes me think of Polidori, which leads to Bryon. And then to Percy and Mary Shelley. I vote for Frankenstein!)

71. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

72. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

73. Ulysses - James Joyce (I am actually reading this, as confusing as it is)

74. The Inferno – Dante (I give up! It is hellish to read! Get it?

75. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

76. Germinal - Emile Zola (I’m so glad this book is on the list. J’adore. Zola is one of the most grotesquely thought-provoking authors I've ever come across. I want to acquire the entire Rougon-Maquart series. I've got Therese Raquin already, and have read La Bete Humaine; loved them both.)

77. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (this book sits forlornly on my shelf, waiting to be read. It’s still wrapped in the plastic that I bought it in! But it has about other books to keep it company so I’m sure it’s not all that lonely.)

78. Possession - AS Byatt

79. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (seriously, enough with the Dickens. Yes, he represents the quinssential Victorian Britain, but there are plenty of other writers out there...)

80. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

81. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

82. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

83. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (We’ve talked about you, Emma Bovary...)

84. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

85. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

86. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

87. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (they were elementary. I also watch House MD – based on Holmes, don’t you know, and the updated TV adaption by BBC, Sherlock. C’est magnifique!)

88. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

89. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

90. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

91. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

92. Watership Down - Richard Adams

93. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

94. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

95. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

96. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (which is one of Shakespeare's works, unless there were two of them)

97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I think the Witches is better; I'm not sure why. But what child can resist the idea of a factory churning out more sweets than one could ever ingest in a lifetime? I would run to the stream of dark chili chocolate and just mediate beside it. Forever.)

98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

And that's that! So, what's your take on this? What have you read, what are you reading, and what did you think of them?