Track Back

Cuz, it's ya know...Tuesday.

(and I haven't posted a track back in ages)

CBRII: Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth

As I am currently staying close to the East End of London and spending some time wandering around this area, the title of this book on display grabbed my eye. It is a wonderful memoir of a nurse/midwife who took her early training at a religious house of nursing nuns, in Poplar, East London in the early 1950's.The book is formatted into short stories of life in the Docklands of that time (and some that go back to the early 30's as well) and are a rich eyewitness account of what was a rather grim life in that impoverished and bombed out district of London.The author switches from true memoir to narrative story, weaving characters and plot with historical background and midwifery technique.Be warned, midwives like to talk about vaginas, placentas,umbilical cords and other womanly bits in a frank and open manner.A glossary is provided for medical terms at the back.

The first few stories of the book introduce the author and her fellow midwives,the nuns of the order and the women of the district, many of whom had too many children and never enough money. Tales of the harrowing birth of triplets in a dark,cold shell of a building; the death of a newborn; the sad reality of infanticide,backstreet abortions and illegitimate birth (during a time when this was a fate worse than death itself), told through the eyes of the midwives.As the book progresses, the personalities of the midwives and nuns fill out, the world of Cockney culture and the grey, run down streets and tenements of East London and the colorful characters that lived there come to life.And oh! what characters, I was particularly fond of the elderly Sister Monica Joan, a refined but rebellious, recalcitrant nun that behaved in ways most un-nun like.The sisters MegandMave, the desperate Hilda and Bill Harding and the intriguing Captain's Daughter are not fictional and the author lets us into their lives with humour and without judgement.

The life of a nurse/midwife was not all babies and births.Before the days of the NHS, a nurse/midwife was the first, and often only, stop on the road to medical care.Nursing also included looking after long term patients, doing daily injections of the 'new' drug insulin for diabetics and occasionally mending injuries for those that refused to go to hospital.Despite the bleakness of the area, a crumbling shell of a once vibrant, albeit historically impoverished, community, these memoirs reveal the resilience and humour of the people who lived there.

I found this book to be a good, light read and may be inclined to venture back into the long gone world of London's East End in her other book Call the Midwife.

Cannonball Read II Preempted

So I know you're all waiting with bated breath for my first review, a curious little book called 'Farewell East End' by Jennifer Worth, but I got sidetracked this weekend into re- reading 'Measure For Measure' (which doesn't qualify as a novel) so that I can help out the Max with his IB English program.I haven't read this play since a very intensive English Lit course in university, and as always with the Bard, I'm struck by how the themes of his plays (and poetry) ring as true today as they did 400 years ago.

'Measure For Measure' is ostensibly a comedy, but there is little in the meat of the play itself that is amusing.Power, corruption, law vs. morality, cultural mores vs. individual circumstance...you could pluck out the names of Antonio, Isabel, The Duke and supplant them with any number of people who make headlines today.

At any rate, I promise to return tomorrow with my first CBII review.

"Yet (by your gracious patience)
I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver" 

LCOTM

Happy Halloween!

Enjoying 50 or how I learned to stop moping and love being in exile

So last Monday, in my halfhearted quest to find a gym to workout at, I stopped into a local for a pint and got into a conversation with a gentleman around my age. We chatted about this and that,what brings me to this bit of southeast London, all very pleasant. But when we said goodbye he told me, "Enjoy your 50th year!"

And it got me to thinking...I haven't been enjoying it very much. I haven't been enjoying this exile, even though I know that there are people who would give their eye teeth (and more) to be 'stranded' in London with nothing but time on their hands.My mother is probably spinning in her grave as I write this, for she would have been in her glory here, a museum or gallery each day, enjoying every pint, the greasy fish & chips, the way the air tastes and smells, walks through all the lovely parks and commons with the conkers and leaves falling,not to mention the spectacular weather. She would most likely berate me for my lack of enthusiasm for all these things.And she would be correct in doing so.

When I turned 50 around a month ago, it was not a good day.I'd only been here a few weeks and was still hoping that this stay would be only a couple of months, but even that seemed awful and egregious.I felt old, and uninspired.My body doesn't appear in the mirror as I imagine it should, my roots are greyer than ever before and the wrinkles and lines and middle age spread leave me feeling as if this bag of bones and skin has betrayed me.My darling Big G assures me that I am as lovely to him as ever, which is, of course, the most important thing really, but I'm tired of this constant feeling of dissatisfaction.So, am I dissatisfied because I'm middle aged, or because I can't be where I want to be RIGHT NOW? Or both? Either way I have to make an effort to stop this destructive, whingy, state of mind and take the gentleman's advice.

I will put my frustration with the Swiss bureaucracy aside.I will accept the fact that I will not be with Big G, Max and the kittehs for Xmas and not snivel about it.I will accept that aging is the alternative to being dead. I will banish my anger at the unfairness of it all.And I will start being truly thankful, not just begrudgingly grateful.For this year, my 50th year on this little blue planet, I will finally marry the man I love, I will get to go home,I will get to work in my garden and cuddle with my kittehs.And maybe with this change of heart I will enjoy being in exile.

The Limits Of Control
"Reality is arbitrary"
I have never seen a Jim Jarmusch movie before, although apparently he is known to "create difficult and beard-scratching movies".But this movie was just so freaking beautiful it somehow doesn't matter that it has little or no dialogue, a very sketchy plot and an ending that is akin to waking up from a dream after a night of too much curry and beer. Most people will express boredom at the very least and more often, extreme annoyance when subjected to the retelling of 'that wild dream I had last night', but for myself, I found Jarmusch's reverie compelling and fascinating.
The opening scene, shot from above, is of a man doing minimalist tai chi in a bathroom stall at an airport.This man (Lone Man played seamlessly by Isaach De Bankolé) meets with two men in a waiting lounge where he is given a number of instructions, one of which is to use his imagination.I suspect this is Jarmusch's gentle suggestion to the audience, you need to let your imagination run during this movie, the hints are subtle and delicate.It's important to listen to the dialogue, there is no excess or repetition and if you miss something you may find yourself quite lost. 
The Lone Man travels to Madrid, Seville and Almeria, sitting in cafes where he drinks two espressos in two cups and meets his 'contacts'; Violin, Blonde, Molecules, Guitar, all the while dressed in immaculate silk suits and an aura of calm expectation.He lays on beds in apartments and watches the sun rise, listens to the street sounds and refuses sex with the luscious Nude.He hates guns and mobile phones, and spends time not just looking, but somehow absorbing certain paintings. The contacts (a stellar cast that includes TIlda Swinton, John Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal) trade red or blue colored matchboxes with him, and casually offer up bits of philosophy or personal observations about movies,molecules, and the origin and nature of la boheme.
Visually this movie is lush.Each new location is rich and slightly grainy in texture, the Lone Man's suits iridescent in the Spanish sun, the oblique and changing angles of the tai chi routine all kept me entranced when so little seemed to be happening to further the plot. The gritty and sometimes discordant soundtrack (by Boris) reinforced the chimera-like quality of the whole experience, although Jarmusch is much more linear than, let's say, David Lynch.
I walked out of the theater into a dull, grey afternoon in Leicester Square, bustling with tourists and the babble of at least ten different foreign tongues, feeling as if I had been rudely awakened from one of those deeply mysterious and potent dreams you have during a midday nap.And perhaps that was the case.