Middlefocus

  The writer and social commentator, Joan Didion has left us for good on 23 December 2021. It is perhaps fitting that not long before Christmas she goes Slouching Towards Bethlehem, the title of her first work of non-fiction. The Year of Magical Thinking is an astonishing work - remarkable insights into bereavement.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories for December by Ian Sansom. My intention was to read just one story a day for the month; to get me in the mood for Christmas. The stories however are so captivating that I found myself reading on and so finished them after about a week. They instil a mix of emotions: sympathy, humour, sadness and vulnerability. Despite the quick read some of these vignettes have found their sticking place and the simple everyday situations he writes about resonate with personal memories of feelings, thoughts and actions. So although ostensibly these accounts relate to the end of year festive season they also speak to the human situation and the business of getting on with life. They therefore would be immensely readable in other months of the year. I have to mention one story in particular, Down By The River for 23 December.  It's one of the longer pieces in the volume and oddly when I started reading it I had recently just watched two fil...

The Inseparables: The newly discovered novel   Simone de Beauvoir - Author Translated by Lauren Elkin Introduction by Deborah Levy     Afterword by Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir     Publisher Random House  UK,Vintage     Publication 2 September 2021     ISBN: 978-1784877002   “ They  called us the inseparables”   Lasting friendships that were formed in early childhood are a fascination for me.  What is it that brings individuals together, keeps them together and makes them inseparable ?  And for me, as an avid Francophile, add to that the “mystery” of why a novel by French writer Simone de Beauvoir should come to light years after the celebrated author’s death then I’m hooked.   Format   I had joined the member community at  NetGalley , requested and was sent a pre-publication copy of The Inseparables .  Long time  aware of, but new to reading de Beauvoir, I was grateful for the introduction ...

  Walking along the shoreline at Crawfordsburn Country Park I spotted something unusual - Cored limpet shells suspended from tree branches. I cannot work out how they got there. But I can think of some questions. Were the innards of the shells scavenged by sea birds and did they get at the flesh by piercing the crests? But if they did why are the holes so large and even? Large beaked birds needing room to swallow. Or did the sea sculpt the hole with its abrasive ebb and flow?  Scooping out the weakest part of the shell, where the limpet had no strength to hold? And were the shells collected by children or beach-combing adults to be suspended from the branches in an act of creativity? They do look pretty. Maybe it's a coast-liner rag-tree type custom. The hanging of a shell to make a wish or ask for favour. I'll be on the lookout for cored shells when next there and for a suitable branch on which to hang them. And make a creative wish.

It's by now a tradition in our house on Saint Patrick's Day to watch together a film with an Irish theme. Usually the day offers an annual excuse to watch Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill and the Little People - a film that always seemed to be playing locally when I was growing up. But this year nostalgia demanded something different, something more in tune with the sensibilities of these pandemic times. The choice was John Huston's last film The Dead portraying the last story in James Joyce's Dubliners set in 1904 on January 6 - the feast of the Epiphany.  The film starring Anjelica Huston, the director's daughter, and Donal McCann was made in 1987 but I first saw it when it was released on VHS, replacing it years later when that platform gave way to DVD. It would have been lovely if subtitles had been incorporated because some of the language is so beautiful. Not to worry though as the Penguin Modern Classic edition of the book has been a constant companion th...

After initially feeling they were "unfinished" I've been learning about the paper process for deckle edged books. Now, I rather like them. Dog ears on the other hand still get my deckles up.