Sebald

 

This is a strange book, at one and the same time quite confusing, and yet I could not leave it aside for long, I wanted to turn to the next page.

During 1992 the author, a German born Professor of German literature at Manchester, took a long walk along the Suffolk coast.  This, thought I, would be a typical book of the genre, but I was, like Boris Johnson always is, mistaken.  Indeed, he does walk from Somerleyton to Ditchingham, passing through Dunwich and Southwold, as you must if you walk this coast.  But it is not so much the area that he discusses, instead he takes us all over the world, I almost wrote 'all over the place.'  

The author begins by lying in a hospital for some reason unknown, not quite sure where he was and suffering the effects of the painkillers.  He spends far too much time on a literary woman who spends her time living her life through the writer Gustave Flaubert, before he fastens on a book by Thomas Browne.  Thomas Browne, 1605-1682, was a polymath, a title I once believed referred to a man who counted parrots.  Instead it appears Browne wrote on many scientific, health and natural world subjects, and was well known in his day.  Sebald becomes fascinated with him and spends many pages discussing his life and work.  I was not so interested in this chapter.

Referring to fishermen noted on the coast, or the ones we used to have, the author launches into a history of the Herring, and quite interesting this is.  Sebald describes the dereliction that is Lowestoft and the reasons why, as he passes through.  

He continues this way throughout the book, describing people or places, those he knew or the subject of the moment, sometimes intriguing, sometimes boring as you will.  

This was made irritating by a man who was a professor of literature who could not make paragraphs.  Each page of the book is dense with words.  Not a break between subjects, no paragraphs, just one story merging into the next on the same line.  He may have thought this trendy but I think it makes following the subject difficult.  Maybe I am just used to books that are paid out properly but his paragraphs, when you find one, are pages apart.

Nonetheless, I finished the book, learned once again about Dulwich, trees falling in the hurricane, Empress Tzu-hsi, who murdered her way to power, Joseph Conrad and the Belgian Congo, and the troubles in Ireland after the Second World War.  Most of which we knew already.

Apart from the tales the author speaks of the thoughts in his mind.  He describes his dreams in overlong passages, speaks of his thoughts of things brought to mind by small coincidences, and in general made me wonder if the hospital had given him too many of the wrong type of tablets.   

However, that said I had to finish the book, skipping through the last chapter on Thomas Browne, and if this not yet been read it may be worth a look for many people.  I do not think however, I will rush to buy any other of his works for the moment.

Museum

The other day I sat listening to several intelligent and knowledgeable women talking about a renovation of a museum display. Clearly they had years of experience and much knowledge both of the objects and the people who use such places. When my opinion was sought it was to be polite as I was clearly a 'know nothing' and it showed.  My role was clearly marked out for me and I just obeyed, with women around this is usually the safest option. The town museum is linked with the museum at the old weaving mill, this town being famous for the home of two major weavers in times past. Next week at some undecided date I am privileged to spray anti woodworm stuff on bits of wood that make up an aged loom in preparation for the removal of same to the Mill itself. Two looms are on display, the one referred to which was used for complicated patterns and was operated mostly by men, and a smaller one worked by women (cheaper), simpler and used for high volume work, mostly in Victorian days, funereal black cloth.  For me a small step into something useful, in a historical setting, and for them cheap labour. There are three white wooden mills still standing in the town, much changed since the mills closed in the 70's.  This one contains offices (empty) and the museum archive.

      
From the museum on the right of this picture, with the strange addition of  a fancy entrance to entice business requiring office space to apply, we look across to the other mill now a combination of business and several flats.  As a postie I found the flat letterboxes confusing, but I am not one to complain so I will not mention this.  There must have been hundreds employed here at one time. Highly skilled work was taken on, and still is as part of the museum work.  Silk was one material woven for the Queens coronation in 1953, and is still called for now. Th east of England has a thousand years or more of weaving history.  The abundance of sheep made the nation wealthy, hence the Lord Chancellor used to sit on the 'woolsack' in the House of Lords, he may still do although I believe there has been changes there. Many small villages and towns host churches with very large towers, Lavenham being one, which reflects the wealth of the area and the desperate need to show the world just how rich these locals were!  That is a village well worth a visit, although few locals smiled at us when there some time ago!  
There again few people never smile at me, laugh yes but smile, no.






.

History Tour

It struck me quite forcibly yesterday that the areas we drive through, and sometimes across, have a long and indeed wealthy history. For instance we started by heading for Sudbury, after failing to complete parallel parking and reversing round a corner to any one's satisfaction, especially that ginger cats! With the sun shining, the sky blue, the engine swearing every time I chose the wrong gear we headed through the country roads populated only by retired gentlemen and white van drivers. Sudbury reflects the vast wealth that once made this area one of the most influential in England. The wealth came from wool! Whereas we tend to think of sheep, those white fluffy farm animals, as creatures who inhabit Scottish mountains and the English lake district, there was a time when this are was covered in them.

Before the sheep however there was Sudbury. It is on record as being mentioned as long ago as the year 799 when the bishop Aelfhun died there. Maybe he didn't like it? Edward III, one of those despotic English kings knew a thing or two about money and in the thirteen hundreds he imported a lot of Fleming's to weave the wool and develop trade. (That's Fleming's in folk from what is now Holland/Belgium, not some sort of rat like furry animal by the way) Wool's importance is shown in that the original 'woolsack,' sat upon by the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords contained Sudbury wool. Not a lot of people know that! Few care. Careering through the narrow crowded market with a thousand other vehicles takes the driver, who has no time to look, past portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough's house. I knocked once but he did not answer. He is of course famous for his portraits and it is said that when Mr & Mrs Andrews wanted their portrait painted he actually desired to paint a landscape. So he just stuck them to one side and filled the picture with their estate. Now a small market town bereft of sheep it remains in many American memories as RAF Sudbury was home to 834th Squadron (H), 486th Bomb Group (H), 8th Air Force during the second world war. Like the RAF the Yanks lost around 50,000 bomber crew during this conflict!

Swearing through the winding country route chosen for me, changing gear with every hill and speed limit that changed themselves within yards of one another I thought, we eventually dawdled through Long Melford at 29 miles an hour. Slow enough to avoid the dumper truck being unloaded in the town centre. Long Melford is a very long, and very wealthy, village that has stretched its way along this Roman road since even before the Romans decided to tread it. Made wealthy by the wool found in abundance here a thousand years ago the village boast two great manor houses, with their red brick walls very noticeable, and a huge fifteenth century church. You could not pull the wool over Suffolk folks heads in the old days. This area has been home to the ancient Britons, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Romanised Britons and the mongrel mob that now refers to itself as 'English.' Several thousand years of continual existence. From a forest covered land, through the middle ages and the sheep which brought wealth, nobles and abbots fighting for political power, the plague and the following 'Peasants Revolt' all passed through here, leaving a rich history and, in Suffolk, lots of cash still and that in spite of the credit crunch!

Free from manoeuvres I sped down the road back home, until we passed the 'community hall' car park. Forced by the evil instructor in there we practised reversing into a bay and bouncing of the pavement. I made out the word "Fail" escaping from his clenched teeth but was not to sure about the others. One more attempt on Friday, another on Monday and then the Test itself on Wednesday. Bishops Stortford does not know what it has let itself in for.