What (who) I'm reading now

William Boyd is one of those authors whose latest books I’m always excited to read. Restless and Any Human Heart would have to be on my list of all-time favourite novels.

Image source: www.blogarrebatado.com

His latest, Waiting for Sunrise, opens in Vienna in  1913, where Lysander Rief, a young English actor, has come to seek psycho-analysis for a sexual problem with a contemporary of Freud (who we meet briefly in a Viennese kaffeehaus later in the story). A pretty young fellow-patient sorts out his problem rather satisfactorily, but Lysander’s liaison with this slightly unhinged and dangerous young woman leads him into serious trouble with Austrian law.

                           Image source: my own, taken in Vienna December 2011

His successful escape from Vienna in disguise (helped by his acting skill) brings him to the attention of the British secret service who recruit him for spying. By now World War I is in full flow and the story sees Lysander gadding about from war-besieged London to the front lines in France and on secret missions across Europe to trace a traitor in the British War Office. 

The basic theme is of an ordinary person being caught up in dramatic historical events – something Boyd did brilliantly in Any Human Heart. Certainly Lysander Rief starts off an unpromising hero – a pretty, well-off, slightly wimpish young man fairly certain of his place in life. As he’s thrust unwillingly into a series of extraordinary events, he becomes both more self-reliant and less sure of anything, negotiating his way through a slippery world of assumed identities and fake personas. “Nobody really knows what’s real, what’s true” says the traitor he’s engaged to unmask, while Lysander’s actress girlfriend tells him “We’re all acting, aren’t we? Almost all the time – each and every one of us?”

                                       Image source: www.waterstones.com

Both the galloping plot and the cast of characters are hugely entertaining, in rich Boyd style. I especially liked his female characters – from Lysander’s mother to the various younger women he attracts (sculptor, actress, secret agent), they are all strong, substantial and interesting personalities. The only disappointment for me was the ending  -  ultimately too few of the threads connected and I was left frustrated by unanswered questions.

You can hear William Boyd discussing the story here. 

This would make a wonderful film - one can only hope that someone is onto this, after the excellent BBC mini-series of Any Human Heart which showed last year. I also hear that a film version of Restless is in the making.

       Scenes from the BBC mini-series version of Any Human Heart, from www.guardian.co.uk

  

And on an entirely unrelated note ... and though I'm no great royalist ... while scanning the BBC's highlights of the jubilee celebrations after returning from spending the weekend away, I did find myself quite touched by this scene here - of the group of RCM chamber choir singers on a rocking boat in the middle of the Thames managing to belt out Land of Hope & Glory with quite such enthusiasm and gusto, despite being completely drenched in the sheeting rain that washed out the river pageant on Sunday. It's a uniquely English moment - do click on the link to watch, if you haven't already seen this.

Jolly Jubilee

As everybody knows, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations are coming to a head this weekend and she's kindly given us two days of holiday.

                                      image source: www.telegraph.co.uk

There are unusual displays of patriotic fervour everywhere and London has gone wild with flags and bunting ...

                                     image source: London Evening Standard

The queen and prince Philip have been frightfully busy showing their appreciation ...

                                    image source: London Evening Standard


They even came to my garden!

... where these scenes (from last weekend) serve as proof positive that the sun has finally come to Britain ...

(even if the forecast for this Sunday's pageant and parades is for rain and chill again)

Seize the day, I say, and happy jubilee weekend to all, whatever the weather.

City of angels

I'd forgotten the crick in the neck you get in Prague from looking up all the time.

This city has more angels and saints guarding it than any other I know ...

Doorways of old houses are topped by allegorical symbols (see here for an earlier post on this)

Walking around the old town feels like walking through a series of old oil paintings ... (count the saints in the shots below)

then lower your gaze and it gets even more interesting ...

A lone musician playing in the street seems to be from another era ...

... as do the beggars on every other street who prostrate themselves uncomfortably - a new sight for me - in silent supplicant's pose ...

Are they meditating? I noticed this one was (meditatively perhaps) scratching his dog's chin!

I couldn't cross the Charles bridge without snapping at the views, always changing in different lights, but here at dusk ...

Oh trdelnik, how do I love thee ... hot off the coals, from street vendors all over the city, these cinnamony confections get rolled on sticks over an open flame, the smell irresistible ...

This one kept me going on a hike up to the castle on foot ...

... where the Battling Titans make an awe-inspiring entrance to the world's largest ancient castle, seat of the Holy Roman Emperor ...

The door to St Vitus cathedral ...

the incredible interior of St Vitus a vision of dancing suspended angels and golden jewelled stars ...

On my last day the sun came out, and so did Praguers - here enjoying the spring sunshine on the banks of the Vitava (there was music playing somewhere nearby - something you hear a lot walking around in this city) ...

and on Petrin hill, students brought their homework to the grass and park benches ...

A final image from the foot of Petrin hill, where I found David Cerny again - his Disappearing Man sculptures showing a gradually disintegrating figure of a man

Goodbye amazing Prague

Lennon vs Lenin

The Lennon wall in Prague goes back to 1980, shortly after Lennon’s murder, when young Czechs painted an image of him, along with some political graffiti and Beatles lyrics, in a recess in this garden wall that backs a 14^th century churchyard belonging to the Knights of Malta …

Western pop songs were banned at the time by Communist authorities, and expressing anti-government sentiments was a dangerous business carrying the risk of imprisonment.

But despite repeated whitewashing by the police, they never managed to keep the wall clean. It became a political focus for dissenting Prague youth, an outlet for exposing injustices ... this despite its location in this quiet, well-heeled embassy district of Prague …

French Embassy, directly opposite the Lennon Wall, and the Mala Strana canal, around the corner

Lennon marches that started to take place on December 8^th, the anniversary of John’s death, gradually became linked to Human Rights Day protests (December 10^th), the early marches developing into running battles with armed police – in a movement ironically dubbed Lennonism – up until Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.

Today the Lennon Wall has lost its counter-culture edge and original spirit as a forum for political dissidence. The graffiti is often inane, most likely to be added by the thousands of Western tourists who visit it each year to have their photo taken in front of it ...

My daily routine in Prague last week took me past the Lennon wall at least four times a day - which is how I discovered first hand the extent to which this is an evolving work in progress. Each day as I walked past, some image or piece of graffiti I remembered from the day before had been painted over, and occasionally I saw an artist in action ...

Mostly I pondered on the wall and its history right around the corner, at  the lovely Cukrkavalimonada (can you pronounce that? I can't, but it means sugar, coffee, lemonade) ...

Cukrkavalimonada, Lazenska 7, Mala Strana, Prague


... coffee and pastry being one of the best ways I can think of to put the world to rights.

Prague Spring

In Prague this week I'd hoped for warm spring weather as a break from the unrelieved awfulness that has been English weather for the last eternity. No such luck - I hit the week it all went chilly there too.
Here for a conference, my days were mostly tied up - annoying how work can get in the way of more interesting pursuits like exploring or shopping. 

Freed up in the evenings, with light until late, the tourists that throng the Charles Bridge and Old Town in large groups during the day seemed to have magically disappeared - sucked into restaurants and hotels? - and many parts of the city were strangely quiet and deserted. Where were the locals?

In the park on Kampa Island I saw a few Praguers walking their dogs ...

the only sounds coming from a group of students quietly playing guitars on the grass ...

the park benches empty, where you might sit and contemplate the nearly 700 years of history that this stone bridge (the Charles) has seen ...

The park on the bank of the Vitava river is also home to a museum (the Kampa) of central European modern art that I'd heard was worth visiting ...

though these were a bit of a surprise ...

The giant crawling babies are probably the tamest of Czech sculptor David Cerny's wacky creations. More of these slightly creepy faceless babies also crawl up the sides of Prague's television tower, and for his other weird installations see here

On the other side of the museum, Magdalena Jetelova's giant chair perches precariously on a low, narrow wall in the Vitava - a little precariously perhaps, since this is a replica of the original chair that washed away when the river flooded in 2002. 

and nearby a line of neon-yellow penguins (made of recycled plastic bottles by the Italian Cracking Art Group) marched along luminously ...

Just the start of many visual contrasts I saw in this beautiful city ...