The Books that (Literally) Changed My Life

Not necessarily good books, you understand! 🙂

Life Changing Books

Have you ever thought about the books that changed your life? If you haven’t, try now: I guess that immediately a handful of books will pop up in your mind. But these are not the books you want. These are the good books, the memorable books that you read and re-read and cherished over the years, the ones you talk about so much that your long suffering friends and family can finish your sentences for you. No, these are not the books that changed your life; or at least, not in most cases.

But the books that changed your life? Truly changed your life? The ones that helped form your personality and beliefs, the ones that led you to pick your career, that led you to the chance encounter with the love of your life, the ones that helped you through a personal crisis? What are the books that changed your life? They’re surprisingly hard to pin down.

Girl with a Book by José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior. Source: Wikipedia

The Books that Changed My Life

Here come mine (and they might turn out to be quite a bizarre collection):

Lassie Come Home

The endearing story of a faithful dog by Eric Knight, the ultimate animal adventure that has been turned into innumerable cutesy film series absolutely nothing to do with the original story. 

What it did for me:

It taught me to be honest. It taught me to be honest in a way that you can actually keep it up for an entire lifetime. As the elder Carraclough demonstrates to his son, Joe, there often is a tiny wriggle room.

But only a tiny one.

Swallows and Amazons

The kids in this Arthur Ransome book are let loose outdoors – in a way that hardly any children nowadays are. In my time, we were still not as corralled, and were allowed out to explore and have fun. And we made our friendships and fought our own fights, instead of attending play dates organised by our mothers two weeks ahead.

How it changed me:

It turned me from a book reader hiding in a room into an outdoors kid, who went out to climb trees and rocks, explored the woods, crawled among the metre tall grass pretending to be an Apache sneaking up on the pale faces, swam in the river and went down to the boating lake and taught herself to row. Reading about adventures is good but living them is better. And let’s not forget what made it all possible: What would have become of the Swallows without Susan’s sturdy common sense and ability to organise? I know people who are incapable of packing a rucksack, or indeed wouldn’t even dream of carrying one.

Don’t Panic

(And always know where your towel is!

One of the many self-help books out there on the market; in no way remarkable (which is why I’m not bothering giving you the author). But it was the first I ever self-help book I read and it made me realise how stress or long term abuse affects us, how it can generate physical symptoms, and how the effects maybe only appear years later.

What it did for me:

I learned to stop my hiccups! 🙂 (Seriously.)

Stopping hiccups was actually just a side effect of my reading this particular self-help book about stress. What the book really taught me was that from learning how to stop hiccups to overcoming panic attacks, the answer is as much in our minds as in the pills our GP can prescribe us. 

There are self-help books on practically everything – and obviously, some are better than others. They are worth considering as a resource when you’re up against something new. As they say, wise people learn from other people’s mistakes, while fools keep committing the same ones. Knowledge is power: once you understand what’s going on in your mind and body, in your work place or your family life, you can devise strategies to cope and to improve the situation. 

Mike at Wrykin

One of those P.G. Wodehouse books that almost nobody reads or even heard of: an English boarding school story which introduces us to the character of Psmith. But it was the cricket mad title character Mike who was responsible for changing my life.

How this book changed my life:

The chapter in question contains a long cryptic description of a school cricket match which awoke an interest in me for the game. This interest led me to dedicate my MA thesis to the intertwining of cricket and nationalism in the British Empire; and the research I had to carry out to be able to write it brought me in contact with a certain number of Englishmen. 

I ended up marrying one of them.

Winnie-the-Pooh

An endearing story of a silly bear  that I cherished through childhood – and one that like Lassie Come Home was bastardised by the film industry – but it’s not here on its merit as a children’s book. I really, really came to appreciate Pooh Bear’s philosophy as an adult in a time of adversity, after I became terminally ill.

What it did for me:

It reminded me to try living life simply, immersing myself in the precious moment, enjoying the simple things in life, like a bit of fresh bread, the sunshine on my skin, the spring breeze in my hair, refusing to worry about something that might never come to pass.

The Japanese call this Zen and surround it with rituals and teachings that are meant to help you to acquire the habit of living the good life.  I wish I cultivated the skill earlier; I would have had a happier life, with less worries. But it’s never too late and you don’t have to learn to meditate either…

On Liberty

Well, now, a political-philosophical essay, and I don’t like either politics, or philosophy… 

But I grew up in a Communist country where access to information was limited and a free discussion of political opinions was not recommended if you wanted a quiet life. The result was that at the famous ‘change of the system’, as the fall of communism is referred to in Hungary, my political views were hazy in the extreme. I knew what I disagreed with but was unable to articulate what I believed to be right; I had no coherent picture in my mind as to what the world should look like. And then I picked up this slim volume in a foreign language bookshop in Budapest, in the early 1990s. And the world suddenly fell into place. The 19th century English philosopher and member of parliament (and an early champion of women’s suffrage), John Stuart Mill, knew how to put into words the ideas which I was only groping for.

What it did for me:

It provides the ethical background to everything I do and believe in. It gave me a yardstick too against which to measure if I come across a particularly puzzling ethical dilemma. I try to live my life according the principles John Stuart Mill articulated so clearly: live and let live.

Others

There might be others; in fact, I’m sure there are. But these came to mind for now; a strange little collection.  

Have you got any books that you feel that had a lasting impact on how you live your life? Please leave a comment below and explain why.

Links (Lists of life changing books):
⇒ 10 Life Changing Books That Stay With You
⇒ 27 Books That Can Change Your Life Forever
⇒ 30 Classic Books That May Change Your Life

The Story of My Life in n Books

When I first thought of this post, I knew I was dying but time was still on my side; in consequence, I didn’t even get past the first sentence before I pushed it aside. Time was too precious to be writing something this final; I preferred to concentrate on living.

That’s been last summer and early autumn. It is winter now, and time is no longer on my side. I frittered it away, living it up, doing rather than writing, enjoying rather than philosophising. I took my moments in the sun, I plunged into the waves of the sea, I sipped golden margaritas at sunset savouring the taste of tequila over the salt, bit into lavishly buttered freshly baked bread in the morning. The miles still melted away under my walking boots and the horizons were still open although I knew I would never now reach them. And I had the company of my loved ones.

It’s winter now and my strength is spent; my horizons have closed. And I’m no longer well enough to write a good post perhaps. Merely sitting up tires me so much;  typing is a physical effort. Yet I before I die, I’d like to leave this summary of my life in books behind. I hope you’ll find some good books among them to consider and if you’ve ever enjoyed my blog, you can learn a little bit about me.

But it’s not chiefly for you, the casual reader. I dedicate…

My Life in n Books: The Books That Made Me

To Sophisticated Young Lady & Young Friend of the Elephants

Both of whom inherited my love of good books

I hope you’ll find it interesting.

I. In the Land of Magic

• The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
• The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
• Seventy-seven Hungarian Folk Tales by Gyula Illyés

I don’t know how much you remember about the books you read – or rather, were read to you – before you reached school age. In my case it’s easy. I’ve still got them on the shelf.

From toddlerhood to age 6, when I entered primary school, I lived in a magical land of iron-nosed witches and gingerbread houses. In the land of dark forests, where princesses turned into ravens, frogs had to be kissed, valiant tailors won the hand of the king’s only daughter for saving his kingdom and animals talked. Sounds familiar? These are the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Their enchantment never wore off although I haven’t picked them up for a few years now. 🙂

The Brothers Grimm were ably accompanied by the heartbreakingly beautiful tales of Hans Christian Andersen – the Little Mermaid and the Snow Queen were my particular favourites – and by a totally different read: down-to-earth Hungarian folk tales, full of worldly wisdom. These were tales about smart farm yard animals, beginning with the one about the little cockerel who outwitted the Turkish emperor, all the way to the dog that got bested by the cat, about smart peasants outwitting the devil, and many tales of of the type of ‘one good turn deserves another’.

The story of the three golden hairs of the devil, for example, anyone? 🙂

II. The Years of Innocence & Wonder

• Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
• Mondák könyve (Book of Legends) by István Komjáthy

When you go to school, the world opens up. Like most children in Hungary, between age three and six, I attended kindergarten (a type of nursery school) all day, so being in a community and having to conform to rules was not the big change. The change came in that in big school we sat in pairs in benches, facing forward towards the teachers, with textbooks and exercise books crowding our heavy school bags and instead of playing, we now had formal lessons. Silence ruled in the classroom from day one of year one, the teacher alone spoke. Kindergarten was small – a couple of classes in each year group; big school was big: four classes in each year group, and multiply that by eight year groups, thirty-two classes. The oldest kids were fourteen, and we were more scared of them than we were of the teachers. The headteacher was higher than god; I didn’t got to see him until I was in year eight and even then his mere physical presence scared the living daylight out of us.

I remember getting repeatedly lost in the building while trying to find my way across paved courtyards from the dining hall back to class; I remember walking down endless white-washed corridors with closed doors on both sides from behind which came the quiet hum of the lesson going on, I remember everything being so big and mysterious and full of promise. Because in big school we were introduced to the mysterious world of letters and numbers which spoke a secret language which you had to decipher and master, for some not quite clear reason – and then when you did…

When you did, the world opened up as a completely different place. It was as if you just saw the world for the first time ever. On the way home from school I was endlessly fascinated by all the things I could now read: shop signs, street names, the number on the trolleybus, the price of the ice-cream. Instead of a jumble of confusing pavements, Budapest was becoming a city with structure, with a transport network, with places of entertainment… Mastering reading and counting meant pocket money, which in turn meant ice-cream and cake-shops and buying books and toys that I chose – not my mum.

Winnie-the-Pooh, with its simple beautiful philosophy, was my particular favourite that accompanied me to adulthood and to which I can still turn for comfort and peace; while the the enchanting Book of Legends about the origins of the Huns and the Hungarians stretched my imagination and formed my identity, leaving such an impact on me that thirty years later I took the trouble to translate it, albeit in an abbreviated form, for my own children.

III. Life Is An Adventure

• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom
• Karl May and his ilk
• The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
• Two Years Vacation by Jules Verne
• The Kon-Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl

By the time I hit age ten, I was living in books. The real world – school, home, parents, what friends I had – was just an illusion, a figment of my imagination. I passed through it unscathed, unaffected, uninterested even. Inside the cover of whichever book I chose was the real life which I wished to live and did live. A life of adventure. I walked the book landscape talking to book characters and played my part in their adventures as myself or as taking on one of their characters. I was sensible Susan cooking breakfast over the campfire on Swallow Island; I was Wah-ta-Wah fleeing from the Hurons; I was Jim in the apple barrel overhearing the plans of the mutineers on board the Hispaniola… I rode into battle behind Crazy Horse at Little Bighorn, I sailed under the seas in the Nautilus with Captain Nemo, and Athos, Porthos and Aramis (not to mention D’Artagnan) gave me my first fencing lessons.

Life as an adventure was good – it made the difficulties in real life less important. I was in a new school which I hated: but school bullies, complicated maths problems, scary teachers and being forced to eat spinach sauce with boiled egg for lunch could be survived. Even my dad being away for a whole year working abroad and my mother’s illness… I coped with it all, hardly noticing.

IV. Life Lessons

• Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Of course, eventually I had to return from inside the pages of my books and start taking part in real life.

Lassie Come-Home and The Little Prince were both compulsory reading in year 5; and were the only ones I liked. They are also the books, together with Winnie-the-Pooh, which helped me form my first notions on what is right and what is wrong, what is important and what is not. They served as my first compasses in the complicated situations that real life threw up.

Lassie’s story taught me two things: that love and loyalty mattered above all and that honesty was something non-negotiable. When Joe’s dad explained to his son that he couldn’t have the dog anymore because they sold it to buy food, that was that. No matter how many times Lassie returned home, she had to be given back to the new owner. Keeping her would have been dishonest. When you’re poor, and have nothing, not even enough food, you still can have honesty. Nobody can take that away from you. This simple concept defined my moral stance for the rest of my life. (It helped that my grandmother taught me the same life lesson.)

The Little Prince taught me slightly different life lessons but they too stayed with me to this day. To be open-hearted and kind, to begin with. To look for good in others. To understand that you have to dedicate time and effort to achieve something. To believe in the power of love and in friendship. To understand that you have to nurture love and friendship otherwise they might wither. That it’s important to savour the moment… And to understand that what’s really important is inside, in our thoughts and our hearts.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince)

Every child should read The Little Prince – one of the most beautiful books on love and friendship – written by a French pilot who was playing a deadly hide-and-seek among the clouds against the Germans in World War II even as he wrote this tale of humanity.

V. Cinderella & the Wicked Stepmother

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

My mum died when I was thirteen, after a long illness. I didn’t know it at the time but it was a genetic illness and it’s the same that’s killing me now. My father, who loved her very much, went to pieces, and within months, brought another woman home to live with us, soon marrying her. I never found out why the new wife hated me but for the next five years I lived the life of Cinderella, minus the protective fairy god mother, while she alternated in the roles of various wicked fairy tale stepmothers, depending on the mood she was in. She stopped short of acting out Snow White’s stepmum but that’s about all the good I can say of her. Perhaps this is why I was reading the rather disturbing stories of the Brontë sisters over and over during those years.

VI. On the Road towards Adulthood

• Catcher in the Rye by D. J. Salinger
• Antigone by Sophocles
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Day of the Dolphin by Robert Merle
• The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene

Modern day Cinderellas still go to school and my great place of safety in my teenage years was, in fact, my grammar school, where I made some life-long friends and where my teachers attempted to make a creditable human being out of me, despite of the terrible situation I had at home.

I had a great literature teacher and even if I hadn’t, I’d have read a tremendous amount. The list above shows the books which made the deepest impression on me in the four years of grammar school while I was trying to learn to make sense of growing up and the adult world around me. They helped to form my political opinions, my artistic opinions and my literary taste in general.

In every book I was reading during these years, I was also, invariably, looking for an answer to my wicked stepmother problem. I had particularly high hopes when I embarked on Hamlet – can you imagine my total disappointment then, when I found that Shakespeare’s solution to the problem was to massacre everybody at the end? Couldn’t see how I could benefit from that! I just had to soldier on, until I managed to grow up and move away.

VII. Out Of This World

• The Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
• The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem

The years of growing up under the proverbial wicked stepmother were hard, as you can understand. I needed escape and frequently. Books remained my friends and I immersed myself in fantasy and sci-fi.

VIII. Long Summers in the Country

• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• People of the Puszta by Gyula Illyés
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

My physical escape was the summer holidays, when I was often sent down to my grandmother’s house in the countryside for a few weeks. Life there was quiet, with nothing much to do (at least for me). My grandmother was not well educated but she liked to read, especially in winter and had an interesting collection of books, mostly given to her by other family members. I worked my way through them all.

Repeatedly.

The most noteworthy among them is People of the Puszta: a part sociography, part autobiography by the Hungarian poet and writer, Gyula Illyés. Illyés was roughly contemporary with my great-grandfather and he was brought up in the same tiny area of Transdanubia where my family lived and still lives. The people of the puszta are Illyés’s people; and my people. My grandma spoke the same accent, lived in exactly the same way as Illyés has described in his book. The events that took place in this tiny area (a few square kilometres, no more) of Transdanubia, in the first half of the 20th century are all true as described by Illyés; my grandma bore testimony to it to the last letter, including the crucifixion of the unpopular local policeman on the pub door of Ozora by the drunken peasants one Easter Sunday…

When I consider how poor a family I come from, a family of real not-haves, to be able to hold up a book and a good book at that, and be able to say: “this has been written about us!” is a wonderful piece of good fortune.

IX. The World is Your Oyster

As we know, Cinderella escaped in the end. I turned 18, moved out, went to university, took a degree in literature and started to learn English. My reading horizons became very wide open indeed… as they remain ever since. Can’t possibly list all my favourite readings and authors over the years but here are some of the very best:

• The Honour and the Glory by Graham Greene
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• La morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
• The Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard
• No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel García Márquez
• Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
• Kim by Rudyard Kipling
• Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
• The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
• 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
• A Passage to India by E. M. Forester
• Ransom by David Malouf
• The Samurai by Shusaku Endo
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

X. Whenever It Got Too Much

Adult life of course was not without its vicissitudes. And whenever things got too much, I had a trusty band of prolific writers to turn to:

• Pigs Have Wings by P.G. Wodehouse
• The Golden Rendezvous by Alistair Maclean
• Sindzse szeme (The Eye of Sinje) Leslie L. Lawrence
• The Last Place God Made by Jack Higgins
• The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
• Piece of Cake by Derek Robinson
• Happy Return by C. S. Forester
• Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brian
• On Basilisk Station by David Weber

I took Pigs Have Wings into the hospital with me when I gave birth to Sophisticated Young Lady, since it’s such an entertaining book and hospitals are gloomy places even if you’re only there for childbirth. But Sophisticated Young Lady was born by emergency caesarean, and when I tried to read my book during my recovery, it made me laugh so much, it hurt. I had to send it home and get my husband bring me something a lot more boring… Can’t remember what he found.

XI. Nothing New Under the Sun

As I became older, I turned away from novels a little bit and started to read more history. Travel narratives, from ages long bygone, can be particularly fascinating. I discovered a couple of historians who can spin a good tale (and discarded by the wayside others who might have an encyclopaedic knowledge but they would bore the hind legs off a donkey with their narrative). Most of this reading seeped into Waterblogged – the blog I only started because I got fed up with my family pulling faces at me at the dinner table whenever I got overenthusiastic about Herodotus…

• The Great Siege: Malta 1565 by Ernle Bradford
• Historical travel diaries (Felix Fabri, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, Francis Drake…)
• The Histories by Herodotus
• Anabasis (The March of the Ten Thousand) by Xenophon
• The Adventures of Captain Alonso de Contreras
• City of Fortune by Roger Crowley

Lockdown Diaries III, Day 7: A Miserable Christmas

What with people not being allowed to visit their loved ones for Christmas – except if the loved one was dying – and, while we’re at it, not being allowed to get marry either – except if the bride or the groom was dying – coronavirus made for a pretty miserable Christmas for lot of people.

(Like those lorry drivers for example stuck in the UK in their lorries.)

Recommended Reading for a Miserable Chrismas:

So… here’s a reading list to consider while you’re stuck in your freezing lorry, in a hospital/hospice/care home without visiting hours or alone in a flat with the enormous turkey that the family who were meant to eat it can only admire via Facetime…

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 
• Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
• Germinal by Émile Zola

As a particular favour to all those trapped lorry drivers who cannot just pick a book off the shelves, most of these books are old enough and famous enough to be available for free online reading on Project Gutenberg! 🙂

Lockdown Diaries III, Day 3: View from the Forbidden Island

Photo by Kelli McClintock via Unsplash

Since we became the pariahs of the world, with countries refusing flights and ferries from the UK, there developed a long queue of lorries outside Dover – all those lorries that can no longer drive onto the ferries that no longer sail… The hardship for the British drivers is one thing but I’m really sorry for those foreign drivers who were on the last leg of the journey back home in time for Christmas and instead look set to spend their Christmas in the freezing cabins of their lorries, far from home and lacking even basic amenities, like toilets, although one would like to hope that the authorities will sort something out for the stranded drivers ASAP, if they haven’t done so yet!

Recommended Reading from the Forbidden Island:

It seems appropriate to read books about miserable castaways, shipwrecked and marooned sailors and the like and luckily world literature has plenty to choose from!

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (set aside some cheese for Ben Gunn this Christmas)
• The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
• Two Years Vacation by Jules Verne
• The Lord of the Flies by William Golding 
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• The Island by Robert Merle
• The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez

Links:
⇒ Ten of the most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature (The Guardian)
⇒ 6 Famous Castaways (History) 

Lockdown Diaries III, Day 1: Christmas Cancelled

Here we go again.

The government actually had to invent a tier 4, so that we could be put into it.

Christmas is officially cancelled and the rats are flying the sinking ship. Er… I mean people are abandoning London (and taking the virus with them), although personally I’m not willing to criticise anybody without knowing their circumstances – let each settle with their own conscience whether their journey is justified. I can imagine circumstances in which it would be; like visiting your dying mother, for example.

The government is disgusted, of course. I’m not sure what they expected, announcing at 4 pm yesterday that nobody is allowed to go and see their family for Christmas, with the rule coming into effect from midnight: Predictably, everybody mobile enough packed their suitcase and boarded the next train out. 

Recommended Reading for the Latest Lockdown:

• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe (I’d say the title speaks for itself)
• The Decameron by Boccaccio (people entertaining themselves in a 14th century lockdown in Italy)
• Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (for those who can’t do Christmas without soppy stories)

Links:
⇒ You can read the official rules for this latest lockdown here. (And yes, it does say you can still visit your dying mother. That's about the only thing you can do, in fact.)
 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 27: Biased

After an inordinate delay, the bus at last turned the corner and pulled up alongside the pavement. A few people got off, a few others got on. I was among the latter. I got shoved onto the platform, the conductor vehemently pulled a noise plug and the vehicle started off again. Whiel I was engaged in tearing out of a little book the number of tickets that the man with the little box was about to obliterate on his stomach, I started to inspect my neighbours…

(Biased from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

And here’s my effort:

Tuesday, 1 December 2020

Thank God! The bloody lockdown is finally over! Well, sort of. But I am declaring it to be over, and never mind the remaining restrictions. The main thing is, as far as I’m concerned, that tomorrow my swimming pool will open again and I don’t care about the rest. Of course, the government – idiots, the lot of them – might yet change their mind and put us back under lock and key again.

But I’ll deal with that when it happens!

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 25: Official Letter

I beg to advise you of the following facts of which I happened to be the equally impartial and horrified witness.

Today, at roughly twelve noon, I was present on the platform of a bus which was proceeding up the rue de Courcelles in the direction of Place Champerret. The aforementioned bus was fully laden – more than fully laden, I might even venture to say, since the conductor had accepted an overload of several candidates without valid reason and actuated by an exaggerated kindness of heart which caused him to exceed the regulations…

(Official Letter from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

And here’s my effort:

Sunday, 29 November 2020

Dear Sir,

I wish to bring to your notice the following facts relating to the – shop selling ethnic food in the neighbourhood of -.

Sir, this shop occupies an extremely small floor space and in accordance with the COVID restrictions currently in place in the said locality, is forced to limit the number of shoppers on the premises. On the 29th of November, this resulted in an exceedingly long queue outside of the aforementioned shop.

I’m happy to inform you that all customers, none of whom were English, queued outside in an exemplary British manner, waiting for their turn without grumbling. I myself witnessed this, being part of said queue for fifteen minutes, with my younger daughter, whose behaviour upon this occasion proved a credit to her upbringing.

In the sincere hope that the COVID restrictions will ease in the very near future, 

Mrs So-and-So

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 24: Visual

The general effect is green with a white roof, oblong, with windows. It isn’t as easy as all that to do with windows. The platform isn’t any colour: it’s half grey, half brown if it must be something. The most important things is it’s full of curves, lots of esses as you might say…

(Visual from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

And here’s my effort:

Saturday, 28 November 2020

From my bed the first thing I see in the morning is the curtains. They are red and the light, even winter light, makes them translucent, making the whole bedroom glow in soft warm red. 

The room I spent most of the day on other hand was anything but softly glowing red. It is a little dark, because the window is partially obscured by the furniture; it’s such a small room that it only has room for one item of furniture, which is a high bed, with the desk and a one-seater sofa fixed underneath and this is straight in front of the window. The sofa is blue as are the curtains.

It was such a grey day outside that I had the desk light on most of the day and in the afternoon, when I curled up with a book on the sofa, I turned on the colourful LED lights that are stringed along under the bed. It cheered the room up a bit.

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 23: Retrograde

You ought to put another button on your overcoat, his friend told him. I came across him in the middle of the Coeur de Rome, after having left him rushing avidly towards a seat. He had just protested against being pushed by another passenger who, he said, was jostling him every time anyone got off…

(Retrograde from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

And here’s my effort:

Friday, 27 November 2020

I had just spent a couple of hours this afternoon tagging family photos in the computer, before I settled down to write today’s diary entry. It took longer than planned because this had been a holiday in Seville at Easter, a few years ago and I got seduced by some of the videos. I remember we got up at 3:30 am on the last day in order to see the procession of Jesús del Gran Poder go by – and the evening before we had been out till late at a flamenco show…

Earlier the postman brought a pushy letter from our health service, telling me – yet again – to protect them by not being ill. Yes, sir! I’ll just snuff it then and trouble the undertaker instead!

Before I got annoyed by the letter, I had spent the morning going through the motions of a boring weekday in lockdown. Yawn. The most interesting event of the morning was, frankly, seeing Young Friend of the Elephants off to school…

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 21: Litotes

A few of us were travelling together. A young man, who didn’t look very intelligent, spoke to the man next to him for a few moments, then he went and sat down. Two hours later I met him again; he was with a friend and was discussing clothing matters.

(Litotes from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, I have to admit that the title of this particular entry by Queneau had me baffled. I always prided myself on my vocabulary, English included, but litotes was not a word I’ve ever came across before and the entry was not giving me any genuine clue (although with hindsight the first sentence is a clue). I had to resort to the dictionary:

litotes, noun
ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (e.g. I shan't be sorry for I shall be glad).

So there you are. And here’s my effort:

Wednesday, 25 November 2020

I wouldn’t call today a boring day… It was positively interesting. Can’t complain, really.

I got up, had breakfast, worked at the computer. For variety on a working day that’s not bad.

The lunch was nothing out of the ordinary: just a creative combination of some leftovers, but quite delicious.   

The weather? Mustn’t grumble. It was positively balmy. You could almost see the sun… if it wasn’t for the thick layer of clouds.

Over to you. 🙂

(In my opinion, this one was surprisingly difficult!)

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 20: Haikai

Summer S
long neck trod on toes
cries and retreat

station button
meeting

(Haikai from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Tuesday, 24 November 2020

Morning light
catching up with friends
sitting outside

afternoon gloom
tea ‘n’ smiles

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 18: Auditory

Quacking and letting off, the S came rasping to a halt alongside the silent pavement. The sun’s trombone flattened the midday note. The pedestrians, bawling bagpipes, shouted one of their numbers…

(Auditory from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Sunday, 22 November 2020

Woke to the loud buzzing of a bumble bee as it kept banging against the window pane behind the curtains. Out on the field behind the house a dog barked. I turned over and put the pillow over my head to drown the noises out but it did not work. I heard the splashing of the shower from the bathroom next door. Then phone pinged: the taxi to pick my sister up to take her to the airport had been allocated. I got up.

In the kitchen the kettle gurgled as the water came to boil. I turned on the coffee grinder, it sounds like a tiny pneumatic drill; suddenly I couldn’t heard a word that was said on the radio.

Then came breakfast: the ticktocking of the toaster, the banging of spoons on the shells of the boiled eggs, the tinkling of knives and forks on the plates. Dumped the plates and cutlery into the sink, and opened the tap; the water splashed over the plates. Then the taxi driver pinged my phone again to let us know he had arrived. 

My sister dragged her suitcase down the stairs, bang-bang, on each step. We said good-bye, she got in the taxi, slammed the door. The car moved off quietly. We shut the front door and put the chain on. It rattled.

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 17: Telegraphic

BUS CROWDED STOP YNG MAN LONG NECK PLAIT ENCIRCLED HAT REPROACHES UNKNOWN PASSENGER NO APPARENT REASON STOP QUERY FINGERS FEET HURT CONTACT HEEL ALLEGED PURPOSELY STOP YNG MAN ABANDONS DISCUSSION FOR VACANT SEAT STOP …

(Telegraphic from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Saturday, 21 November 2020

UP LATE QUICK BREAKFAST STOP PLAYED SCRABBLE WITH SISTER SHE WON STOP LONG LINGERING LUNCH WITH WINE AND NY CHEESECAKE STOP LAZY AFTERNOON PLAYING COMPUTER GAMES STOP WEATHER STINKS BRING CHEESE STOP

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 16: Passive

Midday was struck on the clock. The bus was being got onto by passengers. They were being squashed together. A hat was being worn on the head of a young gentleman, which hat was encircled by a plait and not by a ribbon…

(Passive from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Friday, 20 November 2020

I was woken up late by the ringing of my mobile – I was being called by the nurse who had been told by the doctor to call me. I was asked if I was feeling well and she was told that I was feeling as well as could be expected under the circumstances. 

I was made breakfast by Mr Anglo-Saxonist (a boiled duck egg and soldiers); and all the food was eaten by me. Then the breakfast dishes and crockery were put into the dishwasher, which was run. 

Overtaken by laziness, I spent the next few hours playing SimCity.

After lunch, the Scrabble board was got out and laid on the table and a mind-boggling game of Scrabble developed in Hungarian which was won by my sister…

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 15: Negativities

It was neither a boat nor an aeroplane, but a terrestrial means of transport. It was neither the morning, nor the evening, but midday. It was neither a baby, nor an old man, but a young man…

(Negativities from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Thursday, 19 November 2020

I have slept neither well, nor badly last night. I didn’t get up until late, not at midday though, it was still morning. I had neither coffee, nor hot chocolate with my breakfast; instead I had tea. 

I didn’t go out, not even into the garden but I did look through the window.

At some point, I went into the bedroom of Young Friend of the Elephants, although I really didn’t want to. In there I felt there was a lack of fresh air, so I thought I’d open the window. I didn’t open the small window because I didn’t want to climb up on her bed to access it but opened the big window instead. No warm air came in, only cold. I can’t say I was surprised.

I didn’t have anything urgent to do, so I didn’t do anything. And although it’s still not the evening, I think nothing of interest will happen today, so I’m not going to write anything more…

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 14: Cross-Examination

“At what time did the 12.23 pm. S-line bus proceeding in the direction of the Porte de Champerret arrive on that day?”
“At 12.38 p.m.”
“Were there any people on the aforesaid bus?”
“Bags of ’em.”
“Did you particularly notice any of them?”
An individual who had a very long neck and a plait round his hat.”
…

(Cross-Examination from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Wednesday, 18 November 2020

“Who was present in the house on that day?”
“Well, we were all there in the morning, obviously.”
“Could you please specify whom do you include under the term ‘all’?”
“Well, my husband Mr Anglo-Saxonist, my younger daughter Young Friend of the Elephants, my sister and myself.”
“Are all of these normally residents of the house?”
“No, only three of us; my sister was visiting.”
“I see. And what happened in the morning of that day?”
“We got up… Young Friend of the Elephants went to school. Mr Anglo-Saxonist travelled to Lancashire for the day. My sister and myself played Scrabble in Hungarian.”
“What were your reasons for playing Scrabble in Hungarian?”
“I wanted to find out if it was easier or harder than in English.”
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
“It’s much harder.”

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 13: Olfactory

We bypassed day 12 of the lockdown diaries yesterday, as it was the day of the weekly quote, and hearing from me once a day I’m sure is more than enough for any of you! 🙂 But now we carry on, still in the style of Raymond Queneau:

In that meridian S, apart from the habitual smell, there was a smell of a beastly seedy ego, of effrontery, of jeering, of H-bombs, of a high jakes, of cakes and ale, of…

(Olfactory from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Tuesday, 17 November 2020

Got up to the smell of freshly baked bread, wafting upstairs from the kitchen. What a marvellous thing it is to have a bread machine! No work involved, you just get the lovely smell waking you every morning! I had breakfast, drank my tea and Mr Ango-Saxonist came down to have his coffee; I have to tell you that tea can’t compete with coffee in the olfactory sense. The smell of coffee triumphed over everything, even the smell of fresh bread.

We cleaned the house today between bouts of work. The dust got up my nose while I was dusting; it has a, you know, a really dusty smell? There’s no better word to describe it. The hoover smells dusty too, I swear. And the smell of bleach was overpowering in our tiny bathroom; it’ll take hours to go away. But the end result is that everything is spick and span and bright and fresh.

But Young Friend of the Elephants is just about to come home from school; we always have tea together. It’s time that I went and put the kettle on and put the cakes on the plates – she baked some fairy cakes on Sunday, and we’re going to finish them off today. I’m leaving you imagining their sweet smell. 

Over to you. 🙂

Writing Challenge:
Just a reminder that you can join in this writing challenge, based on Exercises in Style by French author Raymond Queneau, by writing an entry (post it in the comments section below or, if you prefer, on your own blog and link to my relevant post) using the prompt from Queneau each day.
More information in the original post here: 
⇒ Lockdown Diaries II, Day 6: With Raymond Queneau
Have fun!

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 11: Hesitation

I don’t really know where it happened… in a church, a dustbin, a charnel house? A bus perhaps? There were… but what were there, though? Eggs, carpets, radishes? Skeletons? Yes, but with their flesh still around them, and alive.

…

(Hesitation from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Sunday, 15 November 2020

Er… I’m not sure what I did all day long. I got up, that seems likely. And must have had breakfast. Or had I? And what did I do afterwards?… Er…  let me think. Perhaps I worked on my blog. Or not. I might have been doing something else. I definitely did something… didn’t I? But perhaps not. I mean God rested on the seventh day, and this is the seventh day, right? Or actually, is that supposed to be the Saturday, you know, the Sabbath… or what.

Let me just try and remember… Yes, I must have worked on my blog. And then… well… I did something else. Definitely. Something else, right? And later… er… in the afternoon, I’m pretty sure of that at least, that it was afternoon, I mean, we… er…. oh yes, we had high tea. Of course, I could have been just suffering from hallucinations? 

Over to you. 🙂

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 10: Exclamations!

Goodness! Twelve o’clock! Time for the bus! What a lot of people! What a lot of people! Aren’t we squashed! Bloody funny! That chap! What a face! And what a neck! Two foot long! At least!…

(Exclamations from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

Well, here’s my effort:

Saturday, 14 November 2020

Good heavens! It’s already past 5 o’clock! And I haven’t written my lockdown diary! When I promised people! Bloody hell! How did the time passed this fast?! Oh me! Oh my! How will I even come up with something to write at such short notice?! Impossible! Worse than impossible! 

I wasted my time all day! Well, I hasn’t actually wasted it as such but…! It’s 5 o’clock! And not a word written! And to top it, nothing happened all bloody day!!! There is literally nothing to write about! To hell with this goddamn lockdown!

Over to you. 🙂

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

 

Lockdown Diaries II, Day 9: Double Entry

Towards the middle of the day and at midday I happened to be on and got onto the platform and the balcony at the back of an S-line and  of a Contrescarpe-Champerret bus and passenger-transport vehicle which wsa packed and to all intents and purposes full. I saw and noticed a young man and an old adolescent who was rather ridiculous and pretty grotesque: thin neck and skinny windpipe, string and cord round his hat and headgear…

(Double Entry from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau)

And here’s my effort:

Friday, 13 November 2020

I woke up and opened my eyes but I was still sleepy and dozy, so I yawned, stretched and rubbed my eyes. Finally I sat up and climbed out of bed to get up and make a start to the day.  

I made myself breakfast which I then ate, eating breakfast being an important part of starting the day. Then I started the computer, that is, I woke it up, and the screen came on so that I could log in. I worked on things and performed various duties all morning. 

I took a break at lunchtime and I rested. I put on my waterproof footwear, that is, my walking boots and went outside for a walk in the nearby woods where I walked among the trees and on the paths. The ground was muddy and wet and squelching under my boots.

After lunch in the afternoon I performed some more tasks and duties before calling it a day when the sun went down and the sky became dark outside…

Over to you. 🙂

Recommended reading:
⇒ Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau