Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Archives for July 2010

Philip Pullman on Distraction and the Writing Life

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Philip Pullman

What I would like most is a spare month. I feel bad about turning down interview requests and invitations from old friends. But I have got to say no, otherwise I would never write another book. “It’s like sailing an oil tanker and navigating your way across the ocean. When someone says, “Can you come and talk about your book?” you have to stop the engine three days before you have to bring it into the harbor. And that’s what people don’t realize. They say the signing or dinner is only for an hour, but what they don’t realize is that when I get back on board the engines are cold and it takes hours nad days to bring it back on course because it has drifted.
Actually, I am driving a million tonner tanker. 

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Philip Pullman on Distraction and the Writing Life

By

Philip Pullman
 
What I would like most is a spare month. I feel bad about turning down interview requests and invitations from old friends. But I have got to say no, otherwise I would never write another book. “It’s like sailing an oil tanker and navigating your way across the ocean. When someone says, “Can you come and talk about your book?” you have to stop the engine three days before you have to bring it into the harbor. And that’s what people don’t realize. They say the signing or dinner is only for an hour, but what they don’t realize is that when I get back on board the engines are cold and it takes hours and days to bring it back on course because it has drifted.
Actually, I am driving a million tonner tanker. 
 

 

Surya Namaskar: A complete Yoga exercise, stretching almost every muscle

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Surya Namaskar: A complete Yoga exercise, stretching almost every muscle

My father took a yoga class in his late 50ies, and became absolutely obsessed with it. He continued practising until he was 89, when he died. He taught me this exercise, Surya Namaskar, which is one of the most iconic and famous yoga exercises. You see people practising it at dawn throughout the countryside, for instance, during a train journey.

It is meant to be a complete exercise, and to stretch every muscle in the body. 12 repetitions in a row are recommended as a minimum, 108 at an ideal.

My father told me to build up to it. I did not see why  I should, and did 108 the first day I learnt it, aged 12, taking much of the day. The next day I was so stiff I could hardly walk.

I used to be able to do 12 in my twenties without any trouble. Now I struggle with a few.

However, it is very time efficient, as just a few reps do help to make you feel stretched and invigorated!!

 

The Good Books Blog ranked #27 among UK literature blogs

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I was pleased to discover that this blog is ranked #27 among UK literary blogs, and 47 among UK culture blogs. See list below.

If you like, do check out my other blog, http://wanderingbetweentwoworlds.blogspot.com/ which is ranked 
#20 among UK culture blogs!!

Top 30 UK literature blogs

My thanks to Wikio for giving me this preview of the latest literary blog rankings:

1 Charlie’s Diary (Ent.)
2 Dovegreyreader scribbles (+1)
3 A Don’s Life – Times Online WBLG (-2)
4 Stuck In A Book (+10)
5 Cornflower Books (-1)
6 Pepys’ Diary (-4)
7 Other Stories (-2)
8 Elizabeth Baines (-2)
9 Booktwo.org (-1)
10 The BookDepository.uk news feed (+5)
11 Asylum (-2)
12 Savidge Reads (+27)
13 Harriet Devine’s Blog (-6)
14 My Favourite Books (-4)
15 Ben’s Bookcase (-2)
16 Peter Stothard – Times Online WBLG (+2)
17 Baroque in Hackney (+25)
18 BubbleCow (-7)
19 John Baker’s Blog (-7)
20 Vulpes Libris (-4)
21 Eve’s Alexandria (-4)
22 A Common Reader . . . (+31)
23 Books, Mud and Compost (-4)
24 NextRead (-4)
25 . A Book every Six Days . (+24)
26 Bookshelf (-5)
27 THE BOOKS BLOG (Ent.)
28 The Book Smugglers (-4)
29 Lizzy’s Literary Life (+15)
30 Bart’s Bookshelf (-8)

Ranking by Wikio
We’re in good company!
02 July 2010 in Miscellaneous | Per

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In which Irene discovers the power of prayer

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Irene, 11, is totally awed by the power of prayer.

She was totally addicted to her beloved iPod touch, listening to books on it, emailing, playing games, sleeping with a story playing, waking to its alarm. It was becoming her life. What I objected to were the games.

I asked my prayer group, Anne, Juliet, Helen, and Bea  to pray about this addiction.

And, “oddly” in 6 days, this treasure was lost.

Irene snuggled up to me & asked, “Mum, do you think that if you all hadn’t prayed, I would have lost it?”

“Yes!” I said. She sighed!

Irene, this morning, sadly, “You know, mum, God isn’t very logical!” Then she realized that would be suggesting that she has a better mind than God (who is one person definitely and undeniably smarter than my curly-headed sweetie) said, “Oh!” stopped herself, and was sad, silent and thoughtful!

The Gift of an English Country Idyll.

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The Gift of an English Country Idyll.

 I have thoroughly enjoyed the 5 years we have lived in the English countryside, in Garsington. One of my favourite novels (if it can be called a novel) Naipaul’s “The Enigma of Arrival” deals with a similar idyll. 

“Naipaul’s 19th book yields its pleasures slowly. Its plot is essentially the passage of ten years, during which the writer lives in a cottage on the grounds of a Victorian-Edwardian manor in a Wiltshire valley within easy walking distance of Stonehenge and Salisbury Plain. 
What engages, indeed mesmerizes, his attention is his sojourn in rural England, “this gift of the second life in Wiltshire, the second, happier childhood as it were, the second arrival (but with an adult’s perception) at a knowledge of natural things, together with the fulfillment of the child’s dream of the safe house in the wood.”


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The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul

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The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul

The Enigma of Arrival by De Chirico

The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul

I love Naipaul’s elegaic style in his nostalgic book, overwrought with sadness, melancholy and exquisite prose
.

Does one ever really arrive in a population with centuries old indigenous traditions? Naipaul explores the Enigma of Arrival. While wealth and success can buy you a form of arrival– a beautiful house in a beautiful part  of the country, interviews, “friends”, literary acceptance, prizes, praise and adulation–there is another form of arrival which proves more elusive. Arriving as in being accepted for who one is. When one is different, radically different, this kind of acceptance requires a lot of explaining, and mutual adjustments and understanding, and so may prove more elusive. You are not accepted as one of them precisely because you are not one of them, and never will be. (And the sooner one comes to terms with this fact, the better.)

His sad, elegaic prose is beautiful and luscious.

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The peace of domesticity

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Well, today was our housework morning. We really enjoyed sorting through and throwing out papers, getting rid of extra clothes and books, and putting everything in its right place. Hopefully, since we do this every week, and have for the last two years, we will eventually get to a place in which there is a place for everything, and everything is in its place.

It is so satisfying, peaceful and calming to have everything organized, orderly, and in its right place.

We are always busy, with loads of things to do, so we use the fact that the cleaning lady comes once a week as an excuse to take a day to put everything away and get rid of some things. I don’t know what I would do without her. As a doctor friend of mine was saying to me, her cleaner would be the last thing which would go!!