Tiny Candles in a Dark, Swirling World

Even if you insisted on finishing your novel, what for? Novels sit unpublished, or published but unsold, or sold but unread, or read but unreread, lonely on shelves and in drawers and under the legs of wobbly tables. They are like seashells on the beach. Not enough people marvel over them. They pick them up and put them down. […]

      Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it.

-Lemony Snicket

Books behave in a way not dissimilar to the gods, in my life at least. The instant I even suspect I might lose faith, a messenger (of usually odd and abstract sorts) is sent to bestow divine light and a transcendental sense of Higher Power upon my wretched and misguidedly sheepish soul.

A while ago, it was in the shape and form of marionettes…Oh yes, and automatons… First came Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret (that inspired my first blog)… Then, Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore…

And Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop (a purchase based entirely on my love of Nights at the Circus and very attractive book-binding courtesy of Virago Press)… While a revisit to the illustrative works of Sara Fanelli (who warrants something of an infatuation) led me to Emma Rose’s translation of Collodi's Pinocchio for the Walker Classics range… Hereafter, it was Joanne Owen’s Puppet Master (although here I can hardly feign surprise at the subject matter!)…

But believe me when I tell you, they find me in theme, and in secret longings, and seek me out…

And when it is not the books themselves, it is the writer speaking on their behalf, reminding me I may be ill-advised in my passion but surely not Wrong…
     Or, at least, not alone.

And reading Lemony Snicket’s address to writers was like some god of all things Book throwing a playful pebble into a puddle, and a veritable force in a teacup it turned out to be.

        What was designed as a whimsical ‘deterrent’ to fledgling authors – determined as we are to support a dying and irrelevant art – became not only a mission statement for me (as I’m sure many others), but something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Really, such an address on the art of storytelling lies at the heart of my blog. Some people build shrines out of red candles lit on Spanish mountain tops, or big green trees and fairy lights and miniature barns with synthetic straw. I build mine out of my small space in Google. And while the book-makers and writers and illustrators I worship might barely know of my existence, I pray that these affections are not lost in the greater cosmic pool. I build these shrines because I remember how close Tinker Bell came to the deathly knoll, and I want to scream from rooftops and bell towers and precariously-strung scaffoldings,

‘I BELIEVE IN IMAGINATION!’ (Very loudly.)

And as if this is not sufficient, as if Lemony Snicket’s words are not plucky enough, it is not even a day and I have stumbled on a shoe-box of children’s books outside a mega-Spar, selling for a rand or two or three a-piece.

The Girl Who Would Rather Climb Trees

by Miriam Schlein

pictures by Judith Gwyn Brown.

Staple-bound and easily undetectable. But here I am, with just enough money in my small wallet for such a purchase, with a mint plant thrown in to sweeten the deal. (Simple explanation: the shoe-box bookstore extended to accommodate a makeshift-nursery.)

Published in 1975, and by the same author of Metric – The Modern Way to Measure, it tells the equally modern story of Melissa who “you could say” was in fact “a lot of different Melissas.” From “Melissa the reader” to “Melissa the bird-watcher,” “the puzzle-doer” and “the ballplayer,” there isn’t much Melissa can’t do... Until her mother and her grandmother and her mother’s best friend present her with a doll in a carriage. Deciding that there is not much to do with a doll, other than to carry it from one room to another in “the correct way,” Melissa-the-all-rounder finally wheels the doll into her room before “tiptoeing out.”

        “Shhh […] Dolly’s asleep,” she whispers to her grandmother, her mother, and her mother’s best friend, before going outside “to have some fun” and climb “three trees in a row.”

Doing exactly what a picture book ought to - with a story simply told to hit all the right notes, accompanied by pictures that leave us with no choice but to know and love Melissa-the-all-rounder - I am dumbfounded. The odds of chancing upon the other book by the author of Metric-The Modern Way to Measure (and to take it home by the kind of chunk-change that even Coca Cola would discredit) feels not unlike changing water into wine with a little help from my dad.

Similarly, Brown’s Café in Humansdorp (a great haunt for chancing-upons) relinquished Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales as retold by Alison Lurie, and illustrated by Margot Tomes. Apparently, the Juvenile Section of the Port Elizabeth Library no longer wanted it. This was intimated by the faint green (and somewhat out-modish) library stamp. (I meanwhile and momentarily imagined a reckless corner in the public library where the books once childishly dog-eared their weaker peers…)

And who would not want a book that rescues women in fairy tales from the fate of those ‘heroines’ who ought to be “persecuted by wicked stepmothers, eaten by wolves, or [if nothing else!] fall asleep for a hundred years” while the ‘heroes’ “seem to have all the interesting adventures…” ? Lurie salvages Clever Gretchen, the most-wise Manka, the lucky and brave Elena (thwarting, as she does, my most beloved villain, Baba Yaga), and wide-awake Kate Crackernuts (in a subtle Scottish twist on “The Twelve Dancing Princesss”). And while part of me feels ashamed that any Juvenile Section should lose her, as it goes, their loss is my gain and treasure.

Lemony Snicket is right. Not nearly enough people marvel over them.

But I marvel, and promise not only to reread, but to marvel again with each reread. I promise never to fall out love.

(And if I may please borrow your words, Lemony Snicket…)

It is against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, that these tiny candles seek me out in this dark, swirling world.

        I count myself one of the lucky few, to be in the right place to hold them.

(Follow the link for full 'pep talk' by that brazen Snicket.)



The Case of a Good Book, in the Case of Laetitia Maklouf's "The Virgin Gardener"

There are books that hold literary merit, that leave the mind notoriously ponder-some. They go on to make for bohemian-inspired (and still ponder-some) conversations over the umpteenth glass of wine, between bored nibbles from a generous cheese spread (for the non-lactose-intolerant, of course). These are Great Books.

      A good book, I think, is a slightly different cultivar. It might never make it to the dinner table or be the cause of some or other betwixt expression. And while we’re on the subject, it is very unlikely to sacrifice its heroine’s tragically pretty-but-proud head to an oncoming train.

The good book is more akin to that strange auntie with the interminable warm smile (the kind that makes her seem a little loopy, let’s be honest). Cynicism being the new ‘cool’ (‘kewl’…?) since word got out that smoking kills, we try to resist her strange brand of charm. We arm ourselves with the strategic and artful yawn, not to mention a set of opposable thumbs ready to strike at our cell phone’s keypad.

     And no, we can’t possibly stay for a pot of tea, you daft bat!

     But our resistance is short-lived as that first sip of lovingly steeped, fragrant tea confirms that, yup, no doubt about it…what we do know is very little.

Well, Laetitia Maklouf is that daft, batty aunt (albeit in an uncharacteristically alluring package) and her book, The Virgin Gardener, is as fragrant and lovely a pot of tea as I’ve ever chanced upon.

     And to think it all started with a virgin-esque flirtation of my own…

Demurely making eyes at me from the gardening section of Fogarty’s Bookshop, there was the author sitting sweet as a posy in a pair of cocktail-umbrella-pink suede boots (entering the ‘shabby-chic’ stage of their shoe-lives), surrounded by potted plants, twine, and a floral hand-trowel. Unlike your usual gardening-book affair, there were no pristine lawns in sight, nor was she framed by one of those extensive vegetable gardens (you know the kind… the kind that looks like it could single-handedly supply the local greengrocer.)

       Instead, this smiling gardener was off-set only by a climb of concrete steps and promising “Inspiration for the first-time gardener.” Turning to the blurb at the back presented further intrigue with a pair of army-green gumboots (and the sort that have seen some genuine soil-action, no less, not those plaid yummy-mummy ones!) befriended by some (again) undeniably pink, patent leather peep-toes. This time, the book assured it would show me “how to get intimate with plants and sex up [my] living space.”

     Curiouser and curiouser.

     I’m a fan of the pretty and the quirky, so let’s just say that by this point Maklouf and her team at Bloomsbury Publishing were beginning to ‘ding ding ding’ like three cherries in a line-up.

    
But the real bait was this one single and simple promise that I will be forever grateful for: Maklouf's promise to offer the gift of gardening “without the complicated jargon and off-putting diagrams.” And I thank her most because –as is so often emphatically NOT the case –this was a promise made and kept.

I could pretend that such a promise would underestimate (or worse, that dreaded passive-aggressive verb: patronise!) me. But this would be a big fat lie. In fact, I’ll admit it, gardening can be a little scary, and the nursery is really just a place for people who know what they’re doing to show-off with a vast plethora of stuff that is vaguely familiar but really quite incomprehensible to me.

       (Disclaimer: I know this is unfair to nurseries, and that there are many out there representing the life’s work of knowledgeable people who well-and-truly want to share it so that we can all come to know the pleasures of gardening – which feels not unlike world peace. In my defence, the fear of a choice of four different potting soils is not a rational one.)

But just like many others, I was once enchanted by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, where the sour-faced and recently orphaned Mary discovers a magical world within the walls of a hidden and neglected garden. Alright, so I didn’t have a brooding but ultimately very kind uncle/benefactor, or a pseudo-crippled cousin whom no one liked because he was a lonely but selfish boy or – now that you mention it – a cheery, heath-wandering ragamuffin prone to fancy-free banter with an inquisitive red-breasted robin…
      But didn’t I, too, deserve my very own patch of earth in which to watch little green things spring up as if to say ‘peekaboo’?

And something about this book seemed to agree with me, nodding enthusiastically Yes, yes, you do.

Upon a closer inspection, it was also apparently okay to want these things even if I didn’t remotely possess a space one could call a ‘garden’ – or, at least not unless one was liberally experimenting with the word in the broadest metaphorical sense. Contrariwise, Maklouf was revealed by the bio as “a sassy girl-about-town and self-confessed plant-murderer who fell in love with plants a few years ago […] and dreams of having a garden of her own one day.” This instantly made hers, in my (im)modest opinion, one of the most refreshing gardening books around.

     It’s simple really. No matter where you live and how you live, no matter the size of your window-ledge or patch of outwardly-inclined land, The Virgin Gardener wholeheartedly confirms that you can grow your tomato and eat it.

"One perfect mouthful, one slow squeeze...one sweet explosion inside the mouth. I know everyone says it, but a tomato tastes even better if it's home-grown"

- The Virgin Gardener

By way of an introduction, the author tells of her early twenties and notions of “the Outside” at the time, as “what [she] ventured through on [her] way somewhere, usually to a party after dark.” With no particular interest in green spaces, it was only when her mother gave her a packet of seeds that Maklouf – “to alleviate the boredom of [her] office job”- planted them and became Forever After a changed woman. So changed in fact, that she quit her job the second her seedlings sprouted and enrolled on a horticultural course at the Chelsea Physics Garden in London, “instantly and irretrievably hooked on gardening.”

       However, while those around her had gardens of varying (and very literal) description, Maklouf had none, and set about researching what she would have to do in order to “create the garden [she] was learning about and dreaming of: cool, damp, ferny glades; walkways heaving with scented roses; luscious banks of white gladioli […] and hidden rockeries with fuzzy, moss-covered stones.” But it wasn’t long and the initial jargon and “sheer volume of information” had already “overwhelmed her.”

     Although my imagined ‘garden’ (if you’ll forgive this small misrepresentation) heaves with the scent of pots of flourishing thyme, I nonetheless shared in Maklouf’s dilemma. I had browsed through my grandmother’s gardening books and this was heavy-weight business. An officious-looking kit to test for alkaline/acidic soil so you would know to whether to buy ericaceous compost or lime… Come again? How to transform your garden into a hexagon…? Oh dear. And a great deal about all the awful things that can attack, eat, invade, and overcome your fresh attempt at a greener lifestyle.

So of course I was beyond delighted to turn the page with the heading, “How to grow plants,” and discover that Maklouf was swooning over-and-on-to the next point without any further hesitation. What had come to represent a special brand of alchemy for me was suddenly (and somewhat brazenly it seemed at first) reduced to three basic principles:

1) Find out where your plant originates (I heart you, Google!), and use a little bit of your imagination

2) Find out the hardiness of the plant. (Again here, Maklouf recommends making ample use of that clever and instinctive imagination.)

3) And I’m not even going to bother paraphrasing on this one: “Supply the plant with the following:

   Water Light Nutrients”

“In fact,” she confides, “even if you don’t do 1 and 2, just do this, and your plant will grow.”

The perfect wedding gift, and an afternoon dalliance, respectively...

And when the book does occasionally get a little on the technical side, our gardening guide is never anything if not unfailingly encouraging, reminding the reader that “plants want to grow, and [perhaps in spite of us] most of them will find a way.” “They do not have inhibitions or whimsical insecurities. They are not callous or contrary. Unlike us, they do not suffer from bad hair days or sulkiness. All they care about is survival and sex.” So while I personally like to suspect my baby basils of being absurdly comforted to see me when I come to say ‘hello’, such bouts of flagrant myth-dispelling nevertheless thrill me!

      Thrill-seeking aside though, and most rewarding in the end, is that The Virgin Gardener has become a read I want to return to time and time again.

On a practical level, the book achieves its objective of “essentially a plant ‘cookbook’ of easy and accessible projects for virgin gardeners.” On an affective level though, it is not only that her tips and suggestions are “easy, inexpensive and perfect for virgins: the sort of ideas that would have seduced [a prior Maklouf herself] into an afternoon with plants.”

Hanging jam jars... (apparently it helps if you are addicted to raspberry jam!)

They seduce because, after what has really felt like countless afternoons spent with its author, I will never think of a sweetly charming violet or sexy gooseberry the same. And when my latest addition – a beautiful, young lime tree –hopefully grows to be strong and fruitful one day and produces her first limes, I will honour the original virgin gardener and “always drink [my] gin and tonic sitting next to the tree that gave [me] that lovely slice.”

Plainly, The Virgin Gardener by Laetitia Maklouf is a joy in itself, and one that has only made possible for me one small and precious joy after the other. Like The Secret Garden has continued to do after countless and age-irrelevant reads, Maklouf has woven an utterly enchanting spell and - if you read between the lines – declared hers an unequivocally and decadently Good Book.

A Portrait of Mr Pug in Maklouf's Metaphorical Garden