[‘Le Printemps’ 1886), Monet, which is up the road in the Fitzwilliam]
I studied The Cherry Orchard for ‘A’ level Russian, and encountered the revolutionary concept of the пауза or pause. Revolutionary because up until then, it was unheard of to have silence on the stage. You were supposed to have sound and fury and slapstick and melodrama and laughter. So when Chekhov put ‘pause’ in the stage directions and no-one spoke, it blew a few minds.
[‘The Merchant’s Wife’ (1918), Boris Kustodiev]
I immediately liked the idea of a moment of silence, an ellipsis, and the fact that the audience can fill it any way they like. It’s never empty. It’s just an illusion of inaction, as one critic wrote. It’s usually loaded, a sign of no-one listening to other people and everyone talking over each other (also a shock to theatre-goers) then suddenly stopping. It can be a pause for breath, for thought, for pouring tea from the samovar, or for unacknowledged undercurrents of sadness and tragedy.
I need a little pause. I’ve slightly over-committed myself and have rediscovered how much I dislike sitting and working on a screen for most of the day. I love writing this newsletter, but it does take time. It doesn’t just flow from my tippety-tappety fingers onto the screen.
[possibly my favourite artists’ book: ‘La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France’ (1913), Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars]
So I shall fulfil my obligations, but have vowed never again to write (in this case co-write) an academic article for a journal (I hate footnotes with a passion). Instead, I am looking forward to experimenting with book forms and contents, and wondering how the concept of ‘artists’ books’ can be explained clearly, succinctly, and in a way which piques interest instead of bafflement. I’m doing an excellent Book Arts course at City Lit, and I use the London Centre for Book Arts where, by the way, should you happen to be in the area, there is a lovely exhibition of artists’ books by the AB Tuesday group. Go, go, go.
[‘Forever Knitting Socks’]
I was there yesterday playing with ideas for my socks and Proust books - not for the same book, although I do love the line in the rather over-wrought Sodome et Gommorhe in which the super-hyper-ultra sensitive narrator/Marcel reports that Cottard has said, “que j’étais trop émotif et que j’aurais eu besoin de calmants et de faire de tricot”/“that I was too emotional and that I needed sedatives and to do some knitting”. It’s one of the funniest lines in the whole work. I like to picture Proust sitting in his bed, half-stoned and knitting the longest sock ever with multiple patterns and repeats, and stitches like punctuation marks, and lots of pink in it.
[Rouen Cathedral by Monet]
There’s the Monet biography to finish (slow-going, Monet would have painted a hundred canvases in the time it’s taking me). I’m onto the series - haystacks, poplars, Rouen cathedral - which all predate the water lilies, and I’m thinking about multiples, editions, variations on a theme. Monet’s series were ground-breaking, and way ahead of Warhol and his flowers. I remember the first time I saw five of the Rouen paintings together in the Jeu de Paume (before the Musée 'd’Orsay opened). I was fourteen, on a school exchange visit, and was completely astonished by them, maybe even stunned into silence as I tried to articulate to myself why I found them so brilliant. As someone who* knits series of socks, makes series of jams in summer, sews a series of Factory dresses, even wrote a whole series of children’s books, I adore a good bit of repetition with a twist.
*‘as someone who…’ is my least favourite opening in a letter to a newspaper editor, so I’m laughing at myself
[Paris (1964), the poster above my desk]
And there’s Swedish (hej!), the new baking book by Matt Adlard (tested by Phoebe who has made the brownies and the cheesecake, both ridiculously delicious), a new coat to hem and wear, and the excitement generated by the announcement that there will be four Beatles films, the perfect series, telling the story from each Beatle’s point of view - offset by the fact that I have to wait until 2027 to see them.
[knitted by three Swedish fans, 1964]
But as Phoebe has said this is what we shall be wearing to the premieres (we wish), I’ve got plenty of time to get knitting. We’ve got the J and P covered, but sadly Simon and Cian won’t be in there with us.
Rereading what I’ve just written, I’m amused to see that I started out needing a pause, then managed to fill the silence. Time to press the restart button.
Happy Sunday!
I’m not surprised you need to edit your life a little bit; I’m amazed at how much you achieve in the same 7 days as everyone else!
Time for a spell in goblin mode? I shall re read your newsletters in the meantime and look forward to your return on Sunday mornings.