Book source ~ Kindle First

 

Professor Theo Cray is out doing sciency-stuff in Montana when the cops come knocking at his motel room door. Well, not knocking, more like knocking down. He has no idea what they think he’s done, but after several long hours and lots of weird questions they finally tell him he’s a suspect in a murder investigation and he’s more than surprised. And then upset because the person murdered is a former student. He starts feeling guilty for reasons that are weird, but understandable and these feelings lead him down a road he never imagined he’d travel – using his big science brain to solve a murder. Except, his application of science leads him to something so much bigger and more evil than even he could have predicted.

 

If you like science and murder mysteries then this is the book for you. There is a shitload of both in it. I’m not a science person. I’m not dumb, but a lot of certain sciences just go over my head and I end up with only a vague understanding and a headache for my trouble. This book is filled with Theo explaining science stuff and how he’s using what he knows to apply it to a serial killer, but somehow the author manages to mostly make sense to me. Excellent job! No, seriously. Ask any of my science instructors. They’ll tell you. Flashbacks to Chemistry make me shudder in horror and revulsion. Luckily, Biology wasn’t as terrible and there’s a lot of Biology in this book. I took off a bit for the massive amounts of science and some areas of slight ridiculousness, but overall it’s only a small deduction. This story kept me glued to the pages, wondering what on Earth Theo was going to discover next and if he’d survive the inevitable faceoff with the killer. Also, there’s a great buildup of suspense there towards the end. Yowzers. There’s even a bit of romance for Theo, but it’s mostly science, bodies, and trying to find the killer. I ended up liking this book way more than I thought I would. Great job!

I opened this book without much introduction, hoping to investigate the poems at least initially without a guide, and in fact I did not find any of them obscure or difficult to read; they are accessible and thoroughly enjoyable. ‘Digging’, the first poem in Heaney’s first published book of poems, is a powerful opening to a brilliant career. This first collection of 34 poems is generally of the highest quality, which is awe inspiring.

But I could not shake expectations shaped by a month spent reading Ted Hughes and the knowledge that Heaney is said to have found his own voice after reading Hughes. For better or worse, I found myself reading these poems with Ted Hughes in mind.

Both poets recall childhoods shaped by the natural world, both write of this in very direct, visual terms, both delight in finding evocative, highly original images. In Heaney, the waters tip over a waterfall “like villains dropped screaming to justice;” Aran island rushes “To throw wide arms of rock around a tide / That yielded with an ebb,...” Ted Hughes has many brilliant images to his credit; when I read either him or Heaney my immediate response is to be intimidated. For Heaney, by contrast, there is no question of his ability to rise to the challenge.

Both can be wholly unromantic about country life, with scant respect for the tender sensibilities of town folk. Both write with delight about hunting and fishing. Heaney writes as the favoured son of a farming family, managing the land for their living.

‘Prevention of cruelty’ talks cut ice in the town
Where they consider death unnatural,
But on well run farms pests have to be kept down.

[The Early Purges]

Ted Hughes writes as the working class poacher, trespassing on land that has been enclosed by its wealthy owners:

I saw
Country poverty raising a penny,
Filling a Sunday stewpot. You saw baby-eyed
Strangled innocents. I saw sacred
Ancient custom. ...
... my heritage, hard won concessions
From the hangings and the transportations
To live off the land.

[The Rabbit Catcher]

Heaney’s is not the voice of landed privilege, but he refers in his poems to a different oppressive heritage, evoking the 19th century potato famines in ‘At A Potato Digging’, and pointing the finger of blame in ‘For the Commander of the Eliza’:

Sir James, I understand, urged free relief,
For famine victims in the Westport Sector
And earned tart reprimand from good Whitehall.
Let natives prosper by their own exertions;
Who could not swim might go ahead and sink.

Interesting that Ted Hughes made peace with the landowners, not least their possession of fishing rights on the best rivers, and enjoyed becoming Poet Laureate, socialising with the royal family, while for the nationalist Heaney such compromise was never in prospect, even though he was shortlisted for the post of laureate in 1999. The horrible “Westminster” values described above in Heaney’s poem on the famine were of course revived by Thatcher, whom Ted Hughes admired.

Included in this collection are some intimate poems referring to Heaney’s marriage, in a very personal tone which is nevertheless somewhat conventional and light; Ted Hughes was far more passionate, reflected in his work on the poetry of Sylvia Plath while she lived and after as well as in his own personal poetry, especially in his Birthday Letters, though he published such private material reluctantly and late.

It is arguably an odd thing to base a review on such a comparison, especially as I seem to be comparing the entire collected work of Ted Hughes with Heaney’s very first publication. In fact, I am already turning over fresh alignments in Heaney's next volume. However, my reviews are always just my personal response to reading any book, and this was it. [Oh, and I notice that on this page Jayaprakash Satyamurthy has built his review on a comparison with Walcott.]

I opened this book without much introduction, hoping to investigate the poems at least initially without a guide, and in fact I did not find any of them obscure or difficult to read; they are accessible and thoroughly enjoyable. ‘Digging’, the first poem in Heaney’s first published book of poems, is a powerful opening to a brilliant career. This first collection of 34 poems is generally of the highest quality, which is awe inspiring.

But I could not shake expectations shaped by a month spent reading Ted Hughes and the knowledge that Heaney is said to have found his own voice after reading Hughes. For better or worse, I found myself reading these poems with Ted Hughes in mind.

Both poets recall childhoods shaped by the natural world, both write of this in very direct, visual terms, both delight in finding evocative, highly original images. In Heaney, the waters tip over a waterfall “like villains dropped screaming to justice;” Aran island rushes “To throw wide arms of rock around a tide / That yielded with an ebb,...” Ted Hughes has many brilliant images to his credit; when I read either him or Heaney my immediate response is to be intimidated. For Heaney, by contrast, there is no question of his ability to rise to the challenge.

Both can be wholly unromantic about country life, with scant respect for the tender sensibilities of town folk. Both write with delight about hunting and fishing. Heaney writes as the favoured son of a farming family, managing the land for their living.

‘Prevention of cruelty’ talks cut ice in the town
Where they consider death unnatural,
But on well run farms pests have to be kept down.

[The Early Purges]

Ted Hughes writes as the working class poacher, trespassing on land that has been enclosed by its wealthy owners:

I saw
Country poverty raising a penny,
Filling a Sunday stewpot. You saw baby-eyed
Strangled innocents. I saw sacred
Ancient custom. ...
... my heritage, hard won concessions
From the hangings and the transportations
To live off the land.

[The Rabbit Catcher]

Heaney’s is not the voice of landed privilege, but he refers in his poems to a different oppressive heritage, evoking the 19th century potato famines in ‘At A Potato Digging’, and pointing the finger of blame in ‘For the Commander of the Eliza’:

Sir James, I understand, urged free relief,
For famine victims in the Westport Sector
And earned tart reprimand from good Whitehall.
Let natives prosper by their own exertions;
Who could not swim might go ahead and sink.

Interesting that Ted Hughes made peace with the landowners, not least their possession of fishing rights on the best rivers, and enjoyed becoming Poet Laureate, socialising with the royal family, while for the nationalist Heaney such compromise was never in prospect, even though he was shortlisted for the post of laureate in 1999. The horrible “Westminster” values described above in Heaney’s poem on the famine were of course revived by Thatcher, whom Ted Hughes admired.

Included in this collection are some intimate poems referring to Heaney’s marriage, in a very personal tone which is nevertheless somewhat conventional and light; Ted Hughes was far more passionate, reflected in his work on the poetry of Sylvia Plath while she lived and after as well as in his own personal poetry, especially in his Birthday Letters, though he published such private material reluctantly and late.

It is arguably an odd thing to base a review on such a comparison, especially as I seem to be comparing the entire collected work of Ted Hughes with Heaney’s very first publication. In fact, I am already turning over fresh alignments in Heaney's next volume. However, my reviews are always just my personal response to reading any book, and this was it. [Oh, and I notice that on this page Jayaprakash Satyamurthy has built his review on a comparison with Walcott.]

Marie Grubbe: Seventeenth Century Interi...

In the nineteenth century the discoveries of Charles Darwin not only revolutionised science and introduced the idea of evolution into human thinking, they also changed literature inspiring authors to a new approach to fiction writing. One of the first in Northern Europe to break with Romantic narrative tradition and to begin telling stories in a naturalistic style that showed man as a beast driven by instincts and urges was Danish botanist and writer Jens Peter Jacobsen (»»» read my author’s portrait). After his successful literary debut with a short story, he published in 1876 the historical novel Marie Grubbe. A Lady of the Seventeenth Century (Fru Marie Grubbe. Interieurer fra det syttende Aarhundrede). It is loosely based on the true story of a Danish noblewoman who died in 1718.

 

Jens Peter Jacobsen introduces Marie Grubbe as a slim and delicate girl with luxuriant hair of dull gold strolling in the gardens of her father’s estate in Tjele in Jutland. She is fourteen years old, motherless and according to the housekeeper, who is also the mother of her illegitmate baby half-sister, she is stubborn and bad. When war with Sweden breaks out, her father takes Marie with him to Copenhagen wishing her to stay with her wealthy aunt there. In fact, the widowed aunt is well-connected with the Royal Court and men like Ulrik Frederik, the favourite illegitimate son of the King, frenquent her house. Marie, however, is a romanitc child and has a crush on the King’s brave half-brother who successfully defended the city against Swedish attack. By the age of seventeen Marie has turned into a pretty young woman with many courtiers and Ulrik Frederik is one of them. Since he is a handsome and very promising young man, Marie agrees to marry him although she loves him only “after a fashion”. After a quiet wedding they pass passably happy months together until the King calls Ulrik Frederik to arms against Spain and he gladly departs to prove himself in combat. Upon his return he is a different man. His violent behaviour, his heavy drinking and philandering repulse her, so she refuses herself to him. What follows are nearly ten years of constant fight that after many tribulations and interference of their families end in divorce after all. And Marie sets out on a journey to Paris with her brother-in-law and lover who leaves her as soon as he realises that she has used up all her money. Grudgingly she returns to live with her father on his estate in Tjele in 1773. After six years her father persuades her through different threats to marry Palle Dyre, a counsellor of justice to the King whom she despises. For ten years their lives are eventless except for “endless quarrelling and bickering, mutual sullenness and fault-finding”. Then the coachman Soren Sorensen Moller commonly known as Soren Overseer enters into her life. She is forty-six and he twenty-two years old…

 

The wild and headstrong Marie Grubbe who isn’t willing to content herself with being well provided for by just any suitable husband higher or equal in social status as her surroundings expect is sometimes called the Danish Madame Bovary, but having read both novels, I can make out only one similarity, namely the fact that the protagonists are women who driven by their longing for romantic love and happiness break social conventions. The plot isn’t particularly complex, the psychological depth, on the other hand, that Jens Peter Jacobsen lends his leading character is remarkable and outdoes even Gustave Flaubert in my opinion. In fact, much of the book’s charm lies in the skilful and meticulous depiction of the thoughts, emotions and unconscious urges of Marie Grubbe. Together with the precise and detailed illustration of scene, society and history it makes a gorgeous novel. To my great relief, Jens Peter Jacobsen’s writing style isn’t longwinded and flowery as that of many of his precursors and contemporaries which made the read very pleasant for me and amazingly modern too considering that the novel first appeared in 1876.

 

It goes without saying that the works of Jens Peter Jacobsen are all in the public domain by now although there may be newer translations that aren’t. Nonetheless, an English edition of Marie Grubbe can be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg for instance.

 

Marie Grubbe: Seventeenth Century Interiors (Dedalus European Classics) - Jens Peter Jacobsen,Mikka Haugaard