The eyes were too deeply set in their pockets of shadow to be seen (Sourdust's eyes)

Re-reading the Gormenghast trilogy is a daily joy.

A joy that will last for a while. In more ways than one! The version I have compiles Mervyn Peake's three masterpieces into one volume of 1023 pages. That's a lot of joy!

This is the third time I've read these books.

Way, way back, when I was a teenager, I bought the three books as a boxed set, using a book voucher from a Christmas gift.

Second outing was about ten years later, as a young man at university (pre SWMBO and children). Improbably, it was a set text in one of my papers; writing an exam essay on it in the Old Arts Building at Auckland University is a very vivid memory. I wish I had a copy of that essay!

Almost 40 years later, here I am for the third time. 

I had an urge to reread it and found this copy at The Piggery in Whangarei.

Aged nicely, its pages are framed by a variety of browns, the heft of the book is also impressive. Even the fact that the binding is very delicate is oddly appropriate (pages 1 to 28 have already liberated themselves).

The experience of luxuriating in Peake's gothic castle and his descriptions of the vast grotesque cast of characters is superb. I am finding myself exercising mindfulness to a deep degree to understand and visualise everything Peake is communicating.

Speaking of the characters: I need to keep a record of them, if only to remember their glorious names.

• Rottcodd - the curator of the Hall of Bright Carvings
• Mr Flay - the Earl's butler
• Abiatha Swelter - the chief chef
• Steerpike - one of Swelter's kitchen hands
• The Grey Scrubbers - they scrub the kitchen walls
• Doctor Alfred Prunesquallor 
• Irma Prunesquallor - his sister
• Pellet - their servant
• Lady Gertrude, the seventy-seventh Countess of Groan
• Lord Sepulchrave - the seventy-seventh Earl of Groan
• Titus Groan - their baby son, just arrived
• Fuchsia Groan - their 15 year old daughter
• Nannie Slagg
• Sourdust - the old librarian and advisor to Lord Groan
• Keda - the wet nurse for Titus
• Pentecost - the head gardener
• Shrattle - of the armoury
• Springers, Wrattle, Spurter - kitchen boys
• Cora and Clarice - Sepulchrave's sisters (and twins)

Perhaps, I say, perhaps, you can now see why I needed to write them all down.

Love and peace - Wozza

If I could save time in a bottle (Jim Croce)

Photo by Corey Blaz on Unsplash

Taking stock.

I gave myself two goals at the start of this year: 

1) Continuously work on a couple of post for each blog in advance, so that my writing improved (more drafting = more thinking = better writing).

2) Read 50 books in 52 weeks so that my reading discipline would improve (I love books but eeking out time to read has been an issue). 

Your focus determines your reality (Qui Gon-Jinn). 

These goals have been in the front of each blogging/reading week and that's lead to a certain impact on my psyche.


Not a bad thing (relentless positivity) but the clock was ticking all year and I did feel the pressure at times.

Time is always the issue. I knew it would be.

'Eeking' was the right word to use up there. Time snatched before school, after dinner, during found moments. Getting a balance has been tough!

Apart from 'me' time (that includes dancing to music time), there's relationship time, school work time (huge chunk of the week), making and drinking tea time, chore time, walking the dog time, project time (horse yards sort of stuff), eating meal time, socialising with colleagues time...you get the idea.

So, how did I do?

Hmmm. Not so well with the first. Although I still managed (for the most part) to maintain the post a day regime, I only managed to keep ahead of the publishing date with three blogs, but Wozza's Place and Baggy Trousers posts were often started the night before and second draft before posting in the morning. Not good enough!

But, there was great success with the second goal.

Week 47 is just getting underway. In the last month I've read two books and started another two. 

Book 46: Submission (Michel Houellebecq) from The Piggery (Whangarei). I really enjoy reading books in translation - they provide a great edginess. Houellebecq can be frightening. If you've never read him try this one for openers.

Book 47: The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (L. Frank Baum) $2 from a Hospice shop in Waipu. Yes, the inspiration for the movie - great little book in its own right. 

Book 48: Platform (Michel Houellebecq) also from The Piggery (Whangarei). An exercise in examining a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist.

Book 49: Thank You For Being Late (Thomas L. Friedman) was mentioned at a conference earlier in the year and I noted the title, bought it online from Mighty Ape. Great - up there with Velocity (high praise indeed).

Book 50 (and onwards 51 -52): As I've mentioned previously - I want to finish the year (and this exercise) by re-reading the Gormenghast trilogy (Mervyn Peake).

Love and peace - Wozza

They danced a tango up and down until the yellow dwarf went brown (Mervyn Peake)

Rereading books is not really a thing for me. I can only think of one that I've read three times - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as my readers already know.

Many years ago, when we left NZ to live in England for a spell, I sold a lot of stuff - books, records, CDs. From time to time I have regrets about that - when I go to find an album I know I own, DOH! or a book that should be on my shelves, DOH!!

The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake was something I read back in the late seventies for pleasure, and then for study at Auckland University.

This week I read his A Book Of Nonsense (week 22 book 24) and had an urge to reread Titus Groan, and Gormenghast (and to complete the set Titus Alone - maybe I'd get the gist of the third book now).

I have a feeling that in this post-truth-Trump-Brexit world the coiled malevolence of the characters would make a lot of sense right now.

The lead up to week 22 was taken up by book 25 - Maestra (L.S. Hinton) - a potboiler about art swindles and femme fatales; appropriately bought cheap from the Warehouse. I'd started, so I had to finish.

Now tackling Philip Roth's The Humbling (book 26). Jacket says it's a 'thoughtful meditation about life and increasingly death'. Should be fun.

Love and peace - Wozza