Tag Archives: books

Claim to the Country

Posted on by January 15, 2020

June 2010

Claim-to-the-CountryA few years ago I was asked to illustrate Bushman folklore as an extension to my astronomy activities. I soon discovered that trying to imitate Bushman drawings and paintings was not as easy as one might think.My son’s advice was that I slaughter an animal and go searching for just the right stick to dip in its blood. From further research I also found out that I would have to smoke certain substances and do foot stomping around a fire in order to reach a trance-like state and then only if I had been ordained as a shaman I would be able to project my visions of enlightenment on a suitable rock face.

I decided to approach the task with a digital camera, pencil sketches, colour kokis and computer editing. My first line of reference was a paper published by A.Slotegraaf (ASSA) and W.P.Koorts(SAAO) in MNASSA 65(7&8) 104 on the Xam astronomical references in G R von Wielligh’s Boesman-Stories.

During further research names like Wilhelm Bleek, Lucy Lloyd, David Lewis-Williams, and Pippa Skotnes became familiar. However I only became aware that a magnificent book, Claim to the Country by Pippa Skotnes had been launched in 2007 while on a visit to our local library where it was being displayed on the “New in the Library” shelf.
I booked it at once. My first impression of the book was its weight which was quite a factor as that day I had decided to walk to the library. Weight bearing exercise is good, I kept telling myself all the way home.
I looked at the cover. Claim to the Country -The archive of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd. I immediately sensed that this book was something most precious and it felt as though I needed permission to read it. I wondered whether the library staff had not mistakenly put this book in the lending library instead of in the reference section.
In her introduction Pippa Skotnes writes:

“This book is the result of a twenty-year love affair with the archive. My intention has been to publish and index the major part of the archive. I have tried to present  the reader with something of the experience of being in the archive, of the physical presence of the documents, the shape of the pages, the colour and texture of their surfaces, the signs of use and age and fragility and the sheer volume of material it contains. To reveal how knowledge and understanding is never something that can be achieved alone, or just through one medium.To help better understand what it means for all of us that the people who lived in southern Africa long before any newer arrivals settled in the country, no longer survive through their language or culture or intellectual traditions. This book also tries to be a beautiful book.”

I must agree that this book is the one of the most beautiful academic books I have seen. Although I was able to borrow the copy from our library again and again, I decided to spare the heartache if I ever  had to see one page damaged and so Claim to the Country was placed number one on my wish list that Xmas.

(When you’re good your wishes come true – Claim to the Counrty now has its rightful place on my bookshelf!)

Courage and Rice

Posted on by May 16, 2015

June 2010
When far away is closer to home than one thinks…..

courage-and-rice   David-Grier   David-Grier--Great-Wall
I have two special friends in Taiwan, who over the years, have painted a vivid picture of their surroundings via regular emails. Both are celebrating their birthdays this week and celebrations have included a trip to Taipei, I decided to pay a visit to the library’s travel section. The book I was looking for, was not available but another caught my eye.
Every now and then, I discover a book that for some reason blows my mind. The inscription on the spine was not easy to read for a spectacle in-betweener (I’m at the now-I-need-them, then-I-don’t stage) but this book in larger format than its neighbours and  vivid  red dust jacket was calling for closer inspection. I felt its weight, saw the minimalistic design and as I gently brushed my hand over the front cover I read:

courage and rice
my journey along the great wall of China
david grier. Continue reading →

Mao’s Last Dancer

Posted on by June 17, 2014

22 Aug 2010
Mao's-Last-DancerMost days the post in my postbox is just the predictable, boring, paper-wasting stuff with occasionally something a bit more exciting like MNASSA or the Betty’s Bay Buzz but once in a blue moon there is the extremely rare, written letter or postcard but the biggest thrill is that little white slip that reads: collect at counter….. While waiting in the long queue I dream of all the possibilities.
One day out of the blue a parcel arrived from a Mr Andrew from Taiwan. I could not wait to see what was inside. I turned the first pages of a brand new book and my routine changed dramatically. By eight every evening I was tucked in bed engrossed in  the fascinating storie of a young Chinese peasant boy’s determination to become one of the world’s best dancers. Li Cunxin was to become Mao’s Last Dancer. Continue reading →

War and Peace

Posted on by June 17, 2014

22 Apr 2010

Leo-Tolstoy   Countess-Tolstoy   Tolstoy-Family
Just about everyone has had a copy of War and Peace on their bookshelf at some or other time but if many have read it cover to cover is another matter. During my senior school years it was required of us to have read forty literary works. A visiting inspector would pick students at random to assess their standard of literacy and pose questions to determine whether they had actually read the books. I am convinced that all that inspector stuff was a bluff because I was never singled out to give account of my “literary accomplishments” which boasted War and Peace at the top of my list. Come to think of it I was so petrified of the Inspector that I never questioned anyone who had gone through interrogation for fear of drawing attention to the fact that I had been overlooked.

I had read a number of books on my list but getting through forty was a tall order. As I compiled my list of books at the local library I stumbled upon War and Peace – more than a thousand pages in very small print and was convinced that no school inspector would have read all of that . A very safe choice, I thought !

After leaving school, I was confronted by War and Peace again. Tolstoy was a trend. To have his works on your bookshelf provided a subtle hint of probable superior intelligence. Today one would call it being cool. I bought a copy of War and Peace and placed it alongside the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, however, I still had a lot of living to do at the same time. War and Peace was carted along on some excursions but mainly it gathered dust.

Now I have decided to attempt the marathon reading . I worked out that if I read just ten or so pages per day, I could finish the book in three or so months. The small print is not such a deterrent anymore as I have to wear reading glasses anyway.
A few chapters into the book I can now understand why I hardly understood a word of what Tolstoy was trying to say.At sixteen, I was just too young and inexperienced to appreciate his genius.

Coincidentally a good friend of mine told me about the The Last Station. In this movie, fact and fiction combine to portray the last  years of Leo Tolstoy’s life, which were quite tumultuous to say the least. Christopher Plummer plays the role of Leo Tolstoy and Helen Mirren, his wife Sofya Andreyevna.

Serena Ingamells who has been an avid reader of Tolstoy has kindly contributed the following:

The Last Station

The film, “The Last Station”, gives a special insight into the complexities of Leo Tolstoy’s character and perhaps a better understanding of a man ahead of his time. It also makes one realise how much of his own personality can be found in his characters and just how relevant his stories are today.

After almost fifty years of marriage, the Countess Sofya, Tolstoy’s devoted wife, lover, muse and secretary (she deciphered his handwriting and edited his manuscripts and it’s rumoured that she copied out “War and Peace” six times by hand) suddenly finds her entire world turned upside down. Swayed by a newly formed religion, the great novelist has renounced his noble title, his property and even his family in favour of poverty, vegetarianism and celibacy and this after Sofya has borne him thirteen children. When Sofya discovers that Tolstoy’s trusted disciple, Chertkov may have secretly convinced her husband to sign a new will, leaving the rights to his iconic novels to the Russian people rather than his own family, she is outraged. Using every bit of cunning, every trick of seduction in her considerable arsenal, she fights fiercely for what she believes is rightfully hers.

The more extreme her behaviour becomes, however, the more easily Chertkov is able to persuade Tolstoy of the damage she will do to his glorious legacy. Into this charged world wanders Tolstoy’s new assistant, the young, gullible Valentin and life at Yasnaya Polyana starts to imitate the drama found in many of Tolstoy’s novels.

Believe me this was one cool family. Once you have conquered “War & Peace” the books, “Tolstoy” by Henri Troyat (Penguin Books) and “Sonya” by Anne Edwards (Hodder & Stoughton) will be easy and insightful reading.

(Although countess Tolstoy has been known as Sofia, Sofiya, Sofie, Sophie and Sonya, the present-day Tolstoy family prefer to use Sonya)