The Guardian's Blog, page 222

The Railway Children's transporting magic | Frank Cottrell Boyce

The story of E Nesbit's classic has some very surprising components, which have influenced every children's author after her

The Railway Children, a theatrical adaptation of which has just opened, has all the ingredients you don't expect from a Christmas treat. It's a story written by a political activist, about a family plunged into poverty by a miscarriage of justice, set against the background of the Dreyfus affair. One of the characters is clearly based on the Russian anarcho-communist, Peter Kropotkin.

Why does a book with all these "serious" elements feel like one long giddy picnic? The answer is that E Nesbit was a kind of writer-superhero. She could levitate the heaviest material and make it float over your head like a butterfly.

Noël Coward said she had "an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days". Part of her secret surely is that she knew that the ability to notice small pleasures – such as waving at trains – will bring you through the hardest times. Another is that she understands the subterranean power of great emotions.

The absence of Father frees up the Railway Children for the great adventure, but the sadness of that absence grinds away under the surface, like an approaching earthquake. And when Bobby finds out the truth, all of its power is unleashed. At the end of a summer of adventure, she is shoved into the grown-up world.

When she cries, "Daddy, O my Daddy" tonight, there will hardly be a dry eye in the house. That's because the girl who had to grow up can - for a moment, on that platform, with her Daddy – be a child again. It's not a big speech, just a simple cry. Yet it's one of the most potent lines in all literature.

Edith Nesbit influenced every children's writer who came after her. Jacqueline Wilson has just written a sequel to one of her books. CS Lewis mentions her characters – the Bastables – in the Narnia books. PL Travers and JK Rowling are both massively indebted to her. These are all terrific writers who entertain us by creating fabulous new worlds. But Edith Nesbit does something much more special – something that only a tiny handful of truly great writers can do. She takes our world – the ordinary one of trains and coal and cooking and brothers and sisters and arguments and games – and she shows us that it too is fabulous.

The Railway Children is running at the Theatre on the Lake, Keswick

Children and teenagersTheatreFrank Cottrell Boyce
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Focusing on the OED's missing words is missing the point | Sarah Ogilvie

My book's case is precisely the opposite of what has found its way into this week's news

Like all authors, I have a simple plea: read my book before talking about it. It is clear that few of those discussing it in newspapers and on the web in the past few days have actually done so.

Words of the World: A Global History of the Oxford English Dictionary tells the story of how the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary has been, since its beginnings in the mid-19th century, a truly global dictionary. By this, I mean two things. First, that the earliest editors, James Murray and others, admitted surprisingly large numbers of "loan words'" (words borrowed into English from other languages) and "World Englishes" (words from varieties of English around the world) into the dictionary. Secondly, that Murray called on readers from all around the world to provide those words for his team to consider, edit, and include in the dictionary. Murray was ahead of his time: OED was the original Wikipedia. 

Oddly, attention in the press has all been focused on the work of an editor from the 1970s, Robert Burchfield, and his deletion of some of those non-British words (which was a small section in a 240-page book). Some journalists have even suggested that Burchfield did this deleting surreptitiously or covertly, which is a ridiculous claim, and not one I made. Nor do I ever attribute mendacity to Burchfield, who was the chief editor of the OED from 1957 to 1986; in fact I warn against that twice. 

Yes, it was odd that Burchfield deleted 17% of the loanwords and World Englishes from the 1933 supplement because once a word gets in the dictionary, the policy is that it does not leave. But even more surprising was that the words were there in the first place. Their presence in the dictionary is the discovery of the book! Why? Because there has been a consensus view over the past 40-odd years that the early editors were Anglocentric dons who treated these words "almost like illegal immigrants", to borrow Burchfield's own phrase. 

This is a "good news" book about the early editors of OED and their surprisingly positive and pioneering attitude to words entering English from around the world; it is not a "bad news" story about Robert Burchfield. The early editors – James Murray, Henry Bradley, Charles Onions, and William Craigie – included far more foreign words and World Englishes than we previously thought.

What's more, they were criticised by their 19th-century contemporaries for including such words. I found letters, slips, and reviews in the OED archives showing that reviewers, consultants, and the delegates of Oxford University Press (the OED editors' bosses) put pressure on the editors to keep out of the dictionary the "outlandish words" that were "corrupting the English language". The early editors ignored these criticisms and pressures, and kept putting in the loanwords and World Englishes. It is therefore ironic that by the second half of the 20th century, they were being criticized for leaving them out. I wanted, in my book, to give them their due. 

I have devoted my life to writing dictionaries and working on Oxford Dictionaries. The sections of my book on Burchfield were written while I was an editor on the OED. My colleagues there read and re-read the chapters many times. 

 

I admire Burchfield and his contribution to 20th-century lexicography greatly, and would never want to be regarded as responsible for the vitriolic comments about him that are being thrown around blogs at the moment. So please, read the book, and let the words speak for themselves. As Herbert Coleridge, the first editor of the OED, wrote in 1857: "Every word should be told to tell its own story – the story of its birth and life, and in many cases of its death and even occasionally of its resuscitation."

Reference and languagesUniversity of OxfordHistorySarah Ogilvie
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Why I can't find my favourite books

A fatal compulsion to press them on other people undermines any progress constructing my ideal library

The morning of the 14th Guardian first book award found me riffling through my bookshelves in search of former winners. There's no sign of  Zadie Smith's White Teeth, the first ever winner and therefore a novel close to my heart. No Jimmy Corrigan, the only graphic novel to win the award. No trace of Philip Gourevitch's still sadly pertinent chronicle of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, or of last year's winner The Emperor of Maladies. In fact, I appear only to have five of the 13 winners still on my shelves.

I can't say I was surprised, because it reflects a problem that has for years reduced my library to the bibliophile's equivalent of a slab of Emmental cheese: I'm a chronic lender, with the result that my shelves are more hole than book. My loans are nearly always the result of enthusiastic conversations, so it's invariably my favourite books that disappear.

Over the years I've consoled myself with Anne Fadiman's insistence – in Ex Libris (also no longer in my possession) – that it's not the physical object that counts. But I'm enough of a materialist to have once launched a nighttime raid on the home of one of my borrower friends to retrieve a stash of lost treasures. And I've never quite forgiven another who sub-lent a vintage edition of Beckett's shorter plays.

Last weekend we ran a feature on My Ideal Bookshelves, which found readers pining after everything from Amis to Brontë and from Homer to Camus. But standing in front of my own actual bookshelves this morning, I realised that my ideal shelves would be full of books I once owned.

Maybe I just need to start becoming a little more acquisitive, or perhaps we could start some sort of bookswap. I currently have a burning desire to re-read Graham Robb's account of a country discovered at cycling speed, The Discovery of France, which disappeared a couple of years back. My copies of this year's first book award shortlist are still on my shelves. Before they go the way of all favoured books, we have quite a few copies of this year's first book award winner in the office at the moment. Would anyone like to swap their copy of The Discovery of France for one of them? (And don't forget to check back this evening at 8pm to find out who's won.)

Claire Armitstead
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Our Twitter fiction festival reviews

We attempt to review the #twitterfiction festival in no more than 140 characters

As tweeters around the world experiment with writing fiction in a 140 characters for the first #Twitterfiction festival, we embark on finding ways of covering this new form of creative writing event. Over the course of the festival we'll respond to some of the Tweets, in the form of a review no more than 140 characters. Here goes...

#twitterfiction #litmash I derived grim gratification bashing in the brains of a coiffured skeleton with a nasty grin. Was she famous once?

— liewelise (@liewelise) November 29, 2012

RT @liewelise: #twitterfiction #litmash Sekeletons might have hair and coiffure but by definition they don't have brains #twitterficcrit

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) November 29, 2012

Prometheus in 'sneaky' fire snatch! Zeus chains to rock, condemns to daily liver ripping! Giant eagle says "Yum!" to new job #twitterfiction

— Lucy Coats (@lucycoats) November 28, 2012

@lucycoats First myth tweets aptly mythifying. We like liver. Butfor retweets, leave more space#twitterfiction #twitterficcrit

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) November 28, 2012

@guardianbooks He was posthumously declared a paedophile. She sold her story to Hollywood. The Daily Mail had a field day. #twittersequel

— Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat) November 28, 2012

@joannechocolat Nothing innocent abt icecream.Presume pitbull puppies.Manslaughter not murder charge pending #twitterfiction #twitterficcrit

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) November 28, 2012

She was sweet & innocent. He promised her puppies & icecream. When they were alone, she tore out his throat. No one grieved. #twitterfiction

— Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat) November 28, 2012

A British Love Story: Man. Woman. Stuff. Tears. Cup of tea. #twitterfiction

— Alex Klaushofer (@alexklaushofer) November 28, 2012

Short and bitter-sweet.RT @alexklaushofer: A British Love Story: Man. Woman. Stuff. Tears. Cup of tea. #twitterfiction #twitterficcrit

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) November 28, 2012

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Tips, links and suggestions: Our review list and the books you are reading today

Your weekly space to tell us what you're reading and what you'd like to see covered on the books site, plus our review list

I don't know; turn your back for a moment and Christmas sneaks up on you. I've only been away for a week, but I've returned to discussions about the best books of year and recommendations for Christmas presents. Sam Jordison's Reading group are getting in on the act too, busy as they are picking their faith-themed December book. So far there has been a wide range of suggestions, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, to Terry Pratchett's The Hogfather and Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

There's still time to add your suggestions to the mix, but whichever book is chosen by the festive hat (all suggestions are picked out of a hat), there's bound to be a great discussion.

Closer to home, here are some of the books you were reading last week:

lukethedrifter:

I have just started Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines, which starts wonderfully but I'm only 10 or so pages into it.

Up next will be a le Carre a colleague has lent to me. It will be my first foray into this territory, and I don't know what to expect.

FidoDido1980:

The Vorrh by B. Catling. About 150 pages in, and absolutely bowled over by Catling's world-building. It's really dragged me back to fantasy.

simong91:

I've just finished Miles Davis' autobiography which was a really good read, although a lot of time is devoted to the endlessly revolving cast of his band which can get a little wearing if you aren't totally on top of jazz. I've also started Great Expectations for the first time (and am enjoying it) and working my way through Vanity Fair, where I've committed the cardinal sin of leaving it too long between reading sessions so that the narrative cools off in your head and it all turns into a bit of a slog.

And just before we move onto this week's review list, I'd just like to say: I don't believe it! One of the few weeks I'm away and there's a love-in about my favourite author, Anna Kavan! The odds of this happening again are as rare as picking up a first edition of her bizarre, fabulous novel, Sleep Has His House. That'll teach me for going on holiday. richardpierce, Mexican2, LauraOliver, I'm very glad you enjoyed Ice so much, what's everyone reading this week?

This week's review list is a little, well, little because – I as said earlier – we're all about Christmas and looking back over the year. Get your pens at the ready; there may well be lots of titles add to your present wish-list.

Non-fiction reviews
• Bruce
• Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock'n'Roll
• The Richard Burton Diaries edited by Chris Williams

Guardian readersHannah Freeman
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Choose December's Reading Group book

With next month's nativity at the top of everyone's mind, let us gather together suggestions for faith-themed readings

When I was in the first form at secondary school, at about this time of year, a poster went up offering free mince pies and philosophical discussion in the classrooms where lessons in "Divinity" (it was that kind of grammar school) were taught. Still wet around the ears, a few friends and I went along. Of course, there were pitifully few pies – and of course before we could get our hands on them, we had to sit through a lecture.

Fortunately, however, the proceedings were interesting. The organisers (the LRGS Christian Union) had invited a guest speaker who turned up carrying a giant suitcase and an outraged expression on his face. He opened the case, pulled out a parcel and shouted, "PRESENT-MAS?", before ripping the paper up with a flourish. Next he produced an advent candle, shouted "CANDLE-MAS?" and slammed it down on the table. Next a bit of a pine tree: "TREE-MAS?" Next a bauble, which sadly I don't recall him smashing.

This went on for a while, and of course, we all giggled and thought he was an idiot, but by the time he got to his conclusion – a plaintive repetition of the questions "Christ-mas? Where is Christ in all this?" – the mood had changed. His camp theatrics had been replaced by genuine emotion. He had tears in his eyes. He could hardly go on. He had lost his cool in front of a roomful of 11-year-old boys. The idea of his forsaken Lord was too much for the poor man. It mattered far more than our smirks and horror. And I've never forgotten it. Whatever I may think about his complaints about forgetting the central Christian message in this essentially pagan mid-winter festival, about getting us into that room under false pretences, and about the disappointingly few mince pies, it's the emotion that remains. I've never had any kind of religious faith myself – but that odd moment helped me understand how deeply it can take people.

His central point has also stuck with me. It's worth remembering that there's more to Christmas than getting tipsy and mocking the absurdly clean clothes and carriages in BBC costume dramas. The backstory and the shepherds and angels and kings matter to a lot of people – and that has to be worth discussion, even if we're never all going to agree. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to run a Reading Group about faith.

The closest I've come to recreating that strange moment of emotional insight has been through literature and trying to understand TS Eliot's glorious inspiration when writing The Journey of the Magi , John Donne's plea to be ravished, or, at the other end of the scale, why Evelyn Waugh would feel compelled to ruin Brideshead Revisited with all that guff Catholicism. Faith has a huge role in fiction and poetry, and it's rarely talked about today, so we should give it a shot.

Alternatively, we might also try to understand the meaning of faith through the insights of writers like Gabriel Josipovici. Or we could just as easily go for the counter-argument and have a look at Richard Dawkins. Heck, we could even read a bit of the Bible itself. The choice, as usual, is yours – and the hat's. This time (with apologies to the LRGS Christian Union) it will be red.

FictionSam Jordison
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Against type: Writers with other careers

From Keats to Kurt Vonnegut, work outside the world of books can often nourish authors' imaginations

Last weekend, at the Cambridge Wordfest, I had the great pleasure of listening to Salley Vickers discuss her new novel, The Cleaner of Chartres. In the course of her remarks, Vickers reflected on the important creative dividend she has gained from her work as a psychoanalyst.

There is a lot to be said for writers who don't just write. The literary press is full of the life and work of professional writers, but the English literary tradition is sustained by men and women who did not give up the day job, and led double lives.

From this parish, George Orwell was writing regular book reviews for the Observer while completing Animal Farm. Philip Larkin, another fairly regular reviewer for the Observer, devoted much of his professional life to Hull University library, which gave him something to grumble about.

Another star reviewer Anthony Burgess squeezed his novel-writing into the moments when he was not teaching, or composing music, or drinking, or writing screenplays, or living the life of Riley.

It can suit poets to have routine employment. TS Eliot worked in a bank. Wallace Stevens spent his life with an insurance company. Simon Armitage wrote many of his early poems while working for the social services. The great Victorians were masters of double lives: Lewis Carroll at Oxford; Trollope in the post office; Disraeli in politics; Dickens in virtually any journalistic activity you care to mention.

In other arenas of jeopardy, on the high seas, Joseph Conrad was a sea captain. Arthur Conan Doyle practised as a doctor. There's a whole sub-category of writers who were shaped by medical studies, from Keats to Somerset Maugham.

In America, young Samuel Clemens prospected for silver, and cut his literary teeth as a journalist. Walt Whitman served as a medical orderly in the Civil War. Hemingway was an ambulanceman in the first world war. Military service, you might argue, doesn't count as a day job, but it certainly shaped the creative lives of Tolstoy, Mailer and Vonnegut.

As well as employment, there are the private benefits of a creative hinterland. The forthcoming exhibition of Beryl Bainbridge paintings brilliantly illustrates the secret landscape of her imagination. These canvases are a revelation. In her lifetime, Beryl was often described as a miniaturist, the author of slim, devastating narratives, and prose that was pared to the bone.

But now we can see from her oils that her imagination was roaming freely in other fields, that she was, imaginatively, an artist of the largest vision. She joins a very select list of English writers who were equally at home with manuscript and canvas. She is also revealed, crucially, as a writer for whom there were other things to do than write books.

This attitude to literature has a long pre-history. One of the most suggestive passages in Stephen Greenblatt's life of Shakespeare, Will in the World, is the part, towards the end of the playwright's life, when he speculates that he wrote "as if he thought that there was more to do than write plays". In this context, Shakespeare's retirement to Stratford can be seen as a deep acknowledgement of the place of literature in the hierarchy of mundane family life.

Sadly, no one has ever found a Shakespeare canvas, or even a doodle. That would be something to blog about.

Beryl BainbridgeRobert McCrum
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Have you got an early Beryl Bainbridge on your walls?

The late Dame's emergence as a painter, with an exhibition due in Liverpool next month, prompts a search for her early work

Beryl Bainbridge became known, after her great success as a writer, as the custodian of a strange and fascinating house in London's Camden Town, filled with unusual objects including a stuffed buffalo with a mournful gaze.

But her mind was roaming northwards much of the time, especially to Liverpool where she was born and later worked as a young actress, and often one who had paint on her hands.

To supplement her wages at the Playhouse (and for a bit part in Coronation Street where she helped Ken Barlow make a Ban the Bomb placard), she sold large and vivid canvasses. She worked on them at her flat in Huskisson Street, at first alone and then in the company of her husband Austin Davies who was working at the theatre painting scenery. She was very good and impressively productive; up to 30 oil paintings were completed every year.

Where are they? A celebration of her art in a new book by her best friend Psiche Hughes and an exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool which opens next month prompt the question. Hughes has assembled a glowing range of Bainbridges – Dame Beryl was marvellously attracted to bright colours – and the museum is showing 15 of them.

Some are picured here, courtesy of her estate and Thames & Hudson, and there are more in this excellent picture gallery done by our pals at the Observer in London.

But there are others; or there were, particularly early work sold when she and Davies, who later became a lecturer at Liverpool Art School, were making ends meet. Do the ones below strike any chords of recognition? Have you, or someone you know, got a bright, inventive canvas on a wall, unrecognised; or stashed away?

Bainbridge was playful in both her books, for all their darker side, and her art and the pictures combine historical settings with references to her many friends. Napoleon, for example, appears regularly with the features of her youthful boyfriend Don McKinlay from Bootle. Psiche Hughes and her family are shown in front of a vivid red backdrop. Other pals meet Dr Johnson or passengers on the Titanic.

Some have a look of early 20th century German art, the work of guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Reader reviews roundup

This week: Praise for novels by Syd Moore and Richard Castle - and why the Guardian got it wrong on Don DeLillo

Books featuring strong female protagonists in various strange and stressful situations have grabbed the attention of reader reviewers this week.

Stpauli was enthralled by Syd Moore's Witch Hunt, a novel that charts the unsettling experiences of journalist Sadie as she investigates the persecution of hundreds of women for witchcraft in Essex in the 16th and 17th centuries. Stpauli admires the horror and details of the witch hunts, as well as the descriptions of Essex women past and present. She also celebrates the portrayal of the much-maligned Essex, which she says is "is almost a character in itself" in the book. But she is irritated by what she sees as the unnecessary "chick lit" when dealing with Sadie's life.

Lakis declares that Richard Castle's Frozen Heat is "by far the best novel" in the Nikki Heat series. As the female NYPD detective tries to solve a murder, "we see this strong and determined woman at her most vulnerable". The mystery takes Nikki on a journey of discovery about herself and her mother as the body of the murdered victim is found in a suitcase that happened to belong to Nikki and was stolen by the man who killed her mother.

On a slightly different literary plane, Dylanwolf is outraged by Sam Jordison's condemnation of Don DeLillo's The Body Artist as "one of the worst books of 2001". Dylanwolf lauds the story of Lauren Hartke, the eponymous body artist who is grappling with solitude and alienation after her husband's suicide, as "haunting as Kafka, as sparse as Borges, as clinical as Auster, as rich as Marquez, as emotional as Atwood and as philosophical as Camus."

He concludes: "Poetry in prose form and an astounding evocation of grief - DeLillo has just gone one grade even higher in my estimation."

Take note, dear Sam!

As ever, if we've mentioned your review, please contact claire.armitstead@guardian.co.uk and we'll send you a treat from the cupboards. Thanks for all your reviews.

Don DeLillo
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What's on your ideal bookshelf?

We'd like to hear about the select few books that mean the most to you

In My Ideal Bookshelf, a website and now a book, more than 100 cultural figures reveal what books are most meaningful to them – the books that shaped their outlook on life, the ones they keep returning to, and those they couldn't bear to be parted from.

If you had to choose just 12 or fewer books that mean the most to you, the ones you'd have on your "ideal bookshelf" – what would they be, and why?

We'd like to hear about your choices in the comment thread below – but perhaps you'd consider illustrating your selection? In My Ideal Bookshelf the contributors' selections are accompanied by beautiful drawings by artist Jane Mount – and readers are invited to sketch (or photograph) their own bookshelves featuring their books of choice. Fancy having a go? If so, submit your pictures to our My Ideal Bookshelf Flickr group

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