H.M. Holten's Blog, page 12

The Provocation

What made people try their hand at story writing? Why would anybody write? When? How did they do it? Also, what had she to win – and worse – mightn’t she lose face? These were questions with no answers. It was too hard. She dropped her pen and folded her hands. But, why would she even try to answer? Chewing her lips, she picked up the pen. She stared at the page. It was white and slightly shiny. If it were a letter, she could always think of a beginning, but this was different. Dear so-and-so, nothing was easier. There would be a reason for writing – a question to ask or something to tell. But what would be the reason for putting down a single word if one didn’t know what about? Just do it. Write one word and see what comes of it. She put her pen to the paper and made a downward stroke. Which word? The pen scratched, but the result was just a vertical line. Think of a word. Just one little word. Nothing? It was infuriating.

Why had she listened to that discussion between her brother and their aunt? Why did she say that stupid thing about being able to write about anything? Where did that come from? Then the wager. Her brother smirked when they shook hands on it. She crumpled the paper and threw it across the room.

Maybe the paper was wrong. It would’ve been better to get a notebook. Then she could’ve made a start. Couldn’t she? It wouldn’t be so daunting because one could always turn a page and start again. Instead, she’d bought this ridiculously expensive paper. Only five sheets, and now she’d wasted one. She wouldn’t give up. No way. Patrick shouldn’t have that satisfaction, at least.

She got up from the desk and turned to the bookcase. So many books and so many authors. Where did they find inspiration? She loved reading, but that was different. Wasn’t it? There, on the shelf in front of her, was the last book she’d read. She picked it up and flicked through the pages. The beautifully turned sentences made her blush. This didn’t help. She replaced the book with a sigh. Better give up straight away.

At the end of the shelf one of her old notebooks from school lay, crumbled, and dog-eared.

The notebook called to her. What was this? It was as if her hand took on a will of its own. It reached out and grabbed the dog-eared notebook. It smelled of old socks. Even so, she took it to her desk. The cover was full of scribbles. She could hardly make them out, the writing was in pencil and faded. Wait! These were quotes. She recognized one. Half of the text was gone, but this had always stirred her imagination.

“In the entire zoology and botany, you can’t find two creatures, which are more capable of playing mischief with each other, than a man trifling with a woman.”

A reason for writing. A human trifling with another human. That was a theme. Trifling could mean anything. The last pages in the notebook were empty. Using that space, she could try out this idea.

The room was quiet as her pencil flew across the pages. Her breath came in short gasps, but she didn’t stop writing until she’d used all the pages. Then she leaned back in her chair and turned to where she’d started writing. Would this be any good? Aye, that was the question. As she read, her face fell.

It was no good.

What a waste of time. No, wait, maybe she could improve this. She started erasing words and sentences. No, this wouldn’t work. What was she to do? She got out her scissors and cut out a few paragraphs. These weren’t too bad. If she reordered them like this, there was a segment of a plot. She could make a start with that. Maybe she couldn’t do it now, but with time, she could learn.

Patrick painted. Was he any good? The family thought so, but he’d not made the grades at the art school. Never mind about him. Never mind about the stupid wager. She wouldn’t stop writing.

Tomorrow, she’d buy a new notebook.

© HMH, 2020

Sweet Pea

Pastel colours and sweetness

Modest flower of cottage gardens

Encircled with soft green tendrils.

*

Delicate leaves rustle in the breeze

The flowers bow to the heavenly dance

And their fragrance ascends

Towards the zenith

Flowing on the updrift

Until they reach the horizon.

*

There a girl lifts her head.

She drops her hands

To dream of the time

When she left

An old-fashioned garden

***

***

© HMH, 2021

Seaview with Tree

Acrylic on Cardboard

© HMH, 2021

Hacker hoax

Some time ago, I had a hacker scare that turned out to be a hoax. In one way, it is as bad as a real hacker: it takes time to sort out. Then there is the shock, the jolt that costs you peace of mind. These things make people suspicious for no good reason. What happened that evening cost me a lot of work because my first reaction was to warn my friends. When it dawned on me that it could be a hoax, I’d already done a lot to prepare a warning. Once, I’d calmed down it turned out to be an interesting situation. It made me aware of the vulnerability everybody suffers – who ventures online. The worst of it was to ponder the rapidity with which an internet hack could spread.

It wasn’t real, but it could’ve been. That is what makes the event so disturbing. There are people out there who take pleasure in or have fun, making people scurry around to stop or prevent, imaginary attacks. It seems to be an industry, just like the real McCoy: the site attackers, the hackers, the bitcoin miners. This is the downside of the world wide web. Thinking back, it occurred to me that fraud was committed via snail mail, so, in a way the difference isn’t that great. Also, chain letters abounded before the internet, and many people fell in on those traps.

What are the consequences of such insights? Should we all go off the internet, stop sending letters, close our phone contracts, and only communicate with people we meet eye to eye? No, we shouldn’t. People lie even when they are face to face with one another. There are predators in all wakes of life, hackers, and hoaxers, and conmen/women, every variety of fraudster can get at you, wherever you are. It doesn’t help to bury one’s head in the sand. A good helping of common sense, paired with knowledge of how to find information and how to protect vital information is a necessity, but it is possible to avoid the worst attacks. A hoax is relatively harmless, but it is annoying. Thankfully, that’s where it ends. Once you’ve figured it out.

© HMH, 2021

Tea with Gooseberry Crumble

Baking fragrance leaps to the nostrils

As friends meet in the tea-room

White scrubbed floors and wooden furniture

Clotted cream and choices of pastry

Tablecloths and heather decorations

Contrast the rugged hills and the sea.

Ever present the algae and crustaceans

Mingle their salty savour with 

The sweetness of confections inside

Black tea exudes aroma and warmth

All is still regardless of ticking clocks.

The gooseberry crumble melts away

While sweethearts and travellers rest.

Such afternoons bring blessings

As the waitress assures comfort to

One and all

Here the time is still in joint

No one must set it right

From ‘Ireland’

***

©HMH, 2013

Hogsback, Surrey

This is another Watercolour that disappeared through moving around. I only have a photo of it but may consider turning it into an acrylic painting. To be honest, there were some mistakes in the original that I erased using photoshop. That means this is at best a sketch that will need work to become a new painting.

***

Watercolour, Digitally Edited

***

© HMH, 2021

New Reviews

JG MacLeod, Abalone

Domestic Violence with a Vengeance

Liz is a reticent and shy girl who manages to be a good student regardless of her difficult home life.  James is an older boy with apparent learning difficulties. Possibly, his problems are down to a lack of interest in getting an education as he seems reckless rather than stupid. Liz’s English teacher suggests that she should help James to graduate. These are the premises for JG MacLeod’s cautionary tale. What strikes me as strange is that a teacher is the one who, albeit unintentionally, pushes Liz into the arms of her abuser. It is hard to envisage that a teacher would have so little insight into a troubled youngster. Nevertheless, Liz, who already has a young girl crush on James agrees to help him. They soon become sweethearts and from there the story develops into a nightmare for Liz. She gives up school to follow James to the south, but they stop over in a small town and settle there for an unspecified period.

MacLeod is an accomplished author and brings her message across in vivid scenes between Liz and James. There is a large cast of supporting actors, from Liz’ hapless father and James’ abusive mother to school friends, notably Liz’ best friend Jan, and Liz’ would-be sweetheart, named Cortyn. Add to the mix James’ brother Peter who suffers from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. Later a prospective saviour turns up, a cowboy clad entrepreneur, Martyn.

MacLeod shows a deep insight into the mechanisms that instigates Domestic Violence. She shows the danger signs and points out how easy it is for a young and insecure girl to get inveigled into an abusive relationship. She shows that without a safety net in the shape of a loving family, this type of girl may have little chance of avoiding her fate.

David W Thompson, Sister Witch: The Life of Moll Dyer

Human Spite and Violence Bring Madness.

Moll Dyer and her family leave for England, hoping to prosper. There they face hardship and intolerance, as Irish nationals and Catholics. Things get worse for Moll, as she gets raped – and defends herself. Left pregnant, her family gives her the choice of going back to Ireland to live with an aunt, or to follow her uncle Sean to Maryland. Both she and Uncle Sean have become outcasts but leaving for the colony gives them hope to forge a new life. Sea travel is no pleasure trip in the 17th Century, and the travellers experience both stormy and becalmed seas. A newlywed couple befriends Moll, and she helps the young woman, Beth, with her troublesome pregnancy. Still, the journey ends disastrously for Beth and through her, for her husband Gideon.

On the arrival in the virginal world of Maryland, it looks like Sean and Moll will create a better existence for themselves. Society accepts them, and they settle down to farm the land. They get to know and love several indigenes. This idyll doesn’t last long and rumours about Moll’s presumed witchcraft.

Written in the first person – Moll’s voice – Sister Witch touches many themes from slavery to witchcraft, and from fear of outsiders, to hate and spite. This is a masterly executed piece of historical fiction. Thompson studies the living circumstances, intolerance, religion (aboriginal as well as Christian). He points out how easily people become a mob and how love and tolerance can be found only with open eyes and hearts. Thompson explores women’s situation, early medicine and how easily that could be misunderstood in a society that fears the supernatural. The characters, especially Moll, are vivid and convincing. It springs to mind that the ultimate sacrifice is a motivating theme for the entire novel.

Eric Wilder, Sisters of the Mist

Paranormal Crime Thriller

Wyatt wakes in the middle of the night. Taking a breath of air on his balcony, he observes the New Orleans mist enveloping the streets. There he has a vision of his lost love at a ghostly parade of limousines trailing a hearse. That beginning sets the scene for a quest to seek and save her. Halloween is coming and monsters abound on his way to his goal. Along with Wyatt’s quest to save his beloved is a subplot that pivots around a racehorse, a mob boss, his beautiful daughter, and the two PIs who pursue the stolen horse.

Sisters of the Mist is slick, professionally written, full of mist and Spanish moss. There are visions and ogres and swamp monsters – beautiful women, vampires, prostitutes, and stalwart men. The numerous characters are painted in vivid colours. The Honey Island Swamp plays a huge role in the plot, also as a highway to a parallel world. It was a pleasure to see how the witch’s hut located in the swamp, as well as the ghostly castle that appeared later, established Wilder’s penchant for description.  Finally, I’d like to add that it proves an author’s merit to read a random part of a series and find that you can follow the plot and ‘organize’ the cast without trouble. Also, there was no obvious hook at the end – and that makes or breaks a story for me.

Parris Afton Bonds, The Brigands

The Texan/Texican Uprising – a Historical Romance

Old Mexico is in uproar. Many factions want to create new states, and the upheaval attracts fortune hunters en masse. Among them are two men, an English lord (Alex Paladin), and an Irish traveller (Niall Gorman). Both are involved in the ‘Texican’ movement for independence. Two women also arrive on the scene, Rafaela is to marry the English lord, as her rich father wants a title. In other words, Rafaela is a bartered bride, and it isn’t something to please her. Fiona is a feisty Irish girl, who hopes to gain land where she can live and prosper.

This is the premise for a romantic and dramatic tale that mixes up every cast member’s ideas of what they want to do with their lives.

What struck me was the shamrock locket that turned into a four-leaf clover locket.

Page 35: ‘Unconsciously, her fingers clutched her necklace’s shamrock locket that she considered, if somewhat foolishly, her good luck charm.’

Afton Bonds, Parris. The Brigands (The Texicans Book 1) (pp. 35-36). Lagan Press. Kindle Edition.

Page 40, 68, 112, 209, the same locket is described as a four-leaf-clover. EG: ‘That shade was probably as fake a color as her four-leaf clover locket was cheap.’

Afton Bonds, Parris. The Brigands (The Texicans Book 1) (p. 40). Lagan Press. Kindle Edition.

Also, that Fiona could see Rafaela’s narrow hips through an 1835 garment struck me as extraordinary. I can believe the wide shoulders – provided she wore mutton sleeves, which would fit the period. Even without hoops, the skirts were voluminous, and corsets did their part in reshaping the female figure. By the way, the bustle didn’t become fashionable until the early 1870s. Last, another detail in Rafaela’s outfit doesn’t gel. She wears a man’s hat. A beaver hat is a top hat worn by men – in 1835, women wore bonnets. 

‘The girl was inordinately tall, wide of shoulder, and narrow of hip, so long as one ignored her jutting bustle. Her light brown hair whipped free of her fashionable beaver hat and momentarily veiled her pale features.’

Afton Bonds, Parris. The Brigands (The Texicans Book 1) (p. 22). Lagan Press. Kindle Edition.

That aside, this was an engaging and absorbing read. The vivid descriptions plant the reader in the middle of the action. There are twists and turns to surprise even the most inexhaustible reader. The male arch-villain turns out to have some human qualities and becomes likeable in due course. It is refreshing that Fiona and Rafaela aren’t conventional beauties. Both seek independence, and that is another unusual trait in a historical romance. Ms Bonds delivers an insightful and (partly – see above) well-researched historical novel, with engaging and believable characters.

Michelle Kidd, Timeless Moments

Time Travel, 1917 – 1967 – 2014

Three plots, three periods, three separate fates — or are they? Several mysteries surround Jack, Jewel, Jane Doe (Janie), and Hunsdon. Letters can help or betray the writers and settle the doom or rescue of one protagonist. There are secrets to unveil and pain to suffer for every character in this time travel cosmos, which is our normal world in three epochs. For me, it was somewhat difficult to recognize the various periods. There were no distinct features to latch onto. In my opinion, it would have helped to be confronted with more historical detail, but I recognise that there is a difficulty in fitting in much of this in a book that concentrates on the inner qualities and the circumstances pertaining to each character. Alternatively, one might have added more details regarding clothing or speech.

That aside, Timeless Moments is an absorbing read, with clear-cut characters and a fantasy-driven story. 

Beth Hildenbrand, The Path of Temptation

Poetry of Innocence, Temptation, Fall, and Resurgence

Short poems can say a lot. There is a Haiku-like singularity and a daring in Beth Hildenbrand’s poems. They are stark and painful, but still uplifting. Each section is illustrated with a picture, female in form, except the last that portrays the Phoenix rising. Beth Hildenbrand’s message is simple but profound. We are all innocent until we fall – and it is up to us to rise again.

Minette Meador, The Centurion and the Queen

A Sword and Sandals, 60 AD British-Roman Episode

Delia is the sister of the Celtic King Conall, but still a queen in her own right. Marius is a Centurion, in British exile because of his suspected involvement in the assassination of Caligula. His second, Leonius, evolves into an adversary to handle with care. We are in the period when Queen Boudicca rose and almost defeated the Roman power.

The plot concentrates on two parts, the love story between would-be foes, and the uprising of, and fight against the Celts. Marius and Celia can’t suppress their attraction – and in that this plot reminds me of Bellini’s opera, Norma, as well as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon Series, notably The Forests of Avalon. All in all, the plot works for me, there is drama, insurrection, humour, blood and gore, heart-wrenching romance, and pain.

Meador’s research is meticulous, and that’s why one issue sticks out like a sore thumb. What possessed her to use the title ‘sir’? The correct title to assign Marius would be Primus Pilus, probably Primus addressing him. After all, ‘Sir’ wasn’t used until the thirteenth Century (around 1294). Otherwise, an engaging and captivating read. Raw and violent, dark, but romantic.

Jennie Ensor, Not Having it All

Satirical Comedy – Marital Frustration – Friendships in Various Guises.

Bea and Kurt have it all, or have they? Both have demanding jobs. Their love life has retained its spark. They have a 4-year-old daughter, Fran, who misbehaves without being able to explain why – and an au-pair, Katie. She develops a strong animosity against the child in her charge.

Bea’s friend, Maddie, has exceedingly little. She is a would-be junk artist with two cats and a longing to get a child. Colin faces redundancy and takes unusual measures to deal with it. His search for love has never brought him much good.

Jennie Ensor takes these components and creates a vaudeville, a laugh-out-loud but serious take on today’s society. Misunderstandings, communication failures, secret surveillance, and hidden cameras bring everybody close to despair. Everybody mistrusts everybody with hilarious results. Ensor handles the multiple point of view through secret dairies, email conversations, the assessment of Maddie by her psychologist, and the au-pair’s candid comments written in her pidgin-English hand.

For Ensor, this is a deviation from her usual writing style, and she handles it with aplomb.

©HMH, 2021

Triad

Maid

You see me now in youth and glory

You see me fresh and free of worry

Will future bliss be my ascension,

Or will my life just give me friction?

I stand here on the threshold wary

But who can say that life will tarry?

No, I must wait and pray and please

To find a friend, to live in ease

Mother

To each his own, and thus flows life through gentle vessel

Casket, critic, savage guardian, still gives quiet space to nestle

Gentle mirror of tradition, tutor too to help awaken

Triad’s triad ne’er forsaken

Ugly, Old, or poor and sickly, I can notably inspire

Young in beauty – rich in power, without reason, wouldn’t tire 

Secrets shelter, secrets darken, secrets wither and conspire

Still, the circle has no ending – giving life but to expire

Matron

Now, looking back what did I hope for?

Now, all my life what did I grope for?

My life is blank,

My words are frank:

I did my share

But found no care

Now, what is left is an enigma

And still my age remains my stigma

Ye maids and mothers please beware

To set you right I must declare

That youth and age cannot compare

The end may force you to despair

Thank you Debi Ennis Binder for the inspiration for this poem. The middle part (Mother) I wrote in answer to a challenge she set me — re a riddle in her WIP.

© HMH, 2021

Still-life with Chrysanthemum

This is my last flower picture – and the last in the series of cherished paintings from my childhood. I remember that we had a vase exactly like the one in the painting but don’t know where it is now. It was rather small but might have been a European copy of an Imari vase. This is another of the paintings that I found in the attic. I had it framed while living in England.

© HMH, 2021

A Crazy World?

Some years ago, I purchased a keyboard for one of the ancestors of the smartphone. Recently, I ordered a reserve ‘hand’ to hold my phone and kindle. I also have a drawing tablet to use as an alternative for my mouse. Why? The strain of working with a mouse, typing on a small screen, and clicking on links got too much for my hands, shoulders, and arms. To think that it needs to be so complicated. Yet, handwriting strains as much if you write a lot. Imagine all the letters it would take to keep up with online acquaintances – and add the work one puts into a book. My shoulders would be permanently attached to my ears if my only option were handwriting.

Was it easier in the days of the first typing machines? Clearly, social networks and the entire networking philosophy have changed the way we live. Would we want to change it back? My answer would be a resounding NO. We live and fit into the circumstances our society offers – and it is good so.

We can discuss the environmental impact on the world we live in until we are blue in our heads, but we still have little influence on innovations. Sometimes, it feels as if every development necessitates another, and we, the humans, stand by with no power to change what we call progress. Did people ever influence the world? We seem to float along a stream, never knowing where it will take us. Then we talk of destiny or fate and wash our hands. Still, one person against the world never makes for much of a change. Of course, we can always fall back on that story of the woodchopper who became president of the United States.

There will always be solitary voices that have an impact – for better or for worse.

Don’t forget that some of those solitary voices have brought war and misery rather than good to the nations. Having said that, it is still true that we can take baby steps towards a better world. How? Through our way to tackle the world. Through our words and convictions. We can create an impact in our sphere of influence, but if we don’t all pull in the same direction at the same time our efforts won’t leave more than scratches on the surface. There is much to be said for our modern world – but the negative impact that our way of living causes may well outweigh the good parts. Maybe it has always been this way. History certainly comes across as a series of blunders that got repaired, sometimes less than adequately. Still, if we don’t dare to hope and, buoyed up by such hopes, act, we will fail.

How can we avoid facing that we live in a complex world and that platitudes won’t cut it in the big picture?

Alone, we don’t amount to much. We need solidarity but, more than that, we need a consensus about what we want from the world, and what we will give to achieve our goals. Life will always remain an enigma – but we have a right and a duty to make the best of every day. Who said that life was going to be easy told a lie.

© HMH, 2021