A Son of the Rock

Until I checked I would have said that this was Joan Osborne’s only UK hit (no 6 in 1995) but it seems she also had a no 33 the next year with a song called St Teresa.

I must confess I don’t remember that heavily accented little introduction (about the heavenly airplane [sic]) she gives in this video.

The song itself is lyrically interesting.

Joan Osborne: One of Us

I saw in Monday’s Guardian the obituary of writer Dan Simmons. His work ranged over, horror, SF and thrillers and even ventured into historical fiction.

It was as an SF writer that I knew of him but  I did watch the TV adaptation of his novel The Terror based on the ill-fated Franklin Expedition some years ago now.  I posted a photograph of a memorial to two members of the Expedition here.

Looking at my records I see I have read two of Simmon’s novels, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, (though the obit linked to above says they were originally intended as one novel) and I have had two others (Ilium and Olympos) on my tbr pile for many years. The reason I haven’t got round to reading them yet is that they resemble doorstops, which I find a bit off-putting.

Daniel Joseph (Dan) Simmons:- 4/4/1948 – 21/2/2026. So it goes.

Phoenix, 2010, 508 p. Translated from the Spanish El Juego del Angél (Editorial Planeta SA 2008) by Lucia Graves.

In this (sort of) prequel to The Shadow of the Wind, David Martín is a struggling writer just about scraping by, writing potboilers set in his home city of Barcelona in the 1920s. A hint of fantasy intrudes when he has a sexually charged encounter with a woman called Chloe – the name of his heroine – in a seedy establishment which he later finds has been abandoned for years. He comes under the influence of better-known writer Pedro Vidal to whose chauffeur’s daughter Cristina he is attracted and in the guise of editing Vidal’s manuscript rewrites his latest novel much for the better.

The proprietor of Sempere and Sons booksellers gives him a copy of Dickens’s Great Expectations, a book with which Martín is much taken, and introduces him to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books (familiar from The Shadow of the Wind, where Sempere’s son Daniel has a prominent part.) Great Expectations seems to be a kind of template here for Zafón but the parallels are by no means exact.

Out of the blue a French publisher Andreas Corelli asks Martín to write a book inventing a new religion. In return for one hundred thousand francs.

Corelli describes religion as “a moral code expressed through legends, myths, or any type of literary device, in order to establish a system of beliefs, values and rules with which to regulate a culture or society.”

He also has a jaundiced view of humanity, saying, “‘The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as excessively devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant and the feeble-minded as intellectual.’”

His thoughts on what motivates people to act badly have resonance. “‘When we feel like victims, all our actions and beliefs are legitimised, however questionable they may be. Our opponents, or simply our neighbours, stop sharing common ground with us and become our enemies. We stop being aggressors and become defenders. The envy, greed or resentment that motivates us becomes sanctified, because we tell ourselves we are acting in self-defence. Evil, menace, those are always the preserve of the other. The first step towards believing passionately is fear. Fear of losing our identity, our life, our status or our beliefs. Fear is the gunpowder and hatred is the fuse. Dogma, the final ingredient, is only a lighted match.’”

After his researches into religion Martín opines, “‘The main pillar of every organized religion, with few exceptions, is the subjugation, repression, even the annulment of women in the group.  Woman must accept the role of an ethereal, passive and maternal presence, never of authority or independence, or she will have to take the consequences. She might have a place of honour in the symbolism, but not in the hierarchy.’”

Martín moves into an old mansion which once belonged to Diego Marlasca – a man with a mysterious death whose ramifications will dog Martín’s future. (There are echoes here of a similar building in The Shadow of the Wind.)

In the meantime Martín has become plagued by Isabella, a fan of his writing, and come to the attention of Police Inspector Grandes as suspect in a mysterious fire at his former publisher not to mention the disappearance of Cristina.

He is saddened by Sempere’s decline in health and vigour. The bookseller complains that, “‘At my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows’ necks.’”

What could have been an insight into the importance of books in the lives of bibliophiles, however, degenerates in its latter stages into an overdose of unlikely happenings more akin to a thriller. Again, as in The Shadow of the Wind, Zafón flatters to deceive.

Pedant’s corner:-  “my father took me El Indio” (took me to El Indio,) shrunk (shrank.) “‘You don’t looked convinced’” (You don’t look convinced.)

Earlier this year we attended a book launch event in Edinburgh at the headquarters of Historic Environment Scotland.

The book in question was Art Deco in Scotland, Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age written by Bruce Peter.

Laid out in the building’s rooms were various illustrations of Art Deco designs, models, architectural plans and magazine illustrations as well as a screened photomontage of reminders of Scotland’s Art Deco past, some of which are now sadly gone.

On Saturday last I finally got round to buying a copy of the book. (Who could resist a cover featuring the Tower of Empire from the Empire Exhibition 1938?)

Among many sumptuous photographs of cinemas, public, commercial and industrial buildings and fabric designs the book has a chapter dedicated to the Empire Exhibition.

I have not yet read the text but look forward to it.

Kingussie War Memorial with Indian Memorial to left:-

The memorial is a celtic cross on a tapering pillar atop a square base:-

Dedication:-

Great War names:-

Second World War names:-

Nearby Memorial Bench to Great War dead:-

From Blair Atholl we continued north up the A 9 and took a slight detour into Kingussie.

In a green area to the east of the road through the town lie two War Memorials.

The first I came across was unusual, being particular to Kingussie.

Built of stone it is a memorial to the dead of Force K6, the Indian Contingent, Royal Indian Army Service Corps 14 of whom are buried in Scotland, nine of them in Kingussie Cemetery.

Side view:-

Information board on the Indian Contingent:-

Information board about the Indian army which was the biggest volunteer Army ever recruited, over 2.5 million men:-

One from South African singer songwriter John Kongos. It was a no 4 in 1971.

Kongos’s other hit He’s Gonna Step On You Again was famously covered by The Happy Mondays as Step On. They also covered this one but didn’t release it as a single.

John Kongos: Tokoloshe Man

Edited to add: I meant to say a Tokoloshe is a malevolent spirit in Bantu folklore.

In the way north from Killiecrankie we passed through Blair Atholl and I spotted its War Memorial.

Of course I stopped to photograph it.

A Stone of Remebrance inscribed 1914 – 1918, with memorial plaques on a wall behind:-

Great War Names:-

Second World War Names:-

In the first Jacobite Rebellion (in 1689) a battle took place at the Pass of Killiecrankie.

I had always meant to visit the site but somehow never had until April last year, despite it being only three miles from Pitlochry which we have visited many times.

The Pass is a very tight space between two steep hills on either side of the River Garry. Not an obvious spot for a battle.

The government forces were advancing from the south to remove the Jacobite presence from Blair Castle just to the north and were attacked from the hills by the Jacobites under the command of John Graham of Claverhouse (aka ‘Bonnie Dundee’) scourge of the Covenanters by whom he was later dubbed ‘Bluidy Clavers’.

Such was the lack of space in the Pass the government troops could only line up three deep, firing up the hill.

The Jacobites were victorious but Dundee was killed by a musket ball. With his death the Jacobites lost their militarily talented leader and the rebellion petered out soon after.

In the government soldiers’ retreat one of them was forced to make a desperate jump acros the river to escape capture (or worse.) A path leads down from the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre to the site of the leap.

Soldier’s Leap:-

Video:-

Pitlochry Festival Theatre from across River Tummel:-

Footbridge just to south of above:-

Approach to footbridge:-

Footway:-

Pitlochry Festival Theatre, River Tummel, Pitlochry Dam, (theatre to left background):-

River Tummel with Pitlochry Dam in distance:-