Saturday 23 May 2020

A book from my past - Sue Purkiss

If you're on Facebook, you may well have seen recently a thing going round where you're asked to post pictures of the covers of ten books that have been important to you. You post one each day, you're not supposed to say anything about your choices, and you're supposed to nominate someone else each day to carry it on.

I'm not really all that good at following rules, and I didn't follow all of these. It didn't make sense to me not to say anything about the books - I'd been intrigued or baffled by other people's choices, and had wanted to know more about them. So I broke that one. Then the first two people I nominated turned me down, so after that I just said anyone could take it on who wanted to. The challenge had already been going for quite a while by then, and I expect everyone who wanted to do it already had done so.

I roved around our bookshelves, and this was the first book that caught my eye. I hadn't looked at it for ages, and it drew me in. It's in French, as you can see, and it's a book of a hundred famous paintings. My sister brought it back from France for me; she did French and European Literature at Warwick, and spent quite a bit of time over there.



I loved art. I don't remember how it started, but I had a collection of little books about artists - I have them still - and I remember sending a letter to the National Gallery and asking if they would send me some postcards, and rabitting on about who my favorite artists were. We didn't strike up a friendship, but they did send me a list of postcards, and I ordered some. I lived near Derby, in a town that D H Lawrence didn't like very much, and I don't think I'd ever been to an art gallery till I went on a school exchange visit to Paris and saw the Mona Lisa. (I didn't like to say, but I was very disappointed. It was so small, and so green.) I drew a lot, but I didn't much like painting, so my ambition to be an artist of some kind died almost at birth.



Anyway, Maggie knew of my pretensions to art, so it was very nice of her to give me this book, and I loved it. It was a sort of symbol of the big world out there, of all there was to see and to experience. For each painting, there was a section about the particular picture and a contextual piece about the artist, and I spent ages leafing through it.

I found it really interesting to be reminded how much I've always liked looking at paintings. I use them a lot as prompts for writing with the group that I teach (for instance, see here) and I've written on ABBA before about how I like to write very short stories on the back of post cards, prompted by the picture on the front.

And there's a sort of postscript. At the back of the book I wrote this:

I sit at the open window and the softness of the sweet hay-scented air touches my face. The curtain moves gently. Over the black woods hangs a white brilliant half-moon; thin threads of cloud are in the sky, and the sparkling light of stars that might by now be exploded into fragments. And round the moon two spidery bits of earth-metal are trying to meet, and one contains men who have trodden the bare whiteness of the moon. The wind moves in the tree, bunches of silhouetted leaves stir. A bird cheeps somewhere.


July 21st, 1969

I have no idea where I was when I wrote it, or why I wrote it in this book. It refers to the Apollo 11 space flight, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. I liked astronomy too. Nowadays I watch Brian Cox, and try to kid myself that I understand what he's talking about.


Plus ҫa change, plus c'est la même chose...


12 comments:

Adelaide Dupont said...

And your desire for awfully big adventures came about very early.

Perhaps through the Apollo missions?

Ann Darnton said...

If your sister was at Warwick, I wonder if she ever made her way over to the Barber Art Gallery at the University of Birmingham? If you love paintings it’s an absolute gem and well worth a visit when all this is over, if you can get there. They don’t have a Leonardo but everywhere you turn you will see names that you will know and some of the paintings are very fine indeed.

Nick Garlick said...

I feel the same way about books of photographs. Lovely post.

Penny Dolan said...

Reading this with guilt as one of those who did not reply to your title offer, Sue.
Wasn't sure who to ask that hadn't responded to the FB challenge already - and then the days slipped by . . ..

The books that matter do often have long personal stories attached to them, apart from the look and period of the book cover etc, so I'm really happy to read a fuller story here today, as well as your evocative inscription.


Joan Lennon said...

I love your 1969 description of two spidery bits of earth-metal trying to meet! Thanks for this post, Sue.

Sue Bursztynski said...

Thanks for the photo! It makes me think of a book very special in my own life. Gombrich’s The Story Of Art, now a classic, was my Year 12 art textbook. I remember so many famous works shown in it, and my first visit to the National Gallery in London. I suddenly saw Constable’s The Haywain” a painting I had only ever seen in Gombrich, and got terribly excited, much to the amusement of a nearby gallery guard.

I still love art, and that book helped!

Susan Price said...

That's a lovely bit of writing, Sue.

Sue Purkiss said...

Thank you, everyone! Penny - no worries at all - I don't usually do these things, but as you see, this one appealed. Sue B - I have Gombrich too, and that was easier because it was in English! (But Cent Tableaux came first...)

I doubt Maggie did get over to Birmingham. Another place to put on my places-to-go-when-this-is-all-over list!

Anne Booth said...

I love the 1969 writing too. And one of my children is studying at Birmingham (when she isn't on lockdown with me) so going to that gallery is a post lockdown aspiration for me too!

Sue Purkiss said...

Thanks, Anne!

Paul May said...

A bit late but I love this, Sue! Your piece about the moon landing is so vivid and atmospheric!

Sue Purkiss said...

Thanks so much Paul. Afraid it's been downhill ever since!