Simon Evrard, Table 2 vie(s)

Isn’t this just marvellous?

New Chaucer Society Portland Demob

This year’s New Chaucer Society Congress took place in Portland, Oregon, and it was quite an experience. The most challenging aspect, one that pervaded the entire trip, was the crazy awful jet lag. I’d never really suffered like this before, so from now on I shall have a great deal of sympathy for those in the same boat at future NCSs. Local arrangements were carried out under enormous pressure with several relatively last-minute complications; given the circumstances, it all worked out rather well. The city of Portland is beautiful, it feels very relaxed. Everyone cycles around (it’s not quite Cambridge, but you know what I mean), everyone recycles, and the city centre has a free tram network. Portland is also home to the largest secondhand bookshop in the world. Needless to say, this proved very exciting. I made a couple of visits and found some lovely things: two gorgeous little hardbacks in the Nuova Universale Einaudi series, of Petrarch’s Canzoniere (which of course I had in a much later paperback repr) and Pavese’s Poesie, and a new copy of Nestlé-Aland’s Greek New Testament. I hmmm and hawed over T K Swing’s Fragile Leaves of the Sybil but in the end decided against. At the Congress itself there was a very good, but small, bookstand and I picked up copies of Kolve’s Telling Images, Travis’s Disseminating Chaucer, and Hanawalt & Kobialka’s collection Medieval Practices of Space, which I’ve used and found very good.

The congress was excellent. I found myself tending towards the ‘Affect’ thread, though I enjoyed some papers a good deal more than other. Amongst those papers I enjoyed, briefly: in the first panel, there were papers by Anna Wilson on Middle English devotional communities and Fan Fiction; Sara Baechle on affective literacies in manuscripts of Troilus and Criseyde, Brantley Bryant (he of Geoffrey Chaucer hath a Blog fame) talked about accounting in the Reeve’s Tale. A panel on England and France had Chris Cannon say that we are placing too much emphasis on French given how few people were actually speaking it; Madeleine Elson gave a beautifully sensitive paper on the Book of the Duchess and Machault; Kathryn Kerby-Fulton talked about scribal treatments of literary texts, concentrating on Arundel 292, a trilingual anthology. The session was chaired by Ardis Butterfield, who made some remarks about Cannon’s paper, mainly trying to set him straight, and a lively discussion ensued. The next session I attended was my own, with really terrific papers by Kara Gaston and Andrew James Johnston. Gaston talked about volgarizzamenti, and the culture of vernacularization; Johnston talked about humanism, Padua and political (politicized) astrological representations. In a feminism session, there were super papers by Betsy McCormick on the Legend of Good Women and the question of the ‘likability’ of the heroines, Laurie Finke on fraternity, medievalism and the Masons, and Ruth Evans gave a tour de force of a paper on Criseyde, psychoanalysis and Lacan. In the ‘Affect’ thread there was a Round Table on displaying, hiding and faking emotion in Chaucer, with Alcuin Blamires on blushing; Annette Kern-Stähler on Troilus and privacy; Sarah Kelen on emotional ambiguity; David Raybin on Griselda’s swoon and Lawrence Besserman on the Physican’s Tale and Prioress’s Tale. Carolyn Dinshaw gave a wonderfully enjoyable presidential address on multiple temporalities in Mandeville, a Victorian satire of Mandeville and the Chaucer Blogger. A short paper panel on Chaucer and Italy was most stimulating with papers by Teresa Kennedy on the House of Fame; Robert Sturges on vision and touch; Leah Faibisoff on the Parliament of Fowls and Tom Stillinger on Orpheus. Another ‘Affect’ panel had Anthony Bale talk about ‘The Prison of Christ’ and incarceration; Stephanie Trigg on weeping; Holly Crocker on Griselda and disaffection; Christine Neufeld on the Clerk’s Tale; William Youngman on the Reeve and Miller; and Glen Burger on Griselda. Bale was excellent, as well as Crocker, Trigg and Burger. Terribly in control of their material. There was a very good discussion of Griselda along the way. There was another super Chaucer and Italy panel, with Fred Biggs talking about the Shipman’s Tale; Rory Critten on Guiscardo and Ghismonda; and Sarah Massoni with a very excellent paper on Wykked Wives and Misogamy. The final session I went to was on Seeing the Book, with papers on John Lydgate’s ‘Sotelties’ by Heather Blatt, a paper by John Plummer on the reading scenes in Troilus and a paper on the MS Corpus 61 frontispiece by Laura Wang. The quality over all was really high. I must say that the Chaucer and Italy sessions were very stimulating and I got a great deal out of them.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Transfiguration, 1307/8–1311;
tempera on panel, 44 × 46 cm, National Gallery London 

One paper I have not mentioned, I saw in the first panel on Affect. It was entitled ‘Illuminated’ by Cary Howie and it was utterly remarkable. Remarkable in its fearless sincerity, its visionary, profound search for a new critical vocabulary, its intellectual depth and breadth, its huge heart. I was absolutely bowled over by it. It was a paper about transfiguration, light, illumination, and it was simply glorious. Howie’s paper was an event bigger than the room. Something changed, the wind shifted, time twitched.

I felt as if I was watching a prophet. 

Where I'd like to Work

via here; Luke Hughes & Co. Maple Desk with a Green Leather Inset Top. H: 38" W: 54" D: 35"


I love this desk.

Nick Haus

Nick Heywood blogs here.

I am in thrall to every word he writes, every picture he posts, every object he looks at.

He’s some sort of wise stylish genius. Read and you’ll know what I mean.

(Image from here.)

Just one more book

I’ve just tracked down one of those rooms I said I loved (here): it belongs to Prof. Richard A. Macksey, at Johns Hopkins. The library comprises over 70,000 volumes. That’s rather a lot. Here’s a video, with shots of his beautiful library. I particularly like all the lovely Windsor chairs.

Where I Work(ed)

Since I’ve been posting variously on where other people work, I notice that I have not actually posted anything much here on where I work. I’ve put these photos up on my tumblr page, treated appropriately with Instagram’s nostalgic magic. The nostalgia is due to the fact that I shall soon be moving from my rooms in Cambridge when I take up a lectureship at York in October. I’m very excited by this and cannot wait, but I shall be sad to leave this room too. I’ve worked so well here, both for writing and for teaching. In term time, this little flat was also where I lived, and, despite the fact that it is what estate agents euphemistically refer to as bijoux, I always felt that I had enough space. That said, I am certainly glad that I shall have space to expand the shelves a little.

When I moved in, there was very little room for books, and after a bit of gentle hint-dropping, they came and put more in. So those shelves you see in front of my desk (the one with the computer on it), were added. And the shelves you see behind the black table were also added. The table is good, though I did covet those who had desks designed by Luke Hughes (he did work for a new building here, and has done lots of tables and desks in student rooms and in libraries throughout Oxford and Cambridge, a wonderful designer whose work I like very much). Behind my chair, which you cannot see, is mainly Chaucer. In front, is mainly Dante. They look at each other and remind me, sitting between them, of the book I have not yet written.

The black armchair is the only piece of furniture in this room I actually own (apart from the office chair—found on the street in Oxford during the first week of my doctorate and with me since—and my little Habitat Book Caddy, of course!). I found it when I went in to Borders in Cambridge, just as it was closing down. Everything was for sale, shelves, sofas, chairs, even the books. So I bought myself a book (Jacques Rancière, The Future of the Image, if you’re curious) and then bought myself a chair, in which to read it. Getting it back to my room was an adventure in itself. Having a second table is also very handy, especially in the depths of the teaching term when there’s a volley of marking to be done in waves each week.

When that volley of marking is done and term is over, then it’s back to Dublin for me. And then I work in a small room in a city-centre apartment. The apartment is a shared space, though the books occupy a large percentage of this space and they are mostly mine. On the wall is a gorgeous head portrait by Brian Bourke, while facing the desk is a lovely piece by Nina Nordenström, who works on paper and does things that look like maps. The desk was a slightly mad buy in Habitat and it took me a couple of years to get used to. In fact, it wasn’t until I cut the legs down a bit that it really felt right. It’s still not quite right, but it’s nearly there.

The shelves are in the hall and in the study, though these photos are out of date in respect of what is on the shelves in the study, since I brought a good bit of my Dante over to Cambridge this year. In the corridor, that orange set you see in the middle is a lovely copy of Shackleton-Bailey’s edition of Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (Cambridge University Press), bought for a song at the Trinity College Dublin booksale (to which I have not been in a long time). I have great memories of queuing across Front Square waiting to get in, then dashing around and finding all manner of things. I remember finding a lovely copy of Francis Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition and I have just got up now to leaf through a gorgeous copy (still in its box) of Pascal, Œuvres complètes in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, which I remember vividly picking up and thinking I’d won the lottery.

More will follow when I get myself settled at York and, more importantly, when I get the books settled. I do hope they’ll be happy there.

Two Rooms I Love

I’m not entirely sure where these came from, but aren’t they gorgeous:

A Room of One’s Own: Nicola Gardini

I knew Gardini in Oxford, where he teaches Italian. He’s a poet, a writer, a scholar. These photos and text are from an article entitled ‘Nella stanza di Nicola Gardini’ by Sandra Bardotti. I take the liberty of reproducing them here because I’m such a sucker for writers’ rooms and the like. I like the desk, and the book trough on the desk. It’s a bit messy, but in a way that suggests it is in constant use.

Mi sembra di sentirla parlare, Amelia Lynd, qui nello studio milanese di Nicola, con il suo intercalare british impeccabile. Mi sembra di vederla muoversi eterea nella stanza, la Maestra, circondata da una luce innaturale. Si solleva con le ali fino all’ultimo piano della libreria, fino ai grandi volumi del dizionario enciclopedico Utet e del dizionario della lingua italiana Tommaseo-Bellini, per ricordarci che le parole – le idee – sono tutto. Democrazia… “Nessuno può capire fino in fondo il significato di quella parola se non ama la propria lingua. Dall’amore della lingua che parliamo e poi di quelle che apprendiamo nasce e cresce in noi il senso della democrazia… ‘Essere uno dei tanti’… Io non saprei definirla altrimenti… ‘Ed essere tanti in uno’… Questa è la democrazia. Capisci?” (Le parole perdute di Amelia Lynd, Feltrinelli 2012).

Nel salotto pieno di libri e carte di Amelia Lynd, il piccolo Luca impara a volare più in alto.

In questo bellissimo studio nel centro di Milano, hanno preso forma Le parole perdute di Amelia Lynd e altri libri di Nicola Gardini. I baroni, Per una biblioteca indispensabile, la traduzione (ancora inedita) dei versi di Catullo: molto lavoro è passato di qui e ha lasciato le sue tracce. E chissà quante altre impronte ha disseminato anche nello studio di Oxford, dove Nicola insegna letteratura italiana all’Università di Oxford – perché Nicola è uno di quei cervelli che con un dottorato in Letteratura Comparata a New York, al suo ritorno in Italia ha dovuto fare i conti con il baronato accademico e fuggire all’estero.

Libri ovunque: sulla scrivania, nella libreria, su un elegante tavolino, in una piccola libreria girevole di legno, in una libreria credenza con le ante in vetro, sul divano, per terra, sparsi sul tappeto. La grande e pregiata libreria di noce occupa tutta la parete fino al soffitto. Davanti ai libri sono poggiate alcune fotografie di famiglia. Mi mostra lo scatto di un giovane Nicola seduto su una panchina e sorride. “Questa è una delle prime foto che ho scattato al mio arrivo a New York nel Novanta. Come vedi avevo ancora i capelli e sullo sfondo si vedono le torri gemelle”. Ci sono piccoli dipinti di paesaggi e di uccellini variopinti, un guerriero dell’esercito di terracotta cinese, il busto di Omero, alcune cartoline che immortalano grandi statue classiche, l’immagine cara di Virgilio o lo sguardo penetrante di Vargas Llosa – “uno dei miei autori di riferimento, insieme a Canetti e aIsherwood”. Di Isherwood ci sono molte edizioni rare, che Nicola colleziona.

Dai tanti fogli sparsi per la stanza si intuisce l’abitudine a un attento lavoro svolto direttamente sulla carta. Seduti sul divano, insolitamente sgombro, mi mostra alcune stesure tormentate e mi parla del suo metodo di lavoro. “Scrivo al computer ma uso moltissimi fogli per gli appunti preliminari o per abbozzare strutture e sketch. Poi stampo e intervengo a mano sulla stampata, quindi riporto le correzioni a pc, e così via, fino a quando il testo non è a posto. Quando scrivo in prosa o traduco, questo è il metodo che seguo. Per la poesia, invece, sento l’esigenza della scrittura a mano”.

Quasi impossibile immaginare Nicola che si muove tra tante carte, libri e oggetti impilati sulla scrivania di legno scuro venato. “Questa bella scrivania l’ho comprata a una fiera. Nella casa dove abitavo in precedenza non la usavo molto. Avevo la fissa dei tre tavoli di pascoliana memoria, e questa l’avevo posizionata in camera da letto, dove era quasi inutilizzata. È diventata importante in questa casa, soprattutto da quando le ho cambiato posizione. Prima era rivolta verso il muro ma mi sono reso conto che avere uno spazio aperto davanti mentre scrivo mi aiuta molto a concentrarmi. Non a caso amo molto le hall dei grandi aeroporti, dove lo sguardo si perde in spazi immensi”. Tantissimi oggetti-amuleto si intravedono qua e là. Una scatolina sigillata ermeticamente al cui interno dovrebbero esserci tante bamboline in miniatura – “è con me dal 1991, doveva farmi guarire da un persistente mal di stomaco”. Una stella marina. Un timbro decorato a mano con il nome di Nicola in cinese. E poi ci sono molti sassi – “un sasso dipinto da un poeta greco; un sasso di Auschwitz, che avevo inserito in una mia installazione sul tema del dolore e della sofferenza; un grande sasso a forma di cuore che mi ha regalato mia madre”.

“Lavoro molto la mattina. È finita l’epoca in cui improvvisavo a qualsiasi ora. Adesso trovo l’ispirazione nella concentrazione. Non sono collegato a internet. Spesso mi piace leggere un’oretta prima di mettermi a scrivere. Mi capita di ascoltare musica classica mentre scrivo. In questo momento in particolare ascolto l’opera, argomento del mio prossimo romanzo”.

Nel mucchio troviamo anche degli eleganti quaderni di disegni, dove ci sono perlopiù schizzi dal vivo. Nicola dipinge – a periodi, non è un’attività costante – e alcuni intensi paesaggi naturali su tela adornano le pareti della stanza. “Qui tengo le cose più riuscite: due paesaggi americani, la mia Inghilterra”. In un angolo vicino alla finestra c’è un cavalletto – “apparteneva a Gianni Dova, mi è stato regalato da sua moglie nel 1996 corredato da pennelli e colori: così ho iniziato a dipingere a olio”. I tubetti dei colori sono abbandonati sulla tavolozza. Per terra alcuni cartoni della pizza che Nicola talvolta usa per dipingere.

C’è molto di Nicola in Amelia Lynd, nella passione per la lingua, nella fede onesta nella parola e nell’ideale. Traspare anche da questa stanza affollata di parole e ricordi, dove ogni cosa è riportata al suo significato.

“Che fede avevo nei significati, che accumulavo, proprio come te su cento quadernini! Tienli stretti tu, i tuoi quadernini! E quando, magari, ti verrà la tentazione di dubitare, tirali fuori, rileggili, non nasconderli come ho nascosto io il mio lavoro.

Goodbye, Amelia” (Le parole perdute di Amelia Lynd, Feltrinelli 2012)

Dominic Stevens

Dominic Stevens is a very talented architect based in Co. Leitrim, in the north west of Ireland. Since this is my home county, it is such a thrill to think that he’s working there. He has designed a few rather interesting houses in the county, including the wonderful ‘Mimetic House’, in Dromahair. Some photos are included below. One thing he’s been very vocal about is how houses don’t actually have to cost that much. The reason they do is that banks, developers and government coffers have all worked together to make property cost what it did. To prove this, he has developed a house that costs €25,000. The details of how to build such a house are now included in a wonderful website: www.irishvernacular.com and I highly recommend a visit. What is so exciting about this website is the way that it urges a complete rethink of the very idea of houses and property, and gives practical advice on how to go about doing this, including plans, instructions, the whole lot.

In the meantime, take a look at the ‘Mimetic House’ and enjoy: