Wednesday Reading Meme on Thursday

[osprey_archer]

Wednesday Reading Meme a day late this week on account of the New Year!

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Penelope Lively’s A Stitch in Time, because I thought it was a time-slip novel, but in fact there’s a lot of musing about the nature of time and only the dimmest glimmers of timeslip: the squeak of a swing that’s no longer there, the glimpse of a long-ago girl’s face in the glass before her old sampler. Bit of a disappointment really.

Also Susan Cooper’s The Magic Maker: A Portrait of John Langstaff, Creator of the Christmas Revels. I read this solely because Susan Cooper wrote it, as I’d never heard of the Christmas Revels, although now that I’ve read this book I’d love to attend one. Revels differ from other performances in that they have a strong participatory element: the audience sings along with many of the songs and joins the dance at the end. Alas, the Revels seem to be mostly a coastal phenomenon: they started in Boston and spread to New York, California, Portland… Some of these locations have spring and autumn revels, too.

Cooper fans may be interested to learn that it was Jack Langstaff’s encouragement that propelled King of Shadows from a mere idea to a finished book. In fact, he gave her a copy of John Bennett’s Master Skylark, so there is a direct connection between these two “boy meets Shakespeare” books!

What I’m Reading Now

Charlotte Bronte has just left the Heger pensionnat in Brussels and returned to Yorkshire for good. Elizabeth Gaskell doesn’t mention her unrequited love for M. Heger, and neither, interestingly, does Mr. Shorter, who annotated the 1900 edition. Since all the principals were dead at that point (not only Charlotte herself but her father, her husband, the Hegers, etc) one might imagine he would feel more freedom to talk about it, but apparently not.

What I Plan to Read Next

I was planning to read Penelope Lively’s Astercote and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, which are also supposed to be timeslip, but now I feel suspicious as to the actual amount of timeslip they contain. Has anyone read them? Do the characters from the past and present actually meet?

Comments

[philomytha]

I went to the Christmas Revels in Boston when I was very small, and although I was very small I have a very vivid memory of the theatre and all the singing and dancing, it was very good fun!

[osprey_archer]

It sounds amazing from the description. There's nothing like getting together with a group to make music.

[philomytha]

Oh, and I meant to say, we used to have an audiobook of Thomas Kempe that was a staple of long car journeys when I was a kid, and iirc it's a ghost story rather than timeslip, but very good fun. In fact now I want to track it down and listen again...

[osprey_archer]

I also enjoy ghost stories! In fact I've added the Thomas Kempe book to my Halloween list for next year - I like to have a stock of ghost stories I'm planning to read.

[asakiyume]

Whoa! Connection between the two boy-meets-Shakespeare books!

[osprey_archer]

I KNOW! You chose better than either of us knew when you gave me Master Skylark!

[sovay]

Has anyone read them? Do the characters from the past and present actually meet?

The title character of The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is an active presence in the novel, although in the form of a ghost rather than some more direct collision of the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. That said, my elementary school memories really enjoyed it.

[osprey_archer]

Happy with ghosts! (Maybe I'll add this book to my Halloween list. I accept all ghosts for Halloween, not just spooky ones.) Just as long as the character from the past is an active presence and not a mere occasional glimpse.

[sovay]

Just as long as the character from the past is an active presence and not a mere occasional glimpse.

He mistakes the recently arrived protagonist for his apprentice and turns the town upside down.

[rachelmanija]

That sounds promising.

[sovay]

That sounds promising.

There's some sense of the deep time of the village, too, into which the protagonist and his poltergeist are interwound, which I responded to strongly despite no longer remembering any of the details. (This conversation has convinced me to re-read the book, though.)

[landofnowhere]

Oooh, that's very cool that Langstaff gave Cooper a copy of Master Skylark! (And I wonder if Cooper decided she needed to write a .)

The Unitarian Univeraslist church that I grew up in held a Revels celebration every other year around the solstice (though alas, it has not survived the pandemic) -- it was an off-brand Revels but did include The Shortest Day, various carols, a St. George and the Dragon mummers' play, and morris dancers (but no participating in the dance at the end). Also I recently realized that the Cambridge Revels has produced CDs that are available on various streaming platforms, but I haven't explored most of their catalogue.

[osprey_archer]

I think part of your first paragraph is missing.

Oh, I love your local Revels celebration! It's too bad it's gone; the pandemic killed so many good and wonderful things... but perhaps the Revels will spring back. That seems a very Revels thing to do.

[landofnowhere]

oops, sorry sometimes I jump around and don't finish things! What I was going to say was that I wonder if Cooper decided she needed to write a kid-meets-Shakespeare story with more Shakespeare?

Sadly I suspect it will be harder to resurrect Revels with the long-running music director having retired :-(

[osprey_archer]

I don't know how well-developed her idea was when she read Master Skylark, but if she was still in the planning stages I could definitely see her going "Note to self: put in LOTS of Shakespeare."

[cyphomandra]

I see you've already had advice re Ghost of Thomas Kempe, which is the only one of those Livelys that I've read. In a related timeslip question, though, are you familiar with any timeslips written pre 1950s? I'm trying to track them down (for, of all things, a quiz at a vintage children's book conference) and I currently have Uttley's A Traveller in Time (1939), WM Channon's A Fifth Form Martyr (1935), Monica Edwards' Black Hunting Whio (1950) and possibly Nesbit's House of Arden (1908) but I prefer ones when the timeshift is out of the protagonist(s)'s control.

[osprey_archer]

I think all the ones I'm familiar with are 1950s or later, alas! When Marnie Was There, The Children of Green Knowe, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, etc. I may have to look up some of those earlier ones... have you read any of them? Which are your favorites? The Nesbit is probably easiest to get a hold of, because Nesbit.

[cyphomandra]

I read Traveller in Time when I was pretty small, so will have to revisit it. Fifth Form Martyr I've read relatively recently as I was tracking down boarding school stories by the author (which I typo'd - it's EM Channon) and was startled to discover it has a 1930s school girl catapulted back to 1890 to make her appreciate modern life more :D I like the author but it's not my favourite of hers.

Ooh I forgot Green Knowe - the first one appears to be 1954 so I can probably sneak that in - thanks!

[lokifan]

Ah, Jack Langstaff, a hero! I read King of Shadows over and over as a kid, without ever meeting the Dark is Rising books (same as you, I think?)

[osprey_archer]

Yes! We actually owned the box set of The Dark is Rising sequence, but somehow despite my devotion to King of Shadows and The Boggart I STILL never read them.