Mauve by Simon Garfield
Stuart: A Life Backwards
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Mauve by Simon Garfield
Stuart: A Life Backwards

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Man and Dog by Siegfried Sassoon
Whoâs thisâalone with stone and sky? Itâs only my old dog and Iâ Itâs only him; itâs only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree.
What share we mostâwe two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust.
Hereâs anyhow one decent thing That life to man and dog can bring; One decent thing, remultiplied Till earthâs last dog and man have died.
(found in Dog's Best Friend: The Story of an Unbreakable Bond by Simon Garfield)
To a Dog, writer unknown
The rugs lie smooth; the curtains are not torn, I haven't missed a shoe or rag today. The house is dreadfully still, until I wish I heard four feet come pitpat down the hall.
The soft moist nose that pushed against my hand The paw that touched me to demand its wish, The pleading lively eye, the plaintive barkâ What sweet annoyances they now would seem!
(found in Dog's Best Friend: The Story of an Unbreakable Bond by Simon Garfield)
Im reading too many books at once and theyâre ALL library books. i need to finish some of them

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Timekeepers â Simon Garfield
8.7.2023
A great reminder that I should read more non-fiction.
Re-Run from 2016Â âTo the Letterâ
The following is a post I wrote back in early 2016 â a simpler, happier time â for the Month of Letters blog. While we have left Valentine's Day 2020 behind us already, I'm re-posting this piece, in part because it's amusing and, in part, because I am concerned about the U.S. Postal Service and want to remind us all how desperately important letters can be. I hope it makes you smile.
(Also, Happy May the Fourth)Â
*****************
14 February, 2016 St. Valentineâs Day
My dear Ms. Bradford,
Greetings and enthusiastic wishes for a Valentineâs Day alight with loads of loving letters! I write you today not only to send greetings, but also to thank you for giving me the singular honour of writing the Valentineâs Day post â and to tell you with immense regret that I canât possibly write such a piece.
Allow me to explain. You asked that I focus on the love-letter sections of the book I have been reading, To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing by Simon Garfield.* If only you had asked me for a general review of the book! In that case, I could have extolled its wit and the wide range of historical examples it provides. I would have offered up moving passages, such as the one in the introductory chapter, âThe Magic of Letters,â in which Mr. Garfield writes eloquently about what we are in danger of losing:
Letters have the power to grant us a larger life. They reveal motivation and deepen understanding. They are evidential. They change lives, and they rewire history. The world used to run upon their transmission â the lubricant of human interaction and the freefall [sic] of ideas, the silent conduit of the worthy and the incidental, the time we were coming for dinner, the account of our marvelous day, the weightiest joys and sorrows of love. It must have seemed impossible that their worth would ever be taken for granted or swept aside. A world without letters would surely be a world without oxygen (p. 19),
and provided instances of the authorâs humour, such as when, in an aside to his discussion of Senecaâs instructional correspondence, he gently pokes fun at academics who study epistolary matters. In this note, Mr. Garfield informs us that
Senecaâs letters were longer than the norm, ranging from 149 to 4,134 words, with an average of 955, or some 10 papyrus sheets joined on a roll. Philological scholars with time on their hands have calculated that a sheet of papyrus of approximately 9 x 11 inches contained an average of 87 words, and that a letter rarely exceeded 200 words (note, p. 55),
an observation that betrays the authorâs own interest in such minutiae. He also spares not the Fathers of the Church. He points out that during the millennium when âLiteracy was not encouraged among the populaceâ (p. 81), letter-writing declined and âtheological letters are all we have.â Mr. Garfield finds these letters uninspiring and cautions his readers that we âmay prefer death to the lingering torture of reading themâ (p. 82).
I shall say nothing at all about Mr. Garfieldâs three chapters reviewing historical advice on âHow to Write the Perfect Letter,â about the heated debates regarding whether letters should mimic informal conversations, about the importance of addressing recipients as befits their stations, about where to place oneâs signature, nor about how leaving wide margins was a sign of wealth and status. Epistolary silence shall envelope the fascinating descriptions of the evolution of the modern postal system; not a word will there be from my pen about the incredible fact that postage used to be paid not by the sender of a letter but by the person to whom it was addressed, nor shall I mention anything about the invention of the postage stamp, despite Mr. Garfieldâs engaging description of its conception.**
But love letters! You must see how this will never do. Love letters can leave us open to terrible embarrassment. Mr. Garfield acknowledges that
Love letters catch us at a time in our lives where our marrow is jelly; but we toughen up, our souls harden, and we reread them years later with a mixture of disbelief and cringing horror, and â worst of all â level judgement. The American journalist Mignon McLaughlin had it right in 1966: âIf you must re-read old love letters,â she wrote in The Second Neurotics Notebook, âbetter pick a room without mirrors.â (p. 336)
Reading the love letters of others can be almost as cheek-reddening as reading our own. Shall we really subject our LetterMo companions to such blushing?
Moreover, we all know the power of a love letter. Think how we are charmed when Hamlet, that most articulate of Shakespeareâs creations, writes awkwardly to Ophelia:
'Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. 'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe
Adieu.
'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, HAMLET.' (Hamlet, II. ii. 1212-20***)
And never let us forget that it is a letter, and not even an intentional love letter, but merely a letter of explanation, that finally wins Mr. Darcy the heart of Elizabeth Bennet. Do we wish to tempt our friends to deploy such power wantonly and without discretion? ****
But these are fictional examples, created strictly for our amusement or even for our edification. I really don't know whether we should intrude upon the privacy of people who actually lived â though Mr. Garfield patently feels no such compunction. He shamelessly lays out for us not only the ecstatic feelings of historical couples, he even brings up â and weâre both adults, so Iâm just going to write the word straight out â SEX. I fancy you donât believe me. Permit me, for veracityâs sake, to share some examples.
If you were to glance at page seventy-three, you would find Mr. Garfieldâs account of
The letters between Marcus Aurelius and Fronto [which] track the rise and fall of a courtship from about ad 139, when Aurelius was in his late teens and his teacher in his late thirties, until about ad 148. The heart of their correspondence is ablaze with passion. âI am dying so for love of you,â Aurelius writes, eliciting the response from his tutor, âYou have made me dazed and thunderstruck by your burning love.â
All I will say is that, with all the conjugating the Romans had to learn, itâs a wonder there was time for such extra-curricular activity.
Mr. Garfield follows this Latin love affair with the tragic, even more explicit tale of Heloise and Abelard, those misfortunate, twelfth-century lovers. Theirs is another pupil-pedant passion, and Abelard writes that
âWith our lessons as our pretext we abandoned ourselves entirely to love.â There followed âmore kissing than teachingâ and hands that âstrayed oftener to her bosom than the pagesâ (p. 76).
The story culminates in pregnancy, a secret marriage, Abelardâs castration by Heloiseâs relatives, and the retreat of both lovers into monastic life. Heloiseâs love and desire for her husband remain unabated; during Mass, ââlewd visions of the pleasures we shared take such a hold upon my unhappy soul that my thoughts are on their wantonness instead of on my own prayersââ (p. 78).
In a later chapter, Mr. Garfield treats us to a discussion of the romance of Napoleon and Josephine, and compares the market worth of their letters to the arguably more valuable missives of Admiral Lord Nelson. âIn letters,â our author confides, âas everywhere else, sex sells: the Nelson [letter] went for Ĺ66,000, a fair sum but less than a quarter of a Bonaparteâ (p. 192). Mr. Garfield puts before us the affaire de cĹr of Emily Dickinson and her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert. He quotes âa letter which echoed the steamy transactions of Abelard and Heloise âŚ: âWhen [the pastor] said Our Heavenly Father,â I said âOh Darling Sueâ; when he read the 100th Psalm, I kept saying your precious letter all over to myself, and Susie, when they sang ⌠I made up words and kept singing how I loved youââ (p. 248). **** In another letter, Dickinson breathlessly confides to Gilbert that if they were together, âwe need not talk at all, our eyes would whisper for us, and your hand fast in mine, we would not ask for languageâ (p. 248).
To be sure, there are genuinely moving examples of great love to be found in the book. We are reminded that passionate romances need not be defined by tragedy. Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett fell in love through their letters, and their correspondence describes a âswift 20-month crescendo from endearing fandom to all-consuming cravingâ (p. 345). The two poets eloped and lived happily for the duration of their marriage. Browning was âthe man who swept her [Barrett] away and liberated her passionâ (p. 347) â and married her.
While the concerns of the famous hold a particular fascination for the masses â as Shakespeare writes, âWhat great ones do the less will prattle ofâ****** â the most touching and poignant letters are those of Chris Barker and Bessie Moore. Mr. Barker was a British signalman during the Second World War, Miss Moore an acquaintance from Mr. Barkerâs time working in the Post Office. When they began to write, Ms. Moore was involved with someone named Nick, but three months into their correspondence Ms. Moore has shed Nick and is trying to persuade Mr. Barker that they are friends, and not mere acquaintances. She succeeds admirably, and soon Mr. Barker is assuring her of his interest in having âfun at a later dateâ while warning her ânot to let me break your heart in 1946 or 47â (p. 145), and stoking her interest by wondering what sheâs like âin the soft, warm, yielding, panting fleshâ (p. 147). But before long Miss Mooreâs unwavering admiration and epistolary dedication have complicated Mr. Barkerâs desire and he is writing âI WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUâ (p. 202).
Miss Moore waits for her signalman throughout the war and his time as a POW. In the epilogue, we learn that they were married in October 1945 and had two sons. It is to the elder, Bernard, that we owe thanks for the preservation of their letters. The younger Mr. Barker says of his parents that âTheir love for each other was so complete, always, that it was difficult for my brother and I in childhood and adolescence to relate to each of them as a single personâ (p. 425). In the last letter of the war, Mr. Barker writes his by-now wife, âI can never be as good as you deserve, but I really will try very hard ⌠We shall be collaborators, man and woman, husband and wife, loversâ (p. 426). The Barkersâ letters cannot be read without becoming involved in their growing affection and in the history Mr. Barker includes in his letters to the steadfast woman who would become his partner. The letters are tender and grateful and passionate, and we learn a great deal from them about Mr. Barkerâs experiences as a signalman, about how to lay the foundation for a lasting, loving relationship, and about how thoroughly Victorian sexual mores had been trampled into the dust.
I cannot but think that you are as shocked as I am. You have not read the book and are innocent regarding its contents. I am sure, in my heart of hearts, that you didnât understand what you were asking me to do. But I am equally sure, Ms. Bradford, that you agree these matters ought not be laid out before the Month of Letters community, that none of our letter-writers could ever have the slightest interest in reading about affairs of the heart (and of the body) of other people. Our reputation as an Internet society devoted to promoting the respectable art of epistolary composition would suffer dreadfully, and neither of us wants to be complicit in bring such a judgement to pass.
I do hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me for letting you down so. To make up for the lack of a post, I offer you a poem to run in its place instead, one more suitable for our impeccable epistolary society, to run in place of the piece I should have given you:
But For Lust Ruth Pitter
But for lust we could be friends, On each otherâs necks could weep: In each otherâs arms could sleep In the calm the cradle lends:
Lends awhile, and takes away. But for hunger, but for fear, Calm could be our day and year From the yellow to the grey:
From the gold to the grey hair, But for passion we could rest, But for passion we could feast On compassion everywhere.
Even in this night I know By the awful living dead, By this craving tear I shed, Somewhere, somewhere it is so.
I trust you understand my reasons for writing you this letter and do assure you that I remain
Your honoured and admiring epistolary confederate,
Ruth E. Feiertag
* Gotham Books, Penguin Group, 2014
** Those familiar with Terry Pritchettâs Going Postal will already have an inkling of the early history of stamps.
*** Open source Shakespeare, [http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php], accessed 3 February 2016).
****Garfield irresponsibly provides no advice for the proper composition of a love letter. For that we must look to John Beguine of The Atlantic. His article, âA Modern Guide to the Love Letter,â reminds us to choose â100 percent cotton paper,â that may âsuggest to your beloved those other cotton sheets you hope to share.â He also cautions us not to âsuccumb to the temptation to employ your own personal stationery imprinted with your name and address. Such handsome lettering makes identification appallingly easy for your loverâs attorney.â Beguine covers other topics such as Ink, Elegance (âElegance prompts wit rather than comedy, sentiment rather than sentimentalityâ and âLong-winded elegance is oxymoronic. So length does matter, but in writing, less is moreâ), Salutation, Body (âeven if you have a knack for them, no pornographic drawingsâ), Metaphors, Grammar, Complimentary Close, Signature (âIf you canât bring yourself to close without a signature, limit yourself to your first initial. And try to be illegible here. Thereâs no reason to make the job easier for a lawyer someday [sic]â), Delivery (âbribe whomever you must to have the letter placed directly upon the belovedâs pillowâ), and Accepting an Answer. ([http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/a-modern-guide-to-the-love-letter/385370/])
***** One might also ponder Dickinsonâs 1722 poem, âHer face was in a bed of hairâ:
Her face was in a bed of hair, Like flowers in a plot â Her hand was whiter than the sperm That feeds the sacred light.
Her tongue more tender than the tune That totters in the leaves â Who hears may be incredulous, Who witnesses, believes.
****** Twelfth Night, I. I. 33. [http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/twn_1_2.html]
history of audiobooks : Our Hidden Lives by Simon Garfield | History
Listen to Our Hidden Lives new releases history of audiobooks on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Get any AUDIOBOOK by Simon Garfield History FREE during your Free Trial
Written By: Simon Garfield Narrated By: Christopher Scott, Simon Garfield, Joan Walker, Amanda Carlton, Jeffrey Perry, Moir Leslie Publisher: EburyDigital Date: October 2016 Duration: 3 hours 9 minutes