Sunday, May 25, 2025

Edging Toward Japan: Samuel Pepys and Sei Shonagon - the ultimate love match

From mainichi.jp/english

By Damian Flanagan

    A few weeks ago, I attended a rather unusual concert in Cambridge, England. All the pieces of music dated from the time of the famous English diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703). My knowledge of the pop songs of the 1660s is not what it should be and I didn't have a particular strong conception of what music from this period actually sounds like.

    We are talking here about going back to a time before virtually all the famous classical composers -- before Beethoven, before Mozart, even before Bach. As it turns out however, the music of the 17th century gets on perfectly well without all of them and is teeming with beautiful pieces and charming songs played to the accompaniment of the strangest of instruments.

    We started off with some songs played on the spinet, a kind of early harpsichord, and then the musicians produced an extraordinary instrument called a "theorbo," which is an extravagantly oversized lute. Pepys himself loved music and probably owned the very spinet on which the songs were performed, and ordered the making of a "theorbo" which he proudly declared in his diary to be as good as any in the country. When not writing his diary or helping to run the British admiralty (his day job), he even composed songs himself. 

    Of late, I've found myself getting more and more interested in Pepys and his world. Years ago, I listened to actor and director Kenneth Branagh reading extracts from the voluminous diary (which covers the years 1660-69) and recently I've been reading Claire Tomalin's prize-winning biography of Pepys, "The Unequalled Self".

    What is fascinating about Pepys is partly the turbulence of the time he lived -- the nine years of the diary cover the chaos and anxiety in England following the death of Oliver Cromwell, the initially jubilant restoration of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the war against the Dutch amongst many other happenings. But amidst all these mammoth events, there is the even greater fascination of being immersed in the domestic minutiae of Pepys' daily life, sharing with him his passions and disappointments, his surreptitious affairs and ambitions, his bowel movements and flatulations, his moments of anger, grief and joy.

    Tomalin recounts that Pepys was an astoundingly good diarist because for him every day of life was an adventure in human consciousness, filled with the sheer thrill of being alive, of being able to sense and enjoy everything the world had to offer -- its food, its music, its voluptuous women, its poetry, its conversation and company, its seasons and heats and frosts, and, not least, his cherished books. All these things were part of his all-consuming embrace of life that makes him a thrilling literary companion.

    Samuel Pepys (Portrait by John Hayls, 1666. Public domain)

    These days, if I feel like disappearing for a while into an alternate universe, then I might turn to Pepys and transport myself back into the 1660s. Yet Pepys is not the only explorer of consciousness that I have turned to of late.

    On recent trips to Japan I wanted to introduce my two daughters to a writer who might capture their interest and so began listening with them to a reading (in English) of "The Pillow Book" by Sei Shonagon. As we had our breakfasts every morning in Japan, we would be transported to Sei Shonagon's world of the Imperial Court in Kyoto around the year 1,000 where Shonagon was a courtier. We would enjoy her sometimes caustic and always beautiful observations on the men and women around her, the changing colours of the mountains, the preferred etiquette of her lovers, the seasonal colours of the mountains, the sound of the flute in the night air...

    I must admit that I am a fairly recent covert to Sei Shonagon. In my younger days, I had a far greater appreciation of Shonagon's contemporary and rival, Murasaki Shikibu, the author of the monumental "The Tale of Genji". Shonagon seemed to me much the inferior of the two. But rediscovering "The Pillow Book" with my daughters, I now see that Shonagon is a much more fascinating, individualistic personality than I first appreciated.

    She is never less than her own woman and, like Pepys, is an admirably honest and perceptive contemplator of the sights, sounds and flavours of her own existence. Unlike Pepys, she was not keeping a day-to-day journal, but rather a compendium of observations on diverse subjects that cumulatively add up to an almost cubist portrait of a world now vastly lost in time.

                                                                        Sei Shonagon (Painting by Uemura Shoen, 1917-18. Public domain)

    Sitting in an autumnal chapel in Cambridge, England, listening to the music of the 1660s, I found myself strangely thinking about Sei Shonagon and about how fundamentally similar she and Samuel Pepys were. In their professional lives, they were robust and worldly, but in their private lives they were seekers of (sometimes illicit) joy and things of beauty, candid in their assessments of themselves and others.

    I was thinking that this strange linkage of Samuel Pepys and Sei Shonagon was a whimsical idea all my own, when my daughter surprised me at breakfast the next morning by suddenly saying, "Last night I dreamt of Sei Shonagon and Samuel Pepys..."

    When I responded that I had been thinking about them too and that they would have made a great couple, my 14-year-old daughter recoiled in distaste at the idea. "Ugh!" And yet I'm still thinking it could have been a match made in heaven, or in hell, to put two such quick-witted, intelligent and highly opinionated minds together.

    We live in a world in which, to a tiresome degree, people are compartmentalised according to their nation, their race, their gender, their sexuality. Yet sometimes, people from vastly different cultures at completely different historical periods can appear profoundly similar in their thrilling engagement with the sheer mystery of being alive. We make a mistake, I suspect, when we keep Sei Shonagon cloistered in a room called "Heian Court Literature", alongside (to her probably insufferable) companions like Murasaki Shikibu.

    Pepys himself, I suspect, would have found boundless joy in the colours and beauty of the Heian court, stealing through the night-time garden of a Heian lady, intent on begging entrance for a moonlit tryst. While Sei Shonagon longs, I think, to burst into a wider world, to explore Pepys' library of Western books, to smoke a pipe and drink some wine, and sing songs of love while Samuel flirtatiously accompanies her on the theorbo.

    https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250517/p2a/00m/0op/004000c

    Tuesday, May 13, 2025

    Meet Celebrated Southern Memoirist Judy Goldman

    From styleblueprint.com

    Judy Goldman’s new book — "The Rest of Our Lives" — invites readers to see aging as an exhilarating time for embracing a new kind of existence. Get to know this inspiring FACE of the South! 

    When Judy Goldman turned 80, she felt she’d run out of things to write about. The South Carolina native had already published seven books — three memoirs, two novels, and two poetry collections. Then Judy, now 83, remembered what she often told her memoir workshop students: Write about what keeps you up at night. So, she decided to do just that.

    Judy’s newest book – a memoir titled The Rest of Our Lives – tackles the topic of aging, offering readers a new and refreshing way of viewing each stage of life they enter. We caught up with Judy to learn more! 

    How did you get into writing?

    I started writing in the third grade. That’s the year I started keeping a diary. I wrote my first poem in the third grade, and I took it to my teacher, and the way she reacted to it, you would have thought I was headed for a Pulitzer. She went crazy over it. It was terrible. It showed no talent whatsoever. But that was the early encouragement that I had …

    When I went to New York, I pursued a career in copywriting and advertising, and I did that for years. I was a copywriter for ad agencies and then freelanced, so I’ve always written. I was amazed that I could earn a living doing something I had always done and loved to do.

    But when I was in my 30s, both of my parents were going through the process of dying at the same time. I was young to lose both parents. I took to my typewriter instead of taking to my bed, and I just wrote one poem after another. All I wrote about was loss. A friend who was in a poetry group with me said, “Judy, you are the high priestess of loss.”

    But it got me through that period and started me on my path to being a writer. I stopped writing advertising copy and just devoted everything to writing poetry, then novels, then memoirs.

    Judy Goldman is the author of eight books and is often asked to give talks on her writing. Image: Judy Goldman

    Your newest memoir is about aging. How did that come about?

    Usually, after I publish a book, I have an idea for a new book, and I’m ready to move on. But after my last book was published, I had no idea what to write about. I told my husband, “That’s my last book. I’m not going to ever write another book.” And he said, “You always say that.” I find that very annoying, because it’s so true. But part of thinking that was my last book was thinking, I’m too old to write. That’s what was happening to me.

    We’re never too old to write. If we’re worrying about something, if we’re trying to figure out, “how am I going to get along or conquer the challenges of this stage — and there are challenges at every stage, not just old age; there are challenge at 15, 21, 35, 83 — we just have to decide it’s a place full of possibilities.

    What encouragement would you give to a woman who wants to start writing or doing something new, but feels too old?

    We have to understand that the details of our lives matter. Write about the details of your life—whether in poetry, memoir (both of those are very personal), or fiction—and use the details of your life when you’re creating your characters. Really understanding that the details of our lives matter is important, no matter what we’re trying to tackle next.

    What impact does memoir writing have on your everyday life?

    In general, I think the biggest effect writing has on my life, particularly writing memoirs, is that it makes me notice things more. I take in more, and I think it’s really good for us to be aware of what is around us. Many times, people ask me if writing a memoir is cathartic. I’m not sure it is, because it’s not writing in a diary — although maybe the initial impulse is the same.

    What happens in a memoir is you’re trying to turn your own experiences or memories into art, into something that might matter to somebody else. And that’s very different from writing in a journal.

    Judy Goldman’s eighth book and fourth memoir, The Rest of Our Lives, invites readers to reconsider their views of aging. Goldman says the book could be a guide for 80-year-olds and 40-year-olds and everyone in between. Image: Judy Goldman

    Does writing a memoir feel different from writing poetry or fiction?

    Writing poetry and writing a memoir feel very similar to me because they both use the language of feeling. They’re both intimate. They’re both like a fireside chat with the reader. As for writing fiction, I published two novels that should never have been published. I know that’s a terrible thing to say in an interview, but I was not very good at making things up. I would rather write out of the experiences of my life.

    What do you wish more people understood about aging?

    If we bother to imagine what old age is like when we’re young, we tend to think it’s something foreign or alien. Really, old age just echoes all the other stages we’ve passed through on our way from then to now. And each stage brings with it the fear of the unfamiliar, along with the exhilaration of trying out a new kind of existence.

    What writers inspire you?

    Usually, it’s just whoever I’m reading. I don’t read books for pleasure anymore. I read books to learn. I started writing fiction and memoirs so late. My first novel was published when I was 58, so I feel like I have so much to learn. If a book doesn’t have something to teach me about writing, I close the book. My current favorite is Claire Keegan. Her books are jewels. My favorite of hers is Small Things Like These.

    A group of ten people, including adults and teenagers, pose together on a sandy beach with the ocean and a cloudy sky in the background.Pin
    When she’s not working, Judy enjoys spending time with her children, grandchildren, and her husband, Henry. We’ve been married for 57 years! I always wanted a really good love story, and Henry and I got a really good love story. We decided to get married during our third date, “she says. “I had been engaged to another guy and broke my engagement three weeks before the wedding, so I knew what I was looking for. And when I met Henry, I thought, this is it. And he thought the same thing. Image: Judy Goldman

    What do you like to do when you’re not working?

    I like to walk. I like to be with my family. My daughter lives 10 minutes away, and my son lives eight minutes away.

    What’s the best advice you have to offer?

    It’s a quote from the poet Nikki Giovanni: “I recommend old age,” she said. “There’s just nothing as wonderful as knowing you have done your job.”

    Aside from faith, family, and friends, name three things can’t you live without.

    My new vegetable peeler, the photographs of family and friends I have all around my house, and cutting azalea blooms from other people’s yards, and putting them in my condo.

    https://styleblueprint.com/everyday/southern-author-judy-goldman/

    Saturday, May 3, 2025

    "I risked jail by writing illegal WW2 diary - now at 99 I want to share secrets"

    From thesun.co.uk/news

    FORCES fighting in World War Two knew the rules: Anyone who kept a diary risked being be jailed.

    But now, at the age of 99½, ex-Royal Marine Tom Hill has finally decided to reveal his secret wartime journal.

    Father-of-two Tom showed The Sun the tiny booklet that he has kept hidden for 80 years.

    It records the horrors and hilarity of war.

    As the anniversary of VE Day — when war ended in Europe — approaches, Tom says: “I knew if I was caught with it I’d have ended up in jail.

    “But I went to so many places and I knew if I didn’t write them all down I’d forget where I’d been.

    “I kept it hidden with my medical kit in a front leg pocket. Thankfully, the medical kit wasn’t ever inspected so I got away with it.”

    But what a tale the notebook, only slightly bigger than a credit card, has to tell.

    It goes from the beaches of Normandy, where Tom spent 16 days under fire before his landing craft was sunk, to the Far East and Australia. 

                                                                                           Tom serving in Australia in 1944

                                                                                                       Credit: Paul Tonge

    He was in the Panama Canal when VE Day was declared on May 8, 1945. His delighted last entry on May 30 says simply: “UK — Here I come!”

    Despite working as a tool setter — a protected job that meant he would never have to fight — Tom volunteered to join the Royal Marines, the only regiment that would take 17-year-olds, and he became a landing craft Coxswain.

    I went to so many places and knew if I didn’t write them down I’d forget. I hid the diary in my medical kit and thankfully I got away with it         Tom

    At his home in Birmingham, he says: “I wanted to do my bit for my country, especially after witnessing Coventry Road being bombed and seeing first-hand how we were being targeted by the Germans.”

                                              At the age of 99½, ex-Royal Marine Tom Hill has finally decided to reveal his secret wartime journal

                                                                                                           Credit: Paul Tonge

    Here, he reflects on some of the entries from his first-hand account of history . . . 

    JUNE 1943: After six weeks training in Portsmouth, Tom travels to Scotland to join the former merchant ship Empire Battleaxe, which was home to 90 marines.

    JUNE 4, 1944: Back in Portsmouth, Tom ferries troops out to the Battleaxe at anchor in the Solent.

    He says: “We didn’t know of the plan for the D-Day landings in France.

    “The first we knew of it was seeing troops playing with foreign money on board the ship. We hadn’t been told a thing!”

    JUNE 6, 1944: After being held back 24 hours due to bad weather, Tom arrives off Normandy.

    He was in the four-man crew of an LCA landing craft, navigating eight miles through choppy waters, taking 35 troops at a time across from the ship to Sword Beach.

    He says: “The sights we saw going back and forth were terrible, just awful, ships being sunk and injured troops in the water, but we had to keep going.

    “Shells were going over our heads, troops were being shot at. By night all hell seemed to break loose and we were in the crossfire.

    “Either side of us I could see LCAs with their doors blown off. The sergeant on another LCA signalled to me that he had one engine and couldn’t fire the other.

    “He asked me to move around and take a look.

    “I could see a body of one of our troops was wrapped round the propeller shaft rendering it unusable.”

    For 16 days Tom and his crew ferried in hundreds of troops and supplies to the beaches before being used to deliver mail.

    On one mail run they came across a ship where a shell had gone through a hatch, killing every soldier onboard.

    Tom recalls: “There were two lads sharing a flagon of rum while they filled bags with body parts from down below.”

    JUNE 22, 1944: On day 16, the landing craft is hit by a storm and sunk.

    Tom says: “We abandoned ship and swam together to the nearest boat, which was an American tugboat.

    “The captain told us they were returning to the USA and asked if we wanted to go with them.

    If I drank one rum I must have had two or three pints of it. I’ve never ever been drunk since then. After grot time, where we spent time with pals, I was tied in my hammock from 11 o’clock until 4 o’clock. The lads thought it was hilarious                   Tom

    “While the idea of a new life far from the noise of D-Day was an attractive thought, we got aboard a British ship and were given five days survivor’s leave.”

    He then rejoined HMS Battleaxe on an 11-month mission, attached to the American 7th Fleet, all over the Pacific, from Samoa to Sydney.

    NOVEMBER 25, 1944: My 19th birthday, in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. A day I will never forget.

    Tom says: “If I drank one rum I must have had two or three pints of it. I’ve never ever been drunk since then. After grot time, where we spent time with pals, I was tied in my hammock from 11 o’clock until 4 o’clock.

    “The lads thought it was hilarious.”

    Later, a prisoner of war became seriously ill and Tom had to ferry a doctor from an American ship to treat him.

    He says: “I got alongside and shouted for them to throw a line down. I was greeted with the response, ‘Sorry pal, I haven’t got a pen or paper’.

    “It made me really cross that I had to sit in the water for a long time waiting for a rope while we had a really sick POW.”

    MARCH 19, 1945: Sydney. Tom says: “Water was always in short supply so we’d strip off and shower in the rain. We had a detachment arrive of six nurses who were all on deck when it started raining.

    “A Tannoy announcement reminded us there were females on board and not to strip off and shower.

    “One of the nurses piped up, ‘Don’t worry, lads. We’ve seen it all before’.

    MAY 8, 1945: Panama Canal. Tom says: “VE Day didn’t matter much to me. By then, D-Day and France felt like it was far away.

    “But despite the end of it all in Europe, the campaign in the Pacific and Japan was still going on.”

    MAY 30, 1945: New York. UK here we come.

    Tom says: “We got back into Portsmouth and were given ten days leave. Our commanding officer told us to make the most of it as afterwards we would be heading back to the Philippines. I remember feeling like it was really unfair. We’d been everywhere.”

    Eighty years later, retired school caretaker Tom carries survivor’s guilt that he made it home when he watched so many others perish.

    On Thursday, Tom will be attending a Royal British Legion VE Day party with dozens of World War Two veterans at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffs.

    He says: “I’m one of the lucky ones, I’m still here. What I saw on D-Day and in the Pacific will always stay with me.

    “So many good men I served with didn’t get to see the world in peace.

    “I think of them all often and will do so again on VE Day.”

     https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/34753088/royal-marine-tom-hill-ww2-diary-ve-day/