'Dr Zhivago'

    

   ‘Dr Zhivago' is a book I have been intending to read for years - inspired by David Lean's cinematic adaptation - but never got round to until this year.  It was the cover, I have to confess, of this Fontana Books edition of 1969 that I found in a second-hand bookshop that finally galvanised me into action.

     I really don't want to dwell here on Lean’s film of 1965.  It, after all, deserves a blogpost all to itself, but I will say that at times the film differs markedly from the book.  That is inevitable in any film adaptation and perhaps it's best to think of the film as a riff on Pasternak's novel.  I don't think those changes matter too much, however I have to register a disappointment that the book does not contain the line 'The personal life is dead in Russia.  History has killed it.'  It appears the screenwriter Robert Bolt has to be thanked for that.

      Like Shostakovich's 13th Symphony, 'Dr Zhivago' is a product of the so-called 'Khrushchev Thaw' - a time in the Soviet Union, post WWII, post Stalin, when there was a loosening of the state’s control of the arts (amongst other things).  Both the symphony and the novel challenged the limits of that 'thaw'.  The premiere of the symphony, December 18th 1962, took place against a background of intimidation by the authorities. Six years earlier when Boris Pasternak (1890-1970) had submitted the manuscript of Dr Zhivago to the literary journal 'Novy Mir' for publication it was rejected. It was just too critical of the Soviet regime. For a while it was circulated between Pasternak’s friends and then in 1957 it was smuggled out to the West, where its publication caused a sensation, and some literary critics were driven to hyperbole.  These two examples are taken from the back cover of my Fontana edition:

     ‘Doctor Zhivago will, I believe, come to stand as one of the great events in man’s literary and moral history.’   Edmund Wilson in The New Yorker

     ‘The first work of genius to come out of the Russia since the Revolution.’  V S Prichett in The New Statesman.

     With exception of the Epilogue, ‘Dr Zhivago’ is set during the first quarter of the 20^th century in Russia, opening when Yuri Zhivago is a child of 10 and concluding with his death at the age 0f approximately 35.  The majority of the novel is, however, concerned with the nine years of conflict between 1914, where Russia entered WWI, and the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922/23.  With Revolution of 1917 the external enemy is replaced with the internal, as Russia went to war with herself.  The Civil War that followed alone claimed between 5-7 million lives, mainly civilians.
     Against this almost apocalyptic historical process Zhivago attempts to find space to form a stable family life, first with Tonya and then Lara.  To insulate themselves from the titanic events grinding away like tectonic plates beneath them.  (The third attempt, which happens later in Moscow, is given a much briefer account.)  Their happiness is fleeting, and Yuri is defeated in each attempt. He loses everything each time and in that process of erosion is reduced to a husk of a man.  A man destroyed. The personal life was, indeed, dead in Russia.  Towards the end of the novel are two extraordinary passages when this broken man, still grasping at life, makes two epic journeys on foot through a decimated land, almost bereft of another living being.  Quite haunting, if not disturbing - one can almost feel as sense of evil abroad.  This is a strongly evocative book that seems to gather in strangeness as it progresses, and the everyday is shredded by conflict and the new authorities.  Though in the Realist tradition of the 19^th century, there is a deep sense of the other particularly when we leave the city and venture out deep into the Russian countryside.
     I can’t help feel that the influence of Dostoevsky is close at hand – though as my knowledge of Russian literature is somewhat limited I may be wrong, but it seems to be there in the way the characters talk and interact and those philosophic discursions that pepper the book.  Tolstoy too in the vast scale and ambition.  Pasternak is attempting to convey the entirety of Russia – hence, I suppose the vast geographical and historical scope of the novel, one that suggests some sort of metaphysical intent.  Hence also the great number of named minor characters, which can be confusing.
     Much is made in the film adaptation of Yuri’s adulterous relationship with Larissa (Lara) Antipova, and the critic Stuart Hampshire reviewing the book in ‘Encounter’ called it ‘One of the most profound descriptions of Love in the whole range of modern literature.’ Yes, what unfolds is a love story.  And perhaps it is a strand of this novel that is most easy to pick up on in a novel that one critic rightly called 'elusive'. Dr Zhivago is, however, much more than that.  It is the story of a nation, a people, descending into madness and barbarism. Whole communities were wiped off the face of the earth. There were biblical scale plagues of vermin, and famine, and there were the 'Besprizorniki' (translated on wiki as 'The Unattended') - millions of abandoned children whose lives were lived on the streets, surviving by begging, stealing and prostitution.  It could be that some of those who were forced by circumstance into the latter were under the age of ten.¹  It is beyond comprehension.

1 They were the children of those killed in WWI, the Civil War, the famines and the purges.

St George

 Happy

St George's Day

to you all!

Deliverer of prisoners, protector of the poor, healer of the infirm and defender of Kings, victorious martyr George, pray to Christ our God for the salvation of our souls.

Orthodox Troprion

'Laura Ashley decorates - A London House'

     This is a slim volume, a mere 88 pages, but does it pack a punch.  I have seen it before on ebay but took little interest. I have a copy of 'The Laura Ashley Book of Home Decorating' and that really isn't up to much; whatever the merit of the text it is spoilt the by terrible photography.  However, last week I was trawling through Youtube and came across a short video by Isla Simpson on this book and I was deeply impressed by what I saw.

     In the early Eighties Laura Ashley Ltd bought and renovated a large terraced house in west London.  This book illustrates the results. (There is a section at the back of 'before and after' shots.) Though this is not all quite to my taste you really have to admire their ambition.  This is a bravura performance, an equal to anything being produced in the more posher end of the interior design business.  The text makes it plain - this is not merely a recreation of a mid-Victorian middle class interior.  There is, after all a modern kitchen in the basement.  Kitchen apart, however, this project really could only have been made in the Post-War period.  It shares the sort of aesthetics that were illustrated in Mary Gilliat's 'English Style' of 1967.   See here for my post on that wonderful book.  In parts there is even a residual 60s/70s bohemianism.  I've always thought that Laura Ashley falls more easily into the Post-war scene than popularly thought.  Modernism's hegemony may have rigidly enforced in the realm of architecture, but failed elsewhere.  Thankfully.
     This project does however mark a change in Laura Ashley's outlook towards the grander and the historically informed, less cottage.  The results here are stunning.

     The research and intelligent text are by art historian Jane Clifford and the excellent photography by Arabella Campbell-McNair-Wilson. 

Jocasta Innes: Living in Style

     Realising that the original illustrations were not of a high enough standard, this post has been updated, as of 18/04/2024, with a better, and wider, selection of images.

    Picked this book up the other day while exhibiting at Aberglasney - they possess a rather good second hand book corner and I've picked some lovely books in my time.  

     I had a copy of 'Living in Style', which I believe is her third book of interior design, many years ago and, for a reason I can't now remember, I got rid.  I have a suspicion that I also owned 'Paint Magic', published 1981, at the same time, but I may be mistaken.

    Jocasta Innes (1932-2013) was, as this book shows, a possibly unique combination of bohemianism and the practicality. The latter the child of the former, born out of necessity.  Creativity from chaos.  From 1979 she lived in Spitalfields, an area in the East End of London, that was then in process of being rediscovered.  There she restored a 18th century town house, honing her skills in the process, and which she relayed to us in her many books.  All the while continuing to work as a journalist and writer.  A force of nature of sorts.
     I have to admit a slight disappointment with the design of the book.  I suppose I expected something a bit more chic from a book connected with Cosmopolitan, even one sponsored by Dulux - Innes, I should add, was at the time Design Editor of the magazine.  Some of the images in this book reflect that cultural milieu of Spitalfields - hence the large picture of Dennis Severs (1948-2001) in his remarkable Folgate St house.  There is also an admix of Arty North London Bourgeoisie.  Though I have say I think some her contemporary choices don't quite hit the mark, the following do. (Oh, by the way for those who don't know, the gentleman resembling a deckchair is the inestimable George Melly - jazz singer, raconteur, writer and tv presenter. Bohemian. Habitué of the Colony Room.)

Oh Birmingham....

    

  ....what has become of you? Have you really so sunk so low?

     I am talking here about the planning application by Marrons (for HJB Investments) for 80 Broad St, in the city.  I first came across this application in the current edition of 'Private Eye' last week.  It has also been reported on by the BBC and GBNews.  In addition to the 'Eye' it has also featured in other traditional print media such as 'Building Design' and 'Construction Enquirer' - most of these articles are essentially a re-write of a post on the Marrons' website.

 

     To the scheme and it really is a shocker, entailing the proposed construction of a 438ft high tower over the top of a late, rather attractive, Grade II listed, Georgian mansion called, in a couple of on-line articles, 'Islington Villa'.¹  (This end of Broad St was in the beginning of the 19th century known as Islington and Broad St as Islington Rd.)  As far as I can make it both the architect of the villa and the date of construction are unknown; Pevsner says c1830s, while flickr 1814.² It was the home of Owen Johnson, one of the founders of the Islington Glassworks, but most of its life has not been domestic but institutional i.e. a series of hospitals.  In recent years it has been a restaurant and a bar and has since Lockdown been empty.  For all its vicissitudes it is one of the last remaining pieces of the old Broad St. and, with the extraordinary former Broad St Presbyterian Church (1848-9 by J R Botham), perhaps the best bit of architecture going on the street.  And, let's face it, Broad St needs all the help it can get. It abounds in ugliness, but then the whole of the City Centre is slowly sinking into vulgarity. 

     Let's hope this really doesn't get planning permission. Marrons' design will not only set a dangerous precedent should it get permission, but it will do nothing to enhance Broad St while actually demeaning the current structure. 

Great news! As of today (25.04.24) the scheme has failed to get planning permission.  Islington Villa is safe.  For now.

1  The tower, I believe, will be mainly, as the headline on 'Business-Live.co.uk' so elegantly puts it, 'resi'.  That's residential to you and me.

2 The architect of the sympathetically designed wings is however known.  It was John Jones Bateman (never heard of him).  They date from 1863, when 'Islington Villa' was already a hospital.  The railings are also listed.