Simon Vance

Grandads …and (one) other small stuff

Simon — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:50:04 +0000

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks, so I’ve not got to this page very much and when I have started writing I’ve always out-thought myself afterwards and erased what I started. But I kept the last thing I did, because I rather enjoy the nostalgia thing… and you can see what that is below.

Before I get there let me pat myself (and my wife) on the back: We managed to complete the patio area in our backyard in record time – we had a party scheduled and we needed to finish by last weekend. I’ve mentioned in past video blogs how barren it was out there but it’s not so barren now. We did it all ourselves in the early mornings and evenings (with a couple of days thrown in when I rented a Bobcat – that was fun) and I especially want to thank the weather gods who gave us the coolest summer in years, without which we would never have done what we did… it was exhausting.

The party was partly to entertain our friends but also to celebrate a very good friend’s birthday. His partner was in her ninth month of pregnancy and I think we only just got the party done in time… more later…

But first, the blog I intended to post several days ago, but never finished:

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I missed out here… I’m not unique, I know that, but if there’s something I would have wished to have more of in my life, it’s the living experience of having a grandfather. My grandfathers existed, of course – both of them (well, duh!). But my father’s died a few years before I was born, and my mother’s when I was nine months old.

I don’t have any photographs of my father’s dad, he was a doctor (like my dad), but here’s one of my mother’s father—>

He was a commodore in the Merchant Navy, lost his ship to a German U-Boat in the Mediterranean during one of the Malta Convoys in WWII, made friends with the German captain of that U-Boat after the war and was later awarded the OBE by King George VI. Now those were just a few of his life experiences… imagine the stories he’d have told. I know he cared about me and there’s a picture somewhere of him holding me in his arms – but, darn it, he died shortly after the picture was taken.

I mention all this because the blogger known as ‘The Literate Housewife’ just lost her grandfather, and it made me think… She provides such a moving tribute to him on her website that I became a little jealous. Not for her pain in the loss, of course, but because of the years of companionship and fun she must have had and the stories she must have heard.

I haven’t missed out entirely on the experience, though. My wife’s grandfather died only a couple of years ago – he made it to twelve days past his 100th birthday! His grand-daughter and I had been married several years when he died and although he lived somewhere north of Seattle we did visit on a number of occasions (should have been more, I know – but kids today… they don’t call, they don’t visit…).Born in 1907, Warren lived a long and very full life and he loved to tell stories about his experiences – and, oh my, he really could tell stories… sometimes at great length. His favorite was the story of ‘The Cougar and the Blueberry Pie’! Perhaps one day I’ll put it in print… if I can remember it all.

My own dad would have loved to be a grandfather, I’m sure, but he missed out by almost a year. I’m hoping to be a grandfather myself one day – although (note to sons) I’m not in that much of a hurry.

Some people have quite a ways to go… and that brings me back to my very good friend whose 56th birthday we celebrated last weekend. Last Thursday he became a father for the first time (three weeks earlier than expected).

This little fellow (the ‘small stuff’ mentioned in the blog title – he was 4lbs 3oz) may one day be a grandfather himself… Hope he has lots of great stories to tell his grandkids.

Take Care
Simon

Venice by Peter Ackroyd

Simon — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:16:42 +0000

The Venetians’ language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to that sensual and surprising city.
His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers. He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and its trading empire, the wars against Napoleon, and the tourist invasions of today. Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the glassblowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; the artists—Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. And the ever-present undertone of Venice’s shadowy corners and dead ends, of prisons and punishment, wars and sieges, scandals and seductions.
Ackroyd’s Venice: Pure City is a study of Venice much in the vein of his lauded London: The Biography. Like London, Venice is a fluid, writerly exploration organized around a number of themes. History and context are provided in each chapter, but Ackroyd’s portrait of Venice is a particularly novelistic one, both beautiful and rapturous. We could have no better guide—reading Venice: Pure City is, in itself, a glorious journey to the ultimate city.

A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett by Rob Chapman

Simon — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:12:44 +0000

Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett (1946–2006) was the very definition of a golden boy. Along with three school chums he formed what would soon become Pink Floyd, and rock and roll was never the same.
But there was a dark side. Barrett, who fell in with a hardcore group of communal-living, squatter hippies, soon began ingesting vast quantities of a new drug—LSD—and his already-tenuous mental state began to unravel. Syd Barrett became perhaps rock and roll’s first “acid casualty.”
In A Very Irregular Head, journalist Rob Chapman lifts the veil of secrecy that has surrounded the legend of Syd Barrett for decades, drawing on exclusive access to family, friends, archives, journals, letters, and artwork to create the definitive portrait of this brilliant and tragic artist.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Simon — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:09:20 +0000

In a surprising departure from the traditional view of cyberpunk’s bleak future, Gibson (Mona Lisa Overdrive) and Sterling (Islands in the Net) render with elan and colorful detail a scientifically advanced London, circa 1855, where computers (“Engines”) have been developed. Fierce summer heat and pollution have driven out the ruling class, and ensuing anarchy allows the subversive, technology-hating Luddites to surface and battle the intellectual elite. Much of the problem centers on a set of perforated cards, once in the possession of an executed Luddite leader’s daughter, later in the hands of “Queen of Engines” Ada Byron (daughter of prime minister Lord Byron), finally given to Edward Mallory, a scientist. Mallory, who knows the cards are a gambling device that can be read with a specialized Engine, is soon threatened and libeled by the Luddites, and he and his associates confront the scoundrels in a violent showdown. (from Publisher’s Weekly)

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

Simon — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:09:47 +0000

The first volume of Proust’s seven-part novel “In Search of Lost Time,” also known as “A Remembrance of Things Past,” “Swann’s Way” is the auspicious beginning of Proust’s most prominent work. A mature, unnamed man recalls the details of his commonplace, idyllic existence as a sensitive and intuitive boy in Combray. For a time, the story is narrated through his younger mind in beautiful, almost dream-like prose. In a subsequent section of the volume, the narrator tells of the excruciating romance of his country neighbor, Monsieur Swann. The narrator reverts to his childhood, where he begins a similarly hopeless infatuation with Swann’s little daughter, Gilberte. More than this apparently fragmented narrative, however, is the importance of the themes of memory, time, and art that connect and interweave the man’s memories. Considered to be one of the twentieth century’s major novels, Proust ultimately portrays the volatility of human life in this sweeping contemplation of reality and time.

Proust, Joyce and a dead rabbit…

Simon — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:01:33 +0000

I think I’ve mentioned here, or at least in a video blog from my studio, that from where I sit as I record my books I can see out of the front window to the street. In our front garden we have a couple of medium size trees and just last week, as I was in the middle of recording ‘Tongues of Serpents’, I became aware of a kerfuffle in the branches of one of those trees.

It turns out there was some kind of hawk, with prey in claw, being harassed by a couple of scrub jays (who must have had a nest, or young, they were protecting). We have a large open space nearby and I’m fascinated by the amount of ‘natural’ life we get to see. I paused my recording, grabbed my camera, and crept around the side of the house to witness what was happening.

There was the hawk sitting on a branch with a quite substantial animal gripped beneath its claws – it looked not dissimilar to a small stuffed rabbit that a child might have…. Christopher Robin would have been most upset!

After withstanding the barrage from these scrub jays for several minutes my hawk took off when a couple walking their rather large dogs came a little too close… Scared the dog walkers almost out of their skin as it soared out of the tree and over their heads.

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Now, despite being linked in the title of this blog the events describe above have nothing to do with Proust and Joyce (sorry if you were expecting me to reveal some unknown interaction between the two authors – an argument in the woods, perhaps?):

I have just embarked on a recording of ‘Swann’s Way’, the first of the seven volumes that make up Marcel Proust’s mammoth ‘À La Recherche du Temps Perdu’ – which translates directly as ‘In Search of Lost Time’, but for many years has been better (if erroneously) known in English as ‘Remembrance of Things Past’.

Whenever I am asked to pick up and record a ‘classic’ I have to pause and take a breath before accepting the assignment. The first and most important question I ask myself is: Can I really do it justice…? Has it already been done … and better than I could do it? (Maybe Hollywood should ask itself the same question when thinking about remakes)

Sometime early last year I was asked by a publisher to take on James Joyce’s Ulysses. I hate to turn down work, especially something that could keep me busy for many, many days (as this would have done). But I did turn this down for two very good reasons: It would be an extremely difficult novel too do well (I just wouldn’t have the time to spend preparing every inch of this novel in the way it deserved), and there was already a most amazing version available to the listening public in which great work had been done to produce an authentic ‘Irish’ version (Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan, directed by Roger Marsh).

In being asked to narrate Proust I had a similar sense that I should pause and think hard. Before accepting the assignment I read parts of the book… and fell in love. I think this came along at just the right time for me. I’m at an age now where I find myself in reveries of nostalgia, searching in my memory for those sensations of the long past… the same very small details of childhood that Proust begins his journey with. I love the way he finds his way around in his memories, there’s no sense of rush, this is not a book in a hurry. As I write this I have only just recorded about three hours of what may be around 20 (it’s doubtful that any future volumes will be recorded, but you never know) so I don’t know how I’ll feel by the end, but right now I’m relishing it. I hope that comes out in the final recording.

By the way, this is a photograph of me at three years old – and I remember with fondness that polka-dot bow tie….

Take Care
Simon

I’m naming names…

Simon — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:46:22 +0000

First of all I must apologize to anyone who has been expecting me to update this blog regularly. I was keeping a pretty good pace until this last week or so, and then a break in Maine and a couple of rather difficult books (or, at least, ones that required more prep work than others) and suddenly I find it’s been somewhat over a week since I exposed myself on this site.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the last blog contained a blatant advertisement for books from which I might profit. The fact that that blog was left in a prominent position for longer than any other was pure coincidence.

I’m so glad that is cleared up, now on to today’s business:

I recently heard that the librarian to whom I and several other narrators wished a happy birthday (including in our wishes all other librarians who had birthdays this year – just to be fair) was going to try to name all the narrators lined up behind me in the video (the one posted on July 27th from Maine). Now, she’s already having too much fun for a birthday girl, so I’m putting a stop to all that and naming them myself – just so we’re clear on who the guilty ones were. I shall also reveal the evil genius (!) who shouted a rather offensive comment to me as I was speaking (he can be heard in the video asking me to… no, why don’t you go listen to it yourself).

So here’s a picture taken at the time of filming:

And here are the names, from left to right (not including me, as I’m already making myself rather obvious – practicing my Broadway number):

Richard Ferrone, Ellen Grafton, Kymberly Dakin, Davina Porter, behind Davina (not quite visible in this photo) is Julia Whelan, Bill Dufris (aka the Mailman), Tavia Gilbert, Dion Graham, Hilary Huber, Grover Gardner, Ralph Cosham, Anne Flosnik and Wanda McCaddon.

The gentleman whose voice came down from above and insulted me (with friendly intentions I’m sure) was a man who knows a thing or two about audio drama: the Irascible Yuri Rasovsky – winner of two Peabody Awards, a Grammy Award, eight Audie Awards, two Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards … I could go on (I said he was a genius).

That’s it for now – I have to get back to work.
Take Care
Simon

Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

Simon — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:39:23 +0000

The sixth installment of Novik’s fantastic series introduces Temeraire and former captain Laurence to New South Wales. Laurence, technically a transported prisoner, is escorting three eggs to form a covert in the colony there. The eggs are destined for such second-rate officers willing to make the long trip to the remote colony, including Captain Rankin, whose cruelty killed his former dragon. On arrival, the ship is met by former governor William Bligh, deposed through mutiny by the New South Wales Corps. Bligh wants the dragons to reinstate him in his post; the mutineers are determined to retain the upper hand. Discipline is lax and quarrels are the order of the day, including those between Temeraire and Iskerria, a snobbish beast. To escape all this, Laurence and Temeraire take a mission to find a way through the Blue Mountains and explore the interior of the continent. But one of the dragon eggs is stolen, and the exploration turns into a desperate rescue mission. Temeraire fans have waited two years for this book but should find themselves richly rewarded. The characters are as riveting as ever, the setting is new but convincing, and the plot, with its first-class balancing of Laurence’s and Temeraire’s internal and external struggles, shows Novik’s continued excellence as a novelist. –Frieda Murray/Booklist magazine

Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer

Simon — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:48:32 +0000

In South African author Meyer’s impressive second thriller to feature Cape Town Det. Insp. Benny Griessel (after Devil’s Peak), which spans just 13 hours in a single day, Benny lands a pair of explosive cases: the gang slaying of an American tourist and the murder of the husband of a washed-up, alcoholic popular singer. After teenager Erin Russel turns up on the street with her throat cut, her traveling companion, Rachel Anderson, goes on the run. Rachel, who fears the police are connected to her friend’s slaying, is trying to stay ahead of her pursuers without the help of the authorities. A few hours later, Benny interviews Alexandra Barnard about the death of her husband, Adam, a record company owner. Alexandra was found next to Adam’s body and to the firearm used to kill him. While the windup doesn’t match the pulse-pounding opening scenes, this crime novel does further enhance Meyer’s reputation as a deft storyteller.
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The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

Simon — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:46:38 +0000

From Victorian India to near-future New York, The Calcutta Chromosome takes listeners on a wondrous journey through time as a computer programmer trapped in a mind-numbing job hits upon a curious item that will forever change his life. When Antar discovers the battered I.D. card of a long-lost acquaintance, he is suddenly drawn into a spellbinding adventure across centuries and around the globe, into the strange life of L. Murugan, a man obsessed with the medical history of malaria, and into a magnificently complex world where conspiracy hangs in the air like mosquitoes on a summer night. Winner of the 1997 Arthur C.Clarke Award.