Forever Delayed: 2012-13 Season Review

Regular readers of this blog may have asked themselves in recent months: “Where is the usual twelve-month end of season review?” The Worm himself has managed to avoid the vast number of petitions set up and sent to 10 Downing Street in order to bring about a decision on the “Missing End of Season Review” debate currently being waged throughout these islands. But even the Worm has come to a conclusion: enough is enough. It can be delayed no longer!

What is the reason for such a delay (coming around three to four months than per usual)? One of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, once said: “You may delay, but time will not.” This is true. However, a rival founding father – Thomas Jefferson – also wrote that “delay is preferable to error.” Try to think of the Worm working away in his basement, surrounded by the books of the past year, his hair a mess and bags under eyes due to lack of sleep and worry: just who deserves to earn a slot in the Top Ten List?!!

Seasons past have been kinder to the Worm. There have been sure winners and losers, the good reads and the bad reads. And since the early days – the beginning of 2009 – the “Noddies” have attached such a large importance that the Oscars have attempted to copy certain elements (a court case is currently pending on this issue!). Just who was to win Read of the Year; which book was to come away with the high acclaim; and which book would find itself the unwilling bearer of the Shredder Award – all big questions. No wonder that Dave Cameron wanted to settle the matter once and for all.

In total 52 books were read from July 2012 to the end of June 2013. These ranged from the usual suspect genres of novels and history books, to also include political and language-based reads. The very first read of the year (reviewed in August 2012) was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tale, The Sign of Four; and the last was the recently reviewed short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Neither of these reads found themselves in the eagerly anticipated Top Ten reads of 2012-13:

 

1)      Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot (5 nods)

Previous winners of Read of the Year have included two autobiographies concentrated on the Second World War (by William Shirer and Primo Levi), sandwiched in-between William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. This time around, no book was stronger than this fantastic collection from T.S. Eliot. Contained are his early works (Prufrock), the mesmeric 'The Wasteland', and highlights of later collections.

 

2)      A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams (5 nods)

Also breaking the pattern of the three previous seasons is a play high up on the list (the previous highest ranked play came from Bill Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Season 2009-10). Williams creates believable and relatable characters in mid-twentieth century New Orleans. Following the unravelling of Blanche keeps the reader hooked, line and sinker.

3)      A Hero of Our Time – Mikhail Lermontov (5 nods)

One of the finest works of nineteenth century Russian literature (a time of great heavyweights). Lermontov died incredibly young – from an unfortunate duel when in his late twenties – but he has left this intriguing novel for later generations to admire. It follows a complicated character and his attempts to find his rightful place in the world.

4)      Richard III – William Shakespeare (5 nods)

Shakespeare is no stranger to these end of season lists; in both 2009-10 and 2010-11 he nabbed a slot with his word-playing trickery. Richard III is perhaps one of his best known plays; a myth being created against this son of York that has lasted centuries.

5)      The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde (5 nods)

The Worm – before assuming the alias of the Worm – once read Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray; he found it slightly dull and was put off Wilde for a couple of years. This play makes up for all the time lost. Funny and inventive, it shows Wilde’s wit at his best.

6)      V For Vendetta – Alan Moore (4 nods)

Forget the recent film and instead immerse yourself in the 1980s comic run of V For Vendetta. It shows a writer during the rise of his powers, with scripts and artwork that is captivating and entertaining.

7)      The Spanish Civil War – Hugh Thomas (4 nods)

The Worm thoroughly enjoyed reading this during the summer of 2012. Around 1,000 pages of historical thriller; it is incredible how Thomas manages to explain the complexities of the war and yet maintain a narrative of one of the central clashes of recent history.

8)      The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller (4 nods)

A second entry for graphic novels. This particular one has shaped the character and world of Batman since it hit the shelves in the mid-1980s. It’s legacy may well be dampened with regretful news of a possible Superman v Batman film on the horizon; return to the original source material and see an epic fight of fisticuffs between the Dark Knight and Man of Steel.

9)      How I Escaped My Certain Fate – Stewart Lee (4 nods)

Stewart Lee is one of the cleverest and perceptive voices in the media today. This book – a collection of transcripts (and general musings) is a delight to read. If you wish to escape the drudgery of the bog-standard comedy slopped out on TV today, start looking up Mr Lee right away.

10)  In Cold Blood – Truman Capote (4 nods)

A haunting and – at times – frustrating read. Capote’s book, based on real life events, turns right and left throughout; but its importance and lasting legacy cannot be denied. An interesting thriller that attempts to delve into the human psyche.

 

And what of the category awards:

Read of the Year: Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot

Novel: A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov

Short Story: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Play: A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams

Poetry: Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot

History: The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas

Thinker: Guns by Stephen King

Political: Eichmann and the Holocaust by Hannah Arendt

Autobiographical: How I Escaped My Certain Fate by Stewart Lee

Graphic Novel: V For Vendetta by Alan Moore

Longest Read: The Spanish Civil War – 1,000 pages

Shortest Read: Guns – 25 pages

Oldest Read: Richard III – 1591

Bizarre Title: The Darwin Wars

Shredder Award: Marvel’s Iron Man 3 Prelude

Out of the 52 reads only five gained the full 5 nods! In terms of reading formats, the Kindle showed a notable rise (a total of 12 reads), becoming tied with the tried and trusted method of second hand books. In terms of the Genre Wars, History won the season’s title with a total of 11 reads, just 1 ahead of novels. The only other rival to this was the graphic novel, gaining a total of 9 reads.

The Worm could go on with such stats, but he is quite aware that they are meaningless and rather pointless. Furthermore, Prime Minister Cameron is now at the door: he demands closure on this review and its wonderful revelations. Hath no fear, fellow dear readers, the Worm will continue forward into the fifth season; already 25 books have been consumed. Their reviews will be posted shortly!

#227 The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Title: The Yellow Wallpaper
Genre: Short Story
Year: 1892
Pages: 25
Origin: read on the Kindle
Nod Rating: 4 nods out of 5

 

‘But what is one to do?’

The Worm first came across the interesting writer that is Charlotte Perkins Gilman a few years ago in a dusty and musty copy of Herland. Written and set in the first two decades of the twentieth century, a small group of men come across a tribe of women who have lived for generations without the use of males. It is a seminal feminist text, and it blew the Worm away in its pioneering spirit and refusal to bow down to the gender difference nonsense of its period (for example, this was written before females had the right to vote in elections).

All of which is it is a travesty that the Worm has not returned to Perkins Gilman sooner. Her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, is also one referenced by feminist thinkers in the previous century. Its narrator discusses her rest in a bed, and bit by bit she descends into madness with a running connection to the wallpaper within her bedroom:

‘I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.’

The wallpaper serves a confessional purpose: ‘There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.’ And it serves another purpose to the reader, as well: an implicit message of the struggle of women in their male dominated world:

‘The front pattern does move – and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern – it strangles so…’

Rather than find understanding in her husband, the narrator is patronised (‘Bless her little heart’). Her desired liberation from insanity – and Perkins Gilman’s message of the liberation of women from their enslavement – comes to nothing but a bloody (and confusing) end: ‘Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!’

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a woman who lived life on her own terms (deciding to ‘chose chloroform over cancer’ in a suicide note in the 1935). She could have found a wider audience in the twenty-first century, yet works such as The Yellow Wallpaper have found an enduring readership. Not just for the implicit message, but also in her ability to weave words together. The Yellow Wallpaper is heartedly recommended read.

 

Buy it here

#226 Politics and the English Language (1946)

Author: George Orwell
Title: Politics and the English Language
Genre: Language
Year: 1946
Pages: 30
Origin: read on the Kindle for 99p
Nod Rating: 3 nods out of 5

‘A writer who is still vividly contemporary… Orwell told the truth’
 Christopher Hitchens
 
The Worm cannot add to the vast collection of superlatives attached to George Orwell. The more the Worm reads, the more he subscribes to the view that Orwell is a heavyweight – and perhaps lynchpin – of twentieth century English fiction.

However, this essay – Politics and the English Language – is not fiction, but rather an analysis of the state of language. Within it he attacks the seeming debasement of the English language; a vehicle hijacked by political demagogues and slack thinkers. Orwell believes that writers have lost their grip on the essentials, and as a result both writer and reader are in a race for the bottom.

Such ideas would be expanded on greatly in one of his most popular works, Nineteen Eighty-Four (particular in the restriction placed on the concept language Newspeak: “doubleplusgood”). And in this essay, Orwell rallies against complacency, the misuses and abuses of the English language:

‘Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language – so the argument runs – must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influences of this or that individual writer…. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gits rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.’

In order to combat this, Orwell constructs a manifesto of Six Rules. The first is never to use a metaphor or simile which you are used to seeing in print and to avoid ‘dying metaphors’ and ‘phrases tacked together like the sections of a pre-fabricated henhouse’. The second is to always use short words, rather than long ones in the hope of gaining ‘precision’. The third recommends always cutting out words if possible. The fourth: use the active voice, rather than passive. The firth rule asks the writer to avoid foreign and scientific words, and especially useless jargon and ‘meaningless words’; hopefully this would remove ‘pretentious diction’. The sixth rule: break any of the above rules rather than say anything ‘barbarous’.

The Worm has mused over these rules, but admits that he has often contradicted them (after all, he believes his book reviews are all ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’!). And even Orwell breaks the manifesto rules, admitting as much in this essay. However, if such rules are kept in mind, then Orwell hopes that ‘staleness of imagery’ and ‘lack of precision’ can be avoided.

Orwell could be accused of being a pedant. He is scathing of other writers, but he is both clinical and playful in his condemnation of ‘bad English’. The writing – as adhered by his own standards – remains fresh and exciting; just as if it was written in 2013, and not 1946. He remains an honest voice in a sea of filthy lies.

Apologies, George, but an ending metaphor was the best this Worm could do.

 Download Politics and the English Language here