Reading to the dormitory

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michael scuffil
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by michael scuffil »

J.R. wrote:I am currently reading '50 Shades of Grey'. (a present to 'Er Indoors').

A literary classic it will NEVER be. Good luck to the author for making a fortune - God knows how.

Erotic in places but as an example of Englishish literature, a complete and utter disaster.
I picked up a copy in a bookshop and leafed through it while waiting for someone (honest!) and can only agree with you.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by ColeridgeA40 »

sorry Michael Scuffil, I put "Austin" brackets because that was his nickname to differentiate him from the other Mr Jones as you correctly said, but it was not his middle name - he had an Austin car - he went to Carcanet press to publish poetry and he dropped the Austin of course then.
Also it WAS Ayesha, which is a different book than She also by H Rider Haggard, as it She and Alan etc I have both books at home.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by michael scuffil »

He was PAJ: and this, as far as I know, stood for Peter Austin Jones. (If anyone knows better, tell us.)

I defer, of course, on Ayesha.
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J.R.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by J.R. »

michael scuffil wrote:He was PAJ: and this, as far as I know, stood for Peter Austin Jones. (If anyone knows better, tell us.)

I defer, of course, on Ayesha.

That is absolutely correct, Michael.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by michael scuffil »

If you look on google books or amazon under Peter Jones' Carcanet books (he authored a few), you'll find that although he didn't use the name Austin on the title pages, the author's full name is given as 'Jones, Peter Austin'.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by keibat »

I had understood that PAJ's middle name was actually Augustine, but that he shortened it to the (traditional) abbreviated Austin when he adopted it for regular use to distinguish him from the other Mr Jones.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by michael scuffil »

keibat wrote:I had understood that PAJ's middle name was actually Augustine, but that he shortened it to the (traditional) abbreviated Austin when he adopted it for regular use to distinguish him from the other Mr Jones.
I thought that was a saintly fantasy (Hippo or Canterbury?).

But assuming that PAJ himself doesn't look into this forum (I think he's still alive), perhaps Michael Schmidt does, and will give us a definitive answer.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by AliLiz »

Hello,

PAJ is still very much with us. He’s 89 this year, and still going to opera, theatre etc, under his own steam. I see him regularly.

We were married for 12 years and had a son, who is severely autistic. Peter gave up his publishing career to look after him. He was, and is, an excellent father. Peter lives in Notts, about 20 miles from me.

Once our son was found a decent school, Peter, who had an M.A., went back to uni and did a further arts degree, getting a first, at 74. Notts Uni invited him to stay and teach poetry, which he did for a while.

His middle name is Austin (his father’s first name).

He’ll be delighted to hear news from the forum.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by rockfreak »

michael scuffil wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:26 am I remember The Cruel Sea, which John Page approved of because it was the 'Cadet' edition. As soon as he had gone, the non-cadet edition was substituted, which contained some pretty juicy passages.

On another occasion, we chose Duncan Webb's memoirs. Duncan Webb was a crime reporter on the 'People' newspaper, and specialized in 'vice'. He was said to have originated the phrase 'I made an excuse and left the room.' It was from this book that I learnt about the Messina brothers, who ran a vice ring in London in the 1940s and early 50s. I mentioned this to my mother, and she said, 'Yes, one of them lived in Kings Court (the rather classy block of flats in Hammersmith where I lived till I was 2) and he used to tickle you under the chin.'

John Page himself would occasionally read 'Ghost Stories of the Norfolk Broads'. Not exactly bedtime reading, if you ask me.
Duncan Webb and his investigations cropped up on our TV the other night Michael in a three-parter on the Ruth Ellis murder case. For those of our generation it was real trip down memory lane - the attitudes of the time, the fashions, and of course the class system.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by keibat »

What an unexpected, and delightful, contribution from AliLiz!

Back to reading in the dorm: When I was, I guess, still only 11 or 12, we were having Dracula read to us, and it must have given me a nightmare, and I must have foolishly mentioned this my mother, who promptly contacted the housemaster (must have been Chern at that time [the late, lamented, learned, and to my mind, it now strikes me, rather Rowan-Williams-like Michael T Cherniavsky]) and had it Stopped. I was acutely embarrassed!
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by rockfreak »

As I remember, the two Joneses in Prep A were always known as Jonah Senior and Jonah Junior (although neither eaten by whales). As to Lady Chatterley, Michael, I've always believed that the jury in that trial correctly saw that this was a book about class rather than sex. Clifford Chatterley is the mine owner who is injured in the war and is a metaphor for the privileged, fey, and increasingly outdated upper classes. After all the mines of those days saw their share of workers killed when roofs collapsed. My father did a brief spell in the mines in Durham in the twenties and told me that they had to scarper fast on one occasion when it looked as if there might be an accident. Mellors (the gamekeeper) appears to be a metaphor for the vigorous and earthy working class guy with whom the lady Connie gets it on. I've no doubt I shall be accused by Avon for seeing everything in class terms. He's right.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by Avon »

rockfreak wrote: Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:06 pm As I remember, the two Joneses in Prep A were always known as Jonah Senior and Jonah Junior (although neither eaten by whales). As to Lady Chatterley, Michael, I've always believed that the jury in that trial correctly saw that this was a book about class rather than sex. Clifford Chatterley is the mine owner who is injured in the war and is a metaphor for the privileged, fey, and increasingly outdated upper classes. After all the mines of those days saw their share of workers killed when roofs collapsed. My father did a brief spell in the mines in Durham in the twenties and told me that they had to scarper fast on one occasion when it looked as if there might be an accident. Mellors (the gamekeeper) appears to be a metaphor for the vigorous and earthy working class guy with whom the lady Connie gets it on. I've no doubt I shall be accused by Avon for seeing everything in class terms. He's right.
Actually, it’s getting rather comical. Why don’t we do a version of that godawful Mallet’s Mallet thread where you’re given a thread title and have to get to one of your pet subjects in as few moves as possible?
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by LongGone »

keibat wrote: Sun Mar 25, 2018 6:46 pm What an unexpected, and delightful, contribution from AliLiz!

Back to reading in the dorm: When I was, I guess, still only 11 or 12, we were having Dracula read to us, and it must have given me a nightmare, and I must have foolishly mentioned this my mother, who promptly contacted the housemaster (must have been Chern at that time [the late, lamented, learned, and to my mind, it now strikes me, rather Rowan-Williams-like Michael T Cherniavsky]) and had it Stopped. I was acutely embarrassed!
We also had Dracula read to us. I vividly remember that several times, just as he was mentioned, the door to the stairs would creak. Then, on about the fourth occasion a tall, black, shape entered the dorm. After the fact no one would admit to being concerned, especially when it became clear it was Rev. Whitfield letting the reader know he had gone too late.
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by LongGone »

keibat wrote: Sun Mar 25, 2018 6:46 pm What an unexpected, and delightful, contribution from AliLiz!

Back to reading in the dorm: When I was, I guess, still only 11 or 12, we were having Dracula read to us, and it must have given me a nightmare, and I must have foolishly mentioned this my mother, who promptly contacted the housemaster (must have been Chern at that time [the late, lamented, learned, and to my mind, it now strikes me, rather Rowan-Williams-like Michael T Cherniavsky]) and had it Stopped. I was acutely embarrassed!
We also had Dracula read to us. I vividly remember that several times, just as he was mentioned, the door to the stairs would creak. Then, on about the fourth occasion a tall, black, shape entered the dorm. After the fact no one would admit to being concerned, especially when it became clear it was Rev. Whitfield letting the reader know he had gone too late.
If a stone falls on an egg: alas for the egg
If an egg falls on a stone: alas for the egg
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Re: Reading to the dormitory

Post by keibat »

For what it's worth, and without implying any stance on Avon's other posts, which I haven't read – of course Lady Chatterly's Lover is about class, and emphatically so. And of course Sir Clifford's invalid state is a metaphor for the decadence of the upper classes. Which doesn't disqualify the point that from a C21 perspective, using physical disability in this way is now recognized as offensive. We have, thank God, become much more sensitive to the multiple ways in which different groups of people not in the currently dominant mainstream of a culture can be dismissed as contemptible or insignificant by the insiders. And of course D H Lawrence's worldview is at times brutal and has affinities with fascism (or with Klingon values). There were many important writers and artists of the inter-wars years who had an admiration for fascism, and were antisemitic, including T S Eliot and Ezra Pound. But Lawrence remains an important writer, though I don't find Lady C to be anything like as good as Women in Love or The Rainbow or some of the short stories.
And the publishing of Lady C remains an extremely important threshold in shifting attitudes towards sexuality, and the depiction of sexuality, as well of course as in language usage. It would have been deplorably isolationist for the CH community as a whole – official and unofficial – to have ignored it.
I never heard it being read aloud, though – and I wonder just how the respective readers managed to cope with the public utterance of Those Words. – My mother taught English in a girls' grammar school, and one day was asked by a colleague in the staffroom what all the fuss around Lady C was about. She told me later that she tried to say something suitably imprecise, about its depiction of sexuality, and the kinds of language used. "What do you mean?" – "Well, the words that Lawrence uses" – "What words?" – and here, if I have understood correctly, Forum protocol even in 2018 dictates that I may not cite the vocabulary in question – but my mum said something like, "Oh, you know, F---- and C---." Shocked silence in the staffroom – No, her colleagues had NOT understood that Those Words were being used!
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