Frieda,

PURSUIT OF GENTLEMEN

Thanks for the excerpts. Wonderful! Intriguing! Stan and I don't know this book at all, but it sounds wonderful. Can you give us details - like who wrote it? Sorry to be so uninformed.

Dido

freida-interesting question. I think men's, actually. Georgie overall-not just his clothes, but his furnishings, bibelots, routines. He was good on food, too-Lobster a la Riseholm!

I adore really good descriptions of settings, scenes, dress and finery ...... and food too .... of course!!

Enid Blyton (the Island of Adventure) and E. Nesbit's (the Phoenix and the Carpet!!) stories always jump to mind. You could really really see each scene as it unfolded.

Same kinds of details in Tolkien (remember how he describes each home, house and dwelling?); also the Narnia series. Houses and Gardens and Food literally become another character ....

Also a nod to romance writers like Barbara Cartland -- who truly described fashions of the day and the houses and food too! It is the details that really make the story come alive!

I always expect the same kinds of details in movies too -- I'll watch movies time and again just to see the houses or gardens!!

Hi all, I'm litlbit's daughter.
Personally, I love description in books. I couldn't do without it. However, I think Homer takes it a bit far. Chewbecca, I love Terry Pratchett's books...they are so full of random details that come back to you after rereading a book 5, 10, or 20 times. At least I think so.
I keep a journal of quotes too, but it's mostly made up of the songs and prophecies of Lord of the Rings, encryptions from the Redwall book Triss, the poems from A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and the poems from Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence. My favorite of those is:
"when the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
three from the circle, three from the track;
wood, iron, bronze,;
water, fire, stone;
five shall return and one go alone."
the rest of the poem goes on to describe the fight between good and evil, and who shall play parts in it. I had it memorized at one time.
I also keep a list of interesting character names...mostly from fantasy books. Does anyone else do that?
Sorry for the long post, but it's my first time posting and I have a lot to say.

I can remember pieces of descriptions long after I have forgotten the book-our heroine, a young woman of slight means, brown hair and eyes, wearing an old grey tweed skirt and jumper, coming face to face with the other young lady in the romantic triangle-wearing "a pale yellow silk coat, fawn silk scarf and soft suede boots of the same fawn color. With her fair hair and golden skin, eyelashes damp from the mist, she seemed to glow." Or a detective watching a woman mount a staircase wearing a "glossy golden fur coat over a peacock blue satin gown." I am a very visual reader-to the point where I often hesitate to see movies made from favorite books, because they are never right! They don't match my visions while reading.

I am like you, I do not like to see movies made from books I've read, because they never match my own imagination. I am also very visual - in all aspects, so it is no surprise that I am a visual person while reading.

Cindy, I agree with you about the sausage seller. He fits his roll so perfectly!

Norcal, I agree that Pratchett's books can be reread with new little details popping out every time.

Anne McCaffrey's dragonrider books were brought to my mind while reading through this thread. I can picture the weyrs in my head, as well as the people involved and the atmosphere around them. I feel like I am there when I read them (and I have over and over again). Many passages stick out in my mind, from the time Moreta met Alessan to the death of Fax and introduction of Lessa. Perhaps this is why I am so drawn to these books.

Norcal,

(what do we call you?), Welcome, and may you make many more postings.

Just wanted to connect with Susan Cooper's THE DARK IS RISING. I love it - in fact, I've just re-read (for the umpteenth time) the volume of that title - the second in the sequence. You might be interested to know that I am Welsh and know the Cader Idris area quite well, where some later books are set (The Grey Woolf) - though I am, in fact, a south Walian. Cader Idris, though not a huge mountain by world standards, is a strange, brooding Thing which frightens me a lot. there's a pass you have to drive up in order to get from S. to N. Wales (without going all round the houses) and I just can't do it. I get vertigo and sheer terror every time I go there - even when someone else is driving. We have a saying in Wales, that if you spend a night on Cader Idris (tr. Idris's chair), you come down in the morning changed into either a lunatic or a poet.....

Have you read The Owl Service by Alan Garner? It's about teenagers, set in much the same area, and also about other-worldly things. I love it.

All the best,

Dido

>He fits his roll so perfectly!

Love the pun, Pratchett would be so proud (and if it was merely a type don't tell him!)

Norcal welcome!

> am a very visual reader-to the point where I often hesitate to see movies made from favorite books, because they are never right! They don't match my visions while reading.

Ditto, tho I have been pleasantly surprised. My mind plays a movie in my head when I read and a book with good descriptions is just the thing to move it along.

Cindy and Chewbecca, you are tantalizing us with your allusions to Pratchett's wurst vendor! I would like a bit more description of this fellow.

Norcal, echoing the others: Welcome! Sounds like you are creating a treasure for yourself with your journal of quotes and list of character names. Years later it will be fun for you to read what has made an impression on you during your youthful reading. I love to read old commonplace books of people who later became famous (George Washington's is priceless) and those of "ordinary" people, too. This used to be a common practice: keeping a book of snippets of quotes or poetry gleaned from books, newspapers, letters, and oral advice -- the artistically inclined often illustrated them as well. I suppose computer blogs have largely replaced them; and while those might be interesting later, too, I wonder if most of the charm of the handwritten and hand-illustrated will be lost.
"...our heroine, a young woman of slight means, brown hair and eyes, wearing an old grey tweed skirt and jumper, coming face to face with the other young lady in the romantic triangle-wearing "a pale yellow silk coat, fawn silk scarf and soft suede boots of the same fawn color. With her fair hair and golden skin, eyelashes damp from the mist, she seemed to glow."Cece, you say you've forgotten the book from which this came? Too bad 'cause I'd like to know what it is.

I better not get started on the book/film thing; but suffice it to say, I am also a very visual reader.

arrgghh. The library doesn't have Pursuit of Gentlemen-and it sounds perfect-used book sites, I guess.
Freida-no-I know it was when I was an older preteen or young teenager, so it was probably an innocent-type romance novel. I just remember the silk coat and matching scarf and suede (so impractical)boots-at the time, I thought it was the epitome of elegance.
Of course our heroine wins the boy at the end!

I've been reading this thread with great interest, but frustrated that I cannot really contribute. I must confess that for most of my reading life I completely skipped over descriptions of people and places. I see I have missed a lot. Not until I began listening to books, and hearing each word the writer crafted, did I begin to enjoy lyricism and imagery. Yet still, without effort, my eye elides descriptions.

One would think that some romance novel junkie out there would have a site (or database) dedicated to costumes/fashion in novels, but I haven't found one (though I haven't really searched that extensively for one, either). Personally, I have a better memory for passages concerning food (rather than clothes). Does this mean I'm subconsciously ravenous? (hee hee).

To be on topic, perhaps fantasy fans can chime in regarding George R. R. Martin's descriptions. One of my favorites is of Khal Drogo. He's described as tall and graceful with skin of polished copper and drooping mustachios (I think he wears rings in the mustachios, or at least he did on the day of his wedding). He wears his hair in a long, black braid, which has never been cut because he has never lost a battle. He also wears bells in his hair. Khal Drogo is of the Dothraki tribe, and their culture is similar to the Mongolian steppe people. I was wondering, though, what cultures wear bells in their hair? Can't you just hear the tinkle of bells as they ride across the grasslands?

I must confess that for most of my reading life I completely skipped over descriptions of people and places.That's all right, Chris. I confess to skipping most poems in books that aren't poetry books -- one in which I did that was Byatt's Possession. I'm sure I missed a lot -- after all, one of the main characters was a poet -- but maybe if the poems hadn't been so long... Why was most Victorian poetry so lengthy, anyway?

Georgia, that's exactly what I would like to see: a website or database about memorable fashions in novels -- a sort of Hall of Fame, I guess.
Does this mean I'm subconsciously ravenous?Heh! If you are, I'm there right along with you.

I can hear the tinkle of the bells as the Dothrakis ride -- it's the mention of the Mongolian steppe people that does it for me -- from your description, Georgia; I've never read George R. R. Martin.

I love that book-laugh out loud reading.

How about landscapes? I am fond of paintings of desolate, empty landscapes-my parents have one of a winter marsh somewhere which I have claimed since childhood "when you don't have a big wall anymore..."
I received my new copy of Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy today and jumped right in-and on the first page found again:
"Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling that marked the confines of the asylum, down undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, to the spires of the village rising from the midst of bare trees."

chris, you sound like my husband. He has been known to skim whole sections of nothing but description - which is probably why he loves graphic novels and action thrillers. He also loves audio books, which I can't handle.

There is a poem from HS that I still remember - it was in our Girl Scout handbook. Its image of a cold and barren landscape still stays with me whenever I think of it:

Lonliness is small and cold
diamonds hard and eons old
Lonliness is sharp and chill
Like a cold gray rock on a cold gray hill
Like (ack I forgot this line!)
and an eagles cry
like an empty land and the sea and the sky
like an time worn track and a weed grown fence
long since left to the elements

Cece and Cindy, I'm not as good at remembering specific decriptions of landscapes. Oh, on second thought, there's one I recall quite well for the atmosphere it evokes: it is Bram Stoker's very spooky lead-up to Dracula's castle. I read somewhere that Stoker was weirdly accurate about Transylvania environs though he had never actually been there!

I, too, like bleak, desolate landscapes. Well, I like the thought of them when I'm being browbeaten by an oppressing sun and everything is so green, green, green that I get bilious. (I stole that bit of "green" description from the chicken-ranch woman writer who should not be named.) I can't cite specific passages but Willa Cather and Larry McMurtry have both given me shivers of recognition about the wind blowing on cold plains and deserts.

Cindy, do you find that poetry you learned when young has definitely stuck better than the later-read kind? I can't forget:
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor...Hee! Here's some more about clothes, and of the masculine variety -- description enough to make my young heart swoon!He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.And I'm still a sucker for The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.

Hey! Wasn't there a passage in Lonesome Dove where a character from Back East arrives on a train and the wind is so fierce that he, and the reader, is scared he may be blown away?

Frieda, a long ago summer I heard The Highwayman performed daily. Baltimore sponsored this lunchtime program at a city plaza where we could ask for any from a long list of poems. The Highwayman was my favorite, and apparently everyone else's.

This is the description of a debutante's dress for her coming out ball from Morland Dynasty No 25, The Question:

Jessie's gown was of a delicate pale yellow, in the new long, slender, high-waisted "empire" style that had just come in, which suited her slim, athletic body so well. It was of soft silk crepe-de-Chine with a swathed bodice and short turk's-cap sleeves, which were edged with delicate fringe, embroidered with gilt threads and tiny crystal beads. The skirt was quite plain except for a row of self-coloured silk knots around the hem, but at the back from the high waist fell the deep inverted pleating that gave the wonderful fullness to the skirt behind, so that it made a kind of swirl around her whenever she moved.

All these books are full of both clothing and food descriptions, although I don't always know what they are.

>Cindy, do you find that poetry you learned when young has definitely stuck better than the later-read kind?

Its hard to say because after college I found I really couldn't get into poetry. That one that I quoted obviously made an impact, and there are others from childhood that I loved (my sis had an anthology of poetry on her shelves that I practically memorized). One poem tho I learned later has still stuck with me - the Auden one read in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I tear up every time I read or hear it.

Wasn't there a passage in Lonesome Dove where a character from Back East arrives on a train and the wind is so fierce that he, and the reader, is scared he may be blown away?
Chris, I remember that but can't swear that it was in Lonesome Dove, though I figure it was 'cause I've read it so many times. McMurtry is so good with capturing bleakness. Here's the opening paragraphs of The Last Picture Show:Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town. It was a bad feeling, and it usually came on him in the mornings early, when the streets were completely empty, the way they were one Saturday morning in late November. The night before Sonny had played his last game of football for Thalia High School, but it wasn't that that made him feel so strange and alone. It was just the look of the town.

There was only one car parked on the courthouse square -- the night watchman's old white Nash. A cold norther was singing in off the plains, swirling long ribbons of dust down Main Street, the only street in Thalia with businesses on it. Sonny's pickup was a '41 Chevrolet, not at its best on cold mornings. In front of the picture show it coughed out and had to be choked for a while, but then it started again and jerked its way to the red light, blowing out spumes of white exhaust that the wind whipped away.
McMurtry, in his low-key way, can put you right there -- smelling the dust, hearing the wind and the sputter of the old truck, and feeling the loneliness of the town. And we readers know this story isn't going to be about the frenzy of modern life. It's a sad little story, in a way, but also humorous in spots, and so darned realistic that I want to cry with nostalgic longing. I've tried to analyze how McMurtry does it with his landscapes -- his style is so deceptively simple. The best I've come up with is that he knows what he's writing because he's lived there (and not just in Thalia).

One poem tho I learned later has still stuck...

Frieda, it's "Stop All the Clocks..." by W.H. Auden. I love it so much I almost have it memorized.

Frieda, sorry for the belated reply to your post re the 'Mother Superior' book which I loved, but we have had major computer problems for the past week when this machine threw a sickie . . .corrupt Windows files etc. The older son has replaced the hard drive with a 'borrowed from work' one so still without email addresses etc 'til he can fix it.
Moral: print out a few essentials and keep in a safe place!
We don't do 'Senior Proms' in the UK and I think in my day all school dances/get-togethers were never encouraged at school as they might have led to 'mixed marriages' ie a Catholic marrying a 'non-Catholic' . . . a terrible worry to the nuns.
Your story reminded me of the first chapter in Monica Baldwin's I Leap Over the Wall where MB who entered her convent in 1914 is faced with the clothes of a girl-about-town circa 1942.
Her habit dated to the 14th century and consisted of a thick long-sleeved shift warn next to the skin. Over this were boned stays with shoulder straps, covered by two serge petticoats 'lashed' round the waist.
On top was a habit of heavy cloth with a few extra bits and pieces of starched, tucked and pleated cambric.
MB's sister had brought her a pair of pants and a brassiere plus a suspender belt and stockings. MB's previous stockings had been hand knitted and boiled so often they were 'of a shape and consistency of a Wellington boot'.
As MB only had a couple of months in which to grow any hair which she says now resembled a moth eaten gollywog her sister brought a hat; it replaced 8 thicknesses of veils, starched cotton and cardboard thickeners.
MB is worried that she feels naked.
Her sister, as an Upper Crust no-nonsense English woman has no time for this "If you went about in anything else you'd collect a crowd."

Frieda, here it is.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stop all the Clocks

Frieda,

Thanks for info on The Pursuit of Gentlemen. I'll try and follow that up.

Dido

Cindy and Mary, the Auden poem is very effective just in reading it. I will have to view the film again and hear how it is read there.

The poem and its subject reminds me of something -- you know how one thing evokes another; but more about that later.

Frieda, the clothing description was from the 1870s. I questioned the "empire" style, too; but later in the chapter someone's dress was called revival empire, so evidently the style came back. What price, pedal pushers/clam diggers?

In the late 70s I was friendly with a former Mother Superior. Together with another pal, we had theatre tickets and would go out for dinner before the shows and drinking at single's places after. Always up for fun, but never wild and crazy. Good person to hit the bars with. Never did get her back story. I always figured she would tell me eventually, but we drifted apart before it happened.

frieda - I think you said you had seen it before? It was read during Seamus' funeral, by his partner - before folk realized that he was his partner.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's descriptions of her clothing led to 19th c styles for my Barbie dolls and a lifelong interest in historic fashion recreations.

Making cheese, watermelon rind pickle, and sourdough starter were also inspired by The Little House Books. Her descriptions of tasting lemonade, eating an orange, and whipping egg whites with a fork for her wedding cake are refreshing reminders of how food was special and difficult to procure. My favorite has to be her description of flicking wasps off warm,ripe, squashed plums in On the Banks of Plum Creek. It always brings Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market to mind.

Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."

33 years ago, I was intrigued by the "turkish delight" Edmund craves from the White Witch in Narnia. When I spotted a box this Christmas, I had to buy it. Alas, I found the fantasy better than the sticky, overly-sweet reality.

Finally, as I recall Scarlett's punchline:
"I saw it in the window and just had to have it."

That was deifinitely Carol Burnett's punchline-

Indeed -- I meant the divine Carol B.

The Clothes in the Wardrobe by Alice Thomas Ellis has just been done on BBC radio, but I cannot say I have 'read' it myself.
Alice TE is rather a strange writer who can be 'otherwordly' which doesn't always suite everybody, but if you want descriptions of clothes and sewing/altering they come aplenty in this book.
Below is a very good write-up from Amazon.uk which sums it up nicely.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Clothes in the Wardrobe

Laura Ingalls Wilder's descriptions of her clothing led to 19th c styles for my Barbie dollsJuliana, I did that too with my Barbie, Midge and Skipper dolls -- well, not with Laura Ingalls Wilder's books but with various other historical-novel clothing descriptions. For some reason I got interested in Helen Herron Taft (President Taft's wife) and was enchanted by a photo of her in an enormous tub of a hat, a frilly shirtwaist, a very wide belt or cummerbund, and a graceful circle skirt cut on the bias. I copied Mrs. Taft's outfit for Barbie and exhibited it in my home ec class. That was fun! Thanks, Juliana, for reminding me.

Cindy, thank you for pinpointing the place to find the Auden poem in the film.

Vee, The Clothes in the Wardrobe is printed in the US as part of The Summerhouse Trilogy. I know what you mean about A. Thomas Ellis's "otherworldliness," and that's why I tend to prefer her nonfiction, the four (or five?) volumes of "Home Life" and A Welsh Childhood. I have a signed copy of the latter. I didn't have much actual dealing with Ms Haycraft: I just remember her as curiously ethereal and seemingly vague, an impression at odds with those who knew her well, apparently. Her family stories remind me of Elisabeth Luard's, in a way -- they both had tragedies concerning their children.

Frieda, can you hear the grinding of teeth? Just tried to post something about A TE and Luard and the screen was over-come with a stupid all singing-all talking advert and my words of wisdom disappeared into the ether! Our computer is without all the necessary backups and am still lacking email addresses etc.
I had wanted to say I have on order from the library A Thomas Elllis' Fish Flesh and Good Red Herring all about food, meals, eating from early days etc. Does anyone know it?

I have read Elis. Luard's Family Life detailing the travels round out-of-the-way areas of Europe in which they lived, giving the recipes for both primitive and grand meals cooked, bringing up and educating a family . . . and the sad and untimely death of her daughter.
She seems a tougher gal that A TE, in that she chose to live in these backward areas, whereas A TE seems rather to have floated into her hard Welsh hillside life.

Although I don't want to dwell on tragedies within families, I'm reminded of the writer Roald Dahl and all the sadness/difficulties that haunted several of his children plus living with the illness of his film-actress wife Pat Neal.
I wonder how/if they enter the unconscious mind when writing and have perhaps made for the 'darkness' of some of his stories?

Vee, I know I have a copy of Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring, but danged if I can find it -- my cookery and food history books are in disarray and they tend to migrate all over the house. I recall that its subtitle is A Gallimaufry and I had to look up the meaning of that -- hodgepodge is a synonym. I like the quaintness of gallimaufry.

Re Roald Dahl: In his memoir, Boy, he related how the death of his sister (of diphtheria or a childhood disease) affected his parents and himself. Evidently this daughter was the father's favorite child and young Roald felt survivor's guilt while knowing that his father could not love him as much. If he didn't have a predisposition for "darkness," I imagine that was rather enough to send him in that direction, plus, as you say, all the problems he had with his wife's illness and their children. Once again, though, while I found his autobiography very interesting and I've liked some of this short stories -- the one about the leg of lamb is a classic -- I never really enjoyed his fiction or children's books, though the off-kilter, often dark humor of the latter tickled my older son especially.

The Auden poem mentioned above and now the discussion of A. Thomas Ellis, E. Luard, and Roald Dahl has reminded me of a passage of a book that I can't place -- or it's possibly a short story or part of a memoir. Here's the way I remember it; and if it rings a bell with anyone, please identify it for me!
A young woman (probably in her late teens or early twenties) is dealing with the grief caused by the death of her beloved grandfather. But as bad as she feels, she wonders how his death is affecting her grandmother who was married to him for over fifty years; so she visits her grandmother to check out how she's doing.

The girl finds her grandmother surprisingly serene and willing to talk about her husband. She relates anecdotes of the young man he once was, how he loved his children and adored his grandchildren, and how all-in-all they had a wonderful marriage. Then g-mother drops a bombshell: she reveals that grandpa was her second husband and that her first husband had died only a short while after their wedding.

The girl is astonished but very curious and ventures to ask g-mother about her first husband. G-mother's face softens and registers a far-off expression as she tells her granddaughter that he was handsome, funny, gentle, very silly sometimes and exasperatingly stubborn, and she loved him, she thought, more than life itself. But he died and she had to continue living. G-mother became silent and the girl tried to digest that her grandfather, basically, was not the love of her grandmother's life that she thought. She blurted out, "But you loved grandpa, too; didn't you?"

The old woman smiled and said, "Of course. Your grandfather and I had children together, we were married for over a half-century, and we shared heartaches, joys, and so much. If your grandfather and I hadn't...

Frieda, that's a lovely story. I have always liked the candle and flame analogy for love. You can use one candle to light another but the first flame is not diminished in any way. Love indeed multiplies.

Friedag, thanks for the Carol Burnett info. I recalled that skit from the mention of the curtain rods! What a strange thing the memory is, I sometimes have to check to see if I have just done something but can recall bits of a film, book or show seen for over sixty years! I meant to write my thanks earlier but have had back problems after a long train trip and could not sit at the computer for a while.

The Carol Burnett show used to be the only thing worth watching on TV during the time I spent in Canada . . .many years ago.

Sorry, Frieda, no ideas for your half remembered 'plot'.
We English don't do love and romance very well (too screwed up I suppose) except for the lightweight Hugh Grant films or Barbara Cartland type of pink froth. And I expect you all knew BC was the step Grandmother of the late Diana PofW; enough to make the best of us go doolally.
Re Roald Dahl, after years of caring for his wife and her eventual recovery he left her and married her best friend (who had also cared for the wife). I don't think this part of his life came up in his second bio after Boy, Going Solo but I know of eg's where after years of devotion to a sick loved-one, it seems the energy of the relationship runs out when that person recovers . . . maybe the carer feels once the caring has stopped their role is diminished.

DS is reading selections of Pepys' diary in English lit-the sedcription of his wife's petticoat-silver lace-and how he fould her clothes all about the bedchamber and was vexed with her...but took himself out to buy a green watered moire for a morning waistcoat-even in the London Fire he mentions his nightgown.

''He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

And I'm still a sucker for The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.''

In my English class two years ago we had to read The Highwayman and I loved it. I really like ballads-that's why my favorite bands are all celtic rock or country-and that's why I like old style poetry like this one.
My current favorite poetry book is called Bronx Masquerade, by Nikki Grimes. one of the best descriptions in there is:
"She tiptoed in, late / and limping, her cheek /as raw as red-brown meat."
such a sad poem.

We English don't do love and romance very well (too screwed up I suppose) except for the lightweight Hugh Grant films or Barbara Cartland type of pink froth.Vee, I disagree. I think English writers have given the world some of the best romances -- Daphne of course, the Brontes, Jane Austen; and I can read Galsworthy's "The Apple Tree" over and over and cry every time (and I love the film adaptation of it called "A Summer Story").

I'm fond of several British romantic comedies, including "Getting It Right" (from Elizabeth Jane Howard's novel). That's the one with Helena Bonham Carter as the very unladylike Lady Minerva Munday, Lynn Redgrave as the seductive older woman, and Jane Horrocks as the junior hairdresser, all of whom are willing to teach poor Gavin -- a hairdresser in his thirties, still living with his parents, and still a virgin -- a thing or two. Gavin's mother cracks me up when she learns that Gavin knows a girl who has a title and is impressed even before she meets Minerva.

If I thought about it longer, I know I could come up with many other English examples of love and romance. You've got to remember, Vee, that we Americans think the English are exotic.

Norcal, I'm with you about the ballads -- one of my favorites is "Whiskey in the Jar" -- ooh, that Molly (or Jenny, in some versions) and her chamber!

I'm not familiar with Nikki Grimes, but her cheek/as raw as red-brown meat...now that is descriptive. What's the poem about?

We have an old copy of Pepys diaries (edited) illustrated by the wonderful Ernest Shepherd who did the 'Wind in the Willows' and the A A Milne books so beautifully.
Has anyone read The Journal of Mrs Pepys by Sara George? It looks at the same incidents in the diary from Elizabeth's point-of-view.

Well Frieda, I laughed to think anyone could find the English exotic. Nothing could be further from the truth as you well know!
As I didn't want to admit that I have never read any Galsworthy (although I did 'watch' the Forsyte Saga on TV when it first came out in '67) I found an online copy of The Apple Tree and read it there and then.
It didn't bring a tear to my hardened English eye but I enjoyed the descriptions of the Devonshire countryside and the very Victorian/Edwardian 'feeling' . . . the educated young men and their unconscious superiority to the 'simple' country folk. And wouldn't it be nice to spend time in a world where it was properly dark at night and there was no sound of planes, traffic or TV/music?
Read and enjoy the story below while I pop into my baggy tweeds, polish my pearls and share the aged furniture with my smelly labradors.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Apple Tree by John Galsworthy

The English certainly do wonderful stories -- Mrs. Miniver -- is a film that could make anyone cry .....

The "Ghost & Mrs. Muir" -- another wonderful movie ....

How about "The Clandestine Marriage" for a few laughs in a movie ...

Or how about Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet for tears?

As for tears and romance -- just listen to Loreena McKennitt's song "The Highwayman" -- and get out a hanky or two ....

Read and enjoy the story below while I pop into my baggy tweeds, polish my pearls and share the aged furniture with my smelly labradors.

Vee - You crack me up!! "LOL out loud," as Mr. Monk would say. -- Kathy T

Vee, what have you done with your much-washed, handknitted pure wool twin-set?

annpan, it's in the dog's basket. I now wear the old khaki shirts my husband had made by his tailor prior to joining his cavalry regiment in 1939; plenty of wear left in them. For Women's Institute meetings I don a woolly jersey that my daily woman (the gardener's wife) brought from home to use as a duster.
If you think I look rough you should see my husband.
Egg down his old school tie, thread-bare Harris tweeds, several buttons missing from both waistcoat and flies and a handkerchief that doubles as a Land Rover wiper-down and a specs' cleaner.
Of course out in the huntin' field we are beautifully turned out. Never a speck of dust on the polished boots and well-brushed toppers. Mustn't let that townie-bounder Blair think he can control our lives.

What a good idea, storing the twin-set in the dog's basket. If they come back into fashion, your daily can give it a good wash so that you can wear it again. Those things are indestructible. Speaking of dogs and this is a true story, when I retired to Australia, I took my Cavalier King Charles spaniel girl too, of course. After collecting her from quarantine, I took her for a walk to show her the nearby park. She refused to go until I realised that I was not wearing my long Dannimac coat as usual. So, with the temperature in the 80's or more, that is how it has to be done! I tell astounded non-dog-owners that it keeps me from being bitten by insects... dog lovers would understand!

Dear veer,

I enjoyed your reference to Laura I. Wilder's Farmer Boy. My favorites were the food descriptions in By The Shores of Silver Lake and The Long Winter. The first for the descriptions of the general store they wintered over for the owner. The barrels of pickles and meats, crackers and tins of food. The way she described the Oyster feast when her mom discovered the tin of Oysters. Also, in The Long Winter, the season of summer winding down and the simple recipes of home made cottage cheese with onions, pickling and canning, green pumpkin pie masquerading as apple.
As far as garments, well, what I loved was the description of the store they moved into in town. The cleaning and hanging the curtains. Braided rugs going down and finally the twisting of the hay into 'sticks'.....I want to read them now! It's cold and it fits.
Thanks for making me remember!
Kim

Kim, I read The Long Winter one cold winter night just before wrapping it for my daughter for a Christmas gift. I nearly froze solid.

:)) Carolyn ky!!

I know what you mean. But isn't it a great book? On The Banks of Plum Creek, when Pa is stranded in a snow bank until the weather clears and mom and the girls are waiting, waiting.... how about the Christmas Barrel? The turkey, cranberries in newspaper, mittens and muffs, dresses and suspenders. What really made me cold was the awful mother who put her up when she had her first teaching assignment. Cold woman! Poor little kid. Would I have been so brave during those long sleigh rides if I knew I was returning to that? Freezing on the couch while the woman with the knife fights with her husband. OOOOhhhhh, I don't think her mother would have like that. ..I wish I still had my copies.
Kim