The House of Bernarda Alba: Director’s Notes

Mr Anthony

In August 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, one of Spain’s greatest writers was assassinated on the orders of fascist militia allied to Franco. For years, the details of Lorca’s murder were shrouded in mystery but, given his open allegiance to the leftist Popular Front, he quickly became, in death, a political martyr for the anti-Nationalist movement. Yet one of his assassins later bragged of having fired two bullets into the poet 'for being queer'. 

Decades later, Spain’s literary establishment, and even his own family, refused to acknowledge Lorca’s sexuality. As biographer Ian Gibson attests: 'Spain couldn’t accept that the greatest Spanish poet of all time was homosexual. Homophobia existed on both sides in the civil war and afterwards; it was a national problem.' And yet in Sonnets of a Dark Love, produced shortly before his death, Lorca writes: 'You will never understand that I love you / because you sleep in me and are asleep. / I hide you, weeping, persecuted / by a voice of penetrating steel.' The sexuality of the sentiment is clear in Spanish, in which nouns are gendered.

Book of the Week

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Recommended by Thomas Hallé

 Winterson’s critically acclaimed novel can be rightly classified as a classic and a cornerstone of English literature; the continuously topical themes discussed in Oranges, ones of parental power dynamics and our own character development as we age and begin to define ourselves not solely as an extension of our parents, as well as the turbulent relationship between homosexuality and religion relevant in modern society, are wonderfully packaged in a largely accessible and thought provoking manner, in what is a blend of fiction and Winterson’s personal experience. 

Tell me the truth about ...

Today's post features some non-fiction picks from 4B.

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman
Recommended by Kirin Bhatnaga

'It explains quantum physics and the complicated biography of a Nobel-prize-winning scientist in a very simple and often funny way.'

Strange Places, Questionable People by John Simpson
Recommended by Max Clapham

'John Simpson’s long career in journalism makes his autobiography an exciting read. What I like is that you don't have to read it from front to back - you can dip in and out and still enjoy it.'

SPS Predict the Booker 2020 - and the winner is ...

By Ed McFie

This year’s Predict the Booker Prize, held virtually for the first time ever on Zoom, and compèred by Mr Breslin, saw six Pauline readers making six short presentations on one of six books from the Booker prize shortlist. Their task? To win the audience over by arguing the case for their given book.  

First off was Hari Collins, presenting Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. 

The book focuses on a mother, Tara, and her daughter, Antara, vividly exploring the relationship between the two. Initially, Tara treats her daughter very badly, to the point of physical and verbal abuse, as she recklessly follows her own desires. But as Tara ages, and develops dementia, Antara is obliged to take care of her mother, although her mother never did the same for her. 

Hari argued that Doshi explores ideas about freedom from an unusual perspective. Whereas many novels set a repressive, conformist older generation against freedom-seeking youth, Doshi complicates the issue by presenting it from the point of view of a younger woman who yearns for order and organisation, but is trapped by her mother's refusal to follow the traditional path: for Antara, her mother's non-conformity is as stifling and stultifying as the conformity against which the older woman originally rebelled.  

It's almost Booker time ...

Next Thursday, the judges announce the winner of the 2020 Booker prize - complete with a guest appearance from Barack Obama - and in case this wasn't exciting and suspense-filled enough, on Monday, we're running the third SPS 'Predict the Booker' event. We can't promise any former US Presidents, but Mrs Cummings will be hosting, Mr Breslin will be compèring, and six Pauline readers - Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter, George Davies, Hari Collins, Monty Brown, Kiyo-Brandreth-Stroud and Joachim Sciamma - will make a case for each of the novels on the shortlist. Then YOU - the online audience - decide ... 

Previous 'Predict the Bookers' have been held in the library: this year, it's our first ever 'live' broadcast, so tune in and cast your vote: registration details can be found here.  We've been wrong two years in a row - who knows, maybe 2020 will be third time lucky!

If you'd like to prepare for the event, and aren't entirely sure you'll get through all six novels over the weekend, here's a quick catch up on the books in question, and their authors, courtesy of those nice people at the Booker website.  

Literary Pick'n'Mix

Today's post is a lucky dip of recommendations from 6B. There’s something for everyone: non-fiction, murder mysteries, young adult fiction, stories to read to younger siblings or revisit, and general fiction.

Book of the Week

How to be both by Ali Smith

Recommended by Mrs Waller

 

This is a Marmite book: three quarters of its reviews are 5-star or 1-star. The former think Smith’s a genius; the latter are irritated and frustrated by unpunctuated sentences and ‘unnecessary artificial effects’. I usually swap books with my mother and sister, but they both physically recoiled when I mentioned this one, which only made me more curious. I liked it straight away, from the opening in which the first narrator in my edition plays with time, before and after her mother’s death.