A Bluestocking Knits

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    Booking Through Thursday: Recent Sadness

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    9780307430816

    Booking Through Thursday asks this week: What’s the saddest book you’ve read recently?

    Sometimes you just come across things accidentally at the library or bookstore that you pick up and think, "that sounds interesting".  I don't know why it caught my eye at the public library, but a month or so ago I came home with Cliffs of Despair by Tom Hunt, about the cliffs of Beachy Head in the south of England and the people who go there to commit suicide.  The author, an American whose brother-in-low shot himself, felt drawn to the cliffs in an attempt to understand not only why people kill themselves, but why Beachy Head?  What is it about the place that draws people there?  He interviews families of victims, taxi drivers who have unwittingly taken suicides to the spot, rescue workers, and coroners, acknowledging that he might seem something of an ambulance-chaser, this American come to ask such deeply personal questions, and so he takes care to remain gently unjudgmental throughout. Cliffs of Despair is certainly not a self-help book, either for those tempted by suicide or for families touched by it, nor does it even answer many questions.  Some questions have no answers.  But it does leave one somehow with a profound feeling of sympathy towards those who, for whatever reason, have found themselves on the edge of Beachy Head and either turned away or took the last, fatal step.

  • Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel

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    Negitive-13

    Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
        My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
    O, if you felt the pain I feel!
        But O, who ever felt as I?

    No longer could I doubt him true —
        All other men may use deceit;
    He always said my eyes were blue,
        And often swore my lips were sweet.

    Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

    Photographer unknown (Collector's Quest).

  • Thoughts on the Primavera Socks

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    Crumbs, it's been a while.  I keep thinking, "dear oh dear, I really should post — I even have a few actually-finished knits!" and then, alas, nothing.  I thought that once both of the girls were in school all day, I would have loads of time, but it seems to be quite the opposite. 

    Primavera1

    But here are some Primavera Socks by Natalja of s(t)ockinette.  This pattern has apparently been around for a while, but was new to me when I saw it this past spring — can't remember where now, unfortunately.

    Primavera4

    I like these socks very much.  It's a nice pattern, simple but just enough interest to keep it from being a dull knit, and the results are very pretty.  You can hardly ask for more from a pattern, really.  (I should have gone with my instincts, though, and made my usual generous toe.  The one as written is too slender for my extra-wide feet.)

    Primavera3

    I didn't care much for knitting with the ProNatura, as it was quite splitty, but now that it's done — and worn several times — I put that pleasantly behind me.

    Love the acanthus-like bas-relief effect —

    Primavera2

  • Reading “The Hobbit”

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    TheHobbit_FirstEdition

    The girls and I finished reading The Hobbit last night.  Reading it aloud was quite a different experience from reading it silently.  Certainly I found myself aware of the pronunciation of names, and how often I'd gotten them wrong, and still do.  I read so much as a child that I often pronounced words the way they looked; I still do this with "sword", for instance, including the "w".  It's hard, reading The Hobbit now, not to say "biffer, bohffer, and bom-ber" especially, partly because the habit is so ingrained after all these years, and partly just because it's funny.  This led to my thinking last night that I would write notes (in pencil, of course) at the bottom of a page where the name appeared, and so this morning I made a list, then started here at Tolkien Geek, and travelled to far corners of the Tolkien internet universe, especially to Wikipedia and The Encyclopedia of Arda. I did not actually find one single list of pronunciations, and so I post it here, willing and ready to accept discussion were someone with greater knowledge to comment.

    I puzzled over "Dáin son of Náin" quite some time.  "Dane son of Nane"?  "Dine son of Nine?"  Alas, there is yet no consensus.  I found "An Analysis of Dwarvish" delightful in its very thoroughness, although, surprisingly, given that thoroughness, nowhere are the acute-o as in Thrór and acute-a as in Dáin mentioned.  Possibly this is because Dáin, Glóin, etc. are use-names in Westron and thus translations from the Dwarvish ….

    Also rather surprisingly, no one seems to divide these names into syllables.  I have seen the occasional phonetic spelling that differed from the usual, and included them below.  (A deeper study of the root words would be useful here, but, well, I haven't got the time.)

    "Bilbo" should, I suppose, strictly be pronounced "BEEL-boh".  I have never yet heard anyone say it like this.

    The "r" should be a lovely rolling sound, which most Americans don't or can't do — listen to a Swede saying them at Tolkien Pronunciation Recordings, or even better, to Tolkien himself reading some excerpts from The Lord of the Rings.  I've written this below as double-r.

    Balin = BAH-leen

    Beorn = BEH-orrn or even BAY-orrn, not BEE-orrn; compare Beowulf

    Bifur = BEE-foor.

    Bofur = BOH-foorr

    Bombur = BOHM-boorr, with the “o” long as in “go” not short as in “bomb”, or possibly BOH-mbur

    Carc = KARK

    Dáin = DAYN; probably not “dine” as in “nine” and “line” as that would be the Elvish pronunciation

    Dori = DOH-rree

    Durin = DOORR-een, with the “u” long as in “boot”

    Dwalin = DWAH-leen

    Fíli = FEE-lee

    Gandalf = GAHN-dahlf, with a short “a” sound as in “father”; or possibly GAH-ndalf; not "GAHN-dalv"or "GAN-dalf/v"

    Girion = GEE-rree-ohn, with a hard “g” as in “go” and “get”

    Glóin = GLOH-een

    Golfimbul = GOHL-feem-bool

    Gwaihir = GWY-heerr, with a hard “g”, and a long “i” in the first syllable as in “eye”

    Kíli = KEE-lee

    Nori = NOH-rree

    Náin = NAYN; see above under Dáin

    Ori = OH-rree

    Roäc = RROH-ahk

    Smaug = SMOWG.  There is quite a lot of discussion about as to whether this is pronounced "smowg" or "smog".  I started out with the American "smog", pleased by the association of dragons with nasty, smelly air pollution, then later evolved to a more RP "aw" sound.  Technically, the vowel should be "ow", as in "town" and "clown", and in the interjection you use when you bump your head, which, not coincidentally, is the same as the equivalent modern Norwegian interjection, "au".

    Thorin = THORR-een

    Thranduil = THRRAN-doo-eel

    Thráin = THRRAYN; see above under Dáin

    Thrór = probably THRRORR; it is unclear why the vowel has a diacritic, or how this affects pronunciation

    Óin = OH-een; it is unclear whether the letter “ó” is merely an “o” with a diacritic, or if it is a separate letter and therefore should take a separate place in the alphabet as does the Norwegian “ø”

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    Changeable

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    I can't seem to sit still these days.  The weather is cold one day, springlike the next, alternately rainy and grim, humid, windy, or blazingly hot, and my spring knitting careens back and forth nearly as wildly.

    1

    Garter Heel Sock, from the Vogue sock book — I didn't like the garter top much, so made it a 3×1 rib, lined up with the pattern on the leg because it amused me.  Am feeling somewhat indifferent about this sock, and I am not entirely sure why.

    2

    Primavera.  Was rather unsure of this when I started, but it's growing on me.  Do not be alarmed by its scrongy appearance.  It is quite stretchy, despite being basically a 7×4 rib, and I find myself more dismayed by the splittiness of the Trekking Pro Natura than I am by the pattern itself.

    3

    Ahem.  This was the Friday Harbor socks from Knitting on the Road, three times.  I really liked the wool, the cuff pattern, the way the wool looked in the cuff pattern — but the first time it was so small that I couldn't get it over my instep, the second time with an added repeat still so tight that it stretched the stitches mercilessly, the third time with yet another repeat far too big.  My only consolation is what a pleasure it is to wind this stuff into a ball.

    I've got my nose in a book more often these days, instead of knitting, it seems.  Have recently finished chain-reading another string of Joanna Trollope novels, wh. I enjoy very much.  It struck me recently, finding my copy of the Persephone edition of Wise Virgins where I had subconciously kicked it under the bed, that even though I don't always like all of the characters in Trollope's novels, I am interested in what happens to them.  I found myself wrenched out of WV more often than not, because Woolf was so cuttingly judgemental about the characters that he obviously didn't like, that I felt myself curiously defensive on their behalf.  Very dislocating, defending characters against their own author.  Am thinking now of rereading some D.E. Stevenson, or I might try something new, an Elizabeth Taylor ….

  • Easter Eggs

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    From an egg-decorating party we went to today —

    Egg1

    Egg2

    Egg3

    Egg5

    Egg4

  • Spring Fling

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    I was in Redlands the other day, and stopped by The Yarn Deli, as I'd never been there before and heard good things about it.  Honestly, I only meant to get a skein or two of sock yarn, but they were so scrumptious that I came away with four.

    It's a nice shop, small so it has a limited selection but of some very pretty stuff.

    Denali_newhorizon

    Pagewood Farm's Denali superwash merino/nylon in New Horizon.  I couldn't quite get an accurate photo of the color — it's more purple than this, but with a hint of grey/black

    Pronatura1544

    Trekking Pro Natura wool and bamboo blend, in 1544, a pretty dusty-rose.

    Bambino_viridian

    Chameleon Colorworks Bambino superwash merino/bamboo/nylon blend, in Viridian.

    The lady in the shop offered to wind up the skeins for me, but I confessed that I like the feel of it in my hands.  She laughed and said that she never came between a knitter and her wool.

    Malabrigo_abril

    Malabrigo superwash merino in Abril.  I confess that this last is the one that is sitting in my lap as I write, this cold spring day, so that I can caress it and every so often brush it against my cheek and inhale deeply the lovely woolly scent….

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    Reading Aloud

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    Railwaychildren

    We had a very bookish Christmas this past year.  In October or November, I had impulsively picked up in a local independent bookstore a beautifully illustrated edition of The Secret Garden and began to read it aloud to the girls; it so fascinated both of them that they each secretly snuck off with it to read ahead.   At Christmas, then, among other stacks of things — Noel Streatfeild, Eva Ibbotson, et al., thanks to Amazon's 4-for-3 promotions — for them to read on their own, I bought the girls a selection of things I thought would make more good reading aloud, and a few weeks later when Daddy hared off to Florida, we settled in with E. Nesbit's 1906 classic, The Railway Children.  We all enjoyed it very much, the girls' first shrieks of laughter arriving quite early on, in Chapter One, at the thought of Three Chimney's garden in the gloom —

        There was a low wall, and trees inside.
        "That's the garden," said Mother.
        "It looks more like a dripping-pan full of black cabbages," said Peter.
        The cart went on along by the garden wall, and round to the back of the
    house, and here it clattered into a cobble-stoned yard and stopped at
    the back door.
       

    and continuing at the children's pitch-perfect dialogue, whose occasional bickering tempers any Victorian sappiness.  Favorite bits have now entered our family lexicon — "Ripping!" and "My heart's in my boots!" especially.  And when we'd finished reading the book, we watched the 1970 film, the one with Jenny Agutter as Bobbie and Bernard Cribbins as Perks.  That was just as lovely as I remembered it, too, but in a different way, very idyllic and warm-hearted.   (But how creepy that Dr. Forrest is!  I veered wildly between thinking, oh, Bobbie's going to marry him when she grows up! and alarm at how pre-pedophilic he seems at times.  Strange.)

    Not long after that, drunk with success, I began The Hobbit. 

    Hobbit 

    I thought at first that it might be a little much for the girls — who are after all only nine and six — but on the other hand felt that the poetry of Tolkien's prose would surely enchant them.  They laughed heartily at the dwarves' making themselves at home in Bilbo's comfortable hole, and shivered with fear at the trolls in the moonlight.  Daddy took over reading this when he got home — Bilbo is just about to escape from the dungeon of the king of the Wood-elves.

    Santa had also tucked into Julia's stocking Geoffrey Palmer's reading of Just So Stories, which lay forgotten on top of the girls' dresser until not long ago, when Julia unwrapped it and popped the first disc into the player, where it has played almost constantly for some time, as she reads along with the book they'd ignored for years.

    Justso

    This morning, having the luxury of the week off of school, I suggested Anne of Green Gables, and when Laura snuggled up next to me we started reading from the annotated edition.

    Annotatedanne

    Julia professed herself uninterested, but halfway along Chapter Two she crept in and settled herself at my side.  Unlike the Nesbit, I was already intimately familiar with this book, but still I could not keep from laughing aloud sometimes —

        [Matthew] said as shyly as usual:
        "Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't mind."
        "Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. It's such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told that children should be seen and not heard. I've had that said to me a million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
        "Well now, that seems reasonable," said Matthew.

    — as Anne charms us as much as she does Matthew.

  • One Hundred Hours of Astronomy

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    Tonight Julia and I went to our local arboretum for part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy global astronomy event taking place all over the world this weekend.  A local club had set up half-a-dozen or so telescopes, and we looked at the moon, Saturn, and the Orion nebula — not quite like the above photo, but still fascinating.

    Julia gave me a very animated lecture, as we waited in the lines, about the planets (in order) and how many moons each one has.  I can see I'll have to stay on my toes with this first-grader.

  • Thoughts on the Spey Valley Socks

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    Speyvalleysocks

    I finished these Spey Valley Socks from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road quite some time ago, and am afraid that I am only now getting around to posting them.  I quite enjoyed knitting them — the exciting bits at the top, and then settling down with the wide, comfortable rib for the rest.

    The Regia 4-fädig is sturdy and unsensational, but a good match, I think, for these no-nonsense socks. I've worn then quite a number of times already.

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