Thursday 18 April 2019

KIDNAPPED BY RLS - ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE UP TO NO GOOD

Having read Treasure Island recently (as Alastair was reading it at the time) I decided to have a go at Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Yes, I did enjoy it more mainly because I knew the setting and the history of this adventure story set in the Scottish Highlands and Edinburgh area.

Alan Breck (left) and David Balfour statue by Jamie Stoddart

There was a short section in the book that struck a chord with me.  David Balfour, the hero, comes upon a man, a lawyer, Mr Randkeillor who can help him find his uncle so that he can claim his rightful inheritance.

He tells his story to this man who is not sure he can believe him.  David wants to be sure he is talking "to a friend", i.e. someone he can trust.   Mr Randkeillor says that he cannot be convinced "until I have heard you" (and he notes that they are 'arguing in a circle').  "I cannot be your friend until I am properly informed. If you were more trustful, it would better befit your time of life.  And you know, Mr Balfour, we have a proverb in the country [Scotland] that evil doers are aye evil-dreaders."

In other words those who are up to no good always have to watch their back, dreading what could be done to them!

I see from googling that Sir Walter Scott uses this phrase in The Fair Maid of Perth II. v. "Put me not to quote the old saw, that evil doers are evil dreaders.—It is your suspicion, not your knowledge, which speaks."








Monday 8 April 2019

BOOKS TO READ - DARKNESS & INVISIBLE WOMEN

I want to keep a note of two books I plan to read once they become available in the library  I took the reviews are from the Goodreads website having read about them in the Times Literary Supplement newspaper in the last couple of weeks.

Darkness: A Cultural History by Nina Edwards


Darkness divides and enlivens opinion. Some are afraid of the dark, or at least prefer to avoid it, and there are many who dislike what it appears to stand for. Others are drawn to this strange domain, delighting in its uncertainties, lured by all the associations of folklore and legend, by the call of the mysterious and of the unknown. The history of our attitudes toward darkness—toward what we cannot quite make out, in all its physical and metaphorical manifestations—challenges the very notion of a world that we can fully comprehend.

In this book, Nina Edwards explores darkness as both a physical feature and cultural image, through themes of sight, blindness, consciousness, dreams, fear of the dark, night blindness, and the in-between states of dusk or fog, twilight and dawn, those points or periods of obscuration and clarification. Taking us across the ages, from the dungeons of Gothic novels to the concrete bunkers of Nordic Noir TV shows, Edwards interrogates the full sweep of humanity’s attempts to harness and suppress the dark first through our ability to control fire and, later, illuminate the world with electricity. She explores how the idea of darkness pervades art, literature, religion, and our everyday language. Ultimately, Edwards reveals how darkness, whether a shifting concept or palpable physical presence, has fed our imaginations.

[TLS]  Before science solved the puzzle of the Moon's disappearance during a solar eclipse, the "removal" of light was assumed to be supernatural.  The Vikings believed wolves had devoured the moon....

 Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez


Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.

Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.