Repaired medieval book pages

You are looking at medieval parchment - animal skin - that was stabbed, cut and stitched up. Preparing animal skin, the first step in producing a medieval book, was challenging. The parchment maker had to scrape off the fleshy bits from the one side, and the hair from the other... If the parchment maker pushed too hard while removing the unwanted parts, he would cut right through the surface, which is what happened in the images above. While some cuts were simply stitched up with a thin parchment cord, it also happened that book producers turned these defects into art. I tumbled these images from a manuscript in Uppsala a while ago, in which holes are plugged with embroidery... In the last image the material was used to attach a missing corner, producing what I tend to call a “Frankenstein page”.

From Erik Kwakkel's incomparable blog about medieval books; there are two additional images of repaired pages at the link.

See also this post.

In 1937, C.S. Lewis wrote a review of Tolkien's newly-published The Hobbit

Excerpts of that review, published in the Times Literary Supplement:

The publishers claim that The Hobbit, though very unlike Alice, resembles it in being the work of a professor at play. A more important truth is that both belong to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save that each admits us to a world of its own—a world that seems to have been going on long before we stumbled into it but which, once found by the right reader, becomes indispensable to him. Its place is with Alice, Flatland, Phantastes, The Wind in the Willows...

To define the world of The Hobbit is, of course, impossible, because it is new. You cannot anticipate it before you go there, as you cannot forget it once you have gone... Though all is marvellous, nothing is arbitrary: all the inhabitants of Wilderland seem to have the same unquestionable right to their existence as those of our own world, though the fortunate child who meets them will have no notion—and his unlearned elders not much more—of the deep sources in our blood and tradition from which they spring.

For it must be understood that this is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery. Alice is read gravely by children and with laughter by grown ups; The Hobbit, on the other hand, will be funnier to its youngest readers, and only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realise what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true. Prediction is dangerous: but The Hobbit may well prove a classic.

You can read his review in toto at The Paris Review.

Can someone identify a partially-remembered poem? - updated

The reports today of the death of Nobel laureate Doris Lessing reminded me that there is a poem I encountered decades ago that I've been unable to identify, despite repeated keyword searches.  I'm almost certain that the poet was female, and I think I read it in the 1970s.

The poem (brief, perhaps 15-20 lines) describes admiration for a houseplant/potted plant which now has lush foliage but shows no signs of blooming.  The poet asks whether, if the plant fails to bloom during this season, she will be able to be satisfied with and appreciate the foliage alone.

I remember it as being a reminder that sometimes life happens while we are making plans for the future, and a concise and apt metaphor for careers or relationships that don't fulfill one's initial expectations.

Does anything there sound familiar?

Addendum:  I found it!   I Googled "will I have learned" and after skipping a few pages of links to Death Cab for Cutie I saw a link to a poem by Denise Levertov.  Here is "Annuals" in its entirety:

Annuals

('Plants that flower the first season the 

seed is sown, and then die.')

All I planted came up,
balsam and nasturtium and
cosmos and the Marvel of Peru

first the cotyledon
then thickly the differentiated
true leaves of the seedlings,

and I transplanted them,
carefully shaking out each one's
hairfine rootlets from the earth,

and they have thriven,
well-watered in the new-turned earth;
and grow apace now--

but not one shows signs of a flower,
not one.
                  If August passes
flowerless,
and the frosts come,

will I have learned to rejoice enough
in the sober wonder of
green healthy leaves?

That poem spoke strongly to me when I was unmarried and just starting on my professional career.  I still find it to be powerful and worth saving here in the blog.

"Prufrock" in cartoon format

One of my favorite poems - and the only poem displayed on a bulletin board in my home office - is T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  The poem is now being adapted into graphic format by cartoonist Julian Peters:

"The adaptation plays with literal versions of many of the things described in the poem, capturing its humor and poignance."

Approximately the first third of the poem has been completed, and is viewable here.

(For the full text, see my 2012 post on "Spooning - and Prufrock."

Via BoingBoing.

A question about Terry Pratchett's novels

Over the past two months I've posted photos and stories about the bookcases and bookshelves of 18 readers of this blog.  After I featured Bruce and Carol's books and Emmy awards yesterday, I was struck by this comment from Adrian Morgan:

"I'm impressed that no fewer than three people in this series own a copy of the limited edition Once More With Footnotes -- the sure sign of a committed Pratchett fan..."

I've frequently seen Terry Pratchett mentioned at websites I harvest for this blog, but hadn't realized that such a high proportion of readers here were enthusiasts about his work.  Time for my confession:  I've not read anything by Terry Pratchett.  It's not that he lacks credentials or reputation -

Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s, and has sold over 85 million books worldwide in 37 languages. He is currently the second most-read writer in the UK, and seventh most-read non-US author in the US...

So my question to the readers of TYWKIWDBI is... where should I start?  It wouldn't have to be the best or most iconic work, but rather something to give me a flavor for the corpus of works.  (If I were introducing a naive reader to the Agatha Christie series, I wouldn't suggest The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as the first one to read).

Presumably the answer lies somewhere in the Discworld series.   I don't intend to read everything, so it shouldn't be mandatory to start with the first of the series.  On the other hand, if the novels build coherently on previous publications, would it be confusing or offputting to select a recent work for a first sample?

I await your advice...

Today (10/6) is Mad Hatter Day

Explained here:

Mad Hatter Day is 10/6. The date was chosen from the illustrations by John Tenniel in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, wherein the Mad Hatter is always seen wearing a hat bearing a slip of paper with the notation "In this style 10/6". We take this as inspiration to behave in the style of the Mad Hatter on 10/6 (which is October 6 here, although in Britain MadHatterDay occurs on June 10...but I digress...)

Mad Hatter Day began in Boulder, CO, in 1986, among some computer folk who had nothing better to do. It was immediately recognized as valuable because they caused less damage than if they'd been doing their jobs.

As I searched this topic on the 'net today, it was interesting to see how many observers misinterpret the 10/6 on his hat as being either a style number ("The Mad Hatter’s top hat, according to Lewis Carroll, was of the 10/6 style") or worse ("my birthdate (10/6) is on his hat although I think that is his hat size!"). The correct interpretation, of course, is that "the paper in the Mad Hatter's Hat was really an order to make a hat in the style shown, to cost ten shillings sixpence."

(Reposted from 2011)

"Lucha Libro" explained

YouTube link.

From a story at PRI:

It's a twist on Lucha Libre, Mexico’s version of pro wrestling, where competitors put on masks and pseudonyms to duke it out in a ring.

Peru's Lucha Libro is kind of like that, without the violence. It's literary "wrestling." New writers don masks, and head onto a stage where they’re given three random words, a laptop hooked up to a gigantic screen, and five minutes to write a short story.

At the end of a match, the losing writer has to take off his or her mask. The winner goes on to the next round, a week later. And the grand prize? It's a book contract...

The first contestant is a guy who goes by the name "Chicken Wilson." He's tall and goofy, but when he sees the three words projected on the screen behind him, he gets serious. He's got monkey, plane ticket, and dictionary to work with.

The announcer counts to three, and the clock starts. No one's talking, but just a paragraph in, Chicken Wilson freezes. The seconds are ticking by, so the crowd starts cheering him on. He rallies, dashing off a short story about monkeys living in the city, and an American girl on vacation in Peru...

“It's also about changing the idea that literature is boring. This turns it into an event. Because it's not just about the opportunity for a young person to become a writer,” he says. “It's also about having a place for young people to hang out - and to read.”

It seems to me the way to game the system would be to have three or four stories already "written" in one's mind, and then figure out into which one you could insert the three words.  Kudos to the promoters for developing the event.

Alice Liddell (1858)

Photographed by Lewis Carroll.  See also the photo of Alice posing as a beggar-maid.  Additional discussion/insight here.

Photo via Alabaster.

How to cook a unicorn ("Taketh one unicorne...")

A long-lost medieval cookbook, containing recipes for hedgehogs, blackbirds and even unicorns, has been discovered at the British Library...

Experts believe that the cookbook was compiled by Geoffrey Fule, who worked in the kitchens of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England (1328-1369)...

After recipes for herring, tripe and codswallop (fish stew, a popular dish in the Middle Ages) comes that beginning "Taketh one unicorne". The recipe calls for the beast to be marinaded in cloves and garlic, and then roasted on a griddle... 

Additional information and two more images at the British Library's Medieval Manuscripts blog, where it is also noted that -

The recipe for cooking blackbirds is believed to be the origin of the traditional English nursery rhyme "Sing a song of sixpence / A pocket full of rye / Four-and-twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie."

Via Curiosités de Titam. 

Addendum: After you enjoy reading this, be sure to read the relevant comments by Margaret and Shaun.

"I don't believe in colleges and universities" - updated

From a 2009 New York Times article about Ray Bradbury, then approaching 90 years of age:

"...among Mr. Bradbury’s passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. His most famous novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” which concerns book burning, was written on a pay typewriter in the basement of the University of California, Los Angeles, library; his novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” contains a seminal library scene...

“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

He is not a fan of the Internet, however: "“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.” More at the link.

Reposted from 2010 to commemorate Bradbury's death today.   Interestingly, I also found Bradbury's sentiment echoed by another SciFi legend, Isaac Asimov:

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Asimov quote via A Writer's Ruminations.

Addendum:  Reposted from 2012 to add this observation by Bradbury on how to use a library:

I use a library the same way I’ve been describing the creative process as a writer — I don’t go in with lists of things to read, I go in blindly and reach up on shelves and take down books and open them and fall in love immediately. And if I don’t fall in love that quickly, shut the book, back on the shelf, find another book, and fall in love with it. You can only go with loves in this life.

And this:

I try to keep up with what’s being done in every field, and most children’s books are ten times more enjoyable than the average American novel right now.

Text from a public television interview in the 1970s, posted at Brain Pickings.

Identifying books from word clouds

I think it must be a sign of aging when you've read the book and can even tell the story, but under time pressure can't remember the title to save your life.  *sigh*

The quiz is here (along with links to other literature quizzes and a variety of other quizzes).  One tip: you can skip over entries and come back to the unanswered ones at the end.

Those with high scores are welcome to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame in the Comments.

50 science-fiction and fantasy novels

Of the making of lists of books, there is no end.  Flavorwire has a compilation of fifty science-fiction and fantasy novels, of which I've only read about 15.  The image above is of protagonist Gully Foyle in Bester's novel about teleportation. 

An egregious medical mistake

If there were an award for the Worst Description of a Medical Procedure in a Novel, I would nominate this dialogue:

"Does it really take twenty minutes from here to Lundeby?"

"Yes, unfortunately, it does.  And twenty minutes back.  They didn't have personnel with them who could perform a tracheotomy.  If they had, he might have been saved."

"What are you talking about now?"

"About going in between two vertebrae and opening up the windpipe from the outside."

"You mean cutting open his throat?"

"Yes, It's actually quite simple.  And it might have saved his life..."

Of course he would have been left quadriplegic after they dissected their way past his spinal column.

My wife found this passage in Chapter 13 of Karin Fossum's otherwise-enjoyable "Don't Look Back."

Selections from Uncle Shelby's ABZ book

Via Vintage Kids' Books My Kids Love (where there are several more).

"Tree-calf" explained

Mark Twain, deploring the prose of James Fenimore Cooper:

“when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it.”

That comes from the infamous essay “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” which I was delighted to read decades ago.  At the time I didn't pay attention to "tree-calf," but it caught my eye yesterday.

I found the explanation at Pazzo Books (whence the embedded top image):

Named for the tree-like design left behind by the treatment with acidic chemicals, tree-calf (and it’s less arboreal cousin, acid calf) were popular binding choices from the late 18th century until well into the 19th.

When I worked as a librarian, I remember reshelving some books that looked like these.  I never knew there was a term for the style.  You learn something every day.

Addendum:  "Friendship's Offering" explained.

A remarkable 9th-century swan

This is a special book from the early Middle Ages (France, 9th century). Not only does it contain a high volume of very attractive images, but these images are also not what you would expect: they are drawn, as it were, with words. They illustrate Cicero’s Aratea, a work of astronomy. Each animal represents a constellation and the written words in them are taken from an explanatory text by Hyginus (his Astronomica). His words are crucial for these images because the drawings would not exist without them. It is not often in medieval books that image and text have such a symbiotic relationship, each depending on the other for its very existence.

Image and text from Erik Kwakkel's excellent blog post.  At the link you will find five additional images of similarly-illustrated animals, and links to the digitized primary source and related materials.

All of this week I've been featuring material from Erik Kwakkel's blog, which I've now added to my too-dormant category of recommended blogs.  This is the "about" from the blog:

Medieval book historian at Leiden University, The Netherlands. I post images of medieval books and share with you what's special about them.

Here is the home page, which I invite all TYWKIWDBI readers to explore.  There is an immense amount of interesting material (I have to be careful not to borrow too much stuff; I'd rather send you there to read it).

A medieval portable "girdle book"

From the collections of Yale's Beinecke Library:

This volume of Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy, likely copied in England in the fifteenth century, was re-bound soon after as a “girdle-book,” to be read while hanging from a belt at the waist. 

The full catalogue description of the book has been summarized at Erik Kwakkel:

This example from Yale’s Beinecke library is a rare example of a girdle book that contains its original binding - the knot was slipped under the owner’s belt, where the object would dangle until needed. It is a delightful specimen that looks very attractive in spite of the plain material that was used - undecorated leather. The book it covers was written in England during the fifteenth century (though the binding may be continental). It contains Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, written in the sixth century and discussing such topics as free will, virtue, and justice. These may not be the usual topics to have ready at hand while walking the streets of a late-medieval city, but someone found such use important enough to have the text fitted in a crafty binding.

A clever medieval bookmark

"This object was in common use in medieval libraries, even though very few survive today. It’s a bookmark - and a smart one for that matter. As with our own bookmarks, it tells you where you are in the book: the rope was attached to the binding and placed between two pages. The reader subsequently pulled down the marker along the rope to the line where he had stopped reading. Since an open medieval book often presented four text columns, the reader then turned the disk to indicate in which column he had left off. In this case we read “4” in medieval Arabic numerals - the column on the far right. So this tiny piece of parchment marks it all: page, column and line."

Text and image (cropped for size) via Erik Kwakkel.

A "bloody" book of devotion

The British Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts has a page devoted to "Kissing Images" (the habit of kissing images in books).  Discussed there is BL MS Edgerton 1821:

"The most remarkable example of a book of devotion that may show signs of having received that devotion in a direct physical form is Egerton 1821, an English product of around 1490. This book is known to those who work on prints, and was exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington DC in 2005, but is still largely unknown, I think, to those who work on manuscripts. It begins with three pages, each painted black, on which large drops of blood trickle down. The third page has been thoroughly worn. I am not absolutely certain this is the result of kissing, and part of it has been rubbed and smudged rather than merely kissed, but I think it very well could have been partially erased by kissing... "

"After this the pages turn blood red, and thick gouts of blood pour down them from innumerable wounds. This disturbing decoration continues for ten consecutive pages (the last folio was cut out at some date, leaving only a stub). I count approximately 540 wounds on the bloodiest page, so perhaps taken together they were intended to represent the 5400 or more wounds received by Christ according to texts of late medieval devotion."

"There are two openings like this before one reaches a third with two further woodcuts pasted in. The first represents a Man of Sorrows surrounded by twenty small compartments with instruments of the passion. Facing it is a larger woodcut of the five wounds of Christ with a heart at the centre over a cross. The left image (think back to the miniature in Harley 2985) carries an indulgence (later defaced): ‘To all them that devoutly say five Pater nosters, five Aves, and a Creed afore such a figure are granted 32,755 years of pardon.’ (A combination of hyperinflation and opportunism by printers among others had seriously devalued the indulgence by this date.)"

Further discussion of this book, with additional photos, continues at the British Library site.

Heart-shaped medieval Books of Hours

We know of only a few examples of heart-shaped Books of Hours, all dating from the 15th or the 16th century. 

Additional photos of several other such books are posted at damien kempf, via Erik Kwakkel.  For a general introduction to Books of Hours, check out this 12-minute video:

YouTube link.

This video "presents a brief documentary about the patronage, content and use of medieval Books of Hours. The Biekorf ("Beehive") Library, best known for its collection of cistercian manuscripts from Ten Duinen en Ter Doest, holds 21 medieval Books of Hours."

Video via Erik Kwakkel.