Mr Ogilvie

I am horribly, irrationally and embarrassingly terrified of dentists. I don’t know why, as I have only once been hurt by a dentist (he was the one I bit, and we were never friends afterwards – but this happened long after the story I am about to tell). My first dentist, the one from my childhood, was a tall man, rather handsome in a Dr. Kildare sort of a way, and the father of two sisters who went to the same school that I did. His surgery was in a terribly smart, white modern house, all angles and big windows and shiny Sixties style (not surprisingly, as it was the Sixties), and there was an overwhelming impression of brightness and gleaming hygiene and efficiency. I can’t remember why I stopped going to him, whether I disliked the connection through his daughters or whether I just threw a teenage strop. Maybe I had heard the tales of Mr. Ogilvie and wanted to see if they were true.

The town was divided on the subject of Mr. Ogilvie. Most people thought he was mad, and possibly dangerous and, having visited him once, never returned for their next appointment. A few, like me, thought he was the best dentist they had ever had and were loyal through thick and thin. He was different in every way from my first dentist.  Instead of a smart modern house, he operated out of an old-fashioned terrace, and for all I know he lived on the premises. Certainly the place had an air of domesticity, well-worn and not too tidy. It was dark and welcoming. The same went for his equipment which had seen better days, and many of them.  The chair was battered and comfortable. But it wasn’t the slightly tatty surroundings that put people off, it was his chairside manner.

Most dentists, like hairdressers, stick to the same, familiar and predictable conversations – where their patients went, or are going, on their holidays, what the weather was or is doing. Dull, dull, dull – and unchallenging. Mr. Ogilvie eschewed such niceties. He talked about whatever interested him, whatever was in his mind at the time. And as he was a widely-read and intelligent man, he followed trains of thought that were entirely unpredictable. I remember him telling me on one occasion about the rate of decomposition of bodies in the ground, for example, and on another occasion, the varying capacity of the human bladder. I think this is what used to terrify his patients. Perhaps they found the subjects distasteful, as they lay stretched out in the chair. I think they thought he was mad. I, on the other hand, got interested and engaged, which of course took my mind off the dentistry that was going on at the same time.  Even if the subjects didn’t appeal, their sheer inappropriateness amused me. And, as Mr. Ogilvie told me once, it is impossible to be scared when you’re laughing. And that made me think that Mr. Ogilvie wasn’t mad at all, just very good at making a nervous patient relax.

Confronting the classics, by Mary Beard

I only read one and a half books on holiday this year (as opposed to five last year) - a sad indication of something, though I am not sure what. Anyway, this is the one that I finished.
I was initially disappointed, having picked it up in haste and not realised that it was a series of essays when I would have preferred a connected narrative, but having said that, it did make it easier for the kind of pick-up put-down reading that holidays prompt. It was also disappointing that it was a reprint of essays and book reviews published some years ago, rather than original and new work, though I don't know why I carp about that as I hadn't read any of them before.
I have always had a yen to go back to the classics - to pick up the Latin I learnt at school, to get some of the Greek I wasn't allowed to learn at school, and to weave that in with classical history and literature. It was going to be a project for my retirement, until I saw how few and far between opportunities for such adult education were, and how blisteringly expensive. Many places have ceased to teach Latin and Greek. I seem to have missed the boat.
Therefore I am grateful to Mary Beard for dragging the classical world back into the limelight.  One day I really will read Herodotus (even though he is apparently unreliable) and the other classical authors.  And of course it helped that I read the book beside the sea - mostly on this jetty, facing the Roman settlement of Alcudia - and there is nothing like Mediterranean sunshine to make you feel a connection with history.

Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis

Having gone back to Scott Fitzgerald and been disappointed, I thought I would try to read again a book I did not enjoy on first reading, just to see if my tastes really have changed. And it looks like they have.

It took me ages to read it, but that was more about my having lost the habit of reading at the same time as I lost the commute; and if I don't read a book fairly quickly, I tend to lose the thread (memory fails as age increases) so there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing while I tried to get back into it. But I did find it amusing in a bitterly cynical kind of a way, which is more than I did on first reading.

I think it says more about me than about the book.

This side of paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Having ploughed through a couple of books that fell short of expectations, I picked on this as being a quick read and pretty much a banker in terms of satisfaction (and also because it had twice come up, once as the answer to a crossword clue and once as a question on Mastermind - or maybe it was University Challenge. Fate's serendipitous finger seemed to command. Anyway...).  I was fairly sure I would enjoy it, having read it before.

Which is where I was wrong. The date inside the book - the date I bought it - is January 1973 and I expect that I read it soon after. In 1973, I was not far off the age of the protagonist and not far off the age of the author when he wrote it, and I thought it was wonderful. I thought that life really was like that, or would shortly become so. This brilliant scintillating intellectual society with its bright young things was waiting for me just around the corner. By heck, I was going to be a bright young thing too.

Given the many annotations in the margins, I read it for a module on my university course. The comments are fair - it is stylishly written, nice turns of phrase, etc. But, forty years on, the protagonist is no longer a hero, but a snobby little prat who could do with a slap; and the writing style grates as it tries so hard to be witty. I lost all sympathy with it long before the end and I don't know if I mourn more for the loss of reading pleasure or for my own lost naivety. I never was, and now never will be, a bright young thing.

South from Granada, by Gerald Brenan

It isn't as bad as it looks - I finished reading this some time ago, and the delay has been in the writing about it, not the reading. It is true to say, however, that this isn't going to make it up into my top ten books - or even my top 100. Indeed, it may find its way back to a charity bookshop (and I only very very rarely dispose of books).

I bought it because I like the part of the world he is writing about and hoped it would be an antidote to the "Driving over lemons" style of travel writing (DOL is set in the same part of the world and is by no means the worst example of its kind, so it may be unfair to pick on it as a comparison). Gerald Brenan lived in Spain at intervals between 1920 to 1934, going there after being demobbed after the First World War. It quickly becomes clear that Brenan is no "ordinary Joe" - public school, offficer class and a circle of acquaintances which enable him to devote one chapter to a visit from Lytton Strachey and another to a visit from Virginia Woolf.

I found the whole book strangely flat and humourless. I am not sure but that I didn't enjoy DOL more.

Mips

There are lots of special words that families use, and most of them have little application outside the family circle, but in “mips” we have a word which has a meaning genuinely not found elsewhere.

A “mip” is a hard particle of something which you find in your food. Derived from “pip”, it can be exactly that – for example, the blackcurrant or blackberry pips found in jam.  However, it doesn’t have to be derived from fruit, but can be anything, savoury or sweet, which grates between the teeth. Its definition depends upon that sensation. It isn’t the hardness per se, either, but the contrast between the hard bits and the soft food around it.

Whole spices are “mips”, like the coriander seeds we fry with mushrooms or the pumpkin seeds in a coleslaw. At a pinch, it can even be chopped nuts, if these are hard and not incorporated into the meal. On the other hand, poppy seeds on bread are not mips as they are so small they can be eaten without noticing. Equally, larger pieces, such as cinnamon sticks or plum stones, are not “mips” either as they can easily be seen, picked out and discarded.

The word was formed with the children, who disliked (and still dislike) “mips” in their food. “Has it got mips in?” was and is a frequent question. An answer in the affirmative will always guarantee that the offer of that particular food will be declined.

There is an adjectival form, “mippy”.  There is also the noun “mipfest” for one of those gloriously flavoured meals we enjoy immediately before, and immediately after, the children have visited.

Now all roads lead to France: the last years of Edward Thomas, by Matthew Hollis

I only very rarely - hardly ever - give up on a book, but instead keep trudging on, however reluctantly, towards the last page. It took me nearly three months to reach the end of this one, which is a fair indicator of the amount of reluctance.

It isn't that it is a bad book, but on the contrary is very well written and has won both praise and actual awards (H. W. Fisher Best First Biography Award, Costa Book Awards winner). It is more the case that the more I read about Edward Thomas, the less I liked him. And the less persuaded I became that he was a good poet. Yes, he wrote a handful of good poems. Everyone knows "Adlestrop", and deservedly so. But a handful of good poems doesn't make a great poet.

The thing is, I'm not a great lover of English pastoral. When the curfew tolls the knell of parting day, my grateful reflection is only that it must be gin o'clock. And anyway, Gray did English pastoral better than Thomas, as did A. E. Housman, in my view.

Thomas was a brute to his family, whom he treated abominably. And yet the pity in his poetry is mostly self-pity. Maybe if he had lived beyond the war, he would have muscled up a bit, but I doubt it.

So now, what do I read next? I have two travel books put by, both of which I want to read, but first I think I'd like something light, easy and amusing...