I've been in Berlin for the last couple of weeks. It's been hard to write blogs simply because there are so many things I want to write about but I have so little inclination to stay in my flat. Berlin is a city that demands attention. Museums, concert halls and bookshops are everywhere.
This afternoon, I went back to Dussman's which describes itself as a 'cultural department store' - four floors of books and music in every imaginable form. Ever since my first visit to Dussman's, I've been coveting the collected works of Erich Kastner's children's books. Kastner also wrote for adults but his children's books achieved international success and are enduring classics. There was a huge boxed set of hardcovers at Dussman's that I sooooo wanted to own but there were three problems. Firstly, they weighed a tonne, secondly they wouldn't fit in my suitcase, and thirdly - and probably most significantly - they were in German and I can understand about twenty words of the language. But they were so lovely to hold! And the collection included all the 'Emil' novels.
I first read Emil and the Detectives when I was around nine years old. It conjured Berlin as a real city where real kids lived - not just a place of war and history. I loved how intrepid and optimistic Emil and his friends were. I loved the way they took charge of their lives. Kastner's heroes were always believable, authentic children. In hindsight, I can see his influence in my own work and it makes me wish I could read German, just to have the pleasure of re-reading his books in the language in which Kastner wrote them.
The Germans are very loyal to their classic authors and they have a formidable publishing industry. Every bookshop has a good stock of authors from every era - both those who write for adults and for children. There are more than 83,000,000 people in Germany (four times the population of Australia) so I guess there are enough readers to keep classic novels evergreen but you can't help but feel the Australian publishing industry is sadly focussed on new releases. I'd love to discover a 'classic Australian children's literature' section in an Australian bookshop. It's nice to dream.
Coveting Emil
One thing done well
A little while ago, my twenty-five year old daughter, Ruby, sent me a poem. It wasn't one that she had written but she said when she read it she thought of me. On days when I'm feeling I've got too many things wrong, I go back and read it and feel glad I've done one thing right in my life.
The Reading Mother
I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea.
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth;
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.
I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.
I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness lent with his final breath.
I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch.
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be --
I had a Mother who read to me.
Strickland Gillilan.
A New Year and Old Books
I'm sitting in the British Library as I write this blog. When I glance up, I'm confronted by the most beautiful, towering, wall of glass-encased leather-bound books.
It's only 6 January and I've already broken one of my many New Year's resolutions - to blog more often. But it hasn't been easy to find the time and internet connections to upload my bookish thoughts. For the past two and a half weeks I've been travelling around the UK. Icy Wales, windswept Cornwall, funky Brighton, homely Newhaven and now London, with all it's myriad wonders.
Today I spent the day in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room of the British Library, scrolling through all the 1910 Madras newspapers that I hadn't been able to access when I was in India last year. When the British left the sub-continent, they took a big chunk of its history away with them. Fortunately, most of it is archived in the British Library but I hope that one day they'll return at least respectable copies of what was taken from the Indians (and so many other colonised cultures). It was such a buzz to have access to everything that had been so hard to find in India. I'm still feeling high on the pleasure of it all.
In an hour or so I'll venture out into the freezing night air. Tomorrow Berlin.
