Mysteries and discoveries.

Looking for some thing light (literally, physically light as I would have to carry it along with other stuff I was taking on the bus) I came across a book I had not seen before on the shelf. It was a Penguin book, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" by Roald Dahl. A set of short stories, first published in 1977, this version dated from 1982. Relatively recent, I thought. After all, the price on the book was £6.99, unlike he odd 3/6d that we have on some very old Penguins. Then I stopped and thought about it. It's 35 years ago after all. All is relative! Anyway, I had never seen this book before. When Phil saw me reading it, he asked where I had got it. He had never seen it before either. I wondered if one of us and picked it up in a second hand book shop but there was no penciled price on the inside of the cover, which usually happens with second books around here. So it is a complete mystery where the book came from. This is quite appropriate since the book is described on the flyleaf as follows: "The seven stories in this collection are brilliant examples of the macabre, the sinister and the wholly unexpected." 

The story of the title tells of a rich young man with little purpose in life who discovers yogic methods of seeing without using his eyes and so manages to make millions in casinos, only to use the money to set up orphanages around the world. Learning to control his mind and body gave him a new insight into life. Very Roald Dahl! It's interesting to find something new (to you at any rate) by someone whose work you thought you knew. Although I have to say I only knew Mr. Dahl as a children's writer. So a mystery book! Very good. 

In similar fashion some time ago I discovered that another writer whose work I had enjoyed also did other things. I had gone to an art gallery with my granddaughter and found an amazing painting of a glass blower. Very dramatic, full of colour and movement! It turned out to be by the writer Mervyn Peake. I had read his Gormenghast trilogy years and years before and been transported into a strange and different world. I had read "Mr. Pye", a book I had been attracted to because my maiden name was Pye. This Mr. Pye turned out to be a character who found that when he was exceptionally good angel wings started to grow on his shoulder blades. When he was bad they disappeared and he began to grow horns and a tail, turning into a devil. Somehow he has to maintain a balance between good and evil in order to keep an ordinary human appearance. Very odd! 

But I never knew Mervyn Peake was an artist. It turns out that he first made his reputation as a painter and illustrator in the 1930s and 1940s. During the Second World War he was commissioned as a war artist to paint war scenes. In 1943 he was commissioned by the British Ministry of Information to paint the glassblowers at a Birmingham factory: hence the picture I discovered. In 1945 he was sent to Germany and France. The paintings and poetry he brought back with him record the deep impression made on him by the victims of the war, notably those in Belsen. So far I have not located his poetry. This can be a future project for me. 

In the mystery Roald Dahl book, there is an account of his childhood experiences at a minor public school. In particular I was struck by the punishments inflicted on him as a small boy of only eight years old. Punishments were meted out for minor offences like not having polished his shoes or tidied up his bed properly. How did anyone ever think that such treatment was appropriate? And yet there are still people today who would argue for the return of corporal punishments in our schools. Small wonder that Roald Dahl wrote so many children's stories in which the underdog eventually triumphs and the bully gets his, or quite often her, comeuppance. 

I wonder what else I can find hidden away on the bookshelves.