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Books that I've had my nose in whilst on fag breaks.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
'Behind the Smile: My Story' by Lisa Potts
On July 8th, 1996, I was at work on the Penn Road, in Wolverhampton, when it seemed that every emergency vehicle in the city was in our vicinity. You could tell from the way the traffic was stopping that something big was happening. Sirens are part of the everyday background noise in Wolverhampton, but there were just too many. I went out the front door and looked down the Penn Road, at the Safeway, where my friend worked. The junction was practically at standstill, then a client came running in to tell us what was happening two streets away.
Unknown to me, at that moment, my friend in Safeway was involved in a huge emergency action. All of the customers were told to leave their shopping trolleys where they were and leave the store. This is a big store and hundreds of people just abandoning their shopping. The doors were locked and police thronged the massive carpark. This is what I could see from the doorstep of the PRF. The reason? From the Safeway carpark, you can see St Luke's, where a man with a machete had just attacked a class full of 3 and 4 year olds, plus the adults watching over them. They didn't know where he'd gone. He could have been in the Safeway.
Over the next few days, we all got to learn about Lisa Potts. She was the nursery-school teacher who had shepherded children indoors, then gone out for more. Despite having witnessed three women floored under the machete, she ran out for the last group of children. She lifted her arm to save 3 year old Ahmed and her arm was nearly severed right through. She lifted it again to save 4 year old Francesca and the result was her own hand hanging nearly off. She raised the other hand to save 4 year old Reena, whose Mum was lying in a pool of her own blood across the yard. She covered several children with her own body as the machete reigned down on her back and not only survived, but ensured that every single child survived too. The three other women who had been attacked also survived. Lisa received the George Medal for bravery for her actions that day.
I found Lisa's book, 'Behind the Smile', in a charity shop at the weekend and sat reading it last night, when I should have been answering e-mails. I could picture all of the terrain. I've sat in a cubicle in New Cross. My Mum runs a playgroup. But even without all of this local knowledge, this story would have been fascinating. It's an adrenaline thing; it's the story of an ordinary Wulfrunian wench suddenly confronted with a machete, while looking after children. (I remembered as a young teenager, walking with my friends through the fog down the brook, a man emerged from the fog waving a machete around. We froze. He passed us by and disappeared into the fog behind us. We ran.) This is Wolverhampton, any of us could have been Lisa Potts with a bit of bad luck. You can't help but read it with a 'what if' going on in your head and endless respect for the wench herself.
Then I realized that the respect wasn't as endless as I'd imagined. In fact, by the end of chapter 7, she was starting to annoy me. 'I couldn't let the children down!' She protested, as she had her plastercasts taken off early in order to go on a promised camp, against all advice. Very heroic, but she still couldn't do for herself. Two camp volunteers had to stay with her in order to dress her or help her on the loo; one camp volunteer had to take her for her hospital appointment mid-week. In short, her presense not only added no assistance to the children, but drained it away from them. Then she laid into a colleague for re-arranging the nursery-school. Her trauma might have been less if she could have seen it as she'd left it, but they'd taken up the playground and relaid it (lots of blood on the original). You expect a bit of me, me, me, when you've been horrifically injured in those circumstances (let's face it, I was hardly a heroine after my accident and I was definitely me, me, me-ing about things)... but after a while, you began to wonder how much of this story was now Lisa really playing the poor me for all she could get.
Not a good thought. I felt evil just thinking it. I asked around.
The other good thing about being in Wolverhampton is that sooner or later you're going to find someone who knows her personally. It took me exactly five minutes. The second person I mentioned the book too actually knows her. The first knew of her. I was reliably informed that Lisa hadn't actually written the book and it mis-represented her in some ways. She's genuinely a lovely person.
I was glad. The rest of the book could be read without frowning, because now it was a 21 year old Wulfrunian wench completely out of her depth. I hope I run into her one day, though all I want to say is, 'Yam owrigh' a'er wench? Well dun.'
'The Thief of Time' by Terry Pratchett
I really enjoyed this. I think I got more out of it now than I did the first time round. I picked it up really serendipidously, because I'd been thinking on wanting to read it since someone on Witchgrove mentioned Lu-Tze and rule number one, but I didn't know I owned it. I came back from watching the film of the 'Amityville Horror' thinking that it was going to remind me too much of 1993 and I'd have nightmares. I needed Discworld to keep the demons at bay, but didn't think I owned any other books than those I'd read recently. I went through my shelves and there it was. 'The Thief of Time'. I can't remember ever buying it. I'm so glad it was there.
Lu-Tze and Lobsang = Obi-Wan and Luke, don't they? Ok, the obvious is the 'Karate Kid', but I couldn't help but think Obi-Wan and Luke. I loved the interaction between those two (so Buddhism is headology as well then...), whereas the last time I read it, I was more interested in Susan Sto Helit. I also loved the ideas about history and time, this makes it all make sense.
I've giggled, philosophized, giggled some more and simply thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I need more Pratchett.
'The Amityville Horror' by Jay Anson
I wanted to read this before I went to see the film. As that was going to happen one night, but I'd been up late trying to catch up on e-mail, the result was that I was lying in bed getting it finished until about quarter to three in the morning. I needn't have bothered. The film hadn't bothered with accuracy, so it wasn't worth having the facts in my head to go and see it.
Anson wrote this based on tapes made by the Lutz family (children and all) after they had fled from the Amityville house. According to the Lutz site, there are a couple of misunderstandings, but the book is generally accurate. I found it compelling. There were several times when I could put myself in the place of whichever member of the Lutz family was experiencing the phenomena and could think, 'Yes, I'd have done the same...'
For an idea of what happened there, despite the films, then this is the best source and it's a quick read too. I read it in about two days, sneaked in between the millions of other things happening in my life.
'Murder in Amityville' by Hans Holzer
This was all Amos Keppler's fault. Before the film came out, he was there posting to Witchgrove about it, so I ended up reading everything on his site... then digging through my books until I found this and the Jay Anson one. I hadn't read this one before, but I had high hopes (no pun intended) because I'd read positive reviews of another of Hans Holzer's work, on witchcraft, though I hadn't read that either.
Unfortunately, I found Holzer's 'Murder in Amityville' to be confused in its style. It opens with an exploration into the phenomenon of possession, which was quite in-depth and had me with my academic head on reading it. It was very interesting and set the scene for an argument that Ronald DeFeo had been possessed when he killed his family. Then it stopped. Holzer stopped short of actually saying that. It's inferred by the fact that we're talking about possession, then we're talking about Ronald DeFeo. It's almost said, because the majority of the content is selected transcript from the trial, which was there in support of this inference. I still had my academic head on and that said, 'This isn't evidence - you're not making your case and you're editing the source so it could imply anything.'
It's a terrible thing to say, but it was also tedious after a while. Terrible because a family being killed shouldn't be tedious, even to a world-weary, hard-faced bint like myself. But pages and pages of court transcript just led to me thinking, 'For crying out loud, lawyers and judge, grow up and speak in bloody English!' The book raised more questions than it answered, but didn't adequately make the case for DeFeo being possessed.
'Fugitives and Refugees' by Chuck Palahnuik
I had a surprise parcel one day. Inside was this book, a map of Portland, Oregon (with really groovy mountains raised in it), some postcards of the city and a card off my friend, Anna Alexander. My guess is that she wants me to come and visit. LOL
I've never been to Portland and this is a book, I think, which is aimed at those who either live there or are close enough to go and visit. It's a tourist book, but not like one I've ever scanned through before. I actually sat and read this... and marked the places that I wanted to visit. It's written by the author of 'Fight Club', who lives in Portland, and is full of little anecdotes - human ones, ones that make you actually want to visit, rather than something dreamed up in a marketing person's sterile mind.
I now have a short list of three places I definitely want to visit in Portland:
Then lots of places I might want to visit. The mausoleum really got my imagination going. I don't think we have anything like it in Britain - a vast, indoors necropolis, with settees, huge avenues and 100s of 1000s of dead people in a vast indoor crypt.
I enjoyed reading this. It's not the sort of book you scan through, like most tourist books, but it is the sort you could dip into. And yes, it did it's job. I want to go to Portland.
'Prince of Annwn' by Evangeline Walton
I sat against a tree, in Selly Oak park, occasionally looking up to see the shadows getting longer, but mostly ignoring the fact that the grass was damp and was seeping in through my trousers. I sat there for a couple of hours going with Pwyll into Annwn, meeting Arawn, battling the demons before the ultimate battle. By the time he started faffing around with Rhiannon, I was back in the car trying to get warm again. Sitting outside, in March, in Britain, can be very over-rated.
This story, however, is part of my religion. I know it in the same way that your average Christian knows the Nativity. The outcome of the story was never in question, but Evangeline had put her own twists and turns in so well that it was like reading a story I'd never encountered before. There may be raised eyes in Cymru about the fact that this is a Welsh tale, retold by an American from a translation by an English aristocrat, but politics aside, it told it well.
It fit the moment and allowed me a few meditations on Pwyll, Arawn and Rhiannon. An easy read.
'The DaVinci Code' by Dan Brown
I'd heard so much about this book! I'd had friends bouncing up and down in front of me saying, 'Please read it! I really need your take on it!' I'd had others e-mailing the groups raving about it. So I found some time in my life and read it.
The style itself reminds me of Thomas Harris. It's a dark, detective story. I could have been reading 'Silence of the Lambs' or 'Red Dragon'. It made you turn the page, which is exactly what such a book should do. I was off-work and so had time to just sit around reading. It took me two days to read 'The DaVinci Code'.
Bounce? Well, not really. You see, I read 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' years ago and nothing which Dan Brown wrote added to that. I realized though how startling the central message would be, if you hadn't read 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail'. What Brown has done has written a popular, accessible book, then used that to spread the message. In it's own way, that's genius. I was waiting right until the end to be stunned and wowwed, to know what it was that folk wanted my take on. I knew about DaVinci (though Brown speculated some juicy facts which made me ponder); I knew about Rosslyn; I knew about the Magdelena... ah... This was for people who didn't know about those things! Got ya!
Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable book and now I know what it's about, I can give people my take on it.
'The Truth' by Terry Pratchett
I needed Pratchett. I'd had to do amendments to my dissertation, which had left me... well, suicidal really... I needed to get out of that black mood and read some DiscWorld. I rummaged around and found 'The Truth'.
All my work experience at school, and my first jobs out of school, were in local newspapers. If it hadn't been for me going to University, I'd still be working in newspapers. 'The Truth' is about an Ankh-Morpork journalist and shows Pratchett's uncanny insight again. How can he know about such things? It's like with Paganism, he knows things that you can only appreciate on the inside, and he does it again with this one.
Perfect DiscWorld. I enjoyed it. It calmed me down, thawed me out and kicked me back out into the world again to play.
'The Rebirth of Witchcraft' by Doreen Valiente
My respect for Doreen Valiente finally became absolute after reading this book. You can chart the path of that from BD to AD (before dissertation and after dissertation - the eras of my life). In BD, I thought she was a slightly silly, very gullible woman; AD, I want to prostrate myself before her grave and thank her for who she was and what she did. In particular, I think that every Wiccan should read this book. She was neither silly or gullible and she has something important to tell us about our history here.
My only regret is that I didn't get this book a year sooner. That's because it's extremely rare and usually expensive (I saw it going for £92 on one site), so I thought I could do without. Then Cerr (from Witchgrove) found it dirt cheap for me. After reading it, I'd say to any Wiccan historian that this book is one of the fundamental texts. You have to read it to understand everything else.
I did get chance to add it as a source within my dissertation, as I had minor amendments to make, so re-wrote a section to incorporate what Ms Valiente had to say. I'm so glad I got that opportunity.
'The Sandman Companion' by Hy Bender
A discussion on Witchgrove led me to the notion that my spirituality has less to do with the Alexandrianism of my religion or the Christianity of my childhood, but a few days in 1994 when I sat reading 'Sandman' and found my way back to the world via them.
There are many ways to read a book, the favourite possibly being to shut up and just read it. I didn't. I read this almost as a theological commentary, supposing that the Sandman graphic novels are scripture. (I should imagine that, on the off-chance that either Neil Gaiman or Hy Bender read this blog, they would both stare at the wall for a very long time over that reading...) I retraced my steps, starting with 'Preludes and Nocturnes' - a basement in a stately home/bedroom at 25 Francis Street. I worked my way back to now. I did things to my mind which I consider long overdue, but which my friends might have really liked to have known about as I did them. There were only a couple of times when I emerged from behind my eyes into the public sphere with this. First time was when Morpheus consulted the Three-in-One... so did I. I went to the Triple Goddess and the God, e-mailed them and got their counsel. This is possible, trust me. Second time was when I wrote this.
I messed my mind up with that dissertation. I messed my faith up too. I messsed everything up really. This book helped me put some of the pieces back together, though I tore more apart to get to that stage. Some things are worth the risk.
'The Last Hero' by Terry Pratchett
Yay! Rare indeed amongst DiscWorld books - one I actually hadn't read before. This is Bex's copy, which she lent to me at her birthday party. I took it home, devoured it, and it's still sitting there waiting for me to give it her back.
I laughed out loud at this one, hearing some of the wittisms for the first time. It's full of pictures too, which you don't usually get. My particular favourite was a version of 'The Creation of Adam', but involving Cohen the Barbarian. I really had to smother my laughter in the bed-clothes for that one.
It's about when heroes get old, but they're still heroes. This is them out for one last heroic adventure. It's got the End of the World involved too and some wonderful imaginary about going into space, the moon etc. Huge thanks to Bex for loaning me this one. I needed the easing back into the world again.
