Pepys Exhibition and a Bit of Poetry

Samuel Pepys

You may recall, last summer I introduced my friend, the famous 17th century English diarist, Samuel Pepys. Well, there is currently a Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, just down the river from London. Oh, how I wish I could go to this!  Since I cannot, a bit of armchair travel is in order. If you are the slightest bit interested in 17th century English history, culture (think the movie "Restoration" starring Robert Downey, Jr.), or are just curious, check out the exhibition link. There you will find information about the exhibit, a link to expert Pepys blogs, and a YouTube introduction to the exhibit. The YouTube video is quite clever; I keep playing it over and over just because I am one of Samuel's most devoted fans!

He was a sexist pig by our standards, but I am over judging historical figures by our standards. It is an exercise in 21st century political correctness and ego. Things happened. They were bad things, and some people were awful racists, philanderers, etc., and that cannot be changed, just acknowledged. And we move on, hopefully having learned how NOT to behave. At least we should. The soap box just collapsed, so I am off it now.

Anyway, I have been reading Pepys Diary, kind of like the tortoise, plodding along, making progress, and enjoying it immensely. Still in 1668, the next to last year of the Diary.  My next Pepys read will be to finish this Claire Tomalin autobiography, Samuel Pepys, The Unequalled Self:

As you can see by the book's "well-loved" condition, I have been working on this one for several years. The snippet of one of my favorite Billy Collins poems mentions Pepys. Here is the text:

"...This is what Samuel Pepys did too,
        jotting down in
private ciphers minor events that
        would have otherwise
slipped into the heavy, amnesiac
        waters of the Thames.
His vigilance paid off finally
        when London caught fire..."

                    --Billy Collins, Tuesday June 4th 1991

Lots of reading to do before I get to 1666, the year of the Great Fire of London. 2016 is the 250th anniversary of the fire. Thanks to Pepys we know so much more about how events unfolded over the course of several days. His home and office came very close to being destroyed. The fire stopped only one street away.

In the Tomalin bio, I am just now reading about the role Pepys played in the logistics of the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660. It would have been better to read the bio before the Diary, but of course I did not! Pepys was a low-level civil servant for the English Navy thanks to his cousin by marriage, Edward Montagu, later created the Earl of Sandwich by Charles II. Montagu was instrumental in the politics of getting Charles out of Holland to England when the Royalists regained power from the Cromwellians. Pepys was responsible for procuring the Royal Barge used to transport Charles back to England and accompanied Montagu as his secretary on the trip.

These experiences are just two of many in the remarkable life of Samuel Pepys. I hope you will find yourself just a little bit curious about this momentous time in English history and check out the exhibit links. If you do, maybe you will want to learn more about Samuel.

Next time, I will tell you a bit about my personal pilgrimage to the old City of London to see where Pepys lived and worked. Also, a bit about the journey by river boat down the Thames to Greenwich. There is a Royal Observatory and a pub involved.

Back to (Almost) Normal, Falling Off the Mountain, A Reading Challenge

**NEWS FLASH** I AM BACK!!!!!!!!!!

If you read my blog, thank you very much! I hope you missed me -- I missed you! Feeling much better, not quite 100%, but getting close. I have missed blogging very much and am quite happy to be back.

During this hiatus, I have had lots of time for reading and reflection. Health issues have a way of focusing the mind. And, in times of crisis some important things are no longer important. Please pardon the confessional bits here -- I have always taken too much pride in my smarts. I have smarts. But, I also lack the common sense gene. I admit it! I set high expectations for myself because I have to live up to my smarts, but the reality is, I spend (spent!) a lot of time doing this and that because I thought it was absolutely necessary to accomplish these things. One of these "things" is reading Ulysses. So, in the spirit of stepping away from what I used to think was SOOOO important, I am calling a halt to the Mt. Ulysses expedition. I was very enthusiastic and enjoyed the endeavor at first. While down and out I felt guilty for not reading, listening, or researching Ulysses and Joyce. As I began to feel better, I started listening to the dramatization again and realized it did not appeal to me at all. In fact, it was boring, tedious, unintelligible, and too much WORK. It became obvious that I was no longer enjoying myself and if I am retired and in control of my own doings, why do something so awful? Clarity is good. So, thanks to the gods of recuperation, I am embarking on new adventures and leaving James Joyce and his genius behind. I hope no one is disappointed, (she smirks). We are officially OFF the mountain! Fair warning, this might not be the only project I abandon. If a book does not grab me I will let it go.

First things first before we can really move on. Let's clear our agenda for a fresh start in 2016. Taking stock of past reading projects I see we have three unfinished sojourns.

-- The Collected Stories of Colette
-- The Mountains of the Moon
-- Pepys' Diary

All are worth finishing, so look for coming posts on these in the new year.

I am still using LibraryThing and its Legacy Libraries feature as my reading guide. So far, I share books in my library with 52 Legacy authors (there will be more when I have cataloged my entire library). Homer's works are those most commonly shared, 34 out of 52 authors having at least one of his works in common with me. I have read and discussed Homer so we are done with him, unless his work becomes part of another discussion. Moving forward, I want to divide my reading and the direction of this blog into several "groups". Since I have always had more than one book going at the same time, I want to keep (loosely) to something like this:

-- History & The Classics

-- Biography, Diaries, Letters

-- Travel, Nature

-- Literature, Poetry, Essays

-- 2016 Reading Challenge

-- Everything Else (includes art, movies, and life in general)

Finally, at this time of year there are tons of "Best of" lists and reading challenges for the coming year. One of the challenges I have always enjoyed (but have never accomplished because I am easily distracted) is the "Read xx number of books in the coming year" kind of thing. Without formally joining a challenge on another blog, I am creating my own challenge. You, dear reader, are not required to join in, but it might be fun for you to stroll through your "To Be Read" stack and pick out your own books to read in 2016. Clear those decks, forget resolutions, just read!

So here is the challenge:  Read 16 books from your To Be Read stack in 2016. Here are mine:

Stack #1

Stack #2

Stack #1:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke

     Currently on page 234, so have a head start but will finish in 2016 so it counts

Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich

The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather

The Leopard, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa

The Sea, the Sea, Iris Murdoch

Provence, Ford Madox Ford

Portrait of a Marriage, Nigel Nicolson

The Virginia Woolf Reader, ed. Mitchell A. Leaska

Stack #2:

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard

Bad Land, Jonathan Raban

Venice, Jan Morris

Crossing Open Ground, Barry Lopez

The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume One 1915-1919, ed. Anne Olivier Bell, Introduction by Quentin Bell

The Siege of Krishnapur, J.G. Farrell

The Fact of a Doorframe, Adrienne Rich

The Art of Drowning, Billy Collins

Happy New Year, and gather those books for the 2016 Reading Challenge!!!

Introducing My Friend Samuel

Samuel Pepys

My one-sided friendship with Samuel Pepys ("Peeps") began here:

84 Charing Cross Road

A charming 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft as the New York writer Helene Hanff and Anthony Hopkins as her London bookseller friend, Frank Doel.  My ears perked up in the scene where Helene is writing this to Frank:

"Mr. Doel!  WHAT KIND OF A PEPYS' DIARY DO YOU CALL THIS?  This is not Pepys' Diary, this is some busy-body editor's miserable collection of EXCERPTS from Pepys' Diary may he rot.  I could just spit. Where is January twelfth 1688 where his wife chased him out of bed and around the bedroom with a red hot poker?"

I think the year in this transcript has a typo as the Diary ends in 1669 but still, wouldn't you like to have seen that?

The words "Pepys' Diary" grabbed me.  I remembered I owned "The Diary of Samuel Pepys".  Part of the big library I purchased in 1977 and languishing someplace in the stacks.  I pulled out the books and started reading. Of course I was instantly hooked because I love anything British and I love diaries, letters, etc. Whenever I could find a bit of time to read without interruption, usually on a Sunday, I would pick up the Diary and read through as many entries as I could.  It was slow going but I made good progress over time.
Also over time, I collected a few books about Restoration London, a fictional Mrs. Pepys Diary, and the definitive 11-volume set.

Pepys Shelf

I discovered that the Pepys Diary is one of the works I have in common with Helene Hanff's Legacy Library on LibraryThing.  I just love how things connect, don't you?

Today you are only meeting Samuel.  Now and then I will tell you more about Samuel, his wife Elizabeth, the wondrous decade he wrote about and give you an update on my progress through the Diary.  I am reading the year's entries for 1668 now, the next to last year.  And, I will tell you about these pictures.

Pepys Walk

And, here is a teaser for you.

The Great Fire of London

If you want to get a flavor of Pepys' world, check out this wonderful movie.

Restoration

Do you like diaries and letters?