July 2020

We live in troubled times, and Time itself does not seem to be behaving normally. Although, what do the words normal and normally mean any more? It seems to be quite difficult to remember those good old pre-Covid days, which were often not all that good, but at least free from the sort of suspense and necessary discipline that we are enduring at present. Most people I know have the same view of time, and also bemoan the fact that they have not spent their extra helping of this commodity in lockdown as profitably as they had planned and hoped. But some people seem to have done well, working hard in house and garden. I have made a few feeble efforts in the direction of book shelves, but that’s about it.

I’m trying to keep up to date with developments in Australia, and am concerned to learn of the outbreak of new Covid cases in Victoria. It seems to me that such an outbreak could have occurred anywhere, but that reasoning has not stopped various people in politics and the media giving Premier Andrews a hard time: we are seeing human nature at both its best and worst during this testing interlude. I suppose winter is exacerbating the situation. Building immune systems would seem to be the thing to do. I remember my old Mum, who wasn’t so old way back then, used to dose us three with cod-liver oil every winter morning. Not a taste treat in anybody’s opinion; I wonder in passing if good old Hypol still exists? Here in Greece, I put my faith in lemon juice in warm water.

Greece’s acid test begins tomorrow, when flights and ferry services really get going again. Americans, Russians and Brazilians, however, will have to leave their island-hopping for another summer, as they are currently not allowed to enter the country, and it is hard to see their situations rectifying themselves very quickly. I am now in the category of crabbed age, and I confess that my main worry is about young people, their beach excursions and their partying. I suppose we all remember a time when we thought we were bullet-proof, although I don’t think I felt that way for very long. I like mixing metaphors: it is young people’s right to gather the rose-buds while they may, as poet Robert Herrick instructed, but there are, unfortunately, always thorns to be mindful of.

I was finally able to catch up with my grandchildren a fortnight or so ago. I’d not seen them since January. My first two grandsons, Nikitas and Maximus, are now 14 and 12, and tower over me. This is not hard to do, but still…Orestes is 7, and has Big Teeth, instead of the gaps he had last time I saw him. And Natalia, 4 next month, continues to be her energetic, entertaining self, while her hair is curlier than ever: a real golden mop. The big boys were able to have some school, attending every second day during the last month. I think it was the social aspect they missed, not being able to see their friends, but the home-schooling seemed to go well, as they are conscientious students, and worked through their set texts and had some online lessons as well.

It will come as no surprise to those who know me to learn that I’ve read my way through lockdown. I’ve re-read George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and am currently re-reading David Copperfield. I’m very pleased to learn, by the way, that Thomas Keneally is still writing at the age of 84: his latest effort is The Dickens Boy and is based on the life of Charles Dickens’ youngest son, who arrived in Australia as he was about to turn 16. His older brother was already there. Dickens, like many a creative genius, was not a gold medallist in the parental Olympics. 

While in Athens, I was able to get to a big bookshop, as bookshops were among the first to open. And so I acquired Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, which is the last volume of her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, who rose to be Henry VIII’s chief adviser, despite having been born the son of a Putney blacksmith. The only complaint I have about this masterly novel is that it is hard to read in bed, being 882 pages long. I think it is a triumph of the historical imagination, and has a great many other virtues as well: impeccable prose style, superbly integrated research, a wealth of period detail, completely convincing dialogue…I could go on.

One critic says the Booker Prize judges should be given time off, as Mantel could pull off a hat trick, having already won the Booker for both the other novels: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Of course not everybody is as impressed as the critic and I are, and I confess I was taken aback when a friend said, ‘Who cares about Thomas Cromwell, anyway?’ Well, Hilary Mantel makes you care.