On a trip up to Upper Street in Islington this week I was secretly quite excited to spot the estate agent Hotblack Desiato, whose name(s) were borrowed by Douglas Adams for the frontman of his fictitious rock band Disaster Area in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, book two of the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. I’ve seen it before, of course, as I find myself frequently at that end of Islington for work at the moment, but it never fails to make me smile and I will always associate it with Ford Prefect. I wonder how many houses they have sold to Adams fans?
H2G2 – as it’s affectionately known – was probably one of my earliest introductions to SF/F, as my Dad had the original trilogy up on the top level of his bookshelf along with Anthony and Asimov (it was a very well-organised bookshelf, which filled an alcove in our living room and he made it to measure using wooden dowels and things. It was also very full). I still love it (though not the final Eoin Colfer addition, that’s bloody awful), although some of the other SF/F I was reading at the time is now a little dated, especially some of the sword and sorcery and Robert Heinlein, who was a very odd chap.
Places that appear in much loved books have such a hold on the imagination that sometimes I am afraid to visit them in case they don’t live up to it. I have read so much about Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans (OK, in crime novels, but still) that if they didn’t have the noir of my imagination I’d be very disappointed. I blame an American Studies module called ‘Images of the City in the American Mind’ for this – one of Sara Paretsky’s V.I Warshawski novels was on the reading list, featuring a wintry Chicago as a looming backdrop. The equivalent American Gothic course failed to capture my imagination in the same way, for some reason: Moby Dick, meh.
Similarly, I’d love to go to San Francisco after reading Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City (thank you Amanda for introducing me to these) but only in the 1970s and 80s. 1930s Berlin as lived by Christopher Isherwood in Goodbye to Berlin (the one Cabaret was based on) is also on my time-travel bucket list. The magical France of Joanne Harris’s Chocolat series, Charles De Lint’s Newford, Tony Hillerman’s Navajo country – all these places have physical presence in my mind. I need a TARDIS or a bridge to Terabithia or something.
Even places I know well are enhanced by that fictional overlay, especially if what you’re reading is a little bit atmospheric and magical. Right now I’m re-re-re-reading Phil Rickman‘s Merrily Watkins series, set around the Welsh border country where we grew up and featuring a Diocesan exorcist. Drawing occasionally from local folklore (black hounds, apples and more which you can also read about in Ella Mary Leather’s Folklore of Herefordshire) and more modern aspects of Herefordshire (the SAS), along with aspects of police procedurals and mysteries, I recommend them frequently. Especially to people who also grew up there and understand just how weird it can be at times. His standalones are also good, with enough recurring characters across them all to build a believable world – Glastonbury, the border again, and a mossy bit of Manchester. (Phil, if you’re reading, can you crack on with the next Merrily please and thank you? At some point I’m going to run out again.) The TV adaptation of the first couple of books was dire, unfortunately, despite the presence of Anna Maxwell Martin as Merrily. The novels are grounded enough to be believable - as Phil himself says,
The aim here has been to keep it all as real and authentic as possible while allowing subtle elements of the uncanny to creep in, just as they often do in real-life. If I find I’ve written something I can’t believe could happen or be perceived to have happened, it has to be drastically re-written, or it has to go.
Phil Rickman, in A Letter from Ledwardine
There’s probably a link here to my other reading pile of pyschogeography books – Ian Sinclair, Tim Moore, and other people armed with an A-Z and handy with a pen. London fascinates me in fact and in fiction and – unlike many of the places listed above – is easily accessed.
This week my team and I are having our monthly meeting at the British Library to see their Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibition, and the Malorie Blackman one if we have time.
Other things making me happy this week
- An early morning walk through to Toot Hill on Saturday – chilly and sunny and it’s baby cow season already
- Early coffee with Amanda in London
- Late afternoon coffee with Cath in Epping
- Making a personalised toadstool for Miriam’s birthday in her favourite colours
- Lots of cross stitch and crochet
- A really good nap (or ‘quality time with Lulu’, as she usually joins me for these siestas)
- A Museums Association training course on Wellbeing at Work.
And that’s it for me for the week – I have some reading to do, you know.
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
To Dream of the Dead/The Secrets of Pain/The Magus of Hay – Phil Rickman
The Chalice – Phil Rickman (Audible)
What Kirsty did next 