On 29th January a small group met to discuss a wide variety of topics and forms of writing.

 

We started with two poems by F A Fanthorpe: “Not my best side”, is humorous piece in which St George, the dragon and the fair maiden speak in turn. It challenges the traditional stereotypes: not all dragons are nasty, not all women are dependent on men to save them from whatever and not all men are brave and heroic. The second one was one of her Christmas poems, which was simple and moving.

 

Then we moved on to modern novels by interesting women writers, rising stars you might say. Firstly we were told about Rachel Seiffert’s “ A Boy in Winter” set in the Ukraine in 1941 a moving story about a woman who befriends two starving and lost boys and takes them along with her as she treks back to her village.

 

Secondly we heard about Sue Monk’s “The Invention of Wings”; some were familiar with her earlier novel “The Secret Life of Bees”. Lastly we were interested to hear that the TV version of “The Miniaturist” very closely followed the original book by Jessie Burton set in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, something that happens only rarely.

 

Lastly we had readings from Simon Armitage’s translation of Homer’s “Odyssey”. This is notable for the use of language as Armitage, like Wordsworth uses the “common language of men”, very colloquial and often amusing, but with touches of pathos too. The epic of the ten-years-long struggle for Odysseus to reach home is told in play format and often in flashbacks. It is a real page-turner.