India then and now: Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann and The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux
The full title of the book by Alex Von Tunzelmann is Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire. I don’t know enough about the tumultuous history of India in the twentieth century to be able to say exactly what secrets Von Tunzelmann has revealed here. Surely the intriguing story of the love shared by Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten is more or less common knowledge to those who are familiar with this era in British and Indian history. Indeed, one of the book’s chief strengths is the fascinating portrait Von Tunzelmann paints of Nehru, Lady Mountbatten, and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy. (As of 1947 , his official title was Earl Mountbatten of Burma, but he continued to be known to all his friends and family as Dickie.)
[From left to right: the Mountbattens’ wedding portrait, Lord Louis Mountbatten’s investiture as Viceroy, and Nehru. Dickie had an abiding passion for ceremonials, protocol, and genealogy.]
These three people, caught in the vortex of one of the twentieth centuries most crucial, chaotic moments, established a rare equilibrium in what, on the face of it, appears to have been a classic love triangle, with Edwina, as that irreverent wag/Harvard mathematician Tom Lehrer would have put it, as the hypotenuse. Both men adored her, and she, them, but not equally. Nehru was quite obviously the love of her life. She loved Dickie after her fashion, but they fought a great deal and were apart much of the time. Dickie, meanwhile, had tremendous regard and affection for Nehru; the feeling was apparently mutual. To what extent, if any, the powerful mutual attraction between Edwina and Nehru progressed to a sexually consummated passion, we will probably never know. In the 1940’s and ’50’s, this kind of secret could still be kept. Von Tunzelmann quotes copiously from a vast number of letters still remaining in the archives. All three of these individuals were immensely complicated; true, history happened to them, but they helped to shape it as well.
The crosscurrents buffeting the subcontinent during the run-up to independence were primarily the result of the mistrust and resentment that the Sikhs, the Muslims, and the Hindus felt toward one another. These feelings, unfortunately, were exacerbated by the British policy of designating communities according to religious identity, a habit of mind not widely shared by the Indians themselves up until that time. I knew there was a bloodbath following “freedom at midnight,” but I never understood what caused it. I understand the reasons better now, but still not completely. This is in no way the author’s fault; it is just an enormously difficult and complex subject to get your mind around. I was surprised to learn that there was also plenty of deadly insurrection in the years prior to independence. Von Tunzelmann describes acts of almost unimaginable savagery that occurred both before and after August 15, 1947, the date on which Britain relinquished its Indian empire. Those sections of the book were tough to get through.
There is, of course, one more towering figure, the most famous of all those who are inextricably associated with these events: Mohandas Ghandi. I don’t know if Von Tunzelmann revealed any hitherto unknown secrets about the Mahatma, but I confess I was surprised by the depiction of him in the earlier part of the book. His religious asceticism caused him to be obstructive rather than helpful in numerous situations. The adjective “stiff-necked” came to mind on several occasions. It wasn’t until independence became imminent that Ghandi rose in stature to become an iconic presence on the scene. His fasts were sometimes the only force that could bring about a cessation of violence. It was following one of these fasts, in January of 1948 that he was shot and killed by a Hindu extremist who thought he was being insufficiently tough on Muslims. At the time of his death, Ghandi was near despair over all the violence and bloodshed. He was in his late seventies and had become frail as a result of his abstemious mode of living. He probably would not have lived much longer – he was being supported on either side by two of his grandnieces at the moment of his assassination. This makes the act itself seem especially brutal.
Nehru had had his differences with Ghandi, but he loved him anyway and recognized his greatness. This part of what he said on that dark day in January in an address to the nation on All-India Radio: “‘The light has gone out from our lives and there is darkness everywhere. And I do not know what to tell you and how to say it.'” His voice was trembling. But then, as Von Tunzelmann observes, “…he did know how to say it, and he said it beautifully: ‘The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light.The light that has illumined this country for these many, many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country, and the world will see it, and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented something more than the immediate present; it represented the living, eternal truths reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom.'”
Another crucial presence on the scene was Ghandi’s Muslim counterpart Muhammed Ali Jinnah. Jinnah’s great cause was the fight for a homeland for his fellow Muslims. Amidst great bloodshed, Pakistan was born, but it was not destined to have the secular governance that Jinnah had espoused for it.
There is much more to this story than what I have summarized above. (Among the other surprises on offer – surprising, at least to me – was the unflattering portrait of Winston Churchill, who bluntly declared his hatred for Indians and further stated: “They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”) At the book’s conclusion, Von Tunzelmann takes the reader up to India in the present day. The changes wrought by the passage of fifty years are, of course, astounding. This made it particularly instructive for me to be reading this book in tandem with Paul Theroux’s The Elephanta Suite, which I have recently reviewed.
Indian Summer contains a tremendous amount of detail about the historical period that is its subject . I did bog down midway, and I began to wonder if I could stick it out. I’m glad I did: the pace picked up again, and toward the end I did not want to put the book down. When I finally finished it, I could not help but feel the seismic resonance of the events that took place between its covers. This is not only a complex tale, but one full of drama, encompassing the depths of man’s inhumanity to man all the way to the heights of idealism, determination, and above all, courage.
The Elephanta Suite, by Paul Theroux
The Elephanta Suite consists of three novellas: “Monkey Hill.” “The Gateway of India,” and “The Elephant God.” Each explores the effect of present-day India on American travelers; and conversely, the effect that these travelers have on India. In “Monkey Hill,” Audie and Beth Blunden, a well-to-do, self-satisfied couple in their mid-fifties, visit an Ayurvedic spa called Agni. Located on a remote hilltop, Agni seems utterly removed from the chaos of urban India – and equally, from the poverty of the countryside. But the seeming separateness of the Blunden’s situation turns out all too soon to be an illusion. And if the name “Blunden” seems perilously close to the word “blunder…,” well, let me just say that it’s probably not accidental and leave it at that.
In “The Gateway of India,” a divorced businessman, Dwight Huntsinger, comes to New Delhi to facilitate the outsourcing various products to be marketed by American concerns. At first, Dwight shares the aversion, one might even say revulsion, that his business associates feel toward India. Shortly after his arrival, he is strolling along the promenade at the Gateway of India, a monument located on the waterfront in South Mumbai, when he comes upon several children who appear to be under attack by a man wielding a heavy walking stick. Dwight comes to their rescue, and almost immediately, out of nowhere, the children’s “Auntie” appears and insists that he take tea with them. One of the children, Sumitra (a beautiful name, that), is actually in her teens. Dwight is drawn to her; she just happens to have access to an apartment where they can be alone together; the inevitable ensues. Dwight, changed forever, embarks on a downward spiral of debauchery (his word). Ironically, in the midst of this free fall, he comes to love India intensely. Where and how will it end? India itself provides the only possible answer. (Shah, an observant Jain, is Dwight’s Indian counterpart in his business dealings. I worried about his ultimate fate throughout my reading of “The Gateway of India.” It was impossible not to: Shah is a far more sympathetic character than Dwight, although the story of Dwight’s dark night of the soul is very compelling.)
Finally, we have “The Elephant God.” A young woman named Alice Durand is waiting at the train station in Bombay for her traveling companion, Stella; Bangalore was next up on their itinerary. Stella finally shows up, late as is her wont, only to inform Alice that she won’t be coming with her. She has, of course, met a young man with whom she wants to stay. (This is the repulsive Zack, who is introduced briefly in “The Gateway of India;” Audie Blunden’ s name likewise turns up at the beginning of that novella.) Alice decides to go ahead by herself, a decision that proves to be full of unexpected consequences. One of those consequences is Amitabh, a man with whom Alice strikes up a conversation on the train. Alice had been thinking out loud, and when she explains this to Amitabh, who is sitting across from her, he paraphrases it thus: “Thought in head becoming utterance.” His quaint mode of expressing himself evokes in Alice these musings: “Now ‘utterance’ was one of those words, like ‘miscreants,’ ‘audacious,’ ‘thrice,’ ‘ample,’ and ‘jocundity,’ that some Indians used in casual conversation and Indian writers used in sentences, in the same way that out the window the Indian farmers were using antique sharp-nosed hand plows pulled by yoked oxen and women carried water jars on their heads. India was a country of usable antiques.”
Alice and Stella had planned to go to an ashram in Bangalore, the Sai Baba Center. I liked Alice’s description of watching the Swami, a sweet and gentle man, perform his “parlor tricks;” she compares the experience to that of the first followers of Christ: “The devotees applauded, as though at a party trick, and Alice realized they were like the earliest Christians, whose heads were turned by Christ’s words and his marvels, not seeing him as a figure foretold by Scripture or a human sacrifice, the Lamb of God, but a handsome man with a new voice, a beautiful spirit, a reformer, a liberator, someone who was able, in the most memorable words, to make sense of the world.” When Alice realizes that she is supposed to contribute financially to the upkeep of the ashram, she gets a job training new employees at a nearby call center. Thus she finds herself shuttling back and forth between, in essence, the two Indias: one sacred and traditional, the other modern and secular. But she finds a way station in the middle ground: a stable where a single working elephant, though chained to a post, is nevertheless loved and well cared for by a kindly mahout. By inhabiting simultaneously these multiple manifestations of India, Alice has set up a dangerous tension; the eventual result is a violent crime, followed by an uncertain resolution. Uncertain, that is, until the decisive intervention of the Elephant God.
I loved this book. Theroux brings India, with all its contradictions, beauties, and dangers, to lush and vivid life. Through his storytelling magic, he shows that the clash of cultures is more than a cliche; rather, it can have the deepest, irrevocable effects on the soul as well as the body of the unwitting (albeit well-meaning) intruder.
Paul Theroux is a writer I have long admired. His is a prodigiously gifted teller of tales; this make him equally adept at writing fiction and non-fiction, much of which is concerned with travel to remote and often dangerous places. I remember being riveted, some years ago, by The Mosquito Coast, a novel that was made into an equally riveting (and curiously underrated) film starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, and River Phoenix.
I also strongly recommend Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown. Theroux’s best known work is probably The Great Railway Bazaar, a travel narrative published in 1975. I have read recently that he is in the process of re-creating the memorable journey chronicled in that book. The update should make for great reading!
Addendum: The Elephanta Suite would be an excellent book club selection; among its many other virtues, it is eminently discussible.
The Music of England II: Arnold Bax and Ralph Vaughan Williams
Some years ago, in the early 1990’s, my husband and I had the privilege of attending a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in which the featured works were Tintagel by Arnold Bax and Symphony No.5 by Ralph Vaughan Williams. We always leave for concerts with plenty of time to spare, but on this occasion, the area’s devilish traffic coupled with an impossible parking situation nearly caused us to be late. With what frantic motions did we find our seats! We were flustered and irritated – but not for long. Onto the stage strode the great Sir Neville Marriner, the National Symphony’s guest conductor for that evening’s performance. All I can say is, I am so glad we didn’t miss a note of it!
Arnold Bax’s primary inspiration came from Irish lore and legend, but one of his best known pieces is the tone poem Tintagel. Here is Robert Barnett’s description of his preferred performance of this music: “…the orchestral tone poem Tintagel [is] heard to finest advantage in Goossens’ pioneering 78s recording (crying out for reissue) dating from the 1920s. This score and performance melds the magic of the North Coast of Cornwall, the gale-tossed glittering Atlantic, the Tristan legend and passion of the two lovers in a score of sweeping drive and urgency.” (This quote comes from Barnett’s biographical sketch of Bax on the website devoted to this composer.)
And, of course, there is the connection to the story of King Arthur. There’s the “Duke of Tintagil,” mentioned on the very first page of my splendid illustrated edition of Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. Tintagel is where it all begins, the heroism and the heartbreak that is at the heart of Arthurian legend, a place I hope to see one day…
Tintagel, Cornwall, 1875, by George Henry Jenkins
I was reminded of that memorable evening just now, as strains of Tintagel began wafting through the house. (This happened as we “listened” to our TV; specifically, to Music Choice, as provided by the Verizon FIOS network.)
As for the Vaugham Williams Symphony…What can one say, except that this glorious work more than fulfilled the promise that critics and listeners had found in his earlier composition, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. As we beheld the eternal beauty of the Yorkshire Dales last month, my husband and I could not help remarking that the soundtrack to this gorgeous panorama could only be provided by RVW.
In the chapter on English music in his book Albion, Peter Ackroyd says, “There can be little doubt that the English music of the twentieth century was inspired and animated by the music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the old music awakened the new, and the new reawakened the old.” Thus, the quality of timelessness in the music of Bax and Vaughan Williams, among others. Ackroyd goes on to create this wonderful image: “It’s as if the little bird which flew through the Anglo-Saxon banqueting hall in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum [The Ecclesiastical History of the English People] gained the outer air and became the lark ascending in Vaughan Williams’s orchestral setting.” There are, of course, numerous fine recordings of The Lark Ascending; our current favorite is the one with Hilary Hahn and the London Symphony, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, on DGG.
Haworth and the Brontes
I thought that I might be less than thrilled to be visiting the Bronte Parsonage for the second time in two years, but in fact, I got much more out of this particular visit. This was partly due to the presence of Robert Barnard, one of my favorite mystery authors. 
For Barnard, the family history of the Brontes and their immortal works of literature are a passionate avocation. He has written a biography of Emily Bronte and served as president of the Bronte Society. He delivered a talk on his favorite subject in the cramped basement of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. 
The talk, which centered on the efforts of the society to secure documents, especially letters, relating to the Brontes, was utterly fascinating. He also informed his rapt audience that it was due to the tireless efforts of the society that a previously unknown photograph of Charlotte Bronte was unearthed.
The Parsonage retains its power to haunt. Legends swirl around the Bronte family; recently, at least one biography – The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller – has sought to cut through the occasionally misleading (and often distracting) aura of mystery that surrounds their lives. Yet how could their story be viewed as anything but tragic? In 1821, the year after she had given birth to Anne, her sixth child, Maria Bronte died an agonizing death from cancer. Of the six children she had borne, none made it to age forty.
Poor Reverend Patrick Bronte – predeceased by not only his wife but all six of his children! It would test anyone’s faith…
We went into the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, where Patrick Bronte preached (Only the tower actually dates from his time there), then walked around the village. Haworth is actually quite beautiful. The high street is quite literally high, located at the summit of a rather steep hill. (Detective Charlie Peace describes his arduous ascent of that hill in Barnard’s novel The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori. (This is, IMHO, one of his best books.) 
You can see by these pictures that the lush countryside of the Dales can be clearly seen from the center of town; this view down Haworth’s high street is one of my favorites in Yorkshire – well, one of many, of course. And the “old timey” apothecary shop is a surprise and a delight. 
Finally – here’s Yours Truly leaning on this beloved symbol of Old England. As I was preparing for my first Yorkshire sojourn in 2005 – my first trip back to the “old country” in twenty years – several people assured me that those red phone booths were gone. What did they know, eh? There’s a saying, “Trust but verify.” Sometimes I think it should be “Don’t trust – verify, by going and seeing for yourself!”
Robert Barnard accompanied us to lunch; I was lucky enough to be seated near him. His conversation was very frank and open, regarding his fellow crime writers; he knows and has great regard for P.D. James and Peter Robinson. On the subject his personal history, he was similarly forthright, telling us that his childhood was deeply affected by his parents’ unhappy marriage. I appreciated his directness on this and other subjects.
Tour manager Moira Black, study leader Carol Kent, and Robert Barnard
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.25
Yesterday as I sat reading in the living room (with Miss Marple arranged decorously on my lap), the sound of Mozart’s concerto came to me from the family room, where you, dear computer, live and where my husband listens to music on the FM. I was not actually aware of hearing this piece until the third movement. At that point, the piano suddenly became magical. Czech pianist Ivan Moravec seemed to range the entire length of the instrument, summoning from it in the process all the beauty of expression of which it was capable. The result was irresistible, electrifying, and seemed to align itself with something deep inside me. If ever I needed a reason to keep living, I thought, this music would be it.
Who but Mozart could take such a deceptively simple melody and transform it into something sublime? Amadeus, indeed; beloved by God, and beloved by us mortals desperate to have beauty and meaning in our lives.
A feast for the eye, and for the soul: Edward Hopper and J.M.W. Turner
Yesterday a friend and I went to the National Gallery in Washington DC to see two special exhibits: one of the paintings of Edward Hopper; the other, of the works of J.M.W. Turner. It was a Sunday and a holiday weekend to boot, so there were crowds aplenty. Nevertheless, people were in general considerate and quiet, and gallery staff kept the masses moving in an orderly fashion.
We went to the East Building first (above, right) to see the Hoppers.
There is something very arresting in these works. Hopper’s choice of subject tended to be rather modest: the quaintly designed houses of New England, scenes of a New York City oddly emptied of people, and solitary women in hotel rooms. The images are haunting; they seem to raise questions and decline to offer any easy answers – or any answers at all, for that matter. I particularly like the cityscapes. They were painted from the 1920’s through the 1960’s (Hopper died in 1967); they capture uncannily a lost moment in time. The music of George Gershwin – particularly Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F (one of my favorite piano concertos) arose unbidden in my mind to provide the soundtrack for this exhibit.
Hopper said at one point in his career, when he was being pressured to paint more fashionable subjects, that all he wanted to do was “to paint sunlight on the side of a house.”
Completed four years before his death, only “Sun in an Empty Room” could serve as the coda for this Hopper retrospective: gone are the lonely women in the hotel rooms and restaurants, gone to God knows where. 
All that remains is intense sunlight in an empty room. 
Now – on to the West Building to see the Turners!
The Turner paintings proved to be a whole other order of art. For me, the impact was tremendous. Few experiences in life can equal that of feeling that you’ve just come face to face with genius; that is how I felt, walking through those rooms.
For quite some time, I have been familiar in a general way with Turner’s art, especially with the later paintings, which have always struck me as verging on the abstract and strangely ahead of their time. But it was very instructive to see so many of this great artist’s works arranged chronologically. The earlier works are more representational, and as you progress through the exhibit, you can see how his style likewise progresses. Some of the canvases were huge and filled with an almost frantic activity. Light and dark swirl around one another. (Is this what is meant by the term “chiaroscuro?”) Turner has captured light, he has captured motion, both on an ostensibly inert surface. Utterly astounding! 
Work for the body; food for the mind
Musings on aerobics:
It is fatal to look at someone who is out of sync – you too will get out of sync along with him or her! It’s best to have an unobstructed view of the instructor. If that’s not possible, fix your gaze on another “regular” – someone who you know has the moves down. There’s a strange and interesting affect that I get if I’m doing the latter: I feel as though I am moving around in someone else’s body!
The music: sometimes the most banal ditties take on a new life as you move to the beat: This even includes ABBA songs!! Instructors often save the really interesting stuff for the final cool down and stretching. Sometimes the music is very New Age, with crashing surf in the background. But the other day, Geroge played an Andrea Bocelli CD that nearly had me in tears. How, I wondered, as Bocelli belted out aria after aria, can someone be unmoved by this glorious music? And speaking of the cool down…
Usually the instructor lowers the lighting or turns the lights off altogether at the end of our session. As the stretching component begins, we are lying on our backs, and so, of necessity, staring straight up. Gradually the details of the ceiling are revealed. I have been thinking lately of the singular miracle of the human eye, in particular, the way the pupils enlarge and contract. It occurred to me yesterday, while stretching my quadriceps, that we don’t take nearly enough advantage of our eyes’ remarkable capacity to adjust swiftly to differing levels of light. (Don’t ask me what I mean by that last statement because.. I’m not sure!)
Meanwhile, while coming and going from the various gyms I patronize, I have been listening to a set of lectures entitled Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition. These lectures are produced by the The Teaching Company; the CD’s are accompanied by an excellent course guide containing outlines of the lectures and bibliographies.
Professor Elizabeth Vandiver begins the series by laying the foundation of the civilizations of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean. She goes on to discuss the epic of Gilgamesh and certain books of the Old Testament, specifically Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Job. (The section on Job was particularly profound and thought-provoking.) From there, we go on to the great Homeric epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey. That’s as far as I’ve gotten at this writing.
These lectures are mesmerizing! I had made a resolution that when I retired, I would go back to reading the classics. By “classics,” I had meant the great novels and stories of the 19th century; now, I am thinking of really going back – way back! Lucky the students at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where Prof. Vandiver teaches. Her incredibly deep knowledge of classical literature is matched by her passion for it. There is nothing as galvanizing as being taught by someone who genuinely loves his or her subject. 
Professor – you rock!
The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales, by Chiang Yee
Chiang Yee, a writer and painter, was born in 1903 in Jiujiang, China. In 1933, he journeyed to England, leaving behind his wife and children. He lived there until 1955, during which time wrote a series of travel books. The titles all begin with “The Silent Traveller in…”; the one I just read is The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales. (“Silent Traveller” is actually an English translation of Chiang’s Chinese pen name, Ya-xing-zhe. That name literally means “Dumb-Walking-Man,” but the publisher understandably felt that a more poetic translation might be preferable!)
This book has a deceptively simple premise: a Chinese gentleman is periodically invited to spend time with a friend who has a country house in the Yorkshire Dales. Parcevall Hall is located in Wharfedale, and Chiang Yee uses it as a base for his explorations of the surrounding countryside. He visits the various attractions of the area, such as Simon’s Seat and Hardraw Force; he describes these places in prose that is is reserved and graceful. Each chapter includes an illustration and closes with a poem. The paintings and the poetry are both by the author.
It is hard to convey the quiet power of this little book. Chiang Yee has a deep reverence for nature and describes all that he sees with a practiced eye. His art is done in the Chinese style; it is fascinating to see the landscape of the Dales – a landscape which is so subtly beautiful that it hypnotizes the viewer – transformed in this way. In addition, the sights that he sees constantly remind him of his native land, both in regard to its topography and to its culture. On the back of the dust jacket, a review from The Spectator says of The Silent Traveller in Oxford that it’s chief charm lies in its “‘…obviously sympathetic presentation of things English, with constant and enriching reference to things Chinese.'” The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales possesses these same attributes.
Chiang Yee brings the keen eye of an outsider to bear on the subject of the English character . While contemplating the ruin of Barden Tower, he finds himself meditating on “…the English affection for ruins;” during another excursion, while admiring roses in a garden, he rehearses to himself the history of this singular bloom and notes that “The habit of tracing things to their origin I have learned from my English friends.” (Peter Ackroyd has much to say concerning the penchant of his countrymen for antiquarianism in his fascinating book Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination.)
Here is Chiang Yee’s description of Simon’s Seat: “Just after passing Barden Bridge I see the hill looking like an old sage wrapt in a dark blue garment sitting on the ground with his two long legs outstretched, though I cannot behold his feet.” The author notes the likeness that the sight bears to a mountain called Fu-Chou in Nanking. ‘Fu-Chou’ actually means upturned boat; Chiang Yee avers that Simon’s Seat has a similar in appearance, but is longer than Fu-Chou, and “…perhaps more like an English boat, with a long prow and a rather even keel except just on its rock-strewn head.” An additional difference is that Fu-Chou is primarily brown, while Simon’s Seat, thickly wooded, is at its base intensely green.
To this chapter, Chiang Yee appends a poignant poem which he calls “On the Way to Simon’s Seat”: “The morning mist gradually disperses, / And I step out to the hill before the Hall. / After the rain the grass is greener; / The flowers yield their fragrance to the rising wind. / I lift my head to look at the frontier of the sky. / There is a curve of the stream there; / Beyond the stream the mountains recede; / And above, the white clouds float free of care. / In the white clouds lies my fatherland. / When will the Silent Traveller go home?”
One of my favorite chapters in the book is entitled “On the Way to Bolton Abbey.” What’s interesting about this particular sojourn is that although the Traveller never reaches his stated destination, he has an excellent walk nonetheless. The reason for his dilatory progress is that the natural world has so distracted him along the way that he is forced to turn back due to the ebbing daylight.
The experience puts him in mind of a story told about the Chinese scholar and poet Wang Tzu-Yu. Wang has decided rather suddenly that he desires to visit a friend of his, a fellow poet named Tai An-Chieh. This being a journey of several days, Wang’s servant must hire a boat and make the necessary preparations. After being on the water for more than three days and finally reaching their destination, Wang confounds his servant and the boatman by telling them that he wants to go back home without calling on his friend. They are vexed with him, understandably, but he tells them that “…when they had set out her had wanted to see his friend: now the mood had passed: his mind and senses had been satisfied by the beauty of the journey, and he wanted to go home.” So that, of course, is what they did.
The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales was published in London in 1941 and did not appear in this country until 1948. It is dedicated in part to “the little London flat in which I wrote this book and which was destroyed by bombs on the eve of the re-opening of the Burma Road.”
See this link on A Yorkshire Dales Walk to get a sense of the area explored by Chiang Yee during his visits to Wharfedale.
In researching the current status of Parcevall Hall, I found that while its gardens are open to the public, the house itself now serves as a retreat for the Bradford Diocese of the Church of England.
[Note on availability: Several of Chiang Yee’s books are currently in print; unfortunately, at this writing, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales is not one of them. I obtained my copy through abebooks. com.]
Middleham Castle; or, ‘There’s nothing like a good ruin!’ Then, on to Hawes
On our first day out and about in the Dales, we visited several small cities and villages in Wensleydale. We went first to Ripon, about which I have already written. Next, we arrived at Middleham, where we took in the magnificent ruins of the town’s eponymous castle. (I am always looking for an excuse to use that word!) This was Richard the Third’s boyhood home. The castle’s keep dates from the twelfth century and was at one time the largest in the north of England.
My husband and I both felt that the town itself was as great an attraction as the castle. Middleham has in abundance those virtues commonly associated with the beautiful towns and villages of the Yorkshire Dales: buildings all constructed from the same pale gray limestone that acts as such a perfect backdrop for the profusion of flowers in window boxes, hanging baskets, pots, and gardens.
The town is situated on a hillside between two rivers, the Cover and the Ure. (Rivers are a dynamic, energetic presence in many parts of Yorkshire, adding greatly to the beauty of the landscape.) Middleham is additionally a center for the breeding and training of racehorses, an industry originally founded by the monks of nearby Jervaulx Abbey. (The Abbey, founded in 1156 by monks who came over from France in the wake of the Norman Conquest, is yet another picturesque ruin, but one, alas, that we did not have time to take in. There is an absolutely astonishing wealth of things to see and do in Yorkshire!)
Leaving Middleham, we rode through yet more gorgeous countryside until we arrived at Hawes, another attractive market town which is situated just above the southern bank of the River Ure. A visit to the Ropemaker of Hawes was well worth while, as was a stroll down the High Street, which featured a number of attractive shops.
Hawes is home to the Dales Countryside Museum as well as the famously delicious Wensleydale Cheese, cheesemaking being yet another enterprise begun by the resourceful monks of Jervaulx Abbey. (Item of local interest: I’ve seen Wensleydale Cheese on sale at Roots Market in Clarksville.)
These little citizens of Hawes gave us an especially warm welcome!
What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman
In March of 1975, two sisters, Katherine and Sheila Lyon, age 10 and 12 respectively, went to Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center. (Wheaton is located in Montgomery County, Maryland, just north of Washington D.C.) They never returned. Although their disappearance triggered a huge investigation accompanied by massive publicity, they were never seen again. The mystery of their disappearance has never been solved.
No one who was living in this area at the time has forgotten this case. And now Laura Lippman has used it as the springboard for her latest novel, What the Dead Know. Like the Lyon sisters, Heather and Sunny Bethany (depicted here as being somewhat older than the Lyon sisters) go to the mall – in this case, Security Square Mall in Baltimore County – and never return home. The novel does not, however, begin with this incident. Rather, it begins in the present with the appearance of a woman in her early forties who claims to be Heather Bethany. Although she is in possession of many facts concerning the case of the missing sisters, there is something in her demeanor that causes Officer Kevin Infante and his team of investigators to doubt her veracity. But even if she is not who she says she is, she might have crucial knowledge of what actually happened to the Bethany sisters. And if she is not Heather Bethany – who is she?
The Bethany girls were deeply loved by their parents, but by the mid-1970’s, Miriam and Dave Bethany were experiencing serious problems in their marriage. By pursuing his dream of owning a shop that sells distinctive craft items, Dave, a gentle soul still in thrall to his youthful hippie aspirations, has brought the family close to ruin. In order to bolster their precarious financial position, Miriam has gone to work as a real estate agent. She is also in the midst of a torrid affair. All of this family business suddenly becomes the public’s business as the crisis engendered by the disappearance of Sunny and Heather becomes front page news.
My only caveat concerning What the Dead Know has to do with Lippman’s use of flashback narration. The novel’s time frame oscillates between the mid-1970’s and the present, with some time spent also in the late 1980’s. The author has her reasons for doing this, but the technique requires close attention from the reader. Otherwise, I have only the highest praise for this book. Most of us cannot imagine the Hell into which this kind of sudden, inexplicable calamity can plunge a family. Lippman has imagined it for us, and in the process has recreated an excruciating experience in a way that I found entirely convincing. What the Dead Know is much more than a whodunnit: it is a beautifully written, deeply affecting meditation on love and loss.
Books to the Ceiling 
