Author: DC (Page 217 of 1088)

* (Halloween countdown post #10)

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In 1964, Long Island housewife Helen Pfiel was arrested for handing out goody bags containing dog biscuits, steel wool pads, and arsenic laced ant traps to teenagers who she felt were too old to be trick-or-treating. Concerned parents contacted police and Phiel was arrested, taken in for psychiatric evaluation, and charged with child endangerment.

 

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Authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin died after being forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. Severely dehydrated, the girl had a seizure and died days later.

 

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“We thought it was meth, but it turned out to be a Jolly Rancher.”

 

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Teen Finds Razor Blade In Halloween Candy

 

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What looks like forensic microscope slides with drops of blood-like specimen, is actually made from sugar, corn syrup and red food dye. It’s cheap and easy to make and will stand out from other ghoulish candies.

 

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Just before 10 p.m. on June 12, Adam Budge, 18, and Elijah Stai, 17, were hanging out at Budge’s East Grand Forks home when they mixed a white power — 2C-I — with melted chocolate and ate the drug-laced candy. They then went to a McDonald’s. An hour later, Stai began “freaking out” and acting as if he were “possessed,” foaming at the mouth, hyperventilating, and smashing his head against the ground. By 1:30 in the morning, Stai was dead.

 

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‘Kids have a greater chance of being fatally injured by a car on Halloween than any other day of the year, including the Fourth of July and New Year’s Day. State Farm, the nation’s leading auto insurer, teamed up with research expert, Bert Sperling of Sperling’s BestPlaces, to better understand the risk kids face as they take to the streets in search of treats. Sperling’s BestPlaces analyzed more than four million records in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) from 1990 – 2010 for children 0-18 years of age on October 31. A description of the methodology follows the graphs below.’

 

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A woman with special needs who was thought to have died from natural causes was found with candy wrappers stuffed down her throat when her body was being embalmed. When 70-year-old Kathleen Mcewan’s body was found at her apartment in Roxborough, Philadelphia, there were not thought to be any suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. However, when undertakers attempted to embalm her body the next day they discovered up to 10 inches of candy wrappers stuck in her throat.

 

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‘A mass of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities in Seoul became trapped and crushed as the crowd surged into a narrow alley, killing at least 149 people and injuring 150 others in South Korea’s worst disaster in years. The crowd of people had flocked to the place to get candies laced with drugs that were being distributed at the area’s nightclubs.’

 

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‘Think of the strangest possible uses for candy and you still probably wouldn’t guess that people are eating blue rock candy made to look like meth and feeding leftovers from last year’s Halloween stash to the cows. Farmers explain that they mix the candy with, “an ethanol by-product and a mineral nutrient.” Debbie Hall, owner of an Albuquerque candy shop called “The Candy Lady” is selling candy that is meant to look like meth. The candy, dubbed “meth candy,” is in honor of the television show Breaking Bad’s blue drug. Apparently Breaking Bad fans are all too ready to participate in a fake score as they’ve been buying up “meth candy” by the baggy.’

 

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Four days after Halloween 1970, Kevin Toston, a native of Detroit, died of a drug overdose. A drug analysis initially showed Kevin’s candy to be laced with heroin and quinine in powder form, but investigators later discovered that Kevin had stumbled upon his uncle’s drug stash and had accidentally poisoned himself. The family, fearful of charges of child neglect, sprinkled Kevin’s candy with the drugs in order to protect the uncle. No charges were filed.

 

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Have you visited IKEA lately? I could not believe yesterday in their food hall they have packets of marshmallow sheep with the title of GODIS SKUM. I have written a complaint and advised it should be rebranded. 99 kr

 

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Spirits were high for Rakesh alias Guddu and his three cronies. They were attending a marriage party on the lawns of the Jehangirabad Palace, which adjoins the district magistrate’s residence in Hazratganj. A video clip (now with the police) clearly shows Guddu dancing away on the lawns, whipping out his gun occasionally and firing in the air. It was perhaps for a break or on an impulse that he left for the candy store located on the same premises, some 50 yards away from the lawn. The youth came in the store around 11.30 pm. The candy store had already put up a closed sign outside its door as it usually does at 10.30 pm, though it does entertain families who might drop by after that hour. When they asked for a cassata candy attandant informed them it wasn’t available. At which, Rakesh stepped ahead, took out his pistol, placed it on the 20-year-old Raghuraj’s temple and shot him dead.

 

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The Barfo Family Candy was unleashed by the Topps bubblegum company in 1990. The armless & legless torsos featuring an unhappy, nauseated, white bread family, with their heads mounted on accordion-like shaped bodies containing a delightful glop- like gel/”candy” (ingredients: sugar, water, glycerin, gelatin, citric acid, potassium sorbate, artificial flavors, artificial colors). $99.00

 

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‘Fifty-five-year-old John Douglas White was messed up in the head. Apparently having exhausted all the other dirty stuff on the internet, he turned to watching snuff videos and ones of people violating corpses. And this gave him what he thought was a brilliant idea: He would kill Rebekah Gay, his 24-year-old neighbor, and violate her dead body. In the early hours of Halloween in 2012, he drank four or five beers to get liquid courage. Then he broke into Gay’s mobile home and knocked her unconscious with a mallet. He strangled her with a zip tie and, once she was dead, undressed her. Then he was seemingly too drunk to finish his sick mission because he told cops he couldn’t get it up. So instead White just disposed of the body.’

 

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‘In 1957, salon owner Peter Fabiano thought his love triangle problems were over. He had just reconciled with his wife, Betty, who he had split with over her adulterous relationship -– with a woman. In the ’50s this was beyond scandalous. Newspapers referred to lesbians as “abnormal” and saw them as “murderous degenerates.” Betty had been in a relationship with Joan Rabel. And Joan did not take being dumped well. She set out to get revenge on the man who had stolen her girlfriend, but she didn’t want to do the killing herself. For over a month she talked about Peter to her friend Goldyne Pizer. Despite the fact Goldyne had never met him, she said she “built up an intense hatred for him” because Joan painted Peter as “a vile, evil man who wanted to destroy all people around him” and deserved to die. On Halloween they sat in a car outside the Fabianos’ house. Eventually Goldyne, dressed in a costume and mask with the gun in a paper bag, went to the door and rang the bell. When Peter answered, expecting trick-or-treaters, she shot him dead.’

 

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A Denver man accused of shooting his wife while she was on the phone with 911 dispatchers had eaten marijuana-infused candy before the incident, authorities say. Investigators reportedly found receipts for “Karma Kandy Orange Ginger” and said he appeared under the influence of drugs during an interview. Kristine Kirk, 44, was shot in the head Monday almost 13 minutes into her call with 911 dispatchers. Police had not yet arrived at the time of her shooting. Throughout the call, the AP reports, Kirk said her husband, who was reportedly hallucinating and asking her to shoot him, had frightened her and her children.

 

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‘On Halloween in 1981, 17-year-old Johnny Frank Garrett got drunk and high on LSD. He broke into a convent, allegedly to steal a stereo, but it ended up being a million times worse. While there, he went into the bedroom of 76-year-old Sister Tadea Benz and raped her. Then he stabbed and strangled her to death.’

 

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In 1974, 8-year-old Timothy O’Bryan died as a result of eating cyanide-laced Pixy Stix given to him by his own father, who likely wanted to collect on a large insurance policy. The dad had poisoned 4 other children’s Pixy Stix as well to make the act appear “random,” but none of the other children ate the poisoned candy.

 

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Taste testing odd Halloween candy. I forgot to rate the last candy, but you could easily tell what the rating was.

 

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Peppermint Broken Glass Candy: When my dad got home, he actually thought I had bought some weird glass sculpture and freaked out. Then, to make it even better, I smashed the whole ‘glass sculpture’ with the rolling pin right in front of him. Recipe

 

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One of the killers of a father-of-three has boasted about the cowardly murder on Facebook from prison – saying ‘I kill people for candy’. Curtis Delima, 22, was convicted of murdering 47-year-old Mark Witherall in April 2008, along with his smirking and sniggering teenage accomplices Mark Elliott and Gerry Cusden. The trio who were accused of behaving like a pack of hyenas as they kicked the builder to death after he refused to give them Halloween candy at his home in Whitstable, Kent, in October 2007.

 

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The Candy Bar is an item used for the Homeless sidequest in Silent Hill: Downpour. It can be found in three different locations depending on the puzzle difficulty. The candy bar must be given to Homer, the homeless man in the Pearl Creek underground entrance, to complete the sidequest.

 

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John P Roberts, 55, a thief out on bail, strangled girl, six, to death and hid her body under his bed after luring her to his motel room with Halloween candy.

 

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After many long years, the hugely popular candy ramen set has returned and it’s much improved! Form the candy dough into the dumpling press, add the stuffing and squeeze! Next come the ramen noodles that magically solidify as they hit the soup! $2.99

 

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On Tuesday, WSB-TV in Atlanta reported that the Waka Flocka Flame affiliate and Brick Squad Monopoly member Slim Dunkin was shot in an altercation that began over a stolen piece of candy. “The information we’re getting, it’s unconfirmed, but witnesses are saying this whole thing started over a piece of candy,” homicide detective David Quinn told “Action News” on camera. According to witnesses, Dunkin, born Mario Hamilton, grabbed a piece of candy from another man while inside an Atlanta recording studio, which led to an argument and then a fistfight. The scuffle ended with Slim being shot once in the chest. He was then transported to Grady Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

 

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‘On Halloween 2010, Ohio teenager Devon Griffin returned home from Sunday church services to find his brother Derek, mother Susan, and Susan’s new husband, William Liske, murdered. Devon was so traumatized he could only say that the scene was like “something out of a haunted house.” The culprit was found to be William Liske’s son from a previous marriage, William Liske Jr., who had a history of schizophrenia and aggression. Liske was later picked up and pleaded guilty to all three murders. He took his own life in prison in 2015.’

 

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Murder, Inc. as they were dubbed by the sensationalist press of the day were a loose coalition of gangsters based out of Brownsville, Brooklyn in the 1930s and early 1940s. Though its members were involved in a variety of illicit activities including loan sharking, prostitution, gambling, bootlegging and labor racketeering, they became infamous for their role as the New York syndicate’s so-called “execution squad.” However, their reach extended far beyond the East Coast, they were implicated or suspected in numerous killings across the United States, as far away as Florida, Los Angeles and Detroit. Based out of a 24 hour candy store called Midnight Roses at Saratoga and Livonia Ave in Brownsville, its members were always on call at a moment’s notice to go to an assignment once the directive was handed down. The candy store was located under the elevated train that brought many people too and from Manhattan.

 

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‘A teenager who died after being beaten unconscious on Halloween was dressed as a zombie and covered in fake blood the night of her killing. Taylor Van Diest, 18, of Armstrong, British Columbia in Canada, died in hospital on Monday. She had been found unconscious near some railway tracks after a search by police, friends and family. Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Friday there are still no suspects in the case.’

 

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Happy Halloween+ My Halloween Candy! YUM!

 

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In 2000 James Joseph Smith, 49, of Minneapolis had handed out candy bars that he had put needles in. He was later charged with one count of adulterating a substance with intent to cause death, harm, or illness.

 

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Presently the kiddies can get in on all the CSI fun with their consumable Crime Scene Candy Tube. Each one tube is loaded with drinkable goodness in three flavors: Blood, Urine and Saliva. Yes, that is Blood, Urine and Saliva. $5.00

 

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A man who killed his daughter by attacking her with a baseball bat as she was eating her Halloween candy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Wednesday. Robert Kelly, who told police he was “a little too in the Halloween spirit”, went into the bedroom of his 20-year-old daughter Megan at their home in Oxford, Michigan and beat her to death in May last year. A police dispatcher testified: ‘I asked him if he knew who did it. And he stated, “Yes, I did.”

 

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‘Chris Jenkins was a 21-year-old student at the University of Minnesota who was last seen leaving a downtown Minneapolis bar on Halloween night in 2002. Four months later, his body was discovered in the Mississippi River, still wearing his Native American Halloween costume. Since Chris was intoxicated that night and he appeared to have drowned, authorities initially believed his demise was either an accident or self-inflicted. Finally, in 2006, the death was reclassified as a homicide. Police claimed that an incarcerated suspect told them he was present when Chris was slain, then thrown off a bridge into the river. There’s never been enough evidence to file charges. However, one possible theory is that Chris Jenkins could have been a victim in the mysterious and unsolved “Smiley Face Murders.” These bizarre killings involved approximately 40 male college students in the United States who all drowned. In some of these cases, unexplained “smiley face” graffiti was found near the body of water where the targets turned up.’

 

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Heaven Sutton murder 6/27/2012 Chicago, IL: Shot to death while selling candy in front of her house.

 

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‘Pictured are a set of false eyelashes Cindy Song wore as part of her Halloween costume. Cindy returned to her apartment and left behind some belongings–including these lashes–before leaving again for an unknown purpose. She hasn’t been seen since.’

 

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Prosecutors believe they have a CRUCIAL piece of evidence that proves Aaron Hernandez murdered Odin Lloyd. Prosecutors say they can prove Hernandez stopped at a gas station hours before the murder and purchased gas, cigarettes and BLUE COTTON CANDY FLAVORED BUBBLICIOUS BUBBLE GUM. After Odin was murdered, investigators say they found a shell casing in his rental car that matched the caliber of the bullet used to kill the 27-year-old … and next to the casing — A CHEWED PIECE OF BLUE COTTON CANDY FLAVORED BUBBLICIOUS BUBBLE GUM.

 

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‘When firefighters in Glens Falls, New York, got a call about a house fire, they did what they’d always do − rush over to put the flames out. But when they showed up at this home, they were surprised to learn that the home was not actually burning down. “To our surprise, this was a Halloween decoration,” the local firefighters union said. The decorations that fooled even these professionals made it look like flames were engulfing the inside of the home. The impressive illusion was achieved using two LED lights, a box fan, and a silver sheet. A fog machine was also used.’

 

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Robert Durst, the real-estate heir accused of urinating on a Texas CVS cash register and candy rack when he was picking up a prescription, is one of the strangest cases of a rich man gone off the rails. On Tuesday, after arranging for Durst to turn himself in to authorities in connection with the alleged incident at the drug store, Lewis once again defended his client, whom he said suffers from a form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome. “He wasn’t arguing with anybody and he didn’t seem agitated,” Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva told The New York Post, adding that she did not know what the prescription was for. “He just peed on the candy. Skittles, I think.”

 

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‘Justin Benson was out knocking on the doors of strangers’ homes Halloween night, but he wasn’t interested in bagging a load of candy. Unlike the thousands of children in Redding and Anderson who made the rounds for Halloween trick-or-treating, the California Department of Corrections parole agent was making sure registered sex offenders were complying with the terms of their release from prison. Sebastian Desean Frank Schneible, 23, was arrested on suspicion of violating the terms of his parole because he was dressed up in a Halloween costume and was trick-or-treating in an area where there were other children around, Hallagan said.’

 

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Eric Morse, who was 5 in 1994, was asked by some older boys in his Chicago neighborhood to steal candy for them. He said no. He didn’t want to steal. The older boys, who were 10 and 11 at the time, determined that Eric, who was growing up in a home marked by frequent parental absence, must be punished for his honesty. The older boys led Eric to an abandoned apartment on the 14th floor of the Ida B. Wells housing project, a high-rise building that had the reputation of being a home base for drug dealers. They led Eric into the empty apartment. It is where they would execute Eric. The older boys then picked the 5-year-old up and threw him out a window. Eric’s body dropped 14 stories.

 

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*

p.s. RIP Dwight Twilley, singularly great songwriting auteur and inexplicably undervalued genius-level rock stylist. Huge favorite of mine. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Bad Sim, ha ha, you nailed it. Being a self-marketing expert would be ultra-helpful and yet heavy self-promoters make me cringe, but then again if one was a true expert at it, others wouldn’t even realise one was self-marketing, and that could work. IC-B is one of a kind. Very addictive. Misanthrope is a pro proofreader. Maybe love can schmooze him into helping you out. Darn. Love cancelling the death of Dwight Twilley, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Seek and ye shall find, or whatever they say. Someone just recommended ‘Nightmare Alley’ to me the other day. The stars seem to be aligned. Yeah, I too love that Kylie remix. Yeah, they were a blast on vinyl, etc. ** Charalampos, Apparently you were right about the Fassbinder. I haven’t read ‘More Women Than Men’, but I don’t think she wrote a non-must read book, and the title is promising. Well, there’s this biography of IC-B, but I haven’t read it. Have fun unloading your books. Do you organise alphabetically, or … ? Brisk vibes from the P. ** Steve Erickson, Okay, so it is still practiced. I’m surprised. Sorry it didn’t right your friend. I’ll find the Olaf Dreijer EP, thanks. Did you … resolve the mess, dare I ask? ** scunnard, Hey, Jared! Lovely to see you. I’m good, head entirely inside finishing our film. Hope it isn’t Covid and purely a glitch in your famous imagination, or I guess that it’s a breezy version if so. People here are supposedly getting it too, but I don’t know anyone who has (yet). I saw that 3:AM thing alerted on FB. I hope to read it today. Everyone, 3:AM celebrates the great Jared Pappas-Kelley’s recent book ‘Stalking America’, whose birth had a Day to itself here on the blog, with an excerpt and an interview with the maestro himself. Highly recommended. Thanks, J., and I hope you’re feeling perfect again. ** Mark, Hi, Mark. Amazing that you’ve started shooting. Really exciting. I’m all film here. Seeing Brian Eno in concert — his first ever live shows — next week. Hitting up the Experimental Film Festival with expected mixed results. Wow, wild, cool about Printer Matter selling out. Crazy. Oh, yes, SoCal Haunt List is my Bible around Halloween when I’m in LA. I don’t know if you sw that I did my own more illustrated SoCal Haunt list on the blog a couple of weeks ago. If you missed it, it’s here. Whole lot of local Haunt possibilities for you there if you need more. xo from over here, Dennis. ** Jeff J, Hey, Jeff. Right, I should have updated the purchasing option in the post. So sorry, terrible about your arm pain and its consequences. It’s been a long time. I hope the surgeon can fix you beginning with a quick glance. Thank you for the reminder. I’ve been so film -beset that I haven’t listened to the EP yet, and I’m excited to. Everyone, Jeff Jackson has a wonderful band and … I’ll let him take over … ‘(t)here’s a new Julian Calendar EP featuring aggressiveDrum n Bass samples and a New Wave ballad with string quartet. We tried to push ourselves into real different sonic terrain. Plus a fab remix by our own Steve Erickson that marries industrial + ambient. It’s here. Congrats, pal. My ears will very soon be its. I’m good. We’re in the midst of nailing down the final edit of the film so we can then proceed to the final phase of the technical stuff. All is well, apart from the massive financial woes part. We’re waiting to hear back from the two festivals we’ve submitted to. If we were to get into the more prominent of the two, where we only have a very small chance, that could really help with the fundraising. I think once we get the edit nailed, I’ll be able to get back into the short fiction collection, or that’s my plan. Thanks for asking, pal. Feel so much better. Love, me. ** Cody Goodnight, Hi, Cody. I’m doing alright. Yes, my scarf has become part of my buttoned up coat again. Lovely. Don’t know that ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You’ adaptation. I’ll seek. I’m going to an art fair today and seeing an old friend. The rest of the say is mysterious crapshoot at this point. Have an amazing one. ** Audrey, Hi, Audrey! Of course I remember you. Thank you so much for filling me in about you. I sure understand the living vicariously through art thing. Bigly. Do you make art yourself, or do you aspire to? I’m imagining so? I don’t know what I can do, but if here/I can help with the strengthening, here/I would be honored. Your strength is pretty evident already. Oh, I was super into Bob Dylan when I was younger, a teen and past that. I found one of my lifelong heroes, Arthur Rimbaud, via seeing Dylan mention him in an interview. I kind of faded out on paying close attention to his work after ‘Blood on the Tracks’. That wasn’t due to any diminishment in him or anything, just changing tastes in myself or something. So I haven’t even heard the recent work that everyone I know seems to think very highly of. I should really investigate his recent records, no? Or what do you think of his recent work? Where should I start, etc.? If you don’t mind. It’s really cool talking with you. I hope I’ll get to do that a lot more. Love from me! ** Okay. Halloween proper is back on the  blog courtesy of my annual holiday-specific news and candy-oriented post/gazette. Catch up, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

* (restored)

 

‘Ivy Compton-Burnett is an acquired taste. A friend lent me The Present and The Past a year ago saying I had to read it. For the first couple of chapters I didn’t who was who or understand what was going on. Was this even a novel? It just seemed to be a lot of dialogue in artificial archaic speech. Somewhere in the third chapter I suddenly, in a flash of revelation, ‘got it’. I understood the tragi-comic ‘tone’ and understood that by concentrating on the subtle nuances of dialogue all the usual content/interest of a novel would become evident. There are distinct characters interacting and there is definitely plot – quite elaborate convoluted, even melodramatic, plot. But all the usual narrative devices of commentary, scene setting and transitions between scenes have been reduced, almost eliminated.

‘The storytelling occurs through the dialogue. All the characters speak in a stylised formal way, even children. This dialogue has a sophisticated ironic tone that is blackly comic (it frequently makes me laugh out loud), yet explicitly expresses a tragic sense of the hopelessness and tragedy of life. The main distinction between characters is where they stand in the hierarchy of the Victorian household in which all Ivy novels seem to be set. In other words these novels are about power, guilt and complicity: the mind games and power games into which we are all locked – the Victorian household and its characters becoming universal archetypes. (It may be a far-fetched comparison but I think that in both the settings and the rigorously `minimalist’ style Ivy is to literature what Japanese director Ozu is to cinema, with a similar emotional punch.)

‘Because of the concentrated nature of the dialogue, reading Ivy is very intense and she is probably best read in small doses, one chapter at a sitting. But, apart from that, once you `get it’ then reading Ivy becomes easy and addictive. It’s not like reading Finnegans Wake. I’ve now read several more Ivy novels and they are all similar, though Present and Past remains my favourite. It’s quite short, focused, funny and poignant. We have Cassius, a typical Ivy father/husband: part tyrant part baby. His previous wife suddenly reappears. This appeals to Cassius’s narcissism. He thinks he has formed a kind of harem in which he wields absolute power. But then (a little like the infamous harem scene in Fellini’s Eight and a Half) the previous wife and the present wife start to bond with each other and power begins to ebb from Cassius: his ego, his sense of self and then his very existence begin to crumble. Even the children start to deride him. And then a series of extraordinary plot twists… which you’ll have to read the book to find out!’ — hj

 

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Gallery

 

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Further

The Ivy Compton-Burnett Homepage
Ivy Compton-Burnett @ myspace
‘London has lost all its Ivy’
‘The deeds and words of Ivy Compton-Burnett’
‘TPatP’ @ goodreads
Douglas Messerli on ‘TPatP’
‘Ivy Compton-Burnett’s Small Economies’
‘Terrifyingly Friendly’
‘Table Talk’
Finding-Aid for the Ivy Compton-Burnett Papers
‘Poison? Ivy? No: merely the least-read great novelist’
John Waters on Ivy Compton-Burnett
Buy ‘The Present and the Past’

 

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Extras

Ivy Compton-Burnett “Dom i jego głowa”

Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

A Family and a Fortune by Ivy Compton-Burnett | BBC RADIO DRAMA

 

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Speed read

 

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Manuscript page

 

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Conversation

 

Margaret Jourdain: We are both what our country landladies call “great readers,” and have often talked over other people’s books during this long quarter of a century between two wars, but never your books.

Ivy Compton-Burnett: It seems an omission, as I am sure we have talked of yours. So let us remedy it.

M. J.: I see that yours are a novel thing in fiction, and unlike the work of other novelists. I see that they are conversation pieces, stepping into the bounds of drama, that narrative and exposition in them are drastically reduced, that there is less scenery than in the early days of the English drama, when a placard informed the audience that the scene was “a wood near Athens,” and less description than in many stage directions. There is nothing to catch the eye, in this “country of the blind.” All your books, from Pastors and Masters, to the present-day Elders and Betters are quite unlike what Virginia Woolf called the “heavy upholstered novel.”

I. C. B.: I do not see why exposition and description are a necessary part of a novel. They are not of a play, and both deal with imaginary human beings and their lives. I have been told that I ought to write plays, but cannot see myself making the transition. I read plays with especial pleasure, and in reading novels I am disappointed if a scene is carried through in the voice of the author rather than the voices of the characters. I think that I simply follow my natural bent. But I hardly think that “country of the blind” is quite the right description of my scene.

M. J.: I should like to ask you one or two questions; partly my own and partly what several friends have asked. There is time enough and to spare in Lyme Regis, which is a town well-known to novelists. Jane Austen was here, and Miss Mitford.

I. C. B.: And now we are here, though our presence does not seem to be equally felt. No notice marks our lodging. And we also differ from Jane Austen and Miss Mitford in being birds of passage, fleeing from bombs. I have a feeling that they would both have fled, and felt it proper to do so, and wish that we could really feel it equally proper.

M. J.: I have heard your dialogue criticised as “highly artificial” or stylised. One reviewer, I remember, said that it was impossible to “conceive of any human being giving tongue to every emotion, foible and reason with the precision, clarity and wit possessed by all Miss Compton-Burnett’s characters, be they parlourmaids, children, parents or spinster aunts.” It seems odd to object to precision, clarity and wit, and the same objection would lie against the dialogue of Congreve and Sheridan.

I. C. B.: I think that my writing does not seem to me as “stylised” as it apparently is, though I do not attempt to make my characters use the words of actual life. I cannot tell you why I write as I do, as I do not know. I have even tried not to do it, but find myself falling back into my own way. It seems to me that the servants in my books talk quite differently from the educated people, and the children from the adults, but the difference may remain in my own mind and not be conveyed to the reader. I think people’s style, like the way they speak and move, comes from themselves and cannot be explained. I am not saying that they necessarily admire it, though naturally they turn on it a lenient eye.

M. J.: The word “stylised,” which according to the New English Dictionary means “conforming to the rules of a conventional style” has been used in reviewing your books, but the dialogue is often very close to real speech, and not “artificial” or “stylised.” It is, however, sometimes interrupted by formal speech. Take Lucia Sullivan’s explanation of her grandfather’s reluctance to enter his son’s sitting room without an invitation. “It is the intangibility of the distinction (she says) that gives it its point.” Lucia Sullivan is a girl of twenty-four, not especially formal at other times.

I. C. B.: I cannot tell why my people talk sometimes according to conventional style, and sometimes in the manner of real speech, if this is the case. It is simply the result of an effort to give the impression I want to give.

I should not have thought that Lucia Sullivan’s speech was particularly formal. The long word near the beginning is the word that gives her meaning; and surely a girl of twenty-four is enough of a woman to have a normal command of words.

M. J.: Reviewers lean to comparisons. Some have suggested a likeness between your work and Jane Austen’s. Mr. Edwin Muir, however, thinks it is “much nearer the Elizabethan drama of horror”—I can’t think why.

I. C. B.: I should not have thought that authors often recognised influences. They tend to think, and to like to think, that they are not unduly indebted to their predecessors. But I have read Jane Austen so much, and with such enjoyment and admiration, that I may have absorbed things from her unconsciously. I do not think myself that my books have any real likeness to hers. I think that there is possibly some likeness between our minds.

The same might apply in a measure to the Elizabethan dramatists, though I don’t think I have read these more than most people have.

M. J:. Mr. Muir in an earlier review says that you remind him of Congreve—a formidable list, Congreve, Jane Austen, Henry James and the Elizabethan dramatists—and the odd thing is that they are all disparate.

I. C. B.: The only explanation I can give, is that people who practise the same art are likely to have some characteristics in common. I have noticed such resemblance between writers the most widely separated, in merit, kind and time.

M. J.: I see one point of contact between your novels and Jane Austen’s. She keeps her eye fixed upon the small circuit of country gentlefolk who seem to have little to do but pay calls, take walks, talk, and dine, in fact—the comfortable classes; she does not include people in what Austen Leigh calls “a position of poverty and obscurity, as this, though not necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad tendency to degenerate into it.”

I. C. B.: I feel that I do not know the people outside my own world well enough to deal with them. I had no idea that my characters did nothing but call, walk, talk and dine, though I am glad you do not say that they only talk. Their professions and occupations are indicated, but I am concerned with their personal lives; and following them into their professional world would lead to the alternations between two spheres, that I think is a mistake in books. I always regret it in the great Victorian novelists, though it would be hard to avoid it in books on a large scale. And my characters have their own poverty and obscurity, though of course it is only their own.

I feel I have a knowledge of servants in so far as they take a part in the world they serve. This may mean that the knowledge is superficial, as I have often thought it in other people’s books.

The people in between seem to me unrelated to anything I know. When I talk to tradespeople, their thoughts and reactions seem to have their background in a dark world, though their material lives may not differ greatly from my own.

M. J.: I don’t see any influence of the “Elizabethan drama of horror,” nor much of Jane Austen. I think there is something of Henry James. What about the suggestion that the Russian novelists affected you—not Tolstoy of course, but Tchekov or Dostoievsky. Dostoievsky’s method, “a mad jumble that flings things down in a heap,” isn’t yours. And how about the Greek dramatists?

I. C. B.: I am not a great reader of Henry James, though I have seen it suggested that I am his disciple. I don’t mean that I have any objection to the character, except in so far as it is a human instinct to object to being a disciple, but I hardly think I have read him enough to show his influence. I enjoy him less than many other writers. He does not reveal as much as I should like of the relations of his characters with each other. And I am surprised if my style is as intricate as his. I should have thought it was only rather condensed. If it is, I sympathise with the people who cannot read my books. The Russian novels I read with a sense of being in a daze, of seeing their action take place in a sort of half-light, as though there was an obscurity between my mind and theirs, and only part of the meaning conveyed to a Russian came through to me. I always wonder if people, who think they see the whole meaning, have any conception of it. So I am probably hardly influenced by the Russians. But, as I have said before, I think that people who follow the same art, however different their levels, are likely to have some of the same attributes, and that it is possibly these that lead them to a similar end. The Greek dramatists I read as a girl, as I was classically educated, and read them with the attention to each line necessitated by the state of my scholarship; and it is difficult to say how much soaked in, but I should think very likely something. I have not read them for many years—another result of the state of my scholarship.

M. J.: There is little attention given to external things and almost no descriptive writing in your novels, and that is a breach with tradition. Even Jane Austen has an aside about the “worth” of Lyme, Charmouth and Pinhay, “with its green chasms between romantic rocks.” And there is much more description in later novels, such as Thomas Hardy’s. In The Return of the Native, the great Egdon Heath has to be reckoned with as a protagonist. Now you cut out all of this. The Gavestons’ house in A Family and a Fortune is spoken of as old and beautiful, but its date and style are not mentioned.

I. C. B.: I should have thought that my actual characters were described enough to help people to imagine them. However detailed such description is, I am sure that everyone forms his own conceptions, that are different from everyone else’s, including the author’s. As regards such things as landscape and scenery, I never feel inclined to describe them; indeed I tend to miss such writing out, when I am reading, which may be a sign that I am not fitted for it. I make an exception of Thomas Hardy, but surely his presentation of natural features almost as characters puts him on a plane of his own, and almost carries the thing described into the human world. In the case of Jane Austen, I hurry through her words about Lyme and its surroundings, in order to return to her people.

It might be better to give more account of people’s homes and intimate background, but I hardly see why the date and style of the Gavestons’ house should be given, as I did not think of them as giving their attention to it, and as a house of a different date and style would have done for them equally well. It would be something to them that it was old and beautiful, but it would be enough.

M. J.: I see a reviewer says that Elders and Betters—which has the destruction of a will by one character (Anna Donne) who afterwards drives another to suicide—has “a milder and less criminal flavour than most of its predecessors.” There is a high incidence of murder in some of your novels, which is really not common among the “comfortable classes.” I remember, however, talking of the rarity of murders with a lawyer’s daughter, who said that her father asserted that murders within their class were not so rare. He used to call them “Mayfair murders.”

I. C. B.: I never see why murder and perversion of justice are not normal subjects for a plot, or why they are particularly Elizabethan or Victorian, as some reviewers seem to think. But I think it is better for a novel to have a plot. Otherwise it has no shape, and incidents that have no part in a formal whole seem to have less significance. I always wish that Katherine Mansfield’s At the Bay was cast in a formal mould. And a plot gives rise to secondary scenes, that bring out personality and give scope for revealing character. If the plot were taken out of a book, a good deal of what may seem unconnected with it, would have to go. A plot is like the bones of a person, not interesting like expression or signs of experience, but the support of the whole.

M. J.: At the Bay breaks off rather than comes to its full stop. A novel without a plot sags like a tent with a broken pole. Your last book had a very generous amount of review space; and most of the reviews were intelligent. Elizabeth Bowen found a phrase for one of your characteristics; “a sinister cosiness,” but the Queen tells one that “if one perseveres with the conversations (evidently an obstacle), a domestic chronicle of the quieter sort emerges.” How do you think reviews have affected you and your work?

I. C. B.: It is said that writers never read reviews, but in this case it is hard to see how the press-cutting agencies can flourish and increase their charge. I think that writers not only read reviews, but are subject to an urge to do so. George Henry Lewes is supposed to have hidden George Eliot’s disparaging reviews, in case she should see them; and if he wished to prevent her doing so, I think it was a wise precaution. I think that reviews have a considerable effect upon writers. Of course I am talking of reviews that count, by people whose words have a meaning. I remember my first encouraging notices with gratitude to their authors. Much of the pleasure of making a book would go, if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people; and it sometimes seems that I do so; but I would not write for no one.

I think the effect of reviews upon a writer’s actual work is less. A writer is too happy in praise to do anything but accept it. Blame he would reject, if he could; but if he cannot, I think he generally knew of his guilt, and could not remedy matters. I have nearly always found this the case myself.

Letters from readers must come under the head of reviews, and have the advantage that their writers are under no compulsion to mention what they do not admire. I have only had one correspondent who broke this rule, and what he did not admire was the whole book. He stated that he could see nothing in it, and had moreover found it too concentrated to read. Someone said that I must have liked this letter the most of all I had had, but I believe I liked it the least.

Some writers have so many letters that they find them a burden. They make me feel ashamed of having so few, and inclined to think that people should write to me more.

 

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Book

Ivy Compton-Burnett The Present and the Past
University of California Press

‘Cassius Clare is the father of five children; two by his first wife from whom he is divorced, and three by his second wife who conscientiously tries to be a mother to all five. The first Ms. Clare implores Cassius to let her visit her children. At first flattered by the suggestion of a harem implicit in the situation, then maliciously foreseeing the predicament which is likely to arise, he consents. To his dismay, the tactless return of the first Mrs. Clare results in an intimate friendship between the two women who have shared this singularly unlovable husband; neither pays any heed to him.’ — copy

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Excerpt

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” said Henry Clare.

His sister glanced in his direction.

“They are pecking the sick one. They are angry because it is ill.”

“Perhaps it is because they are anxious,” said Megan, looking at the hens in the hope of discerning this feeling.

“It will soon be dead,” said Henry, sitting on a log with his hands on his knees. “It must be having death-pangs now.”

Another member of the family was giving his attention to the fowls. He was earnestly thrusting cake through the wire for their entertainment. When he dropped a piece he picked it up and put it into his own mouth, as though it had been rendered unfit for poultry’s consumption. His elders appeared to view his attitude either in indifference or sympathy.

“What are death-pangs like?” said Henry, in another tone.

“I don’t know,” said his sister, keeping her eyes from the sufferer of them. “And I don’t think the hen is having them. It seems not to know anything.”

Henry was a tall, solid boy of eight, with rough, dark hair, pale, wide eyes, formless, infantine features, and something vulnerable about him that seemed inconsistent with himself. His sister, a year younger and smaller for her age, had narrower, deeper eyes, a regular, oval face, sudden, nervous movements, and something resistant in her that was again at variance with what was beneath.

Tobias at three had small, dark, busy eyes, a fluffy, colourless head, a face that changed with the weeks and evinced an uncertain charm, and a withdrawn expression consistent with his absorption in his own interests. He was still pushing crumbs through the wire when his shoulder was grasped by a hand above him.

“Wasting your cake on the hens! You know you were to eat it yourself.”

Toby continued his task as though unaware of interruption.

“Couldn’t one of you others have stopped him?”

The latter also seemed unaware of any break.

“Don’t do that,” said the nursemaid, seizing Toby’s arm so that he dropped the cake. “Didn’t you hear me speak?”

Toby still seemed not to do so. He retrieved the cake, took a bite himself and resumed his work.

“Don’t eat it now,” said Eliza. “Give it all to the hens.”

Toby followed the injunction, and she waited until the cake was gone.

“Now if I give you another piece, will you eat it?”

“Can we have another piece too?” said the other children, appearing to notice her for the first time.

She distributed the cake, and Toby turned to the wire, but when she pulled him away, stood eating contentedly.

“Soon be better now,” he said, with reference to the hen and his dealings with it.

“It didn’t get any cake,” said Henry. “The others had it all. They took it and then pecked the sick one. Oh, dear, oh, dear!”

“He did get some,” said Toby, looking from face to face for reassurance. “Toby gave it to him.”

He turned to inspect the position, which was now that the hens, no longer competing for crumbs, had transferred their activity to their disabled companion.

“Pecking him!” said Toby, moving from foot to foot. “Pecking him when he is ill! Fetch William. Fetch him.”

A pleasant, middle-aged man, known as the head gardener by virtue of his once having had subordinates, entered the run and transferred the hen to a separate coop.

“That is better, sir.”

“Call Toby ‘sir’,” said the latter, smiling to himself.

“She will be by herself now.”

“Sir,” supplied Toby.

“Will it get well?” said Henry. “I can’t say, sir.”

“Henry and Toby both ‘sir’,” said Toby. “Megan too.”

“No, I am not,” said his sister.

“Poor Megan, not ‘sir’!” said Toby, sadly.

“The last hen that was ill was put in a coop to die,” said Henry, resuming his seat and the mood it seemed to engender in him.

“Well, it died after it was there,” said Megan.

“That is better, miss,” said William.

“Miss,” said Toby, in a quiet, complex tone.

“They go away alone to die,” said Henry. “All birds do that, and a hen is a bird. But it can’t when it is shut in a coop. It can’t act according to its nature.”

“Perhaps it ought not to do a thing that ends in dying,” said Megan.

“Something in that, miss,” said William.

“Why do you stay by the fowls,” said Eliza, “when there is the garden for you to play in?”

“We are only allowed to play in part of it,” said Henry, as though giving an explanation.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” said Eliza, in perfunctory mimicry.

“William forgot to let out the hens,” said Megan, “and Toby would not leave them.”

Toby tried to propel some cake to the hen in the coop, failed and stood absorbed in the scramble of the others for it.

“All want one little crumb. Poor hens!”

“What did I tell you?” said Eliza, again grasping his arm.

He pulled it away and openly applied himself to inserting cake between the wires.

“Toby not eat it now,” he said in a dutiful tone.

“A good thing he does not have all his meals here,” said William.

“There is trouble wherever he has them,” said Eliza. “And the end is waste.”

The sick hen roused to life and flung itself against the coop in a frenzy to join the feast.

“It will kill itself,” said Henry. “No one will let it out.”

William did so and the hen rushed forth, cast itself into the fray, staggered and fell.

“It is dead,” said Henry, almost before this was the case.

“Poor hen fall down,” said Toby, in the tone of one who knew the experience. “But soon be well again.”

“Not in this world,” said William.

“Sir,” said Toby, to himself. “No, miss.”

“It won’t go to another world,” said Henry. “It was ill and pecked in this one, and it won’t have any other.”

“It was only pecked on its last day,” said Megan. “And everything is ill before it dies.”

“The last thing it felt was hunger, and that was not satisfied.”

“It did not know it would not be. It thought it would.”

“It did that, miss,” said William. “And it was dead before it knew.”

“There was no water in the coop,” said Henry, “and sick things are parched with thirst.”

“Walking on him,” said Toby, in a dubious tone.

“Eliza, the hens are walking on the dead one!” said Megan, in a voice that betrayed her.

“It is in their way, miss,” said William, giving a full account of the position.

Megan looked away from the hens, and Henry stood with his eyes on them. Toby let the matter leave his mind, or found that it did so.

“Now what is all this?” said another voice, as the head nurse appeared on the scene, and was led by some instinct to turn her eyes at once on Megan. “What is the matter with you all?”

“One of the hens has died,” said Eliza, in rapid summary. “Toby has given them his cake and hardly taken a mouthful. The other hens walked on the dead one and upset Miss Megan. Master Henry has one of his moods.”

Megan turned aside with a covert glance at William.

“Seeing the truth about things isn’t a mood,” said Henry.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Happy to make the intro. No, I’ve never seen an actual house in central Paris. I guess they must exist, but, oddly, no. Yes, my neighbor currently plays ‘Hotel California’ on virtual repeat at a high volume. And now he’s learned the lyrics and is ‘singing’ along. Help! When you become a self-marketing genius, give classes, or at least a private one for me, thanks. Love making ‘Ivy Compton Burnett’ the most popular Halloween costume this year, G. ** David Ehrenstein, And he’s still around. He just premiered his new film here in Paris last week. I hung out with him a while back. He is one odd bird, but very nice. ** Misanthrope, Oh, that’s interesting. What are you going to do with yourself? The question on everyone’s lips. Put a piece of paper in front of you, snort some coke, pick up a pen, put the nub to the page, and burn off your energy? To break the ice? You sent me … oh, on Facebook, right? I’ll go look. I haven’t checked my messages there in weeks, eek. I think I approach the world with a teen-like wonder, if such a thing exists. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. The problem with Fischerspooner, at least in the States, is that they were way overhyped or overhyped themselves before they really even did anything, pre-albums. They did a gig in LA, super-hyped, at a ‘secret’ location, etc., and everybody who was anybody went, including me, and their show just wasn’t much of anything. At least not yet. And everyone just kind of shrugged. I think they kind of jumped the gun. And by the time they started putting out records, people were already turned off. In the States, at least. But they inspired you, and that’s enough of a legacy right there if nothing else. ** Damien Ark, Hi. Oh, great, about the email/post. Now I’m at [email protected]. Never heard Fromjoy, but that’s a fatal blow right there. Thanks, man. Excited to get the post. ** Bill, Hi. Hm, okay, maybe I’ll see if I can locate the filmmakers somehow. Thanks, B. ** Steve Erickson, Oh, man, that sounds awful. I’ve seen stuff about the Karen Tongson book, and it does seem intriguing. Give me the good or bad word when there is one. Very nice about the Anthology series. Phil Solomon, that’s amazing, So hard to see his work. I’ve never seen that Fassbinder either. I’m not sure I’ve heard of it before even. Does it have anything to do with the famous film of that title? ** Cody Goodnight, Hi, C. I’m reasonably fine, thank you. It is a couple of degrees warmer this morning, and my feet are merely chilled in the good way. ‘Ixe’ is a decent place to start, sure. I’ve never heard a cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ that wasn’t weak. I don’t even like the Swans version. But Fall Out Boy … ouch! Rockin’ Wednesday, sir. ** DARB🐊, Coffee burns would be most appropriate. The last time I went to Japan, I spilled scalding hot coffee on my hand the first morning I was there, and I had to spend my entire vacation there with a giant, mummified Mickey Mouse hand on painkillers. When I was an early teen, a boy at my school got electro-shock treatments. He was a whole lot quieter afterwards, and he never smiled again that I saw. That’s it as far my experiences. I didn’t know they still do electro shock treatment. Jesus. That seems really barbaric, no? Surely there are much subtler and more intricate methods by now. ** Right. I decided to unearth this old post that puts my favorite novel by one of my very favorite novelists under a spotlight, and that’s the story for today. See you tomorrow.