Ian Fairweather by Claire Roberts & John Thompson

Author:Claire Roberts & John Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2019-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

1 The granddaughter of Fairweather’s eldest sister Winifred, who was living in Malaya. She is later referred to as Tricia.

2 Based on typescripts now in the family collection, Fairweather translated from a famous collection of short stories by the late Ming Dynasty writer and scholar Feng Menglong. Written in vernacular Chinese, they were first published published in 1620 as Illustrious Words to Instruct the World 警世通言.

3 繪圖皆大歡喜, the title on the cover of the 1894 edition of Huitu Ji Dian jiahua 繪圖濟顚佳話, translated by Fairweather, initially called ‘Illustrated All Great Joys’ or ‘Joy’, published as The Drunken Buddha.

4 The Tetrabiblios or Apotelesmatika of the Greco-Roman writer Claudius Ptolemy.

5 A reference to the opening line of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

128. To Marion Smith

Bribie. Oct. 25 [1959]

Dear Marion– Well it is too bad about missing the trip–You ll catch up with it next year–But I shouldn’t grieve too much–I never got to like the English country–I was brought up in Jersey which is Norman French–There is still a country life there on the land–Old stone gateways to farmyards with carved coats of arms on them–and a grand old castle on top of a rock looking down on the sea1–People still live on the land there and like it–(or did before I left now I hear it’s getting like the Gold Coast) but in England all the life has gone into the towns–the country looks sucked dry to me and sooty–the juggernaut of industry has rolled over it and spread its tar macadam–Hey ho When I think of the Sogne Fjord in Norway2–or Salzburg–those people have never murdered their country–for the sake of a few pesetas

But I mustn’t think too much about country–Since finishing the thatch–I am very unsettled–it was good to be out in the air–now I have to sit in and let the mossies eat me–I am thinking all the time of up north where I built my first house–before the war–when I came back it was gone–and I’ve been sort of disconsolate ever since–It was the rainforest there that fascinated me–But enough–these faraway places–too much glamour–By the way what kind of dream was it I got mixed up in–not a bad one I hope–This book a mistake I made–Carson Maculler can write all right–I liked her ‘Member of the Wedding’3–but this is not so hot–Still too good to throw away and no one here to pass it to–Maybe you could give it a try–but hold your nose–Trying to get Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ if get it will send–He’s a Beatnik and so am I4– So long

Yrs Yan

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