A friend asked me recently whether I liked modern books. I told him that I like good books, some of which are modern. This good modern book is a sterling example of an outstanding book written in the last year. Orbital is a short novel, some 130 pages, and very accessible. It has the feel of something otherworldly. I listened to it on audiobook and felt as though I were myself floating through space.
Edmund de Waal, Chair of judges, said:
‘In an unforgettable year for fiction, a book about a wounded world. Sometimes you encounter a book and cannot work out how this miraculous event has happened. As judges we were determined to find a book that moved us, a book that had capaciousness and resonance, that we are compelled to share. We wanted everything.
‘Orbital is our book. Samantha Harvey has written a novel propelled by the beauty of sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. Everyone and no one is the subject, as six astronauts in the International Space Station circle the Earth observing the passages of weather across the fragility of borders and time zones. With her language of lyricism and acuity Harvey makes our world strange and new for us.
‘All year we have celebrated fiction that inhabits ideas rather than declaiming on issues, not finding answers but changing the question of what we wanted to explore. Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share.’
The writing style is vivid and fresh. Harvey writes with a great fluency and elegant simplicity. There is something beautiful in the way that the simple story of six astronauts floating through space over 24 hours is told. The profundity that Harvey achieves in such a short novel is remarkable. Through each of the astronauts we catch a glimpse of some eternal and recognisable struggle. They each have different struggles with which each of us can identify: grief, longing, disillusionment, faith and lack of faith.
The tone of the book is unique and somehow at once solemn, light and humorous. Its more profound parts are almost skimmed over so that you only notice afterwards the effect they have had. Her words show an incredible intense feeling about the world and how we must be its custodians. This is indeed relevant for our time, when we see such devastation caused by natural disasters and the emergence of climate-related poverty. Orbital made me see the Earth in a whole new light, in a wider context and in brighter colours. The novel is a bright shimmering portrait of a precious world which achieves a profundity the other Booker nominees did not.
When accepting the Booker Prize, Harvey dedicated her award to those who “speak for and not against the Earth, for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life, and all the people who speak for, and call for, and work for peace”.”
Charlotte and I were in Sri Lanka recently for a wedding of a dear friend. We took the time to explore the beautiful country. We visited the capital Colombo first, then Galle Fort, followed by Negombo for the wedding and, finally, Kandy, in the mountains. We then returned to Colombo before flying back to London. One of the restaurants which stood out during the trip was The Bungalow in Galle Fort.
Galle Fort itself is on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka. It is a fort built a short distance from the town of Galle. The fort was built first in 1588 by the Portuguese, and then extensively fortified by the Dutch during the 17th century from 1649. Today it is a heritage monument and UNESCO World Heritage site which, even after over 430 years, maintains its character thanks to the work of the Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka.
The Bungalow is in the middle of Galle Fort. It is unassuming from the outside but once you cross the threshold you will see a beautiful restaurant set in the courtyard of a 17th century Dutch bungalow. The food was absolutely extraordinary. Charlotte started with the watermelon and feta salad, which she said was deliciously fresh. I had some myself and it tasted as though the watermelon had been picked an hour ago. The same is true of the sensational tuna tartare I enjoyed for my starter. This consisted of fresh tuna, mango avocado salsa, wanton crisps and orange dressing, presented beautifully as below. When I think back on our trip in culinary terms, this is one of the real standouts.
For the main course, Charlotte enjoyed possibly the dish of the trip, the tuna steak. This she enjoyed with durum wheat mash, sautéed greens and a lemon cream paprika sauce. Words fail me when I try to describe the wonder that was this dish. I opted for the halloumi which consisted of grilled halloumi, sweet beetroot, walnuts, pomegranate and beet hummus. It was a sort of mega salad. The smokiness of the halloumi married well with the earthiness of the beet. We both felt very full indeed at this stage but were unable to resist the dessert.
To finish this masterpiece of a meal, we shared a lovely dessert of grilled pineapple with homemade coconut ice cream with shaved coconut flesh. It was a really dazzling medley of fresh flavours.
This restaurant was one of the highlights of the trip. If you are ever 5400 miles from the UK, you may wish to visit it.
Charlotte and I enjoyed a magical trip to London just after the Bank Holiday weekend to celebrate Easter. Easter is the most important time in the Church’s calendar. Christians across the world celebrate the reality of Christ’s resurrection and by extension His defeat of death for everyone who believes in Him. The Catholic faith is often seen as a repressive doctrinal and dogmatic belief system. The truth is that living a life in Christ allows us to go to Heaven and be at peace in perfect joy for eternity. This is the opposite of repressive, it is the most freeing belief there is. Knowing that when our earthly life comes to an end, joy awaits, frees me from the fear of death which, frankly, underpins some of humanity’s worst behaviours. But enough of my miniature sermon – let’s talk about French food. Charlotte picked the restaurants on this trip and completely outdid herself.
We checked out of our hotel and visited the Victoria and Albert Museum where we were awed by some magnificent pieces of religious art, and astonishing paintings. After this, we attended Mass at Westminster Cathedral, always deeply moving. As our final stop before returning to Birmingham, Charlotte took me to Chez Antoinette. This is a French bistro with two branches in London. The second we saw the previous day while wandering around Covent Garden Market, this one in Victoria is the first which opened, and is very close to the Cathedral.
Originally from France’s gastro-capital Lyon, designer Aurelia Noel-Delclos had a dream that she wanted to open a restaurant in conjunction with her hotelier husband Jean-Baptiste, a place that not only honoured her grandmother Antoinette’s cooking but also channelled the chic Parisian cafés and Lyon’s famous guinguettes bars that she loved. So that’s what she did, opening the original Covent Garden Chez Antoinette in 2014, with a mission to reinterpret ‘classic dishes from tarts to tartines’ but with ‘a modern sensibility’. London Unattached
We opted for two courses, mains and desserts. Charlotte went for the beef bavette a l’echalotte, and I opted for the “Hambourge” French burger – with cured ham, comté, and bordelaise sauce. Charlotte asked for a rare steak which came well done, but no matter it was delicious nonetheless. The red wine shallot confit was particularly lovely.
My hambourge matched exactly what I expected it to be. It will not surprise you that living in France for 9 years, I consumed a number of “burgs” as one of Charlotte’s old colleagues at The Café Express in Harborne once put it. This was excellent, the patty itself was well done, almost crumbly (as it is served ‘over there’), the compté cheese was nutty and dry in flavour but delightfully oozy. The cured ham sat very nicely atop the patty. The sauce, which means ‘from Bordeaux’, is made with dry red wine, bone marrow, butter, shallots and sauce demi-glacé, tasted exceedingly French.
For dessert, Charlotte had a mille feuille with vanilla and raspberry. This is a sort of crispy thin layered pastry with vanilla custard in between the layers. It was crunchy, fresh and deliciously smooth on the inside. The waiter informed us that both our desserts were freshly made just an hour before we received them.
I opted for the tarte au citron meringue. Charlotte once made this for my uncle who is famous for his high standards when it comes to cooking. He had three helpings of Charlotte’s lemon meringue tart! This one was different (and of course less good than my wife’s). The meringue was soft, and a torch was used on the top. The lemon curd was fresh and zesty but not as piercing as the curd I enjoy. I like my lemon curd to really make me wince. The pastry was very thin and crunchy so that the dessert did not make me feel overly full.
Overall this was a delightful restaurant. The photographs do not do it justice. I urge you, if in London, to visit this little gem of a place.
Charlotte and I saw a trio of beautiful Caravaggio paintings while visiting the Doria Pamphili Gallery in Rome in September last year. The gallery has hundreds of paintings and many masterpieces. I may do a piece on the gallery as a whole and then on some of its pieces. The one we will focus on today is Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt. This was painted in 1597 and I think it is exquisite. The painting is taken from a passage in the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 2:13-23
The Escape to Egypt
13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
The Massacre of the Infants
16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
The Return from Egypt
19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”
Below are some details about the room where this masterwork is housed in the gallery.
The Rooms on the Corso
The sixteenth-century smaller rooms overlooking the Via del Corso at the end of the Hall of Mirrors were renovated by the architect Gabriele Valvassori in 1731. The pavilion vaults were decorated with fanciful architecture by the Bolognese artist and scene painter Pompeo Aldobrandini. The rooms show a collection of landscape paintings from the various Doria Pamphilj villas and the ‘still lifes’ painted in oil on copper by Jan van Kessel the Elder with an almost miniature technique, which provide an example of the preciousness and refined skill of the Flemish artist.
In the Second Room you can admire, side by side, the two marvellous canvases with the ‘Penitent Magdalene’ and the ‘Rest during the Flight into Egypt’ by the young Caravaggio, as well as his St. John the Baptist. Doria Pamphili
The detail is just astonishing. Mary is nursing Jesus very tenderly on the right. I bought this as a bookmark from the gift shop, by the way. On the left, St Joseph is holding up a piece of sheet music for an angel who is playing music for him on a viol. The sheet music is from a motet by Flemish composer Noel Bauldeweyn with a text from the Song of Songs dedicated to the Madonna, called Quam pulchra es (How beautiful you are). I have embedded a beautiful recording of it below. The donkey behind Joseph is trying to see what is happening and is very sweet. There is a wine container at Joseph’s left which is perhaps a prefigurement of the Last Supper. The scenery behind the figures in the painting is also beautifully rendered. The angel in the middle of the painting is serene, perhaps happy that the Holy Family are going away from danger.
This painting is an extraordinary work. Charlotte and I were captivated by it and spent a long time in the room seated admiring it. We will certainly go again when we are next in Rome.
I did two posts on Guido Reni a while ago, one on St Joseph with the Infant Jesus, and another of the Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada, which I think I saw in Rome. One (former) Cardinal I saw with Charlotte, for sure, was the Velasquez painting of the Portrait of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj, which I will do a post on separately. This painting is located in Santa Maria della Concezione de Cappuccini, Rome, Italy.
Revelation 12:7-9
(New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition)
7 And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
It is said that St Michael’s origins are from Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion of ancient Persia which believed a starkly dualist faith in which gods of light waged eternal war on gods of darkness. But this is probably not true. Saint Michael was an angel mentioned in the Old Testament several times. He is the guardian prince of Israel and is responsible for the care of Israel in the Old Testament, the chief of the archangels, and is mentioned in the New Testament in the Book of Revelations, as above.
This painting of Saint Michael defeating Satan is quite evocative. The colours are astonishing. It is done in the baroque style. St Michael is shown triumphing over a disconcerting looking devil. He is wearing brightly coloured armour and has raised a sword over the defeated devil. The contrast in the bat wings of the devil and the full clean wings of St Michael are striking. Similarly, St Michael’s soft clean floating hair and serene demeanour as contrasted with Satan’s receding hairline and scrunched up pained face are quite marked. This is a glorious depiction of good triumphing over evil. Charlotte and I will mark this one on our list next time we visit Rome.
Guido Reni’s resplendently theatrical depiction of St Michael, part Roman soldier, part ballet dancer, was painted in 1635 and can be seen in the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Rome. The picture is a beautiful example of Reni’s late style, which was repeatedly admired by his contemporaries for what they called “grazia” – a critical term much used by writers in the Baroque period, and one with dual implications. The serene figure of St Michael, effortlessly victorious over a grotesquely grimacing Satan, embodies aesthetic grace while also evoking the religious… Andrew Graham Dixon
Hello from your absentee blog host. I am sorry, to the few souls who will see this post, for my absence of late. I will heal the keenly felt rift in content with my favourite album of late, Virus, by Locura. This is the fifth studio album from the Argentine New Wave band Virus. It was released on St Crispin’s Day in 1985. There are several other albums of note from this band, including Vivo and En Vivo II, as well as 30 Años De Locura (En Vivo), but we shall leave these for another time. Locura means insanity in Spanish, also referred to as ataques de locura (meaning “madness attacks”).
A1 Pronta entrega 4:36
A2 Tomo lo que encuentro 4:19
A3 Pecados para dos 4:00
A4 Destino circular 3:46
B1 Una luna de miel en la mano 5:20
B2 Dicha feliz 3:36
B3 Sin disfraz 5:32
B4 Lugares comunes 3:13
There are only 8 tracks in this album, but each are unique, potent and full of wonderful inventive synth. Pronta Entrega for example starts with nice vocals from Federico José Moura (who sadly dies three years after the album’s release) followed by some sublime synth and guitar which form the base of the song going forward.
My other highlight from the album is Sin Disfraz. The title means without a disguise. The song is ostensibly about the narrator worrying about whether he appears to others like a liar and a nudist (!). But the music is superb. The insistent and hammering synth followed by the drumming and hypnotic, though silly in substance, vocals come together to make a cracking tune.
I’ll keep it short as this is my first post in a while, but suffice it to say this is a very special album. It falls squarely into my musical comfort zone. I am addicted to 80s synth pop and have made a playlist of my favourite tunes in this genre. Virus’ studio and live tracks feature heavily, as you can imagine. Get stuck in!
