Every year since 1901 Nobel Prizes have been awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. The awards system was founded by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and engineer who left money in his will when he died in 1896 with an instruction that it be used to award prizes to those who have ‘during the preceding year… conferred the greatest benefit to Mankind‘. Continue reading “Food and eccentricity”
Category: 21st century fiction
A miracle in suburbia
In my last post I wrote about the value Clare Chambers grants suburban life in her 2020 novel Small Pleasures. Her protagonist, Jean Swinney, unmarried, in her early 40s and living in the suburbs of South East London with her widowed mother, leads a life of routine and duty, punctuated by ‘[s]mall pleasures – the first cigarette of the day; a glass of sherry before Sunday lunch; a bar of chocolate parcelled out to last a week; a newly published library book still pristine and untouched by other hands; the first hyacinths of spring; a neatly folded pile of ironing..’ Continue reading “A miracle in suburbia”
Suburban life
A few years ago, when telling a friend of my forthcoming move to Muswell Hill (an area in North London) he said, pityingly, ‘It’s a bit suburban there…’ Geographically speaking he was right: Muswell Hill is a London suburb – it’s more than 5 miles from Central London, in Zone 3 of the London travel network and the landline phone numbers begin with 0208 (rather than 0207, the mark of inner London). But his pitying tone conveyed the fact that the word ‘suburban’ is often used pejoratively to describe a particular lifestyle and mindset: conservative, small-minded and safe, in contrast to both the excitement of city life and the freedom and beauty of country living. Continue reading “Suburban life”
Food for a queen
In my last post I wrote about the use of food for diplomatic purposes in The Mirror and the Light, the final volume in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Continue reading “Food for a queen”