Sir Edward Dering (1598-1644), of Pluckley, in Kent, was an antiquary not always scrupulous with his accounts about the past (he concocted a fake ancient Saxon family tree), an M.P., and, as his contemporaries saw it, a political defector who danced nimbly away from royalism when things were looking bad in 1644.
Love this! And bought Shapton almost the second I’d finished reading. This may sound a bit tangential, but the idea of ‘reading’ a character as a series of impressions they make on the world through the accretion of objects, also makes me think of Woolf’s 'Jacob’s Room' in which she uses Jacob’s interactions with other people to build an image of the absence of the character, so we 'see' the negative shape of his former existence.
We went to a Christian Boltanski exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London. There was a huge mountain of second-hand clothes. You could buy a Boltanski carrier bag for £10, fill it with used clothes and take them home. My friend Rob, a jazz musician found a sock he really liked and we spent ages, working as a team, without success, looking for the other half of the pair.
Yes, and 'Under the Sign: John Bargrave as Collector, Traveler, and Witness', 1995, a study by Stephen Bann, a former professor of mine at UKC Canterbury, is situated in the same cultural terrain, ie of the wunderkammer, and is also of antiquarian Kentish interest.
Love this! And bought Shapton almost the second I’d finished reading. This may sound a bit tangential, but the idea of ‘reading’ a character as a series of impressions they make on the world through the accretion of objects, also makes me think of Woolf’s 'Jacob’s Room' in which she uses Jacob’s interactions with other people to build an image of the absence of the character, so we 'see' the negative shape of his former existence.
I'm sure you'll enjoy the Shapton, Dean. I like that Woolf connection: thank you.
We went to a Christian Boltanski exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London. There was a huge mountain of second-hand clothes. You could buy a Boltanski carrier bag for £10, fill it with used clothes and take them home. My friend Rob, a jazz musician found a sock he really liked and we spent ages, working as a team, without success, looking for the other half of the pair.
superb! and of course i know about boltanski thanks to you, simon!
love this Adam - those inventories are full of life but so melancholic because that life is withheld or long gone
exactly.
Yes, and 'Under the Sign: John Bargrave as Collector, Traveler, and Witness', 1995, a study by Stephen Bann, a former professor of mine at UKC Canterbury, is situated in the same cultural terrain, ie of the wunderkammer, and is also of antiquarian Kentish interest.
thanks, michael!