Raisin’s impressive debut novel, God’s Own Country provides a compelling and unsettling insight into the intense inner workings of the mind of a disturbed and delusional young farmer in rural isolation in the North Yorkshire Moors. In a highly evocative dialect Raisin charters Sam Marsdyke’s disintegration from an ostracised oddity to a full-blown madman.

Expelled from school for allegedly attempting to rape a fellow pupil, Sam Marsdyke remains excluded from his family and gossiping community. He is confined to working the farm with his gruff, monosyllabic father and trudging across the moors, dwelling on the frustrations and injustices of his life.

 Despite Sam’s distinct hostility towards the townies his interests are aroused when a London family, with an adolescent daughter, move into the neighbouring farm. The daughter’s unruly nature, coupled with her boredom, leads to an uncanny friendship between the two, and she unwittingly further encourages Sam’s fevered imaginings, setting the stage for impending tragedy.

It is not the somewhat predictable storyline which makes this novel so remarkable, but the fantastically vivid, unique interior monologue of the narrator. Sam, whose love for the ‘real’, sheer Moors is depicted with vitality and dexterity, passes acutely witty observations about the kitsch, goggle-eyed world of the tourist and second homers who view famers with awe as, ‘real, living, farting Nature’. Sam’s whirling mind, filled with blasersykthes and nimrods, gommerils and nazzarts, has an engaging ability to animate everything he encounters; he can imagine the thoughts of stuffed fox head in the pub and conjure up the empty chit-chat of exasperating ramblers trundling along the moors. Its Sam’s voice, both funny and disconcerting, which renders him a pitiable yet repellent character and makes for an absorbing read. 

On the face of it, an exhibition entitled ‘Chimera’ sounds intensely exciting, and I approached the Museum of the History of Science thrilling at the prospect of huge sculptures of impossible hybrids woven around the museum’s more conventional exhibits. However, I was to be disappointed – Angela Cockayne’s contemporary response to the 17th century Tradescant collection is small and dismal, and even worse, very easily overlooked.{nomultithumb}

The Tradescant collection itself is very impressive, consisting of a sample of the artefacts the adventurer and botanist donated to the Ashmolean after his extensive travels. It consists of a number of oriental statues, contorted skulls, jade beads and other curiosities, that, while momentarily diverting, are not sufficiently fascinating to incite a special trip to the museum.

Interspersed with these objects are Cockayne’s offerings, which consist of wax sculptures a few inches high with naturally-occurring items attached, such as duckbills or lobster claws. Often the wax is moulded into a birdlike shape, and they are supported on small wire legs. They have titles like ‘squidbills’ and ‘negotiators’, but in general are too small to be of any real interest or significance.

Her larger efforts are much more pleasing; in particular a set of moulded whale teeth dressed in white lace entitled Ahab’s Brides that are laid out on the bare boards of the gallery. My personal favourite, Gnawpecker, a beaver-chewed log with a green woodpecker’s wings attached, enlivens a case full of small pocket sundials.

 In essence, Cockayne’s ideas are fresh and original, but her work is not of sufficient size to make an impact on the mundane setting of a gallery dominated by brass instruments and rulers, and the exhibition as a whole is not large or varied enough to warrant any particular excitement.

4 stars out of 5

When multi-million selling author Titania Hardie’s latest project The Rose Labyrinth landed on my desk I was to say the least surprised. Gone were the beautifully packaged ‘lifestyle books’ that helped to put Titania on the map back in the ’90s. Instead I found that those suede-covered gems that made Hardie into an overnight guru, sought after by the rich and the famous, had been replaced by elegantly written intellectual literary fiction. In one equally well-packaged leap it seemed that Hardie had gone from ‘lifestyle writer’ to bona fide novelist.

The novel itself is a hybrid of sorts, combining a mystery story and the physical puzzle cards that go with it. At a time in publishing where the likes of Dan Brown and Kate Mosse seem to churn out their latest novels in accordance with contractual obligations and deadlines it is refreshing to find an author so concerned with the integrity of her work.

Testimony to this authorial dedication is the labyrinthine journey that the novel has taken from a mere idea to the book it is today. Hardie tells of the project’s four-year development as it was batted between publishers due in part to her stoic refusal to change the message of the book, before resting in hands of Headline Review.

Hardie certainly does not underestimate her reader: the plot is an intricate combination of mystery, intrigue and love. The architecture of the novel is attractively ambitious with the reader in the hands of an author of considerable imagination, perpetually journeying between past and present both literally and metaphorically. The novel’s range and quality of research is equally impressive, as Hardie oscillates from the scientific to the mystic with poise.

The Rose Labyrinth is certainly not just another beach-read, far from it. It is a novel with a conscience, a novel whose overriding message is one of tolerance and understanding in a world fraught with division and pain. Hardie is clear that in the arguable cultural quagmire that is our world her novel was to be different. It stands out as ‘a beacon of hope’ in a time disillusioned by angry belief, requiring more from us as reader than mere acceptance whilst electing not to harrow us with tales of abuse and suffering. A novel for iconographers and romantics alike.    

There’s nothing like a play on a cold, wet, Hilary night.  Granted, the saunter up George Street to the OFS is not the best way of getting into a cultural frame of mind, but beggars can’t be choosers. On George Street they just get in the way. And after leaving my Bod card at home and being forced to cough up an extra two pounds by a miserly cashier, I was prepared to accept nothing less than a premium cut of theatrical steak. 
Following the usual pre-performance rites of sitting down, complaining about the leg room, making a quick dash for the loos just before the curtain rises, the Edward II which was served up was more akin to cold mince. Credit must be given where it is due, I thought Omkar was fabulous, and Ben Galpin’s Edward was most convincing. A nice bit of tongue-on-tongue action is always fun too.

But the play’s staging was misguided. The power vacuum created by the death of Edward II was replaced with the death of the Krays, placing Marlowe’s political piece in a quasi-gangland Mods v. Rockers situation, simply vulgarising and attenuating the consequences of power struggles at court.

Particulary bad in light of the tension caused by Edward and Gaveston’s homoerotic relationship in the face of the Church’s importance in medieval England. On top of this, the clash between early modern English and the late 1960s setting was awkward to say the least, as brutish leather clad bikers spoke with improbable Renaissance turns of phrase. The historian in me was itching. Why was Edward II smoking?

The setting served only to distract from the main action, and whilst I do love theatrical experimentation, and accept that new interpretations allow audiences to view plays from a different perspective and interpret them in new and exciting ways, student audiences are critical and perceptive, so when directors take it upon themselves to experiment with pieces they must be prepared to do it properly.

This production of Edward II was not as strong as it should have been because its delivery was incomplete; the new setting was not adequately matched to the content of the play. For such innovations to work, the tensions of the original must be preserved when transposing a play into a different setting, and likewise this new setting must be complete in its delivery.

A lyrical quality pervades this new piece, written by Sophie Lewis, a series of four short scenes linked by love. They are intensely beautifully choreographed, excellent use being made of a long stretch of muslin which now entraps a character, now releases her, manipulated with grace and precision by the ensemble. This ensemble, a group of actors making up the shifting cast, moves with great fluidity and it is their hypnotic and suggestive motion which is the principle delight of theses pieces.

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This constant half- dance, at times supports the action, and at times is the sole focus; at the start of one piece, What Time Is Dinner?, the ensemble are crushed together under the muslin (see right), the limbs contorted under the clothe, struggling to be free. The tension is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s unfinished figures for Julius II’s tomb, the flesh struggling valiantly to escape the cloying bonds of the marble. Indeed it is in these moments of dance that are strength of Spring Quartet; the speech appear clumsy, characters spilling out great tirades which froth into insignificance next to the graceful, yet eloquent simplicity of the dance.

In Woman Painting, for example, we are given a greater insight into the relationship between the female painter (Ianthe Roach, pictured bottom left) and her lover (Danielle Paffard) by the simple action of Roach laying her hand against the wall of muslin, than in all the sound and fury of Paffard’s assertions of love. Here Paffard fails to capture anything of the confused bravado of a man in love, which confuses the piece; if you have a female actor playing a male character, it is crucial to ensure they don’t act like a woman.

Paffard also leaves much to be desired as the sinister goddess Kali, bent on destroying Snayle and Sasha’s relationship in What Time Is Dinner?, spewing out an incoherent torrent of words.

The only actor who allows himself the time to revel in his words as happily as the other performers revel in the dance is Neil Makhija (pictured top left) as Snayle, his rich voice and sensuous smile suggesting a danger lurking with the doomed relationship itself.

This is a beautiful and challenging piece of work, but if the performers allowed themselves more silence, it would be truly wonderful.

What do you ask the man who has read everything? This was the question which haunted me as I climbed the stairs to the top of the Corner Club. Sir Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, is probably one of the most intensely literary persons on the planet. He can probably quote the Iliad backwards.

This was my unfounded impression of the man who would later greet me with a beaming smile and direct me into a side room decorated with bookish wallpaper.

Stothard is a Cherwell icon primarily due to the fact that he edited the paper in 1970, while he was up at Trinity, reading Classics. From there, he went to the very top, editing The Times for ten years and becoming one of the foremost names in British journalism.  Stothard, like most ex-Cherwellians, looks back upon his days editing the paper with mixed feelings; a combination  of joy and the pangs of panic which result from too many late nights and not enough copy.

When Stothard was at Oxford, Cherwell consisted not of the ever-expanding Orwellian nightmare it is now, but of a small hut-like building behind the Union – a far cry from the rooms filled with technology (albeit faulty) of Matthew Comfort Ltd on St. Aldate’s. All the same, under Stothard, Cherwell was printed weekly, and had a wide range of sections.

However, there existed yet another, fundamental, difference between now and then: the method of printing. Back then, Adobe had not been invented, and the computer existed only in the form of an object with the dimensions of a moderately-sized room.

Instead, editors would send documents via snail mail to the printers, who would then lay out copy (journo-speak for articles) and images in the received way. In an age of Photoshop, in an era dominated by the looming shadow of the Guardian Student Media Awards, design can make or break a newspaper. Today is the day of white space, of shadow highlighting, of the cleverly crafted info box.

Not so when Stothard was editing. In fact, as he mentions, the principal fault of student journalism is the concentration on form over content: something which is probably due to the nature of the readership; good design is necessary to pull the casual reader into the article.

As Stothard observes, edgy design should be no substitute for good copy, and conceptual design must be met with groundbreaking journalism. In an age of libel, of Heather McCartney, university is the only real opportunity for students to write journalism which expressly places itself on the side of contrariety, of contention.

The atmosphere surrounding student journalism during Stothard’s editorship was rather different to what it is today. He bemoans the ‘get to the top quick’ culture, the age of the internship, of the CV point, the race to accumulate a vast and diverse portfolio of cuttings, of experience (both journalistic and editorial), and, of course, a sharp and keen eye for the value of white space.

So it comes as no surprise that Stothard’s rise to the top of British journalism was somewhat different. After a brief stint at the BBC as a trainee reporter, he went on to work for the National Theatre and Shell before picking up his reporter’s notebook for freelance work on the New Statesman. This led to work for the Sunday Times as a political journalist – including a large and influential piece of the 1981 Budget.

Stothard comments that in a time of such unrest and hostility, working from Whitehall was particularly stimulating. Nevertheless, The Times shut down in 1978-79, and the resulting purchase of the paper by Murdoch meant Stothard was quickly elevated through the paper, becoming Editor in 1992-2002.

Having moved to the Times Literary Supplement in 2002, Stothard is now at the forefront of literary journalism, titillating the cultural sensibilities of the middle class intelligentsia week in week out. This, of course, makes him highly authorities on a whole range of broadly literary issues. A natural question arises: what, according to Sir Peter, is hot at the moment? To ask such a question is to broadly misunderstand what the TLS stands for: the revelation, or revaluation, of the neglected in culture at large Moreover, as Stothard notes, the notion of ‘hot’ is hugely subjective anyway. Recent issues have included lead articles on Elgar or working class fashion. Both niche topics, of course, but both reveal a wider relevance to modern day Britain.

The question of subjectivity, and, indeed, of  what constitues ‘top notch’ literary journalism is central to the future of criticism. A whole host of articles have been written about the rise of the blog culture, either in praise of the globalisation and universality of opinion, or decrying the move away from print, and into a world of normative, dull conformism. Stothard appears undecided on the matter, acknowledging that there is, of course, a great value in the blog. He notes a time when he discovered a really very interesting piece of Icelandic philosophy, pointed out to him by a friend on a really very obscure blog. However, Stothard astutely notes that ‘intellectual life was globalised before globalisation was invented’; the internet was not necessary for the development of a world-wide literary community; letters and newspapers served us perfectly well.

On the whole, it seems that Stothard is widely sceptical about the normalisation and democratisation of opinion which the blog can bring, and the error of the view that the opinion of Socrates is as valuable as the fool. He uses a good analogy to describe the phenomenon: imagine a crowd of Arsenal supporters, all chanting for the same team, but shouting different slogans. The end result is the same, the players on the pitch are spurred on, and someone watching the spectacle would be aware that this particular stand was definitely full of Gunners supporters.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the result is the same. The main difference between a publication like the TLS and the blog is a distinction between a ‘judiciously argued judgement and a quick fix of opinion’. All the same, on the whole, Stothard seems to subscribe to the views of J.S. Mill: only within a free market of ideas will truth emerge, as good ideas displace bad ones and ignorance is progressively banished. As Mill has argued, the value of open debate and discussion is that ‘bad’ ideas are exposed as bad, meaning that ‘good’ ideas prevail. The blog helps this process along nicely.

Finally Stothard airs his views on the future of journalism. Modern media is all encompassing: the Telegraph has a TV channel on its website, and journalists aren’t ready to report unless they have a good digital camera with video-recording capabilities. Nevertheless, one simple, golden rule of journalism, in whatever form, remains true: the good journalist will have an eye for the interesting, and will find a way of bringing the reader or viewer into the story. This, for Stothard, is the reason that Plato’s Republic is still so widely read: the opening line is arresting and draws the reader in. Its literary merit, which need not be incompatible with journalistic appeal, is timeless.

It is for this reason, then, that publications like the TLS prevail: the fascinating will always be so. The same was true when Stothard was editing handwritten copy in his hut behind the union, and is still true today. When OSPL is able to open up a state of the art media centre, Cherwell will still be looking for intriguing articles to fill pages. After all, white space isn’t the only thing which wins awards.