I am currently reading La fille de la nuit by Serge Brussolo. As the title suggests, the novel is in French. French is “my other language” but as I don’t find many opportunities to speak it these days, I read a lot in the language, both as a compensation and to keep me up to date with contemporary idioms and ideas.

The title, literally “The girl of the night”, suggests that the central character is, or was, a prostitute or, in the language of Los Angeles where the plot is centred, a hooker. The truth, it turns out is far more bizarre. I will not give away the plot because at least one of Brussolo’s novels has already been translated into English (as The deep sea diver’s syndrome) and others (including this one) will no doubt follow. It is enough to say that the central character, known by the hospital applied temporary name of Jane Doe, survives an assassination attempt but this damages her brain, leading to total amnesia about her past. Against all the odds, however, this past begins to return to haunt her in vivid dreams and episodes of somnambulism.

Brussolo is sometime classed as a writer of science fiction and fantasy or, as it was expressed in a piece in France Culture, “Serge Brussolo est un genre littéraire à lui tout seul” (“Serge Brussolo is a literary genre unique to himself”). Though this is the only book of his that I have read so far (I picked it out at random in the local public library), I would agree. One more thing needs to be said, however, and that is that no matter how weird the story becomes, it is completely believable under Brussolo’s fluent pen.

With regard to book reviews, I usually behave sensibly and commit my opinion to writing only after finishing the book. In this case, however, the narrative has me so intrigued that even though I am only a little over halfway through, I could not resist penning these few words over breakfast this morning. At least that way, there is no chance of my spoiling the ending for you!

This sculpture stands, at the top of a pole, in the courtyard of a property or estate called Moretown. The sculpture is not labelled so I cannot credit the artist or name the subject. I am guessing that it represents the god Pan, although the instrument he is playing is a flute and not Pan pipes.

Moretown was not always so called. This pretentious name has been affixed fairly recently and on no better grounds than that Thomas More Street runs past on one side of it.

The name is inappropriate because this is no town nor yet anything like one. It consists of a number of office blocks containing offices for rent. It also boasts a branch of Pret A Manger and a Waitrose supermarket. A town, though, surely needs more than this, some dwellings, for example. It has none on these.

Still, let’s not split hairs, Moretown it is called and that’s that.

Nearby is St Katharine Docks which I photographed in a previous post.

Update

The sculpture is by Carl Milles (1875-1955) and is entitled Angel Musician with Flute.

Today brought the annual Ride London event in which a number of streets are closed in Central London and bus routes are disrupted. Nonetheless, we managed to travel as far as London Bridge where we dismounted and followed the path along the north bank of the Thames, eastwards towards the Tower of London.

Cormorant

This photo shows one of the cormorants that inhabit this reach of the river. Their presence is a good sign, if one be needed, of the river’s health. Cormorants live by fishing and if there were no fish, there would be no cormorants.

This one has not been fishing recently or s/he would be standing with wings spread to dry them, a hieratic posture that immediately identifies the species.

Cormorants fascinate me. There is something antique about them as though they come from an earlier age of the earth’s history. To fish, they settle on the water and then dive from this position. They may stay under water for half a minute or more and then pop up far away from their entry point.

They can take flight from the water and when they do they leave a double trail of splashes where their wing tips touch the surface.

All Hallows by the Tower

This is All Hallows by the Tower. Reputedly founded in AD 675 on the site of a Roman building, it still retains vestiges of its early history. It was restored in the 19th century and again after being gutted by enemy bombs during WWII.

This is not the optimum angle for a photo but this was as close as we came to it today. I used the trees to screen out the ugly modern buildings that are its upstart neighbours.

In my view, comments – and replying to comments – are an essential part of the practice of blogging. After all, by posting in the public sphere you are inviting people read and be interested in your words. If your blog were purely private then you could password-protect it or confide your thoughts to a paper diary.

Bloggers deal with comments in various ways. Some, for example, close comments completely, making their blog read-only. It is possible that this might be desirable in some context or other though I cannot think of one. Closing comments is impolite. It says the blogger wishes to express him/herself but doesn’t give a fig your your opinion or thoughts on the subject. Why, then, should we bother to read your blog?

As bad, and in some ways worse, is to enable comments but never to reply to them. The person who comments is left feeling that the effort spent was wasted. Did the blogger even bother to read my comment? Did they think my comment stupid and worthless? There is no way to know and the comment writer is left frustrated and feeling a little foolish. S/he is likely to give up commenting or even reading your posts.

Another approach is to enable comments but have them held for moderation. This may be justified on a blog that attracts high feeling, perhaps because of its political or religious slant, but, in my opinion, it is rarely justified in the case of an ordinary personal blog. It suggests that the blogger thinks you might write something stupid or offensive, treating you as guilty until you prove yourself innocent.

I allow comments on my blog and do not hold them for moderation. I always reply to comments. Common courtesy demands no less. Even if I disagree with the comment, I still reply and politely. After all, I might have learnt something from the commentator’s point of view.

The only exception to the foregoing is the odd spam comment that manages to sneak past Akismet or the overtly offensive comment that offers nothing beyond gratuitous insult. The delete key deals with those.

The blogging world is about communication and communication, to merit the name, requires to be two-way. One way comminication is not communication at all.