Gerald Hughes (2) (1920–2016)

I liked this book very much, which is sort of strange since I'm not a particular fan of Ted Hughes and I'm not at all fascinated by his life.

Given this, you might be wondering about my affection for this book, so I should explain that it's not until the last 1/4 of the book that you get a lot of Ted. And to tell you the truth, I found myself interested in Ted at that point because of the effect he had on his family. So in his own way, Gerald Hughes is brilliant.

What TED AND I is about is Gerald Hughes, his family, his country village, and what it was like to live in England in the early part of the 20th Century. He writes about he and Ted rambling through the English countryside, learning about hunting and wildlife. He tells about father's return from the Battle of Gallipoli (WWI). How his dad was the only one from his company to survive.

There's the depression next and Gerald's service in WWII. It was interesting to hear him write about the discovery of Pompeii and how he managed to be one of the first people to see it in it's raw state. I can't imagine how stunning that must have been.

But besides this window into a time long past there was something else I enjoyed. And that was the mysterious bit of information and phrases that got me scanning through the internetz. Deliciously Mr. Hughes writes of his Granny:

"Granny Farrar was greatly missed. She was a larger-than-life figure who, coming as she did from a far on 'the tops', still spoke 'the language', as some old man once admiringly said. I remember, as does my sister Olwyn, that she called cushions 'wishins' --a term Olwyn later encountered in her Anglo-Saxon studies at university"

This same granny would make oatcakes and leave them to dry on the stair rail. A mystery that, and the 'wishins'. My google-fu must not have been working because I couldn't find a derivation.

And these are some of the things I loved about this book and why I recommend it to those who like memoirs. Granted, you should know that this is for the most part a POSITIVE view on life. But if you consider that this is a family memoir, no doubt written for Hughes' children as much as for us, that's okay.

SUMMARY
I think it is somewhat disingenuous to suggest that the focus of this memoir is Ted Hughes. It seems to me that the primary focus is Gerald, which is not to say that you can't infer what Ted's life was like.

I LOVED this book. I'm not a fan of modern memoirs but this one doesn't strictly fall into the modern category. There is so much that is about the English countryside of the previous century. Life in the small villages between wars. What it was like to ramble out as a child during those decades between the Wars; and what it was like to be a young man during the depression and during the Second Great War.

I don't know if he planned it this way, but the author's reveal of of Ted and Sylvia's life stood in sharp contrast to all that went on before. All the difficulties --the depression and 2 World Wars -- were dealt with by the family and they remained on an even keel. But post War, as the English speaking countries moved into modern times, it was the small personal things which led to disaster.

And what you see is not a write up of the deaths, but how the personal events effect an entire family. Structured this way I 'm sure it had more impact for me than any other narrative might have had.

--review copy… (mehr)

What comes out strongest in this short memoir of a sibling, is the warmth of the relationship between the two brothers, and probably their similarity of personality in regards to their pleasures, their connections to family and friends, their gentlemanliness. Ted Hughes was a big man, a quiet man with a strong, resonant voice. (I listened to a recording of Hughes reading his short story ‘The Harvesting’ this morning, broadcast in 1960, my own year of birth.)

Gerald notes Ted’s early interest in everything natural, and in acquired information in general. He says that Ted’s constant questioning is what led him (Gerald) to books, in order to answer those questions.

I was interested in Ted’s own insistence on how Gerald should read to his children, before he himself had had children of his own. His passion for the word and the world.

Gerald is able to side-step any real discussion about Sylvia Plath as he never met her (he had already migrated to Australia), but quotes some of her letters to him, and notes how her death affected Ted.

Ted was a good letter writer, but would have preferred to have his brother back in England, a big, powerful man, but still in need of a big brother near to hand.

A quiet memoir, with quiet, if any, revelations.

I only had the opportunity of hearing Ted Hughes read once, nearing the end of his life.… (mehr)