Books and berries

[smokingboot]

Suddenly I need two contrasting pieces to read out loud. Both should include a little narrative and conversation, and they should contrast. One, I think, is going to be the killing of Aslan from The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, so I need something that will contrast with that. If anyone has suggestions, I would be very grateful and interested to hear/read them.

I made a berry fruit salad out of strawbs, raspberries and blueberries. The latter really are pointless aren't they? Almost no taste to them at all. But here's a magic thing; you know on trad ice-cream sundaes there's this sticky pink juice that looks like it's made from pure chemical additives, and probably is? I think I've found its origin. Mix a tablespoon of good balsalmic vinegar to quarter of a cup of sugar, add it to the fruit, toss (it obviously*) and stick it in the fridge for a while. The end result is a bit like those old style syrups but ever so much nicer, and really brings out the berry taste. Nomnomnom!

*Oh dear.

Comments

[squintywitch.livejournal.com]

Anything from 'written on the body' by Jeanette Winterson.

I'm also a fan of 'The Gruffalo's Child' at the moment..,

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you for this tip - led me to an excerpt from 'Sexing the Cherry' where the Dog Woman encounters a banana. I think it's the one!

One of my favourite stories - an excerpt - any use?

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Then Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen. It was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes, as big as summer-houses, of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips. “This is a splendid hunting-ground,” he said, and his tail grew bottle-brushy at the thought of it, and he scuttled up and down the garden, snuffing here and there till he heard very sorrowful voices in a thorn-bush.

It was Darzee, the Tailorbird, and his wife. They had made a beautiful nest by pulling two big leaves together and stitching them up the edges with fibers, and had filled the hollow with cotton and downy fluff. The nest swayed to and fro, as they sat on the rim and cried.

“What is the matter?” asked Rikki-tikki.

“We are very miserable,” said Darzee. “One of our babies fell out of the nest yesterday and Nag ate him.”

“H’m!” said Rikki-tikki, “that is very sad—but I am a stranger here. Who is Nag?”

Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering, for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low hiss—a horrid cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two clear feet. Then inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail. When he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the ground, he stayed balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion tuft balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked snake’s eyes that never change their expression, whatever the snake may be thinking of.

“Who is Nag?” said he. “I am Nag. The great God Brahm put his mark upon all our people, when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!”

(posted in two parts)

Re: One of my favourite stories - an excerpt - any use?

[jfs.livejournal.com]

He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose’s business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too and, at the bottom of his cold heart, he was afraid.

“Well,” said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, “marks or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat fledglings out of a nest?”

Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement in the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden meant death sooner or later for him and his family, but he wanted to get Rikki-tikki off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and put it on one side.

“Let us talk,” he said. “You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?”

“Behind you! Look behind you!” sang Darzee.

Rikki-tikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up in the air as high as he could go, and just under him whizzed by the head of Nagaina, Nag’s wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he was talking, to make an end of him. He heard her savage hiss as the stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and if he had been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break her back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing return stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving Nagaina torn and angry.

“Wicked, wicked Darzee!” said Nag, lashing up as high as he could reach toward the nest in the thorn-bush. But Darzee had built it out of reach of snakes, and it only swayed to and fro.

Rikki-tikki felt his eyes growing red and hot (when a mongoose’s eyes grow red, he is angry), and he sat back on his tail and hind legs like a little kangaroo, and looked all round him, and chattered with rage. But Nag and Nagaina had disappeared into the grass. When a snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do next. Rikki-tikki did not care to follow them, for he did not feel sure that he could manage two snakes at once. So he trotted off to the gravel path near the house, and sat down to think. It was a serious matter for him.

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/jungle/chapter9.html

Re: One of my favourite stories - an excerpt - any use?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thank you I love this story, and had completely forgotten it! I may use it as an alternative to LW&W rather than a contrast... I love villainesses, and Nagaina's song of triumph gives me the chance to play act being marvellously evil.

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

ooh, do you have time to read all of 'Sredni Vashtar' by H.H. Munro? Or, failing that, the ending part with the invocation... "Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar" ... :D

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Very very nice. Sredni Vashtar, or indeed anything by Munro, might suit my reading style very well. Brill suggestion, looking into it even as we speak, thankyou!

[squintywitch.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love that story!

[lucyas.livejournal.com]

Are you looking for a total contrast? then I reckon something non-fiction, very dry and factual. Perhaps a physics lesson from some Open University text book.

[lucyas.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see, conversation is required - can't really be a physics text book then.

I'll read the remit more carefully in future...

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I should have explained to everyone that the contrast, while it does need to include elements of story, doesn't need to be children's fiction, and one other thing I have been asked to find, though it's not as necessary as the story bits, is a documentary excerpt to read out. So please don't apologise, you aren't as far out as you think!