As the person transcribing my grandparents' diaries, I suppose I am in a marginally different position from those who read them on the two blogs. Is my reaction to the content to some extent muted by the minimum concentration required in writing it down, or is it, on the contrary, amplified for the very same reason?
I don't know, but I wonder if your own experience mirrors mine. I tend to fluctuate between boredom, exasperation, nostalgia and serenity. But it struck me the other day, not for the first time, that the diaries really tell me more about myself than they do about Gran or The Master. From their point of view, they (the diaries) were never intended to be anything more than a daily record of events, a chore to be performed in the quest for a settled life. So if I at times find the entries boring, it is because I, at some deeper level, am bored or out of sorts, and so on and so forth.
In short, the diaries are not of the quality or kind to transport one into another world, as a good book can, but they do, for me at any rate, act as a sort of litmus paper for confirming how I am feeling at a particular point in time.
"... the quest for a settled life".
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought that was the deliberate purpose of our grandparents' diaries but now I come to think about it it does rather seem to me that Gran's diaries at this point (immediately post-war and living for the first time on her own) might have been to prove that she was still alive! Dreary in the extreme.
A "good" diary - that which others find readable - should tell a story, shouldn't it? I think you might find the wartime ones do, and to a certain extent Grandad's 1927 exercise does. At least, it tells us something of what it was like to be comfortably off and still possessing all 4 limbs post WWI. I think perhaps he was just beginning to get very bored, though!
But I can't say I find these diaries any sort of litmus test of my own feelings!
That's interesting. So perhaps my own reaction is prompted by writing (in a manner of speaking) the diaries, rather than reading them!
ReplyDeleteWell, it is very likely a depressing exercise!
ReplyDeleteSome weeks the Hamilton Terrace 'jottings' are so full of seediness, tho, that they end up being quite funny.
btw, who or what was Toinie? I guess Hester is the only one still around who might know.
I didn't mean to imply that bringing the diaries to an eager world is ALWAYS a depressing undertaking!!
ReplyDeleteAccording to "The Urban Dictionary", one of the meanings of seedy is "hung over from drugs, drink or lack of sleep": ""I was feeling very seedy after our crack binge last night".
Goodness, is that a direct quote from our grandmother? The things one learns.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm quite fascinated at mentions of Mose and Pippa attending all these Beagle 'meets' or whatever they are called. First I knew that either was in the slightest bit interested, but perhaps it was thought a way of meeting people?
Would Toini have been the live-in maid? The predecessor of Clara?
ReplyDelete