Blogs from District Two, Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 4

Thomas Hardy is my favourite novelist and one of my four favourite poets (along with Shakespeare, Philip Larkin and W. B. Yeats). I have read almost everything Hardy ever wrote but have to admit he is very uneven. I would say that at least three of his novels are masterpieces: ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ and ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’. Three others - ‘Jude the Obscure’, ‘The Woodlanders’ and ‘The Return of the Native’ - are very good but flawed. The other eight novels he wrote are, in my view, barely worth reading, because they are either lacking in serious substance or melodramatic and amateurish. Even in his best novels, Hardy is somewhat uneven. There are too many startling and improbable events - a consequence, partly, of his novels being initially serialized ... read more

This has been on my computer since I wrote it in 2015 after returning to HCMC from England. I thought it might as well be resurrected and published. As is usually the case, I have written it for nobody but myself. My intended audience is ME. It is not a polished piece of writing, just a record of a holiday which went very smoothly. I have lost all the photos I took on that trip, so the following paragraphs are my only memories. I was teaching full-time at Renaissance School, Q7, HCMC in 2015 and had no thoughts of selling my property in Reading. That decision was taken two years later in 2017. Anyway, here is what I wrote: My three weeks in England were great. I based myself in Reading (where I have a locked ... read more

I discovered this old document by chance in my computer. It was written in note form in 2002 and is an account of my first visit to Sapa in northern Vietnam. I have decided to publish it because it is a time-piece, a reminder of when I was 50 - physically fit, delighted to be working in Vietnam, a free spirit travelling to all sorts of interesting places. Looking back, the great highlight of the trek was the astonishing dream I had in the early hours of April 9th. Sapa Trek: 2002 Monday April 8th - April 10th 3-day, 2-night trek. From Mountain View Hotel in Sapa. Leader: Quen (20, good English, bright, good walker, a little bit cool with me). Started off at 9am, walking with leader and one other person, Chris – American social ... read more

It’s high time I wrote something about the greatest writer who has ever lived. Years ago I wrote about his Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”), and I have mentioned him in my essay on favourite books, but I’ve never gathered together all my thoughts about the man. I like the appellation ‘Willie the Shake’, which I stole from a Joni Mitchell song, ‘Talk to Me’. I also like the Spanish translation of William Shakespeare: ‘Guillermo Agitalanza’, which I came across in Argentina. However, as Juliet said: “What’s in a name?” What matters surely is the body of work which the man has bequeathed to posterity. Let me say straight away that all the speculation about the true authorship of Shakespeare’s plays is of little interest to me. Having read ... read more

Yesterday I read an online review entitled ‘In Defence of Bảo Tàng Dịa Chất, Saigon’s Most Neglected Museum’. I’d never heard of the place. Bảo tàng địa chất means ‘Geological Museum’. The review sets out to refute the brutal review that the museum is given by Trip Advisor: “It is unimaginatively organized. Unless you are very interested in Geology, it is not worth the visit.” However, the review is hardly a ‘defence’ because it does little more than damn with faint praise. Its conclusion reads as follows: “You should go to the Geological Museum if you are a mineral nerd … You should go because, for all its flaws, the museum is unflinchingly earnest, welcoming (with a bit of luck), kind, a little strange and filled with unspecified history. It is Saigon. It is beautiful.” Apart ... read more