BOOKS
of more attention.
The festivities take the form of a massive street party. all ofwhich will be covered live on Radio Forth. so you may want to take a radio. The constant flow ofentertainment from 3pm (5pm in North Queensferry) includes helicopters. aerobatics. mass parachute jumps. jugglers. buskers. tightrope walkers. live bands on the backs oftrucks. kite displays (including a teddy bear drop). pipe and drum bands. an army assault course and much more. includingtwo ‘21st-(fentury Simulators‘ made by the local company Leisureforce. which contain interactive video games representing such activities as ski—ing. 'lT driving and flying a jet-fighter.
There will be a sail past of yachts at 6.30pm. accompanied by the 7(l-plus members ofthe Edinburgh Singers. who will also appear later in the proceedings to perform a new choral work. ‘Bridge Over The Forth‘. specially composed for the occasion by conductor Gordon '1‘. Williamson and Brian Eames. Among the live bands are Nova Scotia Dixieland. the Humpff Family. Deaflleights Cajun Aces. the Jiving Lindy Hoppers. We Free Kings. That SwingThang. the Peristalsis Brothers and the Jesse Rae Collective. whose flamboyant frontman will be ‘doing a Phil Collins‘ by performing on both sides ofthe water during the evening. crossing the Firth in full battledress in between.
The climax of the day will be from 8—9. 15pm. during which time a huge fireworks display (which includes. halfway across the bridge. the world‘s largest-ever firework) will be mounted by world-famous pyrotechnicist WilfScott. well known to Edinburgh-dwellers for his Glenlivet shows during the Festival. In a recent press release. Scott reassures us arcaner that the giant banger ‘won‘t be a rat‘. The final official event is at 9pm. when Prince Edward will turn up to light up the bridge by switching on the world‘s largest-ever permanent illuminations. but the party is expected to rage on well into the night.
Things in South Queensferry may be quiet for a while after the ball is over. but a glance at the (.‘hamhers Biographical reveals that we have only twenty-three years to wait until the centenary of Sir William Arrol‘s death. The custodians ofthe Forth Rail Bridge. his finest achievement. should record this in their advance planners.
The Forth Rail Bridge Birthday Party is on Sun 7. starting at 3 pm. Admission is free, but car parking passes are essential for vehicle access. These are available from Tourist Information ( ‘entres, Virgin Records and othersources, price [10 (cycles [5; 4-wheel-drii'e vehicles [25. including special access to Dalmeny Estate). ( ‘redit card hotline: ()3/ 55 7 6969. l’orfurther details, contact the Forth Bridge ( 'entennial ()ffice. (Bl 2296713.
1
l j NON-FICTION
BOOKS
DREAM WORLD
I Living With Dreams Dr Roderick Peters(Andre Deutsch £14.99) ‘()ur culture as a whole has lost sight . . . of the value of dreams.‘ states the author in his introduction. The book is. in some respects. an attempt to redress this imbalance. in that it is extremely accessible to the ‘lay’
reader. but is also firmly immersed in
specifically Jungian thought. The book proceeds from a basic
groundwork of scientific thought on I
sleep patterns(REM/non-REM cycles) to simplified explanations of Jungian terminology. It then explores the various realms of dream-types. Theoretical interpretation is illustrated with recorded dream-experiences. These fascinate on two levels: they illuminate mind-bending concepts (such as ‘Ego’ and ‘Self') and also serve as voyeuristic symbol-juggling for the reader.
This is both the key to the book‘s success and its shortcoming. since it is neither serious academic tome nor shallow coffee-table nonsense. (iiven the middle-of—the-road weighting Dr Peters himself bestows on ‘the simplest ofour natural treasures'. it is a convincingly entertaining starting-point for Jungian dream analysis. (Ann Vin nicom be )
FICTION GARDENER’S WORLD
I The Trouble With Orchids Tim Hulse (Sidgwick & Jackson £12.95) A media satire. it says on the jacket. This story of a newspaper whizz-kid with a burning desire to get into a) television and b) the knickers ofa particularly attractive young lady. carries endorsements of its accuracy from the likes of Paul Morley on the jacket. As a satire on the way meejah folk think (with their genitals) and behave (disgustingly). this being the point of the testicular resonances of the title. it is convincing and an easy. funny read. It is. however. neither desperately telling in the points it makes. nor earth—shatterineg original — you put it down feeling that it owes something to Tom Sharpe stylistically — but this aside. as a first novel it is quite encouraging. (Iain Grant)
MEETING OF MINDS
I Symposium Muriel Spark ((‘onstable £1 1.95) The focus of attention in .S'ymposium is the marriage of William llurley to Margaret Murchie. lie is the son ofa multi-millionairess: she has a mad streak running in the family and an unfortunate knack ofgetting mixed up in other people‘s murders. Another cause for concern is the unorthodox way in which the two
claim to have met: over a display of grapefruits in the fruit section of Marks and .S'pencers.
Some of l lurley‘s smart London friends smell a rat. and they trv to find out more about Murchie at a dinner party which opens and closes Symposium and which governs everything else in the novel. Spark is cocking a snook at her favourite kind of anachronistic aristrocrat. of course. and is hilarious in the process. One of her attractions as a writer is her distance from the text: you never know if the laugh is reallv on the characters. or the readers. ' (Miranda France)
THE LION ROARS
I Lion Mountain Mustapha 'l‘lili (Little. Brown £12.95) This. the fourth novel by Mustapha Tlili. is the first to be translated into English from its original French. and is set in a small unnamed village in an unnamed state in northern Africa. The narrator describes a cataclysmic confrontation between ancient beliefs and the forces of modernisation. and in so doing composes a sad. serene lament for lost innocence and certainty. lle imprints on page. and mind. colours — the ochre. green and white of village and mosque. a blood red and gold desert sunset — flavours. perfumes. shapes and warmth. for this is a final leave-taking and the memory must last forever.
POWELL AND THE GLORY
The publication in 1985 of the first volume of Michael Powell‘s autobiography, A Life In Movies, was just one of the events in the past decade that helped rescue the tilmaker’s reputation from its previous rather unkempt state to the peak of reverence it had reached when he died, at the age of 85, earlier this year. In 1960 one newspaper pundit had requested that Powell’s most controversial film, Peeping Tom, be flushed down the nearest toilet, but more recent serious critical reassessment and an extensive reissue programme, now regards the Powell canon (especially the 403 series of collaborations with writer Emeric Pressburger including The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death) as the British cinema's supreme romantic achievement.
The restoration of his first major work as director then becomes something of an event, especially when it is accompanied by the book Powell wrote about the gestation and shooting of the project. The film, Edge of The World, first released in 1937, wove a fictional love story around the events of the evacuation of St Kilda. Powell's account was the first indication of his absorbing, highly detailed and anecdotal style of writing. Initially rather briefly issued underthe title
, “ HEDGEOF . -155 WQRLD
The making or i! film
Michael Powell
20,000 Feet on Foula, Faber have now republished it underthe original film title Edge of The World.
The director’s widow Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, herself a distinguished editor and winner of an Oscar for her work on regular associate Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull in 1980, visited Edinburgh recently for a special screening of Edge of The World and recalled how her late husband ‘had been pushing for years to get the book
out again and was terribly pleased when he knew it was going to happen. Although it was very important for him as his first personal piece, the film wasn’t so much of a success at the time, so he wrote the chronicle to keep his little dream alive.‘
Powell was later to shoot 1945's mesmerising I Know Where I‘m Going in Scotland, both Edge of The World's stirring location footage and the vivid prose of the accompanying book, are evidence of this quintessential Englishman's great love and knowledge of the country. ‘He would have loved to have lived here,’ concurs Thelma. ‘That's what we dreamed of doing when he finally finished the second volume of his autobiography. His eyesight was fading so be dictated and I typed, but for Michael to admit that anything was wrong with him was totally impossible, which was one of the great things about him.‘
‘Despite all the disappointments of the later years, all the projects that didn‘t happen, he never became bitter. He was very pleased but not stunned when all the restorations and reissues started happening. I guess he felt that the pendulum had swung back at last. He loved life right up to the last second. Maybe that’s what helped him survive it.‘ (TrevorJohnston)
Edge Of The World by Michael Powell is published by Faber in paperback at £6.99.
86'l‘he1.is12r\' September — ll()ctober199ll