The Missing Ink, Philip Hensher

I wanted to like this, not least because I bought my mother a hardback copy a while ago because of her interest in all things pen, ink and handwriting. However, after spending most of my time reading it constructing a properly scathing review — if you’re going to complain about someone’s grammar, try not doing so by saying they know “eff-all”; don’t disagree with people just by calling their opinion “crap”; some diversity of vocabulary in general would be nice, you hypocritical snob — I decided I’d just gently put it down. It doesn’t help that I’m very much not the right audience: you can’t get someone to join in a funeral dirge for a lost art of handwriting when they write notes on paper to their grandmother nearly every morning, letters to their mother semi-regularly, keep their accounts in red pen in a book, and own at least a dozen fountain pens.

It doesn’t help that my mother writes and receives several handwritten letters a day, handwrites her diary, and is a moderator at The Fountain Pen Network.

A lot of what he says is true. Typing is taking over; a text may be more convenient than a hand-written note; teachers probably don’t spend a few lessons a week on handwriting. Still, a friend of mine who’s going to be a teacher is carefully trying to improve her handwriting to set a better example; I have two boxes full of letters between me and my partner, me and my parents, me and various friends, etc, etc. I think he’s seeing a confirmation bias: he wants handwriting to be a lost art, so he finds the evidence he’s looking for — and is a snob along the way about grammar and vocabulary, while his is itself pretty woeful.

Plus, if he could’ve avoided snide comments about butch hairstyles and fat girls with “obese handwriting”, I might’ve liked him better.

Rating: 1/5

The Mutilation of the Herms, Debra Hamel

This is a short ebook which summarises the written evidence about a curious event that happened in Athens in 415 BC. It might be tempting to dismiss the mutilated statues of Hermes as a drunken prank, but the people of Athens took it extremely seriously. It’s important to remember that at that time religion was a big part of life; it isn’t just like a gang going round and defacing images of Christ, which seems in poor taste but not (for most people) much of a threat. More like a nuisance. But people were executed for involvement with the mutilation of the Herms, and a related issue involving the Eleusinian Mysteries.

This is more summary of the evidence than analysis, but it’s accessible and (to someone like me who will dip into all sorts of random areas of knowledge, at least) interesting. It’s a mystery that still exercises the minds of classical scholars: why mutilate the Herms? Was it just a prank? Was it a political statement? To me, given the issues with performances of the Eleusinian Mysteries for the uninitiated that were happening at the time, it seems to be linked to a more religious than political kind of unrest, but of course the two were more deeply linked then…

All in all, I suspect Debra Hamel and other classicists are more likely to solve the mystery than people reading a short ebook on it, so perhaps I should keep my opinions to myself. But it is interesting to read about, and this ebook made it accessible for anyone, with plenty of information on where to follow up for those who want to go to the sources or read other analyses.

Rating: 4/5

Crow Country, Mark Cocker

This is a book more about a personal, anecdotal, observational understanding of crows than a scientific one. It tells us, perhaps, as much about Cocker as about the corvids. It’s written in a lyrical sort of way, with plenty of Cocker’s own sense of wonder communicating itself through his breathless and admiring descriptions. I think he’s achieved what he set out to do, in that I want to go out now and find a rookery, watch some jackdaws, learn the differences between all the British corvids and their calls. It goes to show that you don’t just catch people’s interest with exotic birds: that there’s a lot of richness and mystery right under our noses.

I liked that he included references to crows in literature and imagination, the word-of-mouth descriptions of events like a rook’s parliament, etc. He indicates where this does seem likely to be mythical, and likewise where it might be rooted in fact, so that overall you get an image of the bird as we imagine it as well as the real creature.

I wonder if anyone who has read The Dark is Rising can read this book too without thinking about those attacking rooks, the birds of the Dark, and what Cocker would make of them…

Rating: 3/5