Jem Bloomfield
@jembloomfield
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Academic, writer, Reader in the Church of England. Works on Shakespeare, the Bible, detective fiction, fantasy. (Personal views, not those of any institution)
Joined January 2011
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"Paths in the Snow", my book on Narnia is available for pre-order now (and out next month). It has been tremendous fun to write and research, and I really hope people enjoy it. I've written a bit about it here - shares much appreciated!
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Deeply disappointed to see The Globe posting a poem which calls women bitches and describes with glee seeing fear in their eyes. Whatever the differing views about a play or a historical figure, this can't be the right way.
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I am very fond of tearooms near cathedrals, but I sometimes wonder if there are too many called Vaults or The Arches, and not enough called Oh, Taste and See or The Scone Which the Builders Rejected
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For various reasons I discovered today that the new bag's capacity is twenty-four detective novels and a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape
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'They tell me you're a university lecturer as well' said an elderly lady after service.
'Yes indeed', I smiled vaguely, 'It keeps me out of mischief, you know.'
'Oh I am sorry to hear that'. She pressed my hand sympathetically. 'I do hope you'll find time for some.'
Superb stuff.
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Just seen the phrase "pearl-clutching" online again. What an effective way to signal "I'm excited to have found a group of women whose personal and sexual boundaries we've all agreed don't count."
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How is there not an Austen-themed hair product called OBSTINATE, HEADSTRONG GEL?
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A lovely surprise this morning - my wife found some of the Narnia novels with the Pauline Baynes illustrations in a charity shop
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Absolute admiration at discovering that my son has been eating three breakfasts a day: one at home, one when he first gets to nursery, and one when all the children in his room have arrived and they all sit down together. Little hobbit that he is.
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After revisions, I'm very cheered that Cambridge have accepted the manuscript of "Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction". It'll be out later this year, and it's about... well, the title is fairly descriptive.
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Keep hearing feminism's won and women are in charge. When someone calls me a career boy, a man academic or a male writer, I'll be convinced.
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This is the poem in question, incidentally. To be scrupulous, I may have misunderstood the line about fear in the "terfs'" eyes. I am still depressed they tweeted it
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It has taken me this long to notice that "Dawn Treader" is a "-stapa" compound, so beloved of Anglo-Saxon poets. Grendel is a "march-treader", the Wanderer is an "land-treader", the stag is a "heath-treader", and this is the Dawn-Treader.
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Right, just for the sake of it, a thread of classic detective novels and why I love each of them. Entirely subjective judgement, classic defined how I please, spoilers at a minimum, including a cover does not imply endorsement, feel free to shout out yours, etc.
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Really...? The Oscar Wilde who died in 1900, when the entire number of cars in Britain could be numbered in hundreds? (Never mind my perpetual grumble that one might bother noticing this isn't couched in language Wilde would use...)
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An old picture from about a decade ago, showing how an unknown student filled in a paper feedback form in the English Faculty Library at Oxford
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The new curtains have arrived. They're a bit more "the sound of a lute at dusk" than I had expected, but I shall attempt to live up to them.
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More returning to church means my cassock coming back into use soon. And we all know what that means: the lady at the dry cleaners' pondering for a while and then selecting the price for "ball-gown".
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Delighted to have just signed a contract with
@CambridgeUP
to write "Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction." It'll be one of the "Cambridge Elements in Magic" series.
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"Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction" is out today - and the ebook is FREE for the next fortnight. Do help yourself to a copy via the link below, and any RTs would be much appreciated!
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The pavement outside Gregg's looked like some intricate pigeon ceilidh had taken place.
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It has been a difficult, as well as inspiring, couple of years' training. At several points I thought I wouldn't get through. But it seems that in October I'll be licensed as a lay minister of the Church of England.
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The snowy field by the river looking eerily like an engraving or linocut or something, of a snowy field in England.
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God bless Agatha Christie for describing a character as 'an agreeable young woman in her late thirties'.
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Something deeply grim about seeing male 'feminists' denounce women for being the wrong kind of feminist.
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A frost which tells the age of things - seeing this jolted me into thinking of this post as once living wood, with its own history
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Snowfall, start of Advent, and our local station is quietly ready for any of a dozen children's books to begin
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JOB ALERT: my department is looking for a lecturer in drama, with a specialism in Shakespeare and Early Modern - a permanent research and teaching role. RTs appreciated to catch the eye of those who might need to know!
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Excellent cultural sensitivity going on as I overhear my wife on a Teams meeting reassuring someone that yes, they’ve pronounced Sinéad absolutely correctly, and agreeing that many people find it tricky, before tactfully observing that her name is actually Sheenagh, though.
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It has been a remarkable day. I have sworn an oath of obedience (binding in "all things lawful and honest"), been presented with the Scriptures (NRSV Anglicised, naturally) and wandered round the Minster in light drizzle. I am now a Reader of the Church of England.
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Took a selfie, accidentally formed a magical mystery-investigating duo.
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"Daddy! Look, a No sign. I will read it."
"Great! Er, will you? Because you can't quite..."
"It says NO! There are TRAINS. Do not go NEAR THE STEAM."
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They'll have female actors playing female characters next. This would never have happened in the 1640s.
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Time to roll out an old favourite axiom: 'Public space is not a girlfriend vending machine.'
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Huzzah, the second-hand Narnia set I ordered for my office turned out to be the same edition I remember as a child.
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Saturday morning. Still thrilled that this was published yesterday, and that the cover looks like this.
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Delighted to be signing a contract with
@dlt_books
for "Paths in the Snow: A Literary Journey Through The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". It explores Narnia's literary and spiritual landscape, via the other texts Lewis alludes to. Out for Christmas 2023!
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Basic point, will often need repeating over the next few days: a 'not guilty' verdict for defendant isn't a 'guilty' verdict for the accuser
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"They have rules in reception class, Daddy"
"Oh yes? What are they?"
"Sharing. Listening. Kind hands. And also another rule."
"Yeah? What's..."
"DON'T INTERRUPT WHEN A PERSON IS TALKING AHAHAHAHA I ACTUALLY JUST DID THAT TO YOU"
Couldn't be prouder. Solid shtick.
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So many Pride and Prejudice adaptations, pastiches, rewrites, and not one that focuses on the fact that Kitty seems to have a network of information about regimental movements inside England and is clearly an intelligence agent.
OK, now I’ve said that I’ll probably find it.
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And it gradually becomes clear why so many men on Twitter are supporting Evans - it's not a legal technicality, it's aspirational
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Finished my three months' placement in another parish today - the many highlights included meeting Matilda, majestic pig of the parish
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This Saturday, God willing, I'll be licensed at Southwell Minster, as a Reader in the Church of England. Your prayers would be appreciated. It has all been gloriously strange.
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"Witchcraft and Detective Fiction in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction" - my study is out with Cambridge University Press, and is free for two weeks. Why did Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and others write whodunnits focussed around witchery and magic?
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Now auditioning owls for an exciting seafaring opportunity
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Very cheered to have signed a book contract for ALLUSION IN DETECTIVE FICTION: SHAKESPEARE AND THE BIBLE with the
@PalgraveLit
Crime Files series. This book brings together several of my obsessions to make a bold argument about detective fiction in the twentieth century.
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The idea of churches as "warm banks" is an appealing one, but I think there will be more newly unheated churches this winter. And that dioceses probably need to urgently reroute funds to stop vicarages being similarly unheated. There's a real responsibility towards priests.
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Church of England: We need lay leaders.
Me: *spends about five years in CofE discernment and training, studies, takes oath of obedience to CofE bishop, is licensed to CofE parish, preaches and teaches...*
Church of England: Oh gosh no, not like that.
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Realized too late that this jacket must have been hanging near an open window whilst I was burning all those leaves and branches in the garden yesterday. Am wafting around the university bringing a faint aroma of misty bonfire, like a scented candle called Autumnal Adumbrations
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This is literally the Magna Carta joke from 1066 and All That
Tory MP Nick Fletcher says the Boris Johnson probe wasn’t fair as he should have only been investigated by Tory MPs
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My reasonably-priced shoes have worn out more quickly than I expected. Wondered if it's worth buying the more expensive ones, and even as I had the thought I heard a soft padding and snuffling in the corridor outside, like a pack of Pratchett fans gathering...
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Sayers' The Nine Tailors - Charles Williams loved this, I suspect bcos it's oddly close to his apocalyptic occult thrillers. Wimsey is lost in the fenlands and drawn by the sound of bells. Crimes are discovered at the feasts of the Church year...
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The Church of England Homilies of 1549 include what might be called 'the Twitter mantra'
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Christie on form - the vicar's wife asks why he is unmarried:
"Shall we say," I said, rallying, "that I have never met the right woman?"
"We can say so," said Mrs Dane Calthrop, "but it wouldn't be a very good answer, because so many men have obviously married the wrong woman."
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How have we not adopted the term 'mythandry' to refer to imaginary grievances propagated by MRAs?
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My wife, peering out at the storm: "Might be a few missing in your seminar. If I were a student..."
"You never skipped class in your life!"
"Not true. Once, when it was my birthday, I skipped Friday 9am Biblical Greek, actually."
A terrible warning against marrying bad girls.
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Hadn't noticed before how carefully they frame the parish church behind Wickham in Pride & Prejudice during his long chat with Lizzie. Allegedly the Church was his chosen profession, his fondest wish, his stolen birthright, but he never gives it a glance or a remark...
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It is, as my wife kindly pointed out, such a fine line between “retired vicar in a murder mystery novel” and “Amish”
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My personal solution to the ongoing uncertainty around opening emails with “Dear”, “Hi”, or how far into the chain to abandon them altogether:
This term I shall be adopting “La, sir...”, “Well I must say...” or “I do declare...”
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"Every time I pick up a new Ronald Hutton, I know I'm going to lose favourite myths, simplistic assumptions and enter into a more complex and interesting understanding of the subject. It's like having your cherished assumptions mugged by a very genteel and learned assailant."
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Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise. A drug-smuggling gang is somehow connected with an advertising firm (satire! metaphor!) whilst Peter Wimsey lives his days as a copywriter in an office and his nights as a harlequin who implies he might be Pan and might be a revenant.
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Tonight I'll be on
@BBCRadio3
discussing C.S. Lewis with three much more interesting guests. Freud! Narnia! The place of religion in public culture! The disembodied voice of Anthony Hopkins!
Tonight at 10pm, and then on the BBC's "Arts and Ideas" podcast feed.
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Watching the 1990s Pride and Prejudice, and again struck by the moment when Darcy watches Lizzie dancing with another man - he smoulders, stalks, glares, broods, and ends up in front of an oil painting... of an enormous horse's ass.
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My parents in law sent a picture of a nice church back from their holiday in a fantasy novel
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Tickled to discover that a large number of rings dedicated to Toutatis have been found in Britain, almost all made in the East Midlands.
*swigs mistletoe potion, hikes up big stripey trousers, gazes nervously at sky*
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I'm pretty certain this was my finest achievement this year.
For various reasons I discovered today that the new bag's capacity is twenty-four detective novels and a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape
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So in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prof Kirke is old and retired and in The Magician's Nephew he is young and learning how bad ritual magic is. This leaves unchronicled his middle years. The ones he spent as a librarian in Sunnydale.
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Right, it's the first morning of September, sunny and breezy on campus, and amongst other things I've been walking round the place, considering what kind of murders seem likely this coming academic year
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You have to respect archaeologists who've seen horror movies and yet continue to ply their trade at moments like this
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Just extremely excited to welcome students to our new Narnia campus
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@DrFrancisYoung
And he could still have his own reality show, he'd just have to call it "The Only Way Is My Lord Essex's"
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A new experience for me, to be hospitably received when giving an online paper to a Society, and find the editor of that Society’s journal badmouthing me in the chat stream during the session and then on social media. It seems a tad unprofessional.
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Publication day for "Paths in the Snow: A Literary Journey Through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"! The book has been years in the making, and now it's out in print I can't wait to continue the Narnian conversation. I've written about it here:
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Enormously cheered by story of my nephew last week, and kind teacher checking how he pronounced sounds.
*page turns. Picture of a spider*
"Ooh, look. You know what that is, don't you?"
"Yus. Is chranchler."
"Er, yes! That's right! And what kind of creature is that?"
"Is rakknid."
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*yawns*
"Daddy, are you tired?"
"Yes, a bit, darling."
"You could just have twenty minutes to sleep now, Daddy. "
"Oh that's OK, thanks. I'll sleep at bedtime."
*pause*
"Daddy..."
"Yes, love?"
"Daddy, actually sometimes we are tired even if we don't think we feel tired..."
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What fool decided to call it "Regency Romance" and not "Beau Selector"?
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Dorothy L. Sayers’ Clouds of Witness. In which she rewrites The Hound of the Baskervilles to be about the Cat of the Wimseys, includes a Grimpen Mire which is all about trauma from the trenches, and the plot is based on a misquotation from the apostle Paul
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Tomorrow I'm giving a talk on Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marh. My host has just emailed to say there will be drinks afterwards in the conservatory. Wait a minute, I know how this story goes...
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The delicate situation of not really being able to have a launch party for a book about witchcraft, paganism and detective fiction in the parish church, but being aware that few other local places have as many people quite so interested in those subjects.
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Lovely touch of carving at the chapter house in Southwell Minster - only the canon sitting in this seat can see under the oak leaves to the pigs snuffling for acorns underneath
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And that sounds like the textbook definition of patriarchy: men getting to harrass and terrorise women with a warm glow of moral superiority
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...the bells killed one of Cromwell's men centuries ago. A Biblical flood nearly washes the villagers away. The faces on the angel roof watch everything happen. It's basically folk horror in detective fiction form.
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*extremely just arrived in London voice*
"Oui, c'est magnifique. Mais, ce n'est pas la gare."
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On discovering the touch-activated lamp. And being affronted by it.
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I'm not touching that. I know a portkey when I see one, you don't get me that easily.
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Last RT: incredible that ppl are now willing to celebrate the death of someone bcos that person wouldn't denounce an author they worked with. Genuinely, this stuff did not happen fifteen or twenty years ago. The insistence that "there's no culture war" looks pretty hollow.
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The blossom's really coming off the ornamental cherry trees now. When I was a young and (even more) unbearable literature lecturer I ended a seminar early once so we could all stand in one of the small enclosed quads where two cherry trees and a strong wind made a pink blizzard
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Just seen the word "eglwys" in the logo of The Church in Wales, and what a glorious word.
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Using up "beard stuff" gifts towards winter: hair currently adorned with something made of beeswax and spiced bergamot, with sweet orange oil on the beard. I inhabit the liminal space between a Christingle, mulled wine and a pot of Lady Grey tea.
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The trick is remembering that you don't have a small child holding your hand this morning, and the time to remember that is before you wave to the driver and all the people on the tram.
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There has rarely been a more urgent time for Christians to be vocal about the fact that people like the DUP do not represent us.
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Gloriously framed shot from the 90s Pride and Prejudice, as Darcy stalks moodily through the ballroom, glowering at Lizzie as she dances with other people, and ends up standing heroically, Byronically, smoulderingly, right next to a lavish oil painting of a giant horse's arse...
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Publication day continues - one of the things I'm most proud of about this book is the bit I didn't do - the cover. I am delighted by how it looks like a 1930s railways poster advertising excursions to Lantern Waste
Publication day for "Paths in the Snow: A Literary Journey Through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"! The book has been years in the making, and now it's out in print I can't wait to continue the Narnian conversation. I've written about it here:
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May have accidentally dressed as the spirit of midwinter children's lit again.
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