[Desktop]
Desktop		........[Peter Greenaway]
Peter Greenaway		...... [The Falls]
The Falls		......Book Titles.


Sandra Lean offers these notes on the books in biography 51


My librarian friend, John L*****, and myself have compiled the following guide to the books displayed in biography 51 of "The Falls".

1. Top row, far left. A stack of Penguin Classics with their characteristic black spines.

2. Top row, second from left; middle row, second from left. The oval colophon in the top left corner identifies these as Puffin titles, Penguin's imprint for children's books.
The book on the top row is 'The Phoenix and the Carpet' (1904) by Edith Nesbit with illustrations by H. R. Millar, a sequel to her "Five Children and It". The book was first published by Puffin in 1959 and has been reprinted many times since. The cover photograph shows a scene from the BBC-TV production (date not known) with four children sitting on a desert island, where they have been transported by a magic carpet. The boy second from the left is holding up the phoenix. Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was a founder member of the Fabian Society, and knew the Webbs, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Eleanor Marx. Given her penchant for birds - among her novels and stories are "The Message of the Dove", "Wings and the Child", and "The Lark" - and that her name conceals the anagrammatic message "I Bid the Nest", it is likely Edith Nesbit was a victim of the VUE.
The second Puffin book is harder to identity as none of the words of the title are distinguishable. The author's Christian name may be either Peter or Paul, although it is unlikely the book featured is Paul Gallico's "The Snow Goose".

3. Top row, third from left. "The UFO Phenomenon" by Johannes von Buttlar. First published in Great Britain 1979 by Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, London. The author studied philosophy and psychology and at the age of twenty-nine was made a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, London. He lives in a small Gothic castle in Bavaria. He is the bestselling author of "Faster than Light", "Journey to Infinity", and "The Dream of Humanity". "The UFO Phenomenon" is described as 'a sensational view of the UFO phenomenon based on authentic sources and secret documents of the CIA and KGB'. There are a large number of acronyms in the index - to list but a few, AMC, APRO, ATIC, CIA, GRU, NASA, NICAP, RAF, UFO - although VUE and FOX are not amongst them.

4. "Flier's" is clearly visible. Is it "The Flier's Handbook"? We will attempt to check this out.

5. Top row, fifth from left. "The Ascent of Man" by Jacob Bronowski, published in 1973. The book accompanied a 13 part BBC-TV documentary of the same name. Niether the book nor the TV series have anything to do with flying or levitation. One of the strongest metaphors in the film and an excellent subject for an undergraduate essay: eg. 'Analyse the use of metaphor in "The Falls" with special reference to "The Ascent of Man"'.

6.. Top row, sixth from left. It appears to have a very long title although we are unable to identify it.

7. Top row, far right. "Johnathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach.

8. Middle row, far left and fourth from left. These should be taken together as they seem to be two titles from a uniform Penguin edition, and hence by an established Penguin author. Our assumption is that the author is (in orange) D. H. Lawrence. Could the book far left be "The White Peacock" and the other "The Phoenix"? Another candidate: Lawrence's "The Woman who Rode Away" which includes a story entitled "Two Birds".

9. Middle row, third left. "The Collector" by John Fowles, 1963. A "paltry" pun on the author's surname.

10. Middle row, far right; bottom row, far right. Again, two books from a Penguin uniform edition. The cover designs are probably photographs, although the parrot resembles one of Edward Lear's many paintings of parrots. We believe the author to be Gerald Durrell, brother of the novelist Lawrence Durrell. The titles which best fit the vague outlines of the words are "Three Singles to Adventure" (the parrot) and "A Zoo in my Luggage" (the owl). The cover to the last book can be understood to contain a Z and three Os. Gerald Durrell (1925-95) was a naturalist, whose many semi-autobiographical titles are centred around his 'family and other animals'. Among his other titles are "Birds, Beasts and Relatives", "The Fantastic Flying Journey", "Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons" and "The Mockery Bird".

11. Bottom row. We cannot identify any of the three to the left of the speaker. Does anyone recognise the man pictured on the far left?

12. Bottom row, to the right of the speaker. "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham, a story concerning another VUE.
In 'Flying over Water' Greenaway says, 'The possible list for examination is long and could include...

The Raven
Kes
The Two-Headed Eagle
Only Angels Have Wings
Caged Birds
Blackbird
Sparrows Can't Sing
Three Days of the Condor
Johnathan Livingstone Seagull
Birdy
The Owl and the Pussycat
Where Eagles Dare
The Yellow Canary
Birdman of Alcatraz
The Four Feathers
The Maltese Falcon'