Cathy Haynes on upbeat culture

A friend – a singer – recently told me that in her experience it is much harder to compose in the major key than the minor. The minor harmonies are the tear-jerkers and the hair-raisers. Bang out a few of those with panache, she said, and you can pack a compelling emotional punch. To create convincing emotional content in the major key is more creatively challenging, she concluded. I asked her for a powerful work in a major key. She obliged by singing Holiday by Madonna. Surely, I complained, there’s a better one out there. She winked at me silently with a sage-like smile as if to say, go seek. So I knocked on the doors of two authors I know. They commiserated with my quest and described how difficult they have both found it to write a novel on happiness, let alone find a publisher. And we took a moment to think of a truly joyful, uplifting novel that doesn’t seem too thin, insincere or politically insidious. About all we could muster is HE Bates’ Darling Buds of May series. It appears it’s hard to find fine novels untrammelled by the darker stuff. And yet, sometimes more than anything, we need the genuinely uplifting, inspiring and hopeful. As a small part of the exploration of our potential for creativity and enjoyment on The School of Life's Play course, this is one of the questions we consider: where can we seek our sheer enjoyment -- as well as fascination, empathy, inspiration and solace -- in culture of all kinds.

Cathy Haynes will be teaching the next Play course at The School of Life starting on 21st April. Come with a friend and you'll both get £50 off the ticket price. Find out more here.

Picture shows a recent installation by artist Olafur Eliasson.

Comments

[m]

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
I capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Egg and I - Betty MacDonald

[Lorna]

I was very critical of the gloomy choices set for teenage reading by schools until I tried myself to come up with alternatives. I did, however, create some sort of a list:
The novels of Jane Austen
Many of Shakespeare's comedies
Three Men in a Boat
The books of P G Wodehouse
The Importance of Being Earnest
David Copperfield by Dickens is dark in early parts but ultimately very uplifting
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
And don't forget 'The Wind in the Willows'