The free spirit versus the stern editor

Edited and moved to Scribbles and Diversions with a recorded reading of the reflection at Audioboo

Cultural Amnesia by Clive James

How do you define your humanity, your worth and the meaning of the good life? Did the last book you read, the last poem heard, the choir on Classic FM, the last serious piece of reportage in the newspaper make you think, widen the space for thought, help you engage more as a citizen? Did you make a note of the words that hit a spot? Remember to look that book up when next in the library, wonder what that old book of essays would be like you came across in the second hand bookshop. Perhaps as you get older do you see a pattern in what moves you in music, what is good writing and which political ideas increases the possibility of greater freedom of expression and those that close the creative spaces down?

One way to describe this book is to see it as Clive James 40 years exploration to make sense himself, his work and the world around him through works of the well-known, forgotten, cut-short or bogus mainly western intelligentsia. These are over but not confined the past 150 years. He also throws in 20th century film stars, fashion designers, TV broadcasters, jazz musicians and reporters. The format is over 100 individual pen-sketches grouped in alphabetical order of individuals that have aroused his interest with as sentence, comment, or thought and been inked over the years in his journal. From these seeds grows an essay that critically reveals more about the idea or the character or the context but done in his usually witty light foxtrot prose. Knowing that nothing worse then a judgement on writing style not seem here are three extracts.

Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (p.177)

`And above all, I am not interested enough in politics to let them encumber my last days’

On the face of it, Drieu’s valedictory testament was absurd. It was 1944, after the liberation of Paris; he had never made any secret of collaborating with the Nazis; his deeds were done and his time had run out. And his entire personal disaster had been because of his interest in politics. Already resolved to suicide, he was attributing a deficiency to himself in the very area where he had been most obsessed.

Chares De Gaulle (p.258)

After a life of misery, Anne de Gaulle, who had a severe case of Down’s syndrome, died choking in her father’s arms. She was 20 years old. At her funeral, de Gaulle is reputed to have said, “Now she is like the others”. The awful beauty of that remark lies in how it hints at what he had so often felt…For us, that overhear the last gasp of a long agony, there is a additional poignancy of recognising that the Man of Destiny lived every day with an heavenly dispensation he could not control. But to be faced from day to day with a quirk of fate not amenable to human will is sometimes the point of sanity for a man who lives by imposing his personality-the point of salvation, the redeeming weakness.

Miguel De Unamuno (p771)

The eternal, not the modern, is what I love: the modern will be antiquated and grotesque in ten years, when the fashion passes.

The quoted passage makes more sense when we trace what he meant by eternismo, the eternal. He didn’t mean an appeal to transcendental values: he meant attention to the profane reality that is always there. On the same page…he wrote the universal is in the guts of the local and circumscribe, and that the eternal is the guts of the temporal and evanescent … (memo to myself and younger readers: all guesses about tone in a foreign language should be checked with someone who speaks it for a living).

If you have gone… “er never heard of them” then that’s a major theme of this book which examines the fate of those intellectuals and their works in the fall out of the Red and Fascist terrors of the 20th centuries as well as the South American dictatorships. Voices lost as they are swept away to death camps, or corrupted to stay on the right side of the prevailing political winds. Books left as floating corpses as the Saloon life of St Peters, Vienna and Paris sank and burned in the 20’s and 30’s:a tradition with roots in a different form of Jewish prejudice. Another theme is the cant and empty postures by usually left wing intellectuals during the Cold War that would have resulted in a long death in the countries they claim to admire.

I have sympathy with this augment having seen at first hand the middle class student Trotskyites who saw the working class as the ideal except when meeting the wider trade unions membership and ordinary people. Who naturally were seduced by the media to not grasp the wisdom of their leaders in waiting. I was one of those who joined the Communists in the 80’s but had no illusions of what they were doing in Russia and China. I saw the dedication and faith that the little band of activists in wanting to change things by active mobilisation rather then electoral engagement alone. Of course we would have all been the first to vanish in any of the systems that we were assuming the UK to be. But read the book and you don’t see the poverty and lack of opportunity and social justice that creates the Left. I still see politics of changing the agenda more important then the politics of elections and would tackle the illusion of liberal democracy not with the charge that they are not democratic but that they see democracy stopping at the gates of the factory or school. Other notions such as Social Capital and Environmental Justice movements show currents shaking off traditional notions of Electoral Socialism.

These are minor quibbles for what is timely reminder what we are losing in this country with an Education system that fetishes churning out workers and not enabling citizens. Clive James reads many of the books he discusses in their original language, has a lively interest in how films, TV, poetry are creating our cultural life. He can judge and put into context what the writer or performer is offering. Can you? Would you try? See what you lose if you don’t try.

In a conversation on Picasso’s Guernica Matthews asked his students to…look at their inner response…what sound do you hear from the painting?... the room exploded in howls of pain and rage. The door flew open and two students from the hallway stuck their heads in, their expressions resembling the faces in the painting itself.

Said one participant, ‘Suddenly I saw that these art forms were making a claim on me. They were saying, “Wake up! Live your real life.”

Stanfield, R.B. (2000) The Art of Focused Conversation p.2

Sunday Salon: A quiz

Removed to the Blog Dusty-box

50 Book Challenge read and completed from January to Mid September 2008

Removed to the Blog Dusty-box

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

Did The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson change my life, open eyes to a world unlived, sweeten my lips until my last breath, well no. But was it an enjoyable read, fading the world’s troubles ,to refresh for the grind of job, and family-you bet it was. The story is essentially a rewrite of Beauty and the Beast but fellows don’t dismiss it as chick-lit. It’s your turn to say “I'll have what she's having” as it’s also skilfully weaves in comedy and mystery with twists.

The story opens with the unnamed narrator, an adult movie mogul and porn stud high on drugs and liquor crashing and burning in a car accident. To describe the pain and the impact he asks you to put your hand on a live electric element:

And hold it there. Hold it there as the element scorches Dante’s nine rings right into your palm, allowing you to grasp Hell in your hand forever. Let the heat engrave the skin, the muscles the tendons; let it smoulder down to the bone. Wait for the burn to embed itself so far into you that you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to let go of the coil. It won’t be long until the stench of your own burning flesh wafts up, grabbing your nose hairs and refusing to let go, and you smell your body burn.

I want you to keep that hand pressed down for a slow count of sixty. No cheating. One Mis-sis-sip-pi, two Mis-sis-sip-pi, three Mis-sis-sip-pi… At sixty Mis-sis-sip-pi, your hand will have melted so that it now surrounds the element, becoming fused with it. Now rip your flesh free.

The honest story of recovery from severe burn trauma becomes one theme of the novel. He is crippled emotionally by depression and self-loathing rooted an appalling childhood and drug abuse. He fired only by the hope of getting out of the hospital to finish killing himself. A strange woman from the Mental Heath wards in for schizophrenia and bi-polar break down befriends him and he sees her as a way out,

So you ask, what about the mystery element? Well as the recovery progresses she starts telling a myth-story that reveal deeper secrets or madness. It remains ambiguous until the end of the story if this is a supernatural story of eternal love or a natural love of two very screwed up people. Each time you think you have the line it will slip away from you. As light relief you also have a comedy love story about another couple linked to different historical myth/stories. But pay attention, as all the themes and story strands knit together to give you an unexpected ending.

It’s not a hard story to hold in your head as I snatched reading time from travelling around the country meetings in a very busy week. The clever plotting meant that the move between the now and then and between the characters backstories keep you interested and the writing build pictures for your mind to play with, parallels of the now and then from the morality of the narrator, to the role of friends and livelihoods also help to keep the pages turning.

I would highly recommend it, and if you and partner get a copy( it’s the credit crunch so time to share so you have spare) you could cuddle up on a cold evening. Sip wine and read aloud to each other by candle-light (well I would so ask him). It’s cleverly aimed at a broad market so expect the film (once they have sorted out the nude scenes-some hot and some very yuk!) in 2010 with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in the lead roles. You heard it here first!

The Sound of Laughter by Peter Kay

Edited and moved to Random Reading Thoughts

i, Lucifer by Glen Duncan

How can I put this tactfully? If you are a Christian what is the nature of evil for you? Why does a powerful God permit the Holocaust? Well I hear the defence that it’s a consequence of us being given the freedom of choice. Hence the Devil and his hordes serve to tempt us away from the path of righteousness. But think on, in a world in which Good struggles with Evil we turn the terrorist and criminal into something less then human and that’s the path to genocide. Another defence is that God is not all powerful and needs us to make the world and so that love requires that we see the humanity in the paedophile and the holocaust stoker- condemn the sin not the sinner.

If at this stage you are reaching for your copy of 101 ways of dealing with Heretics i, Lucifer by Glen Duncan is not for you.(And if you thought you were getting a 60’s action thriller with Modesty Blaise kicking ass, are you in for a shock.) This book deals with the trials and tribulations of Lucifer as he gains the opportunity to experience human existence by living the life of a suicidal writer (whose soul is on hold in Purgatory) for a month. It’s told in a first person monologue with lots of flashbacks as he writes about the events in the Bible from his perspective for a screenplay.

The writing is funny, cheeky wicked and dark. Here Duncan manages to take a swipe at both the Christian Right and the PC brigade.

…Oh yes we got Mike downstairs. In fact now’s as a good time as any to tell you: if you are gay you go to Hell, Doesn’t matter what else you spend your time doing-painting the Sistine Chapel, for instant-knob jockey? Down you go( Lezzers are borderline; room for manoeuvres if they’ve done social work.) The entire masterpiece fuelled by the stiffened brush softened in the wrong pot. Another superb irony lost on His Lordship. Not a titter. Just consigned Michelangelo to my torturous care. Awful shame, really. (Had you going, didn’t I? Don’t for Heaven’s sake, take everything so seriously all the time. Heaven’s bulging with queer souls. Honestly.)

This is the Lucifer of Milton’s Paradise Lost (ok, yes I was an A’ Level nerd) consumed by Pride, charming, witty and the gift of the gab and yet in constant pain as doing evil hurts. So why does he do it? Well, if an Angel the deal is to sing and praise ** the Lord. If you want freedom of thought and action then you have to step into Evil as being outside of God’s Will as the only way to be “free”. The writing and story seduces to sup with the Devil (ok hands up those who know how Satin, Lucifer and the Devil differ myth-wise...and yes they do) even when we see him abusing his human body with sex and drugs and attempted rape. During the story is becomes clear that his version is not entirely true (yes I was shocked too) and that he is getting sucked into shaping, and being shaped by his Human host’s life. Nor is the offer by God as upfront as first suggested-what I hear God not playing a straight bat, I say it’s not cricket what.

Strangely, a soundtrack album with the same name as the novel was released as Glen Duncan lived in Clerkenwell with Stephen Coates of The Real Tuesday Weld (yes never heard of them either) while writing the novel so the two projects developed together. Even more off the wall is the proposed film version of the book, adapted by David Logan, starring Daniel Craig in the title role and Ewan McGregor as Declan Gunn. Given that the book is an interior monologue by Lucifer on flashback speed dial where we don’t meet the writer host except through the eyes of others, it’s going to be a case of enjoy the film but it ain’t the book!

So do I recommend it as a Book? Yes I do as an entertainingly wicked tongue in cheek comedy with some serious theological/philosophical overtones but only in the way that you can make serious theology out Charlie Brown (and they have!) Oh well, off to get the fire-proof clothing checked for the heretic lynch-mobs and do a bit niceness and love...just in case.

**Is it only me that see’s this account of Lucifer’s fall echoing Tolkien’s The Silmarillion?

“The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1918" by Mark Thompson

I have just finished reading “The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919" by Mark Thompson which is a study of a 1st World War front that is often forgotten but where Italy lost 689, 000 solders( Britain lost 662,000 + 140, 000 reported as missing). That we tend to associate the infantry war with the plains of Flanders and Russia reveals the common myth as this part of the struggle was mountain warfare albeit also with trenches.

The conduct of the war exposed the weak hold of liberal structures and politics on the Italian population and the defeat of victory quickly let in 20 years of fascist government. The collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and take over the successor national states by the communists has made it difficult to get a sense of what really went on: Italians and other non Germanic nationals did fight for the Emperor, many of the feature of Fascism (a puppet parliament, a muzzled press, a romantic nationalism, a militarised state) had their roots on the political conduct of the war.

What made the book an interesting read is that Mark Thomas does more then hold to the historical arc of the events from the turmoil in Italy leading to its ripping up of a long standing agreement to be allied with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary ( It took on a secret 30 pieces of silver territorial deal with the Allies). And ending with the desperate mad dash to occupy land vacated by the collapsing Hapsburg armies-it made the most of the cock-up where as the armistice agreement ended the war one day earlier for Austria-Hungary. What he does is switch the narrative in cinematographic terms from wide/long shots, medium to close-ups as the narrative unfolds. So we take the long view at the ideas affecting Italian practice in politics, art and military such as Romantic Vitalism or the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. Or the impact of how Italian unification actually unfolded. We then have medium shot accounts of how individual battles unfolded from both of the combatant’s perspectives or the power struggles and conduct at military and political levels. And finally the close-up accounts of artists, reporters, and survivors that expose the official accounts or help to explain the mindset of the elites.

It was this rounded and varied explanation that held my attention, as I tended to wander in the step by step of accounts of the battles(my attention span rather then the quality of the writing, although these are necessary to understand the appalling and arrogant way that the soldiers were used. For example, Military discipline justified the ancient Roman practice of randomly killing 1 in 10 solders if the platoon had infringed any rules which could be just turning up late from leave. The fact, with no interest shown in the reason was enough for summary execution. This is because the Italian army leadership took the most extreme view of all the armed forces in the 1st world war that the solders were only cannon fodder to do the will of the supreme commander. An attitude they paid for when Austria-Hungarian forces with direct support of Germany developed a forerunner of Blitzkrieg and took back all the territory fought over in the past three years and swept down to the pre 1866 national boundaries.

The resource imbalance between the foes and the deteriorating political realties for the Central Powers meant that this could not be turned into a knock-out blow. But with Russia out and embroiled in Revolution and no significant Allied victories, the collapse of the Central Powers as Germany struggled to avoid the fate of Austria- Hungary created the German Nazis myth of a stab in the back. It also confirmed the lack of democratic populist support for liberalism.

So why should you read this book? Well it gives you a clear account of one part of the wider First World War front that is only now becoming clear and even possible to study. (Attempts to clear the names of those summarily executed is still politically sensitive in Italy.) But a more important reason is that it offers insights into the conduct of events now. If History has anything to teach, its that we the ordinary people wont get a true picture what our masters have been doing in our name until we are pushing up the daisies.. In knowing what was going on behind closed doors then, we can question what the media, cultural elites, military strategists, politicians are doing now. But of course if you think we have the straight line on the War on Terror, or the credit crunch then give it a miss.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessle

So the novel is brilliant, rubbish or what?

This famous Sufi story sums up the conflict around Marisha Pessl début novel "Special Topics in Calamity Physics":

A judge in a village court had gone on vacation. Nasrudin was asked to be temporary judge for a day. Nasrudin sat on the Judge's chair with a serious face, gazing around the public and ordered the first case be brought-up for hearing.

"You are right," said Nasrudin after hearing one side.

"You are right," he said after hearing the other side.

"But both cannot be right," said a member of public sitting in the audience.

"You are right, too" said Nasrudin.

So is it juvenile rubbish written by a writer who has… a tin ear for prose. There is a page-by-page cascade of dreadful extended metaphors and distractingly inappropriate similes. Or is it the…most flashily erudite first novel since Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. With its pirouettes and cartwheels, its tireless annotations and digressions, it has a similar whiz-kid eagerness to wow the reader.

Plot, Genre and what the F**k is going on

To see which way I sit, let’s start with Plot. The novel is mainly about the senior year of Blue Van Meer at a yuppie private school where her Father teaches political science. She is very bright and heading for being the top of the year on her way to Harvard. Hannah a film professor who bewitches the clever/social elite of the college befriends Blue. They are bitterly opposed to Blue’s presence and this is made plain in her treatment over the year but she is attracted to one of the pack and perhaps its mutual.

And there was Milton, sturdy and grim with a big, cushiony body like someone’s favorite reading chair in need of reupholstering…He was eighteen but looked thirty. His face , cluttered with brown eyes, curly black hair, a swollen mouth, had a curdled handsomeness to it, as if, incredibly, it wasn’t what it’d once been.

But another loves her and she can’t see past him being a jock and nice guy. So here we have the elements for High School satire.

But she and her Father have been on the road, teaching at colleagues and attending schools around America since her mother died when she was five. So part of the energy of the book is the hilarious scatter-gun comedy of them both on the road and the Father’s I-am-so-right about all things views on all things

“Everyone is responsible for the page-turning tempo of his or her Life Story,” Dad said, scratching his jaw thoughtfully, arranging the limp collar of his chambray shirt. “Even if you have your Magnificent Reason, it could still be as dull as Nebraska and that’s no one’s fault but your own. Well, if you feel it’s miles of cornfields, find something to believe in other that yourself, preferably a cause without the stench of hypocrisy, and then charge in to battle…

Combine the High School satire and the need to assess her Father and we have a Coming of Age as the story is written a year after as the Narrator (Blue) reviews the events of the past year and what her future will be. Those readers not comfortable with mixed genres also have to contend with the fact that the novel is also a Mystery. Its stated in the first few pages that Hannah dies, how and under what circumstances is revealed as the story unfolds. After the death about 2/3rds into the story takes an unexpected turn as it shows that, none of the events and main character were, as they seemed.

Does the genre mix work? Yes for me, as I liked the way that each of the genres undermine and reinvigorate each other. It’s like watching a film that combines “Heathers”(High School satire) “The Crying Game” (political intrigue) and “American Graffiti” ( growing up), which would be a mess in the wrong hands. But having a single narrator with Blue’s personality keeps this from unravelling but it may not be for you. As this commenter makes clear... A fizzy fusion of prep-school escapade, Gothic murder mystery and revolutionary intrigue (...) Initially entertaining, such gimmickry swiftly becomes tiresome and, rather than adding depth, detracts from a plot

Structure and Voice reflecting story purpose and shape

The structure of the novel reflects the over earnest academic nature of the narrator and her teenage angst in that its structured around core curriculum reading which means that each chapter is linked to famous, novel, play, political essay or poem such as Moby-Dick, Laughter in the Dark, Othello. Part of the humour of the novel is see what the possible resonance of the quoted title is with the actual events in the chapter. The end chapter, Final Exam sums up the book’s themes in a series of multi-choice questions and should not be read until the end of the book! The introduction like any introduction sets out what is to be discussed and for those that read it after finishing the novel it does but you miss it the first time round!

The narrator is a hot-house intellectual cultivated by her father and never really having the opportunities to have child-child friendships. This is shown in the novel by her excessive quote of references (not real life ones-give an author a break) and of quoting her father (these have the impact of being a commentary on the characters actions and showing her naïveté).This passage describes the silence used by Hannah.

And the wasn’t premeditated, condescending, or forced (see chapter9, “ Get Your Teen to Consider You thee ‘In’ Crowd.” Befriending Your Kids, Howards, 2000)

Obviously being able to simply was a skill supremely underestimated in the Western world. As Dad was found of saying all Winners were in possession of a strident voice, which was successfully producing a country that was insanely loud, so, loud most of the time, no actual meaning could be discerned-‘only nationwide white noise.’

Writing and characterisation: Good or Bad

Well I was carried along by writing tricks of the trade such as the the rich wordplay in which the character gets complexly carried away with metaphors and similes so whole passages come alive with the joy of language.

I had not foreseen the stiff , clapboard manner with which she’d greeted me, the barebones welcome, the whisper of a frown-as if I ‘d been wired for sound all night…


On Friday, March 26th, with the same innocence of the Trojans as they gathered around the strange wooden horse standing at the gate to their city in order to marvel at its craftsmanship, Hannah drove our yellow Rent-me truck into the dirt lot of Sunset Views Encampment and parked in Space 52.

Or as one critic put it...(H)er mesmeric tale, even at its most over-the-top, feels true to the operatic agonies of adolescence.

The three main characters, Blue, her father (Her father in many ways dominates as a character and it will be wonderful to see how they play him in the film surely under discussion) and Hannah stand out and several of the minor characters as well especially the “June Bugs” Blue and her fathers description of the women who get drawn in and dumped when they stop being amusing. The possible weakness is the Bluebloods, the college elite, it is not always clear why they act the way they act. In part this is the muddled perception of Blue and the manipulations Hannah. But they do tend to be used as plot devices and foils for some of the satire rather then being independent characters in their own right. Some concern has been expressed that Blue is not convincing: an intellectual that doesn’t read, getting to the top of the class based on intellectual efforts only etc but lighten up, it’s a satire not an anthropological study.

So what’s the judgement?

So, if you read it, get driven by the energy of the writing to the end and be amazed how much you have been tricked about what was really going on. Enjoy the characters and social satire. It is an impressive debut novel that is fun and funny but it bears no relationship with "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt so ignore that red herring. And ignore comments like...Her exhilarating synthesis of the classic and the modern, frivolity and fate -- Pnin meets The O.C. -- is a poetic act of will. Its good but please it ain’t the second coming or one night alone with your secret desire- you know who I mean.

Oh and of course you too are right.

A reverse Etheree riposte* *

Post moved to Random Short Stories

Holiday from Hell and Books from Heaven

Edited and moved to Scribbles and Diversions with a recorded reading of the reflection at Audioboo

Its Superman by Tom De Haven

You may have read one of the classical myths published by Random House. They invite contemporary writers such Ali Smith or Margaret Atwood to rewrite classical myths with modern concerns and twists. Superman by Tom De Haven is a rewrite of the comic magazine myth of Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Superman. On the face of it, two different projects but dig deeper and they are not. The energy that enables Superman last 70 years and expand into TV, films etc is Myth. The baby that appears in a rocket (Miraculous Birth) who as he grow older discovers his powers (Initiation) which leads to loss of family and community(Withdrawal) as he try and find himself(Trail and Quest) and so on.

But Tom De Haven faces a different additional challenge, in rewriting a modern comic hero, as unlike the Greek myths we have grown up with the story and character. Those of us of a certain age can remember buying Superman comics from paper shops along with The Beano and Eagle long before they were elevated to graphic novels and specialist geek watering holes. Or being amazed at Superman the Movie in the 80’s( of course those of us even more of a certain age can remember the 50’s TV series). It means that you tinker with our childhood memories at your peril.

To do the story justice it has to be driven by the power of Myth but also refreshed so we experience something novel from fare we know in our bones. Does he succeed? Yes, Jumping Jehovah he does with bells on.

The story is set in the 30s and focuses on the politics and society of Depression America including the normalcy of how Afro-Americans were treated. Clark Kent struggles to come to terms with who and what he is and isn’t the sharpest blade in the drawer. Lois Lane is, and in control her life and her men (and the life in her men!) The big city is New York and its corruption where we met Lex Luthor a shining reformer by day and a criminal Mr Big by night. Its how he deals with Superman that seals both their fates and Lois as we discover how the Legend finally begins.

This in fact draws more on the original comic storyline then the later camp versions, thinks of the dark versions of Batman rather then the kowpow 60’s. The focus here as then is more on domestic crime and fascism rather then the weekly super villain. What also makes it work is the writing. We move in and out of the characters seeing their take on things, major characters die and secondary characters move to centre stage so you cant take things for granted. And the style engages:

He watches it-more like glares at it-till the paper bursts in flame, dissolves in to granular soot, and quickly disappears

Same as always. Clark’s eyes are left feeling syrupy, almost liquid like the waterglass his mom would make in summertime to preserve surplus eggs. But the sensation passes in less then a minute. And it’s a small price to pay for such a-

Gift?

For the first time in a week Clark feels the muscles flex up at both ends of his mouth, It’s not much of a smile but for now it will have to do.

He needs to speak to his father

He needs to tell him good-bye

So pick this up, and revisit a retold Myth as ancient in its way as that of the Greeks you won’t be disappointed and this time you don’t have to wait for the film. Highly Recommended.

Beware of God by Shalom Auslander

The rabbi was fed up with his congregation. So, he decided to skip the services on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and instead go play golf. Moses was looking down from heaven and saw the rabbi on the golf course. He naturally reported it to God. Moses suggested God punish the rabbi severely. As he watched, Moses saw the rabbi playing the best game he had ever played! The rabbi got a hole-in-one on the toughest hole on the course. Moses turned to God and asked, "I thought you were going to punish him. Do you call this punishment?!" God replied, "Who can he tell?"

Offended? Puzzled? Then best not to read the rest of this review as Beware of God by Shalom Auslander, a compilation of his short stories, moves you into dark, poignant, bittersweet, mocking stories where God has to kill you in order to keep the books straight, or monkeys suffer suicidal consciousness. In “God is a big Chicken” that what God is and Yankel Morgenstern back from the dead has to tell the truth or live the lie. “Holocaust for the Kids” is a montage of apparent quotes and facts and family comments that show up the horror of the Holocaust.

Some of the common themes are animals with human awareness, God dealing with human dilemmas, humans not understanding how God works (the near death experience is not God saving you but God’s aim being off that day), families struggling and relationships failing. Many of his stories are coloured by his upbringing in a narrow Judaism. As Shalom Auslander says about his highly acclaimed memoir Foreskin Lament, (which if you want to pass my way please feel free).

I was raised in a small ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in New York; picture a madrasa somewhere in Taliban Town, change the head coverings to yarmulkes, switch the Korans for Old Testaments and that’s pretty much it. The book is about my life under the thumb of an abusive, belligerent God, and the long-term emotionally crippling effects the fundamentalism of my youth has had and continues to have upon me. But funny. I suppose it didn’t help that my father on Earth was as abusive as my Father in Heaven. Good times, good times.

Its this self-depreciating, prick pomposity humour that drives these well written stories. Unlike many collections, this has diversity and surprise so it avoids the sameness of style or theme that weakens so many other collections. This is down to the quality and cadence of the writing as well as its humour as in this story when God goes to an Ad Agency.

They did concept testing of a number of preliminary taglines and position statements. Nobody in the focus groups like “The Original and Still the Best”, they were spilt on “The Porsche of Deities” and “Feeling Odd? Try God” met with consistent disapproval. One elderly woman took personal offence with the latter, as she understood the tagline to be suggesting that if she believed in God, she must be odd; a meaningful discussion nearly ensure, and an emergency plate of doughnuts was hurried in.

Highly recommended, oh and readers in the UK could rush down to their local Works as the HB is on sale for only 99p. Let me leave the last word to Shalom.

For general contact, comments, questions, requests, accusations, rants and tirades, email: Jackie@shalomauslander.com Please note that while I try to read all emails, I am quite busy with writing, whining, self-loathing, reading glowing reviews of the work of people other then me, complaining to my shrink, masturbating and intoxicating myself to be able to respond to every one, but I do appreciate them. The positive ones, anyway.

The Speckled People by Hugo Hamilton

Hamilton is a journalist, and a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Then came Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin and featuring detective Pat Coyne. A sequel, Sad Bastard, followed in 1998. The Speckled People came out in 2003 to critical acclaim It is an intensely personal memoir about very a political and public issue; what does language mean for national identity in democracies. His was a childhood of "lederhosen and Aran sweaters, smelling of rough wool and new leather, Irish on top and German below” so uniquely lived through two separate struggles represented by his parents. It is also about homesickness; for a dream Ireland, a lost Germany and a homeland of one’s own.

Hugo’s father wanted an Irish speaking self-sufficient Catholic Ireland. English if spoken by the children resulted in punishments including beating with sticks. He adapted an Irish name that no one could spell and pronounce and refused to answer even his work letters if they failed to write using his English name. Yet he also made toys, read stories and took his family on holiday to West Ireland (much to the amusement of the locals who were tired of the Dublin Intellectuals telling them they were the future when all they wanted was a decent inside toilets and jobs. His nationalism was driven by the shame of a father who had served and died in the British Navy leaving a service pension that funded his university education. He was always on the look out for the next big business deal to make Ireland economically free. But from crosses, toy wagons and tragic Honey they are failures, his only success is the size of his family as it grows year by year. They are the secret weapon to challenge the legacy of Empire.

His mother was a German Catholic, whose father was a conservative opponent of Hitler and whose family were passive resisters throughout the war although one sister was more active in being part of a network of safe houses hiding Jews. She herself as being “people of the head rather then the fist” so eventually rebels against her husband and destroys the canes but otherwise goes along with her husbands dreams and teaches her children German so they becomes fluent in three languages. She also has secrets that unravel as the biography unfolds.

The memoir is not a sentimental Irish story of hope crushed by poverty driven by the drink. The children have a comfortable and warm upbringing drawing on the richness of three culture’s music and literature. But being German meant that the children were bullied and taunted as Nazis and they were at a lost to say where they belonged. What drives the story is the voice of the narrator that uses simple sentences and childlike observations, gradually turning to what he knows and understands, as he grows older and so creating a quiet humorous yet honest account of two flawed humans struggling to make a better life for their children in the very different 50s and 60’s. An sequel called The Sailor in the Wardrobe was published in 2006. Highly recommended.
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Childhood Memories of Libraries

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52 ways of looking at Poem by Ruth Padel

In autumn, I start a creative writing course with the Open University. One of the assignments is to write an 80-line poem. I know you out there who dash off a daily Sonnet or Etheree ( yes I had never heard of it before either-this is what one is and this is one I prepared earlier ) wonder what all the fuss is about.

Well the fuss is that the last poetry I studied was back in 1977-8 when I started but didn’t complete English A’ Level ( I decided that living on a commune where naked women –some hippie idea of moon cycles- gardened was the better option... and dear reader it was!) And frankly apart from the last few weeks, I have not written poetry since the 60’s which was for some Cadburys Chocolate writing competition which I won but then so did the entire class. Clever marketing rather then good writing one suspects.

This is my fourth poem ever written-yes I know but it takes time to learn. Thanks to 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel, I now know that this 50-word poem is a free form (1) syllabic (2) verse with rhythm maintained by the use of enjambment (3) and an underlying 7-5-7 syllabic beat within an irregular 4 stanza form(4). And that it leans to metaphorical expression through the voice of an old woman. See what happens when you read Poetry books.

British readers may recognise Ruth Padel from her long since axed Independence on Sunday poetry section where she published a modern poet’s poem and then explored a way of reading or understanding it. This book pulls together 52 of those articles and introduces the reader to the who and what of modern English Poetry. I hadn't heard of one of the poets(no sniggering in the back please) so the book enabled me to read and catch a flavour of poetry today that… lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

To illustrate what you are missing (and how so much more I have to learn) are two modern sonnets that caught my ear. Read them and then say modern poetry is so elitist and obscure.

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters out hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer-

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisteree.

Carol Anne Duffy (1993)

Quoof

How often have I carried our family word

for the hot water bottle

to a strange bed,

as my father would juggle a red-hot half-brick

in an old sock

to his childhood settle.

I have taken into so many lovely heads

Or laid it between us like a sword.

An hotel room in New York City

with a girl who spoke hardly any English

my hand on her breast

like the smouldering one-off spoor of the yeti

or some other shy beast

that has yet to enter the language.

Paul Muldoon (1983)

(1) meaning no set metre or end rhymes

(2) meaning you count the syllables rather then the stresses

(3) meaning the line or phrase carries over on the next

(4) meaning verses

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An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge) by John O’Farrell

You have a spare summer and fancy writing a book but can’t be bothered with all that creative muse malarky. It’s a bit too soon for the autobiography( still working on doing the X-factor and the Big Brother application and frankly not so hot on the sports front) so what do you do? Well you pop along to the local reference library and sort out a stack of What the Roman’s did for us, Great Kings and Queens of England, Prime Minsters I have known, and write a comic History of Britain for History refusniks. This is what John O’Farrell attempts to do in An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge). As you failed English know ( for Americans and other ex colonial types, local joke so ignore) when we mention Britain we really mean England except if one of you win an Olympic medal so you still have time to fit in one for Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

The question is, does it work as comedy, history or even comedic history? The gold standard is 1066 and All That and frankly, the book struggles in comparison. Both draw on popular memories of what is history and make it the raw material for humour. The historical factoids of the O’Farrell book do make it ideal for a bathroom read as you can dip in and out as nature calls. But the John O’Farrell humour of Blackadderish quips and asides* can grate unlike1066 and All That.**

Well does it work as History? Er…not really. If you had more interesting things to do at school, it does give you a simple overview of English History. If you paid attention then the lack of accuracy (Read the Terry Deary Horrid History series to see how its done properly) or the one-dimensional nature of the account soon irritates. One particular annoying clanger is the myth that the Anglo-Saxons wiped out the Romano-Celtic language and culture. The 0rigins of the British by Stephen Oppenheimer based on genetic evidence show that the SW and Wales, Southern England and the North had separate and long-standing separate waves of settlement. Meaning that the natives that the Romans met in the south were of Germanic origin and hence why so little Celtic influence in place names and English. I could go about his slighting reference to the King James Bible (an attempt to head off the radical puritans translations), his failure to address the social-religious movements of the English Civil War and their impact and don’t get me started on his nonsense of the first World War. Yes, I did pay attention in History and so what if you were more popular in school.

So any redeeming features? It does have several serious asides about the lack of social justice; we the working people rarely get a look in on political and social power until perhaps the English Civil war and then struggled to get universal franchise until 1948(when students having two votes was abolished). But, this was done much better by the classic Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson.

If you do get hold of a copy, pass it on to your teenagers who might at last get a sense what Sir was droning on about. As for you, its raining so get down and write the history that John O’Farrell didn’t write. As for you few Americans still here, read about your own forgotten past in A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn.

Remembering that humour is subjective here are other viewpoints:

* Well researched, very funny book, which was a joy as holiday reading. Frequently laugh-out-loud. Highly enjoyable.

** a book full of silly upper-class-twit jokes. (Haw-haw! What will Master think!) .Anyway, for us who are more prosaically born and raised, this book offers no reward other than insight into the childhood of a frivolous (if Oxonian) class of recently and soon to be dead English aristocracy.

Booking Through Thursday: Olympics

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Weekly Geeks #13

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Sunday Salon: Sunday thoughts

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Underworld by Don DeLillo

Well...The opening chapter was stunning in the way it reads like in you were seeing the action in a film with the camera weaving around the stadium switching from wide shot to close up. It was also clever in setting up the themes and plot lines...the start of the cold war and its impact...loss...and the mystery/holy grail hunt for the baseball.., and waste(of human life and of the environment. This continues when we meet the main character at the end of the cold war and the planes of war being turned into art and start to learn about some major event in their lives some 40 years ago that is going to unwind and make clear the rest of the story. Which it does as you meet his brother, his wife, his partner, his science teachers and then the characters in their lives and so on. They begin to flesh out the political and emotional implications of the cold war and the waste internal and external this represents. Unlike a lot of the critical reviews I did feel that his characters were well sketched.

I did get 2/3s of the way through but the reason for abandoning it was that it didn't emotionally engage me. And the reason for this is that for me it lacked a dramatic drive that pushed me to find out if all the story lines were resolved. Because of this I was "analysing" its processes rather then able to live the story in my imagination. A important factor for this was the(have a stiff drink here!) basis of why it is a highly skilled novel...its Americanness. Getting around the book and knowing what period and location and so being emotionally engaged depended on getting the cultural/social history clues which as a non-American does not have the same resonance.

Here I am thinking of a similar story that was written from the British perspective. It would have a problem of finding a universal sport as cricket, tennis and football have class connotations and the nearest to a game having the 1951 spot was the 1966 world cup which was a very different era. So the British story would have focused on the loss of empire and the political and social changes this required over the same time period. Our crime patten is very different so the mobster angle would have focused on London and the London gangs. We could not have had a Texas Highway mass murder given our gun laws. Our mass murders are more domestic. We would not even had the popular TV stars of the 50's has we were about 10 years behind in TV access.

Hence as the story that is about American experiences and cultural perspective it dramatic weakness means it lost its hold over me. Just to sweeten the pill I moved on to Post Office by Charles Bukowski which is equally American as a British equivalent of this would be Saturday's night, Sunday morning by Alan Sillitoe but which grips from the opening lines as it types into universalise experiences of bad jobs, being screwed over, self hate etc. Its the first I have read of his but now a fan!

The year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

Story of the attempt by Ireland in 1798 to follow in the footsteps of the successful revolutions of the USA and French. The Catholic and Protestant middle classes united to throw out the English aristocracy and create a republic of legally free citizens.

We follow through the eyes of different sections of society- protestant landowners, catholic gentry, English land agents, Irish farmers, landless peasants etc the trigger for the revolt and its tragic course as the revolt is aided by the French.

The weakness of the middle classes, and its reliance on the Irish peasants who want a Celtic Ireland free of all landlords tragically undermine the rebellion with serious consequences. Ireland looses its political independence for an 100 years and its Irish culture. And the failure of the French leaves the way open to the rise of Bonaparte as a key political General looses the ability to counter his rise to power.

Its not a dry historical account or an historical romance. The book uses live action with a range of letters, journals, histories etc to build up the complexity of motives, views of both sides so you the reader are involved as a judge of history to weigh up the whole picture rather then the myths of all sides.

I would recommend it but the different narrative formats require a concentration and can drag in places but if you pursue to the end it comes together in a grand sad ferocious sweep of a maybe moment in history

The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis

Have you stopped worrying about the Cold War and the threat for the end of Humanity? The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis explains why you have and why you were right to worry. It gives an historical overview of the different phrases of the Cold War from its on set in the late 1940’S to its demise in 1989. It develops important ideas such as in an era of total war and destruction then a major war ceases to have any political relevance.

Access to the contemporary records shows time and time again that the political classes in the USA, UK, USSR and China came to similar conclusions when faced with the cultural conflicts of the 60’s , having to be in bed with unnatural allies, etc It also sets out that in the 20-50s it was not clear whose ideas of the state, politics, human rights etc would win. What saved us from the authoritarian states that 1984 fears is that liberal capitalism was able to deliver greater living standards then the controlled economies. Its food for thought what would have happen if the USSR had been able to become the economic powerhouse that communist china is now.

In the 70’s political activities focused on freezing the superpower relationship and the post war settlement as fact of life but in giving a legitimacy to human rights it quicken the demise of communist legitimacy that its economic failures compounded. In the 80’s the smoke and mirrors that kept up the illusion of the USSR superpower finally imploded.

The approach reminds me of the story from china in the 1960's when a senior leader of the communist party was asked what he thought of the success and failures of the French revolution. He replied its too early to say!

The origin of the book was a student's plea that he could update his massive history of the Cold War of the 50s and 60's so it covered the whole period but with fewer words. He succeeds with a well written, informative and at times jaw dropping account of the incompetence of our rulers!

Guns, germs and steel : a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years by Jared M. Diamond

Clear counter argument to assumptions that Western ascendancy is down to genetic advantage. At its simplest the historical decision of who turned right or left when the African Diaspora happen sealed the fate of many peoples. But this is being flippant about a serious issue.

The essential argument is that the availability of domesticatable plants and animals (and the level of benefit for switching from hunting-gathering)affected how early and successfully could food production kick off. A key to the availability and speed of transmission is the axis of the continents. Hence Euroasia with its west-east axis as the longest belt of similar temperature zones so skills and technology can move up and down with relative issue. This is not the case in say the Americas and Africa where the cultural hot-spots where both isolated from each other and lacked access to many of the key plants and animals.

Once food production took off then population increased which if with large scale animal production created a germ base that over time created a level of immunity not created for those societies less dense or with limited animal production. Again if limited transmission then limited immunity is built up. A lot of western conquests were down to having wiping the population out with germs and then importing the crops and animals that would allow for population expansion.
As population increases then the opportunity for technology and idea specialists develops and if ease of transmission then competition between communities/ states drives development. Lack of competition or isolation limited the drive to develop or use the technology. Japanese in the 16th century encountered and then improved the guns of the time but for 200 years withdraw and abandoned the technology that could have had serious consequences for the region. Or the central African tribes that independently discovered Iron and then Steel some 2000 years before the West.

Once he has established his thesis by examining each of the key continents, he explores a range of case studies to test if it can explain the different historical journeys of say China, Africa, and other major non western areas.

I think this is where some of the criticism comes from that the book is repetitive. He tends to do the lecture thing of telling you what he is going to say, say it and the summarizing what he has said. I found it useful as I read it over a number of days on trains, lunch breaks etc to keep the key points clear as they were "tested" with case studies.

The main criticism I would make of the whole argument which makes a lot of sense is that it tends to underplay the importance of social struggle within the constraints of the geographical base. He does mention that the social structure of Japan was a key factor in the isolation but misses that it was the struggle to create a central state and reject the rising Christian mission that drove the policy. Its geographical position enabled this to be a success. Likewise China kept frustrating possible technological or imperial leaps but less down to the whim of the Emperor but because those changes would have challenged the social order. But again I accept this as a policy was only possible because of the successful previous agricultural revolution that created a unified China.

For "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

So You Think You're Human? by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Well known sign of really clever people is that they make the understanding of complex issue easy without resorting to simplification.

This book unpicks and exposes the arguments of trying to say we are not animals( and why we suddenly started to want that this distinction held). For example, if humans are tool-makers, builders, have a learned culture so are animals!

Then it moves on to expose the theories of why humans try to define humanity by excluding other humans on physical criteria. Being, black, big headed but no basis in reality.

He them moves to look at the various attempts at defining humanity by excluding humans according to social criteria. For, example, if they didn't have big ships, guns etc then not civilised so sub-human. (The Japanese beating the S**t out of the Russians in 1905 started to put the boot in that argument!)

Equally trying to argue that as Homo Sapiens we must be the top dog fails in terms of hominids and other animals in general but does throw up the issue that if you include apes etc with the fold humanness then you logically may then start excluding children with severe handicaps or adults in a coma

In the final chapter he explores what is humanness if genetically altered or machine built. The danger of a re-born eugenics is discussed.

His final conclusion is that we need look at humanness as a range of dynamically shifting factors that are historically contingent rather then fixed and he makes a plea for us to live up to our myths of being creative, self-aware, rational. moral etc

The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker

Interesting but odd book! It puts forward a good analysis of the types of stories and their links to the hero/myth cycle. And so with a clear Jungian basis for its psychological insights, then it seems to lurch into a anti 60's rant as to this being the reason for the collapse as it sees of traditional stories. This is due to the rise of ego blocking the purpose of stories which is to transform. An example he gives of this terrible switch is that in Moby Dick the "monster" does not transform the hero and wins so under mines its traditional deep function. Yet Moby Dick as evil is only one interpretation. The white whale has also been seen as a metaphor for the elements of life that are out of our control, or God. The struggle is not about conquering a monster but his vengeance against the whale is analogous to man's struggle against fate and things they can't control. Starbuck, the young first mate of the Pequod is the only sailor to want to work with what is rather then be in pursuit goals that being impossible destroy your humanity. It’s no coincidence that he is a Quaker.

Booker ignores that the myth cycle is not a fixed pattern. And makes the same error in analysis that Freud makes, terms that explain internal processes are not generalisable to external processes. For example, my motives for my behaviour in a group are not the same as understanding how the group behaves. One of the criticisms that Jung had of Freud is that becoming a mature sexual being is not the only psychological goal of the individual. In practice, individuals compete for partners, status and growth as much as organisations can be seen in terms of power, function, shadow etc.

He also falls in to the trap of looking at stories from time x and ignores that many contemporary stories of the time would not had exhibited those features he praises. And then he ignores the stories of this period that do have the features he praises!

Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out by Phillip C. McGraw

Change yourself and change the world. True up to a point and if it gets you out of a poor marriage, bad job etc then go for it. The real test is making the bad marriage work or accepting that’s poor is what you have to settle for as nothing is perfect.

Can’t say I found the book useful. It’s along the line of those programmes that sell your house such as House Doctor. No matter the house the advice is the same. Declutter, think the buyer wants to project themselves into the house, make it light and feel roomy etc. This says be honest with yourself and others. Be authentic. Take responsibility! Never really deals with that failure may because you are not up to it or because you are not going to succeed while in that job with that boss and you cant get another job. Guess for me the question is what do you do when you have to face that life is a f****p some times and no being positive is going to change that?

Oh I should add I Love the show but then I am still suffering withdrawal symptoms from the only national radio agony phone in ( say like in Sleepless in Seattle) with Anna Raeburn which went off the air 10 years ago!

The Bardic Handbook by Kevan Manwaring

One to read if its performance tips you are after. As the author says

...I believe in the power of words to transform, heal and inspire. It is immensely satisfying to communicate what one believes in an eloquent and entertaining way. Taking an audience on a magical journey, creating an enchanting atmosphere, making sacred the air – this is the joy of being a Bard. I love helping people express themselves, hone their talent and shine. I wish there had been a book like this when I started out (it would have improved my learning curve dramatically!) but I think The Bardic Handbook will make the road easier for you. Allow me to share my 15 plus years of experience and expertise, so that you do not have to reinvent the wheel, hit dead-ends or learn the harder way.

To summarise: the overall aim of this book is to empower people to find and use their true voice for the good of all. Its objectives are to:

• offer initiation for the budding Bard
• provide a practical 12 month training programme
• teach the art of storytelling
• teach techniques of poetic inspiration, composition and performance
• develop the power of the memory
• widen understanding of Awen
• develop awareness of the Bardic Tradition
• explore what it means to be a Bard in the 21st Century
• provide resources, such as a reading list, contacts, etc.
• connect with the wider community
• encourage respect for diverse global traditions and cultures
• foster 'mythic literacy' and an understanding of mythic levels in modern life
• act as a catalyst for new Bardic circles and the re-establishing of Bardic Chairs

I have worked with the author and tasted an introduction to his vision and "project". This book helps you to have a clear basis for your storytelling as it did for me