Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud

Posted on | September 10, 2009 | Comments Off

I think the hardest thing for an author to get right is striking the balance between either giving the reader too little information or issues to explore, or too much: prescribing conclusions without leaving time or room to ponder. I can’t quite work out if Hideous Kinky suffers from a dearth of thought provoking material (i.e.- it’s dull), or is actually refreshingly free.

Let’s get this out of the way- Hideous kinky has no plot to speak of. It’s essentially about a mixed up mother of two, now split from husband, trying to escape reality in Morocco. The family is dragged about for a bit on mother’s whim with some disconnected suspense-less adventures, before the fun fades when the older daughter gets toothache, and they decide to head for home. There, rather abruptly, the book ends.

A book this short needn’t have a gripping storyline to be good, though (not least when it’s autobiographical, which, apparently, it is). The Moroccan backdrop and strange characters are possibly enough to hold a book together, provided the characters are deep enough, and the imagery is vivid. So is it?

Hideous Kinky is written as a firsthand account by a 4 year old girl, and as such, its viewpoint is candid and naïve, without the clutter of adulthood or the reflection. It is self-absorbed, but not introspective. As we follow the unnamed girl through Marrakeshi markets and Moroccan hitch-hikes, everything is told straight with child-like perception; strange experiences are explained well, but not as vivdly as you might expect. Definitely apparent is that for a five year old, Moroccan mint tea is no less an oddity than English black tea (and neither takes that much explaining). Certainly her mothers’ antics- religious fervour and ambiguous relationships with a collection of male characters – aren’t covered in any more depth than her mention of her mother applying lipstick on the top floor of a bus. It can’t however be read entirely as a 4 year old’s account-  some of the insight and language is too sophisticated, which looses a bit of its authenticity.

In fact, it’s the lack of detail, as much as the information  which is in the book which is intriguing. But still, I can’t help asking myself; is the mother an enigma even to herself, whose confusion and inadequacy is sub-consciously absorbed and emitted by the child narrator, or is she just a 2-D character? Are the men she liaises with deliberately monochromatic as intentional caricatures, or is it just laziness?

I gather the book is in some way a genuine personal account, which accounts for a lot. Guster once wrote-“ honesty is easy, fiction is where genius lies”. And sometimes with autobiography, the effort required in a book to make it readable isn’t bothered with, because it already should be perfect- it’s true to life. Which doesn’t make for good literature.

I can see, however, how it would inspire a worthwhile film- the mannerisms and shape of the characters which are only implicit in the book can be brought to life, and made explicit in film. It’s difficult to have quite such 2-D characters as there are in the book when they’re played by 3-D actors, which is why even though I’ll only give the book 2 out of ten, I’m still going to bother watching the film.

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Brideshead Revisited

Posted on | July 7, 2009 | Comments Off

If you’ve been to a fairly decent gallery, you will have come across some phenomenal art. Some pieces gloriously revel in the talent of their makers; expressive, accomplished, and admirable. But It’ll be a long time before I’m sticking The Matrydom of Saint Sebastian on my wall at home. A lot of exquisite art is impeccable, but as much as it is faultless, it can also be depressing, bleak and disheartening. Perhaps it takes a genius of his medium to make you appreciate the mastery of his depiction, even when that depiction is saddening, unwanted or pessimistic.

Brideshead Revisited is essentially a book about decay. Its relentless morbidity covers over everything from British colonialism, religion and faith through to Atlantic sea travel. A lot of the focus is on the waning luxuries of the upper class in 1920’s Britain- economic superiority taking with it the last flavours of British colonialism-come-tourism, English architecture and Oxbridge education (as they knew them). But that’s not where it ends.

The sense of decay permeates through literally every avenue of the book- it is predominantly a tale of unravelling relationships and values, played out in a society which doesn’t outlive the novel. But just as Charles’s marriage dies a death and his ambitions for his son are dispensed with the indifference of middle age, so too do the ‘good families’ disappear, the houses he painted in his youth demolished to pay bills, and contacts and friends either written out, or more depressingly, ignored.

What is really disheartening about the book is that this decay is metered out with such casual indifference. Key relationships don’t explode in a ball of fury, they are simply lost to missed appointments or forgetfulness- even the novel doesn’t do the justice of portraying their demise in some cases- we merely snap back to a character twenty years on and their family breakdown is summed up in a few curt sentences. No apocalyptic events herald the world’s demise; instead, the steady persistence underlies the inevitability of it all.

The book is not about mourning though- the opening pages of Charles’s university days show that even the ‘good life’ which dies in the book’s time was never really enjoyed by the people who lived it. Hope that this book is suggestive of a perhaps less materialistic future, or more stable society don’t linger- the book itself is a reminiscence of a soldier running a meaningless chore in a meaningless battle of the second world war. From the outset Waugh affords the reader no hope: timeless inhuman suffering and destruction, as displayed in the second war, is the ultimate endpoint for this story about us humans.

So, having done my best to beat through the novel as quick as possible and put it down, you can imagine at the end I’m not all songs and dance.

But is it possible to admire and appreciate Sebastian’s Matyrdom or the Rape of Europa? Of course it is. That Waugh is able to portray so many characters (the book seems to have dozens) without reverting to caricature, and yet still portray them vividly shows he can’t be a crap writer. ‘Loveable’ isn’t the right word, but even from the second chapter you have a strange affinity for Charles, and an understanding of the other key characters (I hesitate to call them protagonists). Perhaps you need to, in order to fully empathise with their despair.

The worst reason to put down a book is out of boredom. I wanted to put the book down almost non-stop, but because it was ‘good’. Horrifically sad, yes, but good as literature; it ‘worked’. Waugh’s characters and writing are excellent, the novel’s shape, like a dead cushion with no stuffing, only adds to it. I don’t think I helped the situation by reading this on the back of the saccharine and beautiful Clochmerle, but Brideshead has to be respected, as a well written collection of good characters.

I am compelled to appreciate it. But I’ll eat my hat before I ever hang it from my wall.

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn – Ivan Denisovich

Posted on | January 22, 2009 | Comments Off

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about society: we increasingly just train people to do tasks efficiently – an education whose returns are short-term and obvious. We train young people to be efficient, ruthless multi-taskers, ambitious for progression up careers which expose them to responsibilities which are not quite understood. Unfortunately we don’t train them to consider long term sustainability (unless it’s in fashion), ethics or general courtesy. The results are consumer products bought in their millions, the production, consumption and disposal of which have endless, unconsidered, consequence.

We train the graduate to be able to sell products in their millions- to research, prototype, develop, manafacure, market, deliver and sell, (thinking of a job doing this kind of thing?). When did we ever train them to ask “is this sustainable? is this ethical? in 10 years time, what will be the wreckage from the packaging of this foodstuff? what will be the social fallout of this computer game which conditions children to kill?” – and once they’ve asked the question, have we equipped them to deliver an answer?

The answer is: utterly, utterly, no.

I had a job interview this morning- I was asked about my efficiency, my ability to sell, to learn new technologies quickly. I was not asked about ethics. About sustainability. About troubles of conscience I may have encountered when forcing a product, service or decision on an un-witting punter.

Although my background is scientific (I am cheekily writing a book review after having read only about 12 of the things), with this realisation I am forced to expound the merits of an education which may not necessarily be exclusively artistic, but engages with literature and the arts. (Gulp). Here we go.

The Human Condition

Greek tragedies and myths in cartoon pictures taught us nothing of the Greeks’s technology, but it did teach us about the perils of temptation (Sirens, anyone?), the virtues of bravery (Hercules), and everything in between. From this, through Shakespeare’s poetic exhortation to “beware my Lord of Jealousy”, Tolkein’s fantastic explorations of honour, effort and loyalty, and Dostoyevsky’s harsh questions about a world in which babies are fed to wolves (brothers Karamazov), to Huxley’s Brave New World, we are taken in by prose or poetry and forced to ask these questions. Some works are intentionally moralistic, or written to provoke the discussion (Jekyll and Hyde). Others ask us questions more subtlety, as a character portrayal incites our hatred and we ask ourselves why.

But all the way through, we are faced with the curse of every English undergraduate’s wretched education, the human condition.

Not always by design, I might hasten to add. The literary devices of everything from Shakespeare to the Bible are scrutinised far more than any moral enlightenment they might deliver. But nonetheless, there is nought in all human experience; from solidarity to squalor, intoxication to enlightenment, Bolshevism to bravery, which has not been treated by the pen. Exploration of which, if you’re like me and missed out entirely on any kind of historical education- is pure gold.

Perhaps the best bit is, you never realise you’re learning. You go through all your English degree and never twig it’s actually all about life. Or maybe you do. Either way, it’s just about whether it’s a good book or not.

Which brings us onto…

The book

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich did not win Alexander Solzhenitsyn the 1970 nobel prize for literature for its length, its plot turns, or colourful portrayal of a multitude of characters. It won it because of the light it brought upon Stalin’s gulags. It won it for its revelations of the systemic cruelty possible under the organised rule of man. Equally it proclaims the strength of human character, as Ivan goes about his day.

It could not, of course, have done this, if the novel was crap. The simplicity of the story reminds you it is probably more a collection of personal memories, a compressed autobiography. It is candid, readable, interesting, descriptive: all of these things. But never sensationalist, and never self-indulgent. I picked it up, I learned, and enjoyed the process. (Now that never happens in science!).

In summing up what I thought of the book, it’s probably easiest to say that it’s astutely and intelligently written, and deserved to win the prize as a suitable signpost for this book’s importance. And if you read it, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s darn well good enough for you not to begrudge it for winning it either. (Or if you do, suck it up, it was forty years ago).

The verdict

I was given this book at Christmas with a note on the title page from Dobson which read: “Read + Grow”

I have read it. I thoroughly enoyed doing so.

And I have learned: more about history than in all the excuses for history lessons I once had, about ethics (perhaps more than 20 years of church attendance), about character and hope, about politics, about literature and what it can do. I even learned a little about the average day of Ivan Denisovich.

Now, comes the growing part.

(Thanks Dobs).

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Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

Posted on | January 8, 2009 | Comments Off

Everyone in this brave old world (well, my Dad and Mary) raves about the importance of this inter-war philosophical novel. So, never wanting to be left in the shade, I picked it up.

I’d heard that this book was packed with exciting predictions about future technology which had now come true, terrifying incitements of the handbasket the world is going to hell in, and a little bit of a novel to hold it all together. All of these were correct.

I’d also been told that to read it is to love it. And that wasn’t quite true.

It’s important to get straight that this book is written with a purpose: to wag a scornful nostalgic finger at what Huxley saw as the depravity of modern society, and by depicting the depths of  shame it would inevitably bring about, incriminate it. This book, in direct contrast to Elton’s, is very much about the context and the questions it raises. Issues of sexual promiscuity (although, reflecting its era, it doesn’t mention homosexuality or Huxley’s opinions of it), politics and the rise of Bolshevism as well as the English class system, feminism and gender equality (the book doesn’t mention any differences in male and female employment). It’s easy to take for granted how much he predicted has come to bear, especially without a clue of what the 30′s were like (which I don’t).

The beginning of the book is well enough written, but I’m not quite sure what I think of the interweaving of London landmarks and place-names into the story. I guess the idea is to enhance the relevance and plausibility of the story. But the occasional cynical links between current and future are a little too cynical, and I think I just don’t have the right sense of humour for it all. The characters are good, if a little too exaggerated, the constant settings pointing out the downfalls of the progress we are to expect. Use of interweaving dialogues with tiny paragraphs are a nice device and convey the claustraphobic world well. It’s definitely an easy book to read quickly.

Where the book really kicks in is when the Savage turned visitor to the new utopian society sits down to discuss the controller of the new world, and the book’s questions are unavoidably presented- the dispensation of the arts, true science, religion, even struggle, passion and emotion in favour of a drug induced, television addicted utopia, where the able are terribly smug about it, and the unable are not wise enough to know it.

Huxley asks all the right questions- despite an unhealthy dose of cynacism, despiar and general grumpiness he is obviously intelligent and his prescient words beg of you deep questions that are good (if not ‘fun’ to ask).

Which is why I was all the more disappointed when John, the shady character lazily introduced mid-way through as a first generation savage, born of a utopian mother into an uncivilised clan became the focus of the story. Inevitably his nature is equally exaggerated to mirror the modern characters, but the gross asceticism, encyclopedic Shakespeare knowledge and comical chastity make him too removed a character for you to care when he is found hung on the final page.

(Whoops, there should have been a spoiler warning there).

Verdict

Yes, I did get asked those deep questions about society (and would agree this should be required reading for the policy makers of today) and yes, Huxley is a very capable writer. But did he make me love his classic novel? Not quite.

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Ben Elton – The First Casualty

Posted on | January 7, 2009 | Comments Off

Ben Elton gets up to a lot. As well as writing books he’s also an actor, comedian and director, and recently wrote a musical. I picked up The First Casualty not as a result of his pedigree in any of these things. I picked it up because I was bored.

The book opens in a trench amidst the carnage of Ypres, where all flesh is grass, and sets the scene for the outplaying of the novel with the death of a soldier who is unceremoniously drowned in the mud. The book doesn’t do this to make a point of the horrors of war, to depict how callously lives were discarded for the sake of petty pride and 5 yards of worthless mud, but to get down to the business of a good, interesting novel, with adequate doses of suspense, intruige, romance, and everything else a railway station paperback needs. That’s the purpose of this book through and through- and it succeeds. It’s easy to read, it maintains your attention and would happily get you through a train journey or a wait at an airport. Once you’re done it will also prop up a book shelf, mop up coffee, or anything else you’d want from a five quid thriller.

This isn’t a book to keep on your shelves to remind you of the revelations it brought, or to make you look less stupid when the neighbours come round. It’s just an enjoyable read, and that’s why I liked it. End of the matter.

Or is it?

The thing with all literature is that it makes you think. In some way, every book has to- it makes you empathise with characters and consider viewpoints, or educates you of history, culture or geography by neccessity of its context. Elton’s novel is sufficiently well researched, and has sufficient subtlety to make you consider what the Great War was really like. It does this purely to set a good story- but by accident- and only if you wish it- it brings up all the questions of the British class system, the role of the wars in changing gender roles, the transition from empire building to empire buying, and the ethics of war.

Elton’s doesn’t have his protagonist arrested as a conscientious objector to proove some mighty point- rather to serve the plot. But the virtue of literature is there is the chance to ask these questions. The love interest isn’t a feminist on the edge of the line to proove some point about gender roles- those questions are ripe for the picking but never enforced on the reader.

I enjoyed this book twice- once reading it as a distraction and a good way to while away the East coast mainline. And a second time when I stopped to consider, and discuss, the nature of our society, class and gender as affected by the war- in my own time.

Verdict:

Well recommended for a good long train journey. And if you want a book-club book, there’s still plenty to discuss afterward.

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