Bookspot: Was

This is one of the saddest novels I have ever read. No one has a good time, except maybe Bill, and even then I'm not sure.

I'm obsessed with Oz, and via Oz I'm obsessed with fairy tales and children's stories.  Stories written for kids are invariably dark: full of wicked stepmothers, ravenous wolves and toys which come alive at night.  Often this is because these stories are intended to play a role in raising the children, and are important for teaching them safety and reinforcing social norms.  Jack Zipes suggests framing the story of Red Riding-Hood within that of puberty, she strays from the path her mother warned her to keep to and meets a terrifying creature, only to be rescued by the clean-cut woodsman, who will no doubt get a good degree, become and accountant and be a decent father to all the little baby Riding-Hoods.  The wolf on the other hand was probably a no-good high school drop out, he wouldn't treat Red Riding-Hood like the lady she is, and would probably end up wrapping his truck around a tree while sipping from a hip-flask, that is if he weren't just a character and hadn't been horribly cut down by the woodsman next door.

The land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books is not directly like the dark forest off the path.  Baum is keener to make points in his The Wonderful Wizard of Oz about America, about the Gold Standard, or about things not always being as they seem.  Dorothy is in Oz not because she has strayed from the path, but to learn more about family, simple aspirations and the importance home in another setting.  Books have a habit of having a life of one's own, and that's exactly what happened with Oz; this is how the darker elements are allowed to creep in.

To begin at the most familiar point: the 1939 MGM movie.  A simple internet search will dig up a decent amount of dirt about the film: the shenanigans of the Munchkins; the silver paint poisoning the original Tin Man; Margaret Hamilton catching fire, to name a few.  Was picks up on this by allowing Judy Garland herself to be one of the characters.  Judy doesn't get the opportunity to speak plainly often about herself; it's clear that 'Judy Garland' is her own construct, a construct that allows her to get though the day, but her very presence there, the presence of this young woman shoehorned into a child's role, her breasts strapped down to aid the disguise, which allows us a glimpse into the some of the miseries on set and behind the scenes.

Judy is one of three characters we focus on, another is Dorothy herself, the third is Jonathan: a flighty actor who reveals in the first few paragraphs that he is dying.  Jonathan has made his name playing a Mort, a long running killer in a slasher series, but is unable to settle in more high-profile roles, until he is offered a chance to play the Scarecrow in an Oz production.

The 'real' Dorothy Gael described in the book, who goes on to meet L. Frank Baum and inspire his tale, does not have the simple but happy life of enjoyed by her fictional self.  Beyond their shared recognition of Kansas as the greyest of places, there is not much that Dorothies Gael and Gale have in common.  Aunt Em has married beneath herself and Uncle Henry is not the hard-working farmer of the children's story.  Dorothy Gael's life is hard, and I'm not sure after reading Was if the character Baum has done her a kindness or a disservice in rendering her story in a fantasy.  In this case the dark forest beyond the path is much, much darker in real life than it ever could be in Oz. 

The overall effect of reading Was is one of deep sadness, occasionally tinged with touches of magic.  For all the horror she lives through, Dorothy regularly glimpses moments of the fantastic, Judy Garland has her make-up and show lights, and Jonathan on his arrival at Manhattan airport is transfixed by the MAGIC DZ.  Even Bill, who may or may not be happy, is touched by it and longs to have a deeper understanding of the magic, in the way that Jonathan does. 

All of these people, all of these stories intertwined: all because of a little girl in Kansas.  It could be hokey or twee, but I'm glad to say it isn't.  Geoff Ryman will certainly be on my to read more of list, and not just because of the Oz obsession.  Although even at the age of nearly thirty, just the thought of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West sends a shiver down my spine!

The Lovely Bones: not a review, but thoughts.

I don't want to review this film, so I won't.  But here's some of the things I thought about while I was watching it.

Parental relationship

This started off so well, illustrating the changes experienced Abigail by the book she discards in order to make love to Jack.  Take one is a philosophical text whilst in a single College bed; take two, a double bed with a photograph of a baby on the bedside- a novel (I think) is thrown away in the heat of the moment.  By take three an older version of Susie is the subject of the photograph, and the pile of books by the bed are concerned with parenting and nutrition.  This element was what interested me most about the novel: the way that Abigail has to sacrifice her identity as an individual as she assumes her roles as wife and mother.  In the novel this is something Susie discovers by accident as she snaps a photo of her mother without her knowledge; the woman in the developed photo is almost unrecognisable to Susie. 


Marky Mark and his one face

Mark Whalberg wears some excellent shirts in the film, but he only has one expression. He does do concerned father well, but perhaps he could have stretched himself a little further. 

A teenager's view of heaven

Much of the criticism surrounding Sebold's novel concerned the lack of God in her rendering of heaven, similarly the film was also criticised for its CGI-heavy paradise.  Two points: first, the heaven we encounter through Susie is the narrow one.  Wide heaven, potentially the fluffy cloud, angel bedecked place where God lives, comes once you have relinquished your ties to Earth.  This draws me into point two: this is Susie's heaven.

Susie's heaven was far too bright and twee for my liking, but she is a young teenager in the 1970s and I wouldn't have expected anything less.  What I liked were the repeating motifs which tied disparate elements of the story together.  The large coloured ball which appears in the heavenly sky is associated with another girl's heaven; I don't want to give too much away, but this one of those instances where film trumps the written word: the seemingly casual placement of an object on screen which then reappears, forever linking two seemingly unassociated persons or events.  More about motifs later. 

My idea of heaven would include armchairs, novels and a steady supply of tea and biscuits.  Just so you know. 

Recurring motifs and Jackson's style

Hurrah! We're back to the motifs.  I always say that I'm a fan of Peter Jackson, yet I've not really watched a lot of his films, what I suppose I'm saying is that I'm a great fan of Heavenly Creatures.

Heavenly Creatures is a curious mix of macabre murder, an intense teenage friendship and some amazing fantasy worlds.  The film opens with the gruesome murder of  Honora Parker, one of the girls' mother, the audience are in no way shielded from the fact that this was a horrible, pre-mediated attack, but as the plot unfolds, telling how the girls got to this point, the end seems inevitable for poor Honora.  One is unexpectedly sympathetic with the plight of the girls who merely want to be together. 

Their intense relationship includes the creation of fantasy worlds and characters, notably the plasticine kingdom of Borovnia- real in every way, and the ethereal 'Fourth World': a heaven based around their cult of popular opera and film stars. These worlds, and the objects and characters that appear in it, seem innocent, but Honora's fate is sealed when objects from the girls' fantasy begin to appear in the real world and, for them at least, the line between fantasy and reality is irrevocably blurred.  It is one of these items, the pink jewel, which allows them the opportunity to distract her as the fatal blow is delivered.

Both Heavenly Creatures and The Lovely Bones share these repeated fantasy motifs.  The ships in bottles, an important bond between Susie and her father, appear as ice sculptures dashed on heavenly rocks.  The coloured ball, the Mall's gazebo and the charms from her bracelet- giant in heaven- are other such examples.  Jackson shies away from some of the more grisly aspects of Susie's murder, her rape isn't mentioned, but he does not spare the viewer in Heavenly Creatures.  One of the inventive techniques he uses to turn up and tone down the tension is the delicate application of music.  He uses arias, themselves echoes of the girls' Fourth World motifs, to cover periods of silence which are inevitably broken by more discordant sounds and events, this technique is brilliantly employed in the final scenes as Honora is lead to her death. 

Stanley Tucci and his portrait of practiced normality

Tucci's was the stand-out performance of the film, and rightly earned him an Oscar nomination.  His portrayal of George Harvey was one of quiet menace beneath the veneer of normality.  Harvey set alarm clocks to ensure he opened and closed his curtains at appropriate times, his verbal tick of 'okay' kept conversations which must have been an ordeal running smoothly.  Narrating from Heaven, Susie tells us that she didn't notice her killer even though he noticed her- the audience scans the screen, searching for a suspicious character- I didn't see Tucci's character, but poor, innocent, Mr O'Dwyer (about to suffer his own tragedy) gets my glare as he eats his hamburger: staring into the middle distance or staring at Susie?  Good directing. 

Susie didn't notice him and I didn't notice because he blends in, he hides in plain sight.  That is what is most frightening of all: his character can move around freely, take his time disposing of the body, because he seems so dammed normal. 

Grandma Lynn

Cool, smooth, classy and with a generous measure of sass, Grandma Lynn was my favourite character in the novel, and probably in my top ten grandma list- there's an post waiting to be written!  I was pleased when I heard Susan Sarandon would be playing her: I wasn't disappointed.  Fab montage scene as she cleans the house.

Picture: Was ophangen / Hanging out the laundry
Nationaal Archief / Spaarnestad Photo, SFA003003315
Vrouw hangt de was op, gebruikmakend van een hangbakje met wasknijpers, 1965.
That's a dutch lady hanging out her washing on a balcony, Netherlands, 1965.

Bookspot: Filth

After the mild embarrassment of carrying If you Liked School you'll Love Work (pert female buttocks in tight jodhpurs) and The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (bananas and a cartoon chef riding an obscene sausage) around work, the poor wee mouse snared in the trap seemed relatively tame.  The content however, was not.

My sister, incidentally a polis herself, had encouraged me to pick this one up for years, and I'm very glad I did.  Filth is the tale of DS Bruce Robertson of Lothian and Borders Police who is working on the homicide which opens the novel.  The dislocating opening chapter describing the novel from a distorted perspective sets the mood for a novel in which sly and subtle changes of language alter the mood and sense of the events being described.  My love affair with Welsh is really my fascination with his use of language: from the use of Scots, to his games of with reported speech: 'Broooos, Broooos!'.  Changes here are much more delicate than the isolated use of standard English during the court scene in Trainspotting, the unorthodox extra narrator gently moves the focus from 'I' to 'we' towards the end of the novel, characterising Robertson's mental and physical state.

That opening homicide lingers in the plot as a driving device: a black man has been murdered; Robertson and his team are tasked with finding the killer.  This event is incidental to Robertson who is focused (if one can be in his daily state) on what feels to him like a sure promotion to DI and his 'winter week in the 'Dam'.  Robertson is your stereotypical old-school polis: a hard-drinking, coke-snorting, misogynistic womaniser who thinks nothing of abusing his position to proposition prostitutes, the victims of crime and generally, anyone he perceives to be weaker than himself.  Despite this Robertson is able  to outwit 'that dyke Drummond', and the 'silly wee lassies' from the Ethnic Minority Forum but spouting what he terms equal opportunities bullshit.  Additionally he orchestrates several adulterous affairs while his wife attends her sick mother, and excels in his 'wee games' with fellow officers and friends: playing them off against one an other for sport and self-promotion.  The promotion for the Inspectorship is all but his, truly deserved too as Lothian and Borders dismiss the experience he gained while serving with the New South Wales force.  Duly deserved.  Or is it? 

Robertson is the classic unreliable narrator: at the outset we are his captive audience, but by the end we are questioning the truthfulness of his statements.  His grip of control bgins to falter in one particularly interesting way: he lets other people speak.  The extra narrator, well, he can't help that, but he allows Drummond (Drummond! that stupit wee lassie) to tell him (and us) exactly what she thinks of him.  It is these voices from within and without which begin to pull down the facade of Bruce Robertson, revealing deeper layers of the grotesque that we've only had glimpses of before.

It was the use of the grotesque that  fixated me towards the end.  As much as you want to hate Bruce, be disgusted by him, you can't deny the fact that you're absolutely captivated by him.  He's the monster, the sideshow freak: he is everything  we should shy away from.  Yet despite all his flaws, I worried about Bruce as the end of the novel approached, I wanted to extricate him from the mess of his life.  A mess than manifests itself in the powerful, tumultuous end that seemed impossible to imagine in the first chapter.

Not one for the squeamish, bit a gripping read. 

Bookspot: The Shadow of the Wind

I was warned before I even opened it that it was a no good book, probably from the wrong side of town, but I decided to give it a chance because it was a gift from Marsh, and Marsh is rarely wrong about anything, if you don't count rawlplugs.

I don't know anything about the author and my experience of the Spanish literary tradition runs to The House of Bernarda Alba and no further.  I approached and judged this novel purely on its contents: something I've not been able to do for years.  I'm glad I put aside the warning; as a secret, avid reader of crappy thrillers I know that there is nothing better than enjoying something that you think you ought not to.  So, decide for yourself whether it is an entertaining read or just mere literature: they both sit together on my shelves. 

The Shadow of the Wind is the tale of Daniel, a restless ten year-old, inducted into the 'Cemetery of Forgotten Books' (CFB) by his father, partly to distract him from the grief he feels as his deceased mother begins to fade from his memories.  The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, sounds neat, eh?  A bit Indiana Jones-y, fascinating literary treasures-y, possibly even with a minotaur, eh?  Sadly, we don't find out.  I think that the lost library was the hook at attracted Marsh to pick this out for me, and it was certainly what intrigued me enough to pick it up, but almost as soon as it is introduced, the library is packed up and relocated to the stack of secondary locations.  Shame.  But this always happens to me: I yearn for the story that hasn't been told. 

This disappointment aside: the tale gripped me.  As a card carrying member of the CFB Daniel is allow, nay duty bound, to choose a volume from its dusty shelves and guard it with his very life.  He chooses the Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, unknown to Daniel but an author who captures the attention of his father's bibliophile friends.  Having read the novel in my preferred, voracious, stay-up-all-night style, Daniel sets off to find out more about Carax and his novels.  He finds only a charred paper-trail: Carax is presumed dead at an early age in mysterious circumstances, and his entire opus has been acquired, then torched by a mysterious inhuman(e) character named Lain Coubert, a moniker for the Devil in Carax's novel.  The plot develops as the story of Carax and Daniel's own fate become intertwined.

Now as I said: I know nothing.  I enjoyed this as a pleasant book-related yarn.  The characters entertained and occasionally engrossed me, and I felt I was guessing what would happen up to the end.  At times the prose was beautiful: the description of Barcelona in the snow was charming and the dark and rather creepy episode in the Aldaya mansion actually scared me (just a little!).  There was the occasional moment of overhype: 'in seven days I would be dead,' but I felt that this just reflected the character of Carax's novelistic style, and the regular references to melodramatic radio plays (cf. the larger than life Fermin).

I didn't mind the way the lives of the characters danced to and fro together, or the fact that they all had back stories, secret, previous, or even fantastic alter-egos.  But, the conclusion felt too neat for my liking, and a little forced; however, I couldn't suggest better: after 500+ pages and multiple twists, any ending should ought to seem too simple.  I should know, I'm waiting for Lost to finish.

Public lending right: Richard and Judy skew results? (part of import week)

I was very happy to see that Janet and Allan Ahlberg are still in the top ten borrowed books from public libraries in the UK. For those of you not in the know, the Public Lending Right provides a small payment to authors each time their book is borrowed, 6p per loan up to a maximum of around £6.5K I think.

The lending stats for last year saw the top three positions going to the same authors as last year: James Patterson, Jaqueline Wilson and Daisy Meadows; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the most borrowed individual item. I always find it heartening to see so many childrens authors in the top 10, I think it counters the usual news stories of obese children whose fingers are too fat to play their PS3s.

Here are the charts in full:

http://www.plr.uk.com/mediaCentre/mostBorrowedAuthors/mostBorrowedAuthors.htm

The Indy has an interesting article on the value of cooperative writing/ fiction factory farming:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/the-author-of-choice-for-britains-library-borrowers-779792.html

The article of the day for me has to be about Richard and Judy's Book Club recommendations. It seems the good folk of the South are lapping up their chioces, whereas the Northerners content themselves with hot romance and gripping crime yarns. Any article in which Stuart Maconie describes the nation's favourite/ most loathed sofa-sitting couple as "the greatest arbiters of literary taste since F. R. Leavis", is certainly worth a read.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5671940.ece

I used to have Latin seminars in the old kitchens of the original English Faculty building in Cambridge. There used to be a rumour that every creak, rumble, and bump was the ghost of F. R. Leavis turning in his grave about how underappreciated he had been, and, no doubt, how critically unaware the current batch of undergraduates were. If he reads the Times then I expect the English Faculty will be a-creakin' and a-groanin' all morning with the power of this unfortunate uneven juxtaposition. Who needs Richard and Judy when you could have Frank and Queenie, now there's daytime TV I would pay to see.