A Negro in Leinster House (Take 2)

Review: Words to Shape My Name by Laura McKenna

As promised, here it is. I liked Neil Jordan’s book a lot, but it was only an appetiser for this.

First, though, I have to comment on the blurb. What a load of drivel. If I had trusted the blurb I would never have read the book. It makes it seem like the kind of book read only by women and promises a heroine who “discovers” herself. Fortunately I had read a few reviews which saw past this lame summary and promised a lot more.

This is book that is hidden between the lines in Jordan’s book. This feels more believable. While I think Jordan probably got it right, it felt altogether more rose-tinted and I was left wondering was it a true story. McKenna actually tells the same story but she fills in the details and I believed her. And doesn’t she write well!! It was unputdownable.

Bingeing on Rohmer

Review: Éric Rohmer’s Comédies et Proverbes Cycle

• LA FEMME DE L’AVIATEUR
• LE BEAU MARIAGE
• PAULINE À LA PLAGE
• LES NUITS DE LA PLEINE LUNE
• LE RAYON VERT
• L’AMI DE MON AMIE

Le Rayon Vert

It looked like MUBI was going to remove this cycle from its library so I spent the week bingeing on it. It brought me right back to the 1980’s when I haunted the IFI in Dublin to watch Rohmer, Lelouche, Truffault and countless other French directors good enough to make Hollywood blush.

You either get Rohmer or you don’t. His films are wordy (worthy?), uneventful and very often the characters are annoying. But it’s all so human and frail, it brings out the romantic in me. So I’ve just had a terrific week.

The films in this cycle are each based on a proverb, possibly invented for the film. The most notable among them, in my view, were Le Rayon Vert and La Femme de l’Aviateur, both featuring a depressed and sulky Marie Rivière. In the former, the actors were encouraged to improvise their texts and the result is simply transcendent. Perhaps my favourite scene of all came from an actress in a minor role when Lena (pictured) gives Delphine a masterclass (in at least four languages) on how to chat up two lads. Mesmerizing!!

A Negro in Leinster House

Review: The Ballad of Lord Edward and Citizen Small by Neil Jordan

The Enlightenment. Probably my favourite period in History. Sometimes I think I’d love to have been there to observe it and participate, to be enflamed by the new ideas doing the rounds (in pamphlets that had to be concealed), to fight heroically for The Rights of Man. And then I realise that it would have been just a frightful time to live, unless you were born on the right side of the tracks, and had the wherewithal and the education to indulge in this intellectual experiment. And then, of course, I wonder, if you were born on the right side of the tracks, why would you give up all your privileges? It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. And you start to understand that even those heroic thinkers who set Enlightenment rolling had no conception of how far it would have to roll before anything resembling liberté, égalité or fraternité would materialise or indeed if it ever would.

Neil Jordan’s fabulous book has my head spinning again. It is not heavy and moralistic; rather it is poetic, but it is about Enlightenment. Lord Edward (FitzGerald) is clearly a man ahead of his time, ready to absorb new ideas. It can’t have been easy but you start to understand that a man like him might feel that he had less to lose than, say, his brother who was Duke of Leinster and the sole inheritor (among his 18 siblings) of the estate. The ante was somewhat lower. It seems he got that wrong; he had lots to lose!

Well it’s true that reading this book raised so many emotions in me. But its also true to say that this book is a little gem and Neil Jordan can be easily forgiven for casting it in such a poetic and rose-tinted light. I couldn’t put it down. This is not a biography of Lord Edward, more a glimpse from the wings through the eyes of his negro man-servant Tony Small, whose own story, it turns out, is as extraordinary as his “master’s”. Jordan gets right inside Tony’s skin and even if it’s likely that Tony did not always see his circumstances in such a tolerant light, it is likely that he knew he had been saved from a much more cruel existence by Lord Edward (“call me Ned”) who has many characteristics to be praised when held up against the light of the times.

It’s written by accomplished cinema director Neil Jordan so I was not surprised to discover that the tone and style were very cinematic; short chapter which felt very much like scenes. Jordan writes poetically, with a light touch which made the book very easy to read. I galloped through it.

The Lord Edward he describes is heroic but flawed, full of contradictions. Clearly a modern thinker unfettered by classist views, I was troubled by his constant whoring, using girls from the lower classes while holding up his female peers as untouchables. All in all, the Irish gentry, as portrayed (and I realise I’m reading a novel), come across as a tolerant bunch of people who chat away cordially with their exotic servant while they dress him up as some kind of marionette (see picture), and have him sleep in the stable and travel on the roof of the coach or the open deck of the ship in all weather. Their arrogance in wishing to be address as “My Lord” or “My Lady” and their belief that nobility is a birthright and not a assessment of character make my blood boil. If I have any criticism it is that Jordan raced through the United Irishmen years when Edward had finally risen above those conceits.

The book left me wanting more. As luck would have it, lightning often strikes twice and another novelist took on the same theme at the same time as Jordan, so I will begin reading Words to Shape My Name by Laura McKenna next week. Stand by for a comparative review.

Guilt and Redemption

Review: Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

This is the kind of book you think you must have read already. Everyone has heard about it and it seems to have always been there. My friends agree that it “must have” been on the curriculum when we were finishing school back in the early 1970’s.

Actually, I found myself in unfamiliar territory. I didn’t recognise the story. The writing was heavy going and yet admirable. Conrad, writing in his third language is a wordsmith of the highest order. I found it flowery at times, never easy but … unputdownable.

I’m sure that the modern reader will find much to criticise in a book written in and about colonial times. It is very important to remember, however, that Conrad was very much a man ahead of his times but using the language of the times. He was a humanist and his Heart of Darkness did much to shed light on the abuses of colonialism so I can easily forgive him the vocabulary he uses.

It is, I think, a story about guilt and redemption. Jim, unable to forgive himself for failing to act as he would have wanted to act during an emergency, flees the “civilised” world becomes “Lord” over a forgotten tribe. The structure of the book is very unusual, nearly all of it being in the form of reported speech as the narrator, Marlowe, who in some manner became Jim’s mentor, relates Jim’s story over dinner to a group of gentlemen. As he is rarely present at the events he describes, much of the book is hearsay and was somewhat contrived in my eyes. Nevertheless, it gets a big thumbs up from me as a book deserving of its classic status.

One Steppe Forward, Two Back

Well it seems that, in my nostalgic tour of short favourites, I kept the best for last …

Review: The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

In some imaginary country, bordered to the north by a vast desert, separating it from unnamed hordes of potential invaders, Giovanni Drogo comes of age and signs up for a military career. Posted to Fort Bastiani, he senses almost immediately that he wanted more, and yet …, he yearns for action, honour and heroism.

This is a book about the passage of time and the human tendency to wait for a “cheque in the post”. Time passes, little happens, routine sets in. Already, at only 25 years of age …

Drogo no longer thought of the others, of the comrades who had escaped in time; … he consoled himself with the sight of the officers who shared his exile; it never occurred to him that they might be the weak ones, the ones who had been beaten, the last people to take as an example.

Chapter 22,Page 205

Written on the eve of World War II, it is easy to imagine that Buzzati captured perhaps the mood of the time, the sense of the inevitability of history and the uselessness of trying to swim against the tide.

Most of all though, this is a work of sublime, exquisite writing, the kind of book I read in total awe of a writer who can articulate thought and experiences I have imagined but could never hope to express.

Bookworm

… and next …

If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveller … by Italo Calvino

If on a winter’s night a traveller

outside the town of Malbork

leaning from the steep slope

without fear of wind or vertigo

looks down in the gathering shadow

in a network of lines that enlace

in a network of lines that intersect

on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon

around an empty grave

what story down there awaits its end?

I’m not a great one for reading poetry, but the above reads like one. It’s the chapter headings for the book. Nice, and part of the artistry that is this postmodern work from Italian intellectual Italo Calvino. The following definition which I came across, I’ve forgotten where, aptly describes this work:

Postmodernism seeks to disrupt the grand narrative, and expose the artifice of writing.

Review: I had fond memories of reading this, 30 years ago. It seemed to me that this was a book for bibliophiles, drawing out in detail what it means to us to choose a book and read it. I had forgotten that it is also a very difficult book. Actually, researching it a bit I learned that Calvino later “explained” the structure of the book as springing from his collaboration with some French mathematicians and writers (the Oulipo group) and I have to say it went right over my head. Suffice it to say that the book is experimental. Alternate chapters (titles above) launch us into new and completely different books, and reveal the extraordinary imagination and writing ability of Calvino. The remaining chapters are numbered and speak directly to us and draw us into them. Indeed, the story chapters sometimes speak to us too. I found the numbered chapters increasingly difficult as the book progressed; not a sentiment I remember from my first exploration.

Two writers sprang to mind as I read: My first impression, a new one since I hadn’t come across Butor when I first encountered Calvino, was of stepping into Michel Butor’s La Modification which centres you, The Reader, in the action and is written in the formal second person (vous). The second was Paul Auster who is most striking for his liberal shrinking of ideas for novels into the pages of his novels, showing an extravagance with his ideas which suggests the prospect of writer’s block is one he doesn’t fear.

My conclusion: a landmark book which I remembered for decades as a truly notable work and which drew my taste firmly towards postmodernism, but, a book you need to work with to appreciate.

Exactly what it says on the tin

Review: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

“On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on.” Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Great unforgettable opening lines – see below for another. It must be Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, the man responsible for magical realism. He has a way of sucking you into his stories. Don’t miss this one; it can be consumed in a single sitting. I give it 6 stars out of 5.

What’s left to say? Before writing this, really just to record that I read it [again], I checked out Goodreads. 137k ratings and 6,900 reviews. I doubt I can add anything.

The book does exactly what it says on the cover and yet is completely enigmatic prompting long debate by readers. What is it about: revenge for a deflowering or even a rape? a documentary on the collective guilt of silent neighbours? was the victim even the right target?

When you close this short novella, you know you’ve been privileged to witness some of the finest artistry in literature, told in plain language but capturing the enigma of motivation. Unwilling killers stalk a possibly innocent victim while his neighbours, friendly or indifferent, fail to prevent the tragic and inevitable outcome.

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice”. One Hundred Years of Solitude

Stop Press

Second up …

The Lost Honour of Katerina Blum

(or How violence develops and where it can lead)

by Heinrich Böll

Although an old favourite, I had either never noticed or forgotten this book’s subtitle. All his books carry a political message, and this one no less than the others. KB is an ordinary person who, by an innocent association with a wanted criminal, is maliciously slandered by the tabloid press. It seems that Böll himself had a very poor relationship with the German publisher Springer, so he pulls no punches in his description of press carry-on.

We are in the hands of a Nobel laureate here and he doesn’t let us down. Told in the style of a report, it is sometimes opinionated, sometimes detached, always Böll. The humour is black and caustic. Everybody suffers, including the journalist.

Returning to it after more than 30 years, I was a little disappointed; presumably I’ve become worldly-wise in the interim. Nevertheless, at about 150 pages, it is a very nice introduction to Heinrich Böll.

Poetic Assassination

Book: Child’s Play by David Malouf

In despair at my loss of motivation for reading during this depressing pandemic, I've finally set myself the task of rereading a series of books that I read and loved as a younger adult. The criteria for selection are that they should be short (usually less than 250 pages) and I must have recommended them to friends repeatedly over the years. I have selected:

                      Child's Play by David Malouf
                      The Lost Honour of Katerina Blum by Heinrich Böll
                      If on a Winter's Night a Traveller... by Italo Calvino
                      Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
                      The Tartar Steppes by Dino Buzatti

And so, to the first …

Child’s Play by David Malouf

Somewhere in Italy, in the eighties, a terrorist/anarchist is preparing his mission. He will assassinate a major man-of-letters, an intellectual giant, a philosopher. I imagined, say, someone of the stature of Umberto Eco or Bertrand Russell. Everything is anonymous; we don’t know his cause; his victim is unnamed; the place too. He shares an office with four other conspirators, all sporting pseudonyms, all preparing their own undisclosed attacks. Eventually one of them heads off on her mission and a new one takes her place. Some unnamed organisation is directing all this.

We pass the book inside the head of this assassin. He does his research on the victim, scours photos of the piazza where the attack will be carried out, evaluates his colleagues, never betrays his motives and eventually heads off on his mission.

This is a fabulous portrait of a man blindly going about his mission, questioning everything but the mission itself. The writing is poetic and thoroughly convincing. In rereading it, I was surprised to find that my recommendation to friends was entirely based on the dénouement. Somehow it erased all the rest for me and left me believing it was the only thing recounted in the book. Memory is so deceptive.

Great German Humour

Book: The End of a Mission by Heinrich Böll

Film: Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade

Do you subscribe to the stereotypical view that Germans are humourless? Well you’re wrong!! Try out these two works for intelligent and nuanced world views.

I’ve long been a big fan of Böll’s writing; his Group Portrait with Lady ranking high in my ten best books ever. The End of a Mission is a lesser work, but a fine treat nonetheless. A small-town trial concerning an act which might be described as a mere prank is blown up into a political farce so that he can poke fun at the kind of nonsense endemic in totalitarian regimes. Journalists are distracted into covering a less-embarrassing child murderer case and an out-of-town politician has his spy on hand to keep the case under review and nip any possible scandal in the bud. You, the reader, will immediately see that the charges are of no importance. The pomposity of all the officials is handled with a deft irony by Böll which makes for no belly laughs but wry amusement and the sense of reading the work of a massive intellect.

In the film, Toni Erdmann is the pseudonym (or alter-ego?) of the main protagonist, a retired, divorced music teacher. A clown at heart, he is clearly sad that his business-consultant daughter takes life too seriously; she is working her way up the corporate ladder and selling her soul in the process. He follows her to Bucharest where she has a very important client and succeeds in inserting himself into a number of her encounters with the client, embarrassing her but eventually, I think, breaking through to change her outlook. The film is a very satirical take on the business of consulting and, from my own experience, an accurate one. The comedy is played with great seriousness to amazing effect.