I find it harder to agree with his dogged defence of Dickens in the face of the charges of anti-Semitism which have been, inevitably, levelled against the Victorian writer as a result of his ‘Jewish’ villain. Why did he make Fagin Jewish? Faulks argues that Dickens gives Fagin no characteristics that we would associate with Jewish stereotypes, negative or otherwise. Fagin is not characterised with reference to religious or cultural observance. The label “Jew” is therefore just that, a useful identifier which adds a little colour.

You could look at this in a rather different light. Shakespeare set the bar with Shylock, and the stereotype endured. Dickens only needs to state that his villain is Jewish and anything further is redundant. His readers would be perfectly capable of providing the subtext, and more than just ‘a little colour.’ An assumption of this kind pertaining to the readership would not make Dickens anti-semitic. But a willingness to perpetuate the slander might. Or is it an example of art practiced at the expense of compassion and good-sense? Oliver Twist was his second novel and Dickens was still finding his way, perhaps in terms of both philanthropy and writing.

But I wasn’t intending a fight so much as a skirmish. Faulks has some wonderful insights into Dickens and arguing with him is a joy.

‘At other times, it seems that Dickens is forcing himself to make Fagin appear even more villainous than he naturally is. “It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad [...] The hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness [...] crawling forth by night in search of some rich offal for a meal.” It is not just a sense of anti-Semitism that makes this passage troubling, but the feeling that the novelist-as-controller is forcing a predetermined shape on a living character. We almost dare to feel that we know Fagin better than Dickens does.’

I would be foolish to take issue with Faulks on the technical aspects of writing, but there may be an argument for analysing the subjective effect on the reader. In spite of Dickens’ best efforts there is ultimately something extraordinarily pitiful about the character of Fagin. Perhaps because of Dickens’ best efforts. ‘Knowing Fagin better than Dickens’ is not a phenomenon that troubles me at all, au contraire. I am filled with admiration for an author who gives the appearance of having lost control of his own creation, and a part of my sympathy surely derives from the impression that the author is unfair. (I use ‘author’ advisedly. Not usually sensitive to the presence of both author and narrator, the impression of narrator as author’s creature is here very pronounced. Which may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly gets my attention.)

It’s almost impossible to put into words, and I don’t even want to get started on ‘intentionality,’ but the subtlety! Fagin is, of course, a very bad man, but Dickens blackens him to the extent that it becomes unbelievable. By rights this should tend to discredit character and author both, but the balance is exquisitely judged, allowing a glimpse of a transcendent Fagin who is better than the author knows.

Seven novels, one novella, and a short story into Dickens’ oeuvre, Fagin, who was one of my first Dickens’ characters, continues to fascinate me as much as he has Faulks and, anecdotally, as he fascinated Dickens himself.

Infinite Zombies proudly present: Gravity’s Rainbow.

So. Any one up for a behemoth?

This would not be my first attempt at a read-along of Gravity’s Rainbow, and to the Pynchon purist I can only apologise. My motives are compounded ten percent optimism and ninety percent bloody-mindedness, and Pynchon for Pynchon’s sake is lost somewhere in the mix. The optimism dervies from Zombies driven success with the three titles listed at the top of this post. The bloody-mindedness? Well, that’s just me.

Daryl proposes the first eighty pages and a first post for 27th Feb, so if that sounds like a good time for you and you fit one of the two pertinent categories; Pynchon enthusiast or reader with masochistic tendencies; then clear twelve weeks in your diary and head over to Infinite Zombies to sign up.

I once picked up an According to Spike Milligan. The subsequent strong urge to wash my hands, repeatedly, was almost irresistible. Should anyone be so rash as to emulate my careless action I suggest protective gloves at the very least, preferably a full hazmat suit. Introducing profanity, reproductive parts and lavatorial reference does not a pastiche or piss-take make.

But to Faulks. Faulks may insert those things without fear of reproof because he is true to the style of his target, and allows that to dictate what may or may not be said. And in so far as he covers writers with whom I am familiar, he never misses his shot. When Martin Amis sends his lad to Hogwarts and Samuel Pepys still loves London life profanity and body parts are par for the course. And then there is Chaucer. This is how Faulks, perfectly innocently, slips in a frowned upon word:

“Geoffrey Chaucer
celebrates the appointment of Geri Halliwell to be UN ambassador on AIDS education to Africa

Gat-toothed was she, hir legs were like a
Longbow set to fire, and in her eyes a gleme
That any sturdy wight might rue. In piercing
tone
She shrieked with other gentil damosels
In minstrel troupe; and yet full serious was she,
Well learned in high diplomacie, and to
Confound the folk who doubted her intent
Gan pullen up hir smok, and ‘Lok,’ cried
She,”I have the Union flag upon mine queynte.”

Faulks’ parodies are inspired by the Radio 4 panel game The Write Stuff and I am amused by the idea of sneaking that word past stodgy BBC execs, but I don’t suppose for one moment that it featured in the original programme. In any case it is inconceivable that the quaint archaic usage could give offence: isn’t it? The target of this particular pastiche may be less the model than modernity.

An interesting reflection, perhaps, but for sheer laugh-out-loud-ability there are better candidates. And an associated danger of extensive quoting, with serious breach of copyright implications. Some pieces do work better than others, and it helps to have a familiarity with the author being sent up. My personal favourites: James Joyce makes a best man’s speech, Henry James attempts a stand-up joke and William Shakespeare writes a speech for Basil Fawlty.

Most of the comedy derives from the gentle mockery implicit in exaggerating tics of style and tone, but Faulks occasionally capitalises on renowned catch-phrases with some of the most execrable puns known to man. And still I laughed. This Faulks is possessed of a rare talent.

There is a lot of serious Faulks in there too. By a happy coincidence I was reading Faulks on Fiction in parallel, and many of the writers he lampoons are identifiable as those he holds in high regard. With the possible exception of Dan Brown visits the cash dispenser.

The world-renowned author stabbed his dagger-like debit card into the slot. “Welcome to Nat-West,” barked the blushing grey light of the screen to the forty-two-year-old man. He had only two thoughts.

NatWest is a perfect heptogram.

I have a tiny suspicion that we might be laughing at Dan Brown and not with him…

Faulks also takes the opportunity to sneak in one of his pet hobby-horses. He is not a big fan of biographical reductionism, hence Hilaria Holmroyd offers an exclusive extract from her new literary biography

Having discredited Enid Blyton’s canary as the real life source for a fictional bird, only one explanation is possible:

‘There remains the, admittedly remote, possibility that the character of the budgerigar was in some way “invented.” ‘

Weighing in at only one hundred pages Faulks exhibits perfect comic timing.

The protagonist Adolphe will bring his passion to bear on an older woman, causing a love in her which he cannot match in either intensity or longevity. Early in the novel Adolphe makes several statements which suggest an intellect which exceeds his capacity for feeling, a principled disregard for dogma, be it social or religious, and a contempt for the unwitting hypocrisy of those who attempt to accommodate their failings within convention.

‘So when I heard stupid people holding forth complacently about established and incontrovertible principles of morality, behaviour, and religion (which people of that type usually put in the same class), I felt moved to contradict them, not that I would necessarily have held opposite views myself, but because such ponderous, unshakeable convictions exasperated me.’

Fools keep their moral code in a compact and indivisible whole so that it may interfere as little as possible with their actions and leave them their freedom in all matters of detail.

Adolphe’s experiments with social conventions rebound, conspiring to tie him into a situation not ideally suited to his temperament. Social conventions may be weighed and balanced, but the outright flaunting of such comes with a price.

Adolphe cannot love Ellenore but the pain this causes her awakens his pity, sapping his strength to leave her. Thus the unhappy cycle propagates. In a novel of this kind there is only one possible ending, but the strength of the narrative lies in the convincing depiction of Adolphe’s psychology, which is shown most tellingly through Ellenore’s final communication:

‘What misguided pity makes you afraid to break a tie you find irksome and yet go on torturing the unhappy soul you remain with because of that pity? [...] What is your demand? That I should leave you? Don’t you see that I have not the strength? Ah, it is you, who do not love me, you who must find the strength in a heart that is weary of me and that so much love cannot touch.’

The whole is enclosed within a framing device of letters which allows some discourse on the content, and gives the author a further opportunity to drive his moral home.

‘If it has any instructive lesson, that lesson is for men, for it shows that intellect, which they are so proud of, can neither find happiness nor bestow it; that character, steadfastness, fidelity and kindness are the gifts we should pray for, and by kindness I do not mean that short-lived pity which cannot overcome impatience nor prevent it from reopening wounds which a moment of compunction had appeared to heal.’

“[...] above all communicated in plain English”

“Mullan is willing to go where other academics do not usually deign to tread”

It is also worth noting that the book is drawn from articles originally written for his column in The Guardian, although “completely rewritten”. Mullan has rearranged articles by topic where they were originally ordered by novel. Finally, it is perhaps significant that he acknowledges his wife’s recommendations of fictional examples* which, she will, he says, find “masquerading as [his] own.”

I don’t know if my slightly negative reaction to this book is coming across yet, but yes, I did have some problems with it. Critics seem oddly liable to attract the rough side of my critical tongue. Which is not so much irony as justice, really.

Mullan addresses the basics comprehensively. Some topics seem too basic to merit such attention, others are never developed beyond basic. Even so, some interesting points are made and I was able to learn a little, although there are barriers to pleasant assimilation.

Mullan’s original format (novel-led) would have required a synopsis for each novel. These synopsi are sometimes awkwardly, even superfluously, inserted into the new topical order of things. In places the reintroduction of a novel causes Mullan to rehash parts of the synopsis. The result is clumsy, repetitive and, I regret to say, touching on the tedious.

The emphasis on the novel is so pronounced that some of the concepts Mullan introduces are explained only in terms of the examples he finds in literature, where a generalisation is needed.

Despite the ‘plain english’ the book isn’t always easy to read. Mullan quotes generously (a good thing) but intersperses shorter quotes with paraphrasing in the main body of his text (a bad thing.)

Mullan chooses books which he believes are widely read across book groups (this is his target audience) and although he uses canonical texts for contrast the greater proportion of his choices are contemporary mainstream. One of the surprising effects of this book was its lack of effect. A book of this kind should add a wealth of material to the TBR, but Mullan did not manifest much enthusiasm for the titles he examined (see asterisk above) nor, indeed, did he admit of a love of reading. This effect was amplified by his frequent references to “readers,” whom he somehow imbues with a sense of otherness. I do not know how Mullan perceives himself, but apparently it is as nothing so plebian as a ‘reader.’ A Professor of English he is justified in setting himself above the herd, but whether he is wise to do so within the confines of a commercial venture is another matter entirely. (Compare with the ridiculously well qualified Umberto Eco who remains affable and uncondescending even when spouting rarefied erudition of which I comprehend roughly one word in five.)

At this point, as I was comparing Mullan unfavourably with Eco, James Wood, and yes, even John Sutherland, I began to suspect that some of the fault may lie with the reader. Specifically, this reader. Seeking… what? Enlightenment or affirmation? Instruction or flattery? This impulse of generosity and self-castigation was fleeting at best, swiftly dislodged by the gleeful deployment of the punitive post-it.

Literariness: it is a clumsy word, but a useful way in which novels display their attachment to other works of literature. [...] In academic discussion, the commonest word for this has, for some time, been ‘intertextuality,’ [...]

“Literariness?” Why?! What is wrong with the perfectly intuitive “intertextuality?”

Faint praise for AS Byatt:

Her pastiches are emphatically not wonderful poetry, yet display considerable technical skill (how many academic critics could produce such things?)[...]

Indeed.

And why “so-called literary fiction?” This term appears from time to time, always with some species of supercillious overlay. Is it a useful term or is it not?

Simplistic:

“A simile might promise to let us see something more clearly, but it also diverts us from what is being described.”

Or it might focus us on the mundane which we would otherwise pass over unnoticed?

I will desist before I completely destroy my own credibility as an objective observer.

On the other side of the equation Mullan does provide a workable overview of heteroglossia, which is a hell of a word to keep straight in one’s head, and a pithy summing up of pastiche:

‘For pastiche means mimicry that we enjoy without being fooled.’

I feel that I may have been a bit hard on Mullan and, while I did not particularly enjoy working through the novel in his company, the book does come with a serviceable index. It may yet come into its own as a work of (selective) reference.

His writing I admire, but as a character in Dunmore’s barely biographical novel he amounts to a weak sub-plot and a denouement in which credibility is twisted into travesty in order to capitalise on Lawrencian history.

Zennor in Darkness is set in coastal Cornwall during the First World War, circa 1917. The protagonist is Clare, half-Cornish, half-gentry. Young men are being conscripted, and killed, and feelings run high. For Lawrence, a stranger with a German wife, times are bad for any number of reasons.

Dunmore is ambitious in her themes. War brings out bad things in essentially good people. War destroys its own agents. Conflict of innocence and experience, contrasted through sex and war. ‘Otherness’ is found in many characters.

These themes are awkwardly realised, where realised at all. The main difficulty with this novel lies in Dunmore’s roving eye, a point of view which skitters erratically from character to character. Not even Lawrence is exempt from this authorial invasion and, horribly, his language inhabits roughly the same register as every other character, give or take an occasional token word which may point at station or ambition. (Clare is heard on one occasion to use the word ‘subcutaneous,’ presumably so that we may infer her superior upbringing and education.) Differentiation between individual perception is not marked to any great degree, and characterisation suffers as a result. My personal feeling is that if a voice is to be given to Lawrence then it should be an extraordinary voice. In default of this the Lawrence presence can only disappoint. A fictional writer would have had more credibility.

Dunmore’s indiscriminate use of direct free discourse is technically clunky; particularly when she occupies a multiple consciousness, jars from one character to the next or, worse, occupies a mind within a mind. Confused? I was. And not in a good way.

Amongst Clare’s extended family we are less privileged with easy access to internal monologue. Consequently these relationships are more real, more alive, because the author permits us to fill in the blanks through our own empathic extrapolations. The minor characters take on a life of their own where the main cast do not.

In attempting to portray shell-shock Dunmore sets herself a difficult challenge, and the character of John William is insufficiently developed to make his fate seem more than a plot device. Append a pregnancy resulting from loss of virginity (yes, just the one time) and my patience with the story is wearing thin, but things are about to get worse. The Lawrences were ignominiously banished from Cornwall in 1917 and it is to facilitate this historical event that Clare’s father is required to ignore the evidence of his own eyes and draw erroneous conclusions from the flimsiest of circumstances.

Did I mention that the whole thing is in the present tense? Can I suggest a rationale for this unusual choice? I cannot.

The area in which Dunmore succeeds is in her feel for Cornwall. Geography and natural history are offered in descriptive bursts; avoiding cliché, painting a competent picture of the terrain. In terms of plot, technique and characterisation I am less impressed.

But with the Rat in Hell thing I am almost shamed into it. Many (several) readers were kind enough to be amused by the concept, but there was one in particular who undertook the challenge with enthusiasm and imagination. You can find Emma’s excellent list here.

Here’s my (just slightly retrofitted) offering:

 
Well, it was kind of fun, but even as the challenge helped to clear the decks somewhat, there remain on my shelves still challenging novels that escaped the net, while others continue to accumulate…

In the interests of authenticity no communication in English is permitted.

‘ “Crackers, crackers, crackers!” she says pitifully. “Jesus, I wish you’d talk to me. I don’t see why you won’t. I’m about to go bonkers. We could at least talk. At least have some fun. Maybe play some Scrabble.”

Scrabble.

I wave goodnight and give her a grunt.

“Bastard,” she says, and hits me with the flint. She’s a good thrower and I almost say ow. Instead I make a horse-like sound of fury and consider pinning her to the floor in an effort to make her submit to my superior power etc, etc. Then I go into my Separate Area.’

Saunders cheerfully exploits the comic potential of the set-up, and does it well (I was laughing all the way through despite being notoriously grumpy) but also sets up and knocks down any number of satirical targets. Corporate double-speak and insincerity, the American health care system, liberal (and ineffective) parenting, therapy, and some very worrying motivational parenting. How ageing women are treated by society. Much of this, also, is very funny.

But running through is a dark sadness, the sadness of the helpless wage slave, existing on the very edge of survival. Saunders is not describing a civilised society. The juxtaposition of prehistoric cave life and corporate drive is well-judged.

Saunders varies his narrative approach from story to story, but is consistently able to capture a vernacular American, in speech, narration or free indirect discourse. It may or may not be authentic but engaging and entertaining it certainly is. Another who excelled in this field was David Foster Wallace, a comparison which might be considered a compliment of the highest order.

The stories which follow exhibit humour to varying degrees, but the dark edge is ever present. These stories are funny but painful, qualities that are precisely balanced. The male exotic dancer (initially played for laughs) steps over a personal boundary to lift his baby nephew out of a neighbourhood which promises certain death. But we know that these people will never have anything. Saunders writes about a deeply vulnerable people, those who are able to penetrate society just far enough to escape notice, left to literally sink or swim.

‘[...] making a low sound of despair in his throat he kicked off his loafers and threw his long ugly body out across the water.’

Within the first few pages Mortimer has made three references to having ‘plonked’ himself down on Holy Island, the choice of which comical and imprecise word, to my mind suggests an ambivalence of purpose and perhaps even an element of self-doubt. That ‘Writer’ in the sub-title is surely insinuating something… (And this is not an isolated occurrence of Mortimer’s insistence on an acknowledgement of his writerly credentials.) An inauspicious start for me, as a reader, when I decided to note all instances of derivatives of the word ‘plonk’ (nine) and every moment (on my part) of strongly felt disapprobation (many.) By close of play the book fairly bristled with post-its.

‘Disapprobation’ is a mild assessment of my observations on the hapless Peter Mortimer, and this brings me to my big problem with autobiography in general. Mortimer is frank about the personal choices he makes in coming to the island and staying on the island. He exposes himself in terms of naivety, self-involvement and a rather unattractive propensity to belittle others. But where character flaws are purposeful in fiction, here, they just are. For purposes of everyday life I have never felt that it is helpful to dwell critically on the flaws of others (And why behold you the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye?: Matthew 7:3) and I simply don’t know what to do with an autobiographical exposé.

Mortimer’s premise (if there is one) seems flawed. An ambition in becoming absorbed into the community is conflated with a vaguely stated interest in investigating spirituality on the island/of the island. Mortimer didn’t convince me that Holy Island has ever been intrinsically spiritual, neither did he convince me that those people who claim an experience (and timespan in this context is completely irrelevant) are wrong. It doesn’t seem to occur to Mortimer, who appears to suffer from some dearth of inner resources, that these things might come from within.

Further, the insular community can be found all over Britian, in villages and inner cities both.

No real exile, (a mini-bus ran regularly to the mainland but Mortimer chose not to avail himself of its services) in many ways the performance feels contrived.

In summary, what Mortimer achieves is a competent sketch of the topography of the island. Additionally, I learnt more than I would like about Mortimer as a person, and a little about my attitude to insularity, which is that people are entitled to their privacy and that acceptance is a function of mutual understanding and experience. It is certainly not an entitlement. (I grew up in a small but not remote village, and feel no retrospective resentment that the indigenous population were not wholly welcoming. In such circumstances parallel communities form, but there is usually some redeeming fluidity and overlap.)

In this book I was hoping for something similar in feel to Sara Maitland’s Book of Silence, which uses a mix of subjective experience and research to enable objective conclusions. For those looking for non-fiction with some spiritual content and an investigative slant Maitland’s book might be the way to go.

Two conflicting motifs permeate the novella. The thousand cranes of the title, seen on the handkerchief of a prospective bride for Kikuji, and the black birthmark on the breast of Chikako, instructor in the tea ceremony and go-between in the potential nuptials. The thousand cranes represent good luck in the Japanese culture, whereas the birthmark as portrayed here carries connotations of malevolence and evil. While resistant to political correctness in some of its more censorial forms I did find it difficult to consider the symbolic implications of Chikako’s birthmark.

‘ “Not that. No, the trouble would be having the child look at the birthmark while it was nursing. I hadn’t seen quite so far myself, but a person who actually has a birthmark thinks of these things. From the day it was born it would drink there; and from the day it began to see, it would see that ugly mark on its mother’s breast. Its first impression of the world, its first impression of its mother, would be that ugly birthmark, and there the impression would be, through the child’s whole life.”

[...]

From the time he was ten or so, he often thought of his mother’s words and started with uneasiness at the idea of a half-brother or half-sister sucking at the birthmark.

It was not just the fear of having a brother or sister born away from home, a stranger to him. It was rather fear of that brother or sister in particular. Kikuji was obsessed with the idea that a child who sucked at that breast, with its birthmark and its hair, must be a monster.’

The tea ceremony also runs through the novella as a motif, a happy and blameless tack, which unites history and progress and tradition into a theme which is largely concerned with adaptation and assimilation within a culture.

Kawabata, like his own character Fumiko, expresses himself with ‘something like formal precision.’ The following quotes are taken from a section subsequent to a funeral and the writing is sparse but beautiful, with each piece connected. The tea ceremony moves beyond its boundaries into life (or death in this case) but then Fumiko is reinterpreted through the medium of the ceremonial pieces.

‘”A water jar, I see.”
He was looking at the vase in which she arranged his flowers. It was a water jar for the tea ceremony.
“Yes. I thought it would be right.”
“A fine Shino piece.” ‘

‘He saw his escape in the Shino water jar. He knelt before it and looked at it appraisingly, as one looks at tea vessels.

A faint red floated up from the white glaze. Kikuji reached to touch the voluptuous and warmly cool surface.’

‘The flush spread from the unpowdered cheeks over the white throat; and all the wear and anguish came to the surface.

The faint blood color only made the pallor more striking.’

Where Chikako uses the tea ceremony as an officious route into the lives of others, Kikuji and Fumiko are able to bring meaning to a ceremony which, unhappily, they are unable to relate proactively to their own lives.

In the end it is perhaps possible to say that both the cranes and birthmark have only the meaning that individuals allocate, and thus each makes his or her own fate. In a quite different interpretation it might be inferred that relinquishing an innate grasp of one’s traditions is a risky business.