Nostalgia and all that

"The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam" by Lauren Liebenberg, has been my delight for the last couple of weeks. This book was shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers in 2008. I have decided to add the New Writers Award to my Orange Prize reading challenge (listed in the sidebar) just on the basis of this book (and it didn't even win), it has only been going since 2005 so that's not too many extra books. I picked the book purely on the basis of it's title, being a fan of peanut butter and jam sandwiches from my childhood, and there is certainly a strong nostalgia element to my enjoyment of it, even though there is nothing remotely familiar about it's setting.

(Spoiler warning: sorry, it's hard not to give the plot away if you want to discuss what was so engaging about the book.)

By the way, the picture is a vervet monkey, and they appear through the book as Oupa's adversary, he sits with his shotgun trying to fight them off, but they seems to be pretty determined little buggers. Words in various african languages are scattered throughout, and I was half way through the book before it occurred to me to look in the back of the book for a glossary, some words were obvious but knowing others was definitely important and added to the story. Oupa is grandfather to the story's two heroines, Nyree and Cia, they look upon him as the source of all wisdom, and of course all family history. The story is narrated by Nyree, looking back on her childhood, but very much telling it from the point of view of an eight year old. The girls live their life in what can only be described as benign neglect: their father is off fighting the 'Terrs' (terrorists, or as some might call them, freedom fighters) and their mother is thus left to run the farm, leaving the girls to be cared for by Oupa and Jobe. School is mentioned in a few places but it seems pretty peripheral to their lives which are a patchwork of fantasy and exploration. The story is set in Rhodesia in the late 1970's, during the 'Bush War', a political and historical event that hovers in the background of the girl's lives, something they are aware of, but as children it is never quite close enough to preoccupy them. They idolise their father, who is a fantastic figure who appears and vanishes unpredictably. Nyree describes the effect of his sudden reappearance:

"Mom changes around him too. From striding around the farm in a pair of flared hipster denims, a rifle slung over one shoulder, not taking any nonsense from the likes of us, she lets her hair down, slips into satin petticoats and perfume and the timbre of her laughter changes. The world tilts dangerously, and I feel a little giddy." (p.28)

But the tale of great-uncle Seamus (shot in a skirmish with a kaffir, as it says on his gravestone) rears it's ugly head and their lives are intruded upon much more directly by the arrival of Ronin, who's history is not really explained until the end. To begin with they are fascinated by him, in spite of his distain for them:

"For the most part Ronin seems rather aloof and he ignores us as studiously as we're studying him. He proves worth the scrutiny. He tears branches from trees and thrashes their trunks. He broods for hours down by the riverine, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, scuffing his shoes through the dirt. It's not long before Cia and I take to mooching about, our hands shoved deep in pretend pockets, brazenly scuffing our shoes through the dirt, in flagrant violation of Mom's shoe-scuffing rules." (p.67)

But things then take a more sinister turn, and their mother seems totally taken in by his superficial charm, whilst the girls find themselves the victims of his malevolence. At one point when they go to stay with friends 'in town' and at the swimming pool Cia is dragged unexpectedly under the water:

"Cia is choking and gasping, her eyes huge, the pupils dilated. I look around wildly. I am confused, panicked, and then somehow I look straight across on a diagonal to the far side of the pool. There is Ronin, squarely in my line of vision, and he is staring directly at us. He holds my gaze for a suspended moment, then turns and pulls himself smoothly from the pool. In that instant, I know it was him." (p.85)

There are lulls in the tension during term time when he goes off to boarding school, but on his return the girls live in a state of surreal fear, exacerbated by the death of their beloved dog Moosejaw and culminating in the terrifying final confrontation.

The book captures the atmosphere of childhood so wonderfully. The girls live in a magical world inhabited by fairies, their naive beliefs fostered by influences from african pagan superstitions and catholicism. They sneak out at night to perform ceremonies and try and make contact with them:

"As my fingers grope around the gnarly bark of a tree-trunk, I wonder if we'll see fairies tonight. I'm half hoping we will, half hoping we won't. Fairies are strange beings. They dine on the perfume of flowers; toadstools spring where fairy feet have gone and they cast white shadows. There are fairies of the earth and of the air, and water fairies, who dwell in lakes, rivers, pools, springs, wells, fountains and even in raindrops and tears." (p.114)

But then the fairies come to symbolise the gradual loss of innocence that permeates the story. There is a fierce bush fire (apparently started deliberately to target their farm) which destroys their fairy grotto:

"'Do you think the fairies got burned up?'

I lift the shell of a small tortoise and peer into it. I can smell the singed body of the tortoise curled up inside - his own house must have become the oven in which he roasted alive. I know she wants me to tell her they escaped. I look at her and shrug." (p.155)

And then at the very end, her family is struggling to mend itself, but Nyree knows that the fairies are no more:

"Some of the magic is gone though. The fairies have withered and died, their wings crunchy like dragonflies'. Now glow-worms are just glow-worms glowing faintly under the bushes at night." (p.229)

The other equally dominant aspect of the story's atmosphere is Africa. But this is not a lush and beautiful Africa, but an Africa that is at war with human beings:

"When he's not on vervet detail, Oupa mounts campaigns against the legions of invading invertebrates, from white ants who secretly eat the wood in the farmhouse leaving nothing but husks in their wake, to swarms of technicoloured locusts who simply devour everything, to the disease-carrying flesh-eaters .....

'Pestilence and disease afflicting the human is everywhere on this God-forsaken continent, but I tell you there is naught so apt a metaphor for the grotesque fecundity of life in Africa as her gut-dwelling flatworm parasites,' he concludes, as he grips the head of the exposed guineaworm infesting Blessing's foot and tugs at it." (p.48)

(The descriptions of potential diseases and parasites gets more explicit, but I'll spare you any more details.)

There is very little description of wildlife until the drought season arrives:

"Sometimes Cia and I march out with the army of cripples. Between their contorted skeletons low thorn scrub claws at our bare legs and we have to navigate the veld wreckage strewn everywhere: abandoned termite mounds, husks of dead trees, suspicious pits bored into the earth. We've started to find the carcasses of impala, nyala and even great kudu bulls lying there in the veld." (p.146)

Though I did love this:

"Fat lizards idle in a stupor next to the enthroned Oupa on the stoep, their bulbous, blue-green scales gleaming lizardly. Wasps wasp noisily in the gauze across the front-door screen." (p.135)

The tales that Jobe tells them are the only time we get any picture of life for native Africans. He lived for a time in what must be a kind of township in South Africa, referred to as 'The Location', where the resident's lives are totally controlled by the Location Manager called de la Rey. He is despised by the people and they pass their time, and make it more bearable by fantasising about his departure:

"You could get yourself arrested for just about anything - for possessing a spiked stick, for sitting on the wrong bench outside the Court of Native Affairs, for disobedience, trespass, nuisance, impertinence.....

The people came to him one by one. De la Rey almost never looked up. Next. Question. Answer. Bang. Shuffle. But the line never grew shorter. It smelled in there of sweat and insecticide, ink and floor dust.....

The people were preparing wonderful celebrations for when he left. Nobody knew when he would go, but they liked to think about him leaving and to plan the celebration ....

And there were schemes too, to hurry up his leaving. There were ways to make his car have an accident and ways to get a snake to bite him ....

Then there were the funeral schemes. Who will organise the procession, who will be the pall-bearers, what will the choir sing and on and on. If they ever raised funds for a coffin for de la Rey they'd get enough for a solid gold one." (p.104-5)

Their family's disintegration is mirrored in the political situation which deteriorates until of course you get the capitulation of the Rhodesian army, leading to the election of the ZANU party and Robert Mugabe in 1980. Their farm is repossessed and their uncertain future is left hanging. It was strange because of course your sympathies are with the family you know, but it is almost more so because of course we know the future and what it holds for the newly born Zimbabwe, and you cannot help but feel doubly sad that the people of that country have never got the freedom that they were really struggling for.

I could write so much more. I have not even touched on Angelique, the girl's grandmother, and their obsession with her. Such lovely writing, full of subtle themes and images. An interesting contrast to 'Property' from a few weeks ago, in terms of the portrayal of the relationships between the white farmers and the indigenous population. Again because of the perspective of the writing you are not passing judgement on the attitudes that are portrayed, they are just part of the society that the story is describing.

But what I loved most about the story is the relationship of the two girls. They do everything together; bicker in the back of the car, listen to Oupa's stories, face their fears in the darkness and consume their peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Nyree acts as Cia protector and teacher, by virtue of being older, but she needs her sister just as much in return. Something she recognises most poignantly at the end of the book; I leave you with this quote, it reduced me to tears:

"I don't want to stay in our bedroom either. Tonight will be only the second time that Cia isn't sleeping next to me in it. The other time was long, long ago. Cia went to hospital to have an operation. The hospital was called the Salisbury Central. I was taken to visit her in the children's ward. I remember her toddling towards me down the centre of the black and white chequered aisle between ranks of sterile metal cots and starched white linen. I was jealous of her, but she was so pleased to see me that I forgave her. I remember it in the fragmented way you remember the earliest things, mainly because it was the first time that I understood Cia was separate from me, was not me, could go places I couldn't go, could know things I didn't know. Alone now in our room, without Cia to smother whispers with and pretend not to be scared of the dark for. I don't know what to do. We are still one after all, and with her gone, I am no more." (p.217)

Nelson Mandela

Sometimes it is good to be reminded of what is important. Today, the news reminds us that it is 20 years since Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa. I remember the day quite vividly, we sat with the television on all afternoon, one of those times when you watch nothing, just waiting and not wanting to miss the moment. And, unlike the Royal Wedding or the presidential inauguration, it was completely lacking in spectacle, just an ordinary man, walking hand in hand with his wife, but someone who symbolised so much.

I tried to find a poem that said something about freedom, but instead found this brief tribute to Nelson himself.

Free Nelson Mandela

Perhaps we'd rather be
earthbound
than free
that's why we hate
those that break
the tyranny.

Vince Gullaci

(from Poemhunter.com)

Life, death and all that

'Somewhere towards the end' by Diana Athill, is the most recent of Athill's memoirs, written when she was 89. I am going to include this in my Women Unbound Reading Challenge because it seems a very appropriate book. She is quite a remarkable woman who has lived a life that challenged many of the assumptions about the way women should live. As a young woman she was abandoned by the man she was supposed to marry, and instead went on to have a long and successful career in publishing and to carry on a series of unconventional affairs, ending up living for 40 years in a comfortable arrangement with a former lover.

While there is a certain amount of reflection in this book it is much more about the adjustments, demands and compensations of old age. She is already well known for her candour regarding her sexual life, though very discreet she did conduct several affairs with married men during her life. This book reflects at length on the decline of her sexual life and adjusting to this new idea of herself. There is a sense of regret at this aspect of growing old, but she is very accepting of the changes. Her own health seems to have been remarkably robust, certainly she describes nothing life shortening, but she finds herself having to take on a caring role, initially, in her seventies, for her mother, and then again over recent years for her cohabiter Barry. In both situations not something she has relished, but something she has endured philosophically. She also discusses the idea and imminence of death, describing her mother's death most poignantly, and another experience at a crematorium which seemed to have quite an impact on her, emphasising the everyday nature of death.

Several of the chapters talk about the things that she has done to try and adapt to old age, the things, like gardening, reading and writing, that have provided her with enjoyment, and solace for the other pleasures that have waned. It is lovely how she is such an optimistic person and takes pleasure from the smallest thing. She is discussing relations between the generations, and how the old are viewed by the young:

"So if when you are old a beloved child happens to look at you as if he or she thinks (even if mistakenly!) that you are wise and kind: what a blessing! It's not that such a fleeting glimpse of yourself can convert you into wiseness and kindness in any enduring way; more like a good session of reflexology which, although it can cure nothing, does make you feel like a better person while it's going on and for an hour or two afterwards, and even that is well worth having." (p.84-5)

She tells some wonderful little personal anecdotes, in particular one about great-aunt Gertie, who's scandalous behaviour became a family secret. She was plainly somewhat exploited in her role at Andre Deutsch's publishing company and appears to have reached old age without much financial security, though I guess she is the kind of woman who would have found it hard to retire any earlier than 75 anyway, and her retirement has been pursued with such vigour that she has done much of her autobiographical writing during this time. She does talk a little about people she encountered during her publishing career, but I plan to seek out her other books which no doubt discuss it in more detail. She is the second writer recently to specifically mention W.G. Sebald as remarkable (Susan Hill being the other) and I found a copy of his book 'Austerlitz' in a charity shop recently, so it may very well move up the TBR pile based on this second recommendation.

The part of the book I found quite moving and interesting was when she discussed her childlessness. She admits to having had abortions as a younger woman, viewing herself as somewhat devoid of maternal instinct, and when she finds herself pregnant surprisingly at the age of 43 she assumes inwardly that she will do so again:

"But when I caught myself making excuse after excuse not to take the necessary steps just yet; I hit on the truth ; I wasn't going to take them at all; and at that point I suddenly became happy with a happiness so astonishingly complete that I still remember it with gratitude: my life would have been the poorer if I hadn't tasted it, and any child to emerge from that experience could only have been loved." (p.163)

The pregnancy ends at four months with a potentially life threatening miscarriage, an experience so frightening that it overshadows the loss of her baby; she is so glad to actually be alive her response to the loss felt, to her, somewhat muted and relatively short lived. She acknowledges freely her ambivalent feelings towards small children, but as she has got older the pleasures of other people's children, most especially those of Sally (a former lover of Barry's who lived with them in an unusual domestic arrangement for some years), seem to have becomes more significant. In the chapter about regrets (in which this quote appears) childlessness is not one of them. What she does regret is the idea that she was essentially rather 'cold' and that was what made her chose not to have children. Her only other regret is her laziness. It seems like a strange thing for such a woman to accuse herself of. Reading this book I wish I could achieve half as much in a lifetime, but she talks about all the various other things she wishes she had learned, places she could have visited or things to be achieved, and she puts it down to just being happy with the little niche that she carved out for herself and liking a nice quiet settled life. Earlier in the story she had talked about how hard it was for her to become a carer for her mother because of how much it disrupted her own life, how she arranged things so she did not have to move in with her. It is this essential honesty that draws you to her and makes her so likeable. She doesn't mind (another perk, she admits, of old age) what anyone might think of her, and so can be open about her own shortcomings.

I think she felt the need to end the book with a 'life philosophy' chapter, I guess you can forgive her a little self indulgence, because in essence old people can't help but think they have some wisdom to pass on. Her conclusion is not startlingly original, but it is wonderfully expressed:

"The majority of human being leave their genes embodied in other human beings, others things they have made, everyone things they have done: they have taught or tortured, built or bombed, dug a garden or chopped down trees, so that our whole environment, cities, farmland, deserts - the lot! - is built up of contributions, useful or detrimental, from the innumerable swarms of selfs preceding us, to which we ourselves are adding our grains of sand. To think our existence pointless, as atheists are supposed by some religious people to do, would therefore be absurd; instead, we should remember that it does make its almost invisible but real contribution, either to usefulness or harm, which is why we should try to conduct it properly." (p.180)

I loved reading this, mainly because this lady is twice my age; I feel like life has been pretty long already, that so much has happened, and to think that I potentially have the years left to do as much again is just wonderful. This book is a real celebration of life, from the perspective of age, but not just a celebration of what is past, because although she ends with a contemplation of what her final words might be, she is definitely not thinking that this is the end.

Dispatches (a work related rant)

I sat up a bit late last night to watch the Dispatches programme about Royal Mail (available on Channel 4 On Demand). This was a follow up to programmes that they produced in 2004 and 2005, with two reporters going undercover to see the inside workings of the postal system. Last time they uncovered an organised gang of agency workers stealing credit cards, which caused quite a stir. This time focussed mainly on really bad mismanagement and poor training. I feel quite angry really because in spite of these reporters claiming that it was objective because they had not chosen the offices but had been sent there by an agency, the mere fact that they used an agency to gain employment was putting them in what was inevitably going to be a poor situation. So they were sent to offices with staffing problems, which always means poor staff morale, and also where there was plainly incredibly poor management of a restructuring of the working schedule and a history of industrial relations conflict.

But if they had arrived as a new recruit in my office it would have made really dull television. When I popped in this morning to prepare my door-to-door (advertising crap) items for tomorrow there were no piles of delayed parcels lying around, no frames half full of undelivered mail, no postmen slouching in the cafeteria or skiving off home early because they thought the pavements were too slippery. When we had a foot of snow we struggled through it; some places went without deliveries for 4 or 5 days, but we are rural and many farms are very remote and inaccessible, but everyone in our office worked hard to try and make sure that as much mail went out as humanly possible. I have never encountered the kind of 'don't really give a damn' attitude that some postmen in the programme displayed. Their disregard for people's post was astounding and the management's attitude to problems was terrible. We go out of our way to make sure that even the badly addressed items get where they are supposed to go. The local knowledge of most of the blokes is incredible, many have been in the office for over 20 years. I am proud to work with them and know without a shadow of doubt that not one of them has ever interfered with anyone's post (we might occasionally play 'pass the parcel' with intriguingly shaped packets, or ones that make a noise ... and I do consider reading people's post cards to be a perk of the job.) You do tend to know a lot of personal stuff about people in this job; you know when people split up, when they die, when they get married, when they go on holiday, if they get letters from the county court or the police, but that's the kind of thing that is no one's business but theirs and I signed the Official Secrets Act when I started to say that I do not pass information to anyone about either the business or it's customers.

So to anyone who watched the programme I would like to back up the bosses here, and say that it is not a true and complete picture of Royal Mail and the service it provides for people. I am going to blow my own trumpet a bit here to give the other side of the coin:

Two Christmases ago a woman phoned our office about a parcel she had sent. It turned out she had put half of an old address mixed up with half of a new address on the parcel (people do the stupidest things at Christmas). So I took all the details from her including the correct address for the parcel. I then phoned the local office that it would be arriving at, explained to the bloke there what she had done and asked him to look out for it. A day or two later he called me back to say it had been found and sent on to the correct address. I then called the woman to assure her that it should make it to it's intended destination. Now I am sure that I am not the only person who does this kind of thing. Just the other day Brian had a letter, a returned item to one of his calls, and the postman from the other end of the system had written on the back, "I am sorry to have to tell you that this lady passed away some time ago last year", and I thought how nice that was, he could have just put a red sticker on and thought nothing more of it but he chose to go to the trouble. To me that is what Royal Mail still does at a local level, Posties who treat their customers like real people.

What are you reading Monday

Ok, I think it is finally getting silly how many books I have on the go. Maybe it is a sign of some dissatisfaction, that nothing is holding my attention too firmly that it is drifting from book to book.

On the kitchen table is "Letters to Georgian friends" by Boris Pasternak, that I plucked from my mum's spare room bookshelf in a moment of extreme esotericism. It is just a collection of letters to friends, mostly saying very little, often just sending greetings or discussing plans or work projects, but I have come to feel quite affectionate towards him as he is a devoted and caring man. I have been reading this over my breakfast for a couple of months.

The library came up with "The trouble with poetry and other poems" by Billy Collins which I have been dipping in to at bedtime. And also "You are not a stranger here" by Adam Haslett, a collection of short stories, picked out because of this interesting cover photo of an ornate spiral staircase, which I find can often be as good a reason as any other for borrowing a book.

"The voluptuous delights of peanut butter and jam" by Valerie Liebenberg is a wonderful book and I will probably finish it this week, so watch this space for a review.

And then this morning Brian (the postman) bought me Diana Athill's "Somewhere towards the end". I had requested this from the library last August, and when I asked the lady about it she suggested that perhaps it might have gone missing, so I gave up and bought a copy on the Amazon marketplace for 21p ... and it is practically new, seems to be unread. I started reading it when I opened the packet and am loving it already. It is a memoir, mostly about being old, and I think I am so going to like her, and will probably have to get her other books.

Then M and I are reading "Lost in a good book" by Jasper Fforde, which is just brilliant, but requires us both to be in the mood for reading. We are doing alternate chapters, and I rather like being read to, it is such a different process, and I love also the fact that we can discuss it was we go along and share all the jokes. His books really do defy genre definition and his sense of humour is both quirky and original.

p.s.

Just to add for the record, not that we'll forget or anything, my daughter Tish has been offered an unconditional place at Manchester Metropolitan University (or MMU as we can affectionately refer to it now) to study Ecology and Conservation. She is very pleased with herself, I am very proud of her.

p.p.s. those are not her babies:-)

... and they all lived happily ever after.

Our copy of Pride and Prejudice was a freebie from the newspaper, but I think it says more about the ridiculous things papers will do for circulation than any merit or otherwise that the book might have. It is a strange process reading a book that you are very familiar with but have never read. I saw the BBC adaptation many years ago and we have watched our copy of the Keira Knightley film quite a few times, then my sister gave us a copy of the series 'Lost in Austen' which we really enjoyed, so the basic plot held no surprises. I do not think that I am going to become one of those people who reads this book over and over and extolls the delights of Jane Austen to passing strangers. I am kind of glad I read it, almost to 'tick it off the list' of books that one ought to have read, but I fail to see what all the fuss is about.

By the time I had got through the first 100 pages all I could think was that these women lead the most boring lives imaginable, and what possible interest was there in reading about these stifled artificial conversations and their petty narrow concerns. But I decided to persevere and as the story developed I did get to like some people a little more, and also saw a different side to other characters. Elizabeth I grew to like enormously. It was particularly the scene where she comes to understand Mr Darcy's motivations and to recognise her own prejudices and acknowledge to herself that she has misjudged him. It was one of the few places where you saw something subtle happening in the disclosure of character. Throughout the book Austen does not allow us to draw our own conclusions about her characters but tells us straightforwardly their defining characteristics, and most of them are unfortunately rather one dimensional. Mostly they have one way of behaving and reacting to situations, and they do so with tedious predictability. The person I saw quite differently was Mr Bennett. In the film he is viewed as affectionately distant but essentially good and kind, but you discover much more about him in the book. He had married a pretty but shallow woman and then discovered that she did not become the wife he hoped for and in essence he has come to despise her. I felt sad about this, because, although self centred and over-emotional, I did not see Mrs Bennett as a bad person, she is merely the ultimate product of her time and her upbringing. So basically Mr Bennett had failed his family by failing to provide properly for them (relying on the birth of a son that never happened to ensure they were cared for) and preferred to hide in his study than face up to the Lydia situation. The uncle deals with the whole thing on his behalf and he is just relieved that the whole thing is settled with so little inconvenience to himself. I found him to be weak and selfish. Mr Collins on the other hand is so thoroughly awful that you just love him for the pleasure of laughing at him. The scene where Elizabeth and Maria are trying to leave after their visit was just ridiculous. It takes two pages to get out of the door and into the carriage because he is talking so much. He is like a symbol of everything that is tedious about the book, the endless polite exchanges and expression of thanks and regret and admiration and humility .... I just wanted to scream some of the time, I am so glad I live in the 20th century. Tish defined her style most succinctly earlier when she said that she writes a lot but says very little. I sped through the second half of the book as I did finally get engaged with the narrative disclosure. It is rather like watching 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' or 'Love Actually', they are fun to watch precisely because you know what is coming next and the familiarity of the exchanges and the characters is rather like chatting with a close friend. I can see why people might read this book again and again ... it's just not going to be me.

I guess the book is very much a product of it's era. Jane Austen was writing about the position of women and their lack of financial independence or material security, but I really felt that she was just documenting it rather than trying to make some point about what a bad situation this was and how there needed to be some kind of social change. (Just been looking up) Mary Wollstonecraft's treatise 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' was published in 1792 but I am not sure how widely read it was amongst educated women of the period (Austen lived 1775 to 1817) and whether it influences the way women viewed their position in society. I confess I am much more keen on George Eliot who (although a little later in the 19th century) wrote much more about ordinary people with concerns beyond money and marriage, and is interesting in terms of social history. The world of the landed gentry is just so introverted and shallow, cut off from the reality of ordinary people's lives. Nobody in the book ever does a stroke of real work, in fact Mrs Bennett is adamant that her daughters do not need to do any cooking. I was just plain irritated by the lot of them, and she probably set back the cause of feminism by a century. I may go through it again, if only to help M pick holes in it for her exam.