Expensive People

'Expensive People' by Joyce Carol Oates has been my breakfast book for a month or two, slow going for such a tiny book. I don't have many books so yellowed, desiccated and disintegrating with age, and only costing 35p (when this edition was published in 1972). It reminded me somewhat of Lolita, a narrator telling their story, one side of the events, their own particular interpretation of the events, and even more unreliable because this narrator is a child, trying to make sense of life and utterly failing. It is also the tale of the parent/child relationship from the point of view of the child, the story of what happens when a child cannot rely on their parents.

Richard likes to spy on his parents; he sits on the landing and listens to their rows, their conversations, their telephone calls, their comings and goings, this is the crux of the story:

"I'll tell you about it: years of anguished, guilty spying. I had to spy - how else could I have known what life was, or who they were, my parents, what they were? So I spied and I learned and I tabulated, calculated, speculated. But at these special times when we were together I thought that i had somehow, magically, captured a man and a woman from another land, foreign and exotic and not quite speaking my language, who were tamed by my power and love and who walked obediently after me, robust and comely and healthy as horses. Such fine horses! These were my true parents. The others - the dissatisfied Natashya Romanov, minor writer, and blubbering breast-beating executive Elwood Everett - were nothing but cruel step-parents." (p.20-1)

He informs us on the first page that he is a murderer. For a while I expected it to develop into more of a mystery, but it is the story of his childhood, the petty traumas and the more significant ones, that drive him to this one dreadful act. It is his explanation, his justification for it, and he is asking the reader (whom he addresses directly) to act as his judge and jury. 

While it is both his parents that he watches, it is Nada, his mother who draws the utmost devotion, she is this strange misunderstood person, unreliable, who has left them before, and will do so again:

"And she stood, quiet sand serious, looking at me the way she looked at Father or women with their hair in rollers out on the street or the messes neighbourly dogs made on our lawn. Her face was magnificent and pale, her eyes dark,a little demented, as if tiny curving pieces of glass had been fitted over them for some weird theatrical purpose. Oh, I don't know! I don't know what she looked like! I watched and watched her for years. I stared at her and loved her. I have photographs of her in my desk drawer that I finger and caress and still I don't know what she looked like; she passed over from being another person into being part of myself. It was as if Nada, my mother, had become a kind of embryonic creature stuck in my body, not in a womb maybe but part of my brain. How can you describe a creature that is lodged in your brain? It's all impossible, a mess ..." (p.84)

He loves her but often feels of secondary importance to her, being taken along on her adventures almost like a dog, but he doesn't mind, because his adoration has doglike qualities. I so often felt sorry for him, though he never seems to pity himself or wish for a more normal, predictable life. Here his thoughts when Nada takes him to the library:

"A lovely library - how I love libraries, any and all libraries, those sanctuaries for the maimed and undanceable, the lowly, pimply, neurotic, overweight, underweight, myopic, asthmatic ... Few are the flirtations in a library, I insist, though Nada never had to search far for an adventure. Few are the assaults, physical or verbal. Libraries exist for people like me." (p.85)

I think his narration is unreliable for different reasons, mostly because he often does not understand what is happening, and you get such a strong sense of his insecurity, his confusion. Here, part of the story of the dog Sparky, one dog, but also several dogs who they all pretend are the same dog:

"What kind of a day? Misty, mild; spring. Nada dressed in beautiful new suit, new gloves and purse in hand, ready to press the button and raise the garage door and drive off, destination unknown. Yes, I can see her there. In a minute she will leave.
Happy days are all one big blur of confusion, but so are unhappy days; in my sordid life, all days were blurs of confusion. But this was a happy day and blurred as usual with my shouts of joy and Sparky's little whimpers and his fuzzy, downy stomach (much more downy than the soft blonde down of Nada's arms) and his caramel-candy-coloured coat. He was delicious enough to eat! I hugged Sparky in my clumsy arms and helped his wave goodbye to Nada, who drove out and away, and I didn't turn aside from his wet leaping tongue.
And then ... not a minute later there was an aqua laundry truck." (p.127-8)

Slowly and surely, the years of his childhood pass. During another of her repeated absences he reads the forbidden stories that she has published. His feelings for her are eroded; not his love for her, but his sense that he knows and understand her, and the scene begins to be set of the denouement:

"You who've never read the secret words of the familiar, the domesticated people you love, and who've never snuggled into their brains and looked out through their eyes, how can you understand what I felt? It's as if I had opened a door ands Nada not as she wanted to seem to us, but Nada as she really was, a stranger, a person Father and I did not know and had no connection with. We are accustomed to people existing in orbit around us, and we dread thinking of their deaths because of the slight tug we will feel when their presence is gone - we'll be drawn closer to the rigidity of darkness, space, death. We are accustomed to these smaller planets always showing the same sides to us, familiar, predictable, secure, sound, sane, accommodating, but when I looked through Nada's eyes I knew that I had been tricked, that she showed only her narrowest, most ignorant side to me, and that she had cheated me all of my life." (p.160)

His experience after the event, of nobody believing his confession, seems to sum up the surreal nature of what he does, almost like an out-of-body experience, and his sense, throughout the story, of never being sure of what is real and what is not, of the truth of anyone's emotions or actions:

"I tiptoed to the staircase and went upstairs. Nothing creaked. At the top I waited. I was good at waiting. A kind of sunny haze enveloped me, and I stood there waiting and not-waiting, thinking that Nada and I were alone in the house, all alone, and she did not know it. I was in a kind of agreeable trance. Later, when I was to recount all this as part of my confession, they checked with my maths teacher, Mr Hale, and to my amazement he told them that I hadn't been absent that day! according to his records, this 'Richard Everett' had had perfect attendance up until the time he stopped coming altogether. But I insist, my readers, that I was absent, yes, I was absent from class that morning, and all but absent from even this perch at the top of the stairs my mind was drifting and wandering." (p.196)

It turns out the disintegration of his trust was totally justified, and things were not as they had appeared. A thoroughly disconcerting book, but Joyce Carol Oates is always a writer to recommend.

The Essex Serpent

I have whizzed through 'The Essex Serpent' by Sarah Perry since it is in a long queue and the library limits the loan to two weeks.  I was a little bemused by this book since I expected some kind of mystery, certainly a dark threatening undercurrent and sinister happenings, but there was nothing like that at all. It is in effect a love story; a story about love in all its many and varied forms, filial, romantic, platonic, sexual, unconditional and (by no means least) unrequited. It is the bonds between the characters that forms the basis for the story; Cora and Martha, Luke Garrett and George Spencer, William Ransome and Mr Cracknell, Joanna and Naomi. And silently observing them all, Francis, son of Cora and Michael Seaborne; a slightly odd young boy with what are obviously autistic qualities, not understood by his mother, but recognised and acceded to. They are all interesting and well rounded characters, who manage to make the somewhat haphazard story engaging. I felt there was rather too much going on, that too many different tracks were being followed. The basic tale of a village under the threat of a mythical monster becomes a slightly confusing one of mass hysteria. The young man who's stab wound is repaired by Dr Garrett becomes the focus of attention in the political storyline that Martha is pursuing, and the man with a grudge against him makes a somewhat irrelevant reappearance. Stella falls ill and no one seems to notice when she drifts off into la la land. People seem to spend a lot of time just trudging round the countryside. It's almost as if each character has to be given their own private crisis, because the Essex Serpent turns out to be such a non event (sorry, spoiler). Several people are enamoured of another who does not return their affections, and on that front the outcome for pretty much every body was unsatisfactory. Some aspects of the story all felt a little contrived. 

I did like the fact that there was some real politics, which you don't find much in novels. Here is Spencer, contemplating the new housing policy:

"What at first had been merely a means of pleasing Martha has become ann obsession: he pores over Hansard and committee minutes, he puts on his worst coat and goes walking down past Drury Lane. He discovered Parliament's habit of making policies benevolently enough, and then covering its eyes and shaking hands with industry. Sometimes the greed and malice of what he sees appals him so much he thinks he must've misunderstood; he looks again, and it's worse than he thought. the local authorities tear down slums, and compensate landlords according to lost rents. Since nothing makes a tenement more profitable than vice and overcrowding, landlords facilitate both as diligently as any pimp in the street, and government rewards them handsomely. The tenants then turned out find themselves considered too immoral for a smart new Peabody home, and are left to find rooms in lodging-houses: there are times when the streets and full of firelight as tenants burn furniture too poor to be sold. Spencer thinks of his family home in Suffolk, where recently his mother discovered another room they'd never known was there, and is nauseated." (p.182-3)

I think my favourite character is Joanna Ransome (daughter of Will and Stella) and her transformation from superstitious child into thoughtful, intelligent and ambitious young woman. She epitomises how important role models were (and are) for young girls; she meets Cora and sees in her a woman who knows about and is interested in all manner of subjects, is always learning about things, and has a life beyond the domestic sphere. 
Things I did not like: dropping in brand names for products that people are using, it is unnecessary and jarring. And, sorry, but a really bad writing award goes to any author who gives a character 'violet eyes', it is a clichéd and lazy way of trying to make them seem unique, used by fantasy writers the world over and should definitely not be included in anything with pretensions to literary fiction. 
I have read several admiring reviews for this book, and although I enjoyed it I do not think it is anything special.

A Freckled and Frivolous Cake

I realise I haven't read every writer on the planet, but I think I can say with some certainty that nobody writes like Mervyn Peake. Monkey and I have been relishing 'Titus Groan' over the last few months; it took a long time because she kept going away, but also sometimes we had to pause and appreciate the incredible way he expresses himself. Just a couple of chapters will make you think that every other metaphor or simile you have ever read is trite and predictable. We kept the dictionary handy to enhance our appreciation of his vast vocabulary.

The title character, Titus, makes only limited appearances in this book, the first of a trilogy, intended to be a much more extensive collection of novels, cut short by Peake's untimely death. The book is more the tale of a year in the life of Gormenghast castle: its weird occupants, its weird traditions and ceremonies, and the rise from obscurity of a young man called Steerpike (not only does he have a fantastic vocabulary, but Peake has the most fabulous of character names). On the day Titus is born Steerpike escapes from a locked room high in the castle by climbing out of the window, up the walls and across the roof, ending up in the secret attic of Lady Fuchsia (daughter of Lord Sepulchrave). She is partly horrified at having her privacy invaded but also strangely fascinated by this outsider materialising into a life that has been isolated and self-centred. The reader watches then with increasing incredulity as Steerpike wheedles his way into the upper echelons of Gormenghast society, and brings about some pretty fundamental changes to the status quo. Having said that, not much really happens, and the story is about the people and the place, and, even more, the atmosphere.

"Titus watched Keda's face with his violet eyes, his grotesque little features modified by the dull light at the corner of the passage. There was the history of man in his face. A fragment from the enormous rock of mankind. A leaf from the forest of man's passion and man's knowledge and man's pain. That was the ancientness of Titus.
Nannie's head was old with lines and sunken skin, with the red rims of her eyes and the puckers of her mouth. A vacant anatomical ancientry.
Keda's oldness was the work of fate, alchemy. An occult agedness. A transparent darkness. A broken and mysterious grove. A tragedy, a glory, a decay.
These three sere beings at the shadowy corner waited on. Nannie was sixty-nine, Keda was twenty-two, Titus was twelve days old." (p.102)

Here is Steerpike, ingratiating himself with the Prunesquallors; I love the tiny comment at the end, so subtle, that indicated the effect he seems to have on people:

"'We shall dress him in pale grey,' she said.
'Who, blood of my blood?' cried Prunesquallor. 'Who is to be apparisoned in the hue of doves?'
'Who? how can you say "Who?"! This youth, Alfred, this youth. He is taking Pellet's place. I am discharging Pellet tomorrow. He has always been so slow and clumsy. Don't you think so? Don't you think so?'
'I am far beyond thinking, bone of my bone. Far, far beyond thinking. I hand over the reins to you, Irma. Mount and begone. The world awaits you.'
Steerpike saw that the time was ripe.
'I am confident I shall give satisfaction, dear lady,' he said. 'My reward will be to see you, perhaps, once more, perhaps twice more, if you will allow me, in this dark gown that so becomes you. The slight stain which I noticed upon the hem I will remove tomorrow, with your permission. Madam,' he said, with that startling simplicity with which he interlarded his remarks, 'where can I sleep?'
Rising to her feet stiffly, but with more self-conscious dignity than she had found it necessary to assume for some while past, she motioned him to follow her with a singularly wooden gesture, and led the way through the door.
Somewhere in the vaults of her bosom a tiny imprisoned bird had begun to sing." (p.172)

The castle as character:

"Autumn returned to Gormenghast like a dark spirit re-entering its stronghold. Its breath could be felt in the forgotten corridors - Gormenghast had itself become autumn. Even the denizens of this fastness were its shadows.
The crumbling castle, looming among the mists, exhaled the season, and every cold stone breathed it out. The tortured trees by the dark lake burned and dripped, and their leaves snatched by the wind were whirled in wild circles through the towers. The clouds mouldered as they lay coiled, or shifted themselves uneasily upon the stone sky-field, sending up wreaths that drifted through the turrets and swarmed up the hidden walls." (p.180)

Over the course of the year Steerpike works his way up, pandering to the weaknesses of the aristocracy and skilfully removing others in positions of power, and you get the distinct feeling he has few limits to his ambitions. In this little moment Fuchsia seems to have a premonition of were he is headed:

"Breathing in the sharp air she gulped and clenched her hands together until her nails bit at her palms. Then she began to walk. She had been walking for over an hour when she heard footsteps behind her and, turning, saw Steerpike. She had not seen him since the night at the Prunesquallors' and never as clearly as now, as he approached her through the naked autumn. He stopped when he noticed that he was observed and called:
'Lady Fuchsia! May I join you?'
Behind him she saw something which, by contrast with the alien, incalculable before her, was close and real. It was something which she understood, something which she could never do without, or be without, for it seemed as though it were her own self, her own body, at which she gazed, and which lay so intimately upon the skyline. Gormenghast. The long, notched outline of her home. It was now his background. It was a screen of walls and towers pocked with windows. He stood against it, an intruder, imposing himself, so vividly, so solidly, against her world, his head overtopping the loftiest of its towers." (p.254-5)

This one is probably my favourite passage from the book and exemplifies the style so perfectly. Swelter is the chef, the ruler below stairs, and Mr Flay the ruler above, being Lord Sepulchrave's personal servant. He could have written simply that they glared at each other, but why would you, when you could say this instead:

"Swelter's eyes meet those of his enemy, and never was there held between four globes of gristle so sinister a hell of hatred. Had the flesh, the fibres, and the bones of the chef and those of Mr Flay been conjured away and away down that dark corridor leaving only their four eyes suspended in mid-air outside the Earl's door, then, surely, they must have reddened to the hue of Mars, reddened and smouldered, and at last broken into flame so intense was their hatred - broken into flame and circles about one another in ever-narrowing gyres and in swifter and yet swifter flight until, merged into one sizzling globe of ire, they must surely have fled, the four in one, leaving a trail of blood behind them in the cold grey air of the corridor, until, screaming as they fly beneath innumerable arches and down endless passageways of Gormenghast, they found their eyeless bodies once again, and re-entrenched themselves in startled sockets."

What I enjoyed so much was that the book has writing like this, but at the same time he is beautifully subtle and knows exactly the right word: "The long corridors were susurrous with rumour." (p.421). Reading Titus Groan I was reminded of a writing advice article in the Guardian, from Roddy Doyle that said "Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, e.g. 'horse', 'ran', 'said'.", and it made me think that he was right, if you don't know a fancy word for something don't go looking for one, it will just sound wrong. But Mervyn Peake does not sound wrong. I have to assume he just had these words in his vocabulary and uses them with both precision and creativity, often taking words that were familiar and using them in unusual ways. The language is unexpected and challenging but never pretentious or inauthentic. I enjoyed reading a word, not understanding it, and then rereading the sentence with new appreciation once the meaning was clear. 
Here are the words we looked up:
propinquital
recrudescent
chiaroscuro
crapulous
pullulation
fructified
dropsical
pellucid
escutcheon
abactinal
gelid
ilex
equipoise

So we have jumped eagerly into the next book; will baby Titus ever get out of the smothering clutches of Nannie Slagg, will Barquetine get a wooden leg, will Cora and Clarice ever get their golden thrones, will Lady Groan be suffocated in her sleep by the horde of white cats and just what is Steerpike hoping to discover with his network of holes and mirrors? 

lots of blocks

I have not completed my transition from knitter to crocheter, but the process seems to be well underway. I decided I wanted to have a go at granny squares so my lovely friend Julie bought me this book, 200 crochet blocks by Jan Eaton, and I have been working my way though it. What with the Monkey Quilt and the sofa blanket we don't actually need another thing to cuddle on the sofa with, so I am making this one for my sister Claire. Granny squares come in three kinds: ones that go round and round from a central ring, ones that go back and forth in lines and ones that combine the other two methods. As usual for me I have decided not to plan either a design or a colour scheme and will just go with the creative flow and come up with something wild and wonderful. I would certainly recommend it as a learning tool for new crocheters, as you can master new techniques in each square, which, like the hexipuffs, are a discrete project in themselves, and if something turns out to be a bit complicated you can just unravel and start a new one. I am being very disciplined and sewing in the ends as I go, since the prospect of having 144 squares with ends to sew in all in one go is just too depressing to contemplate. Some are done with a lovely long-colour-change yarn that saves the bother of having to keep joining new colours.

Brave New World

'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley is such an iconic book, one of many to imagine an alternative reality, but rereading it it feels dated and almost quaint; some parts have fantastic futuristic technology and other parts are stuck firmly in the 1930s. Set several hundred years into the future it gives us a world where God has been replaced with Ford, but only in that babies are now created on a production line rather than via the traditional method. The first few chapters detail this process for the reader, so they understand how the manipulation of human life has become the basis for a new pre-determined social caste system that dictated how the whole of society is organised. The developing foetuses are enhanced or 'poisoned' to differing degrees and then conditioned as children (raised by the state of course) to accept their place and to be unquestioning participants in the life they are allocated. 

" 'Stability,' said the Controller, 'stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.' His voice was a trumpet. Listening they felt larger, warmer.
The machine turns, turns and must keep turning - for ever. It is death if it stands still. A thousand million scrabbled the crust of the earth. The wheels began to turn. In a hundred and fifty years there were two thousand millions. Stop all the wheels. In a hundred and fifty weeks there are once again only a thousand million; a thousand thousand thousand men and women have starved to death.
Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn unattended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment." (p.44)

"Before Bernard could answer, the lift came to a standstill.
'Roof!' called a creaking voice.
The lift man was a small simian creature, dressed in the black tunic of an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron.
'Roof!'
He flung open the gates. The warm glory of afternoon sunlight made him start and blink his eyes. 'Oh, roof!' he repeated in a voice of rapture. He was as though suddenly and joyfully awakened from a  dark annihilating stupor. 'Roof!'
He smiled up with a kind of doggily expectant adoration into the faces of his passengers. Talking and laughing together, they stepped out into the light. The lift man looked after them." (p.56)

Bernard Marx (a bit of an outsider) and Lenina Crowne take a trip together to the Reservation, a place outside Civilization, to see how the 'savages' live. There they meet Linda, a woman from civilization, abandoned pregnant and forced to live and raise her baby as an outcast. Bernard arranges to bring Linda and her now grown son John back to civilization. John, having been neglected by his alcoholic mother, has a view of life and morality formed by a weird combination of living amongst the Indians and by reading the Complete Works of Shakespeare (the only book available to him) and he experiences the delights of civilization with increasing horror. He becomes a minor celebrity with people vying with each other for invites to meet him, but lacking the childhood conditioning that would enable him to fit in it is obvious things are not going to work out well. 

The morality of quasi-compulsory sexual promiscuity is an extension of the lack of any real bonds between people, they have no family bonds of course and they are discouraged from having ongoing relationships. What is most disturbing about the book is the way that social control is achieved through a passive, coddled, drugged and entertained population; there is no violence or repression, everyone just does what is expected of them because they do not have the ability to think otherwise, even those at the top of the hierarchy. In fact, it is not merely in his precognition of test tube babies that Huxley is so accurate, but also the advent of virtual reality, mass consumerism and a disposable culture. I was wrong, it is not quaint. The more I think about and reread odd pages the more disturbing it becomes. In a way the story of John's experiences are a distraction from the story of the society, the undercurrent of which is the real purpose of the book. Here, I love the wonderful juxtaposition of the idyllic children's garden with the political message: 

"Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, or playing ball games, or squatting silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs. The roses were in bloom, two nightingales soliloquised in the boskage, a cuckoo was just going out of tune among the lime trees. The air was drowsy with the murmur of bees and helicopters.
The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome-steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one of other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught.
'Strange,' mused the Director, as they turned away, 'strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It's madness. Nowadays the Controllers won't approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.'" (p.35)

An interesting reread, and it would be fascinating to know what Huxley might make of the 21st century world.

Two visits to Antony

My February leave week seems to have become our regular time of year for a visit to the boys. Jake has cut his hair and Lewis got a dog (which somehow miraculously managed not to be in the photo, since it had been jumping on us on the sofa for much of the previous 24 hours), but other than that life seems to be pottering on quietly as usual.

Monkey had expressed a need to go fly George (the kite), and so we headed out on Tuesday to Crosby beach where another Antony Gormley work of art is installed. "Another Place" is a collection of 100 cast iron figures (reduced to 84 by the local council in 2007 as a compromise during a debate over allowing the figures to remain on the beach) that stand in isolation looking out to sea. There is a fascinating contrast between the figures that become submerged by the tide each day ...

and those sited further up the beach ...

We were fortunate that the tide was out so we walked barefoot across the sand to visit the Antonys that were further out. It was only looking for references this evening that I discovered that the Liverpool tourist website recommends: "Crosby beach is a non-bathing beach with areas of soft sand and mud and a risk of changing tides. Visitors should stay within 50 metres of the promenade at all times and not attempt to walk out to the furthest figures." 
There was hardly a breath of wind but by walking briskly we managed to get George up in the air, and even Antony had a go a flying him. It's a strangely atmospheric installation and well worth a visit if you happen to be in the area (we got bit lost but the beach parking is well signed from Crosby), particularly if you can go at a less busy time. (Some better photos of them at the original site on Antony Gormley's website.)

The Private Lives of Trees

'The Private Lives of Trees' by Alejandro Zambra is a strange little book that I read (as recommended) in one sitting on Tuesday morning. It is less than 100 pages but packs a lot of emotional impact into them. Julián meets Verónica by chance when he arranges for her to bake a cake for his girlfriend, a relationship that is already disintegrating without him realising. The book covers a few hours of his life as he is watching over his stepdaughter Daniela and awaiting Verónica's return from an evening class, and as the night passes he reflects on his own history and tells Daniela stories about trees. 

"Now Julián has a real family, the kind that spends Saturday afternoons doing science homework or watching Tim Burton movies. Daniela has just fallen asleep, and he strings his ears, anticipating his wife's arrival, but he can only make out, distantly, the hoarse bubbling of the aquarium they set up in the living room a few months ago. Stealthily, Julián approaches Cosmo and Wanda, who continue their changeless voyage through the dirty water, and he observes them with disproportionate attention, his face to the glass. suddenly, theatrically, Julián takes on the attitude of a watchman, a fish watcher, a man specially trained to keep fish from leaving aquariums." (p.44)

It is just a lovely understated little book that works its way under your skin and leaves you wanting things to turn out better for Julián. He is sympathetic because he does not want much from life; he notices insignificant things, and makes them more significant in telling about them. As it gradually becomes apparent that Verónica is not returning he begins to dwell on what the future might hold for Daniela and the line becomes a little blurred as to whether he is living through this fateful night or remembering it from some point in the future. Though written by a Chilean writer I did not get a sense of anything 'foreign' about it, it is very much about the character of Julián.