Edmund de Waal is one of our most gifted workers in ceramics - his minimalistic works grace galleries and collections throughout the world. As a young man, he was given a scholarship to work in Japan where he was introduced to his Uncle Ignace - Iggy - and his collection of netsuke, the beautiful carved belt-toggles for kimono. These netsuke had travelled full-circle, having first been purchased by Iggy's uncle Charles Ephrussi in Paris at the end of the 19th Century. This book is the story of the netsuke - but it is also the story of a family and of the 20th Century itself. It is a work as delicate and sensitive yet tough and resilient as the netsuke themselves.
Charles Ephrussi was the youngest son of Leon, the head of the Paris branch of the Ephrussi banking family. The Ephrussi were originally a Jewish merchant family hailing from Odessa in the Crimea. Like the Rothschilds, they had successfully set up office the major cities in Europe - London, Paris and Vienna - and flourished. Charles was more interested in Art than in banking, and he became an influential writer and collector in the Parisian art world of the late 19th Century (you can see him in a top hat towards the back of Renoir's "Le Dejeuner des Canotiers"). As Japan opened up to the West, and the "devaliser" of Japan fed the craze for Japonisme which was sweeping Paris, Charles bought a collection of 264 netsuke from the dealer Philippe Sichel.
De Waal writes about the netsuke with the sensitivity of someone who works creatively with his fingers every day. He describes not only their appearance, but their feel, their texture, their balance. He believes that they must held, played with and explored by children, enjoyed daily. Charles, however, has no children, and you can sense that De Waal approves when they are given as wedding present to his cousin Viktor in Vienna, when he marries the beautiful young socialite Emmy Schey von Koromla. The netsuke end up in her dressing-room, where her children play with them as she spends interminable hours with her devoted maid Anna every day ensuring that she is dressed according to the latest fashions.
Viktor has just had the magnificent Palais Ephrussi built on the Ringstrasse, and the family seems unassailable. But the convulsions of the 20th Century are about to strike imperial Vienna. The bank fares badly in the First World War. But this is nothing compared to the horrors of Vienna for Jewish family following the Anschluss. How the netsuke survived is one remarkable part of the story.
But this is a multi-layered book - the fate of the Ephrussi family is much more poignant, and explains how the netsuke came to be owned by the son of a Church of England priest. This is a story of a collection, of a family, and of a personal search as de Waal unpeels the history of the Ephrussis and in doing so explores out what it meant to be a rich Jewish family in Middle-Europe in the 20th Century. And if this isn't enough for the reader, it is written in a most beautiful, limpid, approachable style - this book really is as much a treasure as the wonderful netsuke that it describes.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Book Review - Solar by Ian McEwan (Vintage 2011)
Michael Beard is a nobel laureate for physics, his Einstein-Beard Conflation setting out the theoretical basis for extracting energy from sunlight and water. This honour, conferred in Beard's early career, has ensured his fame, a series of comfortable sinecures, and his continuing attractiveness to women despite his small stature, expanding girth and generally unappealing nature.
As in many McEwan novels, the main character of the book, usually an urban professional, is threatened by an encounter with someone of lower professional or social status. So, as Joe Rose is threatened by Jed Parry in Enduring Love, and Henry Perowne by Baxter in Saturday, Beard is threatened by his earnest subordinate Tom Aldous in Solar. Aldous is committed to the possibilities of photovoltaics which utilise Beard's theories, and can see commercial possibilities. Unfortunately Beard is distracted by the fact that his fifth wife is having an open affair with her builder, notwithstanding the fact that in the short time since they were married Beard has managed at least eleven affairs himself, so he pays little attention to Aldous' theories, or to Aldous himself except when he returns home early from a short stay in the Arctic to find Aldous in his living room wearing his dressing gown...
Beard is a superb comic creation - a vain, arrogant, complacent, devious old lecher whilst still remarkably retaining the reader's sympathy as a generally hapless victim of the circumstances surrounding him, which are generally of his own making. He stumbles from one crisis to another, but always seems to survive, even while the forces are stacking up around him. McEwan has chosen a broad range of easy satirical targets, but does spear them quite effectively. From academic life (the social scientist who believes genes are socially constructed is superb) to the environmental movement, from the nature of celebrity to the way in which the press attacks its victims, there is nothing new in what McEwan is saying, but he does say it very elegantly and effectively. However, what humour there is revolves around Michael Beard. It is not the Press per se which is funny, but how it behaves in raising up and then tearing down Beard.
As always, McEwan's sentences are beautifully balanced, adjectives and subordinate clauses neatly packed in triplets, utilising volcabulary just too obscure to be comfortable : "But the Michael Beard of this time was a man of narrowed mental condition, anhedonic, monothematic, stricken. His fifth marriage was disintegrating and he should have known how to behave, how to take the long view, how to take the blame." Equally typical are the bravura descriptions of a complex technical subject: in Saturday it was neurosurgery, in Solar it is quantum physics, which provide a basis for complex extended metaphors throughout the book.
But don't let the prospect of difficult science deter you. This is McEwan at the top on his form, so perhaps it is understandable that this clever, funny, compassionate book never even made the Booker long list.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Book Review - Parisians : An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb (Picador 2010)
Paris is like the Parisians themselves – a fascinating acquaintance, but impossible to know intimately. For a city with such an elegant, sophisticated exterior, it has a dark underbelly. Its tree-lined boulevards are little distance from the fleshpots of Pigalle. It is synonymous with art and literature and metropolitan sophistication, yet in the 1960s its Police were capable of massacring unarmed Algerian protesters, whilst Portuguese and North African immigrants scraped a living in the bidonvilles, the unofficial townships of corrugated iron which circled the city itself. I have lived in Paris myself, I have been charmed by its history, its sense of style, its vibrancy. But you are always conscious that you are an outsider, that no matter how much you have come to terms with the language (in my case, not much) you will never understand the way the city lives and moves and breathes like les parigots themselves.
Graham Robb has known Paris for many years and recognises this problem. So in writing about the city he loves, he doesn’t attempt to compile a chronology of Parisian development. Instead he focuses on a series of vignettes, each of which turns the microscope on some tiny aspect of the “adventure history” of Paris, some of which, à la Joyce, are written in a manner appropriate to the subject and the period itself.
It is an engaging if not entirely successful approach. We learn of the reasons for the construction of the Paris catacombs under the appropriately named rue d’Enfer; of the master-criminal Vidocq who became head of the Sureté and founder of the world’s first Detective Agency; of Proust and his relationship with modern technology (although Robb cannot keep up his initial Proustian sentences); of Juliet Gréco and Miles Davis in the manner of a Nouvelle Vague filmscript.
Yet, whilst lavishly praised in other quarters, I didn’t feel that this book entirely came off. The first reason is stylistic. One feels that Robb is trying too hard to ensure that his tales are “adventures”. Subjects are obscure until the point of revelation, which, in the tale of how Napoleon lost his virginity is not until the last page of the essay. Exposition can be clotted and difficult. One needs to read and reread in order to understand what exactly has transpired – not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it is superfluous. The stories stand by themselves. One of the best essays concerns the riots of 2007 and is written in a lucid contemporary style.
The second reason is structural. Motifs and characters, such as the rue d’Enfer or Baudelaire, recur and link the tales, yet there is a lack of a unifying theme. Paris does not emerge as a city, Parisians remain mysterious and unknowable. The stories focus largely on people of fame, power and influence – in other words, not true Parisians at all – but only on minute, peripheral, aspects of their lives. Add the mix to the stylistic variations and the result is a succession of fascinating tales, but the whole never exceeds the sum of the parts. Which is a shame since, highly engaging though this work may be, and beautifully written in places, a more conventional approach may have yielded some valuable insights.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Book Review - Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Vintage 2010)
Doc Sportello is an L.A. private investigator at the tail end of the sixties, for whom hard-bitten bourbon has been supplanted by dope in all its myriad varieties. The hippy dream is dying - Manson has struck and bombs are falling on Vietnam. Needless to say, when his ex-girlfriend turns up seeking his assistance, it means trouble. The LAPD in the shape of hippy-hating Bigfoot Bjornsen has its eyes on Doc, as have the Feds and some neo-nazi bikers whilst in the background the mysterious and terrifying Golden Fang unites the sinister forces of organised crime and dentistry, optimising heroin's vertical supply chain by supplying both the drugs and the drying-out clinics.
To try to summarise the twists and turns of the plot that follows would be beyond me, and would be missing the point anyway. The plots of the hard-bitten genre which this satirises were never great on the plausibility front - noir was all atmosphere and attititude, and Pynchon is not about plot either, as anyone who has tried and failed to make head nor tail of V will tell you. Pynchon is all about the journey - a paranoid, dope-fuelled, character-filled flight with the instruments of State repression and international conspiracy networks in hot pursuit.
This is undoubtedly Pynchon's most accessible work since Vineland. No need to understand the Riemann Hypothesis here, most of the action takes place in a planer dimension, albeit one that has been warped by a vast quantity of dope. In fact, one could almost say that the novel, whilst undoubtedly entertaining - and with these flashes of incandescent prose that are such a Pynchonesque trademark - lacks a certain substance. But Pynchon's works in general are like the songs of Bob Dylan post-1965 - anyone digging too deeply for meaning will find much material to excavate but much frustration and disappointment. Yes, the works all cross-reference each other (The Corvairs play in both Vineland and Inherent Vice), and the countercultural references keep an army of dedicated wikiists busy for months after each new tome (see the splendid Inherent Vice wiki alongside those of all the other Pynchon novels) - but is this a triumph of dizzying, mind-blowing style over any real substance?
No matter. Doc Sportello for his myriad faults is a splendid creation, and this rollicks along, frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The name of each new walk-on character is a pleasure - see Trillium Fortnight, Burke Stodger for example. The Warriors Against the Man Black Armed Militia (WAMBAM) are Pynchon's creation, but the LAPD's Public Disorder Intelligence Department (PDID) really did exist, although not in the Pynchon form of P-DIDdies. The story careers along with too many characters and subplots and conspiracies to make much sense, but is always exhilirating nonetheless. There is a hint of melancholy that times will change, the forces of conservatism and repression are winning, but whilst the journey is underway - just sit down, skin up and enjoy the ride.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Book Review - Listen To This by Alex Ross (Fourth Estate 2010)
The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross won the Guardian First Book prize in 2008 and a National Book Critic's Circle award, which was a remarkable achievement given that his subject matter was the forbidding realm of 20th Century classical music. And this wasn't just Elgar and Sibelius and Shostakovich's more tuneful bits, but an uncompromising exploration of the 12-tone revolution through Schoenberg, Berg and Webern through Boulez and Messiaen to Ligeti and beyond. Elgar never even got a mention. Yet Ross writes like an angel, as befits the music critic of the New Yorker, and the stories of the the composers themselves and the works they created were always fascinating, and there can be no higher recommendation than the fact that he persuaded me to listen and appreciate (if not always enjoy) some very daunting and difficult 20th Century classical music.
His new book is less ambitious. It is largely a collection of essays from the New Yorker covering all aspects of music - mainly classical, but also rock, folk and blues. The spacious New Yorker format is ideal for detailed explorations of subjects ranging from Brahms to Bjork, allowing Ross the scope to range backwards and forwards across the history of his subject.
His standard formula is in many ways symphonic. To take his insightful piece on Radiohead for example - he develops his theme by describing how he followed Radiohead on tour for several days, during which time he interviews the members of the band and allows their portraits to be developed. But then he looks back at the history of the band and how their music has developed, all with the keen eye of the classical critic, examining their rhythmic structures and how their typical compositions orientate around "pivot points". At various points he recapitulates his main theme of the tour, finally climaxing at a concert in Radiohead's home town of Oxford. Fans will find much more in this essay than in many back-numbers of NME.
The book is not restricted to artists. Ross writes passionately about the Marlboro Retreat, and about the fate of music education in schools. In a keynote essay at the start, he traces the development of the Spanish Dance called the Chicona, and of how it intersects with a four-note descending bass line called the Basso Lamento which can be found everywhere from Monteverdi to Led Zeppelin. He then skillfully points out in passing in his essays on Mozart, Brahms and Bob Dylan how the Basso Lamento keeps reappearing throughout musical history.
One of the particular pleasures of this book, especially for a non-musical expert like myself, is an accompanying website which has multiple clips highlighting many of the aspects that he is talking about, from the difference between a Chicona and a Passacaglia to the difference between an early cylinder and disc recording. When wanting to understand what he means by a chromatic basso lamento, there is an example from Cavalli's opera Didone. And if, having listened to a short clip, you realise that John Dowland's Lachrymae of 1600 not only has a basso lamento, but is also one of the most ravishingly beautiful pieces of music ever written, then you can always turn to Spotify to listen to the whole work.
For that is the pleasure of the book - it takes the trouble to explain but it also entertains.The pen portraits are beautifully drawn but at the heart of the book is music, and Alex Ross's enthusiasm for his subject is encapsulated in the title - Listen to This. He wants you to understand so you can go to artists like Mozart and Bob Dylan who may be familiar, or to Bjork or John Luther Adams who may be less so, and to listen and to appreciate and to enjoy. In this he has succeeded admirably.
His standard formula is in many ways symphonic. To take his insightful piece on Radiohead for example - he develops his theme by describing how he followed Radiohead on tour for several days, during which time he interviews the members of the band and allows their portraits to be developed. But then he looks back at the history of the band and how their music has developed, all with the keen eye of the classical critic, examining their rhythmic structures and how their typical compositions orientate around "pivot points". At various points he recapitulates his main theme of the tour, finally climaxing at a concert in Radiohead's home town of Oxford. Fans will find much more in this essay than in many back-numbers of NME.
The book is not restricted to artists. Ross writes passionately about the Marlboro Retreat, and about the fate of music education in schools. In a keynote essay at the start, he traces the development of the Spanish Dance called the Chicona, and of how it intersects with a four-note descending bass line called the Basso Lamento which can be found everywhere from Monteverdi to Led Zeppelin. He then skillfully points out in passing in his essays on Mozart, Brahms and Bob Dylan how the Basso Lamento keeps reappearing throughout musical history.
One of the particular pleasures of this book, especially for a non-musical expert like myself, is an accompanying website which has multiple clips highlighting many of the aspects that he is talking about, from the difference between a Chicona and a Passacaglia to the difference between an early cylinder and disc recording. When wanting to understand what he means by a chromatic basso lamento, there is an example from Cavalli's opera Didone. And if, having listened to a short clip, you realise that John Dowland's Lachrymae of 1600 not only has a basso lamento, but is also one of the most ravishingly beautiful pieces of music ever written, then you can always turn to Spotify to listen to the whole work.
For that is the pleasure of the book - it takes the trouble to explain but it also entertains.The pen portraits are beautifully drawn but at the heart of the book is music, and Alex Ross's enthusiasm for his subject is encapsulated in the title - Listen to This. He wants you to understand so you can go to artists like Mozart and Bob Dylan who may be familiar, or to Bjork or John Luther Adams who may be less so, and to listen and to appreciate and to enjoy. In this he has succeeded admirably.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Book Review - Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Fourth Estate 2010)
Website The Millions voted Jonathan Franzen's last book, The Corrections, as Book of the Decade "by a landslide", and there are certainly few new books that I have read in the last ten years which have made such an impact on me personally. The problem for any author having had such a widely acclaimed success is how to follow it up. Jonathan Franzen has succeeded nine years on by writing a book the form of which draws on much what made "The Corrections" so memorable, but by investing it with a content which once again dissects the American family, however this time the family are liberal environmentalists in George W Bush's America.
The Corrections looked at the State of the Nation through the lives of a Mid-Western family gathering together for Christmas at the behest of the their elderly mother as their father declines through Parkinson's disease. Freedom is similar in many respects. The Bergland family live in Minnesota. They are younger than the Lamberts, their children being of college age. Needless to say, all is not well - mother Patty's behaviour is becoming more and more strained, less able to relate to idealistic liberal conservationist husband Walter. Son Joey has hooked up with the daughter of the Bergland's poor republican next-door neighbours, and is showing distressing right-wing tendencies himself.
Matters come to a head when Walter's former college room-mate, Richard Katz, now himself a priapic angst-ridden musician for whom Patty always held a flame, comes to stay. However the only person that Katz truly loves and respects is Walter, and this impacts in turn how he relates to Patty.
Franzen's great skill is his ability to dissect relationships, how human beings succeed or fail in interacting with each other. There is a compelling logic to the way in which all characters behave, no matter how extreme or how bizarre. This is coupled with an acute authoral sensibility which shines a piercing searchlight into the psyches of his characters. You cannot read a Franzen book without some painful pangs of recognition. And yet, this is not some overwrought angstfest. Franzen observes with humour and a wryness of tone. His tongue isn't quite in his cheek, but his eyebrow may be raised.
We therefore understand in detail, beautifully observed, the origins of Patty's neuroses, her relationship with her family, and how and why she felt as she did about both Walter and Katz. Structurally, a large part of the book is Patty's autobiography written at the behest of her therapist - but we also get to understand what is in the minds of Katz and Walter and the Berglund children.
In what is the only false tone in the book, Walter gives up his Minnesota conservancy job for one in Washington trying to preserve the habitat of the Cerulean Warbler through Mountaintop Removal at the behest of a dodgy Texan with links to Cheney and Mineral Extraction Rights in West Virginia. This is an excuse for some rough satire, like the Lithuanian episode in The Corrections. Franzen's jaundiced view of Capitalism neocon-style may is both funny and acute, but the satire is a sideshow once again to the impact of Walter's work on the family dynamic.
By the end of the book, the main characters' flaws have been laid bare. You sympathise deeply, despite these flaws, because you understand who they are and where they have come from and what made them what they are (needless to say, Philip Larkin was right all along). Yet this is not a work of introspection - you have been entertained throughout through simple, balanced prose and the occasional sentence to die for ("From a distance of many parsecs, he heard her start crying").
And Patty wasn't the only one - I was snivelling on the train as the book came to an end, because you really do care for what the future holds for the Berglunds. Jonathan Franzen has succeeded triumphantly - he has managed the almost impossible task of writing a book as good as The Corrections.
Matters come to a head when Walter's former college room-mate, Richard Katz, now himself a priapic angst-ridden musician for whom Patty always held a flame, comes to stay. However the only person that Katz truly loves and respects is Walter, and this impacts in turn how he relates to Patty.
Franzen's great skill is his ability to dissect relationships, how human beings succeed or fail in interacting with each other. There is a compelling logic to the way in which all characters behave, no matter how extreme or how bizarre. This is coupled with an acute authoral sensibility which shines a piercing searchlight into the psyches of his characters. You cannot read a Franzen book without some painful pangs of recognition. And yet, this is not some overwrought angstfest. Franzen observes with humour and a wryness of tone. His tongue isn't quite in his cheek, but his eyebrow may be raised.
We therefore understand in detail, beautifully observed, the origins of Patty's neuroses, her relationship with her family, and how and why she felt as she did about both Walter and Katz. Structurally, a large part of the book is Patty's autobiography written at the behest of her therapist - but we also get to understand what is in the minds of Katz and Walter and the Berglund children.
In what is the only false tone in the book, Walter gives up his Minnesota conservancy job for one in Washington trying to preserve the habitat of the Cerulean Warbler through Mountaintop Removal at the behest of a dodgy Texan with links to Cheney and Mineral Extraction Rights in West Virginia. This is an excuse for some rough satire, like the Lithuanian episode in The Corrections. Franzen's jaundiced view of Capitalism neocon-style may is both funny and acute, but the satire is a sideshow once again to the impact of Walter's work on the family dynamic.
By the end of the book, the main characters' flaws have been laid bare. You sympathise deeply, despite these flaws, because you understand who they are and where they have come from and what made them what they are (needless to say, Philip Larkin was right all along). Yet this is not a work of introspection - you have been entertained throughout through simple, balanced prose and the occasional sentence to die for ("From a distance of many parsecs, he heard her start crying").
And Patty wasn't the only one - I was snivelling on the train as the book came to an end, because you really do care for what the future holds for the Berglunds. Jonathan Franzen has succeeded triumphantly - he has managed the almost impossible task of writing a book as good as The Corrections.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Book Review - Nemesis by Philip Roth (Jonathan Cape 2010)
But polio does come to Weequahic and fatally strikes some of the children of the Playground. Panic spreads around the community. Cantor dutifully visits the anguished families of the bereaved. When he is asked by the family of Alan Michaels to come to his funeral he does so, despite that not being his original intention. This impulsiveness and willingness to oblige is the fatal flaw in an otherwise exemplary young man. Later, as the epidemic strengthens, his girlfriend pressurises him to foresake his job with the Playground as she has obtained a vacancy for his at an idyllic Summer Camp in the mountains far away from the polio epidemic. Should Bucky Cantor turn his back on the children of the playground in the face of the epidemic and take an easy option to be with his girlfriend?
This is not a long book, no more than a novella, with a single theme from which it never deviates. Yet it is remorseless, challenging, terrible. Like no other book I have read for a very long time it sets out the nature of fate, of responsibility, of contingency. To what extent is Bucky Cantor's future, and the future of those around him, determined by his actions, by his understanding of the nature of duty and by his weakness. And what is the role of God smiting the good and the worthless indiscriminately with this terrible disease. Is he in actual fact an "evil genius?"
Philip Roth's prose is simple and direct, using the heatwave to develop a sense of claustrophobia in the city in which the polio can fester, and contrasting that with the freshness of the mountain camp. There is very little that is superfluous, so the few descriptive passages make a big impact. The story is so simple, so basic, that the denouement strikes you with the force of a train. Looking back, you realise that you have been manipulated by a master at the top of his game. Economy, directness, impact. This short book will stay with you for a long long time.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Book Review - Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd (Bloomsbury 2010)
William Boyd's books seem to follow intermittent themes. First there were the books picking out eclectic passages from Africa where he was born - A Good Man in Africa exploring colonial life and An Ice Cream War following the little-known engagements in East Africa during World War One. Brazzaville Beach demonstrated his ability to engage on deeper themes, as it explored Chaos theory and the parallels between aggressive behaviour in Chimpanzees and in humans. It was one of three ambitious middle novels - the others being The New Confessions and Any Human Heart, the life-stories of characters involved in movie-making and Art Criticism respectively - which seemed to set him out as one of our most important chroniclers.
Yet, latterly, his attention seems to have focussed on a series of less-weighty but intelligent and finely-crafted thrillers. His last book, Restless, was a page-turning tale of espionage and duplicity set during the second world war, and his latest novel, Ordinary Thunderstorms, has many parallels with Armadillo, his highly-successful TV adapted work of 1998, both being set in London and featuring the quirky hero being pitched into a dark and dangerous world of greed and violence.
Ordinary Thunderstorms is the story of Adam Kindred, a research climatologist who, through no fault of his own, on the run in London pursued by the Police, a multinational pharmaceutical company and a psychopathic hit-man. He joins the ranks of the homeless and has to rely on his wits and London's underclasses in order to stay alive and to clear his name.
Boyd's main interest seems to be the extent to which a man can disappear in a City like London, and then recreate an identity which allows him to recreate a new life. Kindred drops out of sight by living rough, switching off his mobile phone and not using credit cards. Vladimir obtains a dead man's passport, and through that a credit card and a job. Turpin has multiple wives and lifes. Mhouse has simply changed her name. Kindred becomes successively John1603 and Primo Belem.
Undoubtedly, this is a taut, exciting thriller which engages the reader from the start to an extent that belief in the improbabilities of the plot to be - as is traditional in the genre - suspended. The biggest improbability is in the basic premise, that an intelligent lawabiding citizen when confronted by a body in a room and a hitman in pursuit of him should decide that the best course of action is to sleep rough in Chelsea. Once one has come to terms with this, it is a small step to believe in Kindred's unlikely romances, the fortunate death of Vladimir and only a small leap to find credible the excesses that a multinational pharmaceutical company would go to to ensure a profitable drugs launch.
Boyd as ever writes with style and economy. If Ian McEwan were to introduce a research climatologist as main character, then by the end of the novel we would be fully immersed in the vocabulary of the profession. Boyd, however, limits himself to making some passing references to cloud formations and an explaination of the title of the novel. Vocabulary - apart from a passing reference to borborygi (stomach rumbles to you and me) - is generally stripped down. He can't resist his occassional authorly jokes, however. Drugs company head Ingram Fryzer shares his name with the murderer of Christopher Marlow. Zembla appears in Nabokov's Pale Fire and John 1603 is the most quoted verse in the bible.
Yet for all its pace and elegance of execution, one cannot help thinking that Boyd is writing well within himself. It is as if he has set himself a target of dashing off a genre thriller with certain stylistic parameters. It is well-written and enjoyable as all William Boyd novels are. The plot twists, whilst not always believable, are always satisfying. The picture of London's underclass is as threatening as that of the drugs companies is improbable. The denouement is neat. It would make a great film, and Boyd is an accomplished screenwriter so he might have had this in mind. But that's for the pension fund - one can't help think that William Boyd is still capable of much more significant works than this.
Yet, latterly, his attention seems to have focussed on a series of less-weighty but intelligent and finely-crafted thrillers. His last book, Restless, was a page-turning tale of espionage and duplicity set during the second world war, and his latest novel, Ordinary Thunderstorms, has many parallels with Armadillo, his highly-successful TV adapted work of 1998, both being set in London and featuring the quirky hero being pitched into a dark and dangerous world of greed and violence.
Boyd's main interest seems to be the extent to which a man can disappear in a City like London, and then recreate an identity which allows him to recreate a new life. Kindred drops out of sight by living rough, switching off his mobile phone and not using credit cards. Vladimir obtains a dead man's passport, and through that a credit card and a job. Turpin has multiple wives and lifes. Mhouse has simply changed her name. Kindred becomes successively John1603 and Primo Belem.
Undoubtedly, this is a taut, exciting thriller which engages the reader from the start to an extent that belief in the improbabilities of the plot to be - as is traditional in the genre - suspended. The biggest improbability is in the basic premise, that an intelligent lawabiding citizen when confronted by a body in a room and a hitman in pursuit of him should decide that the best course of action is to sleep rough in Chelsea. Once one has come to terms with this, it is a small step to believe in Kindred's unlikely romances, the fortunate death of Vladimir and only a small leap to find credible the excesses that a multinational pharmaceutical company would go to to ensure a profitable drugs launch.
Boyd as ever writes with style and economy. If Ian McEwan were to introduce a research climatologist as main character, then by the end of the novel we would be fully immersed in the vocabulary of the profession. Boyd, however, limits himself to making some passing references to cloud formations and an explaination of the title of the novel. Vocabulary - apart from a passing reference to borborygi (stomach rumbles to you and me) - is generally stripped down. He can't resist his occassional authorly jokes, however. Drugs company head Ingram Fryzer shares his name with the murderer of Christopher Marlow. Zembla appears in Nabokov's Pale Fire and John 1603 is the most quoted verse in the bible.
Yet for all its pace and elegance of execution, one cannot help thinking that Boyd is writing well within himself. It is as if he has set himself a target of dashing off a genre thriller with certain stylistic parameters. It is well-written and enjoyable as all William Boyd novels are. The plot twists, whilst not always believable, are always satisfying. The picture of London's underclass is as threatening as that of the drugs companies is improbable. The denouement is neat. It would make a great film, and Boyd is an accomplished screenwriter so he might have had this in mind. But that's for the pension fund - one can't help think that William Boyd is still capable of much more significant works than this.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Art Review : Gauguin : Maker of Myth (Tate Modern 14/1/11)
"Gauguin : Maker of Myth" which recently closed at Tate Modern was apparently the Tate's most popular exhibition ever, which underlines Gauguin's resonance with the British public. The reasons for his visual appeal are immediately apparent - his exotic themes, his big bold colours and senuous lines, paintings which are mysterious yet accessible. Yet part of the appeal is also Gauguin the man : the stockbroker who took up painting, who quarrelled with Vincent van Gogh and then set sail forever to live and paint surrounded by scantily-clad Tahitian beauties in his South Sea Island paradise.
Yet the story of Gauguin the man is in part one of his most careful artistic creations, part-truth and part self-mythologising, a complement to his work on canvas. The object of this magnificently conceived and curated exhibition is to demonstrate the extent to which the paintings can only be understood in the context of Gauguin's self-projection, and that his life is an integral part of his art.
Gauguin's early works are unremarkable - a talented impressionist, closely mimicking the syle of his mentor Camille Pissarro. The stock-market crash of 1882 persuaded him to take to painting full-time, but his circumstances declined rapidly and he moved from Paris to Rouen to reduce his living expenses. Shortly after, his Danish wife Mette returned to her family in Copenhagen and he was free to follow his artistic inclinations.
It is not until he returns to Brittany in 1888 that his work transforms. He starts to work with Emile Bernard, and his style transforms under his influence. Compare Gauguin's work to the left with Vegetation Tropicale above, carried out the year before, and with Emile Bernard's work opposite. Bernard had been a student of decorative art, and his theories of Cloisonnism (bold shapes divided by dark outlines) were already well develloped when he started to work with Gauguin. As Bernard also experimented with religious symbolism in his works, his influence on Gauguin's mature style seems very apparent to me, and if there is one shortcoming in this exhibition it is that this thread of influence is underrecognised (This idea is developed at length on the Emile Bernard wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Bernard .) It seems to want Gauguin's genius to come wholly from within him which is not the case.
In 1891, Gauguin set sail to Tahiti for the first time, by when he had met Stéphane Malarmé and become heavily imbued with Symbolist ideology. Where this exhibition excels is in its juxtaposition of Gauguin's writings and paintings, which clearly demonstrates the extent to which he viewed his output as a Gesamtkunstwerk. Motifs, such as Ondine the swimming nymph or Oviri the savage, are sketched, printed, sculpted and reproduced in paintings. Typically, Gauguin supplies an allusive or teasing title for his paintings, often in Tahitian, hinting at the meaning of the whole.
To take an example, his painting Te Nave Nave Fanua contains a motif of what appears to be a naked maiden plucking a flower. Closer examination shows a lizard whispering in her ear - the title means "The Delightful Land" and the painting can thus be interpreted as a representation of the Fall of Eve. The exhibition shows how is motif is repeated in prints, watercolours, always with attendant lizard, and finally in his most significant literary work, Noa Noa, his travelogue with etchings which tells of his time in Tahiti combined with folk tales and the work of the Symbolist poet Charles Morice.
Which leads me to a couple of pedantic points. In the otherwise splendid catalogue, Noa Noa is translated as "Fragrant." (Catalogue Pg 37). However, wikipedia lists Noa as meaning "free" in Hawaiian, or "free from tapu or restraint" in Maori. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noa . The translation of Noa Noa as "fragrance" comes from Gauguin himself - but he is both unreliable narrator and translator. It would be in character if his intention was to emphasise the "free" aspect of Noa, but chose to diguise it, to place a poetic slant on it. On another pedantic point, the Norwegian tankard shown is not a "Tine" (catalogue Pg 93), which is a Norwegian carved ornamental box with a handle.
However, the great pleasure of this show, and a reason for its success, is that one can examine the main themes in detail, but there are sufficient great works which can be enjoyed simply for themselves. Look into the face of the girl in Nevermore O Tahiti. Is she sad, is she sulking? What are the women saying - is the girl listening? And what is that clunky badly-drawn raven doing with the ominous Poe reference in the title? Add the colours of the girl, the sumtuous curved line of the small of her back and paterns of the pareo - a complex, beguiling, beautiful masterpiece - and there are many more.
You can enjoy his exquisite late works, explore the man, his myth, his art at whatever level you want. And if you want to avoid overcrowding at Art Galleries, then curators will have to strive to ensure that shows aren't as good as this one.
Yet the story of Gauguin the man is in part one of his most careful artistic creations, part-truth and part self-mythologising, a complement to his work on canvas. The object of this magnificently conceived and curated exhibition is to demonstrate the extent to which the paintings can only be understood in the context of Gauguin's self-projection, and that his life is an integral part of his art.
Gauguin's early works are unremarkable - a talented impressionist, closely mimicking the syle of his mentor Camille Pissarro. The stock-market crash of 1882 persuaded him to take to painting full-time, but his circumstances declined rapidly and he moved from Paris to Rouen to reduce his living expenses. Shortly after, his Danish wife Mette returned to her family in Copenhagen and he was free to follow his artistic inclinations.
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| Vegetation Tropicale by Paul Gaugin (1887) National Gallery of Scotland |
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| Autumn in Glencairn by James Paterson (1887) National Gallery of Scotland |
Gauguin liked to portray himself a savage, part-Inca. In actual fact he was born in Paris but brought up in Paru to where his father travelled in exile following the revolutions of 1848. In 1887 he sailed to Panama and Martinique where he had his first close experience of native life in the French overseas colonies. But his paintings at this time are unremarkable, demonstrably Impressionist in origin, they display the flat perspectives and broad patches of colour of naturalists like Bastien-Lepage and his followers, such as the Glasgow Boys.
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| Le Pardon de Pont-Aven by Emile Bernard (1888) Private Collection |
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| Vision of the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel) By Paul Guguin (1888) National Gallery of Scotland |
In 1891, Gauguin set sail to Tahiti for the first time, by when he had met Stéphane Malarmé and become heavily imbued with Symbolist ideology. Where this exhibition excels is in its juxtaposition of Gauguin's writings and paintings, which clearly demonstrates the extent to which he viewed his output as a Gesamtkunstwerk. Motifs, such as Ondine the swimming nymph or Oviri the savage, are sketched, printed, sculpted and reproduced in paintings. Typically, Gauguin supplies an allusive or teasing title for his paintings, often in Tahitian, hinting at the meaning of the whole.
To take an example, his painting Te Nave Nave Fanua contains a motif of what appears to be a naked maiden plucking a flower. Closer examination shows a lizard whispering in her ear - the title means "The Delightful Land" and the painting can thus be interpreted as a representation of the Fall of Eve. The exhibition shows how is motif is repeated in prints, watercolours, always with attendant lizard, and finally in his most significant literary work, Noa Noa, his travelogue with etchings which tells of his time in Tahiti combined with folk tales and the work of the Symbolist poet Charles Morice.
Which leads me to a couple of pedantic points. In the otherwise splendid catalogue, Noa Noa is translated as "Fragrant." (Catalogue Pg 37). However, wikipedia lists Noa as meaning "free" in Hawaiian, or "free from tapu or restraint" in Maori. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noa . The translation of Noa Noa as "fragrance" comes from Gauguin himself - but he is both unreliable narrator and translator. It would be in character if his intention was to emphasise the "free" aspect of Noa, but chose to diguise it, to place a poetic slant on it. On another pedantic point, the Norwegian tankard shown is not a "Tine" (catalogue Pg 93), which is a Norwegian carved ornamental box with a handle.
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| Nevermore O Tahiti by Paul Gauguin (1897) The Courtauld Gallery London |
You can enjoy his exquisite late works, explore the man, his myth, his art at whatever level you want. And if you want to avoid overcrowding at Art Galleries, then curators will have to strive to ensure that shows aren't as good as this one.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Theatre Review : Small Hours by Lucy Kirkwood and Ed Hime - Hampstead Downstairs (dir Katie Mitchell 17/1/11)
The audience is restricted to 25 for this intimate site-specific piece in the Hampstead Theatre's Michael Frayn space. One is asked to take off one's shoes, and sit on the furniture around the edge the living room of an undistinguished IKEA-furnished flat.
A woman stands up, sniffing. One immediately suspects that she may have an issue with 25 newly released pairs of feet, but, no, she sprays some perfume into the centre of the room. One of the benefits of the claustrophobic staging is that one can smell the cheap perfume.
Something is disturbing her. She turns on the radio - Severe weather warning in Scotland. She phones but rings off - after all, it is about 3am in the morning. Someone calls her - father? boyfriend? She says no I don't have a boyfriend. Does he want to go to see The Social Network this weekend? We're only getting half this conversation.
She rings off, disturbed. She slowly and carefully puts her make-up on (at 3am - before going to bed? - no, she's putting her coat on. So is she going for a walk? Is she on the game?) and is about to go out when a baby cries. Is it her baby? She wouldn't go out and leave the baby? Would she? She ignores its cries - but, wait, she's going to it, and returns with a nappy sack. She sniffs again and sprays her perfume - is that baby's nappy I can smell now, or is that autosuggestion?
To say much more would give the game away - suffice to say that the director is Katie Mitchell, so she is a master at using sound to create unsettling tension. Noises we cannot ignore - telephones, babies' cries, Chemical Brothers cranked up at an unfeasible hour in the morning (turn it down think of the neighbours we shout inwardly - no, don't put it on again...).
This is a portrait of isolation - the woman (played by Sandy McDade with proper restraint in her despair) is by herself in the small hours apart from her loved ones, failing to cope. What her backstory is we never know. Fill in the gaps from the hints provided. What has pushed her to the edge? - again we don't know. What is the resolution? It is left ambiguous.
Is this a worthwhile piece of experimental theatre? Undoubtedly yes. The claustrophobic staging is an integral part of the theatrical experience, immersing the audience into the sights, sounds and smells of the woman's flat. But did it work as drama? To a certain extent. For a piece that lasts only an hour it has its longueurs, and its finale is so underplayed that there is a temptation to say is that it? But it is a play that reverberates as one reflects upon it - the unanswered questions, the heightening tension, the soundscape, the ambiguous conclusion - and as I sit here writing this review I realise that Katie Mitchell has got to me once again.
A woman stands up, sniffing. One immediately suspects that she may have an issue with 25 newly released pairs of feet, but, no, she sprays some perfume into the centre of the room. One of the benefits of the claustrophobic staging is that one can smell the cheap perfume.
Something is disturbing her. She turns on the radio - Severe weather warning in Scotland. She phones but rings off - after all, it is about 3am in the morning. Someone calls her - father? boyfriend? She says no I don't have a boyfriend. Does he want to go to see The Social Network this weekend? We're only getting half this conversation.
She rings off, disturbed. She slowly and carefully puts her make-up on (at 3am - before going to bed? - no, she's putting her coat on. So is she going for a walk? Is she on the game?) and is about to go out when a baby cries. Is it her baby? She wouldn't go out and leave the baby? Would she? She ignores its cries - but, wait, she's going to it, and returns with a nappy sack. She sniffs again and sprays her perfume - is that baby's nappy I can smell now, or is that autosuggestion?
To say much more would give the game away - suffice to say that the director is Katie Mitchell, so she is a master at using sound to create unsettling tension. Noises we cannot ignore - telephones, babies' cries, Chemical Brothers cranked up at an unfeasible hour in the morning (turn it down think of the neighbours we shout inwardly - no, don't put it on again...).
This is a portrait of isolation - the woman (played by Sandy McDade with proper restraint in her despair) is by herself in the small hours apart from her loved ones, failing to cope. What her backstory is we never know. Fill in the gaps from the hints provided. What has pushed her to the edge? - again we don't know. What is the resolution? It is left ambiguous.
Is this a worthwhile piece of experimental theatre? Undoubtedly yes. The claustrophobic staging is an integral part of the theatrical experience, immersing the audience into the sights, sounds and smells of the woman's flat. But did it work as drama? To a certain extent. For a piece that lasts only an hour it has its longueurs, and its finale is so underplayed that there is a temptation to say is that it? But it is a play that reverberates as one reflects upon it - the unanswered questions, the heightening tension, the soundscape, the ambiguous conclusion - and as I sit here writing this review I realise that Katie Mitchell has got to me once again.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Book Review : Fool's Gold : How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe by Gillian Tett (Abacus 2010) / Whoops! Why everyone owes and no one can pay by John Lanchester (Penguin 2010) / Too Big to Fail : Inside the battle to save Wall Street by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Penguin 2010)
Syndicalist philospher Georges Sorel writes about Social Myths which may or may not be true, but act on a class or a group as a spur to action. For early Christians it was the prospect of the imminent return of Christ and for Syndicalists it was the General Strike which would herald a Socialist revolution. He writes in his Letter to Halevy that "People who are living in this world of "myths," are secure from all refutation; this has led many to assert that Socialism is a kind of religion" (www.historyguide.org/europe/sorel.htm)
To this, Sorel could have added the Capitalists have their own myth, their own irrefutable doctrine that acts as a spur to action - that of a belief in the self-regulating nature of the markets in an environment free from regulatory interference. Now this may be true in the austere pages of economic textbooks, but generally such doctrines are underpinned by assumptions such as rational individuals making decisions based on perfect knowledge in a perfect market place. However, in reality, the rational individuals are characterised by greed and stupidity, knowledge is partial and monopolostic / monopsonistic powers hold sway over the marketplaces. The result is that markets in capitalist economies boom and crash as the tides ebb and flo and the Earth circles the sun.
However, in certain quarters there is a collective denial of the need for effective regulatory control of the excesses of the market - a quasi-religious belief in the face of all rational evidence that the markets were not only efficient but self-correcting - a denial, that is, until the Credit Crunch of 2007-9.
Now that the dust is settling on the Crunch, another mini-boom is underway - benign admittedly when compared with the excesses of expansion of Credit which characterised the early years of this century. This boom is in books from economics commentators, journalists and insiders all seeking to explain where it all went so horribly wrong, and point out what must be done to avoid repetition.
John Lanchester is an author who sought to understand for himself what was happening as the background to a novel, and discovered a more interesting story than the one he was writing. He takes a broad view and explains the concepts involved from first principles with wit, clarity and anger. If you don't know your CDSs from your CDOs then this is the place to start.
Gillian Tett of the Financial Times has consistently been the most readable and astute of the commentators on the crisis. In Fool's Gold, she looks at the origins of the crisis from the persective of the JPMorgan Investment Bank where Credit derivitives were first devised, but which missed out on the excesses of the boom as it stuck to its principles in risk management. This in turn has enabled it to become the world's leading investment bank as it emerges from the crash much stronger than its competitors.
Tett locates a fundamental problem as being how financial companies dealt with Super-Senior risk left over from the production of synthetic CDOs. Whilst JPMorgan continued to offset the Super-Senior risk, other companies as the Credit frezy set in retained this on their books or passed it on to undercapitalised monoline insurers or AIG. As a result, bankers at JPMorgan couldn't understand how other companies continued to make such strong returns, so they restricted their CDO pipeline thus limiting their exposure to the market.
The basic sound idea behind CDOs was that they allowed the dispersion of risk throughout the banking system. However, all the financial models which measured this dispersion were predicated on limited mortgage defaults in few localities. No-one had predicted systematic mortgage default across the country. But lax regulation - despite the unhappy memories of the Savings and Loans crisis in the 1980s - had allowed greed and stupidity to predominate. Mortgages were being sold to people who hadn't the abilty to repay them, but the sellers didn't care as their risk was being immediately sold on and rebundled by the banks within their mortgage-backed CDOs. However, when default rates started to hit 15%, then the concentration ratios started to change and Super-Senior dept was no longer impregnable. Tett tells the story with verve and clarity
The fall of Lehmans and its aftermath is the subject of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail. Ross Sorkin charts the financial world trip to the edge of the abyss with a dizzying array of insider details. It reads like a thriller as it charts minute by minute the efforts firstly of Dick Fuld in trying to shore up Lehmans, and then the Fed and the US Treasury as they try to shore up Western capitalism. It is an astonishing piece of work, setting out in detail why Lehmans was allowed to fail, but AIG had to be saved, and how close to the precipice we had really come.
To this, Sorel could have added the Capitalists have their own myth, their own irrefutable doctrine that acts as a spur to action - that of a belief in the self-regulating nature of the markets in an environment free from regulatory interference. Now this may be true in the austere pages of economic textbooks, but generally such doctrines are underpinned by assumptions such as rational individuals making decisions based on perfect knowledge in a perfect market place. However, in reality, the rational individuals are characterised by greed and stupidity, knowledge is partial and monopolostic / monopsonistic powers hold sway over the marketplaces. The result is that markets in capitalist economies boom and crash as the tides ebb and flo and the Earth circles the sun.
However, in certain quarters there is a collective denial of the need for effective regulatory control of the excesses of the market - a quasi-religious belief in the face of all rational evidence that the markets were not only efficient but self-correcting - a denial, that is, until the Credit Crunch of 2007-9.
Now that the dust is settling on the Crunch, another mini-boom is underway - benign admittedly when compared with the excesses of expansion of Credit which characterised the early years of this century. This boom is in books from economics commentators, journalists and insiders all seeking to explain where it all went so horribly wrong, and point out what must be done to avoid repetition.
John Lanchester is an author who sought to understand for himself what was happening as the background to a novel, and discovered a more interesting story than the one he was writing. He takes a broad view and explains the concepts involved from first principles with wit, clarity and anger. If you don't know your CDSs from your CDOs then this is the place to start.
Lanchester's point is that effective legislation could have prevented the catastrophe, but that this was antithetical to the idealogues in Western governments, and to the major financial institutions themselves who were raking it in. He points out that Canada never had to bail out any banks, but had the tightest regulatory framework, the highest capital requirements, an insistance that those mortgaging over 80% of the value of their homes had insurance - and growth of 11% pa since 2004 compared with 5% in the US of A.
Gillian Tett of the Financial Times has consistently been the most readable and astute of the commentators on the crisis. In Fool's Gold, she looks at the origins of the crisis from the persective of the JPMorgan Investment Bank where Credit derivitives were first devised, but which missed out on the excesses of the boom as it stuck to its principles in risk management. This in turn has enabled it to become the world's leading investment bank as it emerges from the crash much stronger than its competitors.
Tett locates a fundamental problem as being how financial companies dealt with Super-Senior risk left over from the production of synthetic CDOs. Whilst JPMorgan continued to offset the Super-Senior risk, other companies as the Credit frezy set in retained this on their books or passed it on to undercapitalised monoline insurers or AIG. As a result, bankers at JPMorgan couldn't understand how other companies continued to make such strong returns, so they restricted their CDO pipeline thus limiting their exposure to the market.
The fall of Lehmans and its aftermath is the subject of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail. Ross Sorkin charts the financial world trip to the edge of the abyss with a dizzying array of insider details. It reads like a thriller as it charts minute by minute the efforts firstly of Dick Fuld in trying to shore up Lehmans, and then the Fed and the US Treasury as they try to shore up Western capitalism. It is an astonishing piece of work, setting out in detail why Lehmans was allowed to fail, but AIG had to be saved, and how close to the precipice we had really come. But whilst starting from different positions and looking from different perspectives, all three authors are agreed on one thing - the banking system has still not taken fully on board the lessons of the crash, and regulators are lagging in ensuring that the next economic cycle does not repeat the whole sorry story over again. We can list the crashes - secondary banking, Russian defaults, Internet bubble, Credit crunch. Yet markets are climbing once again bouyed by rock-bottom interest rates, quantitative easing and a commodities boom led by China. Yet as the Chinese economy starts to overheat and the Chinese government contemplate interest rate rises, and Euro sovereign debt concerns remain, and inflation grows and government cutbacks threaten a double-dip recession, we ask the question - is the self-regulating market mechanism the most efficient way we have to manage the scarce resources at our disposal, or is it a pure leap of blind faith?
Monday, January 10, 2011
Book Review : The Shadow of the Sun by A.S. Byatt (Vintage 1991, first published Chatto & Windus 1964)
First novels seem to fall largely into two camps - those which spring fully-formed from their authors heads, usually after a prolonged gestation and which often turn out to be amongst the author's most significant work, and these tentative works of young authors which show glimpses of promise and even of genius but display a gaucheness of youth which disappears in the mature works of the writer. Northanger Abbey, for example, is not much more than a romantic gothic romp by a talented young author. The misanthropic William Crimsworth in The Professor by Charlotte Bronte has an uncertainty of characterisation which is absent from her later work.
Some authors, especially those whose work appeared in episodic form, slowly find their feet over the course of the novel. The first hundred pages of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley are virtually unreadable. Dickens' The Pickwick Papers starts uncertainly and doesn't really take off until Pickwick engages the services of Sam Weller in the third monthly serialised episode.
To various degrees, The Shadow of the Sun falls between the types described above. It had a long gestation. Its first draft had been written between 1954 and 1957 when Antonia Byatt was an undergraduate, but it wasn't published until 1964.
It has a certain gaucheness in characterisation. Henry Severall the self-absorbed author is believable, but his march for days through the wilderness, swimming through lakes and sleeping under the stars, is not - and his eventual reappearance in front of the car driven by Oliver and Anna is not in keeping with the tone of the book. The female characters, as one might expect, are perceptively drawn, even the intense and difficult Anna. Oliver, however, has walked out from that part of central-casting marked small man with massive chip about his working-class background. He is not a likable character, and never really comes to life until the second half of the novel.
To a large extent, the novel reads as if it was written in two parts. The first half is weak, full of coincidence and uncertain characterisation. By the second part, however, Byatt's acute sensibility has kicked in. The disintegration of Margaret is finely drawn, as is Lady Hughes-Winterton, the matriarch who is wise enough not quite to trust Anna for her darling son.
But the biggest gap for fans of A.S. Byatt is the lack of ideas and major themes. This is a sensitive novel of relationships, and whilst there are references to Lawrence and others the big ideas must wait for later. However it is clear that this is a young novelist of considerable power, who can write fine descriptive passages, with a keen and shrewd understanding of human nature, and the ability to unpick emotions. Whilst this is not a great novel, it demonstrates that there is much more to come from A.S. Byatt.
Some authors, especially those whose work appeared in episodic form, slowly find their feet over the course of the novel. The first hundred pages of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley are virtually unreadable. Dickens' The Pickwick Papers starts uncertainly and doesn't really take off until Pickwick engages the services of Sam Weller in the third monthly serialised episode.
To various degrees, The Shadow of the Sun falls between the types described above. It had a long gestation. Its first draft had been written between 1954 and 1957 when Antonia Byatt was an undergraduate, but it wasn't published until 1964.
It has a certain gaucheness in characterisation. Henry Severall the self-absorbed author is believable, but his march for days through the wilderness, swimming through lakes and sleeping under the stars, is not - and his eventual reappearance in front of the car driven by Oliver and Anna is not in keeping with the tone of the book. The female characters, as one might expect, are perceptively drawn, even the intense and difficult Anna. Oliver, however, has walked out from that part of central-casting marked small man with massive chip about his working-class background. He is not a likable character, and never really comes to life until the second half of the novel.
To a large extent, the novel reads as if it was written in two parts. The first half is weak, full of coincidence and uncertain characterisation. By the second part, however, Byatt's acute sensibility has kicked in. The disintegration of Margaret is finely drawn, as is Lady Hughes-Winterton, the matriarch who is wise enough not quite to trust Anna for her darling son.
But the biggest gap for fans of A.S. Byatt is the lack of ideas and major themes. This is a sensitive novel of relationships, and whilst there are references to Lawrence and others the big ideas must wait for later. However it is clear that this is a young novelist of considerable power, who can write fine descriptive passages, with a keen and shrewd understanding of human nature, and the ability to unpick emotions. Whilst this is not a great novel, it demonstrates that there is much more to come from A.S. Byatt.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Art Review : Pioneering Painters - The Glasgow Boys (Royal Academy 31/12/10)
The Glasgow Boys was not a formal movement like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but a number of loose groups of artists based around Glasgow from around 1880 to 1890, and who exhibited at the Glasgow Institute Annual exhibition in 1885 and in London at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1890 rather than at the Royal Academy of Scotland in Edinburgh. This splendid exhibition, which has transferred from the Kelvingove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow to the Royal Academy in London, tracks their influences and development from 1880 through to their final absorbtion into the artistic establishment at the turn of the century.
Their style was not homogenous - however, there were certain themes which predominated. They were realists, rejecting the classical academic tradition. The earlier Boys were strongly influenced by the Barbizon School, painting poor countryfolk and rural scenes en plein air before finishing their works in the studio. Jules Bastien-Lepage was their exemplar, his naturalism having proved popular and widely exhibited in Scotland. From him, they absorbed the looser brushwork and flat tonalities that are typical of their early work. This is exemplified in James Guthrie's early work "A Funeral Service in the Highlands", where the grey funereal tones remind one of the similarly Barbizon-influenced Hague School.
However the grey tones were not typical. Bastien-Lepage taught that one had to immerse oneself in the communities that you wished to paint, and this proved extremely influential. Guthrie, Walton and Crawhall painted together at Crowland in Lincolnshire where the attraction was the consistency of the light rather than the rapidly changing skyscapes of the West Coast. "To Pastures New" by Guthrie captures the openness of the Lincolnshire sky as the deftly drawn young gooseherd concentrates hard whilst leading her flock across the wide picture frame. But surprisingly, this scene was only sketched in Lincolnshire and worked up during the winter at Guthrie's studio in Helensburgh.
In 1883,Guthrie, Walton and Crawhall went for the summer to Cockurnspath in Berwickshire, which was to be come a regular favorite of the Boys. They would be joined over the next few years by George Henry, EA Walton, Arthur Melville and Alexander Roche amongst others. In this period, Henry and Walton's work - following Bastien-Lepage- becomes flatter, more concerned with composition and the effects of light, whilst Guthrie's "Schoolmates" reminds me of the more traditional compostions of Millet.
Whilst Barbizon was a major influence, several of the Glasgow Boys, including Melville, Roche, Lavery and Dow, spent some summers in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, which had the advantages of being cheaper and easier to get to. A large international artists community was based there, and William Stott of Oldham in particular was an influence on those who painted there. John Lavery spent the summers of 1883 and 1884 there, but when he returned to Glasgow he saw Guthrie's "To Pastures New" which influenced him to remain in Scotland, where he brought his skills increasingly to document the emerging Glaswegian middle classes and in particular the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888.
Meanwhile, other influences was brought to bear. Japanese woodblock prints were in vogue, popularised by Whistler and familiar in Glasgow through the influential Art dealer Alexander Reid. George Henry and EA Hornel were most deeply influenced by Japanese art, and, from their studio in Kirkudbright in Galloway, their openness to an eclectic range of influences resulted in the most dramatic - though least typical - work of the Glasgow Boys. "The Druids - Bringing in the Mistletoe" combines naturalism in the heads of the Galloway Cows, pictish and celtic iconography in the robes of the druids, and the symbolism of Gustaphe Moreau.
Henry and Hornel travelled to Japan in 1893. By this time the work of the Glasgow Boys had been successfully exhibited in London and then at the Munich Glaspalast. From then on, success came easily for the leading Boys. Guthrie and Lavery became established as society portraitists. Crawhall became the leading exponent of gouache on linen (to my mind "Horse and Cart with Lady" is unequalled). Arthur Melville's watercolours have a richness of colour and fluidity of technique which is breathtaking. But by this time the Boys had progressed beyond their origins. Each had their own individual style which would lead some of them to success in the 20th Century.
Their style was not homogenous - however, there were certain themes which predominated. They were realists, rejecting the classical academic tradition. The earlier Boys were strongly influenced by the Barbizon School, painting poor countryfolk and rural scenes en plein air before finishing their works in the studio. Jules Bastien-Lepage was their exemplar, his naturalism having proved popular and widely exhibited in Scotland. From him, they absorbed the looser brushwork and flat tonalities that are typical of their early work. This is exemplified in James Guthrie's early work "A Funeral Service in the Highlands", where the grey funereal tones remind one of the similarly Barbizon-influenced Hague School.
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| To Pastures New by James Guthrie Aberdeen Art Gallery |
In 1883,Guthrie, Walton and Crawhall went for the summer to Cockurnspath in Berwickshire, which was to be come a regular favorite of the Boys. They would be joined over the next few years by George Henry, EA Walton, Arthur Melville and Alexander Roche amongst others. In this period, Henry and Walton's work - following Bastien-Lepage- becomes flatter, more concerned with composition and the effects of light, whilst Guthrie's "Schoolmates" reminds me of the more traditional compostions of Millet.
Whilst Barbizon was a major influence, several of the Glasgow Boys, including Melville, Roche, Lavery and Dow, spent some summers in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, which had the advantages of being cheaper and easier to get to. A large international artists community was based there, and William Stott of Oldham in particular was an influence on those who painted there. John Lavery spent the summers of 1883 and 1884 there, but when he returned to Glasgow he saw Guthrie's "To Pastures New" which influenced him to remain in Scotland, where he brought his skills increasingly to document the emerging Glaswegian middle classes and in particular the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888.
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| The Druids : Bringing in the Mistletoe Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum |
Henry and Hornel travelled to Japan in 1893. By this time the work of the Glasgow Boys had been successfully exhibited in London and then at the Munich Glaspalast. From then on, success came easily for the leading Boys. Guthrie and Lavery became established as society portraitists. Crawhall became the leading exponent of gouache on linen (to my mind "Horse and Cart with Lady" is unequalled). Arthur Melville's watercolours have a richness of colour and fluidity of technique which is breathtaking. But by this time the Boys had progressed beyond their origins. Each had their own individual style which would lead some of them to success in the 20th Century.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Book Review - The Children's Book by A.S Byatt (Chatto & Windus 2009)
In 1895, Philip Warren, a young runaway from poverty in the Potteries, is found hiding in the bowels of what would become the Victoria & Albert Museum, sketching the Gloucester Candlestick. Fortunately, when the child is brought to the Special Keeper of Precious Metals, Prosper Cain, he is meeting with esteemed author of children's books, Olive Wellwood, who offers to take the boy to find work for him. Thus, in an introduction which could have come from any number of turn-of-the-century children's books, is Philip Warren introduced to the Wellwoods and their sprawling family, and through them to the household of the temperamental potter, Benedict Fludd, to whom he is apprenticed. The Wellwoods are Fabians, and their social set includes anarchist emigrees from Eastern Europe, bohemian puppet-makers from Munich, and advocates of women's liberation and free love.
The Children's Book follows the fortunes of the parents and children of these households through the end of the Victorian era to the end of the First World War. To Philip the lives of the Wellwood children seem idealised, part of wealthy and loving family, having freedom to play around Todefright, their large country house in Kent and the extensive woods that surround it. But, needless to say, all is not what it seems.
In such a large, sometimes unwieldy book there are several dynamic themes. Olive Wellwood appears to be the loving, caring mother, who has created a personal story for each of her children. But Olive is withdrawing into her own creative world and leaving the day-to-day caring for her household to her sister, Violet Grimwith. As Olive withdraws, she is less able to cater for her children's emotional needs, with tragic consequences. Olive's withdrawal is partly precipitated by the lack of emotional support from her husband, Humphry. He has left his post with the Bank of England to campaign for Fabian causes, but this is a book in which patriarchal characters are generally portrayed negatively. Humphry has left a string of illegitimate children behind him, and, when he makes a drunken pass at one of Olive's teenage daughters, he is forced to admit that he is not in fact her father.
The third serial exploiter of women is Herbert Methley, who we meet whilst sunbathing in the nude in his garden with his wife. Methley is an author who writes and speaks on women's rights, including their sexual rights. But Methley is only intent on seduction - once in bed he treats his women badly.
The book is also concerned with radical politics. Banker Basil Wellwood's son, Charles/Karl, mixes in German anarchist circles, but eventually prefers to study at the LSE to carrying out acts of violence. Ironically, since he has worked out his position on violence clearly in advance, refuses to fight, but becomes a red cross stretcher bearer in the First World War. Olive's daughter Hedda becomes a radical suffragete but, along with Doctor Dorothy and Fludd's abused daughter Pomona also finds a certain peace and self-realisation through her work with wounded soldiers.
Several characters pursue paralleled paths to self-realisation or self-destruction. Olive and her sister Violet have escaped from mining communities in the north to set up a prosperous household with Humphry where Olive can create her books. Philip and his sister Elsie have separately left their starving household in the Potteries to walk to the South, where Philip can create his pots. Dorothy becomes a doctor and Imogen Fludd becomes a craftswoman in spite of their respective parents. On the other hand, neither Tom nor Benedict Fludd can escape their demons.
Tom has parallels with the children of several writers of children's books of the period - the son of Kenneth Grahame (who himself worked for the Bank of England) and J.M Barry's adopted son are both thought to have killed themselves. Benedist Fludd is closely based on sculptor Eric Gill, and aspects of the Wellwood household is based on that of E Nesbitt.
Real characters from radical politics and the artitstic movements of the period take walk-on roles as Byatt builds her picture with excting attention to detail. Her background in the decorative arts is clear as the technicalities of ceramics, of Gien Faiencerie and the influence of Bernard Palissey is described in loving detail, as is the Art Nouveau of the Paris 1900 Exposition.
Byatt delights in instructing the reader, be it the radical beliefs of Munich Anarchists, or the politics of the Victoria and Albert museum, or the Back to Nature of Edward Carpenter. Several critics have complained that this is at the expense of the plot of this novel, but I disagree. When writing with such a cast of characters and on such a broad scale, the discussion of ideas and detailed descriptions of the various creative processes give the reader space both to contextualise and to absorb the reality of the relationships slowly unfolding before you. And they are all interlinked. The creative process builds and destroys the relationships, as do the radical ideas prevelant at the time.
But at heart this is a very conservative book. For all Charles/Karl's youthful flirtation with radical politics, in the end the family unit which retains its integrity to the greatest is the conventional family unit of the banker Basil Wellwood. All the others have been destroyed to a greater or lesser extent by the actions and beliefs of the parents. And when on the penultimate page Dorothy discovers that her father is Jewish, but that "it had not occurred to Dorothy to ask if her father was Jewish, and he had not felt a need to tell her" the scene is set for ideology to drive the next phase of Europe's 20th Century tragedy.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Theatre Review : Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett - Theatre Royal Haymarket (dir Sean Matthias 21/1/10)
All these years of theatregoing yet this was my first experience of Godot, indeed of any Beckett, and unlike Godot himself it was worth the wait.
Vivian Mercier's description "a play in which nothing happens, twice" cannot be bettered. Two cantankerous old gentlemen of the road (Ian McKellen as Estragon and Roger Rees as Vladimir) waiting and bickering and contemplating the point of their existence. Their equilibium, such as it is, is disturbed by the arrival of Pozzo (Matthew Kelly) dragging Lucky (Ronald Pickup) on the end of a rope. Then they leave. The next day, Lucky is dragging a blind Pozzo. Godot never arrives.
Reality is fractured, shifting. Vladimir and Estragon don't know what Godot looks like, or why they are waiting for him. Pozzo can't remember meeting them the day before. Estragon can't remember their meeting either, although he bears the marks where Lucky had kicked him. Vladimir thinks that the tree has sprouted leaves overnight, but Estragon cannot remember.
It may be nihilistic, but it's never bleak. "That passed the time" says Vladimir. "It would have passed in any case" retorts Estragon, wanly. The absurdity is well-judged - amusing yet alienating, never overplayed.
The cast is excellent. Roger Rees and Ian McKellen handle the dialogue well with sure timing in this preview production, Rees' Vladimir has energy and traces of optimism but lacked force of delivery. He is upstaged by McKellen who manages to elicit an indefinable sadness from Estragon whose memory is starting to cloud. Ronald Pickup delivers Lucky's speech with speed and aplomb, but Matthew Kelly is once again a scene-stealer, perfect as the big, bombastic, demented Pozzo in Act One. Beckett doesn't leave much scope for stage design, but this was done well, an industrial wasteland, stark and threatening.
Two downsides to mention. £5 for a program which contained a two-page article by Simon Callow, a chronology and a cast-list which is simply not good enough, and a choreographed encore with a dance routine which was cringeworthy. What would have happened if we hadn't applauded? Fortunately for all, not much chance of that in this excellent production.
Vivian Mercier's description "a play in which nothing happens, twice" cannot be bettered. Two cantankerous old gentlemen of the road (Ian McKellen as Estragon and Roger Rees as Vladimir) waiting and bickering and contemplating the point of their existence. Their equilibium, such as it is, is disturbed by the arrival of Pozzo (Matthew Kelly) dragging Lucky (Ronald Pickup) on the end of a rope. Then they leave. The next day, Lucky is dragging a blind Pozzo. Godot never arrives.
Reality is fractured, shifting. Vladimir and Estragon don't know what Godot looks like, or why they are waiting for him. Pozzo can't remember meeting them the day before. Estragon can't remember their meeting either, although he bears the marks where Lucky had kicked him. Vladimir thinks that the tree has sprouted leaves overnight, but Estragon cannot remember.
It may be nihilistic, but it's never bleak. "That passed the time" says Vladimir. "It would have passed in any case" retorts Estragon, wanly. The absurdity is well-judged - amusing yet alienating, never overplayed.
The cast is excellent. Roger Rees and Ian McKellen handle the dialogue well with sure timing in this preview production, Rees' Vladimir has energy and traces of optimism but lacked force of delivery. He is upstaged by McKellen who manages to elicit an indefinable sadness from Estragon whose memory is starting to cloud. Ronald Pickup delivers Lucky's speech with speed and aplomb, but Matthew Kelly is once again a scene-stealer, perfect as the big, bombastic, demented Pozzo in Act One. Beckett doesn't leave much scope for stage design, but this was done well, an industrial wasteland, stark and threatening.
Two downsides to mention. £5 for a program which contained a two-page article by Simon Callow, a chronology and a cast-list which is simply not good enough, and a choreographed encore with a dance routine which was cringeworthy. What would have happened if we hadn't applauded? Fortunately for all, not much chance of that in this excellent production.
Theatre Review : The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett (dir Nicholas Hyter 11/1/10)
If genius may be defined as someone who somehow manages to both have his cake and eat it, then Alan Bennett certainly comes close in his latest collaboration with Nicholas Hytner at the National.
It's all in the structure. A theatre troup rehearses a play about a fictional meeting between W S Auden and Benjamin Brittain in Auden's rooms in Oxford shortly before their deaths. A simple play about two of Britain's leading artists of the 20th Century had many possibilities: the difference between composing music and poetry; the changing attitude to homosexuality in the 20th Century; the contrast between the buttoned-up Brittain and the uninhibited Auden to name but a few.
But Bennett probably realised that this would provide arid fare. So by not just framing but immersing the inner play ("Caliban's Day") within the rehearsal studio he liberates his material, giving scope for the actors to bicker with the playwright, the Assistant Director and each other and thus provide a wry but very funny commentary on the nature of the theatrical process. In doing so he overcomes some of the portentiousness which is still residual within Caliban's Day, and gives himself scope for a multitude of scatalogical observations which one couldn't realistically envisage when Benjamin Brittain was on stage.
Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings have no need to break sweat playing Fitz/Auden and Henry/Brittain respectively. Griffiths plays up to the fact that the avuncular Fitz is dissimilar to Auden both in face and form, although Jennings' camped up Henry looks very similar to Brittain. Adrian Scarborough plays their mutual biographer Humphrey Carpenter, sent by BBC Oxford to interview Auden and mistaken by Auden for a rent boy, and Frances de la Tour is excellent as the Assistant Director, ensuring that egos remain massaged, self-esteem boosted and the malign presence of the playwright (Elliot Levey - not a bit like Alan Bennett!) restrained from insisting on the inclusion of some of the worst verse ever to have graced the boards of the Lyttleton.
The structure softens the fact that both the protagonists in Caliban's Day were both pretty unattractive characters. When Brittain cut a friend for slights real or imagined it was for life. Auden's personal hygene (dwelt upon in lurid detail) left everything to be desired. Whilst they had collaborated - notably on Night Mail - in the 1930's, the possibilty of Brittain travelling to meet Auden towards the end of their lives could not realistically be entered into. But in this transparently artificial setting, the rendezvous can take place - although as the focus moves from the production of the play to the inner play itself, the pace drops, the laughs dry up and conversations about the nature of Art, and the relationship between the artists, come to the fore.
It makes a well-balanced whole: funny - both filthy and ludicrous in places - but also addressing some big ideas. It is Bennett's peculiar genius to make the Big Questions about the nature of art, history, sexuality so entertaining and accessible.
It's all in the structure. A theatre troup rehearses a play about a fictional meeting between W S Auden and Benjamin Brittain in Auden's rooms in Oxford shortly before their deaths. A simple play about two of Britain's leading artists of the 20th Century had many possibilities: the difference between composing music and poetry; the changing attitude to homosexuality in the 20th Century; the contrast between the buttoned-up Brittain and the uninhibited Auden to name but a few.
But Bennett probably realised that this would provide arid fare. So by not just framing but immersing the inner play ("Caliban's Day") within the rehearsal studio he liberates his material, giving scope for the actors to bicker with the playwright, the Assistant Director and each other and thus provide a wry but very funny commentary on the nature of the theatrical process. In doing so he overcomes some of the portentiousness which is still residual within Caliban's Day, and gives himself scope for a multitude of scatalogical observations which one couldn't realistically envisage when Benjamin Brittain was on stage.
Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings have no need to break sweat playing Fitz/Auden and Henry/Brittain respectively. Griffiths plays up to the fact that the avuncular Fitz is dissimilar to Auden both in face and form, although Jennings' camped up Henry looks very similar to Brittain. Adrian Scarborough plays their mutual biographer Humphrey Carpenter, sent by BBC Oxford to interview Auden and mistaken by Auden for a rent boy, and Frances de la Tour is excellent as the Assistant Director, ensuring that egos remain massaged, self-esteem boosted and the malign presence of the playwright (Elliot Levey - not a bit like Alan Bennett!) restrained from insisting on the inclusion of some of the worst verse ever to have graced the boards of the Lyttleton.
The structure softens the fact that both the protagonists in Caliban's Day were both pretty unattractive characters. When Brittain cut a friend for slights real or imagined it was for life. Auden's personal hygene (dwelt upon in lurid detail) left everything to be desired. Whilst they had collaborated - notably on Night Mail - in the 1930's, the possibilty of Brittain travelling to meet Auden towards the end of their lives could not realistically be entered into. But in this transparently artificial setting, the rendezvous can take place - although as the focus moves from the production of the play to the inner play itself, the pace drops, the laughs dry up and conversations about the nature of Art, and the relationship between the artists, come to the fore.
It makes a well-balanced whole: funny - both filthy and ludicrous in places - but also addressing some big ideas. It is Bennett's peculiar genius to make the Big Questions about the nature of art, history, sexuality so entertaining and accessible.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Theatre Review : Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams - Novello Theatre (dir Debbie Allen 4/1/10)
There's something going on here I don't understand. Why was the theatre half-full for this production? OK, so it was just after New Year and it was cold - but it was before January's snows descended, and further reductions in prices have just been announced. This looked as if it had all the boxes ticked for a sell-out - a transfer of a top Broadway production, a well-loved film star in James Earl Jones, a TV star from a popular series in Adrian Lester, consistently good reviews, good marketing with James Earl Jones doing the TV sofas and the Underground covered in posters.
So why is this not packing them? Is it that Tennessee Williams' reputation is for intense, shouty plays with a lot of angst and not many jokes? If so, that is very unfair, as Cat On a Hot Tin Roof may be intense, but it is also consistently funny as well. Is there some British distaste at the transposition from a Southern white family in the 50s to a black family in the 80s? Once again, that would be very unreasonable, as the transposition is virtually seemless to anyone who is not familiar with the original text. It's certainly not as dramatic as the Moliere being updated to contemporary London, as is happening across the city with The Misanthrope.
It certainly can't be anything to do with the cast or the production - they are all consistently good, while James Earl Jones excels as the odious Big Daddy. He has the presence, the charisma of the patriach, swearing testily at the family sycophants celebrating his birthday. Yet he tries to connect to his ex-sports star son Brick, intent on drinking himself to oblivion. Adrian Lester hits the emotional high notes well, but didn't convince as a seasoned drinker - he always seemed too clean cut and in control. That being said, his relationship with the sinuous, sexy Cat, Sanaa Lathan, was finely drawn.
This didn't draw you into the vortex in the same way that Streetcar at the Donmar did earlier this year - this is as much the theatrical dynamics of the Donmar's claustophobia as it is about Rachel Weisz's multilayered Blanche Dubois - but it certainly packed a hefty punch.
So why the poor turnout? Two reasons, possibly. A first is that there seems to be a lot of quality drama in the West End at the moment, and the regular theatregoers who go to such productions have difficulties stretching to many evenings out at West End prices. The second reason may be more complex. We are now so familiar with black faces on the British stage that it has long since ceased to be a matter worth commenting upon - I've see Adrian Lester himself play both Henry V and Hamlet, excellent in both roles, and the fact that he was black was never an issue. Could there be some sort of a subconcious reaction on this side of the Atlantic to the fact that this is an all-black production, not through any prejudice on the part of your typically white middle-class London theatre audience, but because this is felt to be a bit unnecessary, a bit old-fashioned, and that we have moved beyond the place where we need all-black productions? I don't know. I do know that the transposition is worthwhile because it works and that those who have chosen to give it a miss will be missing out on an excellent evening.
So why is this not packing them? Is it that Tennessee Williams' reputation is for intense, shouty plays with a lot of angst and not many jokes? If so, that is very unfair, as Cat On a Hot Tin Roof may be intense, but it is also consistently funny as well. Is there some British distaste at the transposition from a Southern white family in the 50s to a black family in the 80s? Once again, that would be very unreasonable, as the transposition is virtually seemless to anyone who is not familiar with the original text. It's certainly not as dramatic as the Moliere being updated to contemporary London, as is happening across the city with The Misanthrope.
It certainly can't be anything to do with the cast or the production - they are all consistently good, while James Earl Jones excels as the odious Big Daddy. He has the presence, the charisma of the patriach, swearing testily at the family sycophants celebrating his birthday. Yet he tries to connect to his ex-sports star son Brick, intent on drinking himself to oblivion. Adrian Lester hits the emotional high notes well, but didn't convince as a seasoned drinker - he always seemed too clean cut and in control. That being said, his relationship with the sinuous, sexy Cat, Sanaa Lathan, was finely drawn.
This didn't draw you into the vortex in the same way that Streetcar at the Donmar did earlier this year - this is as much the theatrical dynamics of the Donmar's claustophobia as it is about Rachel Weisz's multilayered Blanche Dubois - but it certainly packed a hefty punch.
So why the poor turnout? Two reasons, possibly. A first is that there seems to be a lot of quality drama in the West End at the moment, and the regular theatregoers who go to such productions have difficulties stretching to many evenings out at West End prices. The second reason may be more complex. We are now so familiar with black faces on the British stage that it has long since ceased to be a matter worth commenting upon - I've see Adrian Lester himself play both Henry V and Hamlet, excellent in both roles, and the fact that he was black was never an issue. Could there be some sort of a subconcious reaction on this side of the Atlantic to the fact that this is an all-black production, not through any prejudice on the part of your typically white middle-class London theatre audience, but because this is felt to be a bit unnecessary, a bit old-fashioned, and that we have moved beyond the place where we need all-black productions? I don't know. I do know that the transposition is worthwhile because it works and that those who have chosen to give it a miss will be missing out on an excellent evening.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Film Review : A Serious Man (dir Ethan and Joel Coen)
Is there something profound out there, or is it just fate? One has to ask oneself if the latest offering from the Coen Brothers is simply telling a story, or getting at something deeper. It is certainly an exploration of Jewishness in modern (1967) America in the sort of Midwestern community in which Joel and Ethan Coen were brought up. In interviews, they spoken about their upbringing, but have refused to speculate on the questions the film might raise. But the movie itself – is it full of clues, or does it simply tease?
Before the opening credits roll, we are in a Polish Shtetl. A man is helped at the roadside by an elderly rabbi, so invites him home. But his wife claims she had heard that the rabbi had died three years ago and the stranger was in fact a dybbuk. Is she correct? We never find out for sure, and neither is this strange tale integrated into the film as a whole. But a doubt remains that, generations on, the descendents of the man are in some way paying for the sins of their fathers.
Larry Gopnik (a magnificent Michael Stuhlbarg) is a Jewish physics professor whose life is starting to fall apart. His wife (Sari Lennick) wants to divorce him for the odious Sy Ablemann (Fred Melamud), his son is into pot, his daughter is into hair, his brother lazing round the house draining his cyst. He is being harassed by his redneck neighbour, bribed by a college student, chased by the record company, and all for no reason – Larry is honest, trusting, decent. It’s as if God is testing him, like he did the honest Job.
Larry turns for support and answers to three rabbis. But the first offers him platitudes, the second a meandering, pointless (and very funny) story about a Jewish dentist who has a goy patient with “Help Me” written in Hebrew characters on the inside of his teeth. The third refuses to see him.
Perhaps the clue lies in Larry’s job – he is teaching about Schrödinger’s Cat, which could exist / not exist in a box simultaneously. A Schrödinger event appears to occur when Larry and another character are both in car crashes at the same time. Larry survives, the other character is killed. Larry’s brother subverts chance by using his numeric skills for card-counting, but fate rounds on him and he is arrested. Towards the end of the film, Larry for the first time when faced with a choice takes the immoral option. As he does, the telephone rings with bad news. Coincidence? Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind which is enveloping the Midwestern community, the storm from which God spoke to Job?
This is a slow-moving, thoughtful film whose humour is whimsical rather than funny, exquisitely constructed and beautifully shot by long-time Coen-collaborator Roger Deakins. It won’t appeal to the multiplex audiences, but will intrigue those who relish intelligent filmmaking that is not afraid to leave all its loose threads hanging.
Before the opening credits roll, we are in a Polish Shtetl. A man is helped at the roadside by an elderly rabbi, so invites him home. But his wife claims she had heard that the rabbi had died three years ago and the stranger was in fact a dybbuk. Is she correct? We never find out for sure, and neither is this strange tale integrated into the film as a whole. But a doubt remains that, generations on, the descendents of the man are in some way paying for the sins of their fathers.
Larry Gopnik (a magnificent Michael Stuhlbarg) is a Jewish physics professor whose life is starting to fall apart. His wife (Sari Lennick) wants to divorce him for the odious Sy Ablemann (Fred Melamud), his son is into pot, his daughter is into hair, his brother lazing round the house draining his cyst. He is being harassed by his redneck neighbour, bribed by a college student, chased by the record company, and all for no reason – Larry is honest, trusting, decent. It’s as if God is testing him, like he did the honest Job.
Larry turns for support and answers to three rabbis. But the first offers him platitudes, the second a meandering, pointless (and very funny) story about a Jewish dentist who has a goy patient with “Help Me” written in Hebrew characters on the inside of his teeth. The third refuses to see him.
Perhaps the clue lies in Larry’s job – he is teaching about Schrödinger’s Cat, which could exist / not exist in a box simultaneously. A Schrödinger event appears to occur when Larry and another character are both in car crashes at the same time. Larry survives, the other character is killed. Larry’s brother subverts chance by using his numeric skills for card-counting, but fate rounds on him and he is arrested. Towards the end of the film, Larry for the first time when faced with a choice takes the immoral option. As he does, the telephone rings with bad news. Coincidence? Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind which is enveloping the Midwestern community, the storm from which God spoke to Job?
This is a slow-moving, thoughtful film whose humour is whimsical rather than funny, exquisitely constructed and beautifully shot by long-time Coen-collaborator Roger Deakins. It won’t appeal to the multiplex audiences, but will intrigue those who relish intelligent filmmaking that is not afraid to leave all its loose threads hanging.
Film Review : The Men Who Stare at Goats (dir Grant Heslov)
On paper, this looked a winner. Jon Ronson’s book, “The Men who Stare at Goats”, had proved a subversive bestseller. The cast was pure Hollywood A-list – George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. The trailers were very funny. And yet…
When Henry Kissenger won the Nobel Peace prize, Tom Lehrer declared satire redundant. At outset in this film, we are told that some of the events that follow are true. But the story of the First Earth Battalion which is set up to explore opportunities for the use of the paranormal in warfare is so bizarre that it goes well beyond satire, and so the viewer has to decide what is and isn’t true as the film flits between contemporary Iraqi buddy-movie and the story of the setting up of battalion in the 1970s.
The Iraqi framing-device is slight. Journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) has been deserted by his wife for the editor of his small-town American newspaper. He decides to prove his macho credentials by heading for Kuwait at the time of the first Iraq war, where he meets Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) who is set on heading into Iraq on a secret mission. Desparate to become embedded with the troops to see some action, Wilton joins with him and while they cross Iraq, he learns about Cassidy’s background and the history of the First Earth Battalion, set up by seventies hippy-soldier Bill Django (Jeff Bridges playing his stoner Big Lebowski type).
At this point, the movie dips into the area covered by Ronson’s book, and does contain some very funny moments. The de-bleated goats and the use of the theme music to Barney and Friends to break down prisoners are based on fact. But then all the strands get brought together in a fictional denouement which ties up all loose ends in a manner which may have seemed satisfying to the producers, but came over to me as infantile and embarrassing. Apparently there has already been a documentary made based on this story, and that would seem to be the appropriate way to bring this story to the screen and not this hotch-potch.
When Henry Kissenger won the Nobel Peace prize, Tom Lehrer declared satire redundant. At outset in this film, we are told that some of the events that follow are true. But the story of the First Earth Battalion which is set up to explore opportunities for the use of the paranormal in warfare is so bizarre that it goes well beyond satire, and so the viewer has to decide what is and isn’t true as the film flits between contemporary Iraqi buddy-movie and the story of the setting up of battalion in the 1970s.
The Iraqi framing-device is slight. Journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) has been deserted by his wife for the editor of his small-town American newspaper. He decides to prove his macho credentials by heading for Kuwait at the time of the first Iraq war, where he meets Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) who is set on heading into Iraq on a secret mission. Desparate to become embedded with the troops to see some action, Wilton joins with him and while they cross Iraq, he learns about Cassidy’s background and the history of the First Earth Battalion, set up by seventies hippy-soldier Bill Django (Jeff Bridges playing his stoner Big Lebowski type).
At this point, the movie dips into the area covered by Ronson’s book, and does contain some very funny moments. The de-bleated goats and the use of the theme music to Barney and Friends to break down prisoners are based on fact. But then all the strands get brought together in a fictional denouement which ties up all loose ends in a manner which may have seemed satisfying to the producers, but came over to me as infantile and embarrassing. Apparently there has already been a documentary made based on this story, and that would seem to be the appropriate way to bring this story to the screen and not this hotch-potch.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Theatre Review : Mother Courage and her Children by Bertold Brecht - Olivier (dir Deborah Warner 30/11/09)
Glasgow in the 1980’s was known as the Brecht Capital of Europe. At any time, odds were there would be at least one Brecht play in production. Leading the way was the Citizens Theatre under the directorship of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and Robert David McDonald. A Brecht play was guaranteed most seasons, and that is where I first saw Mother Courage and her Children. Sadly, the sands of time have erased my recollection of that production, and Brecht seemed to fall from fashion as Thatcherism made his questioning of power and economic relationships seem old-fashioned.
But in recent years he has come back with a bang in a series of productions (Life of Galileo at the National, Good Woman of Szechuan at the Young Vic) which have revealed not only his intellectual power, but also his humour and daring as a dramatist. Now Mother Courage has dragged her cart across the Olivier Stage in yet another revelatory production.
The Olivier is denuded, all scenery removed, stage hands visible where the wings should be. Gore Vidal intones Brecht’s stage directions, setting the scene amongst the bored troops of Sweden during the Thirty Years War. To a crescendo of music Mother Courage enters on the cart drawn by her sons. Fiona Shaw as Courage takes up a microphone and starts singing, looking for the world like Edward Tudor-Pole on Top of the Pops. Shaw may not be the world’s best singer or dancer, but she radiates charisma and hers is an upbeat indomitable Courage.
This is a long piece, structured around 12 scenes from each of a 12 year period in the midst of the 30 Years War, during which Courage and her family follow first one army then another making a living from trading the contents of their wagon. The futility of war is revealed in the banality of the economic relations which prevail. A deal with a recruiting officer takes her son Eiliff (Clifford Samuel) into the army. Her other son Swiss Cheese (Harry Melling) becomes army paymaster, but is captured. Courage bargains too hard for his life and he is killed. Mute daughter Kattrin (the excellent Sophie Stone) is disfigured in an attack by a soldier, and thus loses her value as a potential wife. The Cook (Martin Marquez) wants Courage to escape with him to an Inn in Utrecht that he has inherited, but refuses to take Kattrin with him as well as she will frighten the customers. Courage decides to stay. Kattrin is finally killed alerting a town to the advancing troops, in the single act of altruism that we see. Mother Courage is left to drag her wagon by herself.
This is a play that was born in a time of war, and there are more parallels with recent events, but there is never the sense that these are being forced on the audience. One is left to make the connection with profiteers such Krupp, IG Farben and Haliburton oneself. Ideologies are cheap - a change of shirt, and the pastor becomes a priest - and life becomes devoid of value. It is a short step to the Blasted of Sarah Kane.
But this is not a bleak play. Brecht is always an amusing writer, and Fiona Shaw extracts every ounce of humour in a sparkling performance, ably supported by all around her. The music, by Irish rocker Duke Special, didn’t always work, but to my surprise I found myself humming the main theme on the way home. The sparse staging with projected directions and Gore Vidal’s intonations not only remained true to Brecht’s Verfremsdungeffekt, but gave a potentially baggy piece a great sense of unity.
This was an adventurous, clever production of one of the great plays of the 20th Century.
But in recent years he has come back with a bang in a series of productions (Life of Galileo at the National, Good Woman of Szechuan at the Young Vic) which have revealed not only his intellectual power, but also his humour and daring as a dramatist. Now Mother Courage has dragged her cart across the Olivier Stage in yet another revelatory production.
The Olivier is denuded, all scenery removed, stage hands visible where the wings should be. Gore Vidal intones Brecht’s stage directions, setting the scene amongst the bored troops of Sweden during the Thirty Years War. To a crescendo of music Mother Courage enters on the cart drawn by her sons. Fiona Shaw as Courage takes up a microphone and starts singing, looking for the world like Edward Tudor-Pole on Top of the Pops. Shaw may not be the world’s best singer or dancer, but she radiates charisma and hers is an upbeat indomitable Courage.
This is a long piece, structured around 12 scenes from each of a 12 year period in the midst of the 30 Years War, during which Courage and her family follow first one army then another making a living from trading the contents of their wagon. The futility of war is revealed in the banality of the economic relations which prevail. A deal with a recruiting officer takes her son Eiliff (Clifford Samuel) into the army. Her other son Swiss Cheese (Harry Melling) becomes army paymaster, but is captured. Courage bargains too hard for his life and he is killed. Mute daughter Kattrin (the excellent Sophie Stone) is disfigured in an attack by a soldier, and thus loses her value as a potential wife. The Cook (Martin Marquez) wants Courage to escape with him to an Inn in Utrecht that he has inherited, but refuses to take Kattrin with him as well as she will frighten the customers. Courage decides to stay. Kattrin is finally killed alerting a town to the advancing troops, in the single act of altruism that we see. Mother Courage is left to drag her wagon by herself.
This is a play that was born in a time of war, and there are more parallels with recent events, but there is never the sense that these are being forced on the audience. One is left to make the connection with profiteers such Krupp, IG Farben and Haliburton oneself. Ideologies are cheap - a change of shirt, and the pastor becomes a priest - and life becomes devoid of value. It is a short step to the Blasted of Sarah Kane.
But this is not a bleak play. Brecht is always an amusing writer, and Fiona Shaw extracts every ounce of humour in a sparkling performance, ably supported by all around her. The music, by Irish rocker Duke Special, didn’t always work, but to my surprise I found myself humming the main theme on the way home. The sparse staging with projected directions and Gore Vidal’s intonations not only remained true to Brecht’s Verfremsdungeffekt, but gave a potentially baggy piece a great sense of unity.
This was an adventurous, clever production of one of the great plays of the 20th Century.
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