Writers – Page 9 – My Own RE:public

Where fiction begins

Still on Julian Barnes, another of his novels that I really like is Noise of Time (2017), a literary imagining of sorts of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Musically I will almost certainly never know Shostakovich, but Barnes’s fine character study revealed to me a man tormented by the inability to reconcile the virtuosity and grandeur of an interior personae with the smallness of the exterior life as lived, or vice versa. And one asks and must answer each for oneself: which was the real “Shostakovich” here anyway? And how great and how small can a man be? And will only time tell?

At the time of publication, along with some lauded reviews, there were a number of more critical pieces focusing on the controversial place of Dmitri Shostakovich in the history of 20th century music; some, whilst accepting Julian Barnes’s use of a real historical figure as a useful device in fictional narrative, seem to suggest that he has deliberately sought to secure Shostakovich’s legacy, not only as an artist but in a moral sense. One example is this by the musicologist, Richard Taruskin. Taruskin sees the problematic starting in fact with the very use of the composer’s real name, and an inherent confusion in differentiating between fact and fiction. This may be a valid enough criticism, though it rather underestimates the sophistication of the modern discerning reader, but he extends his negative appraisal by interpreting the novel as an attempt by Barnes to place the (historical) composer in the role of victim rather than identifying him as the opportunist he surely was. In my opinion, this is a very superficial interpretation. My reading is of the portrayal of a man, and an artist, living under totalitarianism, who, yes, made a deliberate choice to kowtow to the regime, but also had to live with the consequence of doing so; including a tainted reputation in the wider world and feeble attempts to redeem himself at least for posterity, and all of this shaded by an ever pervasive sense of guilt. Nor do I see that Barnes in any way diminishes the greater sacrifices made by others – real people and braver people; sometimes even greater artists.

Barnes’s third person narrative, told in the form of interior monologues, is of course highly subjective and therefore biased, even egocentric, but always to be discerned is a tormented, not very courageous man forever afraid of impending denunciation; mitigated only by his retreat to silence and irony and passive cooperation. I accepted the “story” – “his” story and “his” truth; the real Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich remains as elusive to me as is his music (there is something to be said for reading from a point of ignorance), and that in my opinion doesn’t detract from the literary merit of Barnes’s novel. But perhaps that is because I came to the book without looking for a confirmation of the historical person and without knowledge of the “Shostakovich Wars” played out by experts and related others only in the colours of the keys of a piano.

Memories never quite lost

I have just completed reading, and in one sitting – well its pages only number 100 odd! – Patrick Modiano’s Schlafende Erinnerungen. As a matter of convenience I read it in German; in the French original it is titled Souvenirs dormants and in English Sleep of Memory (whereby one could wonder why not “Sleeping Memories” – but that is a thing with memories, we never quite know what to do with them, nor what they do to us!)

This was Modiano’s first work after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014, and I seem to recall at the time the usual disenchantment in the English speaking universe when one of their own misses out (again!). Certainly I didn’t know him at all, but it was apparent that in Germany he had an appreciative readership amongst Francophiles and literati sorts, and his books seem to be constantly in print. I did then read his first novel La Place de l’Étoile, written in 1968 when he was just 22 years old, and was at once perplexed and captivated by the unusual voice (not to mention the subject matter of German occupation and collaboration and where all that can lead – but that is another thing again, and something that I will return to) and on reading this new work I recognized immediately this almost dream-like quality in Modiano’s writing that is really quite singular to him. (It must surely be that this is a characteristic of the original French (and Modiano works in general) so I must say Elisabeth Edl seems to capture this beautifully in her German translation.)

Out of the present, the 70 year old narrator Jean remembers his youth in the Paris of the early sixties and in the telling weaves a fine tapestry of fragmented memory of people and place. (Wonderfully illustrated at one point by the metaphor of the Metro plan that lights up on selecting a destination). As if in a trance, Jean takes us with him as he revisits ghosts from this past; those women (enigmatic all in one way or another and beautifully portrayed) who left his life as they entered it, shrouded by mystery, but live still along the boulevards, in the cafes and apartments of his memory, where secrets as dark as the light of a Paris night are shared.

Sleep of Memory is to me a profoundly haunting literary jewel, and if someone were to say (and I have heard it said) that Patrick Modiano somehow seems to write the same story over and over again, then I would reply that is because perhaps that is the only story.

Which has led me back to this impossible book from Julian Barnes! And I should say this so favoured (by me) and very British of writers of a certain age has much in common with the quintessential Parisian Modiano (also of a certain age), most particularly in their consideration of the elusive nature and inherent imperfections of memory. I know only that Barnes is a Francophile and worships at the altar of Flaubert.

And on (literary) jewels, another Modiano book has come to my attention: La Petite Bijou (2001) translated into English only in 2016 as Little Jewel!

The only story (that matters?)

Inevitably perhaps, I can’t help but compare Julian Barnes’ most recent novel The Only Story with his 2011 Booker Prize winning novel The Sense of Ending: the most obvious comparison being the perspective from which the narrative stems, that of an older man, say, of approximately Julian Barnes’ age – you may do the arithmetic – recalling his youth and more youthful years and the defining events now filtered through time and the iteration of memory.

And whilst speaking of memory, I do remember enjoying immensely The Sense of an Ending; the layers in time, the complexity of character and narrative, and now I wonder whether it is perhaps the development of these attributes that I miss in this new work – but then just as I think this I am not totally convinced I haven’t missed something more.

Try as I may I could not warm to the unlikely protagonists; either individually or as a pair. The radical age difference – Paul is a 19 year old university student, Susan a 48 year old housewife – is, well, radical! Forgive me I have led a sheltered life … an affair, an arrangement, an accident perhaps, but more? Well, I thought, I dare say Mr. Barnes’ life has been much more interesting than mine! The peripheral characters also were abhorrent to various degrees, and in terms of Susan’s husband bordering on the grotesque. And the lineal development of the affair from tennis club to social exclusion to long drawn out disintegration was, well, just too…lineal, and Paul’s recollections of these ten precious years of his younger self that took such a bizarre turn so obviously selective. I did wonder a lot about the things he could no longer seem to recall with any certitude, and why not.

In the end, I didn’t believe this story being spun, and believe me that made me cranky because I love Barnes. And that is why I can’t leave it at that and why on further considering all those aspects of the story that seemed to me to so lack credibility, I begin to wonder whether Barnes is not having me (us, the collective reader) on? Is hiding behind an ostensibly serious, albeit against all conventions, love story and simplistic philosophical musings along the lines of “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, perhaps a jest, an intricate satire of sorts of suburbia and its social mores?

Satire as another vehicle to explore the consequences of decisions made and the imperfections of memory? I have time aplenty to dwell on this some more.

Goblin Market

Reading recently by chance Christina Rossetti’s narrative poem “Goblin Market”, I could not help but think about Virginia Woolf; the reasons for which I explain in some detail here.

Christina Rossetti is deserving of more attention, and will be returned to (soon, I hope!). Amongst other things, given Rossetti’s intense religiosity, I would be interested in exploring the leap of faith necessary for Woolf to embrace her.

Also, whilst looking for a copy of the poem, I came across this very nicely put together page at The Victorian Web, with the full text and a lot of interesting contextual information about the poem and of course about Rossetti herself. More generally, The Victorian Web is one of the better and more accessible resources out there in the big, wide whatever …!

Mrs. Ames

As we accompany Rev. Ames as he leaves testament to a good life lived in Gilead, his wife has been at his side for eight years perhaps, borne his child, grown into herself – distant still, but accepted. She is after all Mrs. Ames. Lila.

Told differently again is this third novel of the series. It is in the third person, but from the very reliable point of view of the subject – Lila’s voice shines through. Lacking the intellectual stringency of the first and the emotional roller-coaster ride of the second, and the complexity of both, it shines instead with its honesty and integrity and the more simple and direct tone.

*Migrant Mother – Dorothea Lange source: Library of Congress*

Ah, Lila! Taken, kidnapped, saved, however one may look at it, as a feeble five year old by the wandering Doll, and from the most desolate and abused circumstances. Their bonding and time together, with and without the company of itinerant workers, was, in those pre-Depression years and the harsher times to come, what was to define her, and give her the inner strength in the times spent alone on the road and in a St. Louis brothel.

One is left to imagine the many years from childhood to adulthood, to ponder quite how this clever woman, this kind woman, lived her life, to imagine it as equal and as flawed in all its goodness to that of the Reverend Ames; he who she on whim, or an inner sense of destiny, pleaded for and who took then her as wife, and without hesitation – that wondrous lost soul; searching there for shelter one day at his church door. Did Rev. Ames presume himself saviour? Who saved whom at God’s door?

*Woman at Church Door, George Henry Boughton, circa 1860*

Marilynne Robinson, in the parlance of these days, delivers again, and with her unique voice and an abiding humanity. Lila provides another fine character portrait from which the narrative springs; drawing one again near to the essence and limits of the loneliness, wariness and despair that pervades the little world of Gilead and the greater world of humankind, and along the way fosters a belief in the capacity to grow and change.

Remarkable.

On being at home…

Home may well mean many things for many people – there is that of birth or formative years, and that “where the heart is”; there is a physical place and a sensory place, and a home of the imagination. And too there is the home one recognises and that which one denies, and the home you take with you and the one you leave behind. There is that state of being at home with oneself. It is remarkably elusive this “home” thing.

Cover of the first edition published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Home is also the title of Marilynne Robinson’s 2008 follow-up novel to Gilead, which so captivated me with the radicality of its givenness. More a companion of sorts than a sequel, Home runs parallel in time, say through the Spring and Summer of 1956 – sometimes taking its own trajectory and sometimes entwined with Ames’ record; enhancing that, putting things right, begging the question of where reliability lies. I could only approach Home in the context of that first reading, which brought with it all the sympathies and associations I had formed.

I like to think of it in this way: Whilst our Reverend Ames is sitting down writing his very personal testimonial for his son, over at the Boughton household we have the recently returned Glory and that wayward, beloved brother Jack; caring for a dying father and coming to their own reckoning of sorts with themselves and one another

I see now those themes that predominated in Gilead – loneliness, forgiveness, sorrow, all that weariness and wariness – as being observed and described by Rev. Ames; in more soul searching moments in terms of himself, more often though pertaining to those nearest and dearest, but in Home the emotionally engaged reader lives them with the protagonists; the psychology of it all becomes reality. The change of narrative style to the third person, predominately from Glory’s point of view, and the wonderful dialogic exchanges facilitates this new rendering.

Glory, seemingly peripheral for Ames’ story, is central to this narrative, and I loved getting to know this woman – intelligent, duped by a bounder, and ashamed, felt left behind by life and her own aspirations. I even loved the tears. Teary rhymes with weary I know.

It is through Glory’s eyes that we see the tormented Jack, and with her we approach some knowledge and understanding of the lonely, desperate boy who never felt at home in this the family home, but treasures every memory, every detail. Dutifully, have the other siblings come “home” over all the years – and been glad enough to leave – but Jack has carried that “home” to which he never felt as if he belonged with him every day; and the burden heavy. What is home?

Jack and Glory: Their trials and tribulations, what they bring home with them, and what they seek and what they find instead; it may not be the sought for resolution, but there is a way there – and the reader’s hope that it be found.

With Home, Marilynne Robinson delivers again her deep Christian and human convictions in a prose that is sometimes more beautiful and profound than the profane heart or head can bear – but borne it is, and one is just left wondering at the limits of own profanity!

A play upon Pamela

I have read in the last days of Cate Blanchett’s performance in a controversial new play for the National Theater in London, When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, whereby the content is such that forwarning is given to the faint of heart and/or presumably the easily (or perhaps usually not so easily) offended. That it should have inspiration in the 18th century and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), and the very beginnings of the novel as a form!

‘Mr B Finds Pamela Writing’ – oil on canvas, 1743-4, the first of a series of 12 paintings by Joseph Highmore illustrating scenes from Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela. Photograph: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy

This piece at The Guardian by John Mullan gives an interesting perspective; relating the power dynamics at play and the predatory behaviour of one protagonist and the dilemmas of the other, with concerns and incidents we only know of too well in the here and now.

Written as a series of letters, and mostly by Pamela, Richardson seems to have come by a literary form adequate in conjuring the immediacy of a complicated and evolving relationship. Martin Crimp and Katie Mitchell and their players have come up with their own modern version (or vision!), to the satisfaction and dis- in equal measure it seems!

Love the Blanchett, would have loved to have seen this! London (I do believe the aforesaid has forsaken her antipodean home – again!) and the theatre – that’s a thing not many places can top!

A dedicated reading

I have always noted with interest the dedication and epigraph of a book – to whom if anyone – precise or otherwise (“To A.B.C. with love”!), sincere or ironic, inspirational or nonsensical. Sometimes they may mean nothing to anyone other than the author, but sometimes they are revealing (I think this is called paratextual).

My attention recently diverted to thinking about Puritans (who I have never thought much about before!), I recalled Margaret Atwood’s dedication of The Handmaid’s Tale to the historian Perry Miller (and Mary Webster – an Atwood ancestor and victim of the Salem witch trials!) who so impressed her whilst at Harvard in the early sixties.

Confounded somewhat about how those first Puritans could reemerge so diabolically in her Republic of Gilead (and at the same time dwell in the good spirit of a Reverend Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s novel), and fairly ignorant to colonial New England history, and absolutely to the theological dimensions, I have resolved therefore to pursue a little of my own research (over time!). And a starting point may well be at least some reading of Perry Miller’s The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Quite how far I will get I don’t know; it does seem somewhat daunting!

I have wondered though about that “Historical Note” that bookended rather than framed Atwood’s novel, and I think I can see that this literary device may have been influenced by what she took from Miller all those years ago; something perhaps like history to be seen in continuity, as inherited over and over, and inextricably embellished all the way along with the set of beliefs of the historian and his or her time. Atwood characterises her (rather obnoxious) historian as one analysing the past from the physical and intellectual coordinates of his present; oblivious that all these 200 years on he is carrying all the baggage from those two centuries. For Miller I think that meant that the Puritanism of colonial New England had only previously been understood in evidential terms, rather than conceding that the history being told was affected by the America of the ensuing years and the present.