...And Now For Something Completely Different

It’s sometimes difficult to stay on target. My original intention was to develop a blog that had a consistent theme, that was cohesive and of singular vision. The plan was to write about those books that have, without sounding too much like F.R. Leavis, literary merit. I’d also planned on writing something every week. The problem with this is that I also have to work — so the book that I review each week tends to be the only one that gets read. I don’t generally have a problem with this, as I love the books I read. But every now and again you just want to laugh.

Now, I’m not saying that literary novels aren’t funny, because many of them are. But sometimes the requirement that the jokes be part of a greater rumination on the trials of ageing, or the brevity of life can be a little draining. Particularly when you don’t have a lot of money and you’re haemorrhaging wasted days. So this week I’ve taken a break from my usual fare, with a book that simply made me laugh, Unseen Academicals.

As the 37th novel in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Unseen Academicals isn’t likely to attract the attention of the serious literary types who normally, and quite reasonably, treat prolific authors with some trepidation. And indeed, such caution is probably justifiable for Pratchett’s work, which is often joyously silly and features wizards — a profession persistently out of fashion in serious Literature since Le Morte Darthur. To treat it as assembly line fiction however is to understate its appeal.

Unseen Academicals sees the wizards of the Unseen University facing a contemporary, if somewhat farcical, challenge— a crippling budget cut. The wizards face having their meals reduced to a paltry three-per-day, unless they can fulfil the baffling terms of the bequest that majority funds their sumptuous culinary lifestyle, namely by fielding an Unseen University football team. As you can imagine, high jinks inevitably ensue.

The strength of Pratchett’s work lies principally in his characters, which are crafted to be so wilfully excessive that they border on sublime. The superlatively titled Archancellor Ridcully returns with a glut of boorishly classic lines, while Ponder Stibbons is, as ever, the perpetually misused post grad — amply illustrated by the following extract:

'It is a well-known fact in any organisation that, if you want a job done, you should give it to some one who is already very busy […]
In UU, Ponder Stibbons was that busy man.'

In addition to the familiar faces, Pratchett also introduces a number of new creations, including the idiot savant Mr Nutt, who aspires to coach the eponymous football team; Glenda Sugarbean, a stereotype challenging pie-maker; Trevor Likely, heir-apparent to the title of ‘Prince Of Football’ — but ‘promised his ma he wouldn’t play’; and Juliet Stollop, soon to be Discworld’s first fashion model. The latter two becoming the star-crossed lovers in a facetious tribute to the bard, retold through the medium of football tribalism.

Pratchett’s writing is simple and accessible, as you would expect, but there is a joy in it that is infectious. Unabashed when it comes to using word play, Pratchett is a connoisseur of linguistic comedy — his puns aren’t restrained, but rather recall the puerile relish of language that can be found in Wilde’s ‘The Importance of being Earnest’. He also shows that he is capable of surprising virtuosity, as in his ridiculous use of the mock grandiose in, ‘There was a brief interregnum as the ladle went from bowl to bowl’. Clearly Pratchett is someone who takes enormous pleasure in his craft, and it shows.

You do then have to wonder if Terry Pratchett might not be better than he’s sometimes given credit for. His wit impresses, yet he resists the urge towards ostentation; references to Keats and Shakespeare, and a play on the name of the scholar Erasmus are nods to literary tradition, but the homage remains populist, which befits the tone of his work. I suspect that Pratchett might have gained more literary recognition had his work been a little more acerbic. The satire in Pratchett’s writing is astute and constant enough to reward re-reading, but always benign. Perversely though, this is what makes his work so inimitable — few writers have the ability to present such compelling satire whilst offending so few.

Pratchett has recently won plaudits from A.S. Byatt for the simple fact that he writes books that people want to read. I don’t think that this necessarily differentiates him from any of the other popular genre-fiction writers, but I can understand why Byatt has singled him out. The linguistic zeal in his writing appeals to the hearts of those who take an unusual pleasure in the English language — it is this simple fact that makes him a companionable, if un-literary, retreat for literary types. I might hope that posterity will relieve him from that purgatory of sorts, but I don’t doubt that he’d rather be where he is now.

Post Office - A Review

“This is presented as a work of fiction and dedicated to nobody”

I can’t say whether it is for fear of appearing creatively barren, or if perhaps it is simply a case of sustaining an illusion, but it seems that more than a few authors are understandably reticent when it comes to admitting to having written autobiography. You have to admire then the fierce honesty in the above dedication, taken from Charles Bukowski’s first novel — Post Office.

Labelled as a misogynist by his detractors and a misanthrope by his proponents, Bukowski easily drew as much vitriol as admiration, in life and in writing. He similarly divided the critics, with some deploring his excessive reliance on self-caricature and others celebrating the naked simplicity of his prose. Critical reception aside though, Bukowski produced an expansive collection of work — some good, some less so — and if there is a consensus on Bukowski, then it is that he is an unpopular legend of American Literature.

Now, I have to admit to having been a little apprehensive about reviewing Bukowski, as legend is legend, and writing such a review for the turgid Internet backwaters is undoubtedly an exercise in futility. Evidently however, I’ve decided to do it anyway and my reasons are twofold: 1. Bukowski remains a controversial figure, and 2. Post Office is often overshadowed by his later work.

Post Office’s protagonist is Henry Chinaski, named quite obviously— think Samsa/ Kafka— after Bukowski, and the narrative centres, excepting a brief diversion, around life on the eponymous Post Office. Chinaski, later to reappear in Ham On Rye, is an anti-hero who stretches the ‘hero’ aspect past breaking, and it is not hard to see why Bukowski had a reputation for chauvinism. Chinaski’s language is crude and idiosyncratic, particularly when it comes to his indelicate descriptions of women and sex. Indeed, the coarseness of the text is so abrasive that you could be forgiven for putting the book down before the first chapter is out. To do so however, would be to miss a great deal of beauty, and a whole lot more ugliness.

Unsurprisingly, it is in the descriptions of the Post Office that the book is at its strongest; the dullness of the Post Office is rendered in negative against the colourful Chinaski, and it looms malignantly over every facet of life in the novel. The Post Office could easily make for an unreadable backdrop, but Bukowski’s dry humour and strong characters, deftly illustrated by terse, simple speech, make the novel vivid and appealing. The monolithic presence of the Post Office could potentially be read as being allegorical, representative of a world in which the working classes have little real freedom, but I think that to apply such a value-laden interpretation would be to misunderstand Bukowski, who was ever a cynic and a realist. I suspect that the Post Office is rather simply a fact of life, for Chinaski and Bukowski both.

Similarly, calling Bukowski ‘the voice of the working classes’ would also be wrong, and I suspect that most in the aforementioned group would resent being represented by such vulgarity. But I think that it is fair to say that his is a voice that is little heard in traditional Literature; it’s ugly and it’s depraved, but it is also very, very sad. Throughout Post Office, there is a duality in the way that Chinaski seeks both instant gratification and genuine warmth and affection — you have to wonder whether the predilection for the former might not just be an attempt at self-sabotage, masking a true desire for the latter. This is certainly an interpretation that would fit well with the Bukowski’s own self-representation, the brutality of which almost reads like self-harm.

Those that reflexively label Bukowski’s work as misanthropic or misogynistic misunderstand the man. It is an axiom that Bukowski only ever wrote through the prism of self-portrayal, so the misogyny, the misanthropy, the ugliness and the sadness can only be elements of a self-portrait, consciously applied. Charles Bukowski himself may well have been all of the above, but the only thing that we can be sure of on reading Post Office alone is that he thought himself ugly.

To sum it up then is very difficult — the adjectives that are typically used here just don’t work. Warm? No. Beautiful? Not Conventionally. Funny? Perhaps. Sad? Maybe too sad. All that I can really say then is that, provided you can stomach it, it’s very, very good.

Cloud Atlas - A Brief Review

The idea of interlinking narratives to form a larger whole — with their relationships often remaining obscured until a late reveal — already feels a little tired as a film concept. And, with modern fiction increasingly striving to emulate cinema, it doesn’t exactly impress from a literary perspective either. It might be understandable then to approach Cloud Atlas with more than slight apprehension. The cover notes offer little more than that the adventure is indeed an amazing one, and they kindly warn you to expect a composite narrative. Not exactly the most auspicious beginning. Fortunately, as those already familiar with David Mitchell will have already guessed, Cloud Atlas is much, much more than a funky narrative. In fact, it’s not a funky narrative at all really.

Cloud Atlas parts way with expectation in that the component parts of the novel work just as well independently of each other as they do as a whole. Rather than having obfuscation prevail until the last third, where the thread of continuity is sanctimoniously revealed, Mitchell instead favours a thematic link — where the infrequent overlaps in his tales function more as tasteful flourishes than as being fundamental to narrative completion. This is a far more subtle approach and one that I much prefer to the former, in which I find that authorial presence can become overwhelming by its contrivance.

Considering Cloud Atlas on a thematic level then, how does it fare? In my view, pretty well. It is ostensibly spiritual with rebirth as leitmotif, questions of morality figuring prominently, and no shortage of religious characters and occurrences. Indeed, I suspect that for the more pious reader a spiritual interpretation could well be the most compelling. One moment in particular stands out, where Mitchell artfully disproves a fictional religion in the course of the narrative, yet simultaneously accedes a latent supernaturalism. This makes a fitting tribute to the vagaries of agnosticism.

Unfortunately however, I put myself firmly in the atheist camp. In order to deliver on subtext, Cloud Atlas must offer up more than purely religious interpretation. This it does. Taken as a social and political discourse, I feel that the novel positively thrives. The questions of morality are of course universal, but it is when they are considered as a purely social function that they become the most profound. It is with expert irony that Mitchell compares greed to motivation and finds the answer to be no more than perspective. The pensive nature of Cloud Atlas is also in evidence in its structure, with the second half of the novel being an inversion of the first — an invitation to reflection.

If the novel does have a weakness, then it is that it does at times lack subtlety. Mitchell does sometimes give in to the temptation to have his characters explicitly explain his big ideas, which does seem a little as though he is underestimating his audience. Then again, of course, this could be construed as one of his strengths — the novel doesn’t creak and groan with the austerity of ‘big L’ Literature. Readability can sometimes be a controversial quality in a literary novel, so you do really have to admire the way that Mitchell has managed to sneak it into Cloud Atlas. By offering up his fragments as a pastiche of other novel forms, he is able to shamelessly incorporate those ‘cheaper’ qualities that make for a page-turner, all the while managing to retain his integrity. Not everyone will like it, but I for one am grateful.