Friday Five: Books Read in July

1. Redback by Howard Jacobson (Black Swan) - I struggled with The Finkler Question, so thought it was worth giving Howard Jacobson another go; he is well-known for being funny and writing award-winning fiction. I suspect, however, his may be a style of humour (self-indulgent, middle-class, academic white man) that has passed me by. Think Tom Sharpe and Kingsley Amis, but more Jewish. Dense paragraphs, picaresque style, random characters, anxious first-person narrator, excessive hyperbole, roughly linear narrative peppered with tangents, flashbacks and digressions, and a barely-there storyline all appear to be hallmarks of the author's practice. The plot, such as it is, is that Karl Leon Forelock receives a double-first in Moral Decenies from Cambridge, is recruited by the CIA, and heads to Australia as a spy where he attends a lot of parties and makes sweeping generalistions about the country and women, whom he clearly doesn't understand. While he claims to have resolutely, "kept my nose out of politics", he feels entitled to comment on such matters, occasionally with amusing results. “Liberal in Australia, incidentally, means Conservative (unlike in England where it means nothing very much in particular), and is not to be confused with Labour. Which also means Conservative only not to quite the same degree.” Written in the 1980s, and set in the 1960s, the tone of this novel is very much last century.
2. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones - The winner of the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction is an extremely engaging and accessible novel, narrated by the main three protagonists. Celestial and Roy are happily and newly married when he is arrested and sentenced to twelve years in prison in Louisiana for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. She finds comfort in her childhood friend, Andre, Roy’s best man at their wedding. As their feelings develop, Roy’s conviction is overturned and Celestial has big decisions to make. Celestial is an artist; Roy is a business executive – they are not the blue-collar stereotypes of the American South, but because they are African-American, their lives are destroyed by a system which is prejudiced against them. On the evening of the alleged crime (a woman was raped and claims Roy was the perpetrator and, as a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time, he is almost automatically convicted) Roy and Celestial had had a big fight. This is their last interaction before he is hauled away by the police, and the situation throws their 'perfect' marriage into question. Jones has expressed that her novel is a version of The Odyssey, with Celestial playing the role of the waiting wife, unsure how to handle the return of her man. The men are infuriating as they fight over Celestial - "You don’t have to pee on her like a dog marking your territory. Have some manners.” They may well have suffered hardship and institutionalised racism, but that does not excuse their machismo and their sexism. This was a favourite of Oprah, Obama, and books clubs all across America.
3. The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett - This is the first in what has become a series of cosy crime novels, described as ‘Miss Marple meets The Crown’ in which the Queen solves mysteries. It was written in 2020, when the author went on a writer’s retreat during the pandemic to write something else entirely and came up with this instead. It’s highly implausible but thoroughly entertaining, as we are told, “The Queen solves mysteries. She solved the first one when she was twelve or thirteen, so the story goes. On her own. She sees things other people don’t see – often because they’re all looking at her. She knows so much about so many things. She’s got an eagle eye, a nose for bullshit and a fabulous memory. Her staff should trust her more.” At the behest of Prince Charles, the Queen hosts a ‘dine and sleep’ for Russian dancers, composers, and selected glitterati. When a pianist is found strangled the next day, hanged by the cord of his dressing gown in a wardrobe at Windsor Castle, the optics aren’t good. Initially it appears that it may have been a case of autoeroticism gone wrong, although the aides are hesitant to alert the Queen to this fact. She, meanwhile, tells Prince Philip that she is unshockable because “I’ve lived through a world war, that Ferguson girl and you in the Navy.” The MI5 suspect political involvement, but the Queen disagrees and sets out to solve the crime herself. Which, of course, she does.
4. Murder in Paradise by Ann Cleeves - Set on Kinness, an island off the coast of Scotland (bleak and misty with 'traditional values' and sheep), this is billed as a George and Molly Palmer-Jones mystery, but George is on his own, and Molly is back at home. George works with Sarah instead, a new bride who has just got married to Jim and returned to the island (where he grew up) for celebrations. It is difficult for her to adjust as everyone has secret alliances and their own ways of being. There is very little bird-watching (they ring some swans and shoot some geese) and George is cross and irritable with everyone and everything including himself and his feelings about retirement. “How pagan they are still, he thought… They pretend to be Christian, but when they’ve had a few drinks, they still behave like loutish Norsemen.” George is determined to solve the crime – the death of a girl who is believed to have fallen to her death – and even this annoys him. “He felt the weight of responsibility. It was as if the police had given up, and had handed over the task of finding the murderer to him.” The murder seems incidental to the narrative, which is more about adaptability. There is an entire red herring thread about child abuse, but mostly the islanders are afraid of change and the pervasive question is whether they can preserve the island as it is, or does that make it a museum?
5. Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes by Deborah Lesser - Inspired by a woman at a conference who was exploring 'the power of myth in modern culture' (basically, my university dissertation), the author decides to look at how female stories are interpreted, such as those of Eve, Pandora, Athena. It has a very Western focus.  Her tone is irritating - telling people what to do and treating the audience as if they haven’t considered this before she brought it to our attention. I am not surprised to learn she delivers TED talks; her approach is didactic, individual, and lecturing. She comments,“Everything I knew about European history had to do with wars and kings, trade routes and power plays between religions, royalty and tyrants. Why did we only know and care about those aspects of being human?” Speak for yourself! Maybe stop blaming education from fifty years ago and look into things yourself, like those of us who are interested already have. It may appeal to young people (as the alarming pink jacket suggests) as their first foray into this sphere, but there is nothing in here that I haven't read (in better formats) before.

Prison Performance: Mad Blood Stirring

Mad Blood Stirring by Simon Mayo

Doubleday

Pp. 387

Simon Mayo’s first novel for adults concerns a relatively unknown incident about a massacre at Dartmoor Prison where American sailors were being held in 1815 after the end of the three year-year conflict between the United States and Britain. The peace had not yet been ratified and there were thousands of prisoners of war crammed into Dartmoor, frustrated, angry and turning to violence. This much is true, and the novel is packed with solid descriptions of prison life: crowded bunks; appalling food; general boredom; thoughts of escape and political intrigues; and the constant backdrop of fear and danger.

Inspired by true events, the detail is precise including the initial march to the prison, the labour of snow-clearing, the smallpox outbreak and vaccinations against it. The sailors are segregated by choice, with the black sailors in Block Four, where they sing gospel songs and perform plays which they take very seriously. King Dick ‘rules’ Block Four, and the Rough Allies attempt to rule the rest, with violence and intimidation.

Sixteen-year-old Joe takes on the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet that is to be performed with great passion by the inmates of Block Four, although they bowdlerize the text. The kiss between the lovers is fraught with danger partly due to the homosexuality (punishable by flogging and further brutality) and also because Joe is white, while Romeo, played by Habakkuk (Habs) Snow is black. The title of the novel is taken from the opening scene of Act Three of Romeo and Juliet, and here implies but the growing unrest in the prison, and the illicit feelings that Joe and Habs develop for each other.

Highlighting the theatrical elements, the chapters are divided into Acts, some scenes are presented as scripts, and there is a list of characters at the beginning. There are many characters and they are not all fully formed with some aspects that could have made great stories relegated to mere subplots, causing the novel to read a little like the first draft of a film-script, albeit in a well-defined setting.

Casual Cruelty and Deep Unhappiness: The Mystery of Love

The Mystery of Love by Andrew Meehan

Head of Zeus

Pp. 247

Subtitled, Constance and Oscar: A Novel, this reads as if Constance has written it (but in omniscient third person) and Oscar has provided footnotes and comments from prison. Her tone is practical and her writing as in a diary, full of capitals and ampersands. His is flamboyant and full of criticism and narcissism, interrupting her story – as he must have done in life – by suddenly introducing his affair with Robbie as an entertaining anecdote rather than as an admission of adultery to his wife. Constance wants to escape from suffocating existence and sees marriage to Oscar as a way to do this; she is hoping for intimacy but is not blinded by his brilliance and comes to see him as two different people. She refers to OW, the performer, who is intense but exhausting, and Oscar, the man behind closed doors, whom she loves with all his frustrating imperfections. “Oh for goodness’ sake, she said. Clever people are such exhausting company. Thankfully you’re only clever in public. & if you’re here to propose marriage, let’s get on with it.”

Oscar’s mother, Lady Jane Wilde (LJW) knows her son is gay and that his relationship with Constance will be purely for show and for progeny. “The week before the wedding, LJW had invited her for dank tea in a darkened room &, if it were possible to be both cryptic & overly direct, had spoken at length about syphilis & the absence of a cure for it.” Later, Constance has occasion to remark about LJW and her unwanted opinions, “It was impossible to ever know if the woman was being helpful or just plain vicious.” Constance may not be swept up in romance, but she does want to change her life. It’s reminiscent of the relationship between Romeo and Juliet where he spouts the romantic poetry and she is keen to get on with the physical aspects. He seems more interested than her dress than her desires; her appearance rather than her appetites, so she tells him, “Sex isn’t everything, Oscar. But it is something.” She is aware that something might be missing from the relationship but does not question it too deeply at the beginning.

The single-minded need to have children and remove herself from her upbringing causes Constance to sacrifice many idealistic notions. “Better not to consider other weddings in the middle of your own. For this was a gathering with all the vivacity of a queue for meat pies.” Oscar doesn’t enjoy the sex, as she learns on her wedding night, “But it delighted her that he would put himself through something he didn’t enjoy just to please her. How could he bring himself to do something he hated? So many delights in one day. This was how she knew he loved her.” This unlikely prose reads like a man writing a woman who has never actually talked to a woman. Oscar’s foot notes describe how he tried to imagine something interesting when with her, in much the same way as he did when he masturbated, which is incredibly offensive considering OW is meant to have and empathy.

Constance and son, Cyril

Once Constance does have children, she discovers they are not the solution to providing happiness, and she doesn’t adore them as some might expect a mother would. “You couldn’t just squirt out child after child in the hope that it would make you feel better about yourself. What were children for? To make the days so very long as well as fraught with danger.”

Committed to the Rational Dress Movement, Constance is critical of restrictive women’s fashion. “Was it such a crime to be able to move your arm in what you wore? What if she would be required to bowl a ball or paint a picture? But her aunt would not be told that a crinoline was a fire hazard. & what if she were to fall under the wheels of a carriage? It was like walking around with a building attached to you.”

Rational Dress Society cartoon

Forgiveness and humility radiate from Constance, as she is persistent and determined to make things work. “Marriages don’t fail. The arrangements just change.” She has no rancour over her position as a woman publicly humiliated by her husband’s homosexual affair and imprisonment, and reflects, “Oscar is not a bad person. In the eyes of the law he behaved wrongly, & for one so clever he was certainly a bit dim to bring all this upon himself.”

The author tries to steer the reader away from pitying Constance her plight by suggesting that isn’t how she feels about herself and that she was never deluded. There is a myth about the wronged woman that he seeks to dispel with a touch too much protestation. Oscar’s final footnote is to comment, “For I have caused you so much pain & given the chance I would cause you more.” Despite trying to re-balance the narrative and claim the outsider knows nothing about the internal workings of a marriage, Meehan hasn’t imagined a particularly credible character and this remains a miserable book full of casual cruelty and deep unhappiness.

Friday Five COVID-19: More ISO TV

We're coming out of lockdown today - hurrah! While we will be cautiously allowed out to pubs, cafes and restaurants; theatres and cinemas are not operating at capacity so there will be more TV watched for visual input. Meanwhile, these programs have been on my recent watched list. 

1. Atlantic Crossing (SBS On Demand) - A Norwegian/ American drama miniseries addresses the issue of trying to get Allied support for Norway against the Nazis, who had invaded their country in WWII. Allied intervention was not assured, as the forces were busy on multiple fronts, so while the King of Norway and the Crown Prince Olav were in England, trying to drum up European support, Crown Princess Martha took her children to the U.S.A., where she becomes the guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. because this is a drama, the script implies there may be more than friendship between these characters. Production values are sleek, design and costumes are exquisite, and the acting varies from subtle and inscrutable to histrionic. Soapy romance elements aside, the politics is fascinating to view from a different historical perspective.  
2. The Head (SBS On Demand) - This Spanish-made, English-language psychological thriller ticks all my boxes; set in a snowy, cold location (The South Pole), a group is left in isolation as the Winterers remain at Polaris VI Antarctic Research Station to continue their research to assist in the fight against climate change. Immediately cracks begin to appear. Fast forward to six months later when the summer team return to find all the Winterers are dead or missing and there is a killer on the loose. Flashbacks indicate that everyone was shifty with a metaphorical axe to grind or a point to prove. It is logical, but I didn't work it out until the very end. It's like Agatha Christie on ice.



3. Time (BBC First) - All praise the new three-part drama miniseries by Jimmy McGovern set in a prison, starring Stephen Graham, Sean Bean, Sue Johnston and Siobhan Finnernan. It's exactly as cheery as one would expect, but the acting and the writing is almost criminally good.
4. Wentworth, Season 5 (ABC iview) - I'm a long way behind with this series - Season  5 finished in 2017, and Season 8 is halfway through (with filming interrupted due to COVID). It chucks in every prison cliché - don't go in the showers; get on gardening detail if you can; beware the butch lesbian; the kitchen deals drugs; most of the screws are bent, but it is one of few mainstream TV dramas that passes the Bechdel Test.



5. War of the Worlds, Seasons 1 & 2 (SBS On Demand) - There are a lot of versions of this story. According to this one (produced by Fox Networks Group and StudioCanal-backed Urban Myth Films), if you send Nick Cave songs out into the cosmos, you might get invaded by aliens from the future. "I don't believe in an interventionist God" has never seemed so apt. The bleak and deserted landscapes are reminiscent of 28 Days Later or The Day of the Triffids, but Gabriel Byrne lends it a touch of gravitas, and the blend of English and French gives it a certain je ne sais quoi. 

Welcome to Alcatraz - Part 2

The prison officers on Alcatraz had escape response plans locked in a safe in the control room to counteract any contingency. The control room gives me the creeps. The place would generally have been very quiet but when the phone rang, it would have filled them with dread. The officers lived on the island with their wives and children – there was a grocery store and a bowling alley, and it was only twelve minutes to San Francisco – but the kids could hear the prisoners ‘letting off steam’ when they got riotous.

These men lived here for a long time and they got used to routine and rules. The prisoners got a rulebook when they arrived. If they abided by these it was much better than if they didn’t (the isolation cells were very unpleasant). The two I like:

• #5 ‘You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege’ (Every parent should have this handbook)
  
  
• #30 ‘Loud talking, shouting, whistling, singing or other unnecessary noises are not permitted.’

There is a sunny area on C Block which was the most desirable area in the prison. Inmates played bridge, painted oil colours, listened to the radio, played draughts and dominoes, and even crocheted – one prisoner, whose mother taught him, taught the rest of the prisoners; a great example of skills being passed on.

They had a music hour when prisoners played any instrument they had – guitars; harmonicas; trombones (one guy played three notes repeatedly for an hour – how annoying would that be?!) – or rattling their tin cups on lieu of any other instrument. They could take out books from their library (which contained 15,000 books – heavy readers read between 75 and 100 books a year), and the most popular titles included the philosophy of Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel.

They could hear the sounds floating across the harbour from parties at the San Francisco Yacht Club (particularly at New Year); they could see the delights of the town from the exercise yard. It must almost have been an extra torment to ‘look at what you could have won.’ They called the areas of the cell block names such as Seedy Street, Times Square, Broadway, or Michigan Avenue – maybe to be ironic, or to give it a sense of connection to the outside.

Alcatraz was never integrated – Mexicans, Indians, Hispanics and whites were all put together, but blacks were segregated – apparently more for their own protection from the rednecks. Over 1,500 men served time in Alcatraz but in 1963 Kennedy ordered it closed. The mentality had moved from punishment to rehabilitation, but one prisoner who was released was worried that he was too different – he envied others who seemed to have purpose and moved too fast.


Outside the Blue Angels were flying overhead, practicing for an air show at the weekend. They are like the Red Arrows, but blue (obviously) and they’re not part of the Royal Air Force. They were swooping, twisting, flying in formation, buzzing the island and turning on and off their vapour trails. It was impressive stuff and the freedom of flight provided the ultimate contrast to the island incarceration.

Welcome to Alcatraz - Part 1

The sky is blue, the sun is shining merrily and all seems right with the bright, clear world as we board our boat to Alcatraz. If you lived here, you might want to visit when the mist and fog rolls in from the Pacific Ocean for a contrast and an eerie sense of atmosphere, but for a first-timer, the weather couldn’t be more perfect.

Arriving at the island, a sign announcing United States Penitentiary has been doctored to read ‘Indians Welcome, Indian Land’. I thought this was just a piece of graffito, but it turns out that Native Americans have occupied Alcatraz three times – the most effective beginning on November 20th 1969 and lasting for 19 months.

The Welcome to Alcatraz Island booklet explains, “Echoing the 1626 purchase of Manhattan Island, the Indians of All Tribes offered to buy Alcatraz from the federal government for $24 in beads, colored cloth and other trade goods. In The Proclamation to the Great White Father and all His People they noted that Alcatraz reminded them of an Indian reservation because, among other things, ‘it is isolated from modern facilities, the soil is rocky and unproductive, and the land does not support game’.”

We walk around the island – many areas are cordoned off to protect the seabirds. Some areas are rubble or burned – after the Indian occupation the government’s General Services Administration began bulldozing buildings, but this was stopped in 1972 when Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate Nation Recreation Area.

There are gardens and plants flourishing which seems incongruous in such a hostile environment, but there are no rodents or other mammals to eat the vegetation. Before it was a prison, Alcatraz was a fort and then a military guard – the military planted things to keep the island’s new soil (especially imported from Angel Island) from sliding away. Later, garden privileges were highly sought after by the prisoners at Alcatraz.

I really like the lighthouse (that’s another one bagged!) which was the first on the Pacific Coast and has been in operation since 1854. From the top of ‘the rock’, there are great views over the harbour, back towards San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge.

The audio tour is excellent, narrated by several of the prison guards and a handful of former inmates – one of whom came back to take a tour, just to see the warden’s house. Of course, the inmates believed in the escape-proof myth; the combination of tides and temperature made the water so treacherous. One of the inmates said, ‘Everything I want is a mile and a half away and I can’t get to it.’ But when they had been locked up for 15 years without visits or letters, what did they have to lose?

The audio tour describes many attempted escapes. Perhaps the most dramatic was that of the men who dug out of their cells with spoons and left heads made up of soap and hair on their pillows, which fell off when the officers touched them. These escapees were never found but presumed dead.

The officers claimed their days were boring, although a little eerie when patrolling the cells after lights out (9.30pm) with the sound of tears, grinding teeth, tossing and turning. The only guns were on the gun alley, not on the floor – even so, many officers were shot when an escape plan went wrong.

Even kitchenware was a murder weapon; three men got killed with kitchen knives (with a sound rather graphically described as ‘popslap’). The canteen or dining room was potentially the most dangerous place in the prison. The prisoners got (in addition to a roof over their heads) three meals a day – they were palatable, healthy, attractively served, and often spaghetti. Just in case the prisoners got sick of spaghetti, there were canisters of tear gas on hand.