Friday Five: Books Read in November (Yes, it's actually just four)

1. The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister (St Martin's Griffin) - This novel blends whimsy, magic realism, coming-of-age self-discovery, fairy tale archetypes and young adult fiction. Emmeline is raised by her father, alone on an island which can only be reached once a month when the tide is right. He has a machine, which can capture scents and print them onto slips of paper, like a Polaroid camera for images. He puts these scent papers into small glass bottles, stoppered with different-coloured wax. The scents do not last forever, and he begins to burn them individually to release memories, until a tragic accident forces Emmeline to leave the island and return to the mainland. Emmeline’s father has educated her through stories, foraging and fishing, sitting her down for a lesson every morning. There is an element of Miranda and Prospero, and her awakening to the brave new world enables the author to indulge in the trope of an ‘alien identity’ discovering and describing technology. She learns to read people through their scent, like a dog does. When rescued and taken to school, Emmeline is bullied for being different and for her intense sense of smell and her natural style – she doesn’t understand falsity and masking. Later, her mother, Victoria takes her to a make-up counter and buys all the products after the ‘transformation’. Emmeline goes to work for her mother creating scents to make people spend money. Often she omits a significant element, to force the body to fill that absence. "And what if that missing thing could make a person need to buy the things around them?” Of course, the skill is used for capitalist gain, but the sentiment is true for art – visual, performance and written – the best leaves something for the audience to do; to provoke a response rather than telling them exactly how they should think and feel. Many aspects of the novel are unconvincing, and it is not enough to pass this off as magical realism when they relate to plot points. Neither is it satisfactory to suggest they don't matter as this is a coming-of-age young adult fairytale, with Emmeline learning to 'be her own person'. Who else would she be?
2. In Memoiram by Alice Winn (Viking) - In Memoriam is reminiscent of Atonement and Testament of Youth as it covers the doomed generation of young men who went to war and never returned, either because they were killed or changed irrevocably. Also discernible are elements of Pat Barker’s Ghost Road novel, wherein, like the WWI poetry we all studied in school with the benefit of hindsight and distance, we can plot the way innocence, ideology and excitement turned to disgust, betrayal, anger and frustration. Our characters transform from schoolboys worried about their families and duty to wounded and embittered cynics whose promise was destroyed by a class system into which they had no input. And at its heart it is a love story between Gaunt and Ellwood, two young men coming of age in a time when homosexuality was still illegal. Winn writes in linear style, with sharp, clear sentences, avoiding excessive adjectives, but with a profoundly moving poetry. There are echoes of Blackadder Goes Forth in the trench talk, where there is resentment of the upper class automatically being made officers and promoted to captains, having authority over men much older and more experienced than them. Meanwhile the men are falling without class distinction in a horrifically mundane manner. “At nine, they went over the top. West’s head was shot off before they had gone two feet. Elwood paused to look at his brains. Pritchard had always said he didn’t have any, but there they were, grey and throbbing and clotted with blood.” The section set in a prisoner of war camp is almost a comic diversion. “It’s astonishing how well an English boarding school prepares one for prison.” All the prisoners are bored, chatty and trying to escape, while the guards are generally good-natured and long-suffering. In Memoriam is Alice Winn’s debut novel. It may not be an original topic, but it is excellently written. She writes captivatingly about things of which she can have no first-hand experience: life in the trenches, male sex, and English public schools with a ring of authenticity. I look forward to her next offering.
3. Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test by Marlene Zuk (W.W. Norton & Company) - Subtitled, How Behaviour Evolves and Why It Matters, this book answers that question immediately. “If we assume that intelligence is predetermined, we are less likely to think interventions, say in the form of social programs to improve learning in children, will be effective. On the other hand, if we assume everything can be altered by our actions, we may blame the victim, as is sometimes seen in the suggestion that those with cancer or other serious diseases could have avoided their plight by diet or exercise, or that people can just think their way out of depression.” The nature/ nurture question is repeatedly addressed as a 'zombie idea' - one that keeps springing back to life no matter how many times it has been disproved. Most recently (in 2017) a New York Times article titled ‘The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido’ argued that we are simply stuck with brutish men who can't or won't examine their destructive sexuality because it's just basic male behaviour. The book also questions the theory of exceptionalism, which puts humans above other species and supposes that other species are intelligent or sophisticated the more they are like us. “It doesn’t make sense to simply pick on an animal, no matter how beloved, and try to rank it according to a scale that only works in a single dimension or on humancentric traits… In other words, dogs are good at things that make sense for dogs to be good at.” The idea of lizard brain is popular because it allows us to classify less-desirable behaviours and dismiss instincts as a holdover from the past. It is simple to understand, doesn't require complicated scientific explanations, and is completely untrue. What is true is that environment and genes interact to produce behaviour; as illustrated in a fairly devastating section on animals kept in captivity, or in the chapter on gender. This book is full of explanations, stories and science, and it is fascinating reading. 
4. Orphia and Eurydicius by Elsie John (Harper Collins) - In this adaptation of the Greek myth, the sex of Orpheus and Eurydice are switched, but it also concerns the story of a true love of equals without society's gender-ascribed roles. Orphia learns fighting from her brother (Apollo) and poetry from the muses; her poems make flowers bloom and waters move. As Calliope, the muse with responsibility for epic poetry, instructs, "No riches on earth compare to the arts. Tell me - what is it to feel, to express, to take delight, to see oneself reflected, to experience the stories of others?" Many of the stories Orphia learns are different from the male-centric myths that have been handed down: Hera, Medea, Atalanta and others all have greater agency. The gods use mortals as playthings and their assistance - like the advice of the Oracle - is to be treated with caution. Orphia plays games with Eurydicius and they converse as equals, as she notes, "He was gentle, and sweet; thoughtful and quietly kind. They were not the qualities that men prized, but I thought they were among the greatest qualities a man could have." When Eurydicius dies, Orphia uses her poetry as a challenge and a weapon in her desire to return to him, and when she goes to the Underworld she refuses to go gentle into that good night. "I will speak the two of us into legend, if I have to draw each letter from my own marrow. I will become poetry as I die." This is a beautiful retelling of a classic myth incorportaing poetry, creativity, unconventional love, and the courage of women who refuse to be silenced. 

Bigotry in Bournemoth: Whatever Happened to Margo?

Whatever Happened to Margo? by Margaret Durrell 

Penguin

Pp. 259

Those who read Gerald Durrell’s Corfu Trilogy about the escapades of the Durrell family on the Greek island in the 1930s, will be familiar with the character of Margo, and may indeed be interested in discovering what became of her. Fortunately for them, she has written a book about her subsequent life as a landlady in a Bournemouth boarding house. Unfortunately, she is not as entertaining a writer as her brother, and, whereas his anthropological remarks on animals were amusing and informative, hers on people are snobbish and dated.

After prompting from an aunt, Margo decides to buy a property across the street from her mother’s house, with money which was “a legacy from my father – dwindled somewhat”. She is ‘respectable’ and ‘middle-class’ with a divorce and two male children to her name, but there is no evidence of actual work. Her plan to take in a series of lodgers is a decent one especially since (one suspects) she has no employable talents.

It is 1947 and attitudes were different then, but the language and assumptions about her lodgers are quite ugly when related to modern readers. Edward Feather is a flamboyant red-bearded painter, leading to words like ‘nonce’ and ‘pansy’ being bandied about and smirks about men who wear tight trousers. Harriet is an eccentric old lady who accuses others of stealing her belongings while removing all the lightbulbs in the public spaces; when the residents gather over psychology books to decide what is wrong with her, at first they think she is “on the change”, a theory they quickly discount as “she’s too old for such capers”. Nelson is an obnoxious Billy Bunter type schoolboy (whom we are supposed to like for some inexplicable reason) and his harassed mother, who have fallen on hard times as their father/husband is in prison serving time for assault of her mother; he broke a plate over her head and she had to have twenty stitches.

Other residents include a man who abuses his wife – no one does anything until they dislike the noise – There is also Jane, a spinster, who is mercilessly ridiculed for being unattractive; a man who comes into money, which makes him a catch; a pair of musicians, one of whom Margo falls in love with; two glamorous nurses; and a bloke trying to get a job and a partner with equally limited success – he has a relationship with an Eastern European woman whom Margo, when she discovers she is transgender, reports to the police and a psychiatrist. All the women are in competition for men’s attentions, and the men are all expected to drool over attractive young females, while making fools of older ones. “It was surprising what a compliment from another man could do, lifting the drabbest of married women almost to prettiness.”

In a nod to her brother’s writings on animals, there are some in the house, including a dog (a present from her brother, Leslie) that cocks a leg over anything it chooses, including the baby’s pram. Gerald himself brings a python and a troop of monkeys for her to look after, and of course they escape with hilarious consequences. Meanwhile, the insufferable Nelson breeds mice to sell, causing Margo to display one of her many peculiar views as she remarks that there are “white mice breeding in the back lavatory like Communist China”.

The descriptions of her mother as an uptight suburbanite are a long way from the courageous woman who took her children to a Mediterranean island in search of a better life, and mingled with a cast of colourful characters in Gerald’s books. Here she is judgmental and small-minded, referring to a lovelorn woman as “walking barefoot like some male aborigine with twigs in her hair”. Margo packs her own children off to their father and takes Nelson on a trip to the seaside. She seems more interested in him than in her own offspring, and one wonders whether they will in time write their own account of these days in a never-ending family spiral. If they do, let’s hope it is in the style of their uncle rather than their mother.

Goodbye to the Greek Island: The Garden of the Gods

The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell

Penguin Books

Pp. 198

This is the third and final instalment in Gerald Durrell’s stories about his years in Corfu with the family, begun in My Family and Other Animals and continued in Birds, Beasts and Relatives. The tone has been set by the previous two, and this continues with more idyllic scene-setting and animal anecdotes.

These are halcyon days as the children have outstanding freedom in their unaccompanied travels: Gerry potters about in his boat; Margo swans off to the mainland; Leslie wanders the countryside with guns; Larry invites complete strangers to come and stay at their villa.

Gerald Durrell has a highly evocative way of writing that makes the countryside sound divine, and there are Homeric epithets in his descriptions of the sea. When he writes of the approaching seasons, his naturalist’s eye combines with his rustic poeticism and, as always, his main preoccupation is zoological. “For me, spring was one of the best times, for all the animal life of the island was astir and the air full of hope.”

He is keen to amass more creatures for his ever-growing menagerie, but he knows that certain members the family (particularly Larry), do not like his animal collection so he tries to get Mother and Margo on side, and they often feel sorry for abandoned animals. One of the peasants, wanting to get rid of unwanted puppies, buries them alive, by which fact Mother is understandably outraged. She exclaims, “These peasants! I can’t understand how they can be so cruel.”

The Greeks are examined almost as another species, which can be uncomfortably racist to a modern reader. Margo has many affairs of the heart, but always with Greeks rather than English boys (friends of Larry’s), saying of the local peasant boys, “They’re so handsome and so sweet. They all sing so well. They have such nice manners. They play the guitar. Give me one of them instead of an Englishman any day.” On the subject of changing attitudes with time, the family are remarkably accepting of potential paedophilia, commenting of a guest, Colonel Velvit, “Since his retirement his one interest in life was the local Scout troop and, while there were those unkind enough to say that his interest in Scouts was not entirely altruistic, he worked hard and had certainly never yet been caught.”

Mother accepts all the guests and offers outstanding hospitality, even to horrible or boring people, warning Margo, “We’ve never done anything nasty to anyone that’s stayed with us – I mean, except as a joke or by accident – and we’re not going to start.” One visitor friend of Larry’s believes he can levitate and keeps trying, invariably falling through the trellis

Gerry embellishes stories for comic effect, and sees them through a boy’s eyes, but some of the details are harrowing, such as when a Turk visits them (at Margo’s invitation) with three wives, aiming to make Margo his fourth.

They live in a weird limbo land without news of the outside world because, “we did not have the dubious benefits of a wireless and so, for the most part, lived in a state of blissful ignorance.” Part of this lack of ‘outside interference’ means they have to rely upon themselves for entertainment, and they do so with spectacular results. Gerry’s descriptions of the food, drink and company at these events are exquisite, and his depictions of a bygone era are sumptuous and appealing. He paints pictures with words that inspired a generation to travel and take an interest in nature. Some of the attitudes are outdated, but if he instils a sense of conservationism, they can be excused as the results of age. It’s tough to farewell these tales of childhood on an island paradise.

Childhood entitlement: Birds, Beasts and Relatives

Birds, Beasts, and Relatives by Gerald Durrell

Penguin

Pp. 245

This is the second instalment of Gerald Durrell’s Corfu Trilogy in which he continues with stories from the first book because the family say he has missed out all the best bits. As it is the same time period as the previous work, we don’t really need re-introductions, although it is interesting to see what the family members thought of their portrayal.

Gerry introduces several extra characters to us, mentioning Larry’s many friends who come to visit, including Max and Donald, and Sven who plays the accordion. We are also introduced to Countess Mavrodaki, “the recluse par excellence”., and we learn about his tutors, such as George, and his final (for this book) tutor, Kralefsky, a keen aviculturist (a person who keeps and rears birds) and a storytelling fantasist. He also provides greater depth to characters we have already met, and he describes his meeting with Theodore Stephanides, to whom the book is dedicated ‘in gratitude for laughter and learning”.

Gerry still collects animals for his menagerie: an owl called Ulysses; three dogs; and “there were rows and rows of jam jars, some containing specimens in methylated spirits, others containing microscopic life. And then there were six aquariums that housed a variety of newts, frogs, snakes and toads. Piles of glass-topped boxes contained my collections of butterflies, beetles and dragon-flies.” I remember things that I learned from reading these books as a child, such as the fact that snails are hermaphrodites.

Gerry has a child’s viewpoint and assumes that people and things exist for his entertainment. He experiences bucolic activities such as harvesting olives, but also is witness to live birth, and his reaction is less palatable. The description is anatomical but also unpleasantly dispassionate, perhaps because the human is foreign. “I was so used to the shrill indignation of peasants over the most trivial circumstances that I did not really, consciously, associate Katerina’s falsetto screams with pain. It was obvious that she was in some pain. Her face was white, crumpled, and old-looking, but I automatically subtracted ninety percent of the screaming as exaggeration.”

Furthermore, his description of the gypsies is somewhat uncomfortable in a modern setting. “I had always wanted to get on intimate terms with the gypsies, but they were a shy and hostile people… and although they would allow me to visit their camps, they were never forthcoming, in the way that the peasants were in telling me about their private lives and their aspirations.”

When Mother receives unwanted attention, and even a proposal of marriage, from a ‘disgusting old brute’, Captain Creech, she is naturally horrified and a little bit afraid. The children all laugh and ridicule, and she counters, “When there’s a real crisis, you children are of absolutely no use whatsoever.” Yes, this is an amusing anecdote, but she is a single woman in a foreign country in the 1930s with no respectable family to protect her.

Gerry writes of people as though they were specimens to be studied as his animals, birds and insects; because they are foreign (or female), they are other and this dispassionate approach is a little off-putting. These are still great stories of their time, but a deeper look reveals some more unsavoury aspects, which can be excused from a child’s account, but not really as an adult reader.

Idyllic Island Life: My Family and Other Animals

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Penguin Books

Pp.308

A generation of readers was introduced to this marvellous family and the island of Corfu through the school curriculum. It is ingrained in the childhood of many and to return to it as an adult is refreshing and fascinating. The recent TV series starring Keeley Hawes as Mother has fuelled a new interest and it is actually quite hard to separate the books from their screen interpretations, as they have been done so sensitively and affectionately. The opening sentence sets forth to manage our expectations;

“This is the story of a five-year sojourn that I and my family made on the Greek island of Corfu. It was originally intended to be a mildly nostalgic account of the natural history of the island, but I made a grave mistake by introducing my family into the book in the first few pages. Having got themselves on paper, they then proceeded to establish themselves and invite various friends to share the chapters. It was only with the greatest difficulty, and considerable cunning, that I managed to retain a few pages here and there which I could devote exclusively to animals.”

The memoir is narrated by Gerry, the youngest of four children. The other members of the family are Larry, the eldest, and also known as famous published author, Lawrence Durrell, Leslie, who seems to like shooting things, and Margo, who wants nothing more than to get a tan. They are guided, after a fashion, by Mother, to whom the book is dedicated. It was either a bold or a foolhardy move to decamp to a Greek island in the 1930s (the TV series suggest alcoholism and impecuniousness were involved), but with hindsight, Gerry’s affection for his mother and her management of the menagerie is clear.

The family are loud and boisterous, with confidence that would be arrogance if it weren’t so kindly transcribed. Mother is aware that Gerry desperately needs an education; he explains that as a child his English and maths are woeful and the only words he can spell correctly are biological ones. He captures his dealings with his family with a child’s interest, providing light humour and insight. The direct style mixes the monumental with the banal. The family move house a few times (including the first great shift) and each time Larry suggests it; mother rejects it: “We are not moving to another villa, I’ve made up my mind about that”. The next chapter then begins with the move: “The new villa was enormous”. 

They have parties where the animals terrorise the guests (there are scorpions in matchboxes and snakes in the bath) and The Durrells think nothing is untoward. The family seem to get ‘caught up’ in the island rituals rather more by accident than design, while Gerry visits the islanders, who all think the English are odd, but refer to him (apparently affectionately) as “the little lord”. There is a lot of stereotypical sexist peasant behaviour that is considered acceptable, and his views are vaguely racist.

Gerry is interested in little other than animals, and there are lots in the book, as suggested by the title, but not as many as I had remembered. There are far more insects, and plenty of anthropomorphising. He gets a little carried away with describing the seasons in a manner that is not strictly scientific, adding to the overall whimsy. He can be forgiven, however, for the book itself has a wonderfully soporific effect. When he writes of languid afternoon swims, sunny siestas on the veranda and afternoon teas that leave the guests pleasantly replete, it is with precision and nostalgia. Who wouldn’t want to be there? 

The author evokes a wonderful feeling of a time and place, which could never be replicated. Because this is the memory of a child, it may never even have existed, but, whether returning to this book or encountering it for the first time, the reader feels the comfort of coming home.

Laughing all the way to the Banksy?

The Art of Banksy
The Paddock, Federation Square (the dodgy car park, behind the Fed Square car park). Melbourne
7 October 2016 - 31 January 2017

Some time ago, I found myself in Melbourne, with a Banksy exhibition on my doorstep. I've always been intrigued by Banksy and his art. And, yes, I do think it is art, even though it is stencil and spray-paint and not always even by him. I find his ideas interesting, and warm to the way he takes the personal and makes it political. I know it has been described as crude and simplistic, but I find it inspirational in its clarity. It is direct and accessible and refutes the notion that art is for the elite. It is self-referential and deprecating in equal measure, and literally brings art out of auction houses and into the streets.

I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit (2007)

And yet an exhibition such as this takes it off the streets and puts it back into the gallery. Artwork such as Barcode Shark, Festival, or Consumer Jesus decry the fundamental ideas of capitalism, while there is, of course, a gift shop, selling these images on t-shirts, postcards and mugs begging the question who is the mug, here? One exhibit actually features t-shirts hung as works of art rather than clothing, further confusing the boundaries between ideology and practicality.

There is no exception to the rule that everyone thinks they're an exception to the rule - Banksy

Consumers of this art are being ridiculed even as they admire it. We must face the consequences of our desire to scorn the herd, just as we are a part of it. And we may want to feel special and different, but we aren't. And that hurts. 

Have a Nice Day

This exhibition was curated by Steve Lazarides, a British art gallery owner. Having studied photography at Newcastle University, he was working on a photo-shoot when he met Banksy and became his agent. He subsequently launched the website 'Pictures on Walls' to promote street artists and urban art. He and Banksy parted ways in 2008 and yet he obviously still champions his former client's work - again one wonders whether the relationship is amicable and mutually beneficial. 

Rude Copper

The majority of the paintings in this exhibition were originally exhibited and sold in some of Banksy's seminal shows, which included two of the artist's most well-known; Turf War which took place in Dalston in East London in 2003, and Barely Legal in Los Angeles 2006.

Lazarides explains that with the ability and skill to exercise a wide palette of contrasting techniques and mediums, these inside works retained the same motifs and ideas that were presented in the outside street pieces. The difference, however, was that they were created with the intention of being viewed within the context of an exhibition environment. While an outside street piece was always created to be transient - there one minute and gone the next - Banksy's inside paintings instead required the scrutiny of a longer view. These artworks would instead potentially be admired for several lifetimes.

Girl with Balloon (gold)

The Art of Banksy features over 80 pieces of original art and screen prints in a pop-up gallery on The Paddock at Federation Square. It does not have Banksy's permission and is therefore an unauthorised exhibition. But if you attack corporations for greed and insist that all work should be public, can you criticise the curators for holding such a show?

The Burger King Kid

"It is not my place to give you my opinion on what these pieces are about. That privilege lies with the artist and I'm pretty sure that isn't something he'd ever do. You as a viewer have as valid an opinion on these works as either me or Banksy. They mean whatever you, the viewer, think they mean - there is no right or wrong." - Steve Lazarides

Flower Thrower (on tarpaulin)

Dorothy Police Search

Many of these spray-painting images have become ironic icons. From the flower-throwing rioter to the American soldier searching Dorothy's basket, the pictures are dripping with sarcasm and subverting authority but also tinged with hope. They seem to say that if we recognise that rampant capitalism is eroding our freedoms and poisoning our communities, then others will too. And perhaps there is a a glimpse of a brighter future. Even the trashed Mini has a stencil of the girl with the hope balloon near the empty fuel tank.

 

The smiley face features heavily in this exhibition. Now used as an emoji - a symbol of happiness when vocabulary fails - the classic design by Harvey Ball in 1963 represented sunny hedonism to raise the morale of employees at State Mutual Life Assurance Company. In the early 1970s, two brothers based in Philadelphia, Bernard and Murray Spain, added the words 'have a nice day' to sell novelty badges and other paraphernalia to a nation determined to forget the traumas of Vietnam. 

It also suggests the late-80s acid house culture, when the logo appeared on acid tabs implying that one could only have a good time by getting out of one's head because 'real' life was too banal and depressing. Thus a simple child's drawing became hijacked by a number of corporations (Wal-Mart tried to trademark it in 2002) which makes it ripe for inclusion on Banksy's work.

Smiley Grim Reaper

Smiley Angel Policeman

Naturally one would expect a street artist to be anti-capitalist and against rampant consumerism. In this regards, Banksy doesn't disappoint.

Festival

Barcode Leopard

Very Little Helps

Consumer Jesus

Barcode Shark

By taking art from its hallowed walls and desecrating traditional-style paintings Banksy gives art back to the people. He seems to intimate that it should belong to us all, and that we should all be able to see it, rather than it disappearing into the hands of private collectors - which turns full-circle when his own alternative prints are hung in galleries, sold at auction and hidden from public view.

Turf War

Bullet-proof David; Suicide Bomber (2006)

 

Banksy did a series of 'defaced' work in which stencilled imagery is sprayed upon a found canvas, perhaps purchased from a flea market or salvaged from a dumpster. He was known for sneaking into art galleries and hanging his works alongside Old Masters, complete with interpretive panels explaining the 'hidden meanings'.

Violence and the resulting fear is another common theme - whether painting military weaponry or police brutality towards protesters, he frequently highlights the scaremongering and fear which grips nations. This corporate violence leads to a death of innocence, which he seems to decry - using powerfully deceptive imagery in stylistic silhouettes, such as might be found in a child's picture book. Personal possession, which denies communal appreciation seeks to own and control rather than share.

Warning Sign

Bombing Middle England and Weston-Super-Mare

La American Flag

Kids on Guns Hill

Pooh Bear Trap

"Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet." - Banksy

His artwork is temporary and ephemeral, but never whimsical. It is often painted over, or dismantled, if it is in the form of installation art. Just before the gift shop was an installation of an old-fashioned sweet shop with jars of sweets, looking like simple treats. On closer inspection they bore copies of his protest images - something to sugar-coat the pill, perhaps?

Obviously the gallery couldn't recreate these impermanent exhibitions, but it included photos and videos of them, to spread the word and the ideas.

 
 

He is a keen animal rights campaigner, which makes sense for someone who gives voices to those who need most support. In Sirens of the Lambs, a slaughter wagon full of cuddly toys was driven around the streets of New York. He has previously spray-painted sheep (the RSPCA deemed their treatment was humane) and included a live elephant in a room, which he instructed people not to mention. 

But perhaps his most famous animal creation is the rat; pressed into service for propaganda and sloganeering, it equally represents the trapped commuter we recognise who gets stuck in the maze of making money to survive.

Throughout the exhibition are signs exhorting us to take photos and to share this stuff - art is not the preserve of the elite; it belongs to the masses. And yet we were charged $30 to enter - and there were queues to get into the tent in the 'dodgy carpark' behind Federation Square. 

Is Banksy laughing all the way to the bank? Is he now part of the establishment he set out to rail against? Has he well and truly passed the tipping point? I like his ideas and his presentation of them, so I don't care if he is swimming with the current of the dreaded mainstream. And I get the impression that he doesn't either.

Getting to Know 'The Other'

Climbing Mountains and Writing Stories: In Conversation with Yann Martel

Canberra Writers Festival

Llewellyn Hall, 26 August, 2016

Yann Martel looks a little like a scruffy and earnest student. He talks like one too, frequently wandering off on tangents and occasionally forgetting what he’s talking about. But he is so erudite, charming and fascinating, that he is captivating as he describes his attitude to religion, politics, art, and life (both of Pi and in general).

He studied philosophy at university, which he claims is a good way of being reasonable; of “scouring the wonder from religion and art”. And yet he is fascinated by religion and he loves religious texts, which both tell stories and entail the suspension of disbelief. He laments that our culture is so cynical and explains that if you can set that aside, the texts of the gospels can open up to faith and wonder. Admitting that there is no proof for faith, he confesses, “it is comforting and it makes me feel better.”

He asks us to consider why Agatha Christie is so popular? Her novels all follow the same framework and they are very English in their setting, humour and morals, and yet she has sold five billion copies of her books worldwide. He suspects this is because she writes about death in a way that is entertaining rather than depressing. We are all going to die in the end, so it is comforting to think of death in terms of faith. The Jesus event is a bit of an anomaly, because gods are usually omnipotent and don’t die. But this one resurrects; death is not a finality, but merely a threshold.

This returns him to his interest in religious faith and Life of Pi. He feels there is a proximity of animals to the divine, stating where there are lots of animals (India), there is a strong manifestation of religion. Gods and animals are always in the moment (not worried about the past or thinking about something else), and have a strong sense of presence. They can play the role of the witness, and he has put a chimpanzee into his latest book, The High Mountains of Portugal. The chimpanzee is an interesting choice as it is the closest animal to a human, sharing 98% of the same DNA as us, but what a difference that 2% makes!

With little prompting, Martel speaks about the film adaptation of Life of Pi. He accepts that adapting a novel to screen is challenging. For a start, there is the need to use different language. He may write, ‘the ship sank’, because he is more interested in the effect this has on Pi than the event itself, whereas in the film, it becomes a visually dramatic and engaging scene. His reaction to the film was mixed due to the difference of perspective and point of view. In the book we see everything through Pi’s eyes; in the film we see Pi himself. Naturally the ruminations of the book are lost. Martel considers the film is a nice compliment to the book if you read the book first. If you see the film first, it seems a little lacking. He was slightly disappointed in the film but, he laughs, no one ever blames the author for a bad adaptation of their novel, and anyway, “I cried all the way to the bank”.

When asked which version of Life of Pi really happened, he throws it back to the audience – which did we prefer? Obviously the first one with the animals is more marvellous and remarkable. We tend to prefer metaphors; who cares if they are true? If we are obsessed with facts and the truth alone, we would never read novels or poetry. We also tend to believe what we last see, which becomes problematic in a film. In a novel we don’t see anything; we create it all mentally, and because the ‘real’ story is macabre and horrible, most people want to believe the first story, even if it is incredible. Life of Pi is going to be adapted for the stage in London (cue gasps of delight from the audience), and Martel hopes to involve himself more and suggesting that the storyline is inverted, putting the grim one first, and allowing the fable to be teased out by the investigators in the Mexican hospital.

Martel has a shack to write in, in which he isolates himself. Before he begins a novel he reads books, asks questions and researches. Then, “I close my eyes and try to imagine being the other”. He wrote about a man who became a woman and returned to being a male with a new sense of awareness in Self (1996). Interested in sexual identity, he asked women about all aspects of their sexuality and physicality and concluded there is a greater sorority of women than there is fraternity of men. Beatrice and Virgil (2010) is an allegorical tale about the Holocaust featuring a donkey and a monkey. He believes that a great story creates empathy, and the best way of understanding ‘the other’ is to be ‘the other’ through fiction. It is a matter of concern to him that the largest group of people who don’t read is that of middle-aged males; the ones who tend to run the world, and therefore, need the most understanding.

One of his more controversial actions was his attempt to educate former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, whom he describes as a “tight, narrow little man”. Harper had no life/ work/ travel experience and famously never read. When asked what his favourite book was, he replied “The Guinness Book of World Records”. Shocked by this gulf between the political and the arts, as Harper was meant to be the people’s representative of both, Martel sent him a book every two weeks with a short note. The first was The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, for which he was accused of being elitist – “We can’t all read Tolstoy!”

Martel continued to send Harper a variety of books from Agatha Christie to Harlequin Romances (The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss) over four years – 101 books and letters – and received no reply. People accused Martel of arrogance and asked him, “What does it matter if Harper doesn’t read?” He counters that it is important to read the imaginative word; “If you have power over other people; you must know these other people.”

Naturally, this statement lead to a question from the audience asking what he would recommend our own Prime Minister read. After commenting, “You make me feel like a literary oncologist”, Martel fielded the question deftly, suggesting that, as he needs courage and serenity, perhaps a war novel would be appropriate – something like The Red Bad of Courage. Playing expertly to the crowd, Martel concluded, “but I understand that Turnbull likes the arts – he’s just in the wrong party…”

Friday Five: Ugly Animals



Proboscis monkey we saw in Borneo

 No, no, no, I simply won’t have it. Two of my favourite animals have made the top five of the ugly animals list. New Zealand’s beautifully useless kakapo was named the second ugliest and the fabulous Proboscis monkey (with whom I fell in love in Borneo, and whom I believe bears a certain resemblance to someone I love dearly) came in at number four.

The list was compiled by the Ugly Animals Preservation Society which considers it unfair that fluffy pandas and cuddly polar bears get all the attention when other equally endangered animals are ignored because they aren’t so photogenic. This is a worthy cause, but I question their choices (although the blobfish, which tops their list, really is repulsive-looking). So I have made up my own list, and it’s true that fur generally wins in the cute race.

5 Ugly Animals (in my opinon):

1. Human babies – come on; what’s attractive about a bright red bald screaming thing?
2. Warthogs – need I say more?
3. Those hairless dogs with whiskers (Chinese crested) – bald cats are none too attractive either, to be fair.
4. Naked mole rats – they are extremely ugly but highly desirable for scientists since it has been discovered that they don’t get cancer.
5. Cockroaches – so revolting they may be the only animal I would willingly kill if I could, although they are practically indestructible. And their larvae are repulsive too.