An Age Old Question: The Devil and Miss Prym

The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
Thorsons
Pp. 201

Leo Tolstoy is said to have said, “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” This is the latter of those two options, and its claim to great literature is subjective, but the author has sold over 175 million of his books worldwide. One day a stranger comes to the town of Viscos (spoiler alert: he is the devil of the title) with a backpack containing twelve bars of gold. He offers one of them to Chantal (the Miss Prym of the title) on the condition that she communicates to the villagers that they will receive the other eleven if they commit a murder.

In essence it is a very simple morality tale; are people intrinsically good or evil? The basic prose may be a matter of translation from the original Portuguese (Coelho is Brazilian) but it suits the elements of fable, incorporating many parables. As it is a philosophical conceit, the narrator is omniscient, the characters are ciphers, and the events are unrealistic. It is cerebral rather than emotional; designed to make the reader think rather than feel.

The village of Viscos is remote and irrelevant, chosen deliberately by the stranger for his experiment. He wants to pit the villagers against each other, knowing that they are all in desperate financial straits and would welcome a windfall. It does not matter to the stranger whom the villagers choose to murder, only that they commit the act, and therefore, this is also an exploration of the conflict between the individual and society. “The story of one man is the story of all men. I need to know if we are good or evil.” Most cultures and religions have tales of the eternal struggle between good and evil. A Native American myth posits that we all contain two wolves; a kind and gentle one and a fierce and vicious one. The one that survives is the one we feed. This is incorporated into the metaphor of the rogue wolf which stalks the forest and terrorises the villagers, keeping them afraid. Many religions also have “a place of punishment, where the immortal soul goes after committing certain crimes against society (everything seemed to be in terms of society, rather than of the individual).”

The fundamental question is whether we are intrinsically good or bad, and what makes us this way. Coelho suggests that we are only good due to the fear of consequences. The stranger says, “I am a man who walks the earth with a devil at his side; in order to drive him away or accept him for once and for all, I need to know the answers to certain questions.” He chose Chantal because she is orphaned and searching for a way to escape her dull life in the village, but she wants someone to rescue her rather than acting for herself. She has several meetings with the stranger – as a single woman these may cause consternation but she has no one to protect her morality and can do as she please. She realises, however, that she too is bound by the fear of the future.

The metaphysical problem is described as game theory – gambling on the actions of others in order to protect yourself. It’s an old conundrum and one that doesn’t really have an answer. Chance exists and bad things happen to good people (the story of Job from the Old Testament is included along with many other myths and legends); perhaps we need the hope to carry on, like the widowed Berta, who sits outside her house every day watching the villagers and commenting on their action with her dead husband. The problem with the severely pedagogic tone is that it leaves little for the reader to do. Just as Chantal is trapped in the village, we are trapped in this narrative and will only be released when Coelho has finished with his lecture.

Friday Five: Victorian Alpine weekend

Last weekend we went to the Victorian Alps area for a few days and had a great time. Here are the edited highlights.

5 Highlights of the Easter weekend:

Happy and hoppy at Bridge Road Brewers

1. Two breweries and a winery - Bridge Road Brewers at Beechworth and Bright Brewery at Bright (oddly enough) both craft some excellent brews. My favourites were the Bling IPA from the former and the Razor Witbier from the latter. Bridge Road has a particularly pleasant ambiance and is tucked down a side alleyway, opening into a sun-drenched courtyard.

   

   Amulet Winery, with sheep

   Amulet winery makes sensational sparkling tipples from prosecco and moscato to Beechworth cider. They host a Highland Games next weekend, which apparently involves lots of fun, booze and caber tossing.

   

   Squeezing through boulders at Chalwell Galleries
2. Mt Buffalo - we went for a walk/run around this brilliant lump of rock that opens out into a massive plateau. There is a part of the track which squeezes between massive boulders, called Chalwell Galleries.

   

   The Horn, Mt Buffalo National Park

   The highest peak on the plateau is called The Horn, which is a cue for much giggling and striking views. 
   
   

   

   Beechworth town centre during the Golden Horseshoes Festival
3. Beechworth - the beautiful little town (population 2,645) is reminiscent of Arrowtown with its Easter Festival, including 'biggest crowd for the smallest parade in Australia' and the deciduous trees turning fabulous colours in the crisp autumn climate.








The heritage - the area is famed for its goldrush history (gold was discovered here in 1952); its links to Robert O'Hara Burke (leader of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition) ; and Ned Kelly connections - the notorious bushranger was imprisoned here and tried at the courthouse.





A number of culturally significant buildings line the main street and a cute little museum is full of information about all of these disparate of history.





Warning: Here Be Hippies





Shopping - Him Outdoors likes to talk to strangers and, as we pottered about the shops, cafes, museums and galleries of the district he chatted to everyone including talking to the ladies at the museum about the possibility of reinstigating a famous wheelbarrow race, and the bloke in the Trade Aid shop about the necessity and humanity of a national pensions scheme. For the record, we bought cycling gear, brewery merchandise, poncy soap, licorice root (for the beer), and lots of food and drink.

Him Outdoors with a Ned Kelly pie

Word of the Week: Kintsukuroi

Chinese Village Theatre

Back in New Zealand, Arrowtown was celebrating its 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold. I had written some pieces of theatre which were performed as part of the celebrations, so I went over to see them in action.

My commission from Julie Hughes of the Arrowtown 150 Committee was to provide several vignettes of about five minutes each to be performed in the Chinese Village in Arrowtown. The idea was that actors would pop out of huts or be staged in open areas in groups of 1-3 to bring the people and the experiences of the Chinese miners to life. Originally I was also going to direct these, but as I moved to Australia, this was no longer possible. I recommended Tiffany Menzies to direct them, as I knew she would grasp the concept and do an excellent job.

Part of the brief was to make the pieces positive and not dwell on the negative aspects of the Chinese gold-miners' experiences. This was quite a tall order, as most of the information documents the abuse and discrimination they suffered. As this was largely because of the differences in their culture that many other miners (mainly from European backgrounds) had not previously encountered, I tried to explain some of that.

I also wanted to avoid the ghastly scenario of having non-Chinese actors portray Chinese miners as this would be insensitive and just plain wrong, especially as the Chinese Consulate General Madam Tan was attending. Accordingly I wrote some pieces for non-Chinese and female actors as well, as I knew there might be difficulties in finding sufficient Chinese actors to play the parts. I incorporated elements of humour, fact, fiction and many aspects of the local life that I gathered from extensive reasearch, while injecting as much colour as possible. The pieces are all under copyright and cannot be performed without my permission.

The Welsh Wordsmith was there, reading the Arrow Observer on the toilet - in situ, as it were. The stone outhouse is all that's left of Ah Wak's store in the Chinese Village. The store itself, which was made of wood, burned to the ground in 1905. This lavatory is one of only four Chinese Sites on the Historic Places Trust's Register for Otago. He was improvising so this was nothing to do with me. It was, in fact, all his own work.

These images are of Kay performing Fruit and Veg. This piece was inspired by anecdotal memories of Ah Lum: "He wore long flowing robes, and walked into Arrowtown on Saturday morning followed by several 'coolies' carrying baskets of ginger and other vegetables slung on carry/ bamboo poles to sell to the European folk." The vegeatables he grew, apparently, were cabbage, peas, potatoes, corn, gooseberries and strawberries.

The piece is about the difference in attitude towards health and medicine - using fruit and vegetables for their natural holistic properties. Also there is a connection between the physical aspect of the vegetable and its purported healing properties - for example, the cabbage looks and feels like a brain and supposedly sharpens the brain, calms the mind, and removes irritability. This is a tenet of Chinese medicine which was totally unfamiliar at the time.

Weighing In  was performed by Paul Halsted and David Oakley. It's written for two none-so-bright gold-miners in a sort of Pete & Dud/ Alas Smith & Jones style, as I suspected there would be a shortage of Chinese actors. It incorporates oral tales from the archive of the Lakes District Museum about searching for gold and trying to supplement income.

Paul Halsted performing in Weighing In

David Oakley performing in Weighing In

Zee performed the role of Ah Lum in Village Store. I wrote this piece as a fairly cheesy verse of rhyming couplets, describing a number of food and other items mentioned in anecdotal accounts of his store, including "Chinese teas, rice, pickled lemons, ginger, opium, gambling pieces, medicines, smoking accessories". Among the relics of tent dwellers, archeologists discovered sardine and jam tins, gin and brandy bottles, which are woven into the poem.

This was a fabulous spectacle, and much credit must go to Tiffany, all the actors, and the Arrowtown 150 Committee. Congratulations all!