I first became aware of Tove Jansson and her Moomins about seven years ago when a new colleague at the library revealed her Moomin tattoo. It was very striking and enticingly unfamiliar. She filled me in on both the Moomins and Tove Jansson, enthusing greatly about their weird charms, but unfortunately and somewhat typically it has taken me this long to actually read one of the Moomin books. I’m a notorious late starter, but really I had little chance of being exposed to such strange children’s literature growing up in the West Australian countryside in the 1970’s, particularly to an author from Finland, which seems exotic to me even now.
The Moomins are fabulous creatures that look like sophisticated hippos, with big rounded snouts and bellies and of course they are all totally kooky. During the course of Moominmamma’s Maid they reveal to their new neighbor, a certain Mrs Fillyjonk, that they are “...very fond of make-believe...” and that they have a tree growing inside their house because they simply can’t bear to fell it. The Moomins love to throw wild parties in which everything is happening all at once, including fireworks; they have a jungle for a back yard and also wash their dishes in the sea. Into this playful chaos comes the newly hired maid Misabel, accompanied by her unhappy dog - Pimple, whom harbours a shameful secret. Misabel is scared of everything and is also terribly neurotic. A great deal of humour is generated by the clash between Misabel’s fear of life and the Moomins happy-go-lucky nature. Of course there lies the message for both children and adults alike - be yourself, face your fears and have some fun while you are at it.
It is somewhat of a cliche for children’s books to carry an underlying serious message, however Jansson’s idiosyncratic artwork and odd way of telling a story carries the message home in a uniquely natural style. The artwork is beautiful and the general tone is one of gentle eccentricity. The Moomins world is fun-filled and appealing, but also has psychological and allegorical depth. This is a hard trick to pull off and I’m sure that it would have won me over as a child; I recall that I was always suspicious of any books or TV shows that had a message, I would roll my childish eyes and display my immature version of cynicism (I started early and grew out of it by my mid twenties). I’m sure that cynicism does not even feature in the Moomins vocabulary, nor Jansson’s for that matter.
Moominmamma’s Maid is taken from Moomin comic book series that were originally published in the Evening News in the mid 1950s. No doubt the coulourful adventures of the Moonins would have been just the thing for a weary post war Britain. For myself it provided some Nordic whimsical relief from Franco satire and a weird counterpoint to Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970), a book I only just finished yesterday.
French writer Michel Houellebecq is a true enfant terrible, offending with each novel and his frequent inflammatory comments. Although his work has been praised widely it has also attracted its share of negative criticism, with accusations of sexism, racism and just about every other kind of ism you can think of (including jism? - undoubtedly....) In 2002 he stirred up trouble by referring to Islam as “the dumbest religion” and was subsequently tried and then acquitted of inciting racial hatred, with Houellebecq successfully arguing that he was critiquing the religion and not Muslims themselves. Aside from all the controversy Houellebecq is a clever and accomplished writer; the other book of his I’ve read, Atomized (1998), was an excellent, if bleak, existential satire on the fragmentation of the family unit. Submission finds Houellebecq tackling the question of Islam once more, but unexpectedly the novel is a spot on critique of Western culture, rather than Islam.
Submission is set in the year 2022, in which a moderate French Muslim political party becomes the logical middle path between opposing parties and takes power. Looking on is dissolute middle aged academic Francois, an expert on French writer Charles Marie Georges Huysmans, famous for his 1844 novel A Rebours (Against Nature), which defined the then burgeoning decadent literary movement (Huysmans importance here is significant, unfortunately requiring a long essay in itself, something I’m far to dissolute to even bother about...). It is very clear from the outset that Francois personifies the soulless secular Western world weakened by rampant capitalism and superficiality that Houellebecq is satirizing. Francois describes himself as being “...as political as a bath towel” and although he ironically states that election night TV is his second favourite show, it doesn’t stop him from changing the channel to watch a reality TV show about obesity. Francois’ life oozes both pathos and bathos as he contemplates middle-age turning into an old age plagued by illness, regret and loneliness.
Submission, although it explores important themes, is not particularly realistic; rather Houellebecq uses its deceptively simple, almost cartoonish premise, as a means to both satirize superficial Western culture and perhaps more pertinently, to reveal a deeper historical truth. When Francois leaves Paris as the elections are being decided he travels to Rocamadour, a medieval town in the south of France, to see the statue of the Black Virgin, one of France’s most important Christian artifacts. Francois reflects that French kings and medieval warriors knelt to pray before the Black Virgin before defending Christian France, and consequently Europe itself, against the invading Muslim forces from Spain. Before he visits the Black Virgin Francois takes some time to look out over the valleys and hills around the town, reflecting that this region was where Cro-Magnon humans displaced Neanderthals into Spain, where they would eventually become extinct. The simple truth Houellebecq hints at here is that ultimately existence is a struggle for survival and consequently peoples, nations and cultures can easily and perhaps inevitably be usurped and swept away by those that are more united and adaptable. France is no longer united behind Christianity and is instead a culture in the thrall of the gaudy pleasures and pain of capitalism and, by extension, secularism.
Submission certainly has its flaws; it’s uneven, with sections that are ultimately boring, in particular those dealing with French politics. The novel is written in Houellebecq’s typically flat style that engenders a palpable sense of bleakness within the reader. The novel also features his usual explicit sex scenes, in this case used as a means to illustrate Francois general middle-aged ennui. Submission is also perhaps too simplistic, with no significant female characters and a French society that totally capitulates to a radical change of circumstances. Despite this Submission succeeds because it defies readers’ preconceptions and instead stands as an intriguing and mostly entertaining thought experiment that explores the uncomfortable notion that France is ripe for the picking, and potentially the rest of the Western world.
Peter Twohig’s book The Cartographer (2012) hit the right note with book buyers and became a run-away popular fiction success. Set in the year 1959 in Richmond, a working class suburb of Melbourne, it featured an eleven year old boy who took shelter in the drains and lanes of the city to escape the man responsible for a murder he accidentally witnessed. The Torch begins shortly after the end of The Cartographer and the child protagonist is one year older and is, you guessed it, up to shenanigans in the drains and lanes of Richmond, this time seeking the kid known as Flame Boy before he, gasp, strikes again.
The Torch begins well enough, with the un-named protagonist (he refers to himself variously as The Spirit of Progress, The Railwayman, The Ferret and is called the Blayney Kid by most of the adults) having to move with his mother to his grandfather’s house due to their home having been burnt down by, you guessed it, Flame Boy. Unfortunately it’s not long before the flaws of this novel become all too apparent. There are a multitude of characters, literally hundreds; most are incidental and many are caricatures of what is supposed to be your typical Australian of 1960. As the book progresses there just seems to be no end to them, causing the principal characters to get lost in the general commotion. The Blayney Kid’s narration is chock full of Australian colloquialisms that are initially endearing, but soon become so irritating that the inward groaning starts to become audible. The attempt at giving the Blayney Kid some psychological depth with his angst over his twin brother’s death and his nascent romantic adventures fall flat. All the fires, car crashes and marauding criminals could have had more impact if the narrative had more tension, instead the same tone persists throughout. The rather flimsy plot, of which I do not wish to go into because, frankly, it’s just not worth it, is stretched out like an old rubbery elastic-band across the novel’s 457 pages. In the end, despite some faint hope, nothing truly significant is revealed and you look at your watch and think, my god I’m still alive (I’ll be putting in these blatant Bowie references for some time to come).
The Torch was selected by my library book club members, perhaps due to the success of The Cartographer, but at the meetings many were underwhelmed and disappointed and seemed to be enjoying their coffees much more than the book they had to trawl through. Perhaps if this shaggy dog tale had been more rigorously edited and had lost about half of its length it could’ve been a contender. The Torch came close to becoming only the second book on this blog to be rated as ‘reprehensible’, but it was saved by the fact that The Finkler Question was just so awful that other books have to try really hard to be its equal.
A copy of this intriguing book was given to me as a secret santa present about four years ago (by my oldest brother I strongly suspect). It had been on my mind for a while so I decided to finally read it. I’m glad I did because this charmingly idiosyncratic book was a source of great fascination and entertainment. Written by Greek born Lafcadio Hearn during the last years of his life living in Japan, Kwaidan is a collection of Japanese supernatural folk tales, many of which are centuries old. Hearn traveled to Japan in 1890 to work as a newspaper correspondent but soon abandoned journalism for teaching, which eventually led to teaching english literature at the Tokyo Imperial University. Along the way he married and became a naturalized Japanese citizen. Unfortunately he died at the relatively young age of 53 from a heart attack. I wonder if he haunted anyone?
The collection opens with one of its best stories, The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi. This story was somehow familiar to me, although that didn’t stop it from being creepy. Set seven hundred years in Japan’s past it recalls the tale of a blind monk called Hoichi, whom was proficient with the biwa instrument, and his encounter with the ghosts of the Heike clan who had perished in a famous battle. Hoiche is tricked into playing the biwa for the ghosts deep in the forest at night and has to be saved by his masters who come up with a workable but flawed plan. Like many of the stories in the collection the narrative style is sparse yet evocative; the scenes described come to life with an unnerving clarity. Many of the stories are no more than a few pages long, such as Diplomacy. Diplomacy is a simple tale of a Samuri who cleverly tricks the man he is about to execute so he will not return as a ghost to take his revenge. Reading stories like these made me realize just how steeped Japanese culture is in ghost stories and other bizarre supernatural phenomena. It is no wonder they make such disturbing horror movies such as Ringu (1998). In fact four of these stories were made into a critically acclaimed film called Kwaidan in 1964.
Perhaps the best story here is Rokuro-Kubi. A Samuri named Isogai Heidazaemon travels through an isolated mountainous area. Deciding to settle down to sleep for the night a woodcutter happens upon him and warns him that he’s in a dangerous area and offers him shelter for the night. Little does the Samuri know that he’s being tricked and the woodcutter is a Rokuro-Kubi, a being whose head detaches from its body to rampage through the night. The Rokuro-Kubi heads plan to eat him while he sleeps, but Isogai has other ideas. This story is disturbing but at the same time reminded me of the giant slapstick heads in the classic Hayao Miyazaki film Spirited Away (2001). No doubt there are many references to centuries old supernatural tales in many of the brilliant Studio Ghibli films.
It’s a pity that this collection did not end with Horai, a story about a place where the atmosphere is made up of ghosts and the people never grow old (where did the ghosts come from then?). Instead Hearn ends by including some of his own studies of butterflies, mosquitoes and ants and their cultural significance in Japan. These pieces are moderately interesting but after the ghostly atmospheres of the preceding stories my interest began to wane and the book ended on a low note. Despite this flaw Kwaidan’s supernatural charms were enough to make this collection memorable and it has reignited my interest in Japanese literature. Many years ago my brother lent me a number of books by Japanese authors, many of which I enjoyed immensely. Lately I’ve bought a few books by Yukio Mishema, which coincidentally was one of David Bowie’s favourite authors. I’ll have to read them sooner rather than later, along with Murakami’s last novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013). Maybe on a long flight to Japan? Who knows....
It’s strange, even though in the last couple of days I was thinking about Bowie’s mortality, I never thought that it would happen, as absurd as that sounds. I was thinking, “Well I hope he lives at least another decade, just think what else he could do.” He’s always been there for me, an inspiration, a connection with the strange and the brilliant; he shone like no other and most of all he was my friend. Bowie really was the all round entertainer - he had something for everyone and for every mood and every situation. In times of trouble you could whack that certain Bowie album on and it would help get you through. As someone once said, he was bullshit and totally genuine at the same time; he had artifice but he also had a deep soul and could articulate something universal that we could all connect with.
I loved everything about Bowie, his music, of course, but also his intellect, his artistry, his poise and grace; his darkness and his melodrama and pretense. He had it all and even his artistic failures were fascinating. He went out on the edge and sometimes he would fail, but that was ok, he could always charm his way out. It’s hard to fathom that I’ll never see another up to date picture of Bowie, to be able to wonder what he is up to and what amazing moves he could pull next. He really was a genius and I’ll love him forever. Thanks David, thanks for all the times I listened to one of your records and was transformed, thanks for all the gigs and for just being you. You gave it your all. Goodbye.
Looking back on 2015 it was quite a varied year in terms of reading, although I would liked to have read much more, if only time would allow it. However there were plenty of highlights during the year. Late in 2014 I met one of my musical heroes in the form of Steve Kilbey from the Australian band The Church. In January I read his excellent autobiography, Something Quite Peculiar (2014) and then met him again with the rest of the band in July when they toured the west coast (they were brilliant by the way...). When literature and music meet I’m a very happy man indeed.
My book club reads this year yielded both pain and pleasure, with Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) taking the crown for the best book I’ve read this year. The Secret History was compelling, absorbing, manipulative and most of all just brilliantly written. Other book club related highlights include Ian McEwan’s succinct and stylish The Children Act (2014), Richard Flannagan’s Man Booker Prize winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) and Joan London’s The Golden Age (2014), which managed to both charm and move me in equal measure. Book club pain came in the form of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (1962), which was not mediocre by any means, just long winded and intensely and neurotically self-conscious. It was also a fascinating and challenging read, so in the end I’m grateful to have read it and I will certainly remember it for a long time to come.
If The Secret History was the best book of the year (in fact one of the best I’ve ever read...), then the biggest disappointment was Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia (1977). Perhaps Chatwin had great adventures in Patagonia, but he managed to make it totally boring on paper. Luckily there were plenty of other highlights from my own (non book club) reading to make up for the tedium of Chatwin. Miranda July weirded me out in a good way with her debut novel, The First Bad Man (2015) and Michel Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter (1976) was simply a great piece of experimental cult fiction. Other highlights were Axiomatic (1995) by Greg Egan and Seven Eves (2015) by Neal Stephenson, both of which left me wanting to read much more of their work.
As for next year I aim to finish the thousand plus pages of Peter Watson’s Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (2006). I’m reading it a bit at a time, mostly late at night, so hopefully I’ll get through it! What I really have my eye on though is my first love - science fiction. After reading Egan, Stephenson and then recently Huxley, it’s time to catch up with contemporary science fiction and some of the classics that I’ve never got around to reading. Maybe I’ll even read Philip K. Dick’s crackpot The Exegesis of Philip K Dick (2011) this year - now there’s some holiday reading....
Earlier in the year I was thinking about re-reading novels that I had first read in high school; the novels that were perhaps wasted on the young and naive. Brave New World was one of those books I read in year eleven when I was more interested in slacking off than absorbing important literature. Since those days I’ve read a number of Huxley’s books: Point Counter Point (1928) and some of his droll satires such as Chrome Yellow (1921) and Antic Hay (1923). Looking back I realize that I avoided re-reading Brave New World because of its classic status; it seemed just too obvious to read when there is so much unknown literature to explore. Now that I’ve rectified this oversight I’ve found that Brave New World justifies its place with the established canon of important literature.
Brave New World is so thematically rich and layered that it could power whole university literature departments. Set sometime in the twenty sixth century, Huxley’s future society features such science fiction chestnuts as genetic engineering, a rigid genetically based caste system, lab grown humans, subliminal conditioning and of course, permissive drug use in the form of soma. Of course this future Utopian society is not all it seems and Alpha class worker Bernard Marx is suffering from various inadequacies due to possible flaws in his development and conditioning. Thanks to his job at ‘Hatcheries and Conditioning’ he is able to travel and stay at a so called savage reservation, where he meets the son of a woman who was thought lost in the wilderness by Bernard’s manager during a past visit. John, the savage, and his mother, who has now slipped into an otherwise avoidable middle age, travels back with Bernard to the brave new world of modern humanity only to find, for all involved, disappointment and tragedy.
A colleague at work, the coordinator of the museum attached to the library, spied me reading Brave New World and informed me that she had recently read both Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). She then asked me to read both and tell her who got it right in terms of predicting the modern world. I am intending to read 1984 again, but probably not for a while. Coincidentally however, whilst looking at the Wikipedia’s Brave New World entry, I discovered a section discussing the differences and similarities between the two novels. In 2015 it is easy to see elements of 1984 throughout many societies, but Huxley’s visions are perhaps less obvious, but they are there. Orwell postulated a society in which books were mostly banned, Huxley thought they could become irrelevant (here Huxley is perhaps more on the money); Orwell foresaw deprivation of information and propaganda, Huxley postulated that we would lose the truth within a media of superficiality; Orwell foresaw control and captivity, whilst Huxley foresaw the irony of freedom without meaning. Thinking about it I came to the conclusion that both Orwell and Huxley were ‘right’ about the future, as far as any writer of futurist narratives can expected to be. One cannot consider the prevalence of CCTV throughout most cities and the online surveillance undertaken by authorities without thinking of Orwell. In turn one cannot help but think of Brave New World when considering the prevalence of escapist drug culture and most pertinently the alarming decline of serious journalism coupled with humanity’s addiction to mostly mindless entertainment.
With Brave New World Huxley originally aimed to write something that was a parody of H.G.Wells, but instead the work developed into a serious rumination on both Huxley’s own time and what the future could hold. No novel that is set in the future should be overly criticized for not getting it right, as it is all just speculation; however Brave New World contains themes that have strong contemporary relevance. One of the inspirations behind Brave New World was a book written by Henry Ford called My Life and Work that Huxley happened upon during one of his visits to the USA. Ford’s thoughts about capitalism and mechanization partly inspired Huxley’s future society in which humans are merely another product that economic rationalization could be applied to. As capitalism influences democracy and society in more intrusive ways how close are we to humans becoming something that can be owned by a corporation? Could a company grow humans and therefore own them? Could companies claim ownership over parts of human bodies? Far fetched perhaps? The recent supreme court battles over the ownership of a particular gene associated with breast cancer could well be merely the beginning of a brave new world that could be very chilling indeed.
