Contrasting coping mechanisms revealed

The Illuminations

by Andrew O'Hagan

Yet another book about dementia and memory!  This time threaded through with the story of dementia sufferer’s grandson, Luke, who is a soldier. Anne, the grandmother, is getting less able to survive in the sheltered accommodation that is currently her home, even with the help of family and neighbours. Luke has returned from serving in Afghanistan, still dealing with the death of his colleague, the inadequacies of their commanding officer and their betrayal by a fellow Afghani officer.

The book alternates  between Annie’s story and Luke’s both in Afghanistan and once he is back home in Scotland. Always closer to his gran than his mother, Alice,  ever has been, he sets about helping her to get ready for the move and discovers much more than they ever knew about Anne’s past. SPOILER ALERT – That past is her origins in Canada, that she came to look after aunts in Scotland, became a famous documentary photographer in the 60s, fell in love with a married man with whom she spent time in a a flat in Blackpool (hence The Illuminations)  and who left her high and dry, pregnant with Luke’s mother and an unknown twin brother, who died as a child, and surrounded by lies.

I like the characterisations throughout – of Anne, of her neighbour, and of Luke and the boys from his platoon. I did struggle with the dialog of the army life, but therein lies the contrasts at the heart of this novel – coping with the battlefield now and after the soldiers try to loose their memories of war in drug fuelled nights on the town, in playing computer games, whereas the Memory Club tries to help the old folk cope with the passing of time, to recall their past youth, the past familiar, to enable them to continue to live semi-independently in the now. As Luke decides not to return to the army life, his exploration of Anne’s past is “illuminating” of her, of his mother’s relationship with her, his own and himself, of different ways of dealing with memories, loss, lies and cover ups.

ashramblings 3* I suspect some people will really like this novel, but for me it was just a bit to sentimental. Not my normal read, but it would make a fine, topical, dramatization for TV.

if I were fishing for a winner…..

The Fishermen

by Chigozie Obioma

A 1990s middle class Nigerian childhood in which the loving Agwu family is torn apart by the prophecy of the “madman” Abulu. Freedom for the four eldest boys comes when their father’s work at the bank means he has to live in Yola in the north far away from their southern home in Akure, returning only at the weekends, and they go fishing in the local river, the Omi-Ala, which has, unbeknown to them a bad reputation, having once been worshiped by local people.  It is there that Abulu’s prophecy of fratricide is uttered.

The character and story of Abulu is marvellous in itself – how he became the man he is today, what he did (raped his mother), how he looks and what he does (public masturbation) and says (prophesies) -  as is the whole mix of African storytelling and Western novel. The  first disintegration is of Ikena, the eldest son who is knocked of balance by the prophecy which shatters his love for his brothers. He begins to seriously fight with Boja, the next in age with whom he shares a room, and so the downward spiral of destruction starts despite his brothers pleas that they love him and would never harm him. The reader really buys into the conflict as retold by the now adult Benjamin recalling his childhood experiences and memories – his child’s voice is very authentic.

Nigerian politics is a backdrop to a number of aspects of the story. The period is that of the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha between the 3rd and 4th Republics, when the father wants his sons to be successful and has planned out various careers – doctors, lawyers etc   - and to put behind them the corruption of the country through education and ambition. The change in status of the river echoes the change in perspective of the regime. The boys meet opposition candidate MKO Abiola and the fate of the gifted calendar is part of the story of destruction.

Likewise the prophesy does not just impact the killer and the killed brother, but affects the others in the family. The mother, unable anyway to cope with the boys unruly behaviour whilst nursing their baby sister, has a nervous breakdown when Ikena is killed. The father has to give up his job and return home as he sees not only his career, his ability to provide for his family, but also his dreams for the boys’ future destroyed in turn. His resolve and love for his wife and children really come through in his determination to manage no matter what – he opens a bookshop to earn money, he hides his wife’s illness so no one will taint her, he tries to cover up his inadequate attempt to deal with Abulu so she will not know and never worry over this as well.

SPOLIER ALERT – the family is in effect hit by multiple tragedies – Ikena’s murder, Bola’s suicide, mother’s breakdown, father’s loss of professional status. father’s inability to see to Abula, and then Obeme and Benjamin’s murder of Abulu and a soldier who interrupts them.  Whilst Obeme runs, it is Benjamin who stands trial, his father encouraging him to stand talla nd tell the truth about why they did it. Condemned to imprisonment till he is 18 years without family visits, he is eventually released when there is a change in government, he is welcomed back home at the end of the book when Obeme also return on the same day “to face their father together”

I loved this story, the writing style, the characters, the the author has Benjamin describe each of the main people of the book in their animal form – tadpoles, falconer etc. As such it really does blend African and Western traditions seamlessly and smoothly. My radar is on high alert for his next book. This one has, quite rightly in my opinion been longlisted for the 2015 Booker, for the Guardian First Book Award and other prizes.

ashramblings verdict 4* and I might even be persuaded to give it more! For me, so far, this is the best of the 2015 Booker Longlist I have read.

Bringing back memories of India but with a hint of darkness

Sleeping on Jupiter

by

Anuradha Roy

As a seven year old Nomi sees her father murdered by armed men, looses her brother, and is finally abandoned by her mother before being picked up and transported to an orphanage run by a great spiritual guru who heads an ashram. Instead of love, she finds abuse and finally aged 12 she escapes the sexual gratification of the Guruji only at the cost of leaving behind her only friend. She ends up in an orphanage and is adopted by an Norwegian woman.  At 25, a now slightly punkish, English speaking westernised woman with a splattering of broken, long unused Hindi returns to the fictional town of Jarmuli on the eastern seaboard of India ostensibly to make a film but with a wish to tie up the loose ends of her life story, to keep promises made to her friend Piku, to finally tell the truth.

Roy intertwines Nomi’s return with the very contrasting lives of three elderly, very conventional, Indian women, Gouri, Latika and Vidya, who have come on their first ever holiday together. The town’s beach and  temple provide a living for the locals and a focal point for much of the action of the story. There we encounter the women’s tour guide Badal trying to woo street boy Raghu, the subject of his unrequited homosexual love. Raghu makes out as best he can, cadging from others, working at the beach tea stall of Johnny Toppo etc. Johnny Toppo continually sings and hums sad songs and may well have been the young gardener of the ashram back in the day. And finally there is Suraj, Nomi’s assistant, I suppose a bit like a local fixer, but who is trying to work out the breakdown of his own marriage.

Each of them is escaping something, each has their own dreams, in Badal’s case of “living on Jupiter and sleeping under its many moons” where there just might be a full moon every night, to bring light into the darkness and keep you safe. Because rumbling constantly just below the surface of one’s life is danger, despair, and violence. Perhaps it is the somewhat minor character of Raghu who shows best that this precariousness still exists in today’s India, bonded labour, living from hand to mouth on the streets, at the whim of the tea stall holder. Badal has his escape fund hidden in a bank account his uncle doesn't know he has, he has his scooter.

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Reading this reminded me of visiting the beach resorts on this part of the Indian coastline, the temple at Kornak with its salacious, almost pornographic stone carvings on the Kama Sutra and the double standards of Indian views on sexuality and the place of women.

Overall the book touches on an important subject matter thread, but I got to the end of it wishing it had been more. More what? I am not sure. More explicit, more violent? Perhaps I am now too used to reading Scandinoir! On the other hand, one could argue the softening of the violence is appropriate as it is how it was all being related, years after the event, by Nomi and that her blurred memories, jotted down from 12 to 25 into her manuscript are a collage of fleeting moments, muddled by emotions of the moment, of regret, and of survival.

ashramblings verdict 3* Evocative read.

An orchestral composition - The Chimes by Anna Smaill

The Chimes

by

Anna Smaill

 

Many of the write ups about this book cite it as challenging, unusual, difficult to get into and as requiring perseverance to work into the storyline. Yes, those statements might be true and Winner it will not be but surely this has to be shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. It is on the Longlist and deservedly so, because it is a remarkable piece of writing.

In telling the story of a post apocalyptic world (London and Oxford) where memories have been destroyed, writing is long forbidden, in which communication is via music with all its chords, harmonies, rhythms, modulations, cadences and key changes are used to signify distance, direction, shape etc.

Simon has come to London where the population’s communal memory loss is enforced by means of the Carillon, an immense musical instrument which brainwashes everyone with its musical message beginning with “Matins” which tells the “OneStory” of the “AllBreaking”, the “dischord” that destroyed the past and created the present now, and ending the day with “Chimes” at “Vespers” when mental faculties are bombarded leaving the people with only their “bodymemory” to get them through sleep, and to wake again the next morning in a endless repetition and dying in a state of “chimesickness”. Simon carries with him a bag full of precious “objectmemories” which enable him to recall and fell calm about some moments in his life. Loss of these would mean total “memoryloss” and destitution.

Simon falls in with a group of young “pactrunners” (Lucien, Clare, Able and Brennan) who scour the leftovers of London’s underground networks of tunnels  for nuggets of Palladium which they sell. The Palladium is used by “The Order” to build the Carillon. In this first half of the book the author needs to deftly find a way to tell us the story when the world is supposed to not use words and writing. How she does this is what makes the first part difficult for many readers – words are misspelt eg trompet, prentissed, poliss, others words are used just ever so slightly out of context and unexpectedly but continuously eg subito, presto, lento, and place names and slightly altered eg The Isle of Dogs becomes Dog Isle. All this gives you a sense of how over time what had been the English language had changed once writing disappeared and only sound communication survived on the street.

SPOILER ALERT But as with all dystopian states the disorder and chaos of the masses is controlled and the elite exist in a different place, in this case Oxford where the Order overseas the production of music and the “Orkestrum” of the Carillon’s calls. Also not surprisingly their has been a underbelly of resistance, “The Ravesguild” a network of “memorykeepers” to whom people brought memories for storing before they were completely lost. The Ravesguild is all but annihilated, and only the last memorykeeper, Mary, survives behind her mad-woman facade.  It falls to Simon and Lucien to bring all the memories together in a new music piece which tells the true story behind the Allbreaking and to somehow play it through the Carillon to open up and birth a new dawn and free the people from their enforced collective amnesia.

Yes there are obvious similarities here to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy, but for me that doesn’t distract from the work. The storyline held me all the way through. Whilst reading it I kept thinking that the real challenge for this book is to fund a film director and a musical score writer who would take up the challenge of composing the score in such a way that the different characters, the “bodymemories”, the mapping of the tunnels, tube lines, sewerage systems of London could all be made music. At one point in the book, Simon is being given the last memories held by Mary and each one of them tells a part of the story of what it is like to really be human – each with their own melody. I’m not knowledgeable enough about musical composition but I’d just love to see this done, with phrases to identify each of the characters, using rhythm for direction, key change for shape, modulations for direction etc. and then bringing them altogether in the final Carillon piece for full orchestra. The idea has tremendous potential. Potential also for a backstory/prequel about how The Order rose to power, how The Chimes first started, how the sickness spread, how the Ravensguild was inaugurated, founded and eventually fell.

I don’t expect this to be Longlisted, but I do hope t gets shortlisted to encourage a wider readership.

ashramblings verdict 4* An orchestral composition on the theme of memory, freedom, identity and the essence of humanity, love.