The Closed Circle

Things could only get better

With The Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe's last volume of the trilogy started with What a carve up!, the writer send us right back to those years we've left not long ago; those years when it seemed that almost anything was possible, when things were looking up and they 'could only get better'. The story starts off by taking us back to some of the main characters of the trilogy's previous book, The Rotters' Club; instead of the happy and  innocent 70s when they were growing up, we find them now at the turn of the millennium, their lives now very different to what they'd perhaps imagined.The Blair years are in full swing and through the character of Paul, now a Labour MP and self-confessed Blairite, Coe takes aim at those who so well knew how to play the game and used the party's supposedly progressive agenda to gain power and glory.
Somehow predictably, it is also the tale of those golden boys and girls, so talented and with a bright future ahead of them who never fully realised their potential and now wander around quite erratically, stumbling upon failed relationships and forgotten life projects.
In true Coe's fashion, the book's stories are intertwined and connected in a way that sometimes are surprising and sometimes quite easy to predict where the author is leading us to.
All in all, The Closed Circle is an interesting read, particularly because it depicts quite well the arrogance and vanity of the political elite, ultimately only interested in raising their own profile, in the hope of getting their slice of the cake.
If you like the fantastically written and performed sitcom 'The Thick of It', you'll probably enjoy this book.

There'll be days like this

Born to rant: The Man is back

The man whose voice heals the soul, as someone once famously- and accurately- described Van Morrison's voice, is back with a bang. After years releasing records that lacked the spark and intensity that had become his trademark, Van The Man seems to have found his former self, which means that (possibly) one of the angriest and most unfriendly artists in the business is in top form, if his latest release is anything to go by. It's been four years since his last record and I must confess that I hadn't missed him much, perhaps because I'd grown a bit bored, being fed up and disappointed at both the man's latest efforts and his ever moaning about everything. After a couple of days listening to the new album though, it is now quite clear that you shouldn't underestimate the man; just when I thought that my long-standing relationship with the Lion of Belfast had come to an end, he resurfaces with a collection of gems that takes me straight back to the good old years, when his voice and music would be played endlessly.
Admittedly, there's nothing new here, nothing that will surprise seasoned fans but, really, there is no need for that. Born to Sing: No Plan B (you can guess from the title that we are for a treat) grabs you from the very first note and then there's no way back; that powerful and unmistakable voice, those delicious sax solos, the bluesy touch, a wonderful and impeccable band of six musicians in full swing...it's all there.
Quite interesting, from the lyrics point of view, is the fact that some of the songs included here are a scathing attack on the greed shown by the 'global elite'.He hasn't become a political activist though, as he says that this he is just 'observing the world around him'.I guess taking a political stand would be too much to someone who seems to live in a sort of ivory tower, surrounded by soul records and secretly yearning for that distant Caledonia on a golden autumn day.
There might not be Plan B, according to Van Morrison, but with albums like this, quite frankly, who needs one?

Joseph Anton comes out of the shadows

All those years in hiding 

I can't quite remember when I first heard the word 'fatwa' yet I distinctively remember that whenever that suddenly familiar word was uttered, it was inevitably associated with the writer Salman Rushdie, who had had the 'temerity' of writing a book that had been labelled as offensive towards Muslims.
In that fateful year of 1989, at a time when the world was still divided in two blocks, that fatwa came to symbolise many things really, and in my eyes at least, Rushdie became a sort of hero, a true artist who defied everything and everyone in the name of creative freedom, an icon of free speech against religious intolerance and narrow-mindedness.Admittedly, this might have been a bit of a romantic idea of  mine but then again I was a quite impressionable teenager in search of references and trying to make sense of what was going on all those years ago.
As it is well-known, that edict so solemnly proclaimed by Ayatollah Khomeini would completely turn upside-down Rushdie's life, who subsequently spent over 10 years of his life as an anonymous citizen, hiding from a more than likely fate that so pointlessly had been bestowed upon him; all that for a book many of the people protested against had never read.
We now know that all those years living in the shadows, Rushdie had become Joseph Anton, in an attempt to keep his potential killers at bay.Thankfully, he managed to do so though I can imagine that the cost of living undercover all those years may have had quite an impact on his life.
I find it quite ironic that in the same week Rushdie's memoir is being published, similar cases concerning freedom of speech and religious sensibilities are still making the news.Once again, there are people claiming to be offended and outraged because their beliefs are mocked (in this case by a film as insultingly bad as Innocence of Muslims); sure, being offended should be a right though threatening and even killing in the name of a religion shouldn't, so it would appear that despite living in a world that has seen Salman Rushdie let Joseph Anton go and has retrieved his own self, we are still a long way from the maturity and self-assurance required to deal with these supposedly insulting artists without making a fuss.

The Hillsborough truth revealed

The Liverpool Echo front page in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster 

In 1989 a football match between the Liverpool and Nottingham Forest teams in Sheffield became the deadliest sports disaster in British history as 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death when the stadium's crush barriers broke.To a city that was still healing the wounds caused by another football-related tragedy that had taken place only four years before Hillsborough (Heysel 1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster) this was, as one can imagine, too much to bear. Liverpool is a city that lives and breathes 'footy'; football is a major passion, a sort of religion and the Pool is actually responsible for my interest in this sport; anyone who has lived or even visited this unique city knows what I'm talking about.So 23 years ago, Liverpool was again going through a nightmare and a collective feeling of despair and grief; however, this time there was something that turned Hillsborough into something else that would unite and bring the city even closer, if that were possible: the treatment received by that infamous newspaper, The Sun,which blatantly lied and insulted Liverpool fans by holding them responsible for this tragedy. Likewise, the South Yorkshire police eluded all responsibility and equally blamed fans .Ever since those fateful days, The Sun became a sort of enemy of the people of Liverpool.Scousers and everyone in Mersyside knew and suffered the humiliation and pain brought by a newspaper specialised in ruining people's lives (another recent example is the phone-hacking scandal). So it was a major step in the process of vindicating and clearing the names of the 96 Hillsborough victims, the findings that yesterday have been made public by an independent panel that lays bare the truth, stating that fans were not to blame and that it was actually the Police who massively failed, not only by not acting properly and professionally on that day but by ensuring that their own members wouldn't be held responsible; in other words, a proper cover-up coming all the way from the cops' hierarchy.
These findings were made even more relevant when David Cameron unreservedly apologised to the families' victims on behalf of the British Government.
Liverpudlians have known and fought for all this for the last 23 years; now the rest of the UK, and the world, knows the actual truth too. Lessons must be learnt and people such as The Scum's-sorry the Sun-editor Kelvin MacKenzie and Police Constable Norman Bettison should face their responsibilities.The 96 Hillsborough victims, their families and Liverpudlians deserve no less.

You'll never walk alone

This land is your land (on the centenary of a legend)

Voice of the wretched of the Earth

Better later than never but this post should have been published around the time of Woody Guthrie's centenary on 14 July. He may not be an instantly recognisable figure for most young readers yet his influence amongst those songwriters who went to achieve worldwide success and fame from the sixties onwards (Dylan, anyone?) remains huge.
Born in Oklahoma at the beginning of the century, he witnessed first-hand the harshness that migrant workers from the Dust Bowl had to endure on their way to a better life.Very appropriately, he was known as the 'Dust Bowl Troubadour'; he could have been a character of one of Steinbeck's novels, albeit one with a determination to fight his and other fellow migrants' destiny.His best known  song- 'This Land is Your Land' -belongs to the North American's cultural heritage, and it's still sung in most American schools nowadays.Likewise, it could be the soundtrack to 'The Grapes of Wrath'; I can almost picture the desolated and helpless faces of Tom Joad & Co. whenever I listen to this song.
 Woody Guthrie,with  his guitar famously displaying the slogan 'This machine kills fascists' is undoubtedly a   key figure in the US folk movement, and particularly within the so-called protest song tradition and went to inspire many other musicians.Together with Peter Seeger and Johnny Cash, he is an icon, a legend and a major figure in the finest songwriters tradition.
For those wishing to dig further, I highly recommend the recordings of his songs covered by British artist Billy Bragg and the American band Wilco back in 1998 in the delightful album 'Mermaid Avenue'.Pure fire! Better still, you can find the great man's music available on the internet and judge for yourself.

Twenty years on: the truth about Paolo Borsellino's death

Those who are afraid die every day, those who aren't die  only once

Clarissa Arvizzigno is a young Sicilian student from Palermo currently doing an English course in Eastbourne, England who regularly contributes to the Italian newspaper Corleone Dialogos (http://www.corleonedialogos.it/ ) ; the following is an interesting and insightful article, which she wrote and translated into English, on how the Cosa Nostra operates in her native region. She wishes to raise awareness about what is going on Sicily, so it's over to Clarissa and her views on the matter:

Negotiations and cover-ups: what State does want the truth about the massacres?

When organised crime infiltrates the big machine of the State, obstructing its actions and altering its course, then the Cosa Nostra comes forward to suggest dirty and suspicious revisions, and it is when the negotiations between the State and the Mafia enter the scene. 'They will kill me, but it will not be the Mafia's revenge; it will be perhaps other people', said the judge Paolo Borsellino, victim of a massacre perpetrated by obscure characters that reminds us of the links between the Cosa Nostra and the State. On Wednesday 18 July 2012, Anfimafia Duemila organised the conference 'Negotiations and diversions: what State does want the truth about the massacres?', near the Faculty of Law in Palermo, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Paolo Borsellino's death. The purpose of this conference was certainly to shed light on the reasons regarding the deaths of Borsellino, Falcone, and all the victims of an organisation-the Mafia- at the service of a corrupt State. Guests who attended this conference included: Salvatore Borsellino, the judge's brother, Anonio Ingroia, Antonino Di Matteo, Roberto Scarpinato, Domenico Gozzo, Saverio Lodato, and Giorgio Bongiovanni.

‘A lot of anomalies and dreadful events can't be answered even when taking into account the famous dealings between Mafia and the State. What was the authorities' hidden reality during those years when crime was widespread? Was there only one State or more than one?', the Caltanissetta's Attorney General wonders. Perhaps it would be right to think about the possibility of a moral reflection on the mafioso's crimes, which may involve not only a small group but all Italian people.

'Archives as open as museums, so that Italian families will be able to read about the remains of the massacres'; this is the initiative suggested by the writer Saverio Lodate. In a country like ours, with a limping democracy, where we can see how the public opinion is manipulated, judges who seek the truth are hanging by a thread, in a labyrinth of secrets, and are labelled as 'crazy' and 'subversive splinters'.Paolo Borsellino tried to find the truth with the help of the law but he was left alone, thus becoming victim of the intricate secret dealings between the State and the Mafia.

Mafia-politicians, Mafia-entrepreneurial activity, Mafia-institutions; how far will the tentacles of the Cosa Nostra spread? On the one hand, the State-Mafia as a criminal state and on the other hand, Paolo Borsellino's just State: two sides of the same coin today, two sides of an uncertain age in continuous development. 'No more symbols of death in D'Amelio street', Salvatore Borsellino demands, in the place that has become the symbol of hope, whose seed was sown by Paolo Borsellino, the judge who had the courage to look beyond the horizon; the man beyond time and everything. 

The Rotters' Club

Growing in 70s Britain

The Rotters' Club is Jonathan Coe's second book of a trilogy that looks at England's recent history.As previously reviewed, What a carve up! was about corruption, wealth and power by a few aristocratic members of a family with very good connections running the show. This time, we are transported to the world of a group of teenagers and their stranded families in the 70s in Birmingham; a convulsed time, particularly for the offspring of the Brummie working-class, in search of a better future.Though with a slightly different angle, the book reminded me of a film, Made in Dagenham, that also portrays British working class' struggles and aspirations.
Intertwining different stories and plots, something recurrent in Coe's novels, the book slowly unfolds a number of scenarios that defined the lives of its young characters; college students on their way to university and all the opportunities that are awaiting them, once they leave school and join the ranks of the Oxbridge new breed.
Coe describes with rich detail, originality  and ingenious the life in school as well as the different intrigues, passions and romance that inevitably arise as the story plods on.
Overall, and despite the personal interest I have in this particular time of British history, the book failed to impress me as the story somehow looses spark in various moments. It doesn't offer the intrigue and twists that What a carve up! had and it is, in many an occasion, blighted by clichés, particularly when tackling topics   concerning school life.
Despite this, I'm still looking forward to getting hold of the third instalment of the trilogy, The Closed Circle, which will bring us to the Blair years and the changes the country went through those years. A post on this book will published in due course.