A man of his time

Ways of seeing (and thinking)

The news came as no surprise; at 90, John Berger was still as relevant and lucid as you'd expect but he was equally fragile. "Il est parti", confirmed from Paris his granddaughter. I'd like to think he wanted to join Leonard Cohen up there and perhaps was too tired to face a world with the likes of Trump running the show; a nightmare scenario for someone who spent his life supporting and helping the underdog, the dispossessed, the vulnerable.

Who and what was Berger? He was a man of his time: art critic, writer, thinker, storyteller, a humanist full of energy and charm. He was someone who taught us how to look at (and see) things;  not only art, which he did famously through the groundbreaking TV series Ways of Seeing but also the world.
He became notorious in 1972 when, after winning the Booker Prize, denounced the slavery connections in the Caribbean of the award founder Booker McConnell and gave half of the prize to the British Black Panthers, something that did not go well with some parts of the cultural establishment.
He then went to live in the French Alps for most of his life, where he found inspiration for one of his most successful books, Pig Earth (1979), that would become part of the trilogy Into Their Labours. 
An outspoken critic of capitalism, Berger's legacy will remain with us for generations to come and his work will be studied and enjoyed because, as artist David Shrigley has said, he was the "best ever writer on art". I for one will not challenge that.
There is where we will meet, John.

We Should All Be Feminists

We should indeed

As part of the Tea & Sympathy Book Club, last month we read this short yet enlightening book by acclaimed Nigerian author Ngozi Adichie. I must say that this short essay works wonders, or least it did in our group, since both the topic and the length were motivating factors for the group readers; I mention this because in my experience running book clubs, some people tend to be put off by lengthy books as their reading pace is slower than when they read in their native tongues.

This book stems from an equally thrilling talk given by Adichie at TED some years ago. With a title like that, I guess few people would be surprised by its content, as the author's aim is clearly laid out right from the start. The writer's own experience as a girl growing up in her country is used as guide to expose society's inherent sexism and discrimination for the simple fact of being a girl. For her, this must be challenged and in doing so she faces being ridiculed and criticised by those who label feminism as a dirty word and refuse the main principle behind the definition of a feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.

This book challenges stereotypes, raises awareness about an issue that is still a long way from being normalised and, ultimately, serves its purpose as an educational tool that should be a compulsory read in schools and colleges everywhere.

A History of Protest Songs

Say it loud: music with a message

It should be stressed from the beginning that this book, written by music journalist Dorian Lynskey, is a brilliant history of protest songs....mostly written and performed by US and European (ie British) artists. 

Apart form Part Three, which covers songs from Chile (Victor Jara), Nigeria ( Fela Kuti) and Jamaica (Max Romeo and The Upsetters), the rest of the book is a fascinating trip through those songs of mostly North-American and British artists, which with their powerful message and music, helped shape or were the background of social changes, upheavals, revolutions and key moments in recent history. 

I do not think that this book is solely aimed at music lovers; it is, in fact, a book that makes sure that each song chosen is given its historical context, thus enriching the story while also paying attention to other songs and artists of the time that are worth mentioning or have a special relevance in order to fully understand the context in which they were written and performed. 

Starting with the harrowing piece Strange Fruit, performed by Billie Holliday, Lynskey takes us on a journey that includes expected artists and songs (Bob Dylan's Masters of Wars, Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will not Be Televised and Public Enemy's Fight the Power), but also presents the work of other lesser known (at least in my case) songs, including the electronic dance band The Prodigy or the Welsh group Manic Street Preachers.

Chile's Victor Jara, the only non-English speaker included in the book

In any case, the book is extremely well-researched and it traces and presents in a very entertaining and informative way the circumstances in which the songs were born. Despite, or perhaps because of its length, (800-plus pages), 33 Revolutions Per Minute is one of those books that can be read at any time, you can put it down and get back to it as you please, and simply enjoy the prose and style of its author, which together with the wealth of information he provides, will make you want to listen to each of the songs here included. 

The only criticism I have is what has been written above regarding the book's scope; more cultural and linguistic diversity would be appreciated, particularly from those under-represented parts of the world (Asia, South-America, Africa...). Other than that, the book is a joy that people interested in music, history and politics should not miss.

Sally Heathcote: sufragette

Life of  a sufragette 

Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst or Emelyn Davison are some names most people interested in the Sufragettes movement may be familiar with. However, as it is easy to imagine, the strength of this radical group of activists lay in its numbers, those committed women who fought bravely against the odds, who staged hunger strikes, who were imprisoned and risked their lives. An example of all this was the case of Sally Heathcote, whose eventful life this book is based on, which tells, in graphic novel format, the adventures of one of the most fascinating civil disobedience movements of the last centuries.
A wonderful team composed of Mary and Bryan Talbot (who published in 2012 another very interesting and acclaimed graphic novel Dotter of her father's eyes, based on a James Joyce's daughter life), and cartoonist Kate Charlesworth, deliver a true page-turner that becomes a must for readers with an interest in social history and the 'votes for women' campaigns. It is also refreshing that the book, rather than give centre stage to those better known figures, the authors chose to focus on a less known activist, who was also from a very different social background to the Pankhursts sisters and other members.

No going back

 Despite the fact of being an invented character, the device works extremely well as it brings a new perspective to a historical movement.
The novel is beautifully designed, it is a joy to read that conveys brilliantly the Sufragettes' urgency and mood. Once again, a powerful and informative book that should be read widely, particularly now that we approach 8 March, International Women's Day.

Journalism by Joe Sacco

Telling it like it is

The undeniable rise of the comic as a respected and widely enjoyed art form has been gathering pace over the last decade; comic artists are starting to enjoy accolades and a well-deserved recognition hitherto unknown. This blog has already written about some of the comic books we have come across in the past and we intend to keep doing so in the future. The wealth of talent and creativity remains huge so there is no excuse, really.
Joe Sacco is a Maltese-US citizen cartoonist and journalist; an intriguing combination that, one would imagine, could produce a more than interesting result.And this is exactly what happens with Sacco's work.
A fascinating mix of his acute observation skills, his drawing talent and his desire to try to understand global conflicts (some of them with very little media coverage), make of Sacco a unique comic-reporter whose work, dare I say, becomes compulsory reading for anyone with an interest in the world we live in.
On top of that, he always manages to portray realities that bring us a different perspective and may even challenge our -- as well as his own--  beliefs and assumptions.
Journalism is in reality a collection of short comics Sacco published over the past years in different magazines (eg The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine or the French  XXI).
The book opens with a preface that is a masterpiece in journalism and should be read by aspiring journalists; in it, he challenges the much-vaunted term 'objectivity'; or as he calls it, the Holy of Holies of American (should he add British, too?) journalism.

What follows this edifying piece is a whirlwind tour around the hotspots on the map of conflicts; from Bosnia to Palestine; from the Indian dispossessed to the refugees arriving in his native Malta.
In true Sacco's fashion, he is another character in the stories and he depicts himself as the man he is in all circumstances. His presence and questions are often a risk for his witnesses who are very vulnerable, and he does not hide the fact that he is not always welcome.He can also be irritatingly annoying.
However, he manages to portray with astonishing yet compassionate objectivity the plight of the Chechen women; the humiliations suffered by the Iraqi recruits trained by the US army; the desperate no-man's land of the refugees arriving in Malta; and the harrowing conditions of the untouchable in India.
Heartbreaking, powerful and informative, this book reveals many dark stories, touches complex realities and defies stereotypes.It deserves a wider audience.

NW

London is the place for me

Zadie Smith rose to fame as a young writer back in 2001 with her debut White Teeth, an ambitious book that won a few awards an introduced to the literary world a new .Despite its success and critical acclaim, I wasn't hugely impressed by a novel that failed to convince me. As an example, I much preferred and enjoyed Monica Ali's Brick Lane, a book that shared with Smith's a certain look at how migrant communities settled in North London.
The fact that both books had been written by two female writers, themselves examples of those very migrants who had arrived in Britain a generation earlier, seemed to herald a new era in multicultural Britain.
A few books on and it is fair to say that Smith's impressive talent hasn't faded away. In fact, quite the opposite, I think.
After the stylish and funny On Beauty, an acid satire of academia across the pond, this talented writer takes us now all the way back to North West London (hence the title); this way, the author stays home turf as this is where she was born.
The book follows the lives of four Londoners who grew up in the same North West council estate; two of them, Leah and Natalie, have been best friends ever since a dramatic event in a swimming pool brought them together. The other two, Felix and Nathan, had led their own lives but through different events, they will eventually encounter their old friends.
It has been said that no other writer has been able to capture London life like this since Dickens. That seems to me rather a statement which I don't feel qualified to agree with or even question. Regardless, Zadie Smith's prose is brilliant, it flows in such a way that one imagines and hears the characters' accents as though they were talking to you. That is where the merits of this novel lay.
NW  grabs you from the very first page with splendid and very well defined characters and a vibrant story (or stories) that resonates with anyone, Londoner or otherwise, who has experienced what urban life is like.
A highly recommend read.

Those who burn books

'Burn them to ashes, then burn the ashes'

Here's a proper classic, one of those books you are meant to read before you die, so I'm I glad I eventually did. Published in 1953, it's worth remembering that the McCarhty era was at its height, so in a way the story  makes more sense when seeing against a climate of censorship and fear, in which intellectual activity is regarded as suspicious by the powers that be.
Bradbury clearly struck gold by imagining a dystopian society that bans books and has firemen burning them rather than putting out fires; it's a bleak scenario indeed, one that at the very least engages the reader in a way that few other novels do, and that's where the true genius of Bradbury's creation lies.
I wouldn't be saying anything new if, as most people have, I link it with other equally unsettling  and disturbing novels such as, of course, Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.
All three share  a somehow prophetic and critical view of Western society, touching subjects that today, decades later, have become commonplace. Conformity, drugs and how our lives are controlled by the media and technology were advanced by these visionaries.
Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns, apparently.Guy Montag, the main character, is one of those firemen in charge of burning books. However, his life changes when he meets Clarisse, a young girl who is 'seventeen and crazy' whose free-thinking attitude will challenge the fireman's approach and outlook.
It is easy to imagine the influence this book has had not only on other science-fiction writers of the time but also on people with some sort of critical attitude and dislike of totalitarian regimes, particularly given the book's powerful insight into what such a society will look like.
In short, this is a must-read that, sixty years from its publication, still dazzles and intrigues the reader.

On a Bender- Interview with Craig Patterson

Tea & Sympathy goes On a Bender...

The Tea&Sympathy book club chose On a Bender, by Eduardo Blanco Amor, as its last reading of 2012. Reading a Galician classic in English was an amazing experience and let us discuss cross cultural issues and the trade of the translator. We also had the opportunity to chat with A Esmorga’s translator, Craig Patterson, lecturer at Cardiff University and a great devotee of Galicia.

What would going “on a Bender” be like in Cardiff?

Cardiff is renowned for its ‘intense’ night life and drinking culture, and is a popular destination for hen and stag night weekends. In fact its reputation for that kind of thing is quite pronounced. British benders are quite different to Galician ones, of course. They involve less food for a start…

You said somewhere that it was Luis González Tosar from the Galician Pen Club who asked you to translate A Esmorga. Would you have chosen another Galician novel to translate instead?

Actually it was my friend Xesús Fraga who asked me, on behalf of Luis González Tosar and the Galician Pen Club. They had wanted him to do it but he recognised that a native English speaker was needed, and I think he was right. For obvious reasons there are many Galician novels and texts that need translating, but I think A Esmorga was the great challenge on offer from Galician literature because of its vocabulary and deceptively-complex style. I cannot imagine any text in Galician being more of a challenge to the translator.

John Rutherford introduced you to Galician culture. Apart from this influence, what made you so passionate for our language and culture?

Actually John did not introduce me to Galician culture. I met him long after my Galician “epiphany”. I was aware of Galicia since the beginning of my degree in Hispanic Studies in 1992, and even before. However, the key moment came in February 1995. During 1994-95, I was an Erasmus student in Salamanca, Spain. Some friends and I hired a car and we drove up to Galicia for the weekend. We arrived in Santiago on a sunny winter afternoon just as the sun was dimming. Standing in front of the cathedral, in the Obradoiro, I fell instantly in love with Galicia and more or less from then onwards decided to dedicate my research to her. It was one of those moments in life that you cannot rationalise or even argue with – it was a powerful, life-changing event. What makes me passionate about Galician language and culture? Galicia is a unique place and her language is  unique. Politics aside, for that reason alone she is a nation as natural as any nation can be. I love Galicia’s otherness. Her uniqueness. The humour of her people. Their attitude to life (which is generally inspiring, sometimes infuriating). As I have said before in other interviews, there is a part of me that only comes alive when I speak Galician, and I feel very comfortable and natural when that part of me is “living”. Naturally I also enjoy Galician music, literature and art. Above all, I love Galician food and drink!

What was the most difficult aspect of the translation?

There were several difficult aspects. Capturing the voice of Cibrán was sometimes tricky, given that he speaks in essentially a low to normal register but attempts poetic flourishes from time to time in order to escape or delay justice. Blanco Amor’s unique syntax is can also prove very difficult to transform into suitable English syntactical structures. In terms of vocabulary, the words and and expressions that proved the hardest to translate were ‘fóra a ialma’ and ‘follateira’. Readers of the translation can see how I tackled these. Also, I published an article which goes into greater depth regarding these matters, as well as the issue of Blanco Amor’s self-translation of A Esmorga as La parranda:

‘Orígenes, retos y estrategias de la primera traducción inglesa de A esmorga, de Eduardo Blanco Amor’, in Xosé Manuel Dasilva & Helena Tanqueiro, eds., Aproximaciones a la autotraducción (Vigo, Editorial Academia del Hispanismo, 2011), 177-196

We all agreed in our praise of the translation of “Milhomes” for “Menaplenty”. Is that expression used in English or is just your creation?

It is not used in English to the best of my knowledge. As with the names that I thought had to be translated or lent themselves to being translated, I could not translate literally where this would produce something that did not ring true for the English idiomatic ear. ‘Menaplenty’ communicates for me the meanings of the nomenclature in Galicia: the ironical reference to the masculinity of the character, and the suggestion of extensive sexual knowledge of an experienced homosexual man.

Menaplenty is the most obvious gay character in the novel.  A Esmorga is meant to be the first openly homosexual Galician novel. Don’t you think it is a quite exaggerated consideration? Will the modern English readers be aware of that gay-factor?

I do not think the character was made to be explicitly and ‘openly homosexual’ in the novel at the time of its publication. That did not happen until later on in the history of Galician literature. However, Blanco Amor leaves nothing left to doubt regarding Milhomes sexuality and of course the strong suggestion of Bocas’ bisexuality. I think whether the modern English-speaking readers read my introduction (in which I explain these factors) or not, they will see the implications in Blanco Amor’s text. Certainly the first time I read the novel as a student I was aware of that dimension to the characterisation.

Blanco Amor makes clear in the novel how Galician and Castillian are class-connoted languages, as the main characters describe Castillian speakers as members of an upper class (or pretending to be of part of an upper class). Is that diglossia performance familiar to the British Readers?

I think British readers will understand the situation, although the sociolinguistic situation(s) in the British isles are different simply because of the different linguistic roots and origins of the native British languages – Welsh, Irish, Scots Gaelic and Cornish are Celtic languages and there is no grey area or ‘castrapo’ between them and English. Furthermore, today many more languages are spoken in Britain: languages of the Indian subcontinent, Polish and Arabic to name but a few.

How well-known is Galician literature amongst British readers? Are Welsh, Scottish or Irish readers more willing to know about other peripheral literatures than English ones?

Not very, although we should bear in mind that the UK is notorious for its lack of curiosity regarding foreign cultures and languages. However, largely through the translations of Manuel Rivas’ literature published with Harvill (London), and the series of translations published by Planet, based in Wales, Galician literature is certainly more visible than what it was twenty years ago. I have commented on this extensively, and believe that the Galician government and Consello da Cultura must take responsibility for this and set up initiatives in order to produce more translations and market them effectively in English-speaking countries. However, given the economic crisis and the politics of the current Galician government, I cannot see that happening in the near future…

What are Galicia and Wales main similarities and differences?

Similarities? They are both by the sea. They have both been conquered and colonised by a powerful neighbour whose cultural, political and linguistic influence continues to be mostly negative. Compared to other neighbours who have experienced a similar fate (Catalonia, Scotland, Euzkadi, Ireland), they both seem to be more ambivalent about protecting their linguistic, political, cultural and identitarian heritage (because the extent of colonisation was greater). Their native languages are both in decline. They are both essentially rural countries with all of the complex social realities that this engenders. Differences? Wales is possibly the only country in the world that can be characterised to some careful degree as ‘Celtic’. Welsh is a genuinely Celtic language; Galician is not, nor can Galician be called a ‘Celtic’ country.

Is there an interest in literature published in languages other than English, and most particularly in minoritised languages? 

See my comments above. Generally, not as much as there should be, probably because of Britain’s imperial past, the global domination of English, and the general decline of educational standards in the UK. All of this produces a reticence to publish translated work and to read it. However, there are exceptional cases where translated work breaks through by means of careful marketing, film and television tie-ins and also, of course, good writing triumphing. One example of this from Spain would be Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind. Scandinavian crime dramas on television and film have led to the success of Scandinavian literature in translation (eg. Mankell). The nearest Galician literature has come to this has been Manuel Rivas’ The Carpenter’s Pencil and The Butterfly’s Tongue. There is still a long way to go and it will take exceptional, decisive and in my opinion interventionist measures to bring about a serious change in the situation to Galician culture’s advantage in international terms.

Are there similarities between Welsh and Galician literature?

I do not (or rather cannot) read Welsh literature in Welsh, and therefore cannot answer with great authority. However, conversations with Welsh-speaking friends, and my own reading of Welsh literature in English, confirms that countries that have similar linguistic, historical, social, political and cultural contexts (I refer back to your question above) will express similar concerns in literature, and that is certainly the case between Galician and Welsh literature: personal and collective identity, rural stagnation and urban alienation, home and exile/travel.

Blanco Amor decided to narrate the story in the voice of Cibrán, and for that reason the novel is written in a very specific slang from Ourense.  However, you decided not to transpose that to a local slang from, for instance, Dublin. What are the reasons of that choice?

I am half-Irish and was aware from the first time I read A Esmorga in Galician that an Irish idiomatic voice could be layered very easily on top of the original Galician voice, in terms of syntax and common Catholic vocabulary and expressions. However, when we domesticate any translation, from literature to film subtitles, we sacrifice the cultural artefact’s ‘otherness’, or uniqueness, on the altar of ease. A Esmorga is a favourite with its Galician native readers precisely because it captures the loneliness of that otherness, the bewildering solitude of being on the edge in life and culture and society in so many different ways (class, language, sexuality, etc.), and I did not want to dilute that effect in English by confusing the reader with recognisable but nevertheless different cultural substitutes. When I look back on the experience of the translation and the first several months of its reception, I am glad that I did not. Galicia is not Ireland. Galicia is Galicia, and that alone should suffice.

Related with the former question, what is the translator’s job like nowadays?

I am not a professional or full-time translator, so I cannot answer the question with as much authority as I would like. However, from friends who do work full-time as translators, I am aware that it is often a (financially-)precarious way of life with pressures and deadlines as much as any other. We are still a long way away from the translator, whether professional or amateur, being given the respect that he or she deserves, especially in Britain. On another note, in the twenty-first century we have email, Skype and Google as well as dedicated and specialised electronic multimedia tools, and all of these speed up and help the translator enormously. The difficult translation of On a Bender definitely benefitted from these resources.

You are working now on a translation of Sempre en Galiza. What are the differences in translating Castelao’s political prose and Blanco-Amor’s “avant-garde” novel?

I have been working on and off on Sempre en Galiza for about a decade, an am now in the final year or two (I hope!). They are good projects to compare and contrast. Blanco Amor’s novel is of course much shorter than Castelao’s text, but infinitely more difficult for all of the reasons that we discuss above. Castelao’s opus is not very difficult in linguistic terms. The English translation will be a critical edition with footnotes, and what is time-consuming is attempting to identify unreferenced sources in Castelao’s work from where he quotes (and he often does this without reference), and providing explanatory footnotes on the Galician cultural and political context for the non-specialised target reader. In short, the challenge of the translation of Sempre en Galiza concerns scope, whereas with A Esmorga it concerned linguistic and creative complexity: the avante-garde quality to which you refer. Thank you for the interview: I enjoyed answering these questions.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

                 Philanthropy at its best  (picture published by praza.com)

I finished reading Robert Tressell's book -The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists- almost at the same time as the outcome of last week's Galician elections was being announced. To be perfectly honest, I'd finished the book a couple of days before but what Tressell's work depicted and so bitterly criticised about Edwardian England was still lingering on my mind as news about another downfall was becoming reality.
Tressell's must-read book is an all too depressingly familiar criticism of  Capitalism as a system that will inevitably ensure wealth and privileges for a selected elite who can only prosper thanks to the systematic abuse, oppression and robbery of the working classes. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is considered to be the first Socialist novel, which largely focuses on the miserable lives of a group of workers in Southern England. The author considers these hungry, exploited poor wretches as the real philanthropists, as it is only thanks to the appalling conditions they live in -not far from slavery- that their 'Masters' can live in obnoxious luxury, whilst pretending to care about the well-being of their 'inferiors'. As the writer says, they are 'loathsome hypocrites'. What the book so well reflects is the way these deprived men and women are willing to maintain this farce, much to the dismay of Owen and Barrington, the only characters who are able to see and fight such injustices.
All these thoughts about the  relationship between the 'Masters' and their serfs  came to me as I was following the results of the aforementioned Galician parliamentary elections, which somehow reinforced Tressell's theories. Once again, those who are really screwed and bear the brunt of a crumbling system voted in support of their masters, perhaps in the hope of obtaining some minor favour or simply because their ignorance and fear is bigger than their sense.The masters' dogs (in the novel represented so well by Hunter-also known as Misery) did everything they could to help perpetuate this vicious situation, as illustrated in the above picture.
The 21st Century's philanthropist don't have their trousers ragged but instead they have a system that is falling apart behind their eyes and they are not even getting the breadcrumbs.A despicable spectacle indeed.

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.

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.

Of Mice and Men

Of Hopes and Frustrations

Those who regularly follow this blog may remember that a few months back I wrote about how much I had enjoyed Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath; so I guess that this post will not come as a surprise as it was bound to happen sooner or later. An Easter trip to London was the chance I had to grab this second-hand (or maybe third or fourth-hand, given the book's condition) in a very interesting and recommended anarchist bookshop and publishers based in East London (Whitechapel).
Once again, Steinbeck's prose and elegant style didn't let me down and the adventures of Lennie and George kept me glued from the very first page.These two characters bear some resemblance to those who appear in the Grapes of Wrath, they all are the migrant workers, the dispossessed who wander off in search of a better life. The author shows again his ability to reflect common people's frustrations but also their hopes and dreams and he does so with an impeccable prose so detailed that the reader immediately connects with Lennie, George and the rest. Its lenght-quite short in comparison to the Grapes - makes the book even more impressive as Steinbeck manages to convey so much in  so few pages.
Of Mice and Men was by the way the Tea & Sympathy's Book Club choice for this month and I am glad to report that it was very appreciated by the club's participants.
If you are wondering what to read next, this may well be your choice, you won't go wrong!

What a carve up!

A satire on the corrupted ruling elites

Thanks to an unexpected gift, I found recently myself reading-and enjoying- Jonathan Coe's brilliantly named book What a carve up!. Despite being one of Britain's most read and established writers, I had only managed to read one of his books, The Rain Before It Falls, which I'd found interesting and entertaining but didn't feel compelled to delve further into his successful and acclaimed works.It was, however, with a sense of expectation that I approached this one, perhaps because the blurb on the back had given me a few hints on what to expect.
Using Pat Jackson's homonymous film as a starting point, the novel tells the story of a Yorkshire upper-class family, the Winshaws, who have literally a finger in every single part of the British establishment; from the (gutter) press to government, without ignoring the art world, farming, the powerful arms industry and of course banking.Being possessors of, it would seem,an inherited and unforgiving moral bankruptcy, the Winshaws rule a country in which its elites have no moral qualms whatsoever about how to achieve power and glory. While this despicable family go on about their senseless business, only one character is aware of how much harm his family is causing.Mortimer Winshaw will change the course of history by changing the family's story. The family's farcical attempts to control everything are complemented by the story of a soul-searching and lonely writer,Michael, who has been commissioned to write the infamous family's biography.
What a carve up! is a parody of the British running elites and an indictment of how the Thatcher's years transformed a country, bringing a new political and economical approach in which greed and low moral standards became the norm.
This book is the first one of a trilogy that depicts Britain's recent history so I hope to write here soon on the remaining two books.

Off the shelf:Penguin books

Penguin 1958's classified list

One of Penguin's most famous and well-known  illustrators, John Griffiths,has recently passed away.As someone who enjoys and cherish this most-loved and respected publishing house,I would like to somehow pay homage to and celebrate Griffiths' work, who was responsible for producing some striking book covers in the late 1950s and 60s.Penguin Books was the brainchild of Allan Lane, who founded the company with the aim of offering affordable and well-designed classic books,thus changing the reading habits of vast numbers of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to get these tittles;the first Penguin Classic was the translation of The Odyssey,which was published in 1946 and sold three million copies.The era of the paperback was born.In this context, Griffiths's illustrations gave Penguin books an extra value and force,making the reading experience more enjoyable as the books' covers gained interest and became artworks in their own right.With Griffiths and other equally talented illustrators,Penguin revolutionised the publishing world and brought affordable books to everybody.

Go west, young man...

It is not very often that a book grabs my interest in such a way as John Steinbeck's  The Grapes of Wrath did when I read it a few months back. So much has been said and written about this masterpiece that any attempt at giving any thoughtful insight is bound to either sound pretentious, clichéd or both.
But what really struck me about  this great book was the fact that, though published in 1939, it felt as though it were depicting a very contemporary story. The Joads' hardships and their odyssey in search of El Dorado could be (and it has been) retold in countless occasions and circumstances, whenever a migrant community falls victim to rapacious and benefit-led people; by following the adventures of the Joads, you will find yourself with a story that is depressingly similar to what we daily read and witness in many parts throughout the world.
Perhaps unsurprisingly- giving the fact that the book is a direct denunciation of the consequences of unregulated and wild capitalism- The Grapes of Wrath was criticised by some people when it was first published; it was accused of having socialist leanings*  and a smear campaign was orchestrated by politicians and the media. Again, this sounds all too familiar and similar cases happen every so often, whenever an inconvenient truth is aired.
Today, individuals and families find themselves in similar situations; the current financial meltdown offers no perspective and migration is the only option left again for many people in these bleak times. A new generation is on the move and, almost a century later, things are not much different to what the Joads went through. Remember the 'we are the 99% campaign'?
John Ford's film based on the book has contributed to further the book's popularity, thus giving faces to the different family members we get to know so well. Bruce Springsteen also wrote a song with his own lyrics inspired by this universal story for his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad ('I'm sitting down here in the campfire light/ Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad').
It is not an easy read and it won't have you laughing out loud  but it is as relevant, haunting and poignant as it was in 1939. To me, that is the true sign of a major piece of art. A must-read, if you ask me.
*Source: Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism ©2003 Gale Cengage