One of the pleasures of the internet is making connections with people who share your interest. Martin Phipps, a Canadian, whose path I would not otherwise have crossed, is one such: our mutual interest in Anthony Burgess led to some exchanges via Facebook and the Burgess forums, and made me keen to read his novel Rue des Mensonges. The book is published, as Martin’s others have been, through Blurb, an innovative internet company offering authors the chance to self-publish and market their work. The result is, in effect, a bespoke copy of the book delivered to your door. I liked the quality of the paper and the binding, which I’d say was better than most mass-market paperbacks these days. So- what do we have here? It’s a short (about 130 pages) fast-paced thriller, set in locales ranging from expensive Paris penthouses to Roma encampments in rural Slovakia. It has a very contemporary feel, since the backdrop is the recent financial scandals and the global economic downturn. At the centre of events is the unpleasant crooked former financier James Moody, now enjoying his ill-gotten millions in Paris. His plan to disappear by faking his own death begins to unravel, and triggers a quickly moving succession of scenes in which Moody becomes embroiled in a maelstrom of lies, deceits and double-bluffs. What distinguishes this from your standard thriller is that the novel engages with the moral bankruptcy of modern capitalism, embodied in the figure of Moody. There are no clean-cut heroes on the street of liars – everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, is on the make. It’s gripping, vivid and thought-provoking. Great stuff, Marty!
I blogged before – blimey, nearly six years ago – about the use of “no problem” as an all-purpose response by people who serve you in shops, bars etc. There was a classic instance of it last night. We went for a pre-event meal to a branch of a well-known pizza chain, whose name begins with Pizza and ends with Express. In a largely empty restaurant, we were escorted by our waiter to a back room, which was perfectly pleasant, but from where we couldn’t be seen by the passing trade on the street. We decided we were too old / too uncool to occupy the visible seats, an idea confirmed as we were joined by punters of a similar age. Anyway, pleasant young waiter took our order. Drinks would be ‘no problem.’ The fact that we didn’t want water as well as beer would be ‘no problem’. The fact that we wanted just one salad to accompany the pizzas was ‘no problem’. Could we have a soft egg on the Fiorentina? No problem. Could we have some pepper? No problem. Could we have the bill? No problem. Could we actually have the correct bill, with the special offer price he had recommended? No problem. Pizza Express operates a rigid recipe control system, to ensure that wherever you are, your Fiorentina is going to be the same as the last one you had. So I wish their training people would instruct waiters that the language has a number of responses that are appropriate to customer questions – of course, right away, I’ll bring it to you now, certainly… Getting staff to use them? – no problem, you’d think.
I found this story astonishing. In the year of my birth, about a mile from where I lived, a teenage girl was being sectioned under the mental health act for the crime of having a baby. That boy, a few months older than me, was adopted, and has never known his mother. I thought this kind of barbarity had stopped before the war – it’s a shock to know it was still going on in my lifetime. There’s a happy end, of a kind – but as the woman’s second-born son says, she’s the victim here.
An interesting example of how stories are distorted in the telling, and how ‘news’ is created. Yesterday, at my place of work, there was a power cut. It happened around lunch time. I went out of my office to see if it was just my room, or more general. It was quickly apparent that the whole campus had lost electricity. Soon, a helicopter, a fire engine and two ambulances arrived. People on the corridor were immediately speculating as to what had caused the problem. In the space of three minutes I heard that construction workers on site had cut through cables, that there had been an explosion in a lab, and that there had been an explosion elsewhere, that the helicopter was there to take someone seriously injured to hospital. The local press reported it as a major incident.What had actually happened, it transpired, was that a power cut in the area had caused a distribution board to short-circuit, making a loud bang. Maybe whoever called 999 had been a little over-dramatic in describing the event. I imagine that person is a bit embarrassed. The campus was not evacuated, classes were not particularly affected (especially as not that many classes happen on a Wednesday afternoon) and things were back to normal by mid-afternoon. Nothing to see here, move along… Image: DailyPic
To the IABF once more for the latest in their literary event series. The subject this week was Nicholas Royle, together with Nicholas Royle. Royle mark 1 is an academic, the co-author of the very successful undergraduate text An Introduction to Literature Criticism and Theory, and the sole author of The Uncanny. He is also, and this was one of the main impulses for the event, the author of an intriguing new novel,Quilt. This new work gained laudatory reviews from some very important people, including Cixous and Kermode, so this is clearly a major work. T’other Royle is the Mancunian short story writer and novelist who also teaches Creative Writing at MMU. He is also the publisher of beautifully produced chapbooks from The Nightjar Press. I have admired his short stories in the past, and very much enjoyed his reading at an Edge Hill conference on the short story a few years ago. Our paths have crossed professionally too, when he was the external on a PhD viva. This Royle has developed a line in rather chilling, discomforting prose, with a dash of the surreal. Uncannily, the other Royle has similar tastes. Obviously, the two Royles are frequently confused. What I didn’t know until this event was that Nick Royle the academic had written about Nick Royle the novelist, and had delivered a conference paper about him. This was at a University of London conference, and the two of them had arranged to meet there, but in a kind of publicly theatrical way. Nick mark 1 delivered the paper, and then stepped down from the platform, shook hands with Nick mark 2, who stepped up to take questions on his own novel. An uneasy silence ensued… Of course, the two Royles are inextricably entwined. Look on a book site and you’ll see there’s no discriminating between the two. The Manchester Nick mentioned that, at the Cheltenham Festival, he’d done a talk and then was invited to sign books, many of which were – well, you fill in the rest. The Sussex Royle has a short story in the other Royle’s new anthology, and so the seeds for more confusion are being planted there too. To digress briefly, congratulations to Edge Hill student Claire Massey on being included in Nick’s new Best of British collection, where she finds herself in the company of Hilary Mantel among others. The IABF event was well-attended, and the format of alternating Royles reading from their work made for a lively opening half. They then had an informal chat, and took questions before signing their (own) books. Despite the frequently rather dark materials of the respective writers’ work, the evening was light-hearted and very enjoyable. As always at the IABF, a good few friends and acquaintances were present as well. We came away with a copy of The Uncanny and The Matter of the Heart, which will be the first in what I expect will be a Nicholas Royle reading marathon, of both flavours.
To the Dancehouse with Caroline for a celebratory gig with Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six. The prolific Mr Barabbas has a new album out, but this gig was really a showcase for the band, and an opportunity to feature John Otway, self-styled “rock and roll’s greatest failure”, whose extraordinary career includes two hit singles and being voted seventh in a poll of Britain’s best songwriters – just after some unknown called McCartney. Much of the gig was organised via Facebook, and this was a boon, because it meant that punters were able to avoid the stupid admin charges that the ticket-sellers add on. In fact, the whole thing was a great bargain. After paying via Paypal, an email from the band was exchanged at the box office for a ticket on the night, which also entitled you to a CD of the show, and a mention on the cover. Louis certainly isn’t going to be a millionaire any time soon working this way, but he will have a loyal fanbase. The venue was pretty full, and we arrived just in time for the opening, energetic song. If you haven’t come across Louis Barabbas, imagine a louche, bowler-hatted figure, wild-eyed and bearded like the prophet, frantically strumming a guitar and singing like Tom Waits would if his voice was a bit more gravelly. The band is the usual rock line up – bass, drums, keyboards, lead guitar, rhythm guitar and, er, trombone, used to good effect in most of the songs. Louis shares lead vocals with Alison Cegielka, a sultry chanteuse with a clear, melodic voice. Her duets with Louis – and most of the songs are written to be sung as duets – work surprisingly well, her smoothness complementing the rasp of Louis. The songs are uniformly dark, dealing with a downbeat world of gloom and doom inhabited by eccentrics, inadequates and losers. If Weill and Brecht had written for rock band, it might have sounded like this. Not for nothing is the Barabbas label called Debt Records. One little line sums up the mood of the songs for me – a character says ” I’m a man of my word, and the word is deceit.” The gig was divided into three, with LB performing a short opening set, and giving way to John Otway, on his own.
I didn’t know what to expect of him really, dimly remembering his 1977 hit “Really Free” which had a quirky charm. Otway, it turned out, is a natural showman, making much of his apparent amateurishness, and producing a nicely-judged stream of comic and self-deprecating patter. Genuinely funny and inventive, having fun with a theremin and with a bizarre double-necked guitar, which was used to do a cover of Sweet’s Blockbuster. After a tune with the band, Otway left, and the final session was back to Louis and the Bedlam Six. They really raised the roof, and had everyone dancing is the aisles. It was an energising, entertaining night out. Can’t wait for the CD! Update: ‘er indoors points out that LB has a blog here.
Gylphi, run by my friend Anthony Levings, published this book last month, and it is a strange beast. I have been trying to make my mind up about it, but trying to categorize it is difficult – it contains poems, essays, playlets, photos and meditations. It’s a collaborative effort, from Jason Lee – no, not that one – and the photographer Rebecca Griffith. This Jason Lee is Head of Film and Media with Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Derby, and an expert on transgression. Certainly, this book is a kind of transgressive artefact in itself, in its resolute defiance of category. The reader’s experience is, and I’m sure this is deliberate, an uncomfortable one. Beginning like a modern piece of lit crit, complete with scholarly references and a bibliography, it locates John Milton within the contemporary zeitgeist and then swiftly, and occasionally bewilderingly, moves on to introduce Galileo, Prospero and Caliban, the Virgin Mary, Picasso, Fassbinder, T.S. Eliot and a range of other fictional and real characters, inhabiting landscapes real and imagined from New Jerusalem to Pisa, Florence, and beyond. The text is illuminated by Griffith’s evocative black-and-white photographs, taken on instruction by the author in the cities where Milton may – or may not – have encountered Galileo. The central conceit of the book is an encounter between these two figures, which spirals into a consideration of the modern and postmodern world of existential angst and technological carnage. The figure of Milton, the author of Paradise Lost seems to anchor the ancient world, and the figure of Galileo, with his telescope, seems to represent the modern world. Here, in these ancient Italian cities, the two worlds collide, and the two visions inter-penetrate each other. Of course, the fact that both the protagonists went blind adds a further layer of postmodern irony to the idea of what they ‘saw’ – as does the decision to illustrate the book with photographs. The early poems in the book explore the nature of the encounter between Galileo and Milton using a sometimes daunting range of references and allusions, expressed in ludic and occasionally baffling free verse. Here’s a typical sample from the poem ‘Seeing Galileo I’:
Scrying the inexcusable, Telling the tale of the future Of the world corporations only allow; For the man who posts a letter in every French box in the city – hold it there, Daguerre…
This is playfully obscure, using, paradoxically perhaps, the predominant metaphor of the text – sight – to describe a future unknowable to either of Lee’s protagonists. The meaning remains opaque, though, and I wonder about that placing of ‘only’ – might it have been better after ‘the’? And what’s a French box? A letter box, or…? Doubtless the poems will repay further study, and indeed this is a book to return to, as, although it is unified by its theme, it has the feel of a series of loosely connected pieces, an anthology of sorts. In other parts of the book, critical discourse and historical narrative give way to other types of writing. I was particularly struck by the Edward Bond-style playlet ‘The Four Minute Warning’ which vividly dramatizes our inhumanity in extremis during an apparent nuclear attack. I’m still not sure about this text. It’s certainly intriguing, and challenging, though sometimes too much so for comfort. But then, I’m sure it isn’t meant as a cosy read. A couple of stylistic touches did jar, however: Lee tends to write sentences without main verbs. Like this. As if it’s advertising copy. Which it isn’t. That’s probably me being pedantic, I suppose. I also couldn’t really go along with his occasional baring of the device; for example, he leaves what appear to be notes to the photographer in his text as annotations. I’m not sure that works, but, like other features of the book, it underlines the boundary-busting nature of the enterprise. On a more positive note, it’s a pleasure to read and to handle such a well-produced volume. The production values are high, and would put bigger companies to shame. So – a challenging, provocative and original book, that blurs conventional genres and plays fruitfully with our postmodern condition.
To Angers, for the fourth international colloquium at the Anthony Burgess Centre, this time focusing on Burgess’s encounters with the Elizabethans. It was, as usual, a very enjoyable event, and it was great to meet up with old Burgessian pals, and to make some new ones. Angers is a very pleasant town, with a chateau, some delightful Renaissance architecture, and some very fine shops. Our hosts, as ever, did us proud: this is the only conference I go to where lunch is a two-hour affair with a choice of three fine wines. As Sterne said, “They order this matter better in France.” Not much time for sightseeing on this occasion, but the curious traveller in this part of the world should certainly check out the chateau, and particularly the tapestry depicting the Apocalypse: it’s 100 metres long (of an original 140m) and was made between 1373 and 1382 for Louis I of Anjou. It is a stunning piece, set in its own spacious room at the chateau.
The town itself has something to delight the eye around every corner, such as this:
or this:
or this:
More images are available all over the web. The city website is much animated by the arrival of the tramway, which will run through the town, and which is nearing completion at the moment.
The colloque went very well, with some very interesting and stimulating papers from some of my fellow Burgessians, including Alan Shockley, Katherine Adamson, Jonathan Mann, Anthony Levings and Aude Haffen. Gareth Farmer’s paper was a tour-de-force worth a listen. Andrew Biswell, doyen of Burgess studies, and director of the IABF presented a paper in his usual urbane manner. It was a great pleasure to meet and indeed eat with Charles Nicholl, our keynote speaker, and the distinguished author of The Reckoning, source of most of the information in my paper. If you haven’t read The Reckoning, you really should – it’s a detailed and fascinating account of the Elizabethan spy world. Charles’s later book, The Lodger, on Shakespeare’s time in London, also displays the depth of his learning, but in a very accessible way. All the talks were recorded, so I’m hoping some will be on the Angers web site soon.
There was no book lack in Angers, as Paul Phillips, the leading critic of Burgess’s music, was able to launch his new book on the subject. I cannily managed to purchase an unsigned copy, which I think will be a rare item in future…
Paul’s major contribution to the event was the first ever staging of Burgess’s only ballet, ‘Mr WS’, for which he conducted a large orchestra of largely amateur musicians. Friends of Topsyturvydom will know that modern interpretive dance is really not my thing, so you may be surprised to read that I was gripped throughout by the ability of four dancers to produce a mesmerising display of acrobatic and inexhaustibly inventive movement to represent Shakespeare’s life and times. It was a privilege to talk to one of the dancers, Mélisande Carré Angeli at the conference dinner, where she told me that remembering all the complex moves was simply a question of repetition. I was exhausted just watching.
So, another memorable visit to Angers. The next Burgess milestone will be 2012, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Clockwork Orange.
Update 30th Nov: The image of the tapestry which I linked to seems to have been removed. It was Creative Commons, and I did credit the photographer, but hey… So I’ve substituted some pictures taken whilst I was there of the chateau and the town.
It’s quite likely that I will be out of a job in eighteen months or so. The funding cuts announced by the government in the wake of the Browne review are particularly savage in the subject area where I work, and in the kind of institution where I work. The emphasis on the so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) subjects means that, in effect, arts and humanities subjects are going to be denied any funding at all, and will have to survive on vastly increased student fees. The real terms cut for a department like mine in the sector of the university market we are in is about 98%. Whether there is a pool of students prepared to pay those fees is another matter, and it seems clear that lots of departments will close, and it is by no means inconceivable that entire universities will have to shut up shop. And, you know, I somehow don’t think that will be Oxford and Cambridge. Already, redundancies have been announced, and I know of several institutions where departing staff are simply not being replaced.
Since this is my livelihood, I am obviously concerned, but, like any scholar of the humanities, I can see both sides of the argument. The country is in an almighty mess economically. Cuts have to be made. The subjects with practical applications must be privileged. All right, up to a point. But we have been told for the last twenty years that we are now in a knowledge economy, where what matters is the mix of skills you have, and your agility and adaptability in a fast-changing environment. As I pointed out in a previous post, employers are generally not that bothered about the content of a degree; they want people who are smart, articulate, and able to work on their own initiative and as part of a team. So yes, whilst a degree in engineering is clearly very desirable if you want to be an engineer, there are many jobs (70% of graduate jobs according to a recent analysis) where the subject is not specified.
If, as seems likely, we lose much of our traditional capacity in the humanities, and the university sector shrinks as a result, would that matter? The short answer is yes. Stefan Collini, whose brilliant demolition of the ludicrous REF emphasis on ‘impact’ I highlighted some time ago, has produced an equally withering analysis of the Browne review. Here’s a taste, but as with the previous one, you really should read it all.
It is, incidentally, one of the several dispiriting features of this report that even when it shows an inconsistent twitch of non-market reflexes and recognises that there may be a public interest in making sure that certain subjects are offered and studied, it in effect confines these subjects to science and technology (with a token nod to the possible economic usefulness of some foreign languages). The only social value the report seems able to think of is economic: these subjects contribute directly to the economy, it is alleged, and so we must have them. The Comprehensive Spending Review has reinforced this emphasis on science and technology by maintaining the science budget (which supports research, not teaching) at its present level. Browne implies that other subjects, especially the arts and humanities, are just optional extras. If students are willing to cash in their voucher to study them – perhaps because, for some unexamined reason, they are thought to lead to higher-paid jobs – so be it; but if they’re not, then there’s no public interest in having them. Despite the occasional (very occasional) mention of, say, ‘culture’, the logic of the report’s proposals gives such values no independent standing. Overwhelmingly, the general statements announce, with startling confidence, the real point of higher education: ‘Higher education matters because it drives innovation and economic transformation. Higher education helps to produce economic growth, which in turn contributes to national prosperity.’ And just when you might think there was going to be a glimpse of something broader, your knuckles are smartly rapped: ‘Higher education matters because it transforms the lives of individuals. On graduating, graduates are more likely to be employed, more likely to enjoy higher wages and better job satisfaction, and more likely to find it easier to move from one job to the next.’ This report displays no real interest in universities as places of education; they are conceived of simply as engines of economic prosperity and as agencies for equipping future employees to earn higher salaries.
David “Call me Dave” Cameron is fond of saying “we are all in this together”. The trouble is, we aren’t. Lord Snooty and his pals will not be facing any pain at all, because they are all extremely rich, as this article shows. (Sorry about linking to the Daily Malice, but this does graphically illustrate the gap between Dave ‘n’ George and the rest of us). So when Charlotte and Oliver want to go to Daddy’s alma mater to study Art History or Old Norse, that will be fine, because those universities will be able to charge huge fees to people for whom it’s small change, and they’ll be able to keep on their humanities provision. And there’ll be a job at the end of it too – in the city for Oliver with Daddy’s old firm, or running a chi-chi handbag shop in Kensington for Charlotte.
This cabinet of millionaires is happy to consign the life-chances of thousands to the scrapheap, and in doing so to debase our over-materialist culture still further, despite being the beneficiaries of the system themselves. David Willetts (private school and Oxford, degree in that distinctly non-STEM subject PPE, wealth estimated at £2 million) is presiding over a regime he himself declared unfair in his own book. Dave, descended from one of William IV’s bastards (Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon Club, PPE again, personal wealth about £25 million) says “We won’t go back. Look, even if we wanted to, we shouldn’t go back to the idea that university is free.” I never thought it was. When I was at university, I received a grant. It covered the cost of my rent. For the rest, I depended, as everyone else I knew did, on parental contributions. My parents were fantastically supportive, making real sacrifices to help me. But neither they, nor I, were faced with the prospect of a £30,000 price tag for a degree. The chancellor, George Osborne (St Paul’s, Oxford, degree in History, personal wealth £4 million trust fund, heir to a baronetcy) says “Our universities are jewels in our economic crown, and it is clear that if we want to keep our place near the top of the world league tables then we need to reform our system of funding.” OK, George – but reform to you means slashing the budget to almost nothing for the subject you studied at university. I could go on, but you get the idea. It doesn’t help when people like Simon Jenkins write fatuously that “It may be irksome for poor students to see rich ones having their fees paid off by parents, but the rich are always different.” That’s Sir Simon Jenkins, (Mill Hill, Oxford, degree in a subject he seems coy about, but I bet it wasn’t engineering) who has the nerve to say that “There is not an arts course invented that could not be completed in 18 months, and probably not a science one. As for most postgraduate degrees and doctorates, they are plain indulgences.” Oxford terms are eight weeks…
So today I’m thinking about some of the students I met again at our recent event featuring Billy Collins and Carol Ann Duffy. I’m thinking of student A, a single mother, who did our access course to gain a university place, and worked her socks off for six years to get her richly deserved first class degree part time. She then did a year’s teacher training, and is now enjoying the challenge of teaching English to a new generation. I’m thinking of student C, who came to us with a mediocre degree in another subject, and some years of work in a job he didn’t like. He studied for two extra years to gain a degree in English, because he loved English, and wanted to make it the basis of his career. He too is now a teacher, transmitting that love of language and literature to the citizens of tomorrow. I’m thinking of the mature woman who did our access course, and overcame the death of her husband, a serious accident and a chronic illness to battle through to win her degree. I’m thinking of student L, who entered our university in her late twenties, bored with her office job. She thrived as a student, gained a first class degree, and is now pursuing postgraduate work. For these people, and for countless others, the chance to study the humanities at university has been a life-changing experience. If Dave and his pals get their way, this type of student would never get that chance, and I won’t have the privilege of teaching them. I hope the brilliant Martin Rowson doesn’t mind me nicking his cartoon. It’s from here.
It occurred to me to look at The Times obituaries for the elusive Sir John, editor of The Penguin Encyclopedia. And there he is. It’s a classic diplomat’s career, in countries that no longer exist. I am fascinated by these men of the late Empire. They were there as the world changed, and presided over it as an afterthought. Sir John probably signed away lives and fortunes before settling down to his game of bridge. Update 8th May 2012. A reader asked me for details of when this was published. I answered to your email address at roadrunner.com, but it bounced back as undeliverable. So, for the record, the obituary was published in The Times on Saturday, Aug 09, 1980; pg. 14; Issue 60699.
