'Kafka on wheels'
by Cormac McCarthy
This book is described as 'a novel in dramatic form'. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck. By which I mean: it's a play. Now, I'm a firm believer that plays should be performed rather than just read, which is why I have only ever reviewed productions of plays rather than the texts themselves. Picador's presentation of this play as a novel invites me to do just that however and in fact the structure and content of the play mean that whilst it would certainly be nice to see it performed there's plenty to say about the text itself.
Originally performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company back in 2006 the play is a duologue, and a dialogue in the classical sense between two men, Black and White, an African-American and a Caucasian. It seems that White has been rescued by Black from a suicide attempt in front of the train of the title and in Black's apartment the two men talk, Black attempting to extricate from White the reasons for his leap into oblivion whilst he also discusses his own life and faith in the Bible. We could accept the play at face value; Black an ex-convict with a violent past, who has made his room open to junkies in need of help, has another project in White, a man he doesn't want to let go until he's sure that he won't throw himself in front of the next train that happens along. But the character names and didactic structure invite us to see the apartment as a kind of limbo with Black fighting to save the soul of White from damnation. The two men wrestle with the big themes, Black using the Bible as his touchstone ('If it aint in here then I don't know it') and his faith in humanity, despite his own violent past, as the main force to try and help others. White, who had placed his own faith in Culture, if anything, has been left bereft - 'The things I believed in dont exist anymore. It's foolish to pretend that they do. Western Civilization finally went up in smoke in the chimneys at Dachau but I was too infatuated to see it. I see it now.'
For much of the play Black holds sway, dominating with his conviction and calmness in the face of White's rationalism. But there is a volte face near the end where White suddenly steps up to the mark and flattens all that has come before with his own conviction that 'You give up the world line by line....everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left'. This makes for pretty bleak reading of course but bleakness never stopped Beckett from being a theatrical genius. There are obvious comparisons with plays like Waiting For Godot, but you're always going to struggle when sitting alongside one of the greatest plays ever written (IMHO). Having said that the play lends itself to textual appreciation I can't help but wonder whether a live performance would be able to lift it beyond a mere recitation of arguments. There is no action to speak of - Black does get up from his chair at one point to make some food (never has soul food been so literal) but other than that it's just two men sat at a table. Again, there's no action in Godot beyond the entrance of Pozzo and Lucky, but the play's language is so rich in metaphor, symbolism and meaning - poetic and enigmatic - that it provides not just an evening's 'entertainment' but enough keep you going for a long time afterwards. The rather balder back and forth of argument in this play leaves you wishing for something a little more theatrical or dramatic, something with a little more character (perhaps this is what is meant by a novel merely in dramatic form).
There is McCarthian violence as you might expect although this is only reported rather than depicted. This play is all about what's on the page and to be fair there are some smart exchanges between the two men. The humanity of Black also has a curious effect on a play so bleak. He is gentle and warm, confident in his own faith and presumably in his ability to turn the situation around so that there is almost a smile, some humour, behind what he has to say to White. But the crushing weight of White's world view has a huge impact on the play. 'The one thing I won't give up is giving up', he says, and this because he has been left no alternative by his awakening to the real world around him.
I don't believe in God. Can you understand that? Look around you man. Can't you see? The clamor and din of those in torment has to be the sound most pleasing to his ear.
The most difficult thing he thinks for Black to hear is his view of what those with faith look to as their reward.
I yearn for the darkness. I pray for death. Real death. If I thought that in death I would meet the people I've known in life I don't know what I'd do. That would be the ultimate horror. The ultimate despair. If I had to meet my mother again and start all of that all over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to? Well. That would be the final nightmare. Kafka on wheels.
So I'm going to revert to my former opinion. Plays have to be seen, not just read. There is plenty to chew over in this book but it never really lifts off the page and at the end of the day, for all its dramatic form, it remains the articulation of argument rather than character and too far away from the humanity it seeks to explore. Read more...
(2000) by Michael Chabon which is one of the reasons why I began this blog in the first place. A favourite book, I gave it to my wife to read and asked her one evening how it was going, where she'd got to. 'He's just walking across the Arctic with his dog.' My inability to recall something even as obvious as that told me that I may have been reading plenty of books at the time, and enjoying them, but I certainly wasn't retaining enough of what I read. By committing myself to writing a review afterwards, and therefore having to make the odd note along the way, I felt I could train myself to be a better reader. I hope it's working. I don't claim to be in any kind of position to pronounce what books were the 'best', but what follows might be more accurately described as a list of the ones that stood out for me then and still do now: The books that say something about my journey through fiction and my maturation as a reader.
The only book I can think of that has actually terrified me whilst reading it, Danielewski's extraordinary début is notable for several reasons. First as an object: the beautiful patterned boards and excellent quality of the US edition make it a joy to hold and read and the various versions of the first edition as listed on the copyright page mean that colour makes its way into the text of a book which is as inventive typographically as it is stylistically. We begin by reading the account of Johnny Truant who moves into the apartment of the recently deceased Zampano and discovers a manuscript written by him about a film called The Navisdson Record. Will Navidson, a photojournalist, had discovered, whilst making a simple survey of his house, that the inside measurements seem to be just slightly larger than the outside. This leads to a journey as epic and terrifying as you can imagine happening within four walls and the book is made up of description of the film footage, interviews, interjections, footnotes, letters, the text changing font and construction so that the reader is left disorientated and hopefully scared shitless. I've read a couple of books since which have attempted to do something similar but neither of them came close to this, a true original.
I recently re-read this graphic novel to see if it was still as good as I though it was in memory. It was, and then some. You can read that review 
I read this book in something close to a single sitting, becoming completely hypnotised by the rhythm of McGregor's writing and utterly mesmerized by its distinctive style style. Several hours later, as I tearily closed the final pages, I knew this was a book that I wanted other people to read so that we could enthuse about it together. I was a little disappointed when some that I had gifted a copy weren't quite as a sold on it as me, put off by the 'tricksiness' of the writing, but it hasn't dimmed my own enthusiasm. It is true that McGregor's debut has a distinctive style, characters are never referred to by name, only as 'the man with burned hands', or 'the boy with the pierced eyebrow' but after a while it seems no stranger than them being called Bob or Kevin and there often feels as though there is something totemic about their distinctions. The action of a single day assumes huge significance for these characters who all have a past, whose present moment is our focus for the duration of the book and whose future I still wonder about.
So the bogey year I mentioned and I know that there were plenty of fine books published this year (Richard Power's The Time Of Our Singing and John Gray's Straw Dogs for example) but with books like Curious Incident... and Vernon God Little making the headlines were there any that really compared to some of the others on this list. One book that really made an impact on me and sent me trawling after her entire back catalogue was this collection of stories from A M Homes. Up until reading this collection I had never really got on with shorter fiction, I didn't really get it, but something about Homes' humour, darkness and inventiveness chimed nicely and it has since opened up a little door in my mind that begins to appreciate the possibilities of the short story. From the twisted logic of the woman who waits among the sand dunes to collect the discarded condoms from the local lifeguards' sexual conquests in order to impregnate herself to the touching portrait of Nancy Reagan coping with her husband's deteriorating mental state this is a collection as odd as the composite creature on its front cover. That examination of her previous books showed more dark delights the most controversial of which was The End Of Alice, in which a young woman who plans to seduce a 12 year old boy conducts a correspondence with a jailed paedophile and murderer. If you want a challenging read then this might be the book for you.
This is easily the best of Woodward's trilogy of books featuring the Jones family in the part of north London I lived in for over a decade. There is something very personal and direct about reading a book which features locations that you know like the back of your own hand and to meet characters so skilfully created by their author that they seem as real as the people you see yourself in the street makes the achievement of this book even more astonishing. This book stands on its own but is obviously enhanced by the two that stand either side of it, the time spent with the Joneses through their tumultuous family history was both funny, sad, painful and heart-warming in a way that only a brilliantly observed and detailed novel could be. Never have I wanted to spend so much time with such a dysfunctional family.
As I have mentioned here before I wept like a child when I reached the final pages of this stunning novel. My review of it is 
A friend of mine bought this recently as their third pick in a 3 for 2 on the advice of someone else. Knowing that I was a reader they asked me whether it was any good. Without thinking about what I was saying I assured him that it was quite simply one of the best books ever written, and once I had given voice to that sentence I realised that that was exactly what I thought (my original review is 
. A book so concerned with the notion of authenticity is tailor made for a professional faker like me but it is a book which should appeal to a broad readership for all sorts of reasons. Clever without being a smart-arsey, arty without being wanky, it is the kind of book that makes your head feel like someone's got in there and done some spring-cleaning. The prose manages to be clinical and sensual at the same time, each of the five senses becomes hugely important as the hero attempts to piece together what he can remember of his life before 'the accident'. It has the pace of a thriller, the intelligence of something altogether more philosophical and an artistic sentiment that made me feel as if the book in my hand was the coolest thing in the world. When was the last time a book felt cool? Despite it not being on the list above, if I had to pick a book which not only made an impact on me but in some way defined the past decade, this would be the one. Let one McCarthy take that honour and the other something a little grander.
Posts
