Home by Toni Morrison

                                               Home
                                       Toni Morrison

How many themes does a novel need?  I could have used a GPS to navigate the many paths that Toni Morrison takes us down in her latest book, Home.  Is this an account of a road trip?  Is this about a young man with post- traumatic stress following the Korean War?  Is this about the plight of black Americans in the 1950s?  Is it, as the title suggests, about the green, green grass of home? But then, why is the opening poem about self-awareness?  Maybe it's about learning to be a man like the brutal horses who 'stood like men.'  It's all of these things, in 145 pages.  At Can.$25.95, maybe I'm getting my money's worth with so many ideas to chew through.  Or maybe I'm asking myself, "Where's the editor of this tangle?"

 

I'll focus on the positive:   Morrison has created a full and likable character in Frank, the protagonist and he engages my interest. He is complex and sympathetic.  As a toddler he took responsibility for his baby sister, Cee, and he never wavered in his role as her protector.   She is the constant in his life which he recognizes: "Deep down inside her lived my secret picture of myself - a strong good me… p.103"  He is a decent kid who had never left his home in rural Georgia until he went to the freezing front of the Korean War where he lost his two childhood friends, saw atrocities and committed them himself, and came home damaged, shell-shocked and alcoholic.  The main narrative concerns his search for recovery and I admire his persistence.

 

The other character to whom I responded is Frank's girlfriend, Lily.  In one strong chapter, which reads like a short story, she decides that loneliness is a price she is willing to pay to find self-fulfilment through ambition and independence.  But Lily then disappears from the narrative and her contribution to the plot is unclear.

 

Insight into the characters is enhanced by the experimental and interesting technique of inserting italicized first-person passages which sometimes contradict the third-person narrator.  Another less successful experiment is the random appearances of a mystery man dressed in a zoot-suit.  His role is puzzling.

 

I expected some lovely writing from this winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in many passages I was not disappointed:  "He pulled the trigger.  The click from the empty chamber was both tiny and thunderous." And, "egg yolks, not sliding now, but stuck like phlegm to the window."  Frank experiences, "the free-floating rage, the self-loathing disguised as somebody else's fault."  These passages are evocative.

 

But I am at a loss with, "the sound of a cheap cello coming from a chute of cattle…", a "heart jump of sorrow,"  a woman in a wheelchair who is "quick as a hummingbird," and a face which, "seemed to morph into the front of a jeep."  Morph?

 

Despite my enjoyment of some of the characters and language, Morrison's multitude of themes distanced me and left me unsatisfied.  The underlying theme is the poverty of Black America in the 1950s: poverty of opportunity, support, ambition and finances.  But some of the incidents, like the attack on the couple traveling on the train, did not advance the plot.  This would be acceptable in a longer work, but a short novel should be spare and focussed.  I thought that I was reading a road trip story.

Another important theme is the rehabilitation of black GIs after the Korean War, a big issue.  In Frank's case this is effected by his return to his nurturing home environment.  As the book is titled Home, it must be that an important theme is one's attachment to home, which in this book is Lotus, a run-down rural black settlement in Georgia. Ambivalent love of home is a familiar theme, starting with The Odyssey, but the depiction of Lotus is fuzzy.  At times this village seems soul-less, ignorant and dead-end, a place that offered Frank and Cee no guidance and no support, where the little girl was criticised by everyone, neighbours wagged their tongues, but no one intervened on their behalf.  Both children left at the first opportunity. But when the narrative suddenly segues to Cee's story, we hear her reminiscing fondly of a brook full of fish, gardens full of crops, and kindly neighbours fixing each others' front steps. At the end of the book, home is where redemption is found.  Frank and Cee discover a community of women rich in goodwill and traditional knowledge and values.  The rediscovery of the healing values of home, the Prodigal Son story, is a full theme in itself, but Morrison has so many themes going that she doesn't fully develop this one.

 In this potentially nurturing village, it seems that Frank and Cee's parents were the anomaly, too tired after work to care for their children.  Both children grew up to be scarred by the adult world for which their parents had given them no preparation. Thus, the importance of caring parenting would seem to be another theme.

But finally, I have concluded that Morrison's main theme must be self-knowledge and self-acceptance.  My evidence is the action in the first and last chapters, Frank's italicised first-person accounts, and the poem in the frontispiece:

                                                "Whose house is this?

                                       Whose house keeps out the light

                                                                In here?

                                                Say, who owns this house?

                                                            It's not mine.

                                     I dreamed another, sweeter, brighter

                            With a view of lakes crossed in painted boats;

                                   Of fields wide as arms open for me.

                                                   This house is strange.

                                                         Its shadows lie.

                                Say, tell me, why does its lock fit my key?"

 

The strong image created in the opening chapter with echoes in the final chapter must have significance.  It concerns the fighting stallions.  The opening sentence is, "They rose up like men.  We saw them.  Like men they stood."  And the chapter ends," They were so beautiful.  So brutal.  And they stood like men."  In the final action of the book, Frank nails a board to a tree beside the grave of a murdered man whom he had reburied as a mark of respect.  On the board he has written, "Here Stands a Man"

In the first-person account (p. 103) Frank talks about, "a strong good me tied to the memory of those horses and the burial of a stranger."

Cee also discovers the strength that comes from belief in herself, and under the tutelage of the Lotus women she learns not to lean on her brother.  Although I found this sudden identification and resolution of her need too abrupt and tidy, it does illustrate the importance of this theme.

Persistent excavation has enabled me to make some sense of this novel, but a cohesive and disciplined narration would have made it a much more satisfying read.  My verdict is that I was left  disappointed and unsatisfied by Morrison's lack of focus and disjointed narrative.  Too bad.

The Testament of Mary

Colm  Toibin

There are more portraits of the Virgin Mary than of any other woman in the world and all of them portray her as passive and submissive.  Colm Toibin has written a book about a different Mary, one who is resentful, defiant, broken-hearted, lonely and guilt-ridden.  No wonder it is controversial.

Mary’s darling son, the joy of her life, has given up his job and taken to roaming the countryside, disturbing the peace with a band of grown hobbledehoys.  When she meets him at a wedding in Cana, he says to her, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” How is a mother to feel?

This is Mary’s version of events, not a gospel, because Toibin thinks that she did not believe that Jesus was the son of God.  He was her beloved son and he moved away from her.  She watched him tortured and killed on a cross and she had to flee her home and die in a foreign land because of the persecution of his followers.  Even though the disciples now tell her that Jesus has saved the world, she retains the image of her son’s tragic death and she says, “It was not worth it.”

As Toibin recreates the time, the culture and Mary’s state of mind, he changes some events as they are traditionally told.  He thinks that the bloodlust of the crowd at the cross would have made it unsafe for Mary and the other women to stay with Jesus until the end.  He also takes a new look at the miracles that took place close to Nazareth, which Mary would have known about.  At the wedding in Cana, why did the host run out of wine?  Because there were so many uninvited guests, the followers of Jesus.  It behooved Jesus to rescue the host from his embarrassment.  The family of Lazarus were good friends of Mary’s family.  Jesus was too busy preaching to come to the bedside of Lazarus, his childhood friend who was suffering, according to Toibin, from intolerable headaches.  When Jesus raised his friend from death, the pains continued and furthermore, he had to deal with the reactions of his friends.  What exactly do you say to someone who has returned from the other side?

All mothers know the pain of separation as their loving and dependent little boys grow to be independent, unrecognizably adult men inhabiting a different world.  Mary is no different and furthermore, she has witnessed her son’s tragic death which has left her scarred and bitter, with no patience for the men who encouraged his intransigence.

We know that after Jesus’ death, it took the disciples, with help from Paul, some years to make sense of his life and teaching.  Christian orthodoxy says that these men were inspired.  Toibin suggests that not all of their conclusions were based on the truth as Mary saw it.

Reviews of this book vary greatly depending on reviewers’ Christian beliefs.  The most critical don’t even acknowledge Toibin’s sensitivity and fine writing.  They do not mention the consistency of Mary’s voice, the urgent flow of the storytelling or the perception of the characters.  I would like to hear more discussion about Marcus, a cousin of Mary’s who seeks her out in order to betray her.  To me, this is an unbelievable scenario which is not fully explained.

To those of us who have been over-exposed to sentimental Christmas cards and Great Master’s paintings in churches and museums, all of which serve to manipulate Mary into a model of female behaviour according to a patriarchal society, much of the thesis of this book is refreshing.  It is clever, original and well-written, but there is no doubt that Toibin takes delight in stirring up controversy and challenging the androcentrism of Christian teaching.

Death Comes to Pemberley

 

P.D. James

 

What an amazing woman is P.D. James.  She was born in 1920, the same year as my mother, and here she is, still writing international bestsellers.  This book was recommended to me by a friend, and when I saw it in the boutique of the local hospital auxiliary for $3.00, I snapped it up.  The next day I came down with a miserable winter cold, went to bed and read Death Comes to Pemberley in a day!

Take yourself back to the day you read the last page of Pride and Prejudice and remember all your hopes and worries for your favourite characters.  Did Mr. Darcy live up to expectations?  Did the vapid Mr. Bingley really make Jane happy?  What about Lydia and Mr. Wickham's further adventures?  Surely their elopement would be followed by other colourful adventures.

In Death Comes to Pemberley, P.D. James has given us the answer to all our questions and tossed in a murder mystery, of course.  All the mannerisms and tedious niceties of early 19th century society are recreated in Jane Austen style.  The tone of Pride and Prejudice lives on, as does the slow pace, however the plot driver is not the acquisition of suitable husbands but the solution of a mystery.  The action moves from the salons to the saloons and gives us a peek at nineteenth century justice.

Much of the action takes place in the dark and menacing woods of Mr. Darcy's Pemberley estate.  A body is found there, and the infamous Mr. Wickham, a sure troublemaker, seems to be responsible for the death.  Servant girls claim that there have been mysterious visitors to the woods, and a secluded cottage there, the site of the suicide of a Darcy ancestor, is now inhabited by an unwed mother and her terminally ill brother.

Clues are scattered and eventually reassembled to form a satisfactory conclusion to the mystery, and we have the pleasure of following our favourite characters through an exciting interlude in their domestic humdrum.  Indeed, Misters Bingley and Darcy have proved to be satisfactory husbands, the nurseries are full of the pitter-patter, and Elizabeth admits to enjoying her great wealth.  In fact, we feel considerable sympathy for these families so burdened by their great estates that they must spend their lives looking after their inheritances and their servants, giving traditional balls and fulfilling expectations.  Noblesse Oblige!

The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy

By J.K. Rowlings

 

As I began to read this book, I found myself searching for the author of Harry Potter.  When I finally resorted to a crib list to keep track of the multitude of characters, I missed the accessible writer who has led millions of children to enjoy reading with her easily-followed plots.  And as I encountered a cast of unlikeable people, I missed the sympathetic, easy-to-like Harry, Ron and Hermione.   Is  J.K. Rowling really a mean-spirited woman who can tell us nothing but nasty secrets about her cast of characters assembled in a seemingly idyllic English village with the Black Cannon Pub and the ancient church grouped around the village square?  Is she on a vendetta to destroy a stereotype?  Is she tired of being nice?  Is this the real her? 

Nevertheless, I kept reading because Rowling is a master storyteller and a skillful writer. And gradually I discovered the familiar author. 

She is there with the children in the village, much more compelling characters than the adults.  She is saying that without magic, this could have been the life of the orphaned Harry Potter.  She is saying that in real life, if children are not adequately loved and nurtured, challenged and supported, they can get into big trouble.  She is saying that children can be horrible to each other, but they can also be a support and provide personal growth. 

As the plot grew ever more sprawling and the many characters grew ever more complex, I began to wonder how Rawlings was ever going to bring her tale to a conclusion.  And then I discovered the author of Harry Potter again.  Except that the exciting nail-biters which ended the children's books sounded melodramatic in this book for adults.  Not that I don't like melodrama.  I was on the edge of my chair as I read the concluding chapters of this book. Once again, the concluding events in the plot surrounding the children rang true.  Their paths were leading to disaster, and it would take a momentous event to be a wake-up call to the adults who were to blame in avoiding serious issues with their children.  But the rip-roaring drunk of a party with all proprieties broken, while fun to read, was too obviously a wrap-up event for the miscellaneous sub-plots from which Rowlings needed to extricate herself. 

The adults are not entirely unsympathetic.  Rowlings cleverly ties the adult and child plots together at the end when several of the adult characters pass by little Robbie who is lost, dirty and crying.  Lest anyone doubt the theme of the book, it is here with these self-absorbed adults ignoring the needs of the child and refusing to acknowledge that all children are their responsibility.  But guilt and compunction do visit these adults after Robbie's death and we hope that the village will be a kinder, less self-satisfied place after the horrifying ending of the book. 

Read this book.  You will enjoy it, and you will find yourself thinking about its theme long after you are finished.  But it takes some persistence to get into it and some sang-froid to follow the affairs of the variously unlikeable adults who people its pages.

                                                                                                                                    Esther

 

The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of An Ending

Julian Barnes

This book won the 2011 Man Booker Prize, the biggest prize in English literature, so one sets a high standard when reviewing it.  The question is always there:  "Why did this book succeed?"

It is a 'coming of age' novel' in a new sense.    The first few chapters are set in a boy's school and are full of the usual schoolboy concerns about girls and friendships and report cards.  But then the writer switches to a different coming of age - old age.  This is a babyboomer's novel, and maybe that is why it appealed to the jury.  As mature adults are wont to do, Tony, the narrator, looks back at his young self, wondering what those bygone days can tell him about who he has been and what perspective they can bring to his life, now that it is mostly behind him.

The pivotal event in the book is the receiving of a legacy from the mother of an old girlfriend.  This intriguing event leads Tony to revisit that relationship from the perspective of age and subsequent events.  This is a babyboomer's exercise, the reworking of memory, using the knowledge gained from a lifetime of experience.

Further than that, it is hard to say what other qualities make this book exceptional.  There is not much plot, and none of the characters are particularly likeable.  Tony, the narrator, has not had a very interesting life and is not a particularly attractive character.

Veronica, the girlfriend, turns out to be quite different from Tony's perception of her, and Barnes underlines this by giving her a different name.  At the end of the novel, we must rethink all the events of the plot from a different perspective.

This is the theme of the book, the tragedy of judging without knowing the whole story.  But it is difficult to condemn Tony, who responded to information available to him at the time.  There is no way that he could have been expected to know about Veronica's sad situation.  She never treated him considerately so he had no motivation to be more sensitive.   I think this is the problem with the book.  At the end, when Veronica's story is revealed, we have not developed any sympathy for her, so we don't respond strongly .  We cannot condemn Tony, so there is no deep emotional shift.

The tone is nicely understated and introspective.  The structure is well balanced, with a schooldays event repeated in the body of the story.  This is a nice foreshadowing of a pivotal event.  Structurally, the book is well written, it is short and well- paced, and Barnes writes reflectively, inviting his reader to join him in contemplating the nature of contempt, remorse, resentment, and other emotions experienced throughout a lifetime. The nature and reliability of memory and the authenticity  of historical accounts are problems probed and pondered.

The Sense of an Ending is a pleasant, reflective read, with a certain suspense and a lingering bemusement, but is this really the best book written in the English language this year?

A Woman Among Warlords

A Woman Among Warlords


Malalai Joya

This book takes a one-sided and firm position on the current situation in Afghanistan, which is that Afghans are perfectly able to manage their own affairs, and would like all meddling countries OUT. The author, Malalai Joya, speaks so coherently and knowledgeably that she has quite turned around my thinking on Afghanistan. I have read other books recounting individual tragedies in this turbulent country, but Malalai speaks on behalf of the ordinary people of Afghanistan. She is their champion and spokesperson.

Malalai speaks from her heart, and it is a brave heart indeed. She has dared to denounce the warlords who are members of the present government put in place by NATO. An elected member of the Loya Jirga (Afghan government), she has been prevented from taking her seat by the warlords who form the majority of the present government. She is constantly in hiding, moving from safe house to safe house. Nevertheless, women and persecuted minorities find her and tell her their stories which she publicizes through her support groups in democratic countries around the world.

Malalai criticizes freely the NATO forces which installed the weak puppet, Hamid Karzai, and his corrupt government, and for this reason she is not liked by governments which support sending armed forces to Afghanistan. In her fight for an independent Afghanistan, she singles out individuals and names names relentlessly. She is very well informed on the history and leaders of her country. She knows that she could be assassinated at any time, and she is in a hurry to achieve as much as she can in the effort to create a free democracy in her country.

The book is full of interesting accounts of famous people and little-known events. Benazir Bhutto is known as the Mother of the Taliban because of the support she gave them as part of her tactic to oppose Indian influence in the area. Laura Bush’s comments on the achievements wrought by the Americans are quoted fully, remarks based on observations she made during visits which lasted six hours. Schoolbooks printed at the University of Nebraska for Afghan children, which are still in use today, are filled with talk of jihad and teach children to count using illustrations of tanks, missiles and landmines.

Malalai tells countless stories about the mistreatment of women in her country. Her statistics as well as accounts of individual experiences is shocking. All the world has heard similar accounts, but Malalai is angered when they are used to justify the invasion of her country. Women and children are abused in many countries, but it is only when there are financial or strategic incentives that there is an invasion.

One of Malalai’s targets are lazy Western journalists who rarely challenge the fables spun to them and insist that Afghanistan has always been ungovernable and needs Western direction. In fact, the first modern ruler of Afghanistan, King Amanullah Khan who won independence from Britain in 1919 was a freedom-loving and democratic leader. During his rule, education was compulsory for every Afghan child, religious, racial and linguistic discrimination were outlawed, and women were encouraged to integrate fully into society. The British sowed a revolt against Amanullah because they were afraid of having a modern independent country next to India which they still ruled, and he was overthrown. As his successor, the British supported the dark-minded and ignorant Habibullah, and after his murder, the brutal Nadir Shah. Subsequently, Afghanistan was invaded by the Russians and then the Americans. Malalai’s main theme is that without NATO’s support of corrupt warlords, and other malign interference, Afghans are well able to sort out their own country. Those unable to read her book can consult her website: www. malalaijoya.com/ But the website does not have the impact of the book which is dominated by Malalai’s strong personality and countless incidents showing her bravery in her mission to give voice to the ordinary people of Afghanistan.