The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 10 Mar 2013 12:08 AM PST Merivel, A Man Of His Time SEQUELS are tricky things for the very reason, as Rose Tremain herself has said, that "unless you feel fairly confident it can be equal to, or potentially better than, the original, then you shouldn't do them." As a general guideline, it could not be better said – Hollywood and TV producers, please note! And in this case, Merivel, A Man Of His Time is the sequel to one of the best loved historical novels (though Tremain hates the term) of the last 30 years. Restoration was the book that finally brought to general attention one of the finest novelists writing in Britain today. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 1989, it was turned into a film in 1995 – but most importantly, it sold well and stole its way into the hearts of its readers as only exceptional novels can. With Restoration, Tremain moved into the heavy-weight category. There were a number of reasons for this but the chief one was the character of Merivel himself, a man of no great birth but a competent and caring physician in an age – the 17th century – when bungling and conservative physicians ruled. It fell to Merivel to cure one of the King's spaniels and to earn his affection and trust, so much so in fact that Charles II asked Merivel to marry his favourite mistress so that the King might enjoy better access to her. It was a condition of this arrangement, of course, that Merivel would not touch her and it was equally inevitable that he should fall for her. So in Merivel, Tremain's sequel to Restoration after 23 years, we find Merivel himself living in a somewhat remote and crumbling country house with his daughter and his faithful but tottering servants, back in favour with the King and much given to ruminating on the past and the condition of mankind. Merivel is a reflective and backward-looking novel. Now in his mid to late 50s, Merivel is at a stage in his life when he questions what it has all been for. There is a real sense that the good times have gone but there may yet be time left to do something worthwhile. Merivel determines to visit the court of Louis XIV at Versailles, convinced that whatever is to be found will be found there. It isn't. He finds instead a court crammed with petitioners and laced with back-biting vanity. The novel has a number of scenes which stand out and this is one of them. You would not wish the court of the Sun King on a dog. But its compensation, for Merivel, is his meeting with Louise de Flamanville whose task it will be to whisk Merivel on the last of the great erotic ventures that have marked his life. For Merivel lacks discrimination and restraint when it comes to his sexual partners – it is both one of his most obvious failings and one of his more endearing "human" weaknesses. Louise is married to an army officer besotted with his gay lover and for a time it looks as though Merivel will settle into a life of uncomplicated bliss with Louise in her father's house. Alas, nothing is that simple. An older Merivel retains much of his appeal as a character. Impulsive, foolish, vain but deeply compassionate and full of self-doubt, he is a man approaching an age, 60, described by Tremain in a Daily Telegraph interview as "a Rubicon ... (an age) that probably suggests that there is more to be done, things to be resolved. Vanities to be cast off. Things that you have neglected to be remedied. People to be brought back, maybe...." In short, it offers a last roll of the dice. What makes Merivel work is the quality of the writing. It would take a great deal more space than I have here to determine what an authentic 17th century authorial voice sounds like but it is easy to recognise it when it feels right. And in Merivel, it does. Tremain's ear is obviously well attuned to the period and her eye for detail is equally assured. Nowhere is this more evident than in the medical scenes, whether it is Merivel nursing back to health his daughter, removing a cancer from the breast of his former lover or, most barbarous of all, the court physicians unsuccessful attempts to minister to the dying king. I was uneasy about some of the earlier stages of the novel when I confess to a slightly irritable feeling of "where is this going and why?" I suppose, on reflection, that this coincides precisely with Merivel's state of mind. But any reservations I initially harboured were swept away by the end. The final section of the book is both powerful and beautifully realised. The epilogue leaves Merivel struggling for life on a heap of dirty laundry. It is an apt image for his times – and perhaps also for ours. |
| Posted: 10 Mar 2013 12:08 AM PST This wordy, weighty book demands effort but repays that hard work more than adequately. Ancient Light JOHN Banville needs no introduction, but to paraphrase the writer himself, I'm not going to let a little detail like that stand in my way. He has written more than 20 novels, both under his own name and as his dark alter-ego Benjamin Black. Former literary editor of The Irish Times, Banville has won dozens of prizes and awards for his books, including the Booker prize, the Whitbread and the Guardian Fiction Prize, to name but a few. He is perhaps not only Ireland's most prolific and accomplished living writer, but indubitably one of the most important writers in the English language today. Ancient Light was winner of last year's Irish Book Award and is a fine piece of work. I first came across Banville in my early 20s (The Book Of Evidence, I believe) and found his writing too crammed and substantial to swallow down in the hungry gulps that the voracious appetite of my youth demanded. His was the voice of the 1950s, my parent's generation (Banville was born the same week as my father) and their poetry came from the likes of Patrick Kavanagh and Louis MacNeice, while the words in my world were more informed by Muppets Ernie and Bert. Now that I've doubled in age I can still chew through a book in a week, but I've also learned to take the time to savour each delectable mouthful of a book such as this (somewhat to the exasperation of my editors) and enjoy the echoing voices of a place I once called home. Banville is a writer's writer; each line is a thread, each word a stitch in the intricately embroidered tapestry of this book. I found myself so taken by his use of language that I read several chapters aloud, deliberately thickening my somewhat diluted Irish accent just for the sheer pleasure of sounding out the mesmeric internal rhythms and resonances of Banville's prose. His sentences are skilfully and meticulously constructed. His writing, though substantial and imaged – his aim is to write with "the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has" – fair trips off the tongue with a musicality that belies the inherent complexity of his often loquacious turns of phrase. The narrator, an ageing actor, resigned to the slowly declining stasis of old age, recounts the amorous dalliances of his distant youth with the mother of his once best friend. Banville uses his pen like a fishing rod, casting his lines out into the murky waters of late 1950s Ireland, then reeling them back in to the present day, before sending his lure towards the past once again and reliving with bitter-sweet nostalgia the narrator's youthful initiation, if not into love, at least into the hedonic realm of pure lust. The narrator, Alexander Cleave, will be familiar to Banville's more devoted readers as this book forms part of a trilogy that includes Shroud and Eclipse. Ancient Light, though, stands on its own merits and not having read the previous two books (which I must confess I have not) in no way detracts from the power and beauty of this exceptional piece of work. The more sensitive reader might find the premise of a 15-year-old boy committing adultery with his best friend's mother a little shocking. If so, then this is not the book for you. To my mind this is Banville's literary wink at Nabokov's Lolita, paying homage to one of the writers whose influence he has felt most. However, at the same time the reader will find that Banville's 1950s Ireland, which provides much of the setting of the earlier part of this book, is a far more censorious and conservative place than present day Malaysia, as indeed it remained until well into the 1990s, with all the censorship and book bannings and religious fervour and zeal that have forged the peculiar Irish psyche. The narrator unexpectedly finds himself pulled out of the wallowing complacency and decay of his involuntary retirement and the lurid reminiscences of his lustful youth when he is offered a role in a film. The plot unfolds from there onwards and intertwines with the narratives of the previous two books in the trilogy. In summary, this is a wordy, weighty book that demands considerable time and effort on the part of the reader, but repays that hard work more than adequately. |
| Posted: 10 Mar 2013 12:07 AM PST MY favourite bookstore in Kuala Lumpur is celebrating the work of Maurice Sendak this month, with 20% off selected titles written and/or illustrated by the late artist and author. Selected titles only – not every book he ever wrote and/or illustrated, which comes to nearly 200 in all. I wonder if there is any bookstore in the world that has every book by Sendak. Imagine what that would look like! Perhaps, somewhere in this universe (or the next), a fan who's also an eccentric billionaire is planning a Sendak-only bookshop. Perhaps it's being built this very minute, on the sunny side of a street, outside, over there. Perhaps there will be shop assistants dressed as the Wild Things; and a manager called Rosie, or Hector Protector, or Bumble Hardy. It would be the place to go to if one needed to get "very far away" from it all. You would need a boat to get there, and you'd have to travel through "night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year", but it would just take a few seconds. There would be a cat and a little bird singing in the store window, and a Sealyham in a basket behind the cashier's desk. Some afternoons, a horse would poke its head through the back window and harrumph gently for a few minutes and he would make you dream of blue grass and wind-fallen apples. Babies would be welcome, and so would alligators and griffins, and bears little and large, but not goblins. Goblins would be sent marching. And lions would have to first show proof of having already eaten. Hungry lions who ask nicely would be encouraged to visit the bookshop café where chicken soup with rice would be the speciality. Also on the menu would be birthday soup, and jelly beans; oatmeal, macaroni, and pancakes with syrup. And free cheese and Russian dressing sandwiches. And milk. And cake. In the morning. Everyone would be very polite, of course. (I wonder if there's anyone reading this who knows what I'm talking about? If you do, write to me at star2@thestar.com.my.) One day there might really be a Sendak bookstore (it should be called Outside Over There and The Troggs' Wild Thing should be played at closing time). Or there might be a Sendak museum, like the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in America. Even a very little one would be good. Until then, I can dream. Daphne Lee reads to wonder and wander, be amazed and amused, horrified and heartened and inspired and comforted. She wishes more people will try it too. Speak to her at star2@thestar.com.my and check out her blog at daphne.blogs.com/books. |
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