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Modern Islamic re-write of Antigone

June 25, 2018 By Leigh Swinbourne

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire partly reminded me of British writer Robert Harris’s popular political thrillers such as The Ghost or Archangel, where a sort of parallel contemporary world is envisaged, which is not quite what we know, but with a sideways glance, could well be. Of course Home Fire is darker and more substantial―escapism is not the priority―from the dramatic opening we are embedded in a particularly complex milieu, that of contemporary Muslim Britain, which is shown as fraught and pressured, and which our author knows from the inside.

The novel is promoted as a modern re-casting of Sophocles Antigone, so already, if one has the slightest knowledge of classical Greek drama, a major plot event is signalled. Why has she done this, I wondered? Well, Antigone presents a strong woman’s voice in a violent patriarchal society, tradition bound. But more subtly, by linking a modern Islamic drama to one at the source of Western culture, Shamsie broadly contextualises and heightens her matter. She is saying to us: pay attention, this is not just another story about a dysfunctional ethnic family, this is emblematic, a fable for our times with the weighty backing of ‘eternal’ laws, perhaps Fate, even the Gods. Is it? You decide.

The plot is unfolded through a succession of first person vignettes, and moves, more or less, chronologically. This ambitious schema does not succeed uniformly. The most convincing of the vignettes, psychologically, is the first, the elder sister, Isma, perhaps because she is closest to the author. But Isma has little to do with the central drama, she is a side player; after getting to know her so well, we don’t really see her again until the end of the novel. The main players are then realised one after another; after Isman, Eamonn, unusually both charismatic and innocent, then Parvaiz, Isma’s radicalised brother, Aneeka, his twin sister, and finally, Karamat, Eamonn’s father and the British Government Home Secretary (presumably partly modelled on London’s present Mayor, Sadiq Khan).

Most of this works well, but not all, as motivation and action are necessarily bound to a tense, tightly plotted story, and one that seems at the finish, predetermined. Two major character credibility problems for me were: I could not accept that Eamonn would not suspect Aneeka’s motives at the start of their relationship, and more significantly: Shamsie failed to convince me of Parvaiz’ conversion from a fairly normal teenager with a bit of a lost father fixation, to a jihadist, a radical for the most radical of causes. For this journey we needed a lot more.

But the set-up and telling is fascinating, enabling a range of profound insights and observations, political and personal, into the modern Islamic world, particularly in the West, and the manifold problems besetting it, and by extension, us.

The Eye of the Sheep

June 16, 2018 By Leigh Swinbourne

Eye of the Sheep is written in the very singular voice of Jimmy Flick, a young boy, we assume, on the autism spectrum. I was a little resistant to this voice at first, not only because Jimmy is unlike any autistic child I have known, but also the singularity of the voice was such that it gave author Sophie Laguna licence to display her considerable literary and imaginative gifts. I was concerned the voice was a device, and it is, nevertheless not too far into the novel I was won over. Why should there not be a person like me? Jimmy’s desire to be heard was persistent and compelling; Sophie Laguna faded from mind as I leaned into Jimmy’s story. And what a story it was, what a story it is! I was reminded in a completely different literary context of Clive James’ Unreliable Memoirs, where apparently ordinary banal and even somewhat sordid suburban Australianness is somehow brought brilliantly to life, full of drama and pathos and humour. James almost convinced me that my own boyhood, which patterned his, was actually interesting. It wasn’t, but Jimmy Flick’s is, not only because of his unusual take on the world, but because of his passion, for so many things, but particularly for those that he loves: his confident and protective elder brother Jimmy, his deeply loving but somewhat neglectful mother Paula, and his father Gavin, hardworking and at heart decent, but prone to terrible outbursts of violence when drunk. For despite all the grim times we witness here, this is a book about the power of love, about how love might somehow and sometimes win through in the end.

Contemporary literature is full of cynicism, too often it comes across as little more than an edifice of hip knowingness (and let’s not start on Lit Crit.); so how nice it is for a change to finish an acclaimed novel feeling warm instead of smug. Laguna has great understanding and sympathy for how tough life is for the real working class (not on Centrelink), how difficult to make ends meet, raise problematic children, find a way to love those who might be damaged by their upbringing and embittered by their struggles. And although there are some terrible scenes, male violence particularly, there is also insight into why these things occur, leading to compassion, possible paths out of the labyrinth, and perhaps even redemption. Wonderful character sketches too. First person is intimate but limiting; yet through sharply observed scenes (because they mean so much to Jimmy) and snatches of direct and overheard conversation, we see the world Jimmy sees, and also the world he doesn’t and in fact might never understand. It’s a ventriloquist’s magic trick: Jimmy and working class Melbourne in the eighties, somehow we have both the intimacy and the also perspective.

I don’t want to give away the plot, for it is, as they say, a roller-coaster, but please do yourself a favour and read this unique and moving novel.

Review: Guerrillas

May 19, 2018 By Leigh Swinbourne

Guerrillas is set in an historical moment; it is about the disaster of colonialism, or rather colonialism as disaster, unmitigated. We are in a post-colonial unnamed mixed-race Caribbean Island, probably Trinidad, Naipaul’s birthplace, sunk in such desuetude and exhaustion, it is difficult to see how it can have any functioning future. The Americans are raping the land, the locals are petty and corrupt, any political resistance is in disarray: there is no hope. The landscape reflects the life: polluted, drought-stricken, garbage-strewn etc. Into this tropical anti-paradise waltzes Roche, a failed South African revolutionary, and his girlfriend/mistress, Jane, an aimless upper-middle-class twit seeking excitement. The third in the ménage is Jimmy, another failed revolutionary but still having a go at it; he is, after all, a local. These three play off against one another in rising tension, physical and psychological.

The major figures are all men, save Jane, who is almost identical in character to the similarly placed female in the last novel of Naipaul’s I read: A Bend in the River. She is white, hypocritical, weak, sexually voracious, privileged, and seems to stand as a general symbol for the old colonial order. As such, she is an object of hate and destructive violence for those who feel disenfranchised by the colonial ‘experiment’. What happens to Jane, which is the climax of the novel, for this reader, is a case of objective symbolism merging into private misogyny, which extends throughout to a general misanthropy. There is not one likeable person in this book. Furthermore, it is plain that humans simply aren’t up to the task of managing themselves, either personally or publicly. The inevitable result is a sort of enervated chaos, with occasional outbursts of horrific violence. Nothing else seems possible, well certainly not in any post-colonial world, but Naipaul suggests that things aren’t much better in London either; the violence and chaos is masked and muted, that’s all.

It is all brilliantly done, particularly the evocation of place. Naipaul employs a dense descriptive prose, at times as suffocating as his story; the characters are complex and subtle, even if directionless. But the relentless pessimism and anger and hate, made me feel as if I was being harangued by a barroom crank, no room to disagree, and his smell lingers. The narrative methodically closes down possibilities, eventually excluding the reader.

All up, it is a very nasty tale told very well.

Review: The Harder they Fall

May 19, 2018 By Leigh Swinbourne

This is the sixth novel I’ve read of T.C. Boyle and, as per usual, he delivers a fast-paced lucidly written narrative. The opening chapter is sensational, too difficult an act to follow as it turns out. I don’t want to say anything about the plot and I recommend readers avoid the book’s blurb, if they can, which is full of spoilers. That blurb states that the novel ‘explores the roots of violence and anti-authoritarianism inherent in the American character’, and I believe this was Boyle’s overall intention, but like his main character, Adam, he drifts off the grid.

There are three main figures interacting: Sten, an old ex-Viet vet and former headmaster of the local Californian high school once attended by his twenty something son, Adam, a seriously psychologically damaged loner, and Adam’s older lover, Sara, an anti-establishment crank. Violent and mouthy men and women enamoured of the American outlaw legend, familiar Boyle territory, and I feel he’s worked this ground more productively. Not that with a writer of this calibre there aren’t great positives. The actual writing is visceral, sensual, always to the purpose, and threaded with off-beat humour even through its darkest passages. The close third person Boyle habitually employs―no fancy literary tricks here―is ideal for getting right under the skin of his characters. Boyle has wonderful empathy with even the wackiest individuals and he takes you right with him.

Even so, Adam is so extreme he can’t be really developed as a symbol for anything. America hasn’t made Adam, he has just latched onto aspects of America that feed his madness. Ditto Sara in a lesser way; she’s just another ratbag you don’t want to sit next to on the train. Sten is more complex and interesting, but Boyle obviously feels that he can build a more gripping story around Adam, and of course he can, but potential depth and resonance are invariably sacrificed. It’s a tabloid thriller, not really much more. The (literary) problem with cranks and maniacs is that, no matter how brilliantly realised, they can’t tell us much about anything except themselves.