November 2016 book and film review

BOOKS

SPEAK, MEMORY, by Vladimir Nabokov
A Russian emigre mines his memory once he has set up home in the USA. Born into great wealth and privilege as part of a noble family, he has to flee with his family after the Bolshevik revolution. They troll around Europe for a while before settling in the States. We learn of his synaethesia (a cross-over of the senses, where numbers or words have a distinct "colour") and how he became a writer in the first place.
     Nabokov is one of my favourite writers. His sublime, limpid prose seduces the brain in a unique way, and this book is a delight from first page to last.

THE BUTCHER BOY, by Patrick McCabe.
A young lad in rural Ireland gets in a few scrapes with the authorities, which gradually escalate into dreadful crimes. It is perhaps hard to blame him: his Mum is mentally unstable, perhaps in turn affected by his father's alcoholism, but then she commits suicide and a terrible downward spiral begins.
     The Butcher Boy was hailed as revolution in literature when it appeared in 1992, and won a slew of awards. And it's true: McCabe establishes a new way of writing: there are few commas, no quotation-marks and paragraph breaks are a rarity. Yet he conjures a completely authentic inner world for his "hero" Francie Brady, to inhabit. We can follow his fall from playful innocent to hardened criminal in a way that makes it seem inevitable, perhaps because stories like his are not uncommon in real life. Extraordinary.

EYE LAKE, by Tristan Hughes.
In the wastes of the Canadian outback, a young man with learning difficulties attempts to unravel the disappearances of, first his grandfather, then a close friend, and then another. But in the small town where he grew up and still lives, mysteries are the order of the day...
     Tristan Hughes is a lecturer on my Master's course in creative writing, and his credentials are excellent. He won the Rhys Davies short story prize in 2002, and his four novels have received high critical acclaim. It's easy to see why. Eye Lake is a beautifully written book, with its slow, languorous style, not unlike the river that meanders through the township where the novel is set. And the characters are drawn with great skill. Highly recommended.

FILMS

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015) D- Ciro Guerra. In 1909, in the deepest parts of the Colombian rainforest, a German explorer seeks a magical healing herb. He enlists the help of  a reluctant local guide, who worries the simplicity and perfection of their life in the jungle will be lost once the plant is discovered. He's not wrong...
     The explorer never returns to his native Germany, and thirty years on another explorer goes in search of him. But he has a hidden agenda: while there he hopes to find a new source of rubber for the Reich. Incredibly, he finds the very guide who Assisted the first one. Once again he suspects the white man's intentions are not totally honourable, and once agin he is correct.
     A really amazing film, this creates a wonderful atmosphere of the corruption of Eden and the locals' desperate response to it. Unforgettable.

I, DANIEL BLAKE (2016) D- Ken Loach. A 60-something bloke loses his job after a heart attack, but struggles to persuade the benefits people he is entitled to sick pay. Meanwhile he takes pity on a single mum and her little boy who are having at least as much trouble as he is. But at least he's had some practice...
     I have only ever drawn unemployment benefit once, back in 1978, and as a doctor I was treated with respect and courtesy. I was even given "earnings related benefit", meaning I got more than my working-class cohort. I only needed to claim it for a month before finding a job. This experience, I fancy, will seem a little alien to most people today. When I worked as a GP I used to tell people you needed to be half dead to get DLA (Disability Living Allowance), then I changed it to "three quarters dead". If I was still working today I'd have to say "99% dead". A friend of mine with cerebral palsy was recently asked at her assessment when she was going to "get better". Seriously. That's like asking someone with an amputated leg when it's going to grow back. But it's what people these days are being subjected to by the benefits system. Thanks IDS. Thanks a whole fucking lot.
     In brief, this is brilliant, despite IDS condemning while admitting he hadn't actually seen it. Don't make his mistake: see it. It's brilliant.