The Great Procrastinator

This is one of Islam’s “Ninety-nine Names of Allah”. Sorry, I don’t know which number. I have discussed this rather peculiar name with Muslims, explaining that in English the term is synonymous with “time waster”, which I’m sure God is not, nor what the translators had in mind. It refers to God’s subtlety in delaying his judgment of human beings until the appropriate time. Much better. So, in my book, “He who bides his time” is better than procrastinator, and does have a kind of grandeur about it.

Anyhoo, I write this to explain why this month’s film and book review is going to be delayed for a short while. I am going away to the Canary island of La Gomera for a short holiday, and therefore will not post these blogs until I return home. Not procrastinating then, but holding off for a few days. Forgiven me dear readers!

What’s the opposite of anti-Semitic?

“Israel is the national state of Jewish people alone.” The words of Bibi Netanyahu on Instagram today, effectively marginalizing the Arab residents of Israel (I’m talking about Israel proper now, not the West Bank or Gaza) who constitute 20% of the population, and in a single neat phrase, sealing their fate as second-class citizens. Even the Israeli president, not normally known for his liberal views, was swift to condemn the remark, but we have to remember that Netanyahu is doing no more than Trump does when he comes out with racist, anti-science claptrap: appealing to his base.

Already under fire as he faces legal action for corruption, he is seeking to bolster his support from the ultra-right, who would deport every Arab if they thought they could get away with it. Of course that isn’t going to happen, if only because it is the Arabs who do all those menial infrastructure jobs that Israelis would rather not do.

The Israeli lobby in the UK is so effective it has been able to get the whole nation to believe that any criticism of the Zionist state is anti-Semitic, and managed to tie the Labour Party in knots as a result. The Labour Party isn’t full of Jew haters, but there are many within it who disapprove of the way Israel treats its minorities- see above.

Not black enough

When the producers of the upcoming film King Richard chose megastar Will Smith to play Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, they thought they would be hiring Hollywood gold. Smith, after all, is as safe a bet as you could wish for. But no. Big miscalculation. The black community has come out strong on the subject of ‘coloring’ and the consensus among them is that Will isn’t ‘black enough’. It is fair to say he isn’t as black as the real-life character his is meant to portray. But they want someone darker; Mahershala Ali, say, or even Brit heart throb Idris Elba. Hang on, he’s British, so how can it be right for him to portray a yank? Whatever, man...

Where is all this going, Pelagius is asking himself. True, we have come a long way since Larry Olivier blacked up to play Othello, or we witnessed the patronizing Black and White Minstrel Show on our TV screens. I have previously blogged about the ludicrous pass things have reached in America, where trans lobby groups are demanding only trans actors play trans roles, only gays play gays and so on. Now you have to be the right shade of black to play a black person. How long before a redhead must play a redhead, no hair-dye allowed, or finding an actor with an enormous conk to play Cyrano de Bergerac?

When are these people going to realise that cinema is a piece of artifice? Like literature, it reflects life but is larger than life. And therefore (almost) anything goes in the way a piece of writing is brought to life on the screen. In The Favourite, all sorts of liberties were taken with the dialogue to produce a work they thought a 21st century audience would accept. But apart from of few pedants like myself, no one batted an eyelid. Hey man, the producers would doubtless have responded to my comments, this is cinema, don’t you get that? Pelagius says it’s about time a few other people in the PC lobby get it too.

Turn that TV off and... save your brain

I watch a lot of TV, me. Bart Simpson was once asked how much TV he watched: “Oh,  6, 8 hours a day. More if there’s something good on.”
          That’s been me for as long as I can remember. I loved the box as a child, and although irritating things like school, or later, work, got in the way from time to time, it’s been that way ever since. Then the other day, to my utter horror, I heard that watching too much tele (and that turns out to be more than 3 hours a day, apparently) can bring forward the time you develop Alzheimer’s. How the researchers came to that conclusion I’m not sure, but if true, it adds one more thing to the growing list of activities to be avoided if we wish to dodge the bullet of the grey plague.

I can only hope those researchers got it wrong, because the change in lifestyle I would have to undergo would be profound. I love the cinema, and although I go to the movies once or twice a month, 90% of the movies I watch are on the TV. I get most of my news in like manner, while I learn a great deal from my interest in non fiction TV. Only a few days ago I saw the wonderful National Geographic documentary Free Solo, concerning the great rock climber Alex Honnold’s bid to climb the half-mile high, sheer wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan, alone and without artificial aids of any kind. In the last couple of years, during what I now call “The Time of the Great Troubles”, when I was under threat of going to prison for crimes I did not commit, watching TV was essential, and I use that word advisedly, to avoid my cracking up completely. Programmes like Frasier and Game of Thrones literally (obviously not literally) helped me keep my head above water. Having said that I generally avoid brainless and soul destroying programmes such as soaps, ‘reality TV’ and ‘jeopardy’ shows, where there is some sort of competition going on, with the exception of University Challenge. Do you think that will help? I doubt it.

But what do I do now? Watch less tele, or keep going the same way as ever, but just feel guilty and fearful about it? I suspect the latter. Well at least I’m not watching it now. No wait, I am...

Who’s gaining an unfair advantage? Part 2

A couple of weeks back I wrote about the case of Caster Semenya, the South African woman athlete who has naturally high levels of testosterone circulating in her bloodstream, a fact which has put the IAAF in something of a spin. Is she ‘cheating’, or is she simply making the most of the gifts God gave her?

Now the ‘unfair advantage’ debate has been given a new twist. What of athletes who started life as men, but who then change gender and become women? Or the other way round? Is that ‘cheating’? Such luminaries as Sharon Davies and Martina Navratilova think it is. It’s a well known fact that any man ranked in the top 500 would probably beat Serena Williams even on her best day. By changing sex they might win more money on the women’s tour than they could on the men’s. But the transgender lobby, one of the most vociferous and effective of any lobby group out there, counters this by saying that people who have operations to change their sex also have hormone treatment to ‘complete the job’, as it were, and that this truly renders them fully paid up members of their newly chosen sex.

This is a very tricky debate. Feminists such as Germaine Greer argue that you can’t just change to a woman midway through your life, or whenever you choose to do it, and consider yourself a bona fide member of that sex. Because that way you haven’t had to live your life under the conditions your fellow men or women have dealt with from the beginning. Obviously the trans lobby dismisses this as blind prejudice, but it isn’t. They’ve tried to shout her down and ban her from speaking publicly, but Germaine isn’t the sort of woman to go away quietly. Her view is legitimate, even if it isn’t what the trans people want to hear, and freedom of speech demands she be given a hearing. I don’t know what she thinks about trans people in sport, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be the same, that is you have to have had a whole life living as a member of one sex in order to compete with people of that sex. Sorry trans guys/women: it’s the only way it’s gonna work.

February 2019 film review

FIRST THEY TOOK MY FATHER (2017) D- Angelina Jolie
It is Cambodia 1976, ‘Year Zero’. Whole populations are being evicted from the cities and put to work on the land, to serve the ridiculous and murderous ideology of Pol Pot and his fellow travelers.
This film focuses on one middle class family, as they journey into the hinterland towards an uncertain fate. On the way they are witness to unimaginable cruelty and suffering, all apparently in the name of the great socialist revolution Pol Pot has dreamed up. Of course deep down, like communist China it’s all about seizing and holding onto power, but don’t tell anybody you think that - you’re as likely to be taken outside, stood up against a wall and shot.

Using a team of unknowns, here Ms Jolie has created an horrific and deeply moving tale of man’s inhumanity to man, Khmer Rouge style. I think we can safely say that with this project she has truly come of age as a film maker.

MAKALA (2017) D- Emmanuel Gras
A family man in rural DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) needs to build a house. It’s going to be built out of just a few strips of corrugated iron, but even that minimal outlay is beyond our guy. So he wanders into the scrublands and finds a tree (there aren’t many around here), chops it down and by a painstaking process turns it into charcoal. This he then takes to a township where he can sell it and at least make enough cash to make a down payment on his corrugated iron. Simples? I think not.

It is next to impossible for us, in the opulent West, to be able to identify with people who live on the edge of starvation. This film plants us firmly in that world, and we find ourselves rooting for our hero as he struggles to make a home for his young family. Poverty with a human face, you might say. And, I would add, thoroughly gripping cinema.

I AM NOT A WITCH (2017) W/D- Rungani Nyoni
A young girl in a remote Ghanaian village keeps herself to herself, but is labelled a witch by her neighbours. An accredited witch doctor is brought in to adjudicate and seals her fate by deeming her just that. Now the state takes over and lodges her with a group of woman who have been likewise determined to be in league with the devil. Then a government minister adopts her and uses her to enhance his own profile. Ideally he’d like her to make it rain as there is a severe drought on at that time. She fails to oblige, disappointing the minister. This isn’t going to end well...

The debut film of Ms. Nyoni, this film received a lot of praise at Cannes in 2017, and is certainly one of the most promising first features for many years. As with Makala, we are plunged into the heart of African culture in a vivid and disturbing manner, as we see how not only ordinary people but even the government itself allows itself to buy into a world of magic and witchcraft, usually, as has always been the case, for reasons entirely unrelated to magic itself. Moving, and very frightening.

A QUIET PLACE (2018) D- John Krasinski
In a world inhabited by horrible monsters, there’s only one way to stay alive: keep quiet, ‘cause these creatures have acute hearing and can pick up a sigh at fifty paces and be on you in a flash. Only good thing, they don’t see too good, so you can still get about, even if one’s near, as long as you remain silent. Hard enough if you’re a full-grown adult: how about if you’re an exuberant kid, or worse, a baby? Tricky...

John Krasinski has been a busy boy lately. Having cut his teeth as a key character in the American version of The Office, he has gone on to co-write a number of successful movies including 13 Hours, Big Miracle and It’s Complicated. Along with voice-over work in films such as Shrek the Third, he recently landed the plum titular role in Amazon’s Jack Ryan. And here he shows how he can direct as well as write. Comparisons with Bird Box are inevitable at this point, as in the latter it was that you couldn’t see the monsters, whereas in this it’s that they musn’t hear you. But in terms of quality, In a Quiet Place easily outshines Bird Box. Where that film lacked credibility, this shines in its authentic menace. What I’m saying is that you couldn’t believe Bird Box, but this you can. Krasinski stars in this film as well, showing the lad to be a redoubtable all-rounder, and he is ably served by his co-star, Emily Blunt. In conclusion, miss Bird Box if you haven’t already been one of the 50 million-odd subscribers who went there, and watch this instead.

February 2019 book review, part 2

LOST ILLUSIONS, by Honore de Balzac
A talented, if somewhat immature young man living in the French provinces would go to Paris, get his novel published and thereby make a name for himself. A local noblewoman takes a shine to the poet, in no small part because of his extravagant good looks; even takes him to Paris with her, but there is advised she is hanging out with a country bumpkin and promptly drops him. Swearing revenge, Lucien, for lo that is his name, against the advice of friends who want him to basically starve in his garret to produce deathless verse, instead decides to go into that execrable profession: journalism. His talent soon shows through, invoking the jealousy of his fellow scribblers who decide to take him down a peg or two. Meanwhile, he leaves behind his friend and benefactor, who struggles to make ends meet with his printing press while sending money to him on a regular basis.

There are comparisons to be drawn with Balzac and his contemporary across La Manche, Charles Dickens. Both were prolific novelists, who often published their ripping yarns in serial form before releasing them as intact novels. Both addressed significant social issues of the day, and both filled their pages with colourful and sometimes despicable characters.
          What do readers look for in a good novel? I venture this: they want a rattling good yarn, skillfully told. In an outstanding novel they wish to see intricate plotting and superior characterization. But in a great novel they demand a further step: that the book contain some profound insight into the human condition or nature itself. This may be overt, or hidden with the plot itself. But it explains why there are a lot of decent novels, a few really good ones but only the barest handful of great ones. In a theoretical contest called “who’s the greater novelist: Dickens or Balzac?” The judges will find it hard to choose. But in this writer’s humble opinion, the award must go to Balzac. He has at least half a dozen great novels to his name, this one being in the list. Dickens, only one: Bleak House.

February 2019 book review part 1

HUMBOLDT’S GIFT, by Saul Bellow
Charlie Citrine is living quietly on the profits of a successful Broadway play he wrote, later adapted to a movie. But he continues to be distracted by his brilliant, but sometimes unhinged poet friend, Humboldt. And that isn’t his only problem. He annoys a minor gangland figure in Chicago, where most of the action in this book takes place who, rather than blowing his head off, insists Citrine help his girlfriend write her PhD, which, as it happens, is on the subject of... Humboldt. I guess that’s an offer you can’t refuse...

In 1976 Bellow was being considered for the Nobel prize, in no small part because of his extraordinary novella Seize the Day, and it is said that this book, as out were, sealed the deal. It’s easy to see why. Bellow has created an entirely original style, lyrical, funny, insightful and sometimes deeply moving. Try this as a sample, as the protagonists are driving out of New York City:

“...The car went snoring and squealing through the tunnel and came out in bright sunlight. Tall stacks, a filth artillery, fired silently into the Sunday sky with beautiful bursts of smoke. The acrid smell of gas refineries went into yours lungs like a spur. The rushes were as brown as onion soup. There were seagoing tankers stuck in the channels, the wind boomed, the great clouds were white. Far out, the massed bungalows had the look of a necropolis-to-be...”

THE AMBASSADORS, by Henry James
A middle-aged bachelor is sent to Paris by the matriarch of a wealthy New England family to retrieve her son, who, she fears, has abandoned himself to its fleshpots. But when he finds his quarry, he realises that this is far from the case, unless you count a noblewoman he has become attached to, and, unfortunately, is married...

Like Saul Bellow, Henry James established a distinctive literary style which is all his own, but which to today’s readers can seem a little impenetrable. Par example:

“...They baffled him because Sarah - well, Sarah was deep; deeper than she had ever yet had a chance to show herself. He didn’t say that this was partly the effect of her opening so straight down, as it were, into her mother, and that, given Mrs Newsome’s profundity, the shaft thus sunk might well have a reach; but he wasn’t without, between the two women, a resigned apprehension that at such a rate of confidence he was likely soon to be moved to show how already, at moments, it had been for him as if he were dealing directly with Mrs Newsome...”

The book is littered with long, complicated sentences of this kind, which make it necessary to read them over several times to catch their meaning. But despite that, the book does cast its spell, as we become more and more fascinated to find whether our protagonist will persuade his charge to come home to his fortune, or in the event go native and stay with him. And not all the writing is prolix. Sometimes James can use brevity to great effect:

“‘...I know what you’re saying. Quit this!’
       ‘Quit this!’ But it lacked its old intensity; nothing of it remained; it went out of the room with him...”

THE WILD PLACES, by Robert McFarlane
Bewailing the despoliation of the British countryside that has being going on for hundreds of years, but which then took off with unprecedented speed following WW2, our man goes in search of unspoiled places that have not yet been obliterated. His odyssey takes him to Ireland’s Burren, the savage coast near Cape Wrath and also to the barren coastline near Orfordness in Suffolk. Finally he realises that wild places need not be on the outer limitsof our tiny island, but in unexpected places close to ‘civilisation’, sunken trackways, even motorway verges, which in reality are rarely visited by human beings.

As we delve deeper into this wonderful book,  two things become clear: that McFarlane produces prose of exquisite beauty, and that this man is as hard as flint. When he camps, he takes only a sleeping bag and bivouac sheet- no tent for him. And he’ll camp out in the most inhospitable weathers, winter in the Cairngorms, for instance, even settling down on a frozen pond in order to observe his surroundings in the way he wants. This book, quite literally, is a revelation.