booklit

There’s probably a lot of jokes than can be made about an author named Quim translated by someone called Bush and, with that in mind, I’ll try and give them a wide berth. So, by way of introduction, the Catalan writer Quim Monzó’s first novel appeared in 1976 and since then has made a name for himself for his novels and short stories but is rather unknown in the English speaking world. Recently published, The Enormity Of The Tragedy (1989) is the first time, as far as I can tell, one of his novels has seen its way from Catalan to English. With this in mind I was curious as to how it would stand up.

Quite well, it turned out, but not quite so well as the penis of main character, Ramon-Maria. When he wakes one morning after a night of failed passion, the damn thing just won’t go down. While it makes him more attractive to women, Ramon-Maria’s predicament is anything but the dirty joke it first seems. His problem is rare, incurable, and leaves him only weeks to live.

Ramon-Maria, at first, does what most learning of such news would do and treats the diagnosis with disbelief:

Seven weeks. He felt an emptiness in the pit of his stomach, an emptiness he preferred to think was caused by shock not by distress or fear. He couldn’t altogether believe it was true. It couldn’t be, he thought, now he wsn’t facing the doctor. Because he’d not opened his mouth in front of the doctor. Seven weeks. It seemed impossible. Surely if he did it all again, if he retraced his steps as if he’d never been to the doctor’s, things would be different. He’d do that. He’d walk to the corner of the street, turn around and come back to the building, press the button to the eighth floor, go back to the surgery, ask for Dr Puig-Amer again, be given the inconsequential results of his tests, the doctor would say that one of these days his permanent erection would disappear, everything would go back to normal and he’d once again be a mortal, without an expiry date.

But, after a second opinion, he’s resigned to his fate and sets out to make his last days the best of his life. He takes out a mortgage and, rather than buying a house, uses the money to sample the best of everything.

Running parallel to the story of Ramon-Maria, is that of his house-mate and step-daughter, Anna-Francesca. She’s young, discovering her sexuality, and hates Ramon-Maria. Innocent of his problems, when she’s not stealing cash from his wallet, she’s entertaining the thought of killing him:

What hypocrites people are who claim man is by nature a peaceful animal! Man is an animal who needs violence as much as any other animal and puts the brake on only (sometimes) because he’s been educated. How many years more would she have to suffer him if she didn’t kill him? Twenty - ten at least? Or even thirty? She couldn’t waste years and years (hey, the prime of life!) waiting for the ten, twenty or thirty years until he died. If he died (say) in twenty years’ time she’d be thirty-five! She’d be a clapped-out old woman. She must act now.

Either way, as the title implies, you know both novel and Ramon-Maria’s life are not going to end well, but the meandering prose sweeps you along wondering who will win out: his terminal illness or Anna-Francesca. The novel’s content is strange in that the important incidents are given short shrift while the banal musings of the characters comes to the fore. Events are sometimes implausible but given the bizarre nature of the novel, they are easily accepted and while the novel, on the back cover, is billed as a “masterpiece of postmodern literary parody” the only postmodernism I sensed was the slight feeling that whatever they did with their lives, Monzó was still the puppet master:

Anna-Francesca woke up screaming…she couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming about…she didn’t like being at the mercy of something over which she had so little control.

For all its comic invention and ponderings of humanity, I was never immersed in The Enormity Of The Tragedy and found myself dipping in and out rather than avidly devouring it. Perhaps that was Monzó’s intention, as I felt like one of the characters within, never able to truly connect - them with each other, me with the book. Sex is the nearest they ever come (I didn’t even get that far with the book!) and, as time draws near for Ramon-Maria, he comes to realise that a life with so much material pleasure is still one wasted.

No doubt the novel is funnier in its original Catalan and I can’t help feel that the translation is, while mostly enjoyable, somewhat lacking. I never really felt the humour (but that may just be my sense of fun versus Monzó’s) and there were typographical errors that popped up from time to time. Monzó’s narrative sidetracks can be amusing although one - where Anna-Francesca learns all the ways to kill someone - felt far too long. And I was sometimes confused because every characters has a double-barrelled name, many of them being Maria-This or That-Maria.

Being limited to The Enormity of Tragedy as a way to introduce myself to Quim Monzó, I suppose the novel is as good a way as any. It’s entertaining and its idiosyncrasies are, for the most part, charming. Insignificant events segue into rambling tangents and astute observations on people and their relationships, despite its own characters being a cast of grotesques. But as a parody - of what? - I’m less convinced and, as I see it, for what is an otherwise enjoyable novel the biggest tragedy is that of the comedy.

When a novel centres around child who has a hard life, I can’t help thinking that it’s a fictional take on the author’s own upbringing. I could find scant information on Noel Virtue, but his first novel, The Redemption Of Elsdon Bird (1987), would appear to have details hinting that the Elsdon Bird of the title is a riff on the author: both grew up in Wellington, have a passion for telling stories, and zookeeping gets a mention, too. That he has written a volume of autobiography called Once A Brethren Boy points in that direction, too.

But speculation aside, this novel dealing with a child growing up in rural New Zealand is a gem of a read and, while being reminiscent of novels like Ian Cross’ The God Boy and Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, it feels fresher because it’s told in the third person, and therefore the confusion of the main character in the world around him isn’t communicated via his naive narration, something that feels all too common in this type of novel.

Sacked from his job for trying to “save” his coworkers, Elsdon Bird’s father finds employment as a supervisor in a rural factory, a position that comes with a house. Elsdon is looking forward to the new place but he finds that things aren’t all that green on the other side. For one, his parents are hardcore Brethren and their rejection of all that’s fun in life confuses this enthusiastic ten year old, leaving him able only to confide in the animals around him. And as his parents’ fundamentalist values escalate, Elsdon becomes the focus of their frustrations, frequently ending up on the wrong side of uncalled for beatings:

…uncertain that Jesus could be his friend when his mum gave him hidings on His behalf - ‘The Lord’s so angry at you!’ his mum would yell as she beat his legs and bottom with the razor-strop - Elsdon found his world a confused, lonely place. No wonder he dawdled all the way home from school…

While life doesn’t get any better for Elsdon, the poor lad remains chirpy throughout. With friends, toys, and books all taken away from him, all he’s left with is his imagination. But with little inspiring it, it’s a wonder he can make it from one day to the next. Dealing with all that’s bad in life marks this short novel out as a wonderful read: the brutal removal of everything in the boy’s life proves Elsdon Bird is “pretty brave” as, with unflinching optimism, he pushes on.

Although it’s in the third person, The Redemption Of Elsdon Bird’s narration comes pretty close to telling the story from the boy’s point of view: the prose is light and easy to read and is shot through with local slang. Hidden behind its rustic charm, it tackles serious issues of religion, abuse, fanaticism, and tolerance, leaving the interpretation inferred from the story rather than being preachy, which, given Elsdon’s father and all the novel is against, would be hypocritical:

No one else on his mum’s side of the family went to the Gospel Hall. All his dad’s relatives went. His dad’s sister Aunt Biddy, who had never married, went to a Gospel Hall in Wellington. Then there was Uncle Judah, his dad’s brother, and his wife, Aunt Una. They lived up north in Masterton and were very strict.

Uncle Bryce didn’t go to any church and once told Elsdon that on Sundays he went to his best mate’s house at Titahi Bay and got shickered on beer. Elsdon pined for the day when he might be allowed to join them.

For a short novel, The Redemption Of Elsdon Bird packs a lot in, its themes popping up and recurring as life develops and then disintegrates for the Birds. The many rural locations in which it occurs give it a gothic feel, only substituting the Deep South for the southern hemisphere. Adding to this notion is the sense - and sometimes, admission - that its characters are “crook in the head”. So, for a novel that will delight and horrify in equal measure, it’s worth making a necessity of this Virtue.

There’s a common misconception that Eskimos have an inflated number of words for snow. Probably because there’s various Eskimo tribes, all speaking their own languages. I have no idea how many words there are in Norwegian - or Nynorsk, to be more precise - but I reckon there’s a good number of them, otherwise Tarjei Vesaas’ The Ice Palace (1963) would be a repetitive novel.

And how, then, without being repetitive, would it translate to English, if we only have one word for snow? That word being, well, snow. Thankfully, the English language has a large enough vocabulary to describe frozen water in all manner of ways - ice, icicle, frost, slush, etc. - all equally evocative, and its a mercy indeed for without them The Ice Palace would not be the evocative beauty it is.

Siss and Unn are two very different young girls. The former is popular in their rural school; the latter, recently arrived in the area, is very much alone. But something attracts them to one another, and one winter evening Siss heads over to Unn’s and their getting to know other - secrets shared, and promised to never tell, aside - is an awkward affair. So awkward, in fact, that Unn skips school the following day to visit the ice palace, a structure built from the errant streams and spray of a waterfall, and is never heard from again.

And as the search for Unn begins amongst the villagers the snow begins to fall. In fact, the snow falls all winter, each successive layer covering up the earth and any tracks Unn may have left. But it’s not quite so simple as that, for the snow is both physical and metaphorical, a representation of the way in which Siss becomes snowed in, emotionally isolated in her need to preserve the memory of her friend:

They’re not thinking about Unn any more.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Nobody is!” said Siss, even though she had not meant to. It had gone dark, and then she had said it.

Her mother answered calmly: “How do you know, my girl?”

Siss said nothing.

“And then nobody knew Unn. It’s unreasonable, but it makes it seem different. People have a lot to think about, you see.” Mother looked at Siss and added: “You’re the person who can think about Unn all the time.”

As if Siss had been given a great gift.

This “gift” leads Siss to embody Unn, to become the loner at school. To keep the air of mystery alive - for that reason she’ll never tell another soul Unn’s secret. But as the winter leads into spring, Siss learns to accept that Unn is never coming back and in such situations one can be relieved of a promise’s obligation. And so, with the new season warming the land, Siss is able to take one step closer to adulthood and all the inner turmoil she has been suffering melts away, the metaphorical ice palace going the same way as the physical one:

It was just as alarmingly tall and strange from whichever angle you looked at it. Polished and sparkling, free of snow, and with a ring of cold around it in the middle ofthe mild March air in which it stood. The river, black and deep, moved out from under the ice, gathering speed on its way downward and taking with it everything that could be torn way.

Aside from the rather amazing story of The Ice Palace, with its layers of symbols and possible interpretations, what really captures the imagination is the prose: chilly, sad, and haunting; yet not without colour. It’s poetry, and what makes it even more special is that it’s a translation. Just how beautiful must the original be?

The Ice Palace really deserves more widespread attention. It’s a subtle gem, extremely unassuming, and, while it will no doubt mean different things to different people, they will all agree that it means something to them. Frankly, it’s nothing short of a work of art and I’ll be looking forward to reading more of Vesaas in the near future. As an introduction to his work, what a way to break the ice!

According to the back of Blaise Cendrars’ Gold (1924), the author spent fifteen years creating this, a fictionalised account of John Augustus Sutter - his debut novel. Given how slim the book is, one supposes that period wasn’t completely absorbed by this one endeavour. But, regardless, it was time well spent as Gold is a wonderful piece of fiction taking reams of fact and - as far as my understanding of the reported history goes - smudging it with a series of taken liberties.

At the age of thirty-one, the Swiss Johan August Suter (”bankrupt, fugitive, vagabond, thief and swindler”) has many debtors and, rather than pay them off, leaves his family - a wife, three young children - and heads for America, becoming John Augustus Sutter, to make his fortune. He departs from France and arrives drunk and excited in New York running “off into the great, unknown city, as if he were in a hurry and someone was expecting him.”

In New York Sutter works west trying his hand at an extensive number of trades (from draper’s assistant to drugstore clerk; from circus groom to sideshow boxer) and accrues enough cash to open a saloon on the western side of the city where he can keep an ear on:

“what kinds of business are carried on there, and which ones are creating the prodigious fortunes that are building up this city…of the progress of those slow caravans of wagons that cross the vast plains of the Middle West…of plans of conquest and exploration even before the government gets to hear of them.”

When the time is right, Sutter (”a man of action”) sells up and heads west. And why not? Especially when:

There are Indian legends that tell of an enchanted country where the towns are built of gold and the women have but a single breast. Even the trappers who come down from the North with their cargoes of furs have heard, in their remote latitudes, tales of this wondrous country of the West where, they say, the fruit is made of gold and silver.

After a lengthy journey, comprising land and sea, Sutter eventually comes to California, then under Mexican rule. Granted land for taking Mexican nationality he builds upon this by buying out further expanses from the departing Russians until he has, in his power, an army of workers and an agricultural wonderland producing vines, crops, and livestock, all of which are making him one of the world’s richest men. Yet a great disaster strikes in 1848 when one of his workers, James Marshall, late of New Jersey, discovers gold and what follows ” is triggered off by the simple blow of a pickaxe.”

The discovery of gold is too much of a secret to restrain and soon New Helvetia - Sutter’s farm - becomes a vicious no-man’s land where “in the struggle for survival, might is right” as it is invaded by:

“stampeding mobs of people. First they come from New York and all the ports on the Atlantic coast, and then, immediately afterwards, from the hinterland and the Middle West. It is a veritable flood. Men pack themselves into the holds of steamers going to Chagres. Then they cross the isthmus, on foot, wading through the swamps. Ninety per cent of them die of yellow fever. The survivors who reach the Pacific coast charter sailing-ships.

San Francisco! San Francisco!”

What then follows is Sutter’s lifelong hunt for justice, to be compensated for the land he has lost to the new cities and villages sprouting up and for his share in all the gold that was, by virtue of official deeds, his. The lawsuits sing to the tune of $275m, not including future minings, and as Sutter becomes more desperate to see victory, so he becomes a victim of his need to win.

Cendrars’ telling of the tale of John Augustus Sutter is accomplished, sifting through history and returning only the worthwhile nuggets, rich in detail. His prose style is pacy, the narrative racing along as quick as the Gold Rush itself no doubt happened; but mindful enough to stop sometimes and solemnly ponder the havoc it wreaked. A small treasure that’s worth rushing out for, Gold is an interesting prospect.