New Fic: Under His Carpet

The Way to Santiago

Anyone who undertakes all or part of the Camino de Santiago will be familiar with the question 'Why are you doing it?', implying that everyone who laces on a pair of hiking boots and shoulders a heavy backpack for the long tramp across Northern Spain has a clear-cut mission in mind for undertaking this 1,000 year old pilgrimage. In reality, few have one concrete reason for doing it, or even any reason, and those who set out with one intention in mind nearly always have a completely different experience than what they expected. Particularly for those who expect some kind of miraculous 'road to Damascus' moment, the sheer banality of the trudge, during which few thoughts more profound than 'I'm hungry' or 'My feet hurt' tend to occupy the mind, can be a rude surprise. But sticking it out does lead to a strangely satisfying experience, both more ordinary and more transcendent than what the enlightenment-seekers expect: the sense of wholeness that comes from perseverance. 

This ordinary extraordinariness is the subject of Emilio Estévas' film The Way, clearly a labour of love for the director and his father Martin Sheen, who plays the lead role. Sheen is Tom Avery, a taciturn California opthamologist with few interests outside work and golf at the country club. Tom's son Daniel (played by Estévas himself) is the exact opposite, a wanderer who abandons his doctorate studies to travel the world, much to his father's disapproval. A flashback scene shows Tom telling Daniel 'My life may not look like much to you, but it's the life I chose', to which Daniel responds 'You don't choose life Dad, you live it.'

Daniel's living of life takes a tragic turn when he embarks on the Camino in southern France, and ignoring warnings about inclement weather, is caught in a storm in the Pyrenees and killed. The story of the film follows a shellshocked Tom as he travels to France to identify his son's body, has the remains cremated and in an uncharacteristically spontaneous decision, continues the walk himself, depositing handfuls of Daniel's ashes along the way. Like all peregrinos (pilgrims) Tom encounters cranky alburgue (hostel) wardens, crowded dorms filled with snoring fellow walkers, sore feet and even sleeping rough on his journey. Along the way he is first annoyed by, and eventually forms a grudging friendship with, a party-loving Dutchman, a neurotic Canadian and an loudmouth Irish travel writer. The foursome encounter various obstacles, including robbery, arguments and even an arrest, but finally reach the cathedral of Santiago, each having learned far more than they intended or expected to.

The Way is filmed along the real Camino route and is wonderfully accurate about the day-to-day realities of doing the walk - the beautiful countryside, the physical privations and the un-pilgrim-like behaviour of many fellow travellers. Eccentrics abound, and one of Tom's biggest challenges is learning to tolerate people he'd never meet in his ordinary life. In a way, the walk teaches him to understand Daniel's waywardness, by revealing how stimulating it can be to talk to people (even annoying, half-crazy people) that one would normally never encounter.

All the characters are profoundly sad in their own way, yet their capacity to appreciate the absurd carries them along and saves them from complete self-absorption. The uniquely communal feeling of the walk, where people join up, drift apart and reunite along the road without the need for mobile phones or internet is perfectly evoked. There are frequent lapses into sentimentality and some clunky dialogue, but the characters (with the possible exception of James Nesbitt's over-the-top Jack) are believable and humanly flawed, and the brotherly friendship they form over three months, full of humour and bickering and understated affection, is beautifully shown. A character tells Tom halfway through 'This walk is nothing to do with religion', meaning that while many may expect miracles, it is the very non-miraculous nature of the characters' development that is the point of the Camino. Like so many peregrinos, Tom reaches the end of the route fundamentally the same person, but touched by a profound sense of acceptance, kindness, love and wonder, a state that comes at him obliquely while his intentions are elsewhere.

finished loving john and am turning it around and around in my head. may pang is not without her biases but it's pretty easy to flag where they are and what they're colored by. it is clear to me that she didn't like paul very much, and im not sure whether that's because of the way john presented him to her amidst the business troubles or because she perceived he didn't like her with john. the way may presents the johnandyoko reconciliation, it's entirely caused by yoko's hypnotherapist. but we know that's not entirely true and i dont know if at the time of writing she knew about paul telling john in LA that yoko wanted him back. there's a lot of instances where john and may are conspiring against yoko: keeping secrets and telling lies to pacify her. i dont know if may considered the two of them might have been doing the same to her. it seems easier for her to blame yoko for the whole thing, both the start and end of the relationship, and while she certainly deserves quite a bit of blame it's also john who won't take no for an answer when he first tries to sleep with her and it's john who chose to go back to yoko. yoko knew how to use the deepest parts of his psychology to convince him, but is was still HIS psychology. and honestly as an outside observer even though may had an incredible strength of character at such a young age i dont think anyone was really a match for the depth of trauma john had and it's entirely possible something worse may have happened had he stayed with her longer. and he did almost kill her.

How to write a historical novel

I recently read two books which could be handily placed on opposing sides of the ‘how to write historical fiction’ spectrum. They are The Map of Love by Adhaf Soueif and Brooklyn by Colm Toibín. One takes in the entire modern history of a particular country through the experiences of its characters, the other’s scope is limited to the point of provinicial. Yet, it is the small story, Toibín’s Brooklyn, that is infinitely more successful. Souief said of her leading male character, Sharif al-Baroudi, that she wanted to write a character one could fall in love with, using the appearance of a romantic hero in Egyptian cinema as her template. The story of the Map of Love is split across the 20th century, focusing on the romance and marriage between Lady Anna Winterbourne and al-Baroudi in Egypt in the 1900s and the discovery of her diaries by two of her female descendents, American Isabel and Egyptian Amal. Soueif had an admirable aim in the book – to tell the little-known story of the nascent Egyptian struggle for independence in the years before the First World War – and while the research is comprehensive and the historical details are fascinating, the characters utterly fail to convince, in my opinion. Lady Anna is too modern a woman to be believable as a character of her time, and her unquestioning, wholehearted adoption of her new husband’s family, culture and country come across as forced rather than romantic. From a secure position within conventional Victorian genteel society, she abruptly and without question pledges uncritical support for the cause of Egyptian independence. Even though she is portrayed as more thoughtful and historically aware than her peers, her decision just doesn’t feel believable. History shows us that the need for independence in former colonies was justified, but it seems implausible that someone like Lady Anna would take that position so quickly and easily in her place and time. The story isn’t helped by the fact that Lady Anna and her husband are too saintly to be true – apart from some minor cultural speedbumps they remain sickeningly in love, without any of the normal gripes and confusions that accompany even the happiest of marriages, let alone one across a cultural gulf. The two are like a cardboard cut-out couple, cloyingly devoted to each other and to the cause of independence with barely a question asked or a dissenting voice raised, and they are also implausibly modern in their attitudes to each other. Perhaps if they were not presented to the reader in the form of Anna’s diary entries a more convincing inner life might have arisen, but as it stands they don’t convince and it is hard to care about them. The modern Egyptian, Amal al-Ghamrawi, is more rounded, but again her edges seem to have been neatly rounded off to leave a character who, despite all her soul-searching, seems somewhat hollow. The main problem with The Map of Love is that the characters seem to have been designed to represent particular things and so perform a kind of wish-fulfilment for the author. Lady Anna is the contrite face of colonial Britain turning her back on her old life to embrace that of the people her nation is oppressing, Sharif al-Baroudi is an unusually enlightened 19th century man who disavows gender stereotypes and political violence and Amal’s brother Omar lives a successful, cosmopolitan life but remains loyal to his ethnic background. It is always obvious to the reader when a writer is using characters as a mouthpiece, and immediately interferes with any spontaneous enjoyment of the text. The Map of Love aims nobly to tell the story of modern Egypt, and does succeed to some extent, but it ultimately fails due to the lack of believable characters. Brooklyn, on the other hand, appears to be telling nothing more than the story of one unremarkable young woman, from an unremarkable town in Ireland, and her emigration to America. Eilis Lacey, the woman in question, is not even moving to New York as we know it from movies – the American sections of the book centre around a few streets of the Irish-American district of Brooklyn with its large Irish community, complete with an omnipresent parish priest. But prosaic though Eilis’ life and experiences may be, her inner world and small conflicts are rendered so thoughtfully and reverentially by Toibín they end up telling a larger story – that of the Irish emigrant experience. Eilis has never expected more than a life in Enniscorthy, working in an office until someone marries her and she devotes life to having his children, but events conspire to send her abroad to work in a department store and study bookkeeping. Initially Brooklyn is not much more exciting than Enniscorthy – Eilis lives in a Irish-run boarding house with a curfew, her days are spent wearily trekking across the shop floor and her free time taken up by evening classes and helping the priest with parish activities. But as time goes by the opportunities American life begin to open themselves up – from exposure to people of different races and cultures, to the excitement of the latest fashions. Toibín is a compassionate author who doesn’t sneer at the joy ordinary people find in ordinary things - in fact he accords these things the respect they deserve. Eilis even finds romance in America, but the slow tugs of obligation from the two sides of her life threaten to undo her when circumstances require to return home to Ireland. The premise of Brooklyn is the choice Eilis must take between her two worlds, and interestingly this choice is not presented as a clichéd split between home, obligation and repression and abroad, freedom and experimentation. On the contrary, Eilis faces potential nooses wherever she looks, and the ties that bind can take unexpected forms. Her mixture of engagement and passivity are wholly convincing as the experiences of an individual, yet also seem to encompass the thoughts and feelings of a whole generation that were put in her position. This novel has no overawed glimpses of the Manhattan skyline for the arriving immigrant, but a collection of moments – a parish hall dance, a trip to a bookshop, a day out in Coney island – to give us a truly authentic sense of the migrant experience. Brooklyn has been as carefully worked and polished as The Map of Love - the difference is the joins are not visible and the author has all but disappeared, and that is why it is the more successful work.

THE BEATLES at a hotel in Weston Super Mare, Somerset, by Bruce Leak, an 11 year old boy who was on a family holiday with his parents and sister. 1963.

A city melting into air

Spy tower, Teufelsburg

I was recently in Berlin, staying near Alexanderplatz in the old East, and was struck by the still-unfinished look of the city, even 65 years since the war and 20 since reunification. The picture-perfect reconstructions of 19th-century streets in Oranienburgerstrasse and Auguststrasse contrast strongly with random patches of debris-strewn grass and fenced, abandoned building sites. The city’s long history of artistic occupation of abandoned buidings is still visible in the admittedly touristified Tacheles complex, but other buildings further from the centre, especially abandoned GDR edifices, are keeping the ad-hoc nature of Berlin’s urban settlements alive. This super slideshow presents some highlights, including an abandoned GDR amusement park, a spy tower built by the West in the wonderfully named Teufelsburg and the remains of the hastily exited Iraqi embassy. These images reveal Berlin to be a fine example of how Marshall Berman famously described modernity:  ‘this maelstrom…..in a state of perpetual becoming.’

melody maker letters as the burn book from mean girls

So you think 'Imagine' ain't political? It's 'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself!! You obviously didn't dig the words. Imagine! You took 'How Do You Sleep' so literally (read my own review of the album in Crawdaddy.) Your politics are very similar to Mary Whitehouse's -- 'Saying nothing is as loud as saying something.' Listen, my obsessive old pal, it was George's press conference -- not 'dat ole debbil Klein' -- He said what you said: 'I'd love to come but...' Anyway, we basically did it for the same reasons -- the Beatle bit -- they still called it a Beatle show, with just two of them! Join the Rock Liberation Front before it gets you. Wanna put your photo on the label like uncool John and Yoko, do ya? (Aint ya got no shame!) If we're not cool, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU? No hard feelings to you either. I know basically we want the same, and as I said on the phone and in this letter, whenever you want to meet, all you have to do is call.

John Lennon's letter responding to Paul, published in its entirety in Melody Maker

literally the ramblings of an insane person I am GAGGED

mclennon truthers 🤝 john was killed by cia truthers

(wrongly) believing that when Yoko dies It'll All Come Out.

Half Agony, Half Hope

A canon-divergent AU, inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

In the summer of 1959, Paul’s life is perfect. He has his music, his new band, and his first true love; his song-writing partner, his best friend. John. But then autumn comes, and Paul’s dad convinces him that his dreams are nothing but a foolish fantasy, and that he needs to grow up, get a real job, a real life. Five years later, John is an international music sensation, his band taking the world by storm. And Paul? Paul is exactly where John left him, working a dead-end job, no family, no prospects, no life. And then one day, John comes back to town…

The playlist (further suggestions welcome)…

And the theme song for chapter 1...

Joanna Newsom at Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin

Joanna Newsom and band performing in Vancouver. Photo: Skot Nelson

It’s been three years since Joanna Newsom’s last gig in Dublin, so on Tuesday evening fans from all over the country eagerly converged on the Grand Canal Theatre for the opening date of her latest tour. As some commentators noted, there was a positive outpouring of hipsters into what is normally a suits ‘n’ heels kind of area, with trendily dressed people at varying stages of youth milling around the windswept square and gleaming lobby of the theatre from the early evening onwards. But unlike some events that draw that kind of crowd, this was no exclusivist gig designed to alienate those ‘not in the know’. From the moment a smiling Joanna appeared on stage to rapturous applause, she showed yet again why she and the musicians she works with deserve all the praise they get.

Her music is complex but hugely accessible, even more so when performed live. My companion, who’d never heard her music before, was astounded and delighted at the beauty and richness of the arrangements performed, reproduced almost note-perfectly from her latest album Have One On Me. The band, comprising uber-arranger and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Francesconi, percussionist Neal Morgan, two women on violin and viola respectively whose names I didn’t catch and Andrew Strain on trombone (who, incidentally, looked like the love child of Dougie Howser MD and Spencer from The Hills – thanks to Alice for that observation!) performed such epics as the album’s title track, ‘Easy’, ‘Kingfisher’ and a tremendous new arrangement of Ys’ Monkey and Bear with passion and military precision.

Joanna’s harp playing is better than ever, showcased beautifully on the show opener, ‘Jackrabbits’ and on ‘Peach Plum Pear’, performed as an encore. She took to the piano a number of times too, though the location of the instrument toward the back of the stage meant her voice carried less powerfully during these tracks and was sometimes drowned out by the drumkit. (I have heard since that those sitting further back actually had a better acoustic experience, as the instruments sounded more balanced when heard from further away). Her voice is less abrasive than in recent years but still carries a tune powerfully, with only a few bum notes hit. Uncharacteristically for her, she mixed up some of the lyrics in Soft As Chalk, but considering the vast quantity of words she manages to learn by heart and sing perfectly every night a small blunder is easily forgiven. A slightly fuzzy memory was also revealed when she repeated a story she told the last time she played in Dublin, about how she overheard some people criticising her performance. From what I can tell, this incident occurred the first time she was in Dublin, not in 2007, since she told the same story at the last gig. Anyway, the criticisers would be eating their words if they were in attendance last night!

Small mistakes such as these also makes her seem more human, a side of her that came out during a brief interlude when she interacted with the audience while re-gluing her fingers (necessary for harp-playing). Joanna may look the picture of innocence, but I laughed heartily when she commented ‘This is taking longer than I anticipated because I haven’t finished gluing my fingers….that’s what she said’. A funny back-and-forth between her and Neal Morgan about Twitter and its lack of appeal for them indicated a good rapport within the band.

She played two tracks, Kingfisher and Autumn, that I tend to skip over on the CD, but the live context brought out a richness to these delicate tunes that I will be going back to investigate further. Soft As Chalk and the the aforementioned Monkey and Bear were highlights, full of excitement and drama. Neal Morgan’s percussion was astounding, on a par with Joanna’s harp playing, as he switched between a variety of sticks and surfaces to get exactly the right sound.

The show was just under 90 minutes long, time that seemed to shoot by. The pre-encore closer was the wonderful Good Intentions Paving Company, with its piano and trombone coda extended to a rocking jam that nearly had the audience on its feet – proof yet again that Joanna can really rock out when she wants to. A richer arrangement of Peach Plum Pear was actually an improvement on the album original. The near-capacity crowd (in a venue that accommodates 2,000 people) gave a riotous standing ovation and the trendyheads even cracked a few smiles on their way out. Let’s hope Joanna doesn’t leave it as long for her next visit.