Do people today know what a party line is? There's the political meaning i.e. the collective understanding of a political party's ideology and policieDo people today know what a party line is? There's the political meaning i.e. the collective understanding of a political party's ideology and policies, coupled with an expectation that party members will conform to them. But it can also mean a local phone circuit that is shared by multiple users. In the 1970s, if you lived in the bush in some parts of Australia, you shared a telephone line with your community whether you wanted to or not. There was usually some kind of loose community cooperation to ensure that the line wasn't tied up for too long by one caller, and there was an implicit understanding that you could interrupt to call in an emergency, but the greatest constraint was that there was usually some obnoxious busybody who listened in on other people's calls.
(Of course in those days not everyone had a phone anyway. Our parents had phones, but we didn't have one of our own till the late 70s, and none of our friends did either. But public phone booths were ubiquitous, and news that couldn't wait for the post came by telegram.)
Sharing a party line is relevant to Sue Orr's debut novel because the characters include an obnoxious busybody who makes it impossible for a victim of domestic abuse to get help. Yet despite the setting in 1970s New Zealand, the story remains relevant today.
The Party Line takes place in a farming community where the annual influx of sharemilkers and their families swells the population of Fenward each year. The sharemilkers 'know their place': they are not part of the community and won't be unless and until they can buy their own land. But everyone knows everyone's business, except when it comes to the domestic abuse perpetrated by Jack Gilbert, a prominent member of the community. That's nobody's business, and the 'party line' is for everyone to turn a blind eye.
All the narrator knows is the names of the truck drivers who drove his parents to their fate, but almost the entire book consists of his imagined interactions with these men. His preoccupation is whether and how much they knew about what they were doing and whether they felt remorse. At first, he pulls back into reality and reminds himself that he knows nothing about Götz and Meyer, any more than he knows anything about the people missing from his family tree:
Meyer even confessed to me that he felt his heart beat faster and that later, when he recalled those days, he would shiver. Look at this: I am beginning to imagine myself talking with people whose faces I don’t even know. I knew precious little, indeed, about the faces of most of my kin, but in their case I can at least look at my own face in the mirror and seek their features there, whereas with Götz and Meyer I had no such help. Anyone could have been Götz. Anyone could have been Meyer, and yet Götz and Meyer were only Götz and Meyer, and no-one else could be who they were. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that I constantly had this feeling that I was slipping, even when I was walking on solid ground. (p. 45).
But as time goes by, under the torment of this obsession to know the unknowable, the narrative becomes a darker force in his life.
Nothing easier than to stray into the wasteland of someone else's consciousness. (p.45)
We read about the daily habits of these truck drivers as if the narrator were present with them while they dressed and shaved and had their breakfasts.
In the morning, while I dressed, I’d be Götz and Meyer. I did not allow myself to be distracted by details, for instance: wondering whether German soldiers wore short-sleeved undershirts, or dog tags with their personal details round their necks. I always wore singlets, cut high under the armpits, important because I sweat so much, and nothing was going to make me stop wearing them. This was about something else. I would look at myself, let’s say, in the mirror and say: Now Meyer is combing his hair, and then Götz would ask Meyer what he’d be having for breakfast. Once I got up in a foul mood, as Götz, and when asked that same question, told Meyer angrily: bananas. Lord, how Meyer laughed. His razor bounced around in his hand! Later, when he rinsed off the foam, he noticed a little nick on his left cheek, but that only reminded him of Götz’s reply, and then he burst into guffaws again. Götz didn’t say anything, because by then he was already in the kitchen, where he watched as I made coffee. Quite the bright one, that Götz, never to put the cart before the horse. As they drove towards Belgrade, he never carped to Meyer, possibly Götz, about speeding. It is important to tend to State property entrusted to your care, but even more important to tend to good relations with your work colleagues, since your success in completing any assignment depends far more on that than on anything else. (pp. 46-47)
And there is nothing easier than a reader finding these imagined observations entirely convincing... until we read that the narrator tells the woman at the Jewish Historical Museum that Götz and Meyer were only human after all and then it becomes difficult for us to imagine that anyone human could do the evil these men did.
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and nominated for the 2018 BTBA Best Translated Book Award, Ghachar Ghockar — a colloquial phraLonglisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and nominated for the 2018 BTBA Best Translated Book Award, Ghachar Ghockar — a colloquial phrase that means 'entangled' is a deceptively simple novella about a rags-to-riches family in India.
The unnamed narrator begins by explaining his relationship to Vincent, a waiter at the nearby Coffee House, who seems to be a sort of guru who can understand his customers without needing to be told their troubles. Naïvely, he takes a random comment from Vincent as advice and breaks up with his girlfriend Chitra on the strength of it. It turns out that this is typical of our narrator's inability to take responsibility for his own life.
A second reading of this short novel shows just how unreliable he is as a narrator.
(He says) he goes to the Coffee House for a respite from domestic skirmishes.
These skirmishes have come about as the family transitions from poverty into the middle class. The family had been close, had shared what little they had, and had lived in harmony together despite their privations. WhenVenkatachala, his father’s younger brother took the initiative and started up a spice business, it brought improvements in their standard of living — and joy —that was shared by them all.
[caption id="attachment_127115" align="alignright" width="150"][image] Chivda, a snack made from fried cashews, golden raisins, rice poha, peanuts and coconut slices.[/caption]
"Chikkappa* saved for months from his small income before managing to bring cooking gas to our kitchen. Along with it came a table for the stove to rest on. There was such a bustle of excitement and anticipation at home the day gas arrived. The workmen who brought home the cylinder and stove only placed them in the middle of the kitchen, put them together, showed us the flame, and left. We had already decided where to install the stove, but we went over the matter again at some length just to prolong the moment. Amma repeated at least ten times that she’d heard tea could be made in five minutes on a gas stove. She wondered if food cooked standing up would be as tasty. She joked: ‘Don’t ask me for tea again and again simply because it will be quick to make.’ We had a long session about how the gas cylinder ought to be turned on and off to ensure maximum safety. Appa warned Amma: ‘Watch carefully now. You’ll forget everything otherwise.’ And she listened quietly without putting up a fight. Amma had surveyed the neighborhood about its gas usage patterns. She told us how long a cylinder lasted in each neighbour’s house and how it could be stretched. ‘If it’s used only for urgent cooking, it lasts two months,’ she said. ‘Even when it’s run out, it seems you can turn the cylinder upside down and get a little more.’ The inaugural preparation was to be a round of tea. I was sent out to buy some chivda for accompaniment." (p.42)
However, because they depend on Chikkappa for their income, this displaces the traditional hierarchy of family relationships. Appa, the traditional head of the family is sidelined...
Wakolda (The German Doctor) begins with a brief scene so shocking that there is a palpable sense of relief when it becomes clear that it isn't happeniWakolda (The German Doctor) begins with a brief scene so shocking that there is a palpable sense of relief when it becomes clear that it isn't happening.
And then you remember that actually, it did.
Lucía Puenzo is an Argentinian author, screenwriter and film director. From her profile page at Wikipedia, I learned about the genesis of this novella, which was made into a film.
In an interview with Elle magazine, Puenzo discusses her interest in Nazism. A common theme in her work, is the fascination with modulating the human body, much like how Hitler attempted to modulate a whole race. In the work that she creates, writes and directs, such as XXY and The German Doctor, she focuses on the question of medically modified bodies. She shows the ethical dilemma with modern medicine and the creation of what a "perfect body" should conform to. With her work, Puenzo addresses the fact that society keeps on pushing towards standardization. She finds there is a delicate line between the good of medicine and what is unnecessary. By addressing different stories that sway back and forth across the line, she explores the limits of medicine. (Wikipedia, lighted edited to remove unnecessary links, viewed 3/8/21)
In an interview at Forward, Puenzo explains the origins of the unusual title of her novella, which has meanings not indicated by its replacement English title.
Wakolda comes from the Mapuche, Indians from Patagonia. In the film the girl has a little doll named Wakolda, her alter ego, an imperfect doll. In the novel, there is a strong subplot of purity and mixed races. We are all people of mixed blood on our continent, but many thought this title was hermetic.
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In the same interview she explained that her interest lay in the issue of complicity. As a teenager, she knew that Nazis had been welcomed by governments throughout South America and she was curious about the consequences of their presence in her society. Her book, and the subsequent film, explore the impact on one family.
So, you were not developing this material from a Jewish perspective.
Not so much. The Jewish community in Buenos Aires embraced this story. It was a huge success everywhere in schools and universities. They were the first to say, this is not just a Jewish story, but one that every community should be concerned about. Complicity. The whole society kept silent.
I had known that numerous Nazis fled to South American countries, but I had thought that they did so under the radar. Lucía Puenzo's story shows that they did so with impunity.
The novel deals with different kinds of complicity. José, the character who represents Mengele, is aware that Mossad is after him, but it makes little difference to his plans.
He was not going to find any other country that would welcome a man like him with more open arms. Within two years he had found employment with a pharmaceutical company, bought a two-storey house in Vicente López, married his brother’s widow, thus duplicating with this union a million-dollar inheritance. He even went so far as to list himself in the telephone book under his real name. He had no need to go under a surgeon's knife or change his name as so many others had. (p13)
A medical facility nearby the guest house into which he has wangled his way, is in a remote location, but the surgeons and nurses staffing it, are complicit in performing plastic surgery on Nazis who want to conceal their identity.
It’s an eye-opening book, and one which prompted a change to the way I do my blog. It changed my practice of categorising my authors into binaries, seeIt’s an eye-opening book, and one which prompted a change to the way I do my blog. It changed my practice of categorising my authors into binaries, see https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/06/30/n......more
As I wrote in a recent #6Degrees, we tend to have a skewed version of WW2 events, often limited to the General Macarthur narrative that prevails in thAs I wrote in a recent #6Degrees, we tend to have a skewed version of WW2 events, often limited to the General Macarthur narrative that prevails in the Pacific War. If I didn't subscribe to the Asian Review of Books, I might have never have heard of Thomas McKenna's Moro Fighter or learned about the Filipino heroes of the Resistance movement. The US was pivotal to the defeat of the Japanese in WW2, but they did not fight alone in the Philippines (or anywhere else).
Mohammad Adil is not much more than a boy at the beginning of McKenna's book, and what gives the story authenticity is the acknowledgement of the mistakes that were made. In later years as he learned to trust McKenna, Adil confessed to comic blunders and tragic missteps, disappointments and regrets. Well, normal people aren't born with the strategic skills, expertise and cunning to combat an occupier, and resistance fighters have to learn these skills, and they make mistakes while they're learning. Adil has some lucky escapes from a formidable and callous enemy.
Not only from his enemies! Hoping to join the guerillas, he makes his way to their camp with his foster father Kuder...
It was midday, and there were few guerrillas about. Hedges was not in his office, but Adil recognized Datu Lagindab, whom he knew from his time as a student in Lanao, sitting with some other Maranao men on a bamboo bench along the wall. Adil saw that Lagindab carried one of the new M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles recently offloaded from an American submarine, and he asked if he could examine it. Its mechanism was unlike the Springfield rifle he was used to, and as he handled it, the gun went off, its .30 caliber bullet smashing into Hedges’ portable typewriter on the nearby desk and flinging it across the room.
The sound of a gunshot from Hedges’ office woke the camp, and within seconds the room was filled with men, mostly Americans and Filipinos, with guns drawn and pointed at Adil, standing now with the Garand by his side and beginning to tremble. As shouts of “spy!” rang out, Datu Lagindab and a few other Maranaos stepped in front of Adil. With raised guns and hardened faces, they roared back that the gunshot was an accident and that they would defend this lad. Several tense moments passed until Hedges appeared, recognized the culprit as Edward Kuder’s boy, and ordered all the men to stand down. He cursed vigorously at the sight of his punctured typewriter, scowled at Adil, then dismissed him. Burning with shame, the boy went to find Kuder. It was not the sort of first impression he had hoped to make at guerrilla headquarters. (pp. 77-78).
But in time, 19-year-old Mohammad Adil became one of the youngest officers in General Douglas MacArthur’s guerrilla army, commissioned as a third lieutenant in the 119th regiment, bringing hope to other Moro with gifts such as Marlboro cigarettes that proved the Americans were on their way to help. In the photos, he looks like a schoolboy.
ight on cue, I was part-way through reading a novel about asbestos removal when an asbestos panic erupted in New South Wales. Helen Hagemann's novel ight on cue, I was part-way through reading a novel about asbestos removal when an asbestos panic erupted in New South Wales. Helen Hagemann's novel is set in WA, but it's in Sydney that playgrounds, parks and schools in Sydney have been closed, a Mardi Gras party has been cancelled, and hundreds of sites have to be inspected. The culprit appears to be contaminated mulch, which is used widely in all sorts of places, causing widespread alarm because there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos.
Synchronicity, eh?
Upfront, I'll say that I would not have continued reading this novel if it had been promoting some sort of conspiracy theory nonsense that denied the dangers of asbestos. But no, The Last Asbestos Town is more about the kind of bureaucratic heavy-handedness over which governments sometimes preside. Sometimes this happens because it's cheaper and easier to deliver a one-size-fits-all solution and there's not enough staff to fix the problems that don't fit into the program, and sometimes it's because in the haste to do something and be seen to be doing it, a program is put into place without the proper checks and balances . Whatever, sometimes it's just too bad for some unlucky people who are either drafted into somewhere they don't belong, or, conversely, who are excluded from something that they really need. Whatever side of politics we're on, we can all think of examples that exemplify an unresponsive bureaucracy that's not getting it right for everyone.
(And, to be fair, we can also think of government programs that are very good indeed, and that help the people they're supposed to help. Truth be told, that happens because there's an effective, competent bureaucracy.)
Set in a recognisable future in a town that features a street with a notorious name in the history of asbestos in Australia, The Last Asbestos Town features a young couple who are convinced that the property they've bought is built with a product that looks asbestos, but isn't. The thing is, asbestos can't be identified just by looking at it. A sample has to be analysed.
And in the meantime, the task force is on its way and might well slap a demolition order on the property before their sample comes back from the laboratory.
#Digression If you want to give yourself nightmares, check out the NSW 'How do I know if it's asbestos' page and click through from the Asbestos Checker to see what might be in your home if it was built before 1990. A bit of garden mulch might be the least of your worries... it cost us a small fortune to have an asbestos roof removed from our 1950s garage.
With demolition imminent, Hagemann's twenty-something characters are facing challenges on all fronts, including the supernatural. Their marriage is rocky, partly because of Isaac's drug habit (and the 'associates' who supply him), and partly because they're both snooping on each other, keeping secrets from each other, and manipulating each other:
‘Come and lie down with me for a second.’ May knew very well that to get any information from him about his experience with Cheryl at this point would be useless, unless she spent some quality time with him. They lay side by side, kissing and hugging. (pp. 117-118).
Prompted by a brief segment in a Press Club broadcast featuring Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, I located David MoserPrompted by a brief segment in a Press Club broadcast featuring Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, I located David Moser's A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Common Language (2016), on the Kindle and began reading.
I am not here to dispute Tibet's quest for autonomy, nor to say whether it is or isn't part of China because I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. I recommend listening to his address to hear what he says.
Nevertheless, I do think there's a case to be made for any country to ensure that all its people have access to a uniform language, and sometimes even in places where nationality is not in dispute, that meets with resistance. In the media I see Australia's First Nations people working hard to maintain and resurrect their languages but struggling with English and reliant on translators, and I feel anxious about the choices that their children don't have when they don't go to school.
The West can be criticised for many things, but mass literacy has been a priority in Western societies since industrialisation. Countries that have not achieved this goal for all their people condemn them to poverty and compromised economic development. Literacy enables full participation in society and offers access to information, ideas, health knowledge, and cultural and political activity.
Moser, however, who knows more about this than I ever will, says, however, that in China, the purpose of mandating Putonghua (Standard Chinese) as the common language and especially teaching it to children is to instill a sense of cultural identity, and to strengthen the ‘cohesiveness’ of the people residing within China’s borders. The impact on cultural identity is keenly felt in Tibet and among the Uyghur in Xinjiang, but Moser says that extreme reactions to the imposition of Chinese as the language of instruction are rare.
Most ethnic minorities acknowledge the advantages of the language policy, even at the expense of some cultural diversity. Many Tibetan and Uyghur parents have maintained that the problem is not that Putonghua is stressed too much, but rather too little. Faced with the practical reality of trying to succeed in a predominantly Chinese speaking country, both parents and children tend to emphasise Chinese language studies, in part because the gaokao, the national college entrance examination, is administered only in Chinese. (A Billion Voices by David Moser, Penguin Specials, Kindle Edition, Location 1073)
Anyway...
Moser's book tells me that it was not the Communists who took power in 1949 who mandated a common language in China.
When the Qing dynasty fell to the Xinhai Revolution in 1912, and the Republic of China was formed there was a chasm between the spoken and the written word. Only a tiny elite could read and write classical Chinese.
Classical Chinese was almost perversely difficult to learn and master, and a tiny percentage of privileged scholarly elites had the time and leisure to master it. As with all texts in pre-modern China, it was written entirely without punctuation, and stylistically favoured an extreme economy of expression, thus requiring a great deal of background knowledge and context to draw out the meaning from the cryptic text. The classical textual tradition was fundamentally anti-democratic, elitist, and, most importantly, a serious impediment to literacy. The May Fourth intellectuals therefore sought to release the world of Chinese scholarship from the stranglehold of Classical Chinese, and instigated a movement to publish all books in a vernacular form called baihua, (literally ‘plain speech’), a written form grammatically patterned on the standard northern Mandarin dialects, which were at least passively comprehensible by a majority of the Chinese population.
For the May Fourth activists, the baihua movement was not a matter of literary aesthetics; it was a matter of China’s cultural survival. The artificial classical language had remained the official written language of China for more than 2,000 years. Whereas Europe had discarded Latin and was publishing books in the vernacular by the sixteenth century, incredibly, Classical Chinese continued to be the language of Chinese texts until well into the twentieth century. Imagine a London of the 1920s in which all scholarly books were still published in Latin, enjoyed by only a small percentage of literate scholars, while the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Darwin remained inaccessible to the masses. This is essentially analogous to the case for Chinese literature of the time. In fact, it was not until 1920 that the Chinese Ministry of Education, with intense prodding from the May Fourth scholars and linguists, ordered that primary and middle school texts be changed from Classical Chinese to the vernacular, and mandated that all textbooks be written in baihua. (Literally, 'plain speech') (Loc 333-347).
People of Chinese origin live and work all over the world and have made an enormous contribution in many fields, so it is not surprising that some of People of Chinese origin live and work all over the world and have made an enormous contribution in many fields, so it is not surprising that some of the most gifted musicians of our time are Chinese in origin. But what is surprising is the embrace of classical music in mainland China. Even if it were not for the Cultural Revolution which rejected everything from the West, one might think that communist ideology and the politics of cultural identity would ensure the dominance of Chinese music. Can we imagine The Great Helmsman listening to classical i.e. Western music??
Well, in Beethoven in China, (co-authored with Sheila Melvin) conductor Jindong Cai tells us he did:
Mao Zedong attended at least one performance of Beethoven’s music, and his wife – for whom I once conducted a youth orchestra in the Great Hall of the People – developed an odd fixation on the composer’s Sixth Symphony. Premier Zhou Enlai made a private study of all nine Beethoven symphonies because he wanted to choose one that Henry Kissinger would like to hear. Former president Jiang Zemin has said that it is not good if the Chinese people know nothing about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; in truth, many know much more. Romain Rolland’s Life of Beethoven has been required reading in Chinese middle schools for years; his ten-volume novel Jean-Christophe, which is based on the life of Beethoven, was one of the most popular foreign novels in twentieth-century China. I read it in the early 1980s, as did almost all my friends. (Loc 77)
The sub-title of Volume 1 of Jean Christophe offers a clue: Dawn, Morning, Youth, Revolt.
In the Introduction for this short book in the Penguin Specials collection, conductor and author Jindong Cai recounts listening to Beethoven on the sly during the years of the Cultural Revolution when it was banned... and goes on to describe his elation when he finally heard it played live in China. That first time the conductor was Herbert von Karajan, and then...
Ozawa conducted the China Central Philharmonic’s performance of the Ninth later that year – I was so overwhelmed by the music that I jumped on stage and got him to autograph my program before the security guards could catch me. I still have the program, to which I also added my own youthful response to the performance: ‘It seems like my entire heart, my entire being, has dissolved into this magnificent, glorious symphony . . . Beethoven is unmatchable . . . This is real music – its power makes me forget everything.’ (Loc 64)
If you love Beethoven, you understand this in your heart and soul too.
How did this come about? Beethoven as a cultural icon in China actually has a long history and the Cultural Revolution is a ghastly hiatus along the way. China's humiliating defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) provoked the realisation that 'small' Japan had beaten 'large' China because it was a more advanced society. An illustration by Japanese artist Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915) graphically demonstrates the superiority of their technology: as the file at Wikipedia says, the Japanese army was using a searchlight to locate its target. As discussed in my review of another Penguin Special, David Moser's A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language (2016), illiteracy was one of many factors that had led to China's stagnation in intellectual, economic, cultural and military development.
But the leaders of the push for change and modernisation needed a hero, and it became Beethoven. Why? He endured hardships but transcended them. He was a revolutionary (who famously supported Napoleon, and then, didn't.) He was inspiring.
Jindong Cai acknowledges Xiao Youmei (1884-1940) and Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940) as the most ardent and successful promoters of reform through music – and music reform.
January 27th is International Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust during World War II. It commemorates the genocide thaJanuary 27th is International Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust during World War II. It commemorates the genocide that resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and 11 million others, by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.
So today I share with you some of the extraordinary stories in Going Back: 16 Jewish women tell their life stories, and why they returned to Germany—the country that once wanted to kill them.
It says in the Talmud that none are poor save him that lacks knowledge. May the reader be deeply enriched by this book! (Cathryn Siegal-Bergman, translator)
I can't begin to imagine the courage it would take for a Holocaust survivor to return to Germany. The women survivors who contributed to this book had made new lives for themselves in Israel, America, the UK, France, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, some of them remaking their lives over and over again in different places, and yet for various reasons they chose to return to the country of their birth.
A common theme in these stories is the issue of identify:
Do I feel German? The country didn’t want me. I’m more American than German. The decision to come back to Germany was mostly because of my parents. I’m the sole survivor of Wiesbaden today. And I’ll never stop asking, “Why did you do that to us?” (Anita Fried). (p. 49)
The other common thread is that non-Jews were well aware of what was happening:
Naturally my friend knew that her mother and her older sister had been taken to a concentration camp. Yes, people knew. Everyone saw that we were being picked up. The cars would pull up out front and people were loaded into them. It’s nonsense that no one knew anything! (Ruth Schlesinger, p. 129)
Family is the most common reason for returning to Germany. Young women who'd survived wanted to 'live a little' after the way, and joined the millions of displaced people in finding new lives away from bad memories. But when for various reasons they went away alone, eventually the needs of surviving parents or other relatives who had not perished brought them back again. And Israel which made them welcome when they were young and healthy, seems not to have been ideal in later years.
I love that country. Even today. If I had family in Israel, or if I had money or was healthy, then I would be there. But over there I could never pay for something like a Jewish old-age home, like the one I live in here. But if you had asked me then, or even today, where my home is, I would not be able to answer. My childhood and youth were spent here, as a young woman I was there and had my most wonderful years there, and then I was here again. So where is my home? I have no home. Okay fine, I’m at an age now where I’ll say here, of course. But I yearn for Israel and I would say I’m Israeli. (Ruth Schlesinger, pp. 132-133).
For Ruth Schlesinger, the return to Germany was also influenced by fears for her son and compulsory military service in Israel.
Hmm. Interesting. I wrote a review of this here at Goodreads, but now it's no longer here. Fortunately I printed it out and put it in my reading journaHmm. Interesting. I wrote a review of this here at Goodreads, but now it's no longer here. Fortunately I printed it out and put it in my reading journal, so I still have it.
La Guerre des boutons (The War of the Buttons) is the story of two rival gangs of children, from villages separated by a river. The victors tear the La Guerre des boutons (The War of the Buttons) is the story of two rival gangs of children, from villages separated by a river. The victors tear the buttons from the losers' clothing so that they get into trouble with their mothers. This classic French story was first made into a film in 1937, then again in 1962, in 1994, and (inexplicably) twice in 2011, one directed by Christophe Barratier, and the other, the version I saw, was directed by Yann Samuell.
The original novel was first published in France in 1912. Pergaud warns in the preface, that despite its title, it's not a story for children, because it's an assertion that such savagery could be heroic.
Louis Pergaud was born in 1882 and died in August 1915 aged only 33. Following in his father's footsteps, he had become a schoolteacher by profession, and was appointed to the village of Durnes (Doubs), in 1901. In 1903 after the death of both his parents in 1900, he married Marthe Caffot, who was also a teacher at a neighbouring village.
Pergaud had published his first poems in 1904. The following year he was transferred from his school because of religious issues when the Third French Republic enacted separation of Church and State, and this was the catalyst for him to move to Paris in 1907 where he worked first as a clerk, and then as a schoolmaster while also pursuing his passion for writing.
He was serving as a second lieutenant in the infantry on the Western Front when he became trapped in barbed wire behind German lines and was killed by French fire. Some of his work was published posthumously.
La Guerre des boutons begins in the melancholy of autumn, the children returning to school after working on the harvest in the fields. Father Simon at the door of the school is surprised at the punctual entrance of two boys who are usually late: he is not to know that there is an urgent meeting to deal with an insult from the boys of the neighbouring school. Lebrac quickly establishes himself as the leader who will restore their dignity!
As in Enid Blyton's stories decades later, the local policeman is a figure of fun and easily outwitted. However, it is harder to deal with the suspicions of their parents and teacher.
There is an innocence about this tale that charmed me. While the conflict between the gangs is really about nothing other than some insulting words, they fight with rotten apples, marbles, pieces of vine and branches, and the threat of a mother's rage at the state of their clothes. They have no access to any serious weaponry and the cruelty of social media is a long way off. But there is still jealousy and treachery culminating in Bacaillé's act of betrayal. (The brutality of their vengeance isn't a feature of the film, BTW, and there's no mushy boy-girl romance with La Crique and Lebrac either).
Just recently, Twitter brought my attention to a review at The Asian Review of Books: a collection called Our Women on the Ground, Arab Women ReportinJust recently, Twitter brought my attention to a review at The Asian Review of Books: a collection called Our Women on the Ground, Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, edited by Zahra Hankir. I bought a Kindle edition of it there and then. Because just as I found Mercé Rodoreda's fiction set in the Spanish Civil War compelling, I wanted to read women's points of view about the conflicts in the Middle East. After all, in modern conflict, it is nearly always women who bear the brunt of it.
The collection comprises nineteen Arab women journalists reporting on their homelands. The foreword by Christiane Amanpour reminds the reader that the Balkan Wars of the 1990s brought an end to immunity for journalists. They were no longer considered objective witnesses. Regardless of gender, they became targets. Journalism has become a very dangerous profession, perhaps especially so when reporting on movements for reform in a corrupt regime or in a murderous genocidal state like Islamic State a.k.a. Daesh. We are told in the introduction by Zahra Hankir that some of the journalists (sahafiyat) featured in this book have been sexually assaulted, threatened, propositioned, detained or even shot at while on the job. The book pays homage to those who have died as well. The Middle East and North Africa is the most dangerous area anywhere in the world for journalists.
It is obviously more difficult for women to be journalists in some cultures than in others. In the Middle East and other conservative societies, societal norms discourage women from journalism. It can mean defying family and community, and it brings unique challenges and entails sacrifices specific to women. At the same time, in pursuit of getting a full understanding of a story by including the female perspective, women can sometimes enter places where men cannot go, and they can sometimes access people more freely than men can. (Geraldine Brooks wrote about this in Nine Parts of Desire, if I remember correctly). The first piece, 'The Woman Question' by Hannah Allam, begins by introducing the spaces where she found her stories during the Iraq War: in kitchens without electricity; in a bedroom with a mortar crater in the ceiling; in a beauty salon, or during 'Ladies Hour' in a hotel swimming pool. And then she goes on to say that her reports are more representative because the years of war have resulted in a population where more than half the people are women, and many of them are heads of the household because their men were dead or missing or exiled.
The footage of car bombings that was on our screens throughout 2006 seems different when you look at it from a woman's point-of-view. Daily car deaths often had death tolls of eighty or more, and most casualties were men because of the venues where the bombings occurred. That meant eighty new widows and dozens of newly fatherless children. Each week 500+ Iraqi women became the breadwinner.
At their most desperate, some women entered into so-called temporary marriages that weren't intended to last long. Essentially, these marriage were prostitution with a thin veneer: men with money to spare would pay the women in exchange for sex, but because the couple was technically 'married', however briefly, the arrangement was deemed legitimate according to some Shi'a Islamic rulings.
A widow named Nisreen told me her hands shook and her face reddened with shame when she signed a temporary marriage contract in exchange for fifteen dollars a month plus groceries and clothes for her five children.
'My son calls me a bad woman, a prostitute. My children have no idea I did this for their sake,' Nisreen said. ('The Woman Question' by Hannah Allam, p. 4)
I think that many Western feminists will bristle at the hypocrisy of this, in a society that forces women to cover up in the name of modesty:
Even in wartime, women in Najaf wear abayas, long billowy robes that leave only their faces, hands and feet exposed. I remember sweat trickling down my back as I crouched in the courtyard listening to gunfire. Running in an abaya was a special skill that we honed each time we had to take cover: you use your left hand to hold the silky fabric under yoru chin to keep it in place and your right hand to hike up the bottom to free your feet. (ibid, p.10)
Last year, for Indigenous Literature Week 2021, I read and reviewed Karen Wyld's most recent novel, Where the Fruit Falls (2020) which won the 2020 DoLast year, for Indigenous Literature Week 2021, I read and reviewed Karen Wyld's most recent novel, Where the Fruit Falls (2020) which won the 2020 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript; was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and for the 2017 Richell Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript; and longlisted for the Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year in the 2021Australian Book Industry Awards.
This year, however, I've read her debut novel, When Rosa Came Home. It's very different. Where the Fruit Falls is a powerful family saga exposing the effects of racism and discrimination on generations of Indigenous people, whereas When Rosa Came Home isn't overtly about Indigenous issues or characterisation. Described on Wyld's website as a carnivalesque novel set in a vineyard suitable for 11 years old to adult, this whimsical YA novel was shortlisted for the People’s Choice Award, 2015 SA Readers and Writers Festival.
The story features a child narrator who is an elective mute and educated at home because of school refusal. This device enables the reader to share her naïve and confused journey towards understanding, while also making her an ideal confidante for secrets. People talk to her freely, confiding their stories, knowing that she will not repeat what she hears. Sometimes she is excluded from conversations deemed unsuitable for her ears, but she mostly manages to be in earshot anyway though she doesn't always makes sense of what she hears. There is a sense always that something needs to be known, just beyond her reach.
She is also a much-loved child:
Mother looked over at me and, seeing my obvious happiness, smiled. ‘I forget sometimes how inquisitive you are. How clever. It’s not fair that you miss out on so much, just because you are quiet.’ I walked over to her, and wrapped my arms around her. She put an arm around my shoulders, hugging me back. Leaning down, she planted a kiss on the top of my head. I knew that she understood my message; that I never feel as if I have missed anything. Not when I had her, and Poppa, in my life. ‘Ah Angelita, you bring so much sunshine to this house. (pp. 109-110).
Angelita Ambrosio's family are of Italian origin, running a vineyard in a land not that far away, in a time not that much different from now. When the story opens the house is preparing for the return of Rosa, a sister estranged for so long that Angelita didn't know she existed. Not everyone is delighted by Rosa's return and the attention she attracts: her presence is most unwelcome to Mona whose name fits her character perfectly.
My Pain, My Country is a fictional response to true events that happened in Indonesia in 1998. In May of that year there was widespread civil unrest aMy Pain, My Country is a fictional response to true events that happened in Indonesia in 1998. In May of that year there was widespread civil unrest attributed to food shortages and mass unemployment, and the riots ultimately led to the resignation of President Suharto and the emergence of democracy in Indonesia. The main targets of the violence were Indonesians of ethnic Chinese descent, and it is this aspect of what is now often referred to as Tragedi 1998 which forms the focus of Dewi Anggraeni's novel.
Dewi Anggraeni is an Indonesian journalist now based in Melbourne, and the book is written in English, not translated. I infer from the numerous explanations of traditions and cultural mores, that it is intended for an audience beyond Indonesia, to expand on the headlines that surfaced briefly and were then lost again in the 24/7 news cycle. Anggraeni has four significant concerns:
Ethnic divisions, and anti-Chinese sentiment in particular persist in Indonesia, and violence may recur; Neither the instigators or the perpetrators have been brought to justice, which increases the prospect of future violence; The widespread rape of Chinese-Indonesian women was under-reported and hushed up, and is still denied by many; and The refusal to look back and investigate exacerbates the ongoing distress of the victims and their families.
Anggraeni was previously the Melbourne-based correspondent for Tempo and other Indonesian media, and from her profile at Goodreads, it can be seen that she has previously written a non-fiction account of the riots: it's called Tragedi Mei 1998 dan Lahirnya Komnas Perempuan (Buku Kompas, 2014) which translates as The May 1998 Tragedy and Birth of the National Commission on Women, a body that was set up by President Habibi (briefly in office in the transitional period from Suharto to democracy, from 1998 to 1999):
The KP deals with basic human rights of women in Indonesia, notably all sorts of violence against women, in conflict as well as peace situations. Together with social organisations, the KP develops concepts, standards, instruments and mechanisms intended to prevent, handle, and abolish all forms of violence against women. The Commission has initiated advocacy activities and has been involved in several processes of human rights investigations. The major achievements have been the establishment of one-stop crisis centres for women in several places in the country and the set-up of special departments for female victims of violence in police hospitals.
Whatever the good intentions of this commission, it would appear from Anggraeni's novel, that the 1998 rapes are outside its remit. Characters in the novel are disappointed by the inaction of Indonesia's first female president (Megawati Sukarnoputri, 1999-2001) and by the novel's end in 2013, nothing much has changed. Like the issue of the so-called Comfort Women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese occupation forces in WW2, it seems that the use of rape as a weapon is a taboo that some cultures would rather deny. So it takes some courage for an Indonesian author to broach this topic.
t’s not that I hadn’t kept up with the inaugural Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award: it’s just that two of the three finalists were short story collect’s not that I hadn’t kept up with the inaugural Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award: it’s just that two of the three finalists were short story collections and I prefer novels. But a chance ‘like’ on one of my tweets, led me to a novella among the finalists, and although IMHO the novella turned out to be more of a short story at only 48 pages, I wasn’t disappointed, because it’s very good indeed. And as a bonus, there’s also a very thoughtful essay about historical denial, pragmatic politics, political radicalisation and the dilemma of truth-telling about the past without fostering resentment and vengeance. Set in Sydney in 1980, My Name is Revenge is the story of a young man of Armenian origin. Named as a reminder of the Armenian genocide in 1915, and intensely resentful of his school’s insistent denial of authenticated history, Vrezh idolises his older brother Armen and naively becomes involved in planning an act of terrorism. The story is a good example of historical fiction being used for serious purposes. I have previously referenced this essay about the value of historical fiction as an activist’s tool by Zulu author Fred Khumalo: he thinks that bringing untold stories alive in well-researched fiction can have political weight, revealing a history otherwise unknown and featuring voices otherwise silenced. My Name is Revenge is a perfect example: the international silence around the Armenian Genocide is a story that should be known by a wider audience, (and certainly by school teachers!) and the sensitive portrayal of risks associated with adolescent resentment about the denial is something we all need to understand. Writing this story as historical fiction gives it a potent immediacy and trust me, it’s compelling reading. As the author explains in the Reflective Essay that follows the novella, the plot is based on true events... To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/12/31/m......more
Way back in 2018 when I stumbled on a recommendation for Maori playwright, novelist and screenwriter Whiti Hereaka's debut novel The Graphologist's ApWay back in 2018 when I stumbled on a recommendation for Maori playwright, novelist and screenwriter Whiti Hereaka's debut novel The Graphologist's Apprentice, I bought it without knowing that it had been shortlisted for Best First Book in the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Asia/Pacific region).
This year Whiti Hereaka (b. 1978) went on to win the $60,000 Jan Medlicott medal at the the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her book Kurangaituku. which inverts the legend of Hatupatu and the fearsome birdwoman Kurangaituku by narrating the story through Kurangaituku's perspective in an experimental form. So I'm late to be discovering what an exceptional author Hereaka is... but better late than never!
The central character in The Graphologist's Apprentice is January, who has made a complete break with her former life by changing her name by deed poll. She is alone and alienated from the people around her, from her job, and from a family never mentioned. As one of the characters says, January is...
A girl who lacks empathy and seems to want to keep the world at a distance. (Kindle Loc 1540)
Her inner commentary on the people around her is often very funny, but they are a sign that she is in psychological distress.
January imagines the Situations Vacant ad for her position. Are you an unmotivated no-getter who is sick of a challenge? Do you suffer fools gladly? Do you have limited aspirations for your future? If you answered ‘yes’ you’re the perfect fit for our company. Welcome! (Loc 1787)
The firm's Christmas party is real torment:
A murder of managers, black suits and constricting ties, frown into their wine, a flock of geeks try to out-lame each other with their ironic t-shirts and their micro-brewery beer, and a pride of those who have lost all of their attempts to dance in the corner. (Loc 411)
Alice looks as if she is having the time of her life. For some reason she invited a date along. The guy doesn’t look like a gormless freak, but if he’s laughing at her jokes he may just be mentally defective. Alice moves her hand on top of his. January suddenly feels like a voyeur. The gnawing in her organs doesn’t abate with a sip of her drink, and not for the first time tonight January wishes that it were something stronger. Cyanide perhaps.
It is the first awkward moment of a romance – when you lie about little things, like your love of blue cheese, just to appease the other. Then later you find that you both detest the stuff; that you were both being polite, and you fall into each other’s arms laughing. The potential of intimacy is heady, and your entire being is focused on getting to know another. Each other’s mind and moods are a mystery that you can’t wait to solve. (Loc 430)
It’s not easy to classify this book: it’s a kind of reconstructed autobiography, which emerges from the recollections of the descendants of the subjecIt’s not easy to classify this book: it’s a kind of reconstructed autobiography, which emerges from the recollections of the descendants of the subject. The author, Nomavenda Mathiane is a South African journalist who became interested in her family history. She interviewed relations who remembered her grandmother Nombhosho and recorded their recollections of her memories from the war between the Zulu King Cetshwayo and the English, during the Battle of Isandlwana and the Anglo–Zulu War of 1879. This oral history has become a book mostly written in first person, as if Nombhosho herself were recounting her memories, but these words are not actually Nombhosho’s. They are drawn from the memories of Albertinah a.k.a. Ahh, who is the author’s much older sister. At other times the narrative shifts so that it is clear that Sis Anh is recalling what Nombhosho has told her. And there are also occasional bridging sections in first person, but these are in the voice of a narrator who we assume is the author herself . What’s interesting about this book and its shifting narrators is that it tells the story of war and dispossession from the perspective, not of the British victors nor the defeated Zulu warriors, but from a woman’s point of view. Nombhosho is on the verge of puberty when conflict erupts between the invading settlers and the Zulus who own the land. Her narrative of these events is written as if she is a young girl, not an older woman recounting it to her grandchildren. She recounts the conflict with considerable detail in a manner not entirely consistent with her age because she realises what’s at stake if the invaders win. But whatever narrative voice is used, Nombhosho’s concerns are primarily domestic.
Sis Ahh responded. ‘Gogo, together with her mother and little sister, lived in the caves in the Shiyane mountains, surviving on roots and rats. Occasionally, their father Makhoba – our great-grandfather – would travel from the king’s palace at Ondini to the mountains, a journey which took him days because there were no buses transporting people in those days. He did this trip, which is about fifty kilometres, barefooted. And since his country was at war, he had to be vigilant and watch out for the English soldiers, because they would kill him on sight or abduct him and turn him into a slave. ‘Gogo described their abode in the mountain as a single entrance cave that was secured by a huge boulder against which was an enormous tree trunk. A small strip was left open to let in light and a bit of air. The interior was perpetually damp and since the cave was a narrow structure, there was little room to manoeuvre. They could only lie down or sit with their legs folded. The ground was covered with grass, soft tree leaves and branches which served as a mattress beneath their grass mats. To gain entry to the cave one had to crawl, one person at a time. Apart from the chirping birds in the morning that heralded the beginning of another day, there was no way of telling night from day.’ The mood in the room had changed from jovial to serious as we listened to Sis Ahh, who at that point had transformed to personify Gogo for the benefit of her narration. (Kindle Locations 728-739).
When they are forced to flee the coming conflict, becoming refugees in their own land, Nombhosho misses the space and order of her own home. She misses the routine of her days, the chores she had to do and the games she played, and also the relaxed presence of her extended family. When looming defeat means they have to hide even further away, she is separated from her extended family altogether, and she misses her cousins, her aunts and uncles and most of all, her grandmother. She recalls the hunger, the lack of hygiene, the fear and the boredom, but she also recalls her mother wanting to delay the onset of puberty for reasons not expressed but which the reader can guess at. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/08/01/e......more
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