Greeny

I'm sorry for the silence of the last few days but I was joined, rather abruptly, by an old cohort of mine: a certain Mr. Green. We hadn't seen each other in some two or three years and, although we used to play a bit of golf together some ten years ago, we haven't exactly kept in regular contact. How delightful it is then to re-establish a connection with someone whom you'd expected had only drifted away from you into newer and sprightlier circles. We gave American ale a run for its money and sampled the local hotspots, of which there are few, and so we became community folk-heroes for a few fleeting moments. This morning I sent him on his way toward the Grand Canyon courtesy of a Greyhound bus. I hope he won't mind me revealing this, but he's somewhat of a Blues fan. (We delighted some local characters one evening with a brief but heated debate regarding the existence or non-existence of a man named Robert Johnson.) And so, Greeny ventures across this great Republic in a mini-pilgrimage to the birthplaces of Blues: Austin, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana. I wish him all the best. Remarkably, it will only be a few weeks before we see each other again at my 21st birthday bash. Already, I look forward to looking back.

Coetzee and Face

Continuing with the rather boppy theme of facial mutilation, we are forced to reckon with the ongoing and acutely wonderful canon of the work of J.M. Coetzee. My infatuation for Coetzee began with a hurried reading of Disgrace, the story of an ageing male professor enjoying a bout of uncontrollable lust for the younger members of the female sex. Those of you savvy enough to have read the novel, for which he deservedly received the Booker Prize in 1999, will know that my little synopsis is an extremely poor distillation of a masterwork of contemporary literature.

My sudden, impassioned regard for Coetzee has taken me through many of his earlier works of fiction. Here, chronology deserves our attention. Pineda's Face was published in 1984; Coetzee, as he writes in his foreword, first read the book in 1985, two years after the publication of the novel that first earned him the Booker Prize in 1983, The Life and Times of Michael K, but a year before the publication of his lesser-known re-imagining of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, simply entitled Foe.

In 2003 the board of Nobel judges for literature, after awarding Coetzee the honor, issued, by way of brief explanation, the following appraisal of his work: “In numerable guises [Coetzee] presents the surprising involvement of the outsider.” The inimitable protagonist of Coetzee's fourth novel, Michael K is a classic outsider figure, shirking society, preferring to live a life of seclusion and self-sufficiency, a combination that proves rather demanding during the chaos of the South African civil war of the seventies and eighties. Setting Michael K apart, however, is his hare lip, "like a snail's foot", which he ardently refuses to have corrected. Coetzee's recognition of the importance of the face, then, is established.

Prior to this, his second novel, In the Heart of the Country tells the story of a female genius living as a housemaid in rural South-Africa, unable to articulate her fears and escape. She is noted for her mannish appearance, enhanced by a single eyebrow that stretches across the base of her forehead. It appears, therefore, that Coetzee's construction of the outward appearances of his protagonists greatly informs our understanding of their social standing. Indeed, during the pivotal set-piece, central to the thematic and narrative arc of Disgrace, our protagonist, David Lurie has his ear badly singed by fire. Facial misconfiguration, therefore, becomes somewhat of an index throughout Coetzee's novels, providing the acid test by which we assess and develop the protagonist at hand.

During his fictional reworking of the writing process behind Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (which, one might convincingly argue, could be labelled 'creative-fiction'), Coetzee takes the character of Friday, Crusoe's loyal manservant, and makes him a mute. How, exactly, Friday lost his tongue remains unclear, and the female protagonist, Susan Barton, struggles continually in her search for the answer. Obviously, unable to speak, Friday cannot explain the cause or the perpetrator that reduced him to such barbarism. Barton describes being positively repulsed by Friday upon learning of his affliction: a very similar repulsion described by the peers of Helio Cara in Face. Friday becomes an object of curiosity, revulsion, and exile. During a moment of speculation and attempted empathy, Barton ponders her lingering sense of disgust.

An aversion that came over me that we feel for all the mutilated. Why is that so, do you think? Because they put us in mind of what we would rather forget. […] Perhaps. But toward you I felt a deeper revulsion. I could not put out of mind the softness of the tongue, its softness and wetness, and the fact that it does not live in the light, also how helpless it is before the knife, once the barrier of the teeth have been passed.

The passage is notable not only for Barton's description, but also because it was written by Coetzee just after his first reading of Face, in 1986. The above examples of facial deformity, taken alongside this erudite, yet powerful exploration of the face's innate attachment to the human condition, lend some insight into Coetzee's obsession with the face, whilst expanding upon yesterday's theory of sameness.

Cecil Pineda's Face

In 1977 Cecile Pineda, then an aspiring journalist working in San Francisco, found a backpage news story originating from Brazil reporting on the tragic accident of a man who had, falling down a cliff, had his face torn from his skull. For two years she sat on the story, believing that a novelist would inevitably pick it up, transforming the facts into fiction. Nothing happened, but the memory of the story lingered and, she says, came to "fester like an unhealed wound". She took up the challenge herself, writing a breathtaking 200 page novel entitled, Face. The story is one of identity and insensitivity, recognition and representation, suffering and social acceptability. Following the accident Helio Cara, unable to afford reconstructive surgery, receives a rubber mask through which he can barely breathe. Wandering the backstreets of Rio de Janeiro's Whale Back slum, wearing a handkerchief where his face used to be, he invites the seemingly endless hostility and violence of his neighbours. He loses his job as a hairdresser, his girlfriend, and any sense of social identity. All react with revulsion and disgust. It is wrenching. Interestingly and importantly, as you'll see, the 2003 Nobel Prize winner, J.M. Coetzee writes in the book's foreword:

Helio Cara is a man who loses his face and learns what it is to live in a society that is neither particularly cruel nor particularly kind, just has no philosophy of the face, has given no thought to the face, and therefore reacts to facelessness with bewilderment and anger.

Indeed, this is the natural Human reaction to the unknown, but Coetzee suggests that there is a unique manifestation of this phenomenon that is reserved especially for the face:

What is this thing, this structure of skin and bone and gristle and muscle, that we are condemned to carry around with us wherever we go? Where does is it begin, where does it end? And why does everyone see it rather than seeing me?

My most recent professor of English, Carlos Gallego has an interesting theory on the subject. He claims that we are instinctively, yet also consciously repulsed by Human mutilation, particularly of the face, because it reminds us of our sameness. Articulating this concept is problematic. Human society and cultural ideology is heavily steeped in the concept of individuality. The fact that we are merely animals requires constant mental reinforcement. Identity and recognition provide the grounding upon which we construct our most elite notions of personal integrity, fortitude, and success. Gazing upon the viscera of a fellow Human's innards, therefore, acts an unwelcome reminder of the ultimate futility of individuality. The unpolished, unkempt, and stinking contents of one's gut, for example, are not nearly as revolting or terrifying as the prospect they conjure, not of death, but of sameness.

The Yard

As I mentioned earlier, Bryan Appleyard, or, as he's known to his antagonists, The Yard has reentered the blogiverse. He's a blost and writer with whom I find myself increasingly in disagreement. As Nick Cohen notes on his blogroll, Bryan is "Brilliant on everything except God". There's a very strong case to be made for this, but the strength of Bryan's perspective seems to lull significantly in ever more areas. I recall being rendered furious by his Sunday Times review of Lars Von Trier's Anti-Christ, in which he called for censorship, if not an outright ban. For all his faults, however, we forgive him because he can write. I first discovered The Yard through the (uniquely valuable) Clive James website where he's rightly listed among other guest writers who "are in touch with reality". He's a writer who gave me the tools and the courage to write how I've always wanted, and, for that alone, I pass on the highest of recommendations.

Spider

Courtesy of a nod in that direction by director extraordinaire, David Cronenberg, I've just read Patrick McGrath's Spider, an exploration of working class Britain and family breakdown through the perspective of a schizophrenic. It's a successful book successfully translated to the screen, partly due to the truthful performance of Ralph Fiennes, but mainly because Cronenberg understood the foundations upon which the novel succeeds: consistency of narrative voice. For a masterclass in the art of narrative consistency see Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero, and, of course, Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye. Consistency requires a tremendous amount of self-restraint and, importantly, faith in the reader. Indeed, we learn of Spider's character, as we do of Clay in Less Than Zero, more from what remains unsaid, than from what we read on the page. In a glorious instant of sub-epiphanous understanding, Spider traces his sense of identity through a shift in personalities while writing in his journal; at once, his schizophrenia is bared before him, and yet he is unable to see it. (Coincidentally, it goes some way toward providing an insight into how I feel about blogging again.)

I begin to write. And as I do a strange thing happens, the pencil starts to move along the faint blue lines of the page almost as though it had a will of its own, almost as though my memories [...] were contained not within this stubbled leather helmet of this head of mine but in the pencil itself, as though they were tiny particles all packed together in a long thin column of graphite, running across the page while my fingers, like a motor, provide merely the mechanical means of their discharge. When this happens I have the curious sensation not of writing but of being written.

Banner

Before I go on, a word, if I may, on the banner. It's shit. Late last night, through the haze of tired eyes, wishful thinking, and general ineptitude, it looked alright. A replacement, I should hope, is imminent. I'm fairly happy with the general look and layout of the blog; it's a little frayed around the edges but it stands proud. The banner, however, could use a revamp. The Dutton, perhaps during a moment of unthinking generosity, has offered to do a proper one, minus the use of (as he rightly guessed) Microsoft Paint. Coming from the Man responsible for such examples as this, we wait with baited breath.

Tribulus Terrestris

Your blost returns, comrades, driven on by the return of the Yard, the undying, unquenchable compulsion to write, and the worried words of frustrated friends and loved ones. I barely have time to think, dear reader, let alone take pen in hand. Unperturbed, my knuckles twitch with anxious anticipation. The burdens of time hang over me like a heavy head. For someone who struggles to find time in which to masturbate (properly), I'm surprised at my lack of sexual, testosteronic vigour. Where is it all directed? All activity spurns the keyboard, preferring the sustenance of food and sleep. Hours seep into days, days into weeks. Afar are the days of regular updates and concentric discussion. An apology would be untrue. I return at last.

I Talk To The Wind

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