Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh - edited by Amy Raphael

 Like many people I first became aware of Mike Leigh with the television presentation of Abigail‘s Party. A notable occasion because I can vividly remember sitting watching what I thought was an amazing play. Laughing and then feeling dreadful for laughing, but all the time recognising that somebody had an eye and an ear for the nuances of human behaviour. I guess I’ve been a fan ever since.

So this book caught my attention. You might think that it is just a book for Mike Leigh fans. And of course it is but there’s so much more in it that relates to the making of film - the practical aspects, the technology as well as the artistic considerations, the art of the actor, the sourcing of locations and props that I think it has a broader appeal.

The book goes through Mr Leigh’s career from its start through to Peterloo. This is an updated version of the original book and begins with forewords to the new edition and the 2008 edition. The book then works chronologically through Mike Leigh’s productions offering a synopsis with cast details and then the editor, Amy Raphael, knowledgeably talking to Mike Lee about each of those productions. It’s fascinating stuff. And you really feel that you’re getting to know the man behind the lens, his motivations and his beliefs.  Known primarily for his film and television work the book concludes with details of all his stage plays containing his own commentary. 

This is as comprehensive a work as you’re ever likely to get on this talented director. It’s very readable and offers many insight into the life in the world of a film director, both specifically and broadly. Mike Leigh is as articulate outside of the camera as he is behind it and he’s quite happy to offer his opinions -  his agreements and disagreements - with his interviewer. 

Something I found fascinating was the number of people he works with who have stayed loyal to him throughout his career from all aspects of the creative process. That tells me a lot about a person. Especially as perhaps his methods are not necessarily conventional. Reading about the improvisation process was quite an eye-opener. And I ended up admiring his work all the more.

My thanks to NB magazine for a gifted copy.

Wonder - Ana Sampson

As a reader of fiction, primarily,  I have my favourite authors. Writers whose work I seek out avidly. Up to two or three years ago I couldn’t have said the same about poetry. Then I read Ana Sampson’s She is Fierce and it jumpstarted my poetry mojo, not just back into motion but supercharged it! Now I will always grab a copy of any anthology she produces. Why? What makes this anthologist different from all the others?  I’m not sure I can say finitely but whatever she does it resonates with me. I always get the sense that her books are lovingly curated. I enjoy the way she arranges the poems and gives just the right amount of commentary to complement rather than dominate the poems. There is a sense that the poems have been arranged much like the installations in an art exhibition. So you have such a sense of cohesion throughout the work

So it’s no wonder that I grabbed myself a copy of Wonder! This collection is affiliated with the Natural History Museum which I think is wonderful. 

Once more you know that every poem has been thoughtfully considered for its inclusion in the collection. And as you go through the various sections in the book - Mammals, Earth, Space etc it’s like taking a walk through the museum itself. 

Something else I’ve always admired about this anthologist’s work is the range of poems included. There will be classical poetry with the likes of Shelley and Wordsworth but there will also be more contemporary poetry from folk like Neil Gaiman and Carol Ann Duffy and poetry from poets you may never have heard of. It’s so inclusive. 

And in this collection there are some relevant photos also to complement the poems and the museum itself. It’s a wonderful advert not just for poetry but for visiting the natural history museum. And as with all of Ana‘s anthologies you can dip in and out of it and find some gem each time you do. And there’s something in here for everybody. 

 

The Mask - Elisabeth Horan

Frida Kahlo and her work has fascinated me since I first beheld one of her self portraits in a book. I then saw a film about her which motivated me to find out more.  I was fortunate enough to attend the 2005 exhibition at Tate Modern and stand before her powerful paintings in the flesh so to speak. The impact of that reality was far greater then ‘merely’ beholding the images in a book or postcard, of course. So it’s unsurprising when the prospect of reading a collections of poems inspired by Frida’s work was presented to me I snapped up the offer with both hands.

The Mask, taking its title from one of Frida’s many self portraits, is a collection of poems celebrating the art of Frida Kahlo offering an interpretation of her paintings through poems.  What shines through is the poet’s love and admiration for Frida and the sense of the many parallels between their lives. Frida painted numerous self portraits and in many ways poems are the poet’s self portraits, too. In this collection there is a fusion between the poems inspired by the paintings creating almost double self portraits!

I had the sense of this being a deeply personal and emotive suite of poems, exploring the pain of life; physical pain, emotional pain and mental pain. I somehow feel as if it is Frida herself speaking almost as a commentary to her paintings, and frequently peppered with Spanish? Mexican? Her frankness and openness were there as they are in her art but then I realised, too, that these were the words of a poet, powerful, direct. There is anger and frustration in the words but there is much love, too, and courage. I think that both Frida and Elisabeth Horan are brave women.

When I’m commenting on a poetry collection I usually cite my favourites and offer quotes from them but I found that impossible and almost irrelevant here. For I read them as a whole. Yes, each poem is separate as are Frida’s paintings but they comprise a cohesive unit, unfit for separation. Elisabeth Horan uses words and imagery as Frida used colour and composition. The end result is startling.

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon at Fly on the Wall Press and The Broken Spine for a copy of this absorbing collection.

The Coward - Jarred McGinnis Canongate Books readalong

 

When I picked up a book that I understood was a work of fiction and as I began to read I found that the name of the protagonist is the same as the author my first thought was one word. Brave. Which was pretty surprising really when the title of the book, The Coward, could be seen as the opposite of that! It would’ve been so easy to conjure a fictional name and have us all read the story of these lives fractured by tragedy and how the rebuilding of them is so vast and so immense. But I wonder how different the reader response would have been? Would it have evoked the same level of compassion and admiration? Somehow I doubt it. So I see it, almost as a stroke of genius to do what Jarred McGinnis has done. It’s clever too because offering it as a work of fiction means that he doesn’t have to stick solely to every single fact although the reading of it makes me feel that it’s pretty much accurate in most respects.

Thematically the book is about the crap that life can throw at us. It’s about anger and blame but it’s also about forgiveness and redemption. Plus it is a window as to how disabled people are perceived by the world and how that affects anyone with a disability. It looks at addiction and what that can do to somebody’s life. It portrays a kaleidoscope of emotions. It’s raw, honest with no punches pulled. It’s crisp writing that strikes a balance, in spite of the devastating situation the protagonist is in. Positivity and hope are tantalisingly implied as the narrative progresses. I laughed and I cried. The development of the relationship between father and son is absorbing. And as the events of the past unfold and peel away, like the layers of an onion, we begin to see how both Jarred and Jack, his father, carry their emotional scars like weights across their shoulders. At times they are both so absorbed in their own distress they fail to see what’s happening to each other. It’s grim at times and distressing even so some of the author’s wit is most necessary to offer a kind of light relief. I guess it also highlights how at times you need someone else to be the bridge, the anchor, the support you need to get through things which seem bigger than you are. She’s here in this book. And she is called Sarah. A wonderful character. And if she is a real life person, and I think she is, she’s a wonderful person.

Ultimately it reinforces the endurance of the human spirit and the ability that people have to summon the strength they need to find the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. 

My reading of this book was for Canongate Books readalong. I’m very grateful for that opportunity and for the gifted copy of the book. And to conclude -  if I may quote Jack, “I’m done talking to you. I need coffee. “

Dunfords Travels Everywheres- William Melvin Kelley

I’m editing this post already. Not because I have read the book again but because I had an exchange on social media with William Melvin Kelley’s daughter. How incredible is that?! And she offered such a fantastic insight into approaching the book that I asked her if she would mind if I quoted her in full. She agreed. What she says is absolutely brilliant and spot-on. So I’m thrilled to add it to this post.

‘ My father was excited when I started Ulysses because it was his favorite book. I got maybe 12 pages in—and it was a wrap. Dunfords tho… it’s not something you read once and understand. But it wasn’t intended to be. It’s meant to be read the way you’d listen to a sax solo by Charlie Parker or Lester Young. There’s a theme stated. And then there are riffs. Sometimes those riffs go WAY out, but they are always on beat, and the chords supporting the solo are ever present. You take flight… sometimes you’ll hear a phrase borrowed from another piece or song. It’ll make you laugh because you recognize it’s a joke. You continue listening and wondering where these notes will end up, and then you hear the piano or bass and realize “oh, we’re back at the bridge to the song.” Then maybe the drummer has a solo… but then the whole band comes back and brings the piece to a satisfying conclusion. Dunfords is like that. Over the past two years as I was helping prepare the illustrations for these new editions, I would just randomly read a chapter. And after awhile you begin to FEEL the meaning of what’s going on without needing to know EXACTLY what’s being said. It’s taken me 20 years to appreciate Dunfords 😂 and I grew up with the book. But it’s gotten to be my favorite.’

 It was with a sense of sadness that I picked up this final novel of William Melvin Kelley. Why sadness? Because it’s the last. And whilst I know I can read them all again whenever I want there is that new jar of coffee feeling when you pick up a book by one of your favourite writers.  I began this knowing that once I’ve read it there will be nothing new to read from “the lost giant of American literature“.

This is like nothing of Kelley’s I’ve read before. I guess the reader is prepared for what lies ahead to an extent by quotes from James Joyce and the title echoing a phrase from Finnegan’s Wake and I will confess now that sometimes I didn’t understand what he was writing. I found the best way to extract the meaning was to read the book aloud in the sequences containing, what I’ll call ‘creative vocabulary’!  This vocabulary and intonation whilst redolent of James Joyce also reminded me of Stanley Unwin! The wordplay is astonishingly clever. It’s witty and incisive. I would’ve expected no less from Kelley. But I’d also have to say it’s a challenging and sometimes difficult read compared with Kelly’s previous works. But so fascinating and so creative. And I will confess I was trying to read and review it ready for publication day. But it’s a book to be re-read, savoured and lingered over. And that I will do. That being said there are elements in the early chapters of the novel that are the pure Kelley that I’ve grown to know and love in terms of themes,  narrative style and story structure and characterisations. The sense of continuity that runs through all of Kelley’s works has characters such as Chig Dunford and Carlyle Bedlow making their appearance in this book too. In fact the story really looks at Chig’s rediscovery of himself as a black American and contrasts him with Carlyle. 

At the moment it’s not my favourite Kelley book and I can’t believe I can even bring myself to write that about someone who I have on a pedestal! But I don’t believe it’s a book to be read and cast aside. I think it’s a book to be explored slowly and deliberately and the rewards will be immense. To quote Kelley  ‘If You’re Woke,You Dig It’. I may even return to this review and update it in the future.

My thanks to Ana McLaughlin at riverrun for a gifted copy.

Learwife - J R Thorp

 

Somehow I think Shakespeare would heartily approve of this novel. It is erudite and literate. It is expansive and poetic. The prose actually demands that you read great swathes of it aloud for it is full of consonants that roll around your tongue giving meaning and illumination to the thoughts and feelings of that most mysterious of queens, King Lear‘s wife.

I suppose the big question is whether you need to be familiar with Shakespeare’s play to benefit fully from this book. I guess not. It’s a long time since I read the play and I didn't feel in any way disadvantaged.  For the narrator, who is not named until the concluding pages, is ignorant of the action that takes place within the play. she exists outside of that. It is the characters, Lear, the daughters, Kent and the Fool that figure in ‘our’ narrative, rather than the events of the play.

In some ways the novel could be an extended monologue of almost Shakespearean proportions as Learwife expresses the depths of her emotion at the treatment and the life she’s been forced to lead since Lear exiled her to a nunnery. All of her energies and reason are dedicated to trying to understand what happened and why.

This is a book I took many days to read not because I didn't enjoy it, quite the reverse, I was astounded by the depth and quality of the writing and the need to savour the experience. At times it seems that the plot or sequence of events were secondary to the writing itself so the book can be experienced on different levels. There is a story, of course there is! It seems to feed off some of the conundrums explored in Shakespeare’s play but the narrative also abounds with the most palpable and potent imagery. The Bard was never far from my thoughts, I have to admit, and indeed, in the concluding passages I found myself thinking of Ophelia.

It is at heart a feminist novel, I feel, the ‘action’ takes place in a nunnery and the dynamics between all the women is explored and examined, particularly with the choice that Learwife has to make after an exceptional event disrupts the equilibrium of the order.

We never stray far from historical fiction as Learwife recounts her life as Queen, her two marriages, her children and what might have led to the exiled state she finds herself in. The portrayal is solid and believable.

But mostly I think it falls into the literary fiction genre. It’s complex writing, breathtaking in places. My only negative thought is that it might be over long. I can see that readers who prefer a character or plot driven narrative might find it slow. But over all as a debut novel I was mightily impressed and I wouldn't be surprised to see this on some award long or shortlists in the future.
My thanks to Canongate books for a gifted proof. 

The Swift and The Harrier - Minette Walters

 This is a gripping and absorbing historical fiction novel from the erstwhile Queen of crime, Minette Walters. But I think she could now be called the Queen of historical fiction! This latest novel takes a departure from her previous two historical novels and focuses on the Civil War - Cavaliers and the Roundheads as we learnt it at school! But it’s more than “just“ a Civil War novel.

In it Ms Walters looks at the lives of women in the 17th century. Central to the narrative is Jayne Swift, a physician. An extremely unusual position for a woman in those times. In terms of the war Jayne remains neutral and her desire is to treat anyone in need of help which ever side they happen to be on. Whilst Jayne is the cement that glues the narrative together there are other characters who regularly impose themselves on the reader, in most cases quite favourably, but sometimes not! As for the title? Clearly Jane is the Swift but who is the Harrier? I’ll say this of him, he’s a man of many parts. But I’m giving nothing away. Watch out for Lady Alice, too, she is a fascinating and formidable character.

Minette Walters knows how to tell a story. An easy flowing narrative progresses at just the right pace. Scene is set very early on and the passage of war, which is seldom fast, is conveyed through a slower mid book narrative and the end of the book gathers momentum as the ends are all tied up. Characterisations that make us want to get to know these people, their lives, what makes them tick. Jayne is not exactly unpredictable but you can’t always second-guess her. She is courageous, intelligent and certainly flies the flag for women of her age and intellect. You just can’t help warming to her. Plenty of action, social comment, historical comment and maybe a hint of romance? My lips are sealed.

But as well as enjoying an engrossing story I learnt a hell of a lot about a period in history that I barely remember from my scant childhood history lessons. I feel better informed now. And I think the research was detailed and very plausible. So much so that I feel readers who might not instantly cite historical fiction as a favourite genre might well enjoy this book. Geographically too I felt that the author has a great deal of affection for Dorset and its surrounding environs.

My thanks to Readers First for a gifted copy.