Other writing: reviews and articles

Macbeth & Son, Jackie French

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:04:02 +1000

Jackie French is on a mission to educate young Australians and correct historical misconceptions. Fortunately she does this in a form that is entertaining as well as informative. Her latest effort, Macbeth & Son, is being promoted as “a story in the tradition of Hitler’s Daughter”, her tremendously popular and acclaimed 1999 novel. As with that work, Macbeth & Son alternates between children in the present day who are experiencing difficulties and the imagined “historical” events that provide a salutary lesson to them. In her recent novel Tom Appleby, Convict Boy French set out to depict a more accurate picture of the transportation of convicts to Australia than that which is popularly disseminated. The popular story of the Scottish King Macbeth, as written by Shakespeare, is at once both more entrenched and more open to revision than the tales of Australia’s colonisation and the horrors of the Third Reich, if only because it belongs in the distant past.

The novel alternates chapters between Lulach and the hard life he experiences in eleventh century Scotland, and Luke in modern day Australia. Both boys lose a father and have to cope with a stepfather and the inherent difficulties of coping with a man who has usurped their mother’s affections. Luke’s problems become more of a moral nature than those of Lulach who has to deal with a brutal and violent world of war.

Luke lives in a small country town, but the big city calls through his stepfather, a breakfast TV announcer who works in Sydney, and the scholarship exam he sits to get into a prestigious private school. Not only does he feel emotional conflict through his ties to the land and the people who are close to him, but also it becomes clear to him that not everything has been above board in his efforts to gain entry into the school. Although he did not initiate any wrongdoing, Luke becomes morally complicit in the deceptive aspect of the scholarship exam by not immediately revealing that something was amiss.

Meanwhile, Luke is studying Shakespeare’s Macbeth at school, and struggling to become engaged with a story that seems alien to him. Then he starts having these vivid dreams of eleventh century Scotland, where he seems to somehow inhabit the body (without controlling it) of a boy called Lulach. Luke is a spectator as Lulach struggles to deal with his father’s violent death fighting futile and wasteful wars for King Duncan, and then his mother’s subsequent remarriage to a powerful man from another village. French attempts to delay the revelation in order for Luke to be suitably slow on the uptake, but it should be clear to the reader early on, not least because of the book’s title, that the unnamed canny warrior who marries Lulach’s mother the Lady Gruoch is Macbeth.

But much to Luke’s puzzlement after he realises that this man is Macbeth, he seems to be a profoundly good and wise man, and someone who wants the best for his country, Scotland, or Alba as it was then known by its inhabitants. Duncan, by contrast, is a venal ruler who is destroying his country. This is, of course, profoundly different to the story that Luke has belatedly begun to read for class, what has essentially become the accepted story ever since Shakespeare’s villainous and easily influenced anti-hero first trod the boards at the Globe theatre and captured the imagination of play-goers over the succeeding centuries.

French is not the first to question the accuracy of Shakespeare’s depiction of historical events, of course, in Macbeth or his other plays. In fact just last year the ABC screened a documentary in the British Fact or Fiction series on ‘The Real Macbeth’, which made most of the essential points that French makes in her novel, although from quite a different perspective than French’s richly imagined fleshing out of a sketchy historical framework.

Ultimately, French’s novel, as well as dealing with the moral conundrums faced by the major characters, questions the morality of aesthetic appropriation of real events if that involves changing them, and ruining the reputation of a good person. Luke has to give a class presentation on Macbeth, and rather than answer his set topic he instead tells the true story of what he has learned initially through his dreams and subsequently through research. Afterwards, he attempts to explain to his teacher why even though Shakespeare created a masterpiece he betrayed an obligation to depict events truthfully:
‘I asked you two days ago, “How can Shakespeare have written all that when it wasn’t true?” and you said it didn’t matter. That the play was more important than the truth.
‘Well, I don’t think it is. Does truth matter? I think it does. What if someone wrote a play in a hundred years time about our Prime Minister? How he was so evil he secretly murdered all his opponents? Or how he was so brave he fought off the New Zealanders when they tried to invade?
‘Neither one would be true. But people might think it was true…especially if it was a brilliant play.’
Even though the treatment of this theme comes across as a little forced it is a fascinating issue to raise and helps give real depth to Macbeth & Son.

Jackie French has seemingly effortlessly churned out yet another fascinating page-turner of a novel that should be of great interest to young readers. Sometimes it comes across as a little twee, and perhaps it is too earnest for its own good (which can often be a fatal error in novels for young adults), but you can’t help but be won over by French’s lightly worn erudition and ability to create gripping stories out of widely disparate material. And just as Luke’s appreciation of the real historical events behind Macbeth helped him engage with Shakespeare’s play, so any student studying the Scottish play would benefit from a reading of French’s imaginative depiction of those events.

Vampire Blood Trilogy, Darren Shan

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:23:10 +1000

Darren Shan (real name Darren O’Shaughnessy) has apparently been something of a publishing sensation in recent years. His series of vampire novels for teens, collectively known as The Saga of Darren Shan, have been so successful since the first instalment was published in 2000 that his publishers have seen fit to repackage and republish them as a series of trilogies, the first of which has been titled the Vampire Blood Trilogy. This volume comprises the novels Cirque Du Freak, The Vampire’s Assistant and Tunnels of Blood and comes emblazoned with a quote from J. K. Rowling on the cover (‘Leaves the reader hungry for more’) that is no doubt intended as an imprimatur of quality despite the rather weak pun.

Vampire narratives have a long and venerable history in our culture, with the literary tradition going back as far as Lord Byron’s poem ‘The Giaour’ and his friend Polidori’s story ‘The Vampyre’ through the undoubted king of vampire stories, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to more recent takes on the genre such as Anne Rice’s hugely popular series starting with Interview with the Vampire. It is with this later series that the Darren Shan books have more in common, rather than the ‘classic’ vampire stories. They owe even more, though, to cinematic and television portrayals of vampires, and particularly those which have teenage protagonists such as the 1987 movie The Lost Boys and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Ken Gelder, in his book Reading the Vampire, identifies the blurring of the real and the states of uncertainty and illusion as key features of vampire narratives, and Darren Shan certainly intends to play with the reader’s understanding of what is real and what is illusion in these stories, not least by identifying author and protagonist as one and the same. The introductory chapter of Cirque Du Freak contains the following disclaimer:

One more thing: my name isn’t really Darren Shan. Everything’s true in this book, except for names. I’ve had to change them because… well, by the time you get to the end, you’ll understand.
I haven’t used any real names, not mine, my sister’s, my friends or teachers. Nobody’s. I’m not even going to tell you the name of my town or country. I daren’t.

This gambit of ‘changing names to protect the innocent’ is supposed to add a certain frisson of reality for readers, along the lines of, ‘Yeah, I know vampires aren’t real, but what if they were…’ The author creates some problems for himself, however, with this decision to obscure the location of the stories. Classic vampire stories such as Dracula are part Gothic and part travelogue, with a specific location (albeit a mysterious and ‘unknown’ one) that adds an aura of authenticity to proceedings. Anne Rice’s heavily researched stories are explicitly located in real world sites such as New Orleans and Paris, and even The Lost Boys and Buffy have specific (if fictional) locations in small-town America. Darren Shan apparently churns out a new novel every few months and by removing all references to real locations he certainly eliminates the need to do extensive research and fact checking. The cost of this, however, is that the novels have a sense of vagueness and a lack of detail that works against the very sense of lurking at the boundaries of the real world that the author would like to create.

It is not giving too much away to reveal that in the first novel, Cirque Du Freak, Darren himself becomes a half-vampire, with the series therefore taking a somewhat unusual route amongst vampire stories in that there is an element of ‘sympathy for the devil’, telling stories from the vampire’s point of view. Anne Rice is undoubtedly the key influence here, but there is a strong affinity with the aforementioned The Lost Boys and Buffy, where vampirism (or, in Buffy’s case, being a slayer of vampires) becomes a metaphor for the difficulties and angst faced by teenagers yearning to inhabit an adult world. With Darren becoming a half-vampire he also becomes an exemplar of ‘in-betweenness’, belonging neither in the human world nor amongst fully-fledged vampires. In this sense, the changes that Darren undergoes are symbolic of the changes of adolescence and the struggle to gain entry into adulthood. Just as he is neither human nor vampire, so he is neither child nor adult.

The relationships between children and their parents are a recurring theme in all three novels. Darren’s relationship with his own family in Cirque Du Freak is depicted as idyllic and loving (and not entirely convincing), in stark contrast to his friend Steve, whose parents are divorced. Steve has a strained relationship with his mother, with whom he lives, and longs to escape. But instead of Steve it is Darren who is forced to leave his family behind after he becomes a half-vampire at the hands of the fully-fledged vampire Mr Crepsley. In The Vampire’s Assistant, after he has taken on that role as assistant to Mr Crepsley, Darren gains a surrogate family in the form of the ‘Cirque Du Freak’ of the first novel, a travelling freak show run by the mysterious ‘Mr Tall’. Here he bonds with a ‘snake boy’ by the name of Evra who becomes his friend (and stand-in brother). The Vampire’s Assistant also features another adolescent, Sam, who like Steve in the first novel wishes to escape from his family and gain an ‘adult’ freedom. In the third novel of the trilogy, Tunnels of Blood, Mr Crepsley’s role as surrogate father to Darren becomes explicit as the pair, along with Evra, travel to an unnamed (of course) city and masquerade as a family. Given this set up, the opening of the novel, which shows Darren attempting to kill Mr Crepsley, takes on overt Oedipal overtones.

Mr Crepsley, as the father figure in the novels, embodies the frustrations that teens feel with the adult world, particularly through the withholding of knowledge and the restrictions that are placed on and demands made of children. For example, much of the second novel is concerned with Darren’s reluctance to drink human blood, something he must do as a vampire, and Tunnels of Blood deals with some of the restrictions placed on Darren, such as not becoming too involved with humans, despite his adolescent yearnings towards members of the opposite sex.

Overall, the Vampire Blood Trilogy provides an uneasy combination of familiar elements of teen fiction (such as family conflicts and relationships with friends) with shocking depictions of violence that are more in keeping with the horror genre to which it also belongs. Undoubtedly the violence is part of the attraction for Darren Shan’s loyal fans, but the novels seem to be hastily constructed, with the seams showing as if (to borrow from another classic of the horror genre) the whole had been constructed from disparate parts that don’t fit together neatly.

A Horse Called Elvis, John Heffernan

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:20:28 +1000

I can’t say that I’m particularly interested in horses. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between a Palomino and an Appaloosa. But there is an undeniable bond between human and equine that is explored in many a literary and filmic text, whether it be Black Beauty or the elegiac Irish film Into the West. John Heffernan’s latest novel is not a million miles from Into the West, featuring as it does a young boy doing it tough in a setting that is Australian, but could just as well be Irish. It also features a stolen horse, but is more stationary than its picaresque Irish counterpart, not moving far beyond the protagonist’s backyard.
Matt is a young, lonely boy growing up in a dysfunctional family. His dad can’t find work, is depressed and drinks too much. His mum resents his dad and seems to be permanently angry, except when she’s dancing around to Elvis music or visiting her “friend” in Grayston. His older siblings aren’t much interested in him, especially teenage sister Jaz, who has a boyfriend, much to her father’s displeasure.
When a horse called Elvis comes into Matt’s life things start looking up initially, but Elvis turns out to be a bit of a terror, infuriating Matt’s parents and other townsfolk with his antics. There’s not a lot in the plot that comes as much of a surprise, with some made-to-order baddies showing up, and the initial conflict acting as a precursor to a resolution that brings everyone together having learned valuable lessons about themselves and what is important in the world.
As in Robin Klein’s 1989 novel, Came Back To Show You I Could Fly, the young male character is inspired by a picture in a book of Pegasus, wishing that he had the ability to rein in the power of the winged horse and escape his unhappy life. But just as the film version of the Klein novel (Say a Little Prayer), was blighted by overuse of the visual metaphor of Pegasus, so Heffernan’s novel is dragged under by recurring passages in italics, translating Matt’s experience into a vision of a tropical island from a picture book he carries with him always. The passages strive for a poeticism that they just don’t achieve and have the effect of over-explaining Matt’s emotional state rather than allowing the reader to glean it from the main narrative.

Tom Appleby Convict Boy, Jackie French

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:16:59 +1000

Jackie French is a freak. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. The woman is apparently attempting to keep the entire Australian publishing industry afloat through sheer force of will, having published 110 books for both adults and children in the past 13 years. By my calculation that’s 8.46 books per year. She’ll probably have churned out her next 300-page novel by the time I’ve finished writing this review. In the meantime, if her appearances on Burke’s Backyard are anything to go by, she finds time to look after a family and a large garden as well as make homemade preserves.
French’s phenomenal output is all the more astounding given the quality of her work. Sure, some of her books for younger readers don’t have many words in them, but it isn’t easy (for mere mortals) to write award-winning children’s books, and French’s books have won plenty of awards. As for her latest effort, Tom Appleby Convict Boy, well, it’s a historical novel. The kind of book that ordinary people need to spend a long time researching in order to get the facts and the language just right. French seemingly knows Australian history inside out, however, having had bedtime stories about early Sydney from her mother since she was a small child, and access to her “great-something-grandmother’s diary”, handed down through the family for nearly 200 years.
So she knows her stuff. Fine. But see the hook for this novel, something that makes it of interest for regular adult as well as young adult readers, is that it’s not just your standard historical novel; it’s a revisionist historical novel. French wasn’t happy with some of the oft-repeated (in school texts and elsewhere) myths about the First Fleet and the settlement at Sydney Cove. She enumerates some of these (“crowded, rotting ships and dying convicts”; “the starving colony”; “transported for stealing a handkerchief”) in a series of “Author’s notes” at the end of the novel.
French’s explanation of the reality lying underneath some of the common myths about the settlement of Australia are all very well and all very educational, but what is impressive is that they are really just reinforcing what she has already made abundantly clear in the novel proper. She vividly captures the very different worlds of England and Australia in the late Eighteenth Century. You find yourself so utterly gripped by the Dickensian adventures of young Tom that you don’t even realise that you’re learning something, which really is the best kind of learning.
French has quite consciously aimed for a hybrid approach to the language, so that it carries some of the flavour of the time without being too mannered and opaque for the tastes of modern readers. The overall effect is successful, able to evoke a range of different social classes without being mired in interminable apostrophes in an attempt to evoke a Cockney accent.
It’s not giving too much away to reveal that it all turns out well for Tom Appleby, the eponymous convict boy of the novel. The reader is subjected to a number of time shifts between the exploits of the young Tom, coping in a harsh world after the death of his mother and father, and the ninetieth birthday of one Thomas Appleby, wealthy landowner in Murruroo in 1868. The old Thomas appears to have seen a ghost on his well-manicured lawn, and the apparition puzzles him as he muddles his way through the day surrounded by his large extended family.
Life for the young Tom Appleby wasn’t so pleasant, however. With a mother already several years dead and a father who’s gone and offended the King with a tract he’d been paid to print, leading to an untimely death in the stocks, you can imagine things would start to look grim. Sure enough, it’s off to the workhouse for Tom, but before long he’s sold on to become the property of an unscrupulous man running a team of chimney sweeps. Much like William Blake’s forlorn “little black thing among the snow” who laments “They clothed me in the clothes of death, / And taught me to sing the notes of woe”, Tom has soon passed from singing songs of innocence to songs of experience. Before he knows it he’s involved in a life of crime with visions of escaping the cruel chimneys for a legitimate life on the streets of London.
As we all know, that “last job” before going straight never works out, and the thief with a heart of gold ends up in Newgate Prison. After being further hardened by the horrors he experiences there we soon follow him on a long voyage to a new colony where we know things will work out for him eventually.
Knowing the happy ending does not hinder the enjoyment of the tale in any way, and French is a master at keeping you guessing what exactly lies ahead for Tom. She’s also got that ghost up her sleeve. Just who is it that old Thomas Appleby keeps catching a glimpse of on his lawn? You’ll definitely want to keep reading to find out. And in the few days it takes you to read you can be fairly confident that there’ll be a brand new Jackie French book awaiting you once you’ve finished.

The Pelagius Book, Paul Morgan

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:14:32 +1000

Paul Morgan has impeccable literary credentials: he studied philosophy and literature at the University of Wales, where he wrote an MA thesis on Nabokov’s Lolita and a PhD on the twentieth century novel. He has written academic studies and worked as an editor and antiquarian-book buyer. With literature practically flowing through his veins, his first novel, based on the life of the fifth century philosopher Pelagius, should be something to look forward to keenly. Unfortunately, it is something of a disappointment.
Celestius, the secretary and friend of Pelagius, who accompanies him to Rome from their home in Britain, just as the Empire is in terminal decline, narrates the novel. We discover the teachings of Pelagius, such as they are, through Celestius’ eyes, but it is never obvious to the reader why his acolyte venerates him quite so much. The irony in the title of this novel is that Celestius constantly implores Pelagius to write down his philosophy in book form, only to be continually rebuffed. Celestius comes to understand why via a somewhat heavy-handed message when he returns to Britain and discovers that his version of Pelagius’ philosophy has indeed been written down, but the message has become corrupted and the Socratic ideal of open discussion between pupil and teacher has been lost. By the end of the novel, after Rome has been sacked and Pelagius has disappeared, Celstius comes to realise that “His words lie all around us – we only have to read them.” But those words are somewhat vaporous, consisting primarily of the rejection of the doctrine of original sin, as espoused by Augustine, and loose platitudes about people being free to select their own destiny.
The major problem with the novel is that Pelagius remains lifeless as a character, his actions and words reported by Celestius, who constantly reassures us that they really are significant without letting them speak for themselves. It is by no means a poor novel, and Morgan effectively evokes the twilight of Empire with the barbarians at the gate (obviously intended to have some contemporary relevance), but it is no Lolita.