My Weekly Book

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

I’m going to be showing my age now but in 1988 I was 17, going on 18, deeply interested in politics and angry at the awful unfairness of the world in a way that besets all teenagers but was particularly sharp for us, then. We’re all a product of the decade that shaped us but that means for me the circumstances that spawned this superb graphic novel and its post-nuclear dark future setting still look, nearly 20 years on, as familiar to me as the back of my own hand. You see, in those days, it really did feel like the resurgence of the far right was a few weeks away, at best. If you were a teenager in the late eighties, and especially if there was anything about you that didn’t chime well with values of the racist, conformist and socially-conservative Thatcherite agenda, then the themes of V for Vendetta will be as much a part of your mental furniture as snatches of Duran Duran songs, frilly shirts and old costume jewellery in your deepest cupboards, a deep-seated desire to cut the shoulder pads out of everything and bitter memories of the consequences of getting burgundy hair dye on your parents’ bathroom fixtures.

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So much for the past. Everybody is at pains to point out, with bombs going off on the London underground and the film due for release any day now, how relevant V for Vendetta is for us today. I’m not even going to get into the argument about whether a graphic novel or a comic represents a work of literature. By 1988 my comic collection was already filling at least one cupboard and it’s filled a lot more since. I’m a big fan of Alan Moore who I think is one of the few artistic and cultural figures in Britain today who really speaks my language and whose words make my head nod seemingly of its own accord. Certainly he is about as far removed from the values of the racist, conformist and socially-conservative Thatcherite agenda as it is possible to imagine. But equally doesn’t mean V for Vendetta is a redundant cultural artefact any more than it’s an edgy reflection of contemporary political and social realities – or whatever other hype the promoters are churning out. See, things are different now.

We live in an age of frightening authoritarianism, lack of privacy and diminishing democracy where power is concentrating daily in the hands of a political elite and is wordlessly relinquished by an apathetic, consumer-driven, not-my-problem public that, because the perfect marketer-compiled solution for their template of beliefs doesn’t spring easily to hand, would rather just opt out completely. Yes, this present government is frightening. But it just doesn’t have the appalling, driven, swivel-eyed ideology of the Thatcher years. And our terrorists are not anarchists fighting over big issues but rather nihilists and pretty incompetent ones at that. So I’ll retire from this argument with my point made – except to say that this is a staggeringly important and impressive work of art and of fiction, much like Moore’s Watchmen, and one that anybody interested in the overarching political and philosophical issues of our times really should read. It was completed in instalments over a number of years and I do actually agree with the criticism that it loses a certain amount of clarity and focus as it goes on. But that’s a minor point. Highly recommended – but I’m not going to suggest it should be compulsory reading for anyone. That would hardly be the point, would it?

Links:

• Wikipedia (spoilers - flagged up in text)
• Excellent fan site
• Interview with David Lloyd

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Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

This is not a book that it is easy to come to without preconceptions, without knowing at least some of the story and without having heard about the dilemma at the heart of it – especially now that it’s been made into a film. I can’t write this without discussion of the circumstances at its heart so if you intend to read it yourself and wish to avoid spoilers you might be better off reading no further.

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Joe Simpson shouldn’t be alive. Back in 1985 he went off, with mountaineering friend Simon Yates to the Peruvian Andes looking for the kind of adventure offered by unclimbed peaks, total solitude and no rescue helicopter or any other kind of back-up. He found it. When things went wrong – and, reading his account of the preparations and the initial climb it’s hard to see how the pair of them actually remained alive and uninjured in this unfamiliar terrain for as long as they did – he was left on an terrifyingly unstable ridge with a shattered leg, few supplies and no obvious way back down. The climb nearly cost both men their lives. In order to save himself, Yates had to make a decision that is now world famous – to die during a terrifying night-time storm on the mountainside or cut the rope with his injured companion hanging from it which was preventing him from getting to safety.

This is a book I bought after finding myself so gripped by the film that I was unable to move off the sofa or drag myself away from watching as long as it was on. I was keenly looking forward to reading it. I tend to see mountaineering books through the prism of one of the earliest one I read – Mountains of the Mind by Robert MacFarlane. This is an extremely controversial book because it dares to ask exactly what the justification is for the kind of climbing described at the beginning of Touching the Void and also to explore the psychology of people that seek out increasingly extreme mountain adventures. His answer is that there is something about the mind that can look forward keenly to an adventure and recall it with nostalgia – but is unable to hang on to the sheer, freezing, agonizing, terrifying awfulness of what it is actually like up there for longer than the time it takes to descend. There has to be something in this argument because both of the Touching the Void climbers did their level best to get straight back into the mountains again – although, as my copy records in a postscript, Simpson has definitely come away from his near-death experience with a degree of circumspection that he didn’t have previously.

This is just one of the questions raised in what is, by any measure, an astounding book. Here’s a quote which sums up many of the themes of the book for me:

As I gazed at the distant moraines I knew that I must at least try. I would probably die out there amid those boulders. The thought didn’t alarm me. It seemed reasonable, matter-of-fact. That was how it was. I could aim for something. If I died, well, that wasn’t so surprising, but I wouldn’t have just waited for it to happen. The horror of dying no longer affected me as it had in the crevasse. I now had the chance to confront it and struggle against it. It wasn’t a bleak dark terror any more, just fact like my broken leg and frostbitten fingers, and I couldn’t be afraid of things like that. My leg would hurt when I fell, and when I couldn’t get up, I would die. In a peculiar way it was refreshing to be faced with simple choices. It made me feel sharp and alert, and I looked ahead at the land stretching into distant haze and saw my part in it with a greater clarity and honesty than I had ever experienced before. I had never been so entirely alone, and although this alarmed me it also gave me strength. An excited tingle ran down my spine. I was committed. The game had taken over, and I could no longer choose to walk away from it. It was ironic to have come here searching out adventure and then find myself involuntarily trapped in a challenge harder than any I had sought. For a while I felt thrilled as adrenalin boosted through me, but it couldn’t drive away the loneliness or shorten the miles of moraines tumbling towards the lakes. The sight of what lay ahead soon killed the excitement. I was abandoned to this awesome and lonely place. It sharpened my perception to see clearly and sharply the facts behind the mass of useless thoughts in my head, and to realise how vital it was just to be there, alive and conscious, and able to change things. There was silence, and snow, and a clear sky empty of life, and me, sitting there, taking it all in, accepting what I must try to achieve. There were no dark forces acting against me. A voice in my head told me that this was true, cutting through the jumble in my mind with its coldly rational sound.

It was as if there were two minds within me arguing the toss. The voice was clean and sharp and commanding. It was always right, and I listened to it when it spoke and acted on its decisions. The other mind rambled out a disconnected series of images, and memories and hopes, which I attended to in a daydream state as I set about obeying the orders of the voice. I had to get to the glacier. I would crawl on the glacier, but I didn’t think that far ahead. If my perspectives had sharpened, so too had they narrowed, until I thought only in terms of achieving predetermined aims and no further. Reaching the glacier was my aim. The voice told me exactly how to go about it, and I obeyed while my other mind jumped abstractedly from one idea to another.

I began a one-footed, hopping descent of the face below the crevasse. I headed diagonally to the right in order to by-pass a steep rock buttress which was directly beneath me. Once past it, I saw that the snow ran smoothly down 200 feet to the glacier. I glanced up at the ice cliff aboye the crevasse. It was a dim past memory, until I spotted the rope, hanging down the right-hand side and knew with a sudden pang that he had also seen it. That string of colour hanging down the ice dispelled any doubts I might have still clung to. He hadn’t gone to get help; he had left in the certain knowledge I was dead. I looked back to my feet and concentrated on hopping.

As well an incredible survival story and an unparalleled insight into the psychology of risk-taking this book raises very serious questions about identity and authorial voice. It is quite unquestionably a factual book narrated by one of the principals in the drama and with a tone that feels very honest and self-critical. However. before going any further, we have to consider all the standard issues that surround someone choosing to tell their own, first-person, unmediated story – what is included, what is withheld, what is re-ordered to give the narrative more shape and sense, how the attempt to objectify it for outsiders changes that narrative. That problem is overlaid by the fact it deals with issues of huge controversy. Simpson’s story provokes all sorts of debates about safety, the ethics of mountaineering and whether it is ever acceptable to sacrifice someone else’s life to save your own. The third stage in this awful tangle relates to his physical and mental condition as he attempts to get himself to safety. It seems very likely that he returned to base camp at death’s door, literally being poisoned by his own body thanks to the effects of his injuries, of dehydration and lack of food. If you are in that state, not to mention the psychological effects of facing near-certain death, how much can your memories and impressions ever be described as objective? Fourth, and last, sections of the narrative are printed in italic script and relate the feelings and experiences of Simon Yates. He is not credited as a co-author and the following quote appears in the acknowledgements: “I must first express my gratitude for his honesty in telling me how much he had been through, and his trust in allowing me to write these sensitive emotions in my own words.” I am not suggesting this is anything other than an honest, truthful and self-critical account of what happened. But deconstructing that lot and trying to work out where, as a reader it leaves you is, quite simply, a nightmare.

I came away from this thinking that Simpson had been a bloody fool who it was impossible not to admire hugely for his courage, acknowledgement of his own fallibility and sheer hard-headed refusal to die. Here’s a quote from the 2003 postscript that demonstrates what I mean:

Oddly enough the physical and emotional trauma experienced in Peru in I985 did not change my life. It was the success of Touching the Void and my future writing and speaking career that materially changed me. The making of
the film will no doubt bring further changes and challenges. I often wonder what would have happened to my life if we had not had the accident on Siula Grande. A part of me thinks that I would have gone on to climb harder and harder routes taking greater risks each time. Given the toll of friends over the years I’m not confident that I would be alive today. In those days I was a penniless, narrow-minded, anarchic, abrasive and ambitious mountaineer. The accident opened up a whole new world for me. Without it I would never have discovered hidden talents for writing and public speaking. Despite having worked hard I do sometimes wonder whether I just got lucky?

In Peru we had gone to unusual lengths to take the ultimate risk and yet despite all the pain and trauma it now seems a small price to pay for such an inspiring adventure. Isn’t memory a wonderful deceiver? Almost losing everything in Peru was a sensation quite as life-enhancing as winning. I seem to have been on a worryingly long winning streak ever since. Where will it all end?

It is a hot sunny day in Sheffield as I struggle to write my seventh book, a novel. I’m trying not to be distracted by a forthcoming fly fishing holiday in Ireland followed by a fourth attempt on the North Face of the Eiger. A busy autumn of speaking engagements and publicity for the release of the film beckons. Fighting for my life on Siula Grande seventeen years ago seems to have turned me into a successful businessman which is very odd.

Life can deal you an amazing hand. Do you play it steady, bluff like crazy or go all in? I’ll never know.

To finish, I have a passion for books on mountaineering (as must, by now, be obvious) and I’d picked this book up almost immediately after finishing Chris Bonington’s Everest South West Face. And, on opening it, who should I discover is the author of the introduction than Chris Bonington? This added an engaging serendipitousness to the whole exercise and a pleasing sense of continuity between January’s and February’s reading. As for Touching the Void it is not much more than 200 pages and easy reading. It is gripping, suspenseful and haunting. Highly recommended, as is the film, even if your idea of strenuous exercise doesn’t extend beyond a stroll in the local park.

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A review of the film:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/11/21/touching_the_void_2003_review.shtml

The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick

This is an extraordinarily evocative, dense, complex and readable first novel with a distinctive voice that makes you realise very early on how it was able to find a publisher. You could describe it as a thriller – but it is also a literary novel with large and difficult themes. It deals with the relationship between the Catholic Church and the wartime Nazi regime in France, examines what it means to have Jewish blood in a world that has contained the Holocaust and also what it means to commit yourself to life in a religious community. Despite all this it’s not dry, by any means, but written with flashes of delicious humour which make the underlying tragedy stand out even more starkly. It’s also about people, and families, and the secrets we all keep and the nature of subjective versus objective truth. The plot is simply fiendish and keeps coming at you. Just when you think you’ve finally got to the bottom of it a new twist catches you unaware.

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I picked this up from the three-for-two table in my local branch of Borders and everything about it resonated – from the beautiful blue of the cover to the weight of the paper and the typeface and the fact that a great many of my personal preoccupations were clearly flagged up on the cover (and, once you get into the novel, you even find Sailing By, the Shipping Forecast music, getting a mention). This could be the reason I enjoyed it so much but I think to confine its appeal like that would be doing it a grave disservice. This is a brilliant book, a real find and highly recommended, from an author that is probably destined to become Very Big Indeed. You heard it here first.

Here’s a link that provides all the background a reader could possibly want:

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/sixth_lamentation.html

Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin

This is the fourth in the series of romans policiers by the author Michael Dibdin featuring the dysfunctional Italian detective Aurelio Zen. And it’s a big moment for Zen’s fans as he finally returns to his native city of Venice. Attempts to live in the past never go well, do they? So it’s fair to assume Dibdin does not have plans to give his hero an easy ride. Following the not-very-easy ride he got towards the end of Cabal.

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For those that enjoy the impressionistic, dreamlike and intensely sensuous moments that are a fundamental quality of Dibdin’s writing this novel will come as a treat. It’s got a well-woven and multilayered plot and enough suspense to keep you turning the pages as investigations of various crimes, of varying degrees of seriousness are tied in with a little personal project that Zen just happens to have on the go and his experiences in meeting old friends, neighbours and acquaintances. It has its moments of humour too, as you would expect. As a firm fan of these books already I found nothing here to disappoint and the ending includes a kicker which I didn’t see coming and which represents a really major piece of character development. I am now looking forward to read Cosi Fan Tutte partly because I’m enjoying the series greatly but also to see how on earth the author can move his hero on from the place he has got him into.

Watch this space.

This is one of those books, like The da Vinci code, that the whole world seems to be talking about, and you start to wonder what you can possibly add to the cacophony. However, I was told that I should read this book and, having read it, I would be very glad that I had. I did and I was. [2008 update: it has, in fact, inveigled its way onto my 'best books ever read' list by now.]

So, what happens? Well, like The da Vinci Code, I am severely limited in what I can say for fear of revealing more than is reasonable. The book introduces Pi Patel, an Indian boy and the son of a zookeeper, who subscribes to at least three of the world's major religions. In the first part of the book, we meet Pi and his family and learn about his character and the circumstances of his life. In the second, we are shown how those circumstances are destroyed and that character put to the test. Then we are asked to decide between two alternative ways of looking at the events in the novel. It might be an idea to stop reading now if you want to remain entirely innocent of the events in it.

Basically, I think there are three ways of interpreting the book, although I have been told that my third option is a cop-out. Either the story is literally true, or it is a metaphor. There are reasons given in the text to doubt the literal truth of either of the two possible stories - things that make either impossible to add up to a nice, round number. The third alternative is to say that, since we can't ever be sure which is true, we might as well settle for a kind of Schroedinger's Cat approach - the box is sealed, so the cat inside is both alive and dead until there is more information available.

The book is beautifully and sensuously written - in that the sights, smells and flavours roll off the page. It has a lovely, accomplished style and a unique voice. It is very difficult to put down, and I read it in about two days. I didn't end up with a unique insight into the meaning of life, nor did I fall on my knees and start to pray. But I did come away feeling that which story I would far rather believe, and that my world-view was enhanced by the fact it was verging on the impossible. Hint: I like the wild and fantastic, and also the idea that human nature is redeemable; make of that what you will.

Just out of interest, here is a fascinating link: Les Piscines Auteil-Molitor