Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Lost Girls, Part 1: Dorothy and the Lion


Since the advent of the camera, pornography has been able to get away with being arguably less than imaginative. Anything you want to see need only be set-up, dressed and made up, and there you have it, a “real” flesh and blood human being in whatever pose or disguise your heart, (or something less romantic) desires. In turn, artists seeking to engage with sexual fantasy have frequently adopted many of the motifs of pornography to illustrate their point – I’m a big fan of Dave LaChapelle so I’ll use him to illustrate my point.

But sex and sexual fantasy are two extremely distinct and different things. Sex is real bodies, fluids, squelches, embarrassments, giggles, extreme tenderness and extreme vulgarity. Sexual fantasy is much more murky, indistinct, abstract, cold and controllable, and that’s precisely where its power lies.

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls’ use of alternately delicate, frothy and surreal artwork, dolled up in a monumental confection of pastel colours, bound hardback and coy covering moves pornography away from the merely representational, and back into the realm of fantasy, possibility and play. In it, very little actual, real-time sex is represented. Instead, a significant part of the narrative focuses on the retelling of sexual experiences and/or childhood sexual fantasies (the boundaries between these two categories are deliberately blurred), which, as they are told, reveal themselves to be the well-known exploits of three of children’s literature’s greatest characters, Alice (in Wonderland), Wendy (Peter Pan) and Dorothy (Oz).
From now on, whenever I have a dull week and there isn’t a children’s book worth writing about (as will now be the main focus of this blog – it runs my life, it may as well run my blog) I’ll write about Lost Girls, mainly because I could write about it for ever. There’s so much to say, about sex, class, pornography, art, feminism, power, history, war, fantasy, literature, literary parody, the form of comic books….blah blah blah, I could go on, and indeed, over time I shall.

But tonight I’m tired. So I’ll start with a very straightforward fantasy, which I think Lost Girls delivers beautifully. It is arguably, the great romantic female fantasy, typified by Elizabeth Bennett’s Mr Darcy and Bridget Jones’s Mark Darcy; the woman whose love has the capacity to ennoble her man, to transform him, to better him. In Book Two of Lost Girls, this classic romantic tale is gently, sweetly applied to Dorothy’s taming of the lion in her personal Oz.

Sexually frustrated, down on the farm, in the deep south, Dorothy is obliged to work her way through the farmhands. One she describes as a ‘big, gruff guy’, whose crude catcalling and brutish sexual teasing she immediately recognises as cocky sexual posturing. If anything, she finds his attempts to intimidate her slightly pathetic, explaining; ‘I weren’t scared o’ him, in fact, the way I reckoned, he was more’n likely scared of me, else why raise all that dust'. Her precocious self-possession thus gives the young Dorothy all the benefit of hindsight that scores of women wish they had at that age. In fact, I think this story is partially for every thirteen year old girl subjected to the playground-slut-myths or kiss-and-tells that used to characterise the Monday after the Friday disco, at my school, and many like it. Dorothy’s self-awareness and sexual intuition gives her instant power over this boy – like every great romantic heroine before her, she knows what her man needs before he does, and in her infinite wisdom, she is able to redeem him.

In Dorothy’s sexual fantasy, she approaches the farmhand and with immense control
and confidence, offers herself, admitting that 'once I saw how scared he was, it sorta made me hot'. It’s quite clear, both visually, and in Dorothy's speech, that the farmhand is not attractive. Instead, she is moved to act through vanity. Her beauty, her undressing, is more central to the fantasy than his active involvement;
'Lookin’ at him, what got me hot was thinkin’ how excited he was, lookin’ back at me. Not his body, but how he wanted mine.'
Throughout the fantasy, Dorothy describes the boy in purely animal terms, with her seduction comparable to throwing a dog a bone. It is quite clear that she is training him. Physically, he is much bigger than her, a bear with a muzzle for a mouth and a large, rough tongue, and Dorothy revels in the fact that she, ‘some little girl’ has full mastery over him. But it’s not his submission that acts as an aphrodisiac for Dorothy, but her own power that she finds so exciting; ‘I made him scared. I made him tame. Hell, by the end, I’d even made him brave.’

I made him. I did it. Look, mum, no hands! Get me! etc etc

Following their little tryst, the farmhand is the perfect gentleman. He holds her, kisses her, tells her she is beautiful. In fact, Dorothy gets the full courtly love treatment, except of course, their love isn’t really all that courtly, at least not in the classic troubadour sense. However, in giving herself to this wretched, crude, unattractive boy, Dorothy transforms him. She is touched by his gratitude, and enjoys witnessing the impact her love has had, as she watches him blossom into something of a ‘dandy', with ‘the courage to ask women out instead o’ leering at ‘em cross the street.’ In lowering herself, by bestowing her love on him, Dorothy elevates the boy’s status and soul, like some benign, generous angel, by giving him ‘somethin’ more than just a place to stick his thing.’ Through her girlish charms she manages to do what pretty much every romantic heroine strives for – she changes her man. She gives her lion his courage. She makes him a better man.

Where Alan and Melinda score extra points however, is in locating this fantasy’s true power. The woman is less interested in the outcome of this changed, charming man – hence why Dorothy is quite happy to move on to her next strapping young buck and no one cares what happens to Liz and Darcy once married. The thing that really excites women is the conceptualisation of their own sexual power, their agency, their influence, their borderline divinity. The Mr Darcy transformation is little more than a girly power-trip – Look what I did, see how great I am – the inevitable product of a woman’s response to an idea of female sexuality perpetually skewed and shaped by the male gaze. When Dorothy tames her lion, she has to place herself in the position of the beast, and work out the best way to calm him. To her delight, she realizes that the very aspects of her that he so outwardly scorns are her greatest weapons.
By way of reply to SashaGoblin’s comment on my last post, I love the lion story for the same reasons I love Under My Thumb. It treats the love object as little more than a plaything who proves your own power. Under My Thumb works lyrically by forcing me into the position of the subjugated female – which, let’s face it, is where we’re put in most pop songs written by men. I just love that this one’s a bit more honest, and therefore, I find it almost naïve and oddly touching. Like Dorothy giving her lion courage, the fantasy is strictly isolated to the teller (down to me – me, me, me).
It has nothing to do with the person you’ve changed, and everything to do with the dizzy rush of your own power. And everybody, no matter what they say, wants to be King (or Queen) for a day.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Why Weeps the Brogan? by Hugh Scott


I would be lying if I said I found Hugh Scott’s Why Weeps the Brogan? consistently gripping and entertaining. In fact, for a book that struggles to fill 100 pages of a back-pocket-sized paperback, it often feels like a bit of a drag. However, this isn’t because it isn’t interesting, but because it is incredibly frustrating.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to frustrate you too now, as I can’t really tell you why it’s frustrating without spoiling the entire book. All I will say is that Hugh Scott drops you in the middle of a strange, alien situation, with rather sketchy, fragile characters. The initial pages are less of a story and more of a puzzle, where you, as the reader, have to decode the world you’re presented with. Although this in itself doesn’t take very long, figuring out why these characters are in this world, what’s happening to them, and of course, why weeps the Brogan, takes virtually the rest of the book. There is a lot of repetitive action, which, in its apparent futility, takes on the feel of a Beckett play. The dialogue is likewise playfully and wilfully incomprehensible at times.

It’s a masterful work of science fiction and human drama and ends with a nasty, sickening twist. Travelling up the hill on the #59, my stomach kicked and flipped when I read the end, after which, everything that has come before is cast into sharp relief. It shook me up as a twenty-five year old. Had I been twelve when I’d read this, I think it might have turned me upside-down.

Why Weeps the Brogan? won the Whitbread in 1991, yet is now no longer in print. I find this depressing, but hardly baffling. There are no quick access points into this book. Though brief, it’s an intense, yet often dull, reading experience. It most definitely cannot be made into a global-selling series or licensed onto stationery, backpacks or t-shirts. It confounds reader’s expectations of the narrative, and offers a wholly shocking, yet satisfyingly unsatisfying ending. It can probably only really be re-read once, for as soon as you know the answer to the question, Why Weeps the Brogan? your time with the book is arguably done.

But as a brilliant mystery, an exercise in narrative, and proof of the force and power of such taut, uncompromising writing, it is a gem. Weird, alienating, and yet by the end, all too human and all too terrible, Why Weeps the Brogan? is about as uncommercial as a children’s book gets, whilst also getting probably as good as it gets. This is quality writing.

I often bore my friends with a review of the children’s/YA book I’m reading and more often than not, they politely nod and ask me what I’d like to drink in the hope conversation will turn to something more grown-up/bawdy/bitchy etc. But with Why Weeps the Brogan? I’ve got people reading it, or at least asking to. My boyfriend already knows too much about the story, but the strange, ill-formed impressions I gave him halfway through my reading, alongside the fact that the ending made me feel sick, is enough for him to ask to borrow it. (And it’s very short. And he’s just finished Philip K. Dick) My good friend, let’s call him Dylan, both because he drinks like Dylan Thomas and looks like Dylan Moran, has ordered it because I couldn’t tell him anything about it, except to say the ending made me feel oddly sick. And my other friend, a cohort in the children’s book publishing business, read it for the same reasons I did – because nobody would tell us what it was about, except that it was essential, and would leave you with your heart rammed in your throat.

So, read it. I can’t tell you what it’s about. But like some other of life’s pleasures, it will make you gasp, shudder and (here’s a rare one) think.
***

For those of you who are interested, on Thursday, Portishead at Brixton Academy were polished and proficient, but alas, sadly, not as glittering or ethereal as they were in my head. Roseland or Glastonbury, clearly, were better gigs. And they didn’t play All Mine. However, my companions at the gig were second to none, bona fide, brilliant people, which made it rather lovely.

Also this week, Jean Luc Godard’s Weekend had me a-chuckling and entertained most of the way through. My initial feelings about Fritz Lang's Metropolis were confirmed; stylistically magnificent, ideologically naïve. Destination of the week is The Illustrator's Cupboard on Bury Street nr. Green Park tube station. A big thumbs up also goes to another old fave, Polly Dunbar's Penguin, after a fresh pair of beautiful blue eyes made me look at Polly's delightful illustrations anew. And song of the week is Under My Thumb by The Rolling Stones. Because I am.
Not under my own thumb of course. That would be weird.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Henry Tumour by Anthony McGowan


Last week, I fell in love with a fourteen year old boy and his brain tumour. Anthony McGowan’s Henry’s Tumour is a dark, sick, funny and incredibly moving account of one teenager’s very visceral grappling between his good, sweet and incredibly uncool side and his evil, nasty, cancerous side.

Hector Brunty is a good kid with a big problem. He has a brain tumour, Henry Tumour in fact, who talks to him and makes him do and say bad things. And it’s killing him. At the most difficult time in his life, adolescence (duh) Hector is battling with a big, bad wolf inside of himself…but then aren’t we all?

McGowan’s triumph is in making the book’s two competing voices of id and ego equally compelling and lovable. Hector, our sweet but ineffective boy hero, has a wonderfully distinctive voice which veers between the darkly witty, the endearingly clueless and, best of all, the baroquely eccentric, as he rhapsodises on maths, junk food, and school sex goddess Uma Upshaw’s marvellous rack. The following rumination on his Mum’s decaying perfume made me snot with laughter on a packed circle line carriage;
The other bottle was perfume, given to Mum years before by someone who couldn’t have known what she was like. She didn’t use products that might have been tested on animals, although putting perfume on a rabbit and sending it out to a a nightclub in a slinky dress to see if it pulls doesn’t seem too cruel to me. Only kidding. I know they pour it in their eyes.

Henry is a vile, despicable, self-centred idiot, but importantly, everything he does, he does for Hector. We love Hector, so it’s therefore hard not to love Henry. As Hector’s tumour, he is, of course, the thing that threatens to kill him. But he is also the voice in Hector’s head that impels him to indulge in every thrill and whim he desires before he kicks the bucket. So, while he gives Hector the courage to ask Uma Upshaw out on a date, his lecherous desperation means he screws it up. Henry risks ruining Hector’s blossoming romance with shy, friendless, Amanda and her enormous facial birthmark, because she’s a nobody. Worse of all, he tempts Hector into ditching his kind, loyal, but pretty tragic friends (a beautifully drawn bunch of sweaty, sniffling, scoffing but supremely intelligent and sweet boys).

Nevertheless, as Henry goads Hector into getting a haircut, shoplifting and sticking up to the school bullies, you cannot help but root for Henry, especially as Hector’s cool quotient rises expotentially with Henry’s influence. As Henry wins over the ladies, gets closer to his mum and, in the best playground showdown ever (involving a used condom and a bag of Revels) beats the school bullies, you can’t help but feel your eyes mist over as you wish Henry could stick around without killing Hector. But, shucks, he’s the selfish, snarky, self-destructive ego, and if Hector’s going to grow up, he has to learn to manage and suppress him. Dammit. Thus, the book ends with a pretty major hospital visit.

The book is packed full of brilliant touches. Everything from the chapter names to the font of the chapters is executed with flair, thought and love. As Mal Peet said on reviewing the book when it won the 2006 award “I recently had the rare pleasure of presenting the Booktrust teenage prize to a novel which begins with the word "Arsecheese" and ends as a five-page cartoon strip.” Not only does that take guts (and props to Doubleday Definitions for publishing such a weird, wonderful book) but it takes a helluva lot of talent for a writer to get away with such shenanigans.

Of course, it’s all very clever. The relationship between Hector and Henry Tumour is apparently meant to directly parallel that between Henry IV and Falstaff (no, I didn’t spot it at first, but Henry ups his Shakespeare references the closer to death he gets…and then dreams of dying in green fields…Oh!). Like the great Bard, McGowan makes you root for Henry Tumour while all the while wishing he would die and let Hector fulfil his life’s potential by becoming, well, in this instance, just a man, but he sure looks like a king from where I’m standing.

It’s brash, vulgar, anarchic, disgusting and embarrassing to read in public. There’s enough four-letter words to land it an X-rated certificate and more noisy bodily functions than a club toilet. But it’s also incredibly sympathetic, wise, and above all, it bears the hallmark of a writer who loves and understands his audience. Like fellow naughty schoolchildren of teen and children’s fiction (Roald Dahl, Melvin Burgess, Judy Blume, Julie Burchill) this book is written with such respect, affection and compassion for its audience that I wish I could hand it out on the street like Hari Krishna’s do with their free Buddhism books.

I may still be in the first flush of new love, but from where I’m standing now, Anthony McGowan’s Henry Tumour is one of the best young adult fiction books I have ever read. (See also Junk, Sugar Rush, Forever, How I Live Now (post from July 07) and, that homicidal classic, George's Marvellous Medicine.) I just wish McGowan had been writing when I was fourteen.

I wish I could say the same for David Almond’s Skellig. Now that’s an overrated read. Sublime, poetic, subtle…and really rather dull. It’s a short book, but I had to renew my library loan twice. I mean, come on, do we really need another angel/coming to terms with mortality book. Sheesh.

Bring on the bad tumours and groping girls in graveyards I say.