Books: Lively, Chabon, Isherwood

Coming back for more... Thoughts on three novels, each by an author to whom I was returning for a second taste. All are fast becoming favourites.

According to Mark – Penelope Lively
Eighteen months ago, I read Penelope Lively's masterful Moon Tiger, which I adored. Wanting more, I turned to this earlier book, in which married literary biographer Mark Lamming is researching writer Gilbert Strong, and soon becomes infatuated with Strong's granddaughter. Some of the most interesting aspects of According to Mark are its pre-echoes of Moon Tiger. A central chapter adopts a distinctive feature of that book's structure, retelling one vignette from separate viewpoints. The theme of historical perspective is also key, contemplating how one can consider from a distance the multiple stages of one person's life simultaneously. Mark reflects how "Strong he knew over a lifetime and all of him at once".

In Moon Tiger, this is developed even further, as the imperious Claudia Hampton writes a "history of the world as selected by Claudia". Mark struggles with his biography's subject, knowing information is missing ("lies and silences") and his perspective cannot always fit. The title provides a big clue. Penelope Lively's art is in framing all of these complex ideas within a modern, funny love story, the characters vividly etched. Perhaps According to Mark does not match Moon Tiger's perfect balance, its sensual world and elegiac romance. But it is another enjoyable, insightful novel from a completely undervalued author.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union – Michael Chabon

I next decided to revisit Michael Chabon, having read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay some time ago. This later novel inhabits the world of Chandler and Hammett, complete with spiky dialogue and epigrams. Hard-drinking detective Meyer Landsman attempts to solve a pleasingly complex murder plot, taking in his family's past, Jewish lore and chess. Chabon's wild spin is to place the story in an alternative reality, in which the setting is the Jewish homeland, but that homeland is Sitka, Alaska. The realization of this reality is mostly convincing, sometimes contrived; the wondrous writing is riveting.

What Chabon brings to the genre is a sympathetic and complete human story. The characters struggle as much against their past sorrows as against the present criminal underworld of Alaska. The series of conversations between Landsman and his boss/ex-wife Bina are electric and absorbing. Both bantering and mournful, the relationship forms the book's core. Meanwhile, familiar from Kavalier & Clay is Chabon's irresistible technique of separating key lines of dialogue with profound, aching prose. "Sweet God, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" asks Bina. Not until after a rumination on divine intention, chromosomes and faith do we get Landsman's reply: "Only every time I see your face." The writing may be pared down, hard-boiled, but the novel is rich.

Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood

A companion novel to Mr Norris Changes Trains, Goodbye to Berlin is also based on Isherwood's real-life experiences in Berlin during the early 1930s. As before, the city backdrop is remarkable and vibrant, from underground clubs to squalid tenements. Hidden within this backdrop, deathly poverty, neighbourly suspicion and the rise of Nazism all hum, as Isherwood presents a sequence of indelible character sketches. As the hum grows louder, so the fractured world of Christopher's circle of misfits seems set to dangerously unravel. That we know what happens next makes this possibly the darkest light read that I have ever come across.

It seems light because Isherwood's smart style is infectious and a joy to read. The portraits are funny and the relationships warm. Squabbles abound in his cramped accommodation, which he shares with his wittering landlady, a prostitute and a barman, among others. The most wonderful character of all is struggling actress Sally Bowles (on whom Cabaret is based), gleaming with make-up but vulnerably waifish. She uses gentleman friends for money and necks a never-ending series of Prairie Oysters (a concoction of raw egg and Worcester sauce – "They're about all I can afford"). Smiling on top of her sadness, Sally is flippant and careless. Painfully, we know that Berlin's smile back is fading.

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gundersen Collection

Lithographs and woodcuts, landscapes and eyes

As he became increasingly renowned, printmaking proved a successful way for Edvard Munch to disseminate his work. Moreover, repeated iterations provided an opportunity to alter the mood and dynamics of each print. Changing the ink and paper colours for example, or the absorbency of the paper, shifts the focus and intensity. There are many examples in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art's well-presented exhibition (running till September) where multiple iterations are displayed side by side. Rather than diluting the work, the vivid differences focus us more intently on the image.

The rippling anguish of Munch does not always appeal to me completely. However, new aspects were revealed in this collection, more so than by any admittedly casual glance I have given his work before. The exhibition highlights the key theme of landscape, and how Munch's wandering figures are affected by their surroundings. Loneliness pervades, as the landscape seems to either envelop or emanate from the desolate subjects. There are expanses of water, foreboding forests and swirling skies. Munch had heard a scream "coursing through nature", he said of the experience which led him to paint The Scream.

A rare print of that ubiquitous image is here, and the background landscape is repeated in the nearby Anxiety (shown in two versions). Nature screams indeed. From these prints, the figures stare intensely, hollow-eyed. The piercing eyes in Munch's work strike us throughout – take the masterly self-portrait, or Woman with Red Hair and Green Eyes. They are either weary and sunken or frighteningly desperate. Again, the variety inherent in the printmaking process subtly changes these emotive characteristics within the same image.



The exhibition, taken almost entirely from a private Norwegian collection, focuses on the short period 1895–1902, and so the style is generally unvaried. The lonely figures and the swirls are repeated from room to room. Whilst it might be even more enlightening to see the original paintings on which some of the prints were based, there is enough to engage to the end. Certain pieces stand out, including The Sick Child and the powerful Two Human Beings. Meanwhile, I was drawn to the more stylized forms of woodcuts Kiss IV and Head by Head, striking and vibrant. Nature encroaches still, through the heavy-grained texture, but here perhaps there could be deliverance from the anguish.

Prometheus

Oh, the (deluxe and grand) humanity.

Ridley Scott has returned, to cinema screens and to glories past. He offers us Prometheus, a prequel of sorts to the magnificent  Alien. The hype has been big: it remained unclear quite how directly the new film would relate to the old, but the trailer was tantalizing. On arrival, Prometheus is quite its own film. It is also mostly a success – a large, bold and engaging action-horror. That it misfires on several counts turns out not to matter too much. The fun outweighs the over-egged statement of themes and sketchy characters.

Fassbender-bot is not sketchy.

Intriguing archaeological discoveries are discovered. Maybe they indicate that humans originate from a distant planet – the crew of Prometheus has been sent into space to look into it. The scientific team is headed by the religious Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace). She is in a relationship with another scientist, Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). In actual charge is Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), who is an important person from the company which has sent the ship out. Keeping everything running smoothly is the gloriously blond robot-butler David (Michael Fassbender-bot).

Prometheus thrives foremost as a spectacle: exciting action sequences tear through a beautifully realized environment. One of the best of these sees the crew fleeing a tremendous storm on the alien world. The grim and repulsively organic monster horror (an Alien trademark, of course) is also suitably visceral. Visually, Prometheus is deluxe and grand. It lacks the original Alien's pleasingly grubby aesthetic and unnerving restraint – by the point the horror reaches the operating table, it has become a little too much and too often. But on its own terms, this film is dazzling.

Alongside this, the story raises some big questions about the origins of humanity. Unfortunately, this develops into Prometheus' most damaging weakness. It is very disappointing, since the film could have been lifted to impressive heights by such themes, were they handled well. But the big questions lose their impact, being repeatedly and blatantly laid out before us.

We are spoon-fed the issues. Why and how are humans on Earth? Are we disproving God? Is this not very important indeed? (These questions are largely paraphrased from the dialogue.)  In one slightly embarrassing scene, Shaw and Holloway meet sexily and have a Creation-of-Life discussion, before moving on to feel some Creation-of-Life emotions and then enjoy some Creation-of-Life sex.

This is definitely important.

It does not help that most of the characters are not particularly interesting, with little added to the stock roles for the actors to enjoy. Rapace and Marshall-Green do not make much of an impression, the tech guys are tech guys, and Charlize Theron plays a bitchy bitch. For reasons mostly unclear, she refuses to like or help anyone in any way; it does not matter who they are or what they want or need. It is uninteresting, although Theron is good. Guy Pearce's casting, meanwhile, is simply bizarre.

But there is hope. Fassbender-bot is wonderful as David. He is an android to embrace: rather too perfect, blankly charming and sinister too. Does he have his own motives? With an Aryan sheen, he consciously (and a little campily) emulates the airs and hair of Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. I am only annoyed that the film occasionally requires him to speak in Alienese (so foreign-sounding, we are encouraged to think). But then he utters such lines as "It's quite all right," and we cheer in our seats. He's so beautifully polite! I love Fassbender-bot.

It is quickly apparent that Prometheus will not touch Alien. But the grandeur of the attempt is admirable and it does not tip into folly, despite the creakily exposed shot at loftiness. Prometheus does not quite succeed through its philosophy or humanity; ultimately, it is the spectacle and the android which make it worthwhile.

7.5

Beauty

Repression and bigotry in Bloemfontein

François van Heerden (Deon Lotz) is a married Afrikaans businessman, whose ordered life masks secretive homosexuality. When he meets Christian (Charlie Keegan), the handsome son of an old friend, he is fixated. But ugly prejudices and shame constrict him and the result is confusing torment, threatening to explode. Writer-director Oliver Hermanus' film Beauty (the first Afrikaans language film to compete at Cannes) is an intimate study of repression. Obsessive behaviour, anger and bigotry are all just beneath François' bland surface. It is suggested that there have been violent outbursts in his past.

More than anything however, we pity François. Beauty is slow-paced and thoughtful, offering the time we need to sympathize whilst we despise his actions. This can come at the price of dramatic flow, and occasionally the film is in danger of halting. But Lotz's simmering performance holds Beauty together, powered by tight close-ups and a steady gaze (from both Lotz and Hermanus). It is a measured and convincing portrayal of a deeply conflicted man, thrashing out for a happiness he does not understand, as emphasized by the elegantly effective final scene.

Hermanus has a keen sense for beauty indeed and the film is carefully composed and subtly lit. Several taut scenes quietly unfurl in the evening by lamplight, in the bedroom or around a dining table; muted blues and greens dominate the screen. Sustained long shots are poised and exteriors are stark with heat. From the start, Francois' voyeurism is matched by wide, intensely focused shots, with distant dialogue unheard. The beauty is carefully underlined by a delicate musical score from Ben Ludik (alongside his Invisible Nightclub project).

There is also a dose of awkward humour. When François secretly meets with a group of middle-aged men for sex, there is an embarrassing scene of introduction and beer-drinking before they may begin. It is reminiscent of Mike Leigh, even if the milieu is a tad different. Bigotry stings all the fiercer when it comes: there is a searing flash of racism and objections against "faggots" (a defensive machismo operates here). The subsequent attempt at casual conversation is grimly funny.

Without this, Beauty's slow burning desperation could end up simply bleak. There are moments which bear this out. A pounding club scene is potent, but almost literally sickening; cathartic sexual violence pushes us even closer to the limit. But Hermanus tackles his subject bravely and largely with restraint, as reflected in Lotz's central performance. From this restraint, Beauty gains its power.

8