Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

I’m in the final third of Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, the second book in a trilogy that also includes Oryx and Crake and MaddAddam. Readers and fellow bloggers know how keen I am on the Canadian author’s writing.

However, my post tonight is not about Atwood’s writing per se but about a peculiar phenomenon I have noticed quite often but which until now I had not dared to mention.

As I said before Margaret is Canadian and yet you would be hard pressed to find traces of her nationality in her oeuvre. I checked the handful of books I own, which does not necessarily mean they are the only ones I have read by her. The Blind Assassin, The Edible Woman and her magnum opus, The Handmaid’s Tale. Of all these, the second one might be the only that comes close to providing a Canadian setting with Canadian characters. But the story it tells is so universal that it transcends its geographical borders (if any).

Atwood: universal writing

This subject of “author semi-separated from her/his own immediate reality” played on my mind as I recalled recently an essay by the Nigerian novelist BenOkri (I have never read any of Ben Okri’s books; however I have read his essays and articles before). In it, the African writer looked at the ways authors from “ethnic” backgrounds are portrayed (some would even say “marketed”). I found Ben’s column interesting as I, an avid reader, have very often wondered the same.

For Mr Okri some people “read Flaubert for beauty, Joyce for innovation, Virginia Woolf for poetry and Jane Austen for psychology”. I shall leave you to assess the veracity of that sentence. However, writers from backgrounds considered to be “ethnic” (for example, Asian and African to mention two) are read for subjects that define and focus on their immediate reality. To wit, a black author’s book will be read for her/his portrayal of “slavery, colonialism, poverty, civil wars, imprisonment and female circumcision”.

I went back to my bookshelf to test Okri’s theory and he was right. At least in regards to my small collection. There they were: the Rushdies, Chimamandas, Morrisons (as in Toni), Levys, Walkers (as in Alice) and Hosseinis. Their works either portrayed stories set in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Jamaica, US and India or had characters that were originally from these countries.

This is where Ben’s essay comes into the picture. I agree with him when he avers that “The black and African writer is expected to write about certain things, and if they don’t they are seen as irrelevant”. I disagree when he states that this repetition can render their fiction monotonous. To me repetition doesn’t equate monotony (I love JS Bach and a lot of the music he composed was based on repetition). But I do worry about capability. Is the writer using the same setting and the same nationalities because she or he can’t do better?

My answer to my own rhetorical question is no. The (sur)names I mentioned above speak for themselves when it comes to top quality writing. However, I would not be lying if I told you that every time I open a novel or a collection of short stories by Salman Rushdie I expect to find at least two Asian characters in it, if not more. I would be telling porkies if I said that when I read Andrea Levy I do not have the sound of Jamaican patois ringing in my ears.

This predictability is my dilemma. As I mentioned before being predictable has very little effect on quality. But as Mr Okri asks: “Who wants to constantly read a literature of suffering, of heaviness?” Surely not the Nigerian or Afghani since that is their reality. I agree with Ben, it is the western reader whose surroundings do not resemble north-eastern Nigeria or Taliban-threatened Afghanistan. The “ethnic” writer tries to reflect the reality of her or his country through the kaleidoscope of fiction. Yet, one of the outcomes of their endeavour is that they provide a form of “escapism” to the western reader. Thus a cycle, chain, system, conveyor belt, you name it, is formed. You “ethnic” writer feed, I, western reader, consume.

What happens if the author decides not to confront their immediate reality?

In vain I searched my shelves for an example to answer that question. I hear that Chimamanda Ngozi’s latest novel, Americanah, changes settings, in that one part of the book takes place in the States. But it still contains Nigerian characters, a very Nigerian plot and the other part is set in Lagos. I’m not knocking Chimamanda, who I think is one the better writers I have read in the last ten years. Nevertheless, read the blurb for Americanah and you will see what I mean: race, identity, military dictatorship and flight are all mentioned. Go back now to Ben Okri’s earlier point. What complicates matters more is that writers like Chimamanda are quite rightly acknowledged for their creativity. Ngozi’s books have been longlisted for the Booker Prize, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and been selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards.

These accolades pose a question: if a writer is having the success they deserve, writing what they know about, why would they change tact? Why would they go looking for subjects on which they might not have as much knowledge?

As a reader, my response would be: because as Ben Okri rightly says, literature’s basic prerequisite is mental freedom. Both for reader and writer. Especially when it comes to demanding readers. Orangesfrom Spain is a superb collection of short stories by the Irish writer David Park. After I finished reading it, I wanted more. But when I searched for more of his books, I realised that all he ever wrote about was Northern Ireland. No matter how beautiful and nuanced his use of language is, I felt somewhat put off.

Mental freedom for the writer carries a danger sign, though. If she or he finds success writing about a particular subject, the public will most likely want them to stick to that subject. Variations on the same topic, like a Kundera, for instance, work wonders. If they so much as deviate one iota from the formula their readers have created for them, the writer will pay the heaviest price: at the till.

I have not even gone into the issue of credibility. That means writer’s credibility when they write about a subject they are not known for or which does not tick one of their identity boxes, i.e., Irish writer writing about something other than Ireland, US writer writing about something other than racism, Latin writer writing about something other than immigration. All of a sudden, we, readers, transform ourselves into judges and experts. That is another can of worms which I might be tempted to open on another occasion. In the meantime, I shall leave you tonight with these reflections to digest. I can’t wait to read your comments.

© 2015

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 1^st February at 10am (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

On 31^st May 2009, George Tiller, a so-called “late term” abortion doctor, was murdered in the lobby of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. As far as I know Dr Tiller had never drawn a cartoon in his life.

On Tuesday 9^th October 2012, 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for campaigning for the right of young girls and women to an education. Again, I am not aware that Malala had ever dabbled in the art of comic illustrations.

In 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian right-wing extremist, killed 76 people in Utøya and Oslo. None of his victims, as far as I can tell, were famous for caricaturing images thought to be sacred.

Whatever the staff at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo did, whoever they apparently provoked, whomever they targeted, one thing is clear to me: the cartoons they drew had nothing to do with the massacre that took place in their offices two weeks ago.

French police officer Ahmed Merabet’s blood had still not dried up on the pavement where he was gunned down by the two terrorists when the first analyses on this atrocity began pouring in. I have to admit that even a seasoned cynic like me found it hard to stomach how quick some “pundits” were in pointing the finger at the staff at Charlie Hebdo. They had it coming, seemed to be their (not so subtle) argument. If only they had been more sensitive. If only they had been more thoughtful. If only they had been more mature.

If only...

I have another “if only”. If only we did not live in a patriarchy. Read the examples above again. I highlighted the fact that none of those wounded or murdered at the hands of extremists was a cartoonist or illustrator on purpose. To me, the cold-blooded killing at Charlie Hebdo had very little to do with the depiction of an important religious figure and more to do with what has underpinned society for many centuries. What has ruled governments, controlled economies and shaped mindsets since the breakdown of the primitive communal system: patriarchy.

Charb, murdered by fundamentalists or by the patriarchy?

That we live in a patriarchal socio-economic political system should surprise no one. Even in countries where the prime minister or president is a woman, you can bet your bottom dollar that at times she has had to behave in a "manly" way. If only to reassure those who voted her into power that they are safe in her – feminine – hands.

Unlike previous forms of patriarchy our modern version does not require authority and power to be bequeathed down the male line. Nor do we need a blood-based, direct line of descent. The myriad structures we have created and that support the state take care of that. Banking, the law, finance, politics, religion, media, even education and the arts. They are mostly male-dominated and male-orientated. The result of this is a suffocating male atmosphere in which most conflicts are resolved our way, men’s way.

This is how we get to Charlie Hebdo. This is how two men, two murderers, use a religion to avenge what they think has been blasphemed. Dialogue is out of the question, let alone tolerance or acceptance that in a free, democratic society we are entitled to speak our minds. No, speaking is for “softies”. They’ll gun you down, they will make you pay. They will pose with their AK47s and show the entire world the tough men they claim to be. They might even kill a member of their own religion in the process. What idiots they are! But the world belongs to them and has belonged to them for centuries.

Some of the “pundits” I mentioned before described the recent events in France as a clash of civilisations. That comment to me was too simplistic and unhelpful. Especially because it rehashes the same old canard that Islam is a primitive religion at odds with fair, democratic Europe. To me the real clash is between the kind of society in which we live now, testosterone-fuelled, and the type of polity some of us would like to achieve in the distant future: caring, respectful and humane. What we see now more often than not is acts of aggression based on impulse. You bombed me, I’ll bomb you back. You kill some of my people, I’ll send the fighter jets over. You have politics with which I strongly disagree. I will kill two-thousand villagers. You draw a cartoon of my prophet, I’ll murder you. No moment to consider that the person you are about to shoot is a speccy, geeky guy whose only offensive “weapon” is a pencil. Or maybe that’s the reason why you want to bump him off, because he reminds you of your own humanity. He has a sense of humour and reminds you that you also have one. Who knows? Perhaps deep inside even you, pious fundamentalist, also find Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons funny.

I know that some of you will think that I have gone too far in this post. You will probably think that I have ignored the deprivation that engulfs certain communities in Europe and beyond and how this situation can and does generate resentment against the status quo. Resentment that can well be used by unscrupulous, cold-blooded assassins. I know, I agree with those points. Furthermore, men are perfectly capable of displaying the traits I mentioned before such as acceptance and dialogue. Yet, we – I include myself amongst those men – are in the minority. And like it or not, we all have to fit in somehow, so we might end up doing things that contradict our true nature. That is why my point remains the same. By carrying on with the same, male-run model, we are walking further away from a future in which conversation, negotiation, understanding, feelings (expressing and accepting them) and compromise become the norm. These are not female attributes, but human ones.

What happened on 7/1 in Paris was an attack on freedom of speech. There should be no doubt about that. Moreover, Stéphane Charbonnier and the other sixteen victims were killed by weapons. They were murdered by two fundamentalists who acted – wrongly – in the name of a religion. Above all, what happened more than two weeks ago in France was an assault on our human values. Human values that have sadly found less space in our patriarchal societies in recent times. One solution is to break the cycle. If only to stop future Charlie Hebdos.



© 2015

Next Post: “Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts”, to be published on Wednesday 28^th January at 11:59pm (GMT)