30 Days in Sydney

by Peter Carey, 2008 

Somewhat surprisingly, this was a nice introduction to a brief visit to Sydney. It offers a little history, a little memoir and plenty of colourful storytelling set in a wide variety of Sydney locations. Carey tells stories about people from his earlier life in Sydney, combined with a contemporary visit to some of the same people. His scenes range from the Blue Hills behind Sydney to the straits offshore, managing to cover most of the tourist highlights, such as a climb up the Sydney bridge, a tour of the opera house and the ferry ride to Manley beach. He even manages to fit in many memorable un-touristy incidents, such as an attempt to go protect his friend’s home from a fast-moving forest fire.

  Among the more memorable stories are two different tales of fighting the wild seas of Sydney’s outer harbour and southeast coast down into Bass Strait. The unforeseen hazards show why earlier mariners avoided the southern oceans and failed to find Australia until 1770. Carey also illustrates the ignorance, privation and corruption suffered by the first convict Britons who were sent to establish a colonial presence in Australia.

  He fills his stories with concrete details of the colours, sounds and natural features that make them quite realistic. By the time I got to Sydney, I was looking forward to visiting the places he describes, and felt I knew a lot about them.

  Carey is a novelist of renown, although I haven’t read any of his books, so I was not surprised that he could write a good story. It made me wonder, though, how factual the stories are. Did he really go through those incidents with his friends, or are they reworked to make a better story? Or are they all the products of a creative imagination? Some stories seem to be clearly fantasies, such as the dreamlike midnight climb to conquer the Sydney bridge. The histories seem to be solidly based in fact. These are all good questions to have in mind reading any travelogue, and they might not have been so prominent in my mind if Carey had not been a novelist.

  The concrete details and storytelling approach that Carey uses make a nice complement to David Day’s Claiming A Continent, which I read at the same time.

The Wedding Heard ’Round the World: America’s First Gay Marriage

by Michael McConnell, 2016

I enjoyed reading this book, mainly for the personal, first-hand accounts of life in the gay communities of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s.

  Michael is the author of the book and, with the aid of his journalist friend, he tells the story of his relationship with Jack in a direct and personal way. He describes the large gatherings and informal parties of the gay scene in mid-century Oklahoma, how he met Jack and how they built up their relationship and decided that they wanted to get married. Michael describes his strong and supportive family, and Jack’s absence of one, both of which likely contributed to their ability to challenge social norms by living openly as a gay couple. Michael also acknowledges (briefly) the changing social environment, the “cultural earthquake of 1960s,” with the Vietnam resistance, the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement.

  I found his story of setting up a gay support group together with author and activist John Preston in the city of Minneapolis an interesting one. He says that this was one of the first gay community centres in the United States, but the struggles around providing services and finding a unity of purpose are familiar ones. Equally, Jack’s history as a gay student leader in the early 1970s, apparently the first out gay student president at a major American university, is also an interesting story, with a campaign that directly and successfully challenged homophobia with humour and innovative, practical policies.

  The successes and support that Michael and Jack had make me expand my view of the American mid-west. Apparently, it was not as intolerant and homophobic as the stereotypes suggest. However, the termination of Michael’s university library job offer, and the failure of the American Library Association to take up his case, to say nothing of their marriage fight, show that support was not universal. In fact, I suspect that Michael is downplaying some of homophobia they may have encountered.

  In this light, the marriage story is peculiar. Michael wanted their community to acknowledge their love, and Jack I think chose to enthusiastically support his partner. It’s a bit disappointing that the book never gets into Jack’s mind in the same way that it gets into Michael’s, so we don’t know if it would have been an issue he would have chosen to fight without Michael wanting it. As a young law student, Jack initially takes a naïve view of the issue, and after a long series of legal steps, ultimately fails. Their strategy of getting a marriage certificate under an ambiguous name is essentially deceptive and does not advance the issue legally or socially. They had the support of civil liberties lawyers, but a more considered legal strategy with queer community leaders might have led to a more productive approach – or more likely they would have been advised not to waste resources on it.

  Not being an advocate of gay marriage, I’m personally less interested in the details of the legal fight for their marriage, and the wedding itself is a tad underwhelming – far from the rather grandiose claims of the title. Of course, queer couples should have the same rights to marriage as unqueer ones and Michael and Jack’s choice to claim public recognition of their love and their relationship is inspiring. It’s just the particular way that they chose to demand recognition, and the deceptive way that they did it, that make the story a bit odd.

  Still, the personal story is illuminating and inspiring. I learned about some aspects of gay cultural history, and two nice people who undertook a challenging struggle. It’s well worth a read.

Queer Domesticities: Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London

by Matt Cook (2014)

  What an interesting book. I’m enthusiastic because I could identify personally with a lot of the histories and the commentary, whether about upper middle-class queers in early 20^th century London, or mid- and end-of-century social radicals. When I say “identify,” what I mean is that the actions, values and attitudes of the gay men that Matt Cook describes have parallels with mine. This is astonishing considering range of times, classes and demography the book covers. But because it seems so close to my reality, I think that it’s an accurate picture and worth dwelling on.

  This is an academic review that uses a range of case studies to support the author’s observations about queer male life in 20^th century London. Matt Cook’s observations are, in my experience, sound and thoughtful, but it’s the pictures of queer homes and households that are particularly interesting.

  Cook starts with the elite home of two late Victorian/Edwardian men who turned their home into a place of unique taste and refinement, a demonstration, as Cook says, of their self-perceived sophistication and superiority. Their home is a tangible expression of their distinctness from the common taste while also normalizing their queerness. This is something that my partner and I reflect in our own home decorating choices, though unconsciously until reading this book. But yes, we strive for a demonstration of artistic good taste both as a statement of our superiority and normalcy. Until Cook put it into words, I had not considered that principle, but now it’s hard to deny it.

  Cook’s observations about birth families and chosen families are equally telling, although like most gay men I’m much more aware of this in my life. The men in Cook’s case studies negotiate (in his academic language) complex relations with family members and others, sometimes bringing them closer, sometimes less close, but never severing relations entirely. It’s almost comical to think of the most radical and outrageous men of the latter part of the 20^th century, like Joe Orton or Derek Jarman, going back to the parents’ home for the holidays, and reverting to their old family names and roles. Again, this is something that I and many other gay men can understand. While we want to create our own type of family and relationships, there is a state that shifts between comfort and discomfort when we enter the family home. Equally important is negotiating relationships with friends, both gay and not, changing over time as a form of chosen family, who may or may not be sexually involved, but may be part of an emotional and physical support network.

  Fascinating to me, although not so much part of my direct experience, is the shift from “bedsitterland” to the queer squats and GLF. While both are specific to particular times and places in London, there are still elements that I feel I can relate to. Living in what used to be Vancouver’s queer ghetto, the idea of a densely populated neighbourhood where a marginalized population finds community in affordable, if substandard, housing seems quite natural, even desirable. I lived here in a housekeeping room as a student, and still love the sense of a shared village within a bigger city. We don’t have squats, but friends have lived in co-op housing, and negotiated the kind of personal space that Cook describes – although not as radical in their personal politics as the queer squats and GLF houses. And like London, we are losing our village to rising property costs. In all of this, we felt, and sometimes articulated, the need for community, security and identity that Cook draws out in his observations and analysis.

  Cook draws on a wide range of cases to make his observations. Many of them I was vaguely aware of, such as the GLF co-ops, and the lives of high-profile queers like Orton and Jarman. But the personal detail of how they lived their lives makes those stories much more real, and humanizes them by showing points that are similar to my own life. This is a wonderful survey of queer life, and makes me feel part of a larger queer community. Now I want to read more of Cook’s research.

Ways of Sunlight

by Samuel Selvon, 1957

I picked this book from my uncle’s estate, thinking that it was a link to our distant heritage in Trinidad. It covers a time when he and my mom would have been growing up in Port of Spain. It does give an interesting picture of rural life in post-war Trinidad, as well as the life of Trini immigrants to London.

  These stories describe a class quite different from my middle-class white family, although I think they would have been exposed to this life on their visits to family in the country. Certainly, the Caribbean patois that Selvon uses for many of the stories would have been familiar to them, and I could hear the rhythm of their voices in Selvon’s language. (Actually, the patois Selvon uses is much easier to follow than the language my mom uses when she wants to mimic the Trinidad islanders. But it still slows down a reader like me who wants to hear the voices in a naturalistic tone and rhythm.)

  Selvon describes people with a lot of humour and spirit. These people are mostly the South Asian immigrant workers who form the agricultural working class of the countryside, living in farms and villages in almost medieval conditions. The indigenous Caribbean heritage that remains is reflected only in references to Obeah, a form of country magic like voodoo.

  The brief stories of how the islanders get on in London particularly turn on a kind of irony. One islander fakes work for London Transport, another scams to buy a coat for his girlfriend, others put Obeah on a house when the landlord forces them out. It sounds a bit patronizing to reduce them to these simple stories, but they don’t seem patronizing in Selvon’s writing. His characters are all individuals trying to respond to challenging lives with whatever resources they have. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t. Selvon’s simple, concrete writing gives a very clear picture of working class life, both home in Trinidad and in London.

  It’s interesting to see the level of under-development that was apparently commonplace in Trinidad at the time. Selvon describes families who face starvation when one villager controls the town’s well, and illiterate villagers who work to support one member of the family getting an education and a break for the whole family. The references to Obeah are interesting, too – not part of my family history, but it fits with a distinct sense of class superiority that is in the family. Selvon points to these issues by setting his first story on a large plantation, where conditions are quite affluent for the British owners. The story focuses on the impossibility of a relationship between the British and the Indian agricultural workers in the villages, and the conflict the hoped-for relationship creates, putting all the stories that follow in a context of imperialism and racism.

  Selvon ignores the sexism of the culture, or perhaps he observes it without comment. It’s clearly reflected in the way the male characters talk about the women, and in the women themselves, that they are there essentially as a partner for the men and a support for their families. They are secondary characters in the stories where they appear at all, even when they drive a key plot point, such as selling access to the water well. Selvon just seems to have no interest in them as characters.

  I’m glad I picked up this book, and I’ll look forward to finding more of Selvon’s books, particularly from later in his career when he deals with more contemporary conditions. These stories make me think that I should look for books by other Caribbean writers, especially V.S. Naipaul, whom I’ve been wanting to read for some time, but not gotten around to.

A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman, 2012 

I suppose this would be called a comic novel. A lot of things happen that readers can laugh at. But humour relies on context and individual reaction, and so did my response to this book.

  I started read it in preparation for a trip to Scandinavia. I thought that it would show everyday life in contemporary Sweden in an entertaining way, and for that it was good. Set among a group of neighbours in a modern suburb, it describes directly and inferentially a small community and the minor or major issues that come up. Immigration, queer kids, bureaucratic obstruction, new technology are set against an underlying story of love and death in a cold climate. It shows a modern Sweden as part of 20^th century Euro-American culture, with a few specific Nordic quirks. It contains some passages of compassionate writing and empathy that are quite lovely, such as the poignant story of the relationship between Ove and his neighbour, expressed in the history of their car ownership.

  But I didn’t like Fredrik Backman’s writing. Essentially, this is a story about a grumpy old guy with a heart of gold. It’s a sentimental cliché. It’s a well-done sentimental cliché with some modernizing touches, and I can see why it’s popular. But for me it seldom rises above the cliché.

  And it is undermined by incidents that are over-done or that don’t ring true. The uniform white-shirted, heartless bureaucrats, for example, are cartoons. While it might be true that many employees providing government services are rule-bound and unfeeling, they are all human beings with individual interests and frustrations. It doesn’t make Ove’s story any more sympathetic to make them all automatons. And the story of the gay guy who comes to stay in Ove’s house because his father can’t deal with his homosexuality seems completely contrived, the kind of thing that someone would imagine when they don’t know any gay men’s coming out stories. Worse than contrived, it’s a plot device to bring a little more poignancy and humor into the story line. And then there are the cute kids who get through Ove’s grumpiness. And the stray cat that adopts Ove and lets him show his hidden warmth. Even, perhaps especially, his saintly wife. It’s all too much.

  Backman also reduces the text to very simple, elemental declarative sentences or half sentences, presumably to represent Ove’s way of thinking, which is also very elemental. This is effective in making a reader see how Ove thinks, but after a few chapters, it’s trite.

  What's critically annoying here is the mix of psychological insight presented in simple language offset by contrived sentimentality in an exaggerated style that is supposed to represent Ove's straightforward thinking. Perhaps if a few of the chapters were presented as short stories, this would be an interesting character study. But it is not enlightening when it turns him into a caricature or when character development relies on revelations that are little more than sentimental hooks.

  Perhaps I’m being as narrow-minded and judgemental as Ove. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t much like the book. But for me, it’s the worst kind of popular sentimentality, and it is not saved by the few insightful passages.

Roseanna

Maj Sjowall and Per Whaloo, 1965

This is a departure from the conventional crime novel, a very narrowly focussed police procedural. There are no clues to figure out, no elaborate settings or plots, no insight into the criminal mind. It simply traces the slow and painstaking steps of analyzing a murder, building up information and gradually identifying the suspects and then trying to find evidence to confirm a case. Except for the somewhat overdrawn final chapter, we have no idea what motivates the murderer. All this is, I suspect, much more like a real police case than the psychological profilers and intuitive detectives that we see so much today (at least in my television experience, and I don’t watch or read much criminal fiction because it just seems so overdone).

  For my temperament, this approach is interesting and satisfying, although I can imagine that for many readers it would be too dry. For the first three months of the plot, the police don’t even know who the victim is, until someone matches a missing person report from the USA to the Swedish murder. The story reproduces investigation reports and interrogations without extraneous description or comments on the reaction of those questioned. The reader has to piece together the details from the words reported. Even the interior monologue of the lead detective doesn’t advance the plot or contribute to understanding the crime. The pace is even more constrained by the time period, the early sixties when the only instant communication was the telephone, and investigators had to wait while documents were couriered from one place to another. Forensics are limited and high-tech doesn’t exist.

  In spite of this style, the novel is intriguing for the realistic portrayal of what an actual police investigation might be like in reality. This, to me, seems like the investigations that I read about in news media, when even with the benefit of instantaneous communications it takes weeks to get lab reports and months or more to build a case. Investigators’ hunches, both right and wrong, come from what the witnesses actually say or what’s in the evidence, not from brilliant intuition. And they have to be proven on the basis of evidence that will stand up in court. I expect that this is because the authors were journalists, and presumably has some knowledge of the realities of criminal investigation. Also, as Marxists, they want to see conclusions drawn from material fact.

  The characters are thinly drawn and the action is slow – although there is one sequence at the end when an intensity builds, the police lose track of the suspect and suspense is real. But the stories do give an interesting picture of a police investigation in a realistic Swedish setting at a particular time. I’m interested enough to want to read more in the Martin Beck series. 

The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James, 1881

Alright, yes, this is slow-moving, detailed and introspective. Why does anyone read Henry James if that is not what they want?

But in addition to those qualities, it has wit and social satire involving real characters trying to work out their lives. Does it have less comic activity than that other wordy nineteenth century writer and satirist, Charles Dickens? Yes, but in place of Dickens’ comic caricatures, we have real characters, even the women. With James, I feel that I am exploring the complex choices of a variety of women characters who could be dealing with equally difficult choices today (unlike the one-dimensional ideals of Dickens’ women). The specifics of their choices may be different from contemporary conditions, but I can imagine these characters as people wrestling with modern issues.

  The book looks at the unusual marriage choices of a number of women – Mrs. Touchett’s life separate from a husband she seems indifferent to; Mme Merle’s unhappy marriage which has left her in relative poverty, reliant on the generosity of friends; the Contessa’s sham of a marriage to a philandering man she despises; Henrietta’s unmarried relationship with her admiring Bantling, which she eventually transforms into a conventional marriage; and at the centre, Isobel’s initial choice to reject two attractive offers before finally accepting the worst of her options.

  The first part of the book is taken up with Isobel’s background and character, focusing on her independence and unconventionality. She is a clever and thoughtful young woman who does not want to be tied into the restricted domestic life of most of the women she knows. Her observations are often sharp and witty. Drawn to her ambition and independence, and at the suggestion of her cousin Ralph Touchett, Ralph’s father leaves her a large inheritance.

  In her naivety, or her attraction to an intelligent worldly woman, Isobel is drawn into the circle of the interesting Mme Merle as someone who seems to live a life outside of convention but still within respectable society. She is charmed by Mme Merle’s sophisticated friend Gilbert Osmond, and takes him at face value, although Mme Merle has manipulated the situation to marry Isobel to Gilbert so that he can take advantage of her money. It’s not really clear why she marries Osmond, although there is the pressure of convention, and it later appears that they deceived each other in their reliance on social conventions. Both put on their best appearances and fell for what they saw in the other.

  When Isobel realizes that Gilbert has no feelings for her and intends only to keep her, like his daughter, as an attractive and useful addition to his chilling collection of beautiful objects, she concludes that her only choice is to live up to the marriage vow she made and live with Gilbert in misery. This seems an odd conclusion given the many different models among her friends and her willingness to reject convention. Her generosity of spirit perhaps impels her to stay in order to support Gilbert’s daughter, and fighting convention all the time is a hard choice, particularly when the unconventional relationships of her friends appears problematic and unattractive. Perhaps this is why she finally needs the excuse of Ralph Touchett’s illness to break with Gilbert.

  The ending is, of course, ambiguous. After the very touching scene of Ralph’s death, Isobel returns to Rome, either to submit to Gilbert or to confront him. The strength of her connection to Ralph, and her rejection (again) of Caspar Goodwood’s demand that she go with him, lead me to believe that she is going to break finally with Gilbert. She is a strong figure, and she knows her mind. I take it that she will go her own way, as she always has, and accept the consequences.
  As always, a fascinating, fully absorbing study by Henry James that rewards readers who are looking for thoughtful social and psychological insight.