Half-sung Songs

Guy Gavriel Kay, A Song for Arbonne: Blandly, I may tell you that it is an oft-told tale - of nations pitted against each other and bloody war, of earthly, human love and its many hatreds and pain. That would be unjust; Arbonne is much more than that. On a canvas of medieval almost-Provencal France, replete with vineyards, green-gold fields and sparkling rivers, GGK paints for us a masterful story of two lands ruled by different beliefs. Gorhaut is a land of hardy soldiers, anointed to the god Corannos and worshipping none other; it is prey to the designs of Galbert de Garsenc, its High Elder priest, who wishes to destroy all heretic lands in religious fervour. Arbonne, vine-filled valley dipped in sunshine, is that heretical land: woman-ruled, worshipping a goddess on par with Corannos, making much of music and of love. A Song for Arbonne is a celebration of Arbonne’s ways, of the liberated notions of womanhood existing alongside soldierly mastery, of the merry-making with music and love. It is also a story of war: of Gorhaut and Arbonne’s beliefs, of Talair and Miraval for the love of long-dead Aelis, of the many-layered hatreds and weaknesses of the Garsencs, of brute force and cruelty against what is right.

It is here that GGK exhibits his mastery: in his hands, the vastness of Arbonne is broken into intelligible and beautiful fragments. He fashions characters and themes by the multitude and weaves them into his story almost effortlessly. His descriptions leave one slaked of thirst: one wanders through Arbonne and Gorhaut, amidst the splendor and the horror, without difficulty. GGK also converges his themes of love and hatred, right and wrong, honour and treason, politics and individual lives well. Where he does strike a snag, however, is in the feeling.

I have no better word to explain this. GGK’s relationships in Arbonne are too contrived, artificial. Depth of thought and feeling is inserted through mere words, almost as an afterthought. No action, no involving emotional journeys bear evidence to either Blaise’s love of Gorhaut or of, say, Lisseut’s love for Arbonne. We have only their word, or their thought, that drills in this depth. Indeed, even loving relationships, such as Bertran and Aelis, or Blaise and Ariane de Carenzu are created out of thin air, with neither the past nor reason justifying their depth. I felt this most keenly in the scene in the inn at the Autumn Fair, where the joglar Ramir sings of love of Arbonne. Under a true master’s hand, this scene would have been the peak, the concretizing of the symbol that is Arbonne – a tool to capture the reader’s loyalties. Instead, one is left supporting Arbonne primarily because Gorhaut is not an option (they burn women at the stake, for god’s sake).

And it is here that I recall the magic that Tigana wove, pulling the reader in despite his possible misgivings, allaying and assuaging them, replacing them with new doubts, questions and judgments of each side of the battle. Tigana had one rooting for a character and his choices for clear reasons, for courage and valour, empathy, fealty and service. It may be that Arbonne has a different enemy to match. I rather think that Arbonne overreached a little: there are too many characters, too many themes inadequately created and addressed. In a story such as this, history matters. Reasons are instrumental to shaping the character and his (and our) involvement and sympathies. I do not curse Arbonne for this, though. But for this half-creation, Arbonne would have been an absolutely incredible read. Indeed, it still is. GGK has magic.

Reading

Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance: I first read and fell in love with Murakami with Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. His larger-than-self prose, with its abstract, introspective philosophising appealed instantly. Here was a kindred spirit, who looked ceaselessly for meaning in everyday life. My love affair intensified with Kafka on the Shore. Its fantasy, its recognition and understanding of emotion and action shook and settled me like no other book in that tumultuous time, for it made sense of and left unanswered life-and-death questions. But like all my loves, Murakami waned rather suddenly, and I did not like South of the Border West of the Sun or Hard-boiled Wonderland and the Edge of the World; they were both too fantanstical and lead nowhere. With Dance Dance Dance, my love for Murakami has resurrected, albeit to lesser heights.

Dance Dance Dance is like Kafka; it leaves many questions unanswered. Instead of being miffed, I see a different purpose there now: some questions are unanswered because answers are not necessary. Life can be lived well even without them, and there will be no less beauty for their absence. It is important, though, to ask questions. To accept responsibility. To look for meaning. To sometimes stand at the edge of our existences and call unconsciously, hopelessly for the Sheep Man. And in the end, and always, to dance. Not in the face of grave, life-threatening difficulties; that is not when human beings give up, says Murakami. They give up in the face of everyday hopelessness, of relentless, changeless routine, of long, grey, unbending, stark roads. It is here we must learn to dance, to keep our feet moving lest we fall and give in to the illusion of helplessness. Murakami's project in Dance Dance Dance is precisely that - the gathering of a courage necessary to live our everyday lives, and to live them with grace and responsibility. 

***

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass: I have mixed feelings about this book. To be sure, The Subtle Knife was a let down after the concise and beautifully descriptive prose of Northern Lights. While The Amber Spyglass has something of Northern Lights' magic, it fails on a more important scale: it leaves major plot ends unanswered, and that, for a fantasy novel (if for no other), is an irredeemable folly. The good bits first: Pullman really knows how to create these half-children, they who grow up before their time, and rise beautifully to the challenge of adulthood (and more). Will and Lyra are all that; they have strength, courage and steadfastness. Pullman strikes a snag in two areas: internal logic of fantasy lands and of plot. By the former, I mean his logic for the creation and functioning of magical lands: that of the many worlds, and specifically, of Cittegazze, Lord Asriel's world and mulefa-land. One might go so far as to forgive this; after all, Pullman's creation is not as comprehensive as, say, Tolkien's. The latter shortcoming, however, is plainly unforgivable. To poke only a few holes: Whence came the witches' prophecy? What is the precise nature of the connection between love/coming of age and the sraf? What is the link between these particular children, their love and Dust? Without these, Pullman's world is sadly bereft of completeness. 

My favourite parts of the book are these three: the parting of Lyra and Pantalaimon, telling the ghosts stories of the real-world, the blossoming of love between Will and Lyra. Pullman paints emotion well. In the world of the dead, Lyra's remembrance of everyday life - the simple pleasures of earth and stone and tree - becomes a catalyst for both the kindling of fierce hope in the ghosts and to draw out goodness from the harpies. Will and Lyra's first love is beautiful: their understanding and want, and the bitterness of parting. Pullman's love is defined by these: the glow and magic of a connection both emotional and physical, the necessity of priorities over togetherness, and the transformation that love makes possible. Love is not great, I remember reading somewhere, because of some inherent virtue; love makes us want to be and to do good, and that is its gift and its blessing. The Amber Spyglass is a good book, not a great one; it will not outlive Northern Lights, but bits of it will become good memories.

no longer home

 I am home. For the first time in a couple of years, I have had the time to wander the town, to reacquaint myself with it. And as expected of a returner, I find everything hopelessly changed. Cochin is no longer my city, nor Tripunithura my town. I wonder at it, at the change and at the nature of it, and my reaction to it all. For it is not merely physical; the change is in my relation to these things of my childhood.

There are physical changes, obviously. Ten, fifteen years ago, I knew everybody within a five mile radius of my house. Not only the people, knew all the animals, the trees (mango and tamarind especially, though we climbed all without discrimination), the earth (the dusty brown summer earth, the moist fragrant red monsoon earth, dark hard caked winter earth), the houses and their ponds. In their place, now there are palaces of concrete and monstrosities of glass and steel (forgive me, Howard Roark) - apartment buildings built or being built, shops, malls. People have settled here, and are still pouring in, whom I know nothing of. Those I walked and played and swam with are all gone, building their lives elsewhere, much like me.

More than this physical change, I feel it in the (for lack of an appropriate word) culture. The small town I grew up in was really a small town. Our connections began and ended within its boundaries. Any city that wasn't Cochin was the object of round-eyed contemplation, anything with its roots outside of its purview was strange and big. Not even that, really. All of that was outside our scope of contemplation; it neither touched nor affected our lives. Our only real connection to worlds outside was the people we knew, elder ones who had migrated, cousins and other relatives who came visiting. Perhaps that makes our lives narrow? Perhaps they were narrow, but that is not to say they were not happy. The happinesses and sadnesses we felt here were the same as I see in those other cities. Causes, factors, justifications - these differ, certainly, in scale and volume, but the essence is the same.

I can't say it any other way, but my town has become big. Too big for me to recognise, too big for the child in me to reconcile with.

I do recognise that these changes are necessary. Nor do I wish for my town to remain stagnant, as it was when I was ten. That would be presumptuous and unwise. Only this: that I no longer have roots here, and this is no longer my home but for my parents' presence. My friends, my school, the things I did when I was here - all of that is gone. A sadness there, certainly. But then again, my little town is in my head - glorified and romanticised beyond sorrow, and I can ask for nothing else.

law school

Three years down, two to go.

And what a journey it is.