Review: 'Alex y Robert' by Wena Poon

I met Wena when she was in Scotland last summer for the Salt Scotland launch and then at various times during her residential fellowship at Hawthornden Castle. It’s possible that this novel might have sneaked under my radar if that hadn’t been the case, but I’m glad it didn’t because Alex y Robert is an absorbing read from start to finish.

The story is of Alejandra Herrera (aka ‘Alex’), a young American woman who wants to be a bullfighter in Spain. She has some pedigree in that her grandfather was a famous matador, she speaks fluent Spanish, and she has done some training in the USA, despite the misgivings of her parents-by-adoption (her mother and father were killed in a car crash when she was a child). She goes to Spain and makes contact with Roberto de la Torre, a rising star in the bullfighting arena, whose grandfather was a matador contemporary of Alex’s granddad.

It isn’t exactly plain sailing. Public opposition to bullfighting, at home and abroad, is growing. The majority of people in the bullfighting scene are opposed to women-matadors and will have nothing to do with them. There are close-shaves and crises of confidence. The recession is threatening many venues and promoters. The press is often contemptuous. Roberto has his own personal and public crises to deal with. Will Alex ever realise her dream of fighting bulls in the great arena in Madrid?

The narrative speeds along with real fizz and energy, but not at the expense of character development. Wena Poon artfully structures the novel so that it switches between present and past without the flashbacks seeming in any way obtrusive. They build up a sense of who Alex and Robert are and the issues that face them, including the issue of their own relationship, which is the subject of much gossip. You’ll end up caring about the fate of the two main characters (and some of the supporting roles), whatever your feelings towards bullfighting. The competing, passionate attitudes towards the art (not a ‘sport’, we are reminded) are dealt with in a fair and subtle way. Wena Poon obviously researched deeply, not just the bare facts, but the inner psychology of matadors, managers, fans, and those vehemently opposed to the whole thing, and weaves it seamlessly into the narrative. She questions too-easy assumptions of cultural superiority (from all sides) and revels in their inherent contradictions, perhaps well illustrated by the scene in which Roberto meets up with his friends, Paco and Ana. Ana has been reading VirtualPeña, a website for women bullfighting fans:

Paco asked her when she became interested in bullfighting. She retorted that she was not, but VirtualPeña was addictive. She added that she supported women in any kind of activity that men didn’t allow them in, even though she taught yoga, was vegetarian, and opposed the corrida, and yes she was a bundle of contradictions, and did the men at the table have a problem with it?

This is a literary novel which is also a page-turner, an exciting story which is intelligently organised and very well written. It also asks questions on identity, on how opinions are shaped and cemented, on tradition and modernity, on danger, beauty, cruelty and violence, and shirks nothing. My advice: get some olives, pour a large glass of fine Rioja, and imagine that it’s sunny outside. Pick up this book and start reading.

(Alex y Robert, by Wena Poon, was published by Salt in 2010, and is currently priced at £6.07 (free postage worldwide) at the Book Depository. The book’s Salt Page is here, and contains useful information, and the button to buy it there now works!

The Alternative Orange Prize

Congratulations to Bernardine Evaristo, whose novel, Blonde Roots, has won the ‘alternative Orange prize’. A group of six specially-appointed 16-19 year-olds read all the books on the Orange longlist and chose Blonde Roots as their favourite. Bernardine is very supportive of other writers and was kind enough to write the endorsement on the cover of The Opposite of Cabbage. It’s great to see her novel getting such recognition from younger readers. The winner of the official Orange Prize will be announced later today. What’s intriguing is that the young people’s shortlist contained none of the books in the official shortlist. I was amused to read in the Guardian:

‘They weren't impressed with the final six books on the official shortlist, with comments on the online teen book community Spinebreakers, which recruited the readers, ranging from "don't like the shortlist. It just looks like a bunch of books women would read", to "shoddy work grownups" and "grrr I'm not happy with the judges' shortlist! Not happy at all."’

I haven’t read the short-listed books to judge the veracity of those claims, but they are interesting, especially, “It just looks like a bunch of books women would read” (italics my own, as I’m sure that is what’s meant). Heh.

Hits and Novels

Hits to this blog went through the roof yesterday. The reason? Well, a link from Books Inq to my article on poem endings gave a significant increase. But even that was dwarfed by the number of hits coming from Ron Silliman, who linked to the same article – about three-quarters of the way down a vast column of links in his Monday 18th post. I can’t imagine how many hits I would have had if it had been near the top. Considering Ron Silliman writes an uncompromising poetry blog, the number of readers he gets is amazing, about as many in one hour as I normally get in a month, I suspect. But yesterday was a new record for me…

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I often find it hard to concentrate on poetry in late evening, especially if I’ve had a lot of work to do during the day, but there’s hardly ever anything on TV (and I’m not much interested in the Olympics), so I decided I’d start reading novels again. I must admit – I’ve enjoyed it. If the novel doesn’t grab me in the first ten pages, I ditch it. I don’t have the time or patience to see if it gets better. But I’ve enjoyed Marina Lewycka’s Two Caravans, Kapka Kassabova’s Street Without a Name (a prose memoir, non-fiction), Salem Falls by Jodi Picault (yes, I know, very Richard and Judy, but an entertaining page-turner nonetheless), Exit Ghost by Philip Roth, The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland, and - so far – Falling Man by Don DeLillo. One thing is for sure – fiction is so much easier than poetry. I’d forgotten how simple it was – simple to read, that is, not at all easy to write (well).

Ending a Collection

I’ve been reading Douglas Coupland’s most recent novel, The Gum Thief. On page 141, one of the characters photocopies the last two pages of 100 randomly-chosen novels to see what common ground exists in their endings. Her conclusion?

“It’s not in every book, but it’s in most books. It’s this: when a book ends, the characters are often moving either towards or away from a source of light – literally – like carrying a candle into a dark room or running a red light at an intersection or opening curtains or falling into a well or – this list goes on. I circled all the bits about light and there’s no mistaking it.”

Now the character making this observation is a twenty-something woman approaching the end of her “goth phase,” and I don’t know whether Coupland has himself ever looked through 100 novels at random to establish the facts. But I wondered whether there was any common thread at the end of poetry collections, partly because my own pamphlet ends with the phrase, “a spin of bright dust in a thread of light.” So I chose 12 poetry collections from my shelves and here’s what I found at the end of each:

You wore your cummerband with the stars and stripes. I, kilted in lime, held a stethoscope to the head of the parting guest. Together we were a couple forever.
(John Ashbery – Where Shall I Wander)

Your nephew, Charles, applied
the necessary, transfiguring gold,
and at last on darkness the dark eyes
closed, brimming with the memory of colour.
(John Ash – The Parthian Stations)

I dream my unborn daughter:
within her palm
one sand-grain’s infinite

coastline becomes one country, becomes
the whole inhabited land.
(A B Jackson – Fire Stations)

turn-ups, a polka-dot dress, one blustery day;
her arm hooked round his arm
as if that could stop him blowing away.
(Stephen Knight – Flowering Limbs)

where the past turns, its face sparkling like emery,
to open its grace and incredible harm
over my life, and I will never die.
(Denis Johnson – The Incognito Lounge)

- The stars will soon be out.
- I think so: the beam, the blister, and the blaze.
(Edwin Morgan – A Book of Lives)

McAdam wakes in a hospital bed singing
a tirade of love songs

in a language yet to be born
(Andrew Philip – Tonguefire)

This is the right light, this pewter shine on the water,
not the carnage of clouds, not the expected wonder
of self-igniting truth and oracular rains,
but these shallows as gentle as the voice of your daughter,
while the gods fade like thunder in the rattling mountains.
(Derek Walcott – The Bounty)

Falling light as casts
Laid down
On shining waters,
Under the moon’s stigmata

Six thousand miles away,
I imagine untroubled dust,
A loosening gravity,
Christ weighing by his hands.
(Seamus Heaney – Wintering Out)

What syllable are you seeking,
Vocalissimus,
In the distances of sleep?
Speak it.
(Wallace Stevens – Harmonium)

They stumble all night over bones of the dead,
And feel they know not what but care,
And wish to lead others, when they should be led.
(William Blake – Songs of Experience)

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
(Sylvia Plath – Ariel)

There is plenty of light in these passages, isn’t there? Also, perhaps even more prevalent, a movement into an unknown or unspoken future - whether positive, negative or plainly ironic. That’s in spite of the many different strategies employed. Of course, this might just be a fluke, but I didn’t deliberately choose these books to prove a thesis. It’s just the way it’s worked out.

New Reading and Writing

I’m just about to go on holiday from work (from tomorrow) for two weeks. I’d like to say that I’ll be in some warm, sunny place with infinite cold drinks supplied on demand, but I’ll be spending most of it right here in Edinburgh.

I have a couple of poetry deadlines looming:

Firstly, a short article on a pre-20th century poem of my choice. I’ll probably go for an excerpt from Paradise Lost. The problem is choosing which part. Saying something about it shouldn’t be hard.

Secondly, an article about poetry blogging. It should be light and humorous, but I should also try to say something worthwhile. Between 700-1000 words.

I have a poem begging to be written. I have the core image in my head. However, I haven’t yet managed to get the tone right – those vital first few lines – and until that happens, the poem won’t happen. But, I think, when it happens, the whole poem will almost write itself. Not quite, but it will feel like that afterwards.

I noticed that a famous Italian poet’s work has just gone-out-of-copyright, and I’ve just begun translating one of his poems – a six-pager. That might take me a month or two to complete. My Italian is getting worse by the day.

Both these poems might slide into my collection manuscript - it depends. Sooner or later, I'll have to make the decision on whether I should stop adding and subtracting from it.

And I have a few things to read. I sent off for Retta Bowen’s pamphlet, The Ornamental World, on tall-lighthouse press. I heard Retta read at the StAnza Poetry Festival in 2007 and thought (on the evidence of the readings) that she was the best of the five Eric Gregory Award winners that year. I've read the pamphlet (about 13 poems), thought some of the poems were terrific, and want to read it again. I’d also picked up Katia Kapovich’s Cossacks and Bandits, which looks like a very interesting collection. I’m going to buy maybe two or three of the latest HappenStance pamphlets, but not until the end of the month, post-holiday. I’m not sure which ones to buy either.

For my birthday last month, my wife gave me a novel, Two Caravans, by Marina Lewycka, and a friend gave me Exit Ghost by Philip Roth. It’s been a while since I read a novel, but holidays are the ideal time for it.

I’m talking about literary stuff because that’s mainly what this blog is about. I’ll have other kinds of fun too…

Poets in Velvet

My wife doesn’t read much poetry, but devours novels – hundreds each year of all kinds. She indulges, now and again, in a spot of chick-lit. At the moment, she’s reading a book called The Chocolate Lovers’ Club by Carole Matthews.

On page 183 of this novel is the following paragraph:

The poetry book that’s being launched is an anthology and I notice that there are several of the contributors mingling nervously with the guests. You can tell that they’re poets as they’re wearing mainly velvet clothing with lots of scarves and some of them have on jaunty hats.

Velvet? Lots of scarves (inside!)? Jaunty hats? Does that description scream 'poet' to you?

To be honest, she could probably spot the poets far more easily by those who'd start re-arranging her first sentence to read:

The launch is for a poetry anthology and I notice several contributors mingling nervously with the guests.

The Holy Terror and Jack Kerouac

The Edinburgh Festival (the biggest international arts festival in the world) got officially underway today with a drizzly cavalcade through the town, the first rain at this annual procession for more than ten years. My wife has been rehearsing hard for her part in the Edinburgh People’s Theatre production of The Holy Terror, which opened yesterday – a free adaptation of Molière’s Tartuffe into Scots by James Scotland. Details are at the link.

Unrelated to this, an excellent article by Sean O’Hagan to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I read On the Road in my twenties and loved it, but haven’t picked it up since. I would fear disappointment, but perhaps bits of it would still resonate? Hard to know what it would mean to young people today. Carolyn Cassady is in no doubt:

Carolyn Cassady, the last surviving member of Kerouac's closeknit coterie of friends and fellow Beats, now 84 and exiled in deepest Berkshire, is even more scathing about Noughties youth. 'It's all about money and surface now, the clothes you wear, the things you buy, and no one is the slightest bit ashamed of being superficial. I often thank God that Jack and Neal did not live long enough to see what has become of their vision'.

But the beat generation didn’t go down well with most of their elderly contemporaries either.

Back from the Algarve

I’m back from Southern Portugal and fourteen days of unbroken sunshine, but there won’t be much sense from me today. We had to get up at 5.30 this morning to catch our flight home an I’m now feeling exhausted.

But it was a great holiday – sun, beaches, nice people, good beer and food. My daughter loved it, which meant that my wife and I could relax. I read three books, two of which were really excellent – The Truth of Poetry by Michael Hamburger, and Coming to Terms by Harry Guest. I’ll say more about them in days to come. I also read Douglas Coupland’s novel, JPod, which was a good laugh and perfect for light holiday relief, although not his strongest novel. I didn’t pack Roy Fisher’s book in the end – too heavy. I know there’s lots of good stuff in it anyway, as I often pick it up and read sections from it. I read most of Annie Freud’s debut collection The Best Man That Ever Was on the plane home – definitely very interesting, but I’ll have to read it again when I’m a bit less brain-dead. It deserves a close read.

One weird moment yesterday. This three-year-old boy, Niall, was throwing inflatable rings around the pool area. His parents kept telling him to stop, but he carried on. Then he picked up a surfboard and threw it into the pool, and it narrowly missed my daughter’s head. His family continued to sit there and again, the mum said, “Don’t do that again.” He promptly did it again. His mum said, “I don’t want to see you do that again,” but she continued to sit on her sunbed, cigarette in mouth, and made no attempt to get her son to do as she had asked.

Niall then picked up an inflatable ring and threw it at my daughter. Then he went towards the surfboard again. I stood up, went over to Niall and told him to leave the surfboard alone. Brief pause. Then for the first time, members of his family actually got off their arses – but not to take action against Niall. No, instead they started shouting against me for daring to tell their child what to do. I replied that their efforts had been so woefully ineffective that I was forced into taking action, and would do so again if necessary. Well, they were furious. They glowered away, gave me black looks every time they passed by, even stuck their fingers up at me occasionally.

But my daughter had the last laugh when later in the afternoon, she crept up behind Niall and, without warning (and, I have to say, quite out of character, as she is a gentle wee soul), shoved him into the pool. It was hard not to laugh, but she apologised immediately and we told her she must never do anything like that again. It didn’t make that other family like us any the more though!

Marina Lewycka and the 36 Rejections

This from The Guardian today.

Marina Lewycka was rejected 36 times before she finally found a publisher at the age of 58. Now A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a worldwide hit.

Before Tractors, the only creative work she had had published was a poem in an Arts Council magazine about 30 years ago. Had she ever doubted that her dream would come true?

"I doubted it all the time," she says, "but writing was a compulsion. Lots of very good writers never get published, and that could easily have happened to me. People think that good writers will always come out in the end, but I don't believe that."

She says she had reached the point where she barely discussed her writing with her husband, a mining consultant, or grown-up daughter. "When you've been doing it for as long as that, it gets a bit embarrassing, so you don't talk about it very much…"

The whole article can be read at the link above.