Mametz – Aled Rhys Hughes

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Published to coincide with the 2016 centenary of battle of Mametz wood in the midst of the countless words currently being written about the First World War these imagines stand out.

There is an essay reflecting on them at the end of the book, but the main body is given over to the imagines – speaking in a way that words fail to do.

Mametz is perhaps an archetype of the futility of the First World War, significant loss of life taking yards of ground only to retreat almost as quickly. Within the wider narrative Mametz is a focal point for the Welsh collective grief.

Aled Rhys Hughes, in his foreword, explores what it is to visit these sites, the tension of mourner come tourist or even voyeur – especially as he photographs people photographing Dragon memorial (and themselves in front of it) – we have to acknowledge these differing motivations but it seems the pressure of social media makes it hard to be completely in a place – if you haven’t posted a selfie then you weren’t really there. While an older generation might feel taking a selfie disrespectful, a younger generation might find not taking a selfie equally disrespectful.

All the Colours of Light – Mary Lloyd Jones

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A slim volume, 30 pages, with 4 or 5 lines of text pre page allows Mary Lloyd Jones art to take the centre of the stage. Art full of movement and the power of colour – sometimes paint is a static medium, but these works sing.

Women Who Blow on Knots by Ece Temelkuran

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I didn’t find this an easy read, having to take it is small bites to allow time to process. There was a powerful mysticism – what was fantastical what fantasy.

A novel about women, Muslim women, Muslim women in North Africa it explodes assumptions. These are women struggling with the expectations of society but women with power, vitality, dignity – and little time or use for men.

The issues of language are explored, therefore it was odd to be reading in translation, for example and one point:

“I went into another room where they were teaching children Amazigh. There were reading cards on the wall and Amazigh letters on the backboard. These people were working to free themselves of a language they had been forced to learn and to return to their mother tongue, and in the middle of a war. It must have been something like reading history backwards.”

And later:

“Now consider this… Colonialism can even lead people to stop naming children and flowers in their mother tongues. But only our language and its words ring in our hearts. The heart is made up of words.”

For the English, and first language English speakers more generally, the power of language to shape identity often seems difficult to grasp – words are neutral, we forget that some ideas can only be expressed in a particular language, in particular the longings and laments of the people under oppression can not be shared in the language of their oppressors.

But alongside the trespass I felt as a monoglot English speaker there was an equal feeling of trespass as a man in a space owned and defended by these women. I might not be the biggest champion of patriarchy, nevertheless I remain a beneficiary of it. As an over-educated white middle-class male I need to talk a lot about my privilege before I get the right to talk of any experience of oppression. Western society is run by, and for, guys like me.

There were moments that powerfully make you stop and think …

“If someone has a scar on her face and you don’t ask her about it she won’t think you’re being kind, she’ll just think you didn’t see her face.”

… do we look away from disfigurement to save their embarrassment or our own – does our politeness render people invisible.

On the very last page, the journey done, there is a final reflection …

“It was the first time I understood what Madam Lilla had done for us all. We did not need a god to love us if we had a courageous mother...”

The big loving embrace of Madam Lilla, despite her complexities, is the transformative action.

Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo

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INCLUDES SPOILERS

The story of a 74 year old Barry who has spent almost all his adult life in London and even longer in a covert sexual relationship with Morris brings together a number of rich and interesting themes.

As with Hide by Matthew Griffin the (homo) sexuality of an older generation is explored – doing this alongside the dynamics of the Caribbean community in London adds to the complexities.

That Barry and Morris were both married doesn’t seem to have hampered their ongoing relationship, but Barry’s marriage to Carmel has become a cage trapping the pair of them.

We perhaps have to wrestle with the tension of how “guilty” we should see Barry for 60 years of unfaithful marriage – what choices did he have as a Gay Antiguan in the early 60s? But there are clear suggestions that he allowed the situation to continue because it suited him just fine to have a wife and a lover.

Although Barry has decided to come out and leave Carmel during a time when she is back in Antigua, I am not convinced he would actually of done it, and Evaristo places the initiative into Carmel’s hands she learns the truth while in Antigua and comes “home” to London and takes control of the situation. While this is empowerment of her is a positive dynamic, avoiding her remaining a victim, for me it denies Barry of redemption – he never actually puts right the situation, it is put right for him – he is found out rather than coming out.

But it is a tale filled with great characters, told with pace and conviction, highly enjoyable.

Everything I Found on the Beach by Cynan Jones

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Once again Cynan Jones provides a powerful narrative, rich and yet tightly written.

As with Cove the sea has a central role, and landscape and sea are given a life that help to draw you into the heart of the drama.

Ideas around identity, and the struggle between your desires and the hand life has dealt you, are core to this story – or stories, the intertwining of different peoples lives, out of the blue these unconnected people have profound impacts on each other.

Jones once again resists happy endings, good people who try hard don’t always win out in the end. But the “bad guys” are shown to have complexities – there is little that is black and white.

To have a consistent output of this quality is remarkable.

Catulla et al by Tiffany Atkinson

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A playful collection of poems – such as

Bad karaoke

The wedding night of my second trip

to Scotland two-by-two of us propping

up the bar of the Kilmarnock Travel-

odge in something less comfortable

which happens to be karaoke night

in these heels All day shy as a tree-

forg in my patterned dress and now

the whole room glitters Even my true

love says I shouldnae feel I have tae

as I launch my high notes at the tone-

deaf anaglytpa If the make-up runs

it’s just I haven’t splet since Thursday

and I’ve lived on crisps fro three days Only

dinna make me drive home on a hangover’s

slipped gears the sun on my forehead past

Dumfries still asking why indeed Delilah

Rain -

It started unremarkably,

like many regimes. We sat like children

making quiet things indoors. The rivers

burst their staves and soaked the folds mid-

country; they were schlepping people out of pedalos,

and punting through cathedrals saving cats. One lad

clearing out his granddad’s drain was still caught

when the waters lapped the record set in 1692.

Imagine. News teams donned their sombrer cagoules.

The house had more floors than we knew. In twenty years

we’d never spent so much time in one room. I’d no idea

you had a morbid fear of orange pips, or found French novelists

oppressive. On the seventh day, completely hoarse,

we took to drawing on the walls and staging tableaux.

In delirium all actions feel like role play -

protein strands against the ooze, the animals we made -

and rain, a steady broadcast on all wavelengths,

taught us everything we known about the tango. Only

when we grew too thin for metaphors was rain just rain.

We thought about the drowned boy, how he watched

the lid of water seal him in, for all his bright modernity.

Was it a Monday morning when the garden was returned,

tender with slugs, astonished at itself? Our joined hands

wer the last toads in the ark. We walked; we needed news.

Stories of Ireland’s Past Edited by M Stanley, R Swan, & A O’Sullivan

Out of print but can be found on Amazon 

Following on from reading Harvesting the Stars part of Ireland’s National Road Authority’s archaeological publication scheme this volume giving an overview of archaeology that the NRA funded during its 20 year existence caught my attention.

Particularly interesting is the way that the developer led nature of the NRA’s archaeology had a significant impact on the knowledge gained. Digging where the road was going rather than where you expect to find interesting archaeology, indeed the NRA deliberately planned the route of the roads to try to avoid known sites of archaeological significance.

Much of the importance of this body of new information therefore comes form filling the “white spaces” on the archaeological map, with evidence of the lives of those of lower social status and the rural who are so often absent from the historical and the archaeological narratives.

While it is mostly a celebration of the good work done under NRA’s auspices the authors were not afraid to point out concerns that some methodological practices may have limited the insights that might have come for particular periods and types of activity.

Although particular sites are discussed these are exemplars rather than the focus. It feels as if the opportunity to step back and reflect on the big picture is not common and one that the authors of the various chapters relished. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a friend from University among their number.