Bamboozled in Batlava - 'Batlava Lake' by Adam Mars-Jones reviewed

I first became aware of Fitzcarraldo Editions when, browsing in a bookshop, I came across Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk. Apart from the striking title (taken from the poetry of William Blake) the look of the book set it apart from everything else on the bookshelf. With its text-only blue and white cover, French flaps and title page at the back, the design of the book reminded me of those cream and red bindings of Gallimard’s NRF and l’Arpenteur paperbacks. In other words, it looked like it had been produced by a French publisher. The old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover is only partly true in the book trade because all readers do indeed judge books by their covers. So the idea of both Gallimard and Fitzcarraldo Editions seems to be that the writing should speak for itself and the uniformity of cover design should create a brand loyalty where readers can expect consistently high-quality literary fiction (and essays.)

Fitzcarraldo Editions was created in 2014 by The White Review’s founder Jacques Testard – an editor and publisher who learnt his trade in French publishing houses, (something which helps explain the Fitzcarraldo aesthetic.) Their current catalogue includes some forty fiction titles as well as a similar number of extended essays. One of their latest releases is Adam Mars-Jones’ novella Batlava Lake.  

Batlava Lake recounts the experiences of a recently-divorced civil engineer, Barry Ashton, who spent time in Kosovo in 1999 attached to the Royal Engineer Corps of the British Army. Adam Mars-Jones is no fan of chapter breaks, and so the 97 pages of the novella are made up of a continuous first-person monologue. With no dramatic changes of scene, and no variation in point of view, the reader is at the mercy of Barry as he describes events in Kosovo, his relationship with the military engineers, his marriage and his relationship with his children. I’ve known a few engineers in my time and, through the character of Barry, Mars-Jones does a convincing job of capturing the mindset of many an engineer – the tendency to concrete thinking, a lack of emotional intelligence and an intolerance of people who don’t (or can’t) see the world as a series of logical, reducible systems. 

Barry is, frankly, not just an unreliable narrator but an annoying one, with his clipped, shorthand use of language, partly suggestive of a military way of speaking, partly reflecting his belief that, if he can make himself understood in fewer words, why should he bother to form whole sentences. Paradoxically, far from being economical with language, he is digressive in his account of things. Sometimes he’s unintentionally witty. Describing his arrival at a war-torn hotel in Pristina, he recalls: “I was hoping for curtains, but I would have preferred windows without curtains to what I got. Curtains without windows. Curtains don’t do the same job as windows, it’s a fact.”

Occasionally Barry shows some self-awareness and a self-deprecating humour: “Most of what I’d done in Kosovo was modular, all the bases were modular. My brain was modular! Probably.” He recalls one incident prior to Kosovo when he’d been on a residential training course and the Corps of Engineers had conspired to get him drunk on Caffrey’s the night before an important exam. (The fact that it's Caffrey's is significant and I can attest to the specific kind of hangover that particular Irish ale can induce!) The drinking competition - and the later incident where Barry takes part in a boat-building competition - show his vulnerability. Desperate for respect, and to be one of the lads, he is outwitted by the army engineers – “And I should have known better, I did know better. I absolutely knew better. Made no difference.”

Again, with hindsight, he shows some insight into what lay behind the drinking incident: “I’m not used to people cheering me on, haven’t had a lot of that, and I suppose that was part of what got me bamboozled.” Still, his engineer’s brain can’t stop itself from analysing the process: “I had been concentrating on the wrong end of the process, and I was forgetting that the Engineers, guess what, are always likely to be engineering something. If I had been paying proper attention, I'd have noticed that the competition were getting pints that had been sitting for a minute or two, and I was being handed pints that have been under the tap seconds before (…) It's all to do with the delivery system of Caffrey’s. Not just carbon dioxide. Nitrogen. I'd been drinking those pints while they were still chock full of tiny bubbles (…) Potent as hell. Not good!”

Barry shows a matter-of-fact acceptance of the break-up of his family, (just as he seems largely indifferent to the plight of the few Kosovar Albanians he comes across.) But, if he is not a particularly sympathetic character, in the end Barry seems rather pitiful. Bemused, (or perhaps bamboozled), with his marriage breaking down, not much of a relationship with his kids, a civilian figure-of-fun to his military colleagues, he endlessly, chirpily, goes on about how he likes to keep busy, all the time quietly hoping for a little respect.

A mini-adventure in Scotland - Edinburgh, Oban, the Isle of Skye and the Sound of Mull

After a station called Loch Awe, the next stop is called Falls of Cruachan. And, if Loch Awe sounds like a fictitious name for an awe-inspiring loch, who would ever have imagined there could be a railway station called Falls of Cruachan? It could almost be the title of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel – Weir of Hermiston, Falls of Cruachan... Am I to assume there are waterfalls here? Waterfalls, plural? Just one would be impressive enough. It turns out that the station, at the foot of Ben Cruachan, is a summer-only request stop because it’s mainly used by hikers who want to climb the 1,126 m mountain. I’m not one of these hikers. I’m on a leisurely train journey om the West Highland Railway to Oban. (The West Highland Railway was apparently voted best rail journey in the world by travel magazine Wanderlust and, apart from the poetic station names, the scenery is indeed extraordinary.) We were meant to be starting our journey in Glasgow but a surge in the cases of Covid meant we were switched to Edinburgh. Luckily, I didn’t have to sort out the logistics. The travel company, Rail Discoveries, sorted it all out for me.*

After months of lockdowns and travel restrictions, in June I managed to go to Scotland – a six-day trip taking in Oban, the Isle of Skye and the Sound of Mull. I’d never been on an ‘escorted rail holiday’ before but it seemed like a relatively safe way for a solo traveller to enjoy a mini-adventure without worrying about quarantine or whether the destination was about to turn red, green or amber. 

Instead of starting and ending in Glasgow, my holiday started and ended in Edinburgh. I’d forgotten how much I liked Edinburgh. I’d honeymooned there thirty-five years ago but all my subsequent visits to Scotland have been to Glasgow. To get from Edinburgh to Oban we were first taken by coach to Dumbarton. It was from Dumbarton Castle that the young Mary, Queen of Scots was conveyed to France for safety as a child. Seeing the castle, I couldn’t get the Mike Oldfield song To France out of my head: “Don't you know you're never going to get to France, Mary, Queen of Chance, will they find you?” Probably nothing to do with Mary, Queen of Scots but a very catchy chorus. 

Oban was, I found, a lovely town. A harbour where you could watch the Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) ferries come and go – it seems they were using somewhat larger vessels than they would normally, to allow for social distancing on board. I wandered along the promenade and through the town and found an excellent vegetarian eatery, The Little Potting Shed Café. 

Using Oban as our base for three nights, we took another scenic and serpentine coach trip to Fort William where we boarded the Jacobite steam train to Mallaig, across a remarkable landscape of lochs, rivers and mountains, and travelling over the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct. 

From Mallaig, we sailed on a CalMac ferry to Armadale on the Isle of Skye. I would have loved to have seen much more of Skye but time constraints meant we were limited to a visit to Armadale Castle and gardens – the “spiritual home of Clan Donald,” we were assured. Given a choice, I’d have preferred to visit The Isle of Skye Brewery in Uig as the good people who work there have kept me supplied with excellent beer through successive lockdowns, (when the pub had to come to me.) Sadly, there was no time for me to go and thank them in person. Instead, we sailed back to Mallaig and took another coach trip back to Oban, in order to be able to get a good view of the Glenfinnan Viaduct (something that’s not always easy when you’re travelling over it.)   

A quiet morning in Oban (and another trip to The Little Potting Shed Café) and then we sailed across the Sound of Mull. I went up on deck and enjoyed the dramatic seascape, including the island of Lismore and Duart Castle. Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency on board which delayed the sailing, time didn’t allow for us to disembark on the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides so I can say I’ve travelled to Mull without actually setting foot on it!

After our third night in Oban, we took the train back to Dumbarton (cue Mike Oldfield again) and then the coach back to Edinburgh. The weather in Edinburgh was fine and warm. I spent some time browsing in Blackwell’s marvellous bookshop in South Bridge and in Edinburgh Arts & Picture Framers in Nicolson Street, where I bought some cards by the artist John Lowrie Morrison, aka ‘Jolomo’. Jolomo is known for painting vivid, expressionist landscapes of the Scottish west coast. Edinburgh Arts & Picture Framers, by the way, is just round the corner from the pub I’d discovered – at the start of my holiday – the Captain’s Bar in South College Street, where folk musicians were playing at tables in the street. But, on my last evening in Edinburgh, instead of returning to the splendid Captain’s Bar, I wandered round the city and had a quiet pint outside the Malt Shovel in Cockburn Street.

The next morning, I took the direct train from Waverley Station, through Dunbar, Newcastle, Durham and York, and on to Birmingham and home, making a mental note to myself that it would be easy enough (and fun) to have a weekend break in Edinburgh some time. And perhaps, one day, I’d return to Oban and even get to visit my brewing friends on the Isle of Skye.  

*The trip described was entirely self-funded and no sponsorship has been received by the author. 

All text and images © Tony Gillam, 2021

Vinyl-hunting in Tewkesbury

Ever since it opened in July 2020, I've been meaning to visit Tewkesbury's new independent record shop, To Have and To Hold Records. Finally, as pandemic restrictions were gradually relaxed, I was able to head down the M5 to Tewkesbury on the first Sunday in May. 

I know Tewkesbury very well and my late wife Sue and I used to visit this lovely historic market town regularly. For those who don't know it, Tewkesbury stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon in Gloucestershire and is made up of medieval streets, Tudor buildings and a magnificent Norman Abbey. The Royal Hop Pole Hotel (in recent times a Weatherspoon's pub) is mentioned in Dicken's The Pickwick Papers and The Battle of Tewkesbury, which took place in 1471, was one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses. The town normally hosts a splendid medieval festival which I've featured previously on this blog. 

After years without a decent record player, I've just treated myself to a new stereo that can play vinyl and CDs (and can even play Spotify and iTunes via Bluetooth.) So, I felt even more vindicated in visiting a record shop and maybe making a few new additions to my collection of hundreds of old LPs and singles. 

I found To Have and To Hold Records easily enough. It occupies a Grade 2 listed building - a former butcher's shop - at Number 6, Church Street. I was greeted by the owner Mel and we chatted about how long I'd waited to come and explore his shop. I think I confused him a bit because, when he asked me what music I was into, I mentioned singer-songwriters from the 1970s and then went ahead and bought two albums - one by Cocteau Twins and one featuring electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire (neither of which could be described as being in a singer-songwriter genre or from the 1970s.)

I've loved Cocteau Twins since I first heard their Sugar Hiccup in 1983 (a single from their second album Head over Heels.) Surprisingly, though, I had only ever owned one of their LPs on vinyl, their 1984 album Treasure (although I've got a 'Best of' on CD.) With its gorgeous cover, I couldn't resist buying Four-Calendar Café - their seventh album. It sounds great on my new stereo. 

The other record I bought is a bit of a curiosity, to say the least. The Synth And Electronic Recording Exchanges is essentially a tribute to Delia Derbyshire pioneer (composer and arranger with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, who is probably best remembered for her ground-breaking electronic arrangement of the Doctor Who theme. It turns out Martin Hannett - record producer famed for his work with Joy Division, The Stone Roses and many other famous names of the late 1980s - was a great admirer of Derbyshire's work. In the 1970s the young Hannett corresponded with Derbyshire, and they sent each other tapes of their electronic experiments with a view to one day releasing them. Both Derbyshire and Hannett died before agreeing on a release but it was issued posthumously in 2019. 

The beauty of a good record shop (like a good bookshop) is you'll find things you didn't know you were looking for. My early May trip back to Tewkesbury reminded me of a couple of things: Tewkesbury is one of the finest historic market towns in England and, while streamed music is all very well, you can't beat visiting a good record shop or the feeling of having and holding some new records. 

A fiery airing for 'Eastgate Clock'

Encouraged by being shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize last year, I've been sending a few of my stories off to various publications recently. One of these stories is set in the historic English city of Chester. It involves a photographer who revisits the city forty years after a key event in his life that centred on one of Chester’s famous landmarks. I’m delighted to report that the story - Eastgate Clock - has just been published in the latest issue of  Firewords Magazine.

Firewords is a beautifully-designed publication, launched in 2014 and edited by Glasgow-based creatives Jen Scott and Dan Burgess. Jen and Dan describe Firewords as "the magazine of fiery fiction and poetry brought to life with visual flair.” My own story is accompanied by original artwork by an Italian illustrator, Anna Mancini. Anna has skilfully managed to combine the key elements of Eastgate Clock into an ingenious illustration. I’m very proud to have my short story appear alongside so much innovative writing and artwork in this enchanting and thought-provoking magazine.  

You can find out more about Firewords Magazine here and more about the Bridport Prize here. 

It’s doom alone that counts - Thomas Hardy's 'Wessex Tales'

In his song Shelter from the Storm Bob Dylan sings: “nothing really matters much; it’s doom alone that counts…” While it’s probably a fool’s errand to try to interpret any of Dylan’s lyrics I’ve always taken this line to mean that it doesn’t really make much difference what hopes we have or what actions or choices we make as everything is determined by fate or destiny. Like Dylan – and Jacques in Diderot’s novel – you could say I’m a fatalist. Not so much a case of “I’m all right, Jack” as “I’m all fatalistic, Jacques.” In literature, the master of fatalism is Thomas Hardy. Hardy’s characters, try as they might, cannot beat fate. This might seem a depressing scenario, but there’s something deeply satisfying – even reassuring – about the way the dominant force in any Hardy story is fate itself.

Over the last few months I’ve been reading Hardy’s first collection of short stories, Wessex Tales. To the modern-day fan of short stories it’s a curious collection for several reasons. These are tales rather than short stories in the contemporary sense. Hardy doesn’t deal in ‘slices of life’ like so many of today’s short story writers. Wessex Tales contains no open-ended glimpses of characters' lives, no apparently arbitrary moments. Instead, Hardy always tells a good yarn – something happens in the story that makes it worth the telling. The events may be “strange, lively or commonplace”, (as Hardy put it in the collection’s subtitle.) Thus, he mixes the domestic with the supernatural and humour with tragedy. Hardy himself sometimes referred to his tales as “minor novels” and some of them cover several years of their characters’ lives and could easily have been developed into full-length novels. (Likewise, some of his novels had few characters and simple plots and could therefore have been compressed into short-story length.) In Hardy’s day there was a thriving market for self-contained short stories (periodicals like The Cornhill Magazine and Blackwood’s Magazine) and, at the same time, novels tended to be first published in serialised form, so there was perhaps more fluidity between short- and long-form fiction.   

The stories in Wessex Tales contain many passages of fine, descriptive writing that speak volumes about the psychology of the characters and their social situation, as in this extract from The Melancholy Hussar:

Before that day scarcely a soul had been seen near her father's house for weeks. When a noise like the brushing skirt of a visitor was heard on the doorstep, it proved to be a scudding leaf; when a carriage seemed to be nearing the door, it was her father grinding his sickle on the stone in the garden for his favourite relaxation of trimming the box-tree borders to the plots. A sound like luggage thrown down from the coach was a gun far away at sea; and what looked like a tall man by the gate at dusk was a yew bush cut into a quaint and attenuated shape. There is no such solitude in country places now as there was in those old days.   

The yearning for a visitor (and perhaps a certain visitor in particular) is captured by the multi-sensory hyper-vigilance of mistaking the meaning of various sights and sounds while the last sentence – “there is no such solitude in country places now” – underlines part of Hardy’s mission, in writing these stories, to preserve “a fairly true record of a vanishing life.”

Small domestic details (of the ‘commonplace’) are often used by Hardy in acutely observed and telling descriptions to symbolise psychological and social rupture. In the story Fellow-Townsmen we have this evocation of the family home of Downe, whose wife has recently died by drowning:

The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in places which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should have been in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, unrenovated air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower.

The use of “maimed” to describe the house is unexpected but perfect, suggesting the family home itself has suffered a violent and life-threatening trauma.

There is so much to enjoy and admire in Hardy’s short stories and reading Wessex Tales has whetted my appetite to revisit the novels, and also to read Claire Tomalin’s acclaimed biography of this great writer. 

And, by the way, just to return to Shelter from the Storm for a moment, is that a futile horn or a flugelhorn that the one-eyed undertaker blows?

Music to See You through Christmas and into the New Year

The Christmas carol that we know in English as Carol of the Bells is originally a Ukrainian New Year’s song called Shchedryk. The Ukrainian words tell of a swallow that sings of good fortune that will come with the following spring. So, it could be said to be a Christmas song, a New Year’s song and a spring song all rolled into one (which is just what’s needed at the end of a year like 2020.) My favourite version is by the Ukrainian-Estonian folk-rock band Svjata Vatra (who we’ve featured previously in this blog.) 

Shchedryk is one of the highlights of the band’s latest release Maailm sa muutud (World, you are changing). This, their seventh album, sees Svjata Vatra at the height of their powers. Lead singer, front-man and virtuoso trombonist Ruslan Trochynskyi has once again enlisted the mellifluous vocal assistance of his daughter Rute Trochynskyi, not to mention Žurba – a choir made up of Estonian-Ukrainian grandmothers. The effect of the three generations singing together is one of the things that makes tracks like Shchedryk and Ty Zh Mene Pidmanula so powerful. I recommend you check out the wonderful video of Shchedryk, just as soon as you've finished reading this blog post!

If you’re looking for something less rousing and more contemplative over the Christmas and New Year period I can recommend albums by both Benedicte Maurseth and Toby Hay.

Benedicte Maurseth is a pre-eminent player of the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. Unlike the conventional violin, a Hardanger fiddle has four or five additional sympathetic strings that resonate, the undertones creating a darkly polyphonic sound, prized by film soundtrack composers seeking a more plaintive, other-worldly effect.

Maurseth exploits her instrument's ability to induce a meditative, trance-like atmosphere through complex rhythms and repetitive motifs. Most of the tracks on her eponymous seventh album are tunes from the 18th and 19th century but, rather than simply playing each twice through as would be traditional, Maurseth extends and improvises, adding to their hypnotic quality. 

 

The mystical minimalism of Górecki's music comes to mind, especially in the two original compositions, Etterdønning/Reverberation and Og fargane skiftar på fjorden/And the Colours Shift on the Fjord. But I was reminded most of the 1994 album Officium by another Norwegian musician – saxophonist Jan Garbarek. Garbarek's album was recorded in an Austrian monastery; Maurseth's was recorded, fittingly, in Strandebarm Church, Hardanger.  

Maurseth's album is by no means easy listening but, if you need the aural equivalent of a palate cleanser after too many Christmas songs, no one can doubt the honesty and sincerity of this transcendent music. 

And, finally, to Toby Hay...

In the early 60s, when stereo was a novelty, record labels released demonstration albums introducing listeners to the wonderful world of stereophonic sound. Imagine the 12-string guitar had only just been invented – Toby Hay's album New Music for the 12 String Guitar could do the same for those hapless music-lovers who only know the pleasures of a 6-string. 

Welsh guitarist Hay spent just two days in the studio recording this album 'live' and solo, with no overdubs, on a custom-built Fylde instrument. Many of the 12 tracks have an improvised quality while the use of a wide range of alternative tunings add variety and differing textures so the guitar sounds almost like a sitar or an oud, especially on The Last Mountain Hare and The Summer the Sky Cried for Rain. 

While tracks like the glimmering evocation of home Cynefin and the medieval-sounding The Falconer’s Knot will delight any time of year, the only traditional tune, Auld Lang Syne, is a risky inclusion (given its limited appeal for 364 days of the year.) However, if you need a quiet, reflective version of Auld Lang Syne to see the New Year in, Toby Hay is your man. 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

and here's the link again to Svjata Vatra's Shchedryk.

• Maailm sa muutud (World, you are changing) by Svjata Vatra (Nordic Notes)
• Benedicte Maurseth by Benedicte Maurseth (Grappa/Heilo)
• New Music for the 12 String Guitar by Toby Hay (state51 Conspiracy)

Awe-struck in St Davids

(c) Tony Gillam 2020

St Davids is the UK's smallest city. Its cathedral confers its city status though the city is the size of a village. Before summer was over this year I decided I wanted to have a short break away. It was already early September and I'd been locked down all spring. It would be my first holiday alone. I've had holidays with parents, brother, friends, wife and children but I'd never had a holiday with just me. I'd often travelled away for work on my own - but a holiday is different. So I chose to go to Pembrokeshire, just for a couple of nights. Not South-East Pembrokeshire, which I knew very well from a few lovely holidays years ago with my wife and kids, but North-West Pembrokeshire - St Davids. Familiar enough, but not simply retreading old ground.

I arrived in sunshine but, by the following morning, the area was covered in grey cloud and persistent rain. I'd heard that you could get a decent cup of coffee in the cafe at the cathedral - the Refectory, as they call it. So I hovered at the main doorway just as they were opening up and found myself being invited into the great cathedral itself. My wife Sue would have liked it because they didn't charge an 'entry fee', unlike many of the cathedrals in England. It's not that she was a cheapskate - and I know somehow the upkeep of the buildings has to be paid for - but Sue and I always agreed it just seems wrong for a church to insist on people paying to enter.

(c) Tony Gillam 2020

Being drawn into the cathedral on a rainy September morning I found myself rather caught off-guard. Of course, cathedrals are designed to be awe-inspiring so I shouldn't have been surprised to have suddenly felt so moved by the experience but, of course, so soon after Sue's death, I felt completely overwhelmed. I stopped to light a votive candle - not something I would normally do, but something Sue liked to do whenever we visited a church. She'd do it to remember her dad and perhaps other loved ones we'd lost. So I lit a candle for Sue and then, under the huge vaulted ceiling, before the alter and the tomb of St David, I became unexpectedly tearful. I continued to wander through the cathedral trying not to let anyone see I was upset.   

I came upon a little display giving information on local bereavement support groups which made me think perhaps it was common for grieving people to get upset in the cathedral. And then there was a small exhibition in a section called The Treasury explaining the history of the building and how it dates from the 12th century, though there's been a church on this site since the 6th century. The exhibition told how Henry VIII created the Church of England and the Church of Wales, how Cromwell had destroyed many of its treasures and how the Victorians had begun to restore the cathedral.

(c) Tony Gillam 2020

I continued on to a covered walkway which finally led me to The Refectory but I still had to wait ten minutes before it opened. Waiting on a bench in the covered walkway, watching the Welsh rain teem down, reminded me of the scene in Brother Sun, Sister Moon when St Francis and his band of brothers are going from house to house in Assisi, asking for alms in the rain.

(c) Tony Gillam 2020

Finally I was allowed into the refectory but had to wait five minutes more while the coffee machine heated up. In the fullness of time, I was rewarded with an excellent Americano. In the cosy cafe, I drank my coffee and pulled from my backpack a copy of New Humanist magazine that I'd brought with me. I'm not a humanist - at least, I don't think of myself as one, but perhaps I am. I'd bought this magazine simply because it had some interesting articles in it - a feature on the myth of the self, and a quirky piece about how Turkey passed a law in 1925 banning the wearing of the fez. There were a couple of items about blasphemy. While I'd been in lockdown and in full-time carer mode, back in April, it seems a prominent Nigerian humanist called Mubarak Bala had been arrested on charges of blasphemy. In the same month, I read, blasphemy had been decriminalised in Scotland. Apparently, Northern Ireland still has an active blasphemy law whereas the Republic of Ireland decriminalised it in 2018, and England and Wales in 2008. Lucky for me that blasphemy was no longer illegal in Wales, I reflected, as I flicked through my copy of New Humanist in the refectory of this centuries old seat of Christianity where, for the past 1,500 years, prayer and worship have taken place. At least I wasn't wearing a fez.