More Thoughts On This: While Norman Is Blatantly Obnoxious, This Take Isnt Too Far From What Most Beatles

All aboard

A review of Thomas Keneally’s latest novel, The People’s Train. This review has also been published on Politico.ie.

Since the days of Margaret ‘There Is No Alternative’ Thatcher, many (if not most) people have accepted as natural that economic prosperity can only be achieved through a free-market economy that flourishes as speculators make it big on the international markets. Few governments in the West, despite their political allegiances, have made any serious effort to embrace a different system over the last two decades. Even in the midst of the current collapse, official response has been to attempt to return things to the previous status quo, and public response, while angry, remains largely inchoate.

In the current atmosphere, the sheer audacity of what the Russians attempted to achieve from 1917 onwards can look naïve at best, and malevolent at worst, especially with the knowledge of the later atrocities and failures of the Soviet regime. Drummed as we are today with the message of ‘there is no alternative’, it’s hard not to look at the Soviet experiment cynically, yet its core message – that not only is there an alternative, but that it can be achieved – was taken utterly seriously by many men and women whose standards of integrity still stand up today.

Evoking the sincerity of this belief and its potential to change the world is tricky business for any writer looking back through the miasma of 20th-century opinion, but Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s Ark, is more than qualified to take on the challenge. In his latest novel, The People’s Train (recently out in paperback), a Russian emigrant to Australia in the early years of the 20th century tells his story of organising strikes and fighting for workers’ rights in Brisbane, before the action moves to Russia and the heady countdown to the October Revolution. The Australian part of the book is presented as a memoir by Keneally’s hero, Artem (Tom) Samsurov, who gradually reveals the details of his journey down under; the perilous escape from a tsarist prison camp, treks across Siberia and journeys by boat through Japan and China. Artem is a committed revolutionary who believes nothing less than a complete overthrow of the capitalist system will be sufficient to bring equality to the world.

Keneally does a wonderful job of bringing this character to life; too often revolutionaries in fiction come across as either hysterical or dully obsessed with political theory, but Artem is portrayed as a thoughtful, self-aware man who nevertheless cannot and will not compromise on his ideals. He is utterly believable as a man of his time and milieu, and the conflicts he faces with his fellow emigrant Russians and with the radical female lawyer he finds himself in a complicated attachment with are entirely believable.

Australia’s labour history is not a well-known topic, but the Brisbane of The People’s Train is full of agitation, strikes, union meetings and corrupt police, and the feel of a country still trying to establish a conclusive identity is powerfully evoked. Indeed, the titular train is an idea for a worker-owned monorail serving Brisbane, conceived by one of Samsurov’s friends. It remains unbuilt, serving as a symbol for the ever-retreating dreams of the young radicals. Australia is represented in the Russia-set section of the book by Paddy Dykes, a young journalist with the Australian Worker, who asks many of the book’s crucial questions about the nature of revolution and what happens when theory meets reality.

The Australian story is more engaging than the Russian; the familiarity of the story of the Russian Revolution leads to a slightly rushed narrative in the second part of the book that isn’t helped by various brief, cameo-like appearances by historical figures. However the pace recovers at the end; the momentous events of history are mirrored by equally turbulent upheavals in the minds of the central characters, with a last line that will take its place among the great endings of fiction.

Keneally leaves the question open as to whether the failure of the Soviet project was due to corruption of the original ideal, or whether the seeds of tyranny lay within it from the beginning. His characters are telling their story as they see it, nothing more. In an age where this period tends to be either glamourised or subject to revisionism, Keneally has succeeded in conveying what it was actually like to live during this unforgettable time.

One of the best historical novels of the year.

The People’s Train by Thomas Keneally

Sceptre, August 2010 (paperback)

£7.99

Do you have any big opinions about rpf?

Not sure what we're counting as "big" here.

Aside from the standard "don't harrass the people it's about" take, I guess my opinion on rpf is that it does say something about its authors, readers and the broader fandom. Not in a moralistic "writing about bad things means you endorse them" sense, or even in the sense that you can conclude an author's historical takes from their writing. (I know a fair amount of people who will read or write McLennon without really buying into the theory of it being true)

But I think there's enough parallels between the trends in fic and the trends in analysis to see that these two things aren't neatly separable. As a fellow author, I can understand Cynthia being frequently brushed aside in fic, even if I don't love it – when it comes to analysing the real history though, I am less forgiving. However, because of the seeming link between the decentring of Cynthia in fic and her frequent exclusion from meaningful analysis, I find myself being (perhaps disproportionately) frustrated with her treatment in fic as a result.

Cynthia here is just an example among several, but I think the fact that she's not treated meaningfully better by the wider (generally more heteronormative) Beatles fandom speaks to the fact that what I'm describing isn't just attributable to the largely queer space of Beatles RPF fandom decentring straight relationships. (also any other lesbians fucking tired of people decrying any consideration to women as homophobia??)

I have also noticed that some people's takes on the history have a very literary bent – I'm thinking about times I have seen people call for symmetry between John and Paul, as though their relationship needs to be made up of perfectly mirroring feelings to be beautiful. There's an important distinction to be drawn here between descriptivism and prescriptivism – like, to be clear, there is something inherently literary in observing parallels between their lives, like say losing their mothers young, but I am specifically referring to people saying John and Paul should be analysed with the assumption of this symmetry existing, which feels like a limiting way of looking at real people.

That being said, I'm not sure how much engaging with RPF as such affects this sort of attitude. To some extent, we are all always trying to make sense of reality through narrative, but I'm not sure how aware of it people are.

With all that in mind,

I think RPF is a very cool way to express and explore thoughts related to the history (and, at least in my case, engage in discourse about the history as well as the fandom itself) that don't need to be fact-checked whilst being contained in an explicitly fictional realm. I also think that a lot of speculation people engage in about celebrities is actually kind of akin to fanfic and I sort of prefer the fact that RPF is upfront about its fictionality.

I like thinking about what RPF has in common with things like biopics and how it diverges from them, its strange but existing relationship with the concept of "truth" (which I think is somewhat distinct from the concept of "factualness"). I'm fascinated by adaption in general; I find the process of systematically pruning, supplementing and molding historical reality until it takes the shape of a narrative deeply interesting, and even when I don't love the product, I think there's meaning to be derived in understanding how we got from point A to B.

Director's Cut - Kate knows what she's doing

Kate Bush’s new/old album Director’s Cut, a reworking of tracks from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, has received largely positive reviews from critics and rather more mixed responses from the public. I’ve heard a few radio DJs expressing unhappy bemusement after playing the new versions of classic tracks such as 'Deeper Understanding', 'This Woman’s Work' and 'The Sensual World', a bemusement echoed and intensified by listeners’ texts. No doubt hearing new versions of old songs, especially ones that are already much-loved by fans, is going to provoke a reaction, and not always a good one. But I’m of the belief that the pissed-off fans are letting their emotions get in the way of their critical judgement.

I can accept that Director’s Cut, as a concept, could seem a bit pointless and redundant if you are a fan who already owns and appreciates the albums on which the tracks originally appear. But for people who are not familiar with her work it provides an almost perfect introduction to it, like a Greatest Hits, but with more care and effort put in. I am one of those people and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to hear a cross-section of her older work and to hear how she is working now – how her voice sounds now as a mature woman, how her producing skills are as experimental and precise as ever, how her interest in music is not frozen in time and how (unlike many other world-famous artists) she is not resting on her laurels and releasing a best-of every couple of years to keep bread on the table. A lot of work has gone into producing this album, and that alone justifies the price.

Like most people, I was always familiar with Kate Bush; I knew her famous tunes and knew that she was the kind of artist I would like, but had not gotten around to investigating her properly. This was partly because of a fear of 80s production values – I couldn’t help but think that my enjoyment of her work would be hampered by an overload of cheesy synths and reverb. These fears have turned out to be unjustified, but it’s not hard to understand why I might have had them. Listening to the new tracks gave me a chance to sample a cross-section of her songs and decide from there if I thought her work was worth investigating further. The answer was, to echo the new version of the title track of The Sensual World, a resounding YES.

That song provides a good jumping-off point for approaching this album as a neophyte. I was only vaguely aware of the original song so on hearing the new version (now called 'Flower of the Mountain') I carried no baggage of expectation. All I knew was that she had succeeded in gaining permission from the notoriously protective Joyce estate to use Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from the end of Ulysses as the lyrics. People who were used to the 1989 version, with Bush’s own adapted lyrics, can’t seem to get their heads around the song now, but as far as I’m concerned it works much, much better (as would befit its original conception). As Bush said herself: ‘I’m not James Joyce’, - while her adapted lyrics are quite poetic, they have nothing on the fluid, rushing, earthy lines of the original text. The soliloquy lends itself extraordinarily well to music, with lines like ‘when I put the flower in my hair like the Andalusian girl used or shall I wear the red yes’ flowing gorgeously through the tune and giving the song a subtler yet more powerful sensuality than the original’s somewhat-overdone breathiness. The drums and bass are stronger on this version too, giving the song a secure scaffolding and letting the uilleann pipes come through with more clarity. It’s not only the new lyrics that make this the definitive version of this song.

Other tracks serve as complements to the originals, rather than supplanters. 'Deeper Understanding', told from the point of view of a programmer drawn into an obsessive relationship with a computer has been extended and reworked to include a creepy Auto-Tune effect on Kate’s voice in the chorus (when the computer is supposed to be addressing the programmer). Some have argued that this cheapens the song somewhat, ‘spelling out’ the meaning for the listener rather than leaving it ambiguous. My main issue with this song is that on first hearing I thought the obsession described by the narrator was simply the rush of becoming absorbed in the complexity and mystery of programming itself, but on closer listening the lyrics seem to indicate that the narrator installs a programme that directly simulates a friend, a meaning that strikes me as overly literal. The new video, starring Robbie Coltrane and Noel Fielding, seems to bear this interpretation out. The song would be more compelling if the concept of the narrator befriending or falling in love with the computer was approached metaphorically, framed in a story about absorption in the programming process. This issue remains the same in either version, so I have no preference of the new over the old track or vice versa – they are both musically interesting in different ways, and the use of a Bulgarian women’s choir in both is very well done. The extended ending of the new version has a good deal of experimentation in various electronic sounds which will appeal to some and not to others – again it’s a matter of taste. 

'This Woman’s Work' is one of the few tracks that has been completely re-recorded, in a lower key to accommodate Bush’s mature voice. Again I wasn’t familiar enough with the original to be especially attached to it over the new. The original scores points for being sparer and not as reverb-heavy as the new, but Bush’s current, slightly lower voice is more to my taste. In both versions the power of the song remains undiluted. The same can be said for 'Moments of Pleasure', another entirely re-recorded track. 

A few critics have referred to The Red Shoes as one of Bush’s weaker albums, which only leads you to amaze at how good the good stuff must be, if tracks such as 'Lily', 'Moments of Pleasure', 'The Song of Solomon', 'Top of the City' and the title track are ‘bad’ by her standards! The songs from The Red Shoes that have been re-recorded remain fairly close to the originals so again fans can’t froth too much at changes. Having listened to both the new and original versions I think these tracks benefit hugely from the more muscular drumming and deeper vocals they receive on Director’s Cut – the vocals on 'The Song of Solomon' and 'Top of the City' particularly are much more powerful and affecting than in the originals, and the new drum track on 'The Red Shoes' – a track Bush has said in interviews that she is particularly happy with – gives the song the full, crazy propulsion necessary to carry its whirling-dervish beat and melody. 

Bush’s reasoning for recording this album was that she felt that the songs on the two original albums were not produced as well as she would have liked. The results on Director’s Cut bear her creative judgement out. There have been so many developments in audio technology since 1989 and the digitisation of the two original albums, at a time when digital audio technology was still developing, seems to have given the originals a rather thin sound. Bush’s decision to transfer the audio to analogue and re-record the drums and vocals was intelligent – it brought out the strength of the instrumentation that had got lost in the digital mist, and the new additions helped to, well, make the songs louder, which they needed to be.

'Rubberband Girl' is the only track which doesn’t seem to benefit much from re-recording – it has a strangely muted audio quality, which, if intentional, was misguided.  But apart from that Kate Bush hasn’t put a foot wrong in this album, and unlike many established artists, she’s not just plugging the gap between albums with repackaged old albums – she’s actually put in studio time and commitment, and given her fans something new and interesting. Breath is bated for her new album, and in the meantime there’s a whole back catalogue to discover.

The Beatles – “Hey Bulldog” (1968)

White Feathers

My Amazon review for White Feathers, a super new WWI-set novel dealing with (among other things) the practice of shaming non-combatant men into joining up by encouraging the women in their lives to present them with a white feather, symbolising their supposed cowardice. I really enjoyed this novel - as I say in the review, it's that rare beast, a 'literary page-turner'.

It can be hard for historical novels to strike the balance between inhabiting the period in which they're written and fully engaging a broad range of modern readers. White Feathers pulls this off with a vibrancy and a lightness of touch that are all the more striking when you realise that this is a debut novel.

Hollering at this description of Magic Alex at some pre-Apple planning meeting. John's weird little boyfriend, plotting away.

(Source: Magical mystery tours : my life with the Beatles by Tony Bramwell)

At the Chelsea Flower Show, 1999. Photo by Richard Chambury.

“bluejeanbaby42001 asks: George, you have quite a reputation as a gardener…What are some of your ‘pride & joy’ plants? Love, Dianne george_harrison_live: Well, for the cooler climates (as in England) george_harrison_live: The current trend is definitely toward Miscanthus george_harrison_live: You’ll find many lovely varieties george_harrison_live: try the Zebrensis and also the Malepartis george_harrison_live: However, george_harrison_live: if you’re gardening in the tropics george_harrison_live: I think you’ll find a lovely little ginger called Kahili :P” - Yahoo web chat, February 15, 2001 “One day, for example, we looked out of the window and decided everything in the garden was too green, so we went on a color binge, buying lots of brightly colored flowers. In terms of landscape design, he liked the idea of Capability Brown, so we started calling him Capability George. He thought that everyone, as a matter of course, should have themselves regularly overwhelmed by nature. He used to say that all unused buildings should be knocked down and gardens put in their place.” - Olivia Harrison, Evening Standard, May 12, 2008

Suze Rotolo

The death of Suze Rotolo is sad news; it almost seems symbolic of the passing of a certain kind of 60s innocence and idealism. But more than a symbol of an era, or a poet's muse, Rotolo seems to have been a talented artist and an interesting and thoughtful person. Her interviews in 'No Direction Home' Martin Scorsese's celebrated documentary on Dylan were illuminating and good-humoured, and she came across as very likeable. Her 2008 memoir of life in Greenwich Village, 'The Freewheelin' Years' bears this out. When reading the book, I found the sections where she described her upbringing, political awakening and youthful exploration of art and poetry more interesting than those describing her relationship with Dylan, which after all only took up four years of a full and varied life. I was struck by her descriptions of time spent studying in Perugia - her solitary excursions into the countryside to draw and write indicated a broad creative curiosity and need for solitude quite at odds with the intense, incestuous atmosphere of New York's folk scene. No wonder she felt compelled to leave, despite being subjected to a barrage of disapproval on her return for 'abandoning' Bob. I'm sure he, even in the midst of his bellyaching, recognised that her absence during that period was crucial to his artistic development, providing the creative fuel for some of his finest early songs. Judging by the book and the testimony of those who knew her, Suze was very much her own person, loyal to her principles and friends and stands out among the baby-boomer generation for remaining married to same person for 40 years! (film-maker Enzo Bartoliucci.)

In some of the interviews from the time her book came out she mentioned the lot of so-called 'red-diaper' children of Communist parents, who were obliged for years to keep quiet about their parents' political activities due to the insidious atmosphere of the McCarthy era, a necessary secrecy that she reckons contributed to the atmosphere of lively storytelling and self-mythologising of the early folk scene. Her account of growing up in what she described as a materially poor but 'culturally wealthy' family and her own love of poetry, art and literature growing up is very moving, as well as her commitment to civil rights and similar causes early on. In the memoir, she captured the essence of being young, idealistic and thrilled by art in the same way that Dylan captured the essence of being young and in love in his early songs inspired by her. It would have been good to know more of her art and writing during her lifetime, but ultimately it seems she preferred a private life above all, and would never sacrifice that for fame or wide renown. She speaks of reading Francoise Gilot's memoir of life with Picasso at the time of her trip to Perugia and feeling a strong sense of recognition at the plight of the talented woman forced to play second fiddle to her genius lover. There was no way she could fit herself into the reductive 60s role of a male singer’s ‘chick’, even if she had wanted to. Her wit is evident in this podcast, where she nicely skewered the essence of Dylan (and perhaps the essence of all geniuses who seek fame) when she described a song of his ('What Was It You Wanted' from the 80s album Oh Mercy) as 'very clever, very funny, with a big nasty streak!'. True, witty, and delivered with a wry smile and not a shred of bitterness. Both her natural sense of privacy and her strong sense of self could not continue in a relationship with Dylan as his fame began to spiral into the stratosphere, though by all accounts making the break was a long, painful process. One gets the feeling from her interviews of great love shared in those early days, but no regret now for how things panned out. Seeing how insane things got for Dylan in later years, I think the modern term for Suze’s experience is ‘bullet dodged’.

Though it's sad she's gone before her time (she had been suffering cancer for some years), it's still in keeping to raise a glass to a good person who lived her life well. RIP Suze.

Blue on Blue