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Naming the city

Towards the end of Claire Kilroy’s 2009 novel All Names Have Been Changed, set in the mid 1980s, the narrator prepares for emigration with the damning speech: ‘There’s nothing for us in this country. It’s never going to change. It’s never going to get better.’ As Kilroy has said herself: ‘When I wrote that, we were still in the full throttle of the boom…There was no sense we were going back there.’

In a way it’s good that the novel’s prescience is accidental, since self-conscious ‘boom-to-bust’ novels are painful to read. I was drawn to the novel not so much for its subject matter (a group of mature students and their incestuous relationship with the famous novelist who teaches them creative writing in Trinity) but for its historical and geographical setting – Dublin in the 80s. By all accounts it was a pretty depressing place, though Kilroy’s narrator Declan lays on the misery a bit thick in places. Still, overall the city is beautifully, even lovingly evoked, with burnt-out corporation flats described as keenly as the rarified campus of Trinity.

Wisely, Kilroy avoids a too-broad geographical sweep, instead focusing in on a few key areas – Trinity and its surrounding nexus of College Green, Dame Street and Westmoreland Street,  Mountjoy Square and its decayinge environs, and a brief excursion to the southside suburbs. The Trinity campus is a haven for characters seeking to escape the sudden violence and unpredictability of the city, particularly the alcoholic novelist Glynn, but no-one can escape reality for too long, no matter how much they may try to through writing.

A wonderful set-piece follows Glynn, storming out of a pub on Westmoreland Street in a rage and heading back to Trinity. This is a walk of no more than five minutes, but it becomes an Odyssean journey of danger and wonder, as Glynn boosts his spirits by taking in the city he thinks he knows, before being attacked by a gang of youths and fleeing for safety into the protective arms of Trinity campus, where he still rebels against the college’s incongruous ownership of acres of valuable city land by kicking up the grass of its rugby pitch. Much is said about Ireland’s contradictions in that chapter, and said more effectively than in a later chapter in which Declan rages against the excesses of St Patrick’s Day.

Drink is a curse in the novel, as it is in so many Irish novels, but the other curse of working-class Dublin is brought to life by Declan’s accidental friendship with stoner-turned-junkie Giz who occupies the bottom floor of his building. It would be easy for this character to feel tacked-on, but Giz comes to life and in some ways seems more real than the main characters. It would also be easy to make him more sympathetic by adding a tragic backstory or imbuing him with a fake ‘salt-of-the-earth’ dependability, but Kilroy avoids the clichés.  Giz is violent, aggressive and untrustworthy; a real friendship between him and Declan is impossible due to their insurmountable differences in background, yet somehow he elicits sympathy. His decline mirrors that of the city, but he is not just a symbol. It can be very difficult for a writer who has not grown up poor to successfully evoke inner-city characters – descriptions tend to fall prey to dehumanising hatred or pity – but Kilroy’s observant eye sees the realness of the ‘scumbag’ without glossing over his unpleasantness.

It is these, almost peripheral aspects of the novel that interested me most. The main plot offers much of interest, but the opaqueness of the characters as seen through Declan’s eyes meant they took a while to come alive.  Glynn himself is despicable, yet like Giz, is oddly engaging and realised, but the four women who make up the rest of the class are hard to fathom. Kilroy has said:  ’At all times I know what the women are thinking in the novel and from there I had to guess at what he [Declan] was thinking.’  As the novel progresses it’s clear that there is a whole, untold aspect of the story that’s hidden from the male characters. Declan for the most part is well-drawn, except for a few brief instances where he thinks or behaves in a self-consciously ‘male’ way – the trap that female authors writing in a male voice must constantly try and avoid falling into, and vice versa. He’s not particularly sympathetic, yet he’s worth following nonetheless. Of the female characters, only Aisling the mentally unstable goth and Antonia the brittle, sharp-tongued divorcee convince. The pliant Guinevere appears to have no other function in the plot other than to be beautiful, which is perhaps the point, and the mumsy Faye barely registers. As seen from the point of view of Declan (and, vicariously, Glynn) this is perhaps an entirely accurate depiction of the group.

Unfortunately the group’s worship of Glynn in the first half of the novel is hard to fathom – his legacy is well-described, but they all seem so helpless and cringing before him as to be unbelievable. I read a comment somewhere that the friendship between the group seemed unconvincing because none of the epic conversations engaged in during their marathon drinking sessions with Glynn are described in any detail. Also, for a crowd who spend so much time drinking, they rarely seem to laugh or have any fun. Maybe that’s literary types for you! Or maybe Kilroy is making another point here – that a lot of the conversations we have while drunk are so much pointless nonsense. She’s an intelligent writer; I’d be inclined to think that the seeming flaws in the novel are intentional.

All Names Have Been Changed is worth reading once you get past the first few, somewhat turgid, chapters; though its occasional self-consciousness and elaborate language will not appeal to some. It certainly deserves a place among works of art that bring to life the psychogeography of Dublin, a city that continues to inspire, even at its bleakest.

John not into chicks in this January 1966 issue of Fabulous magazine.

Naturally I googled the photoshoot...

The face and sleeves of a man who does not want to be doing this at all 😄❤️🐥🐥

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Anne Mason (1958) // Stuart Sutcliffe (1960) // Helen Anderson (1958)

"He capered before them down towards the forty-foot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly..." On Instagram

Joanna Newsom at Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin

Joanna Newsom and band performing in Vancouver. Photo: Skot Nelson

It’s been three years since Joanna Newsom’s last gig in Dublin, so on Tuesday evening fans from all over the country eagerly converged on the Grand Canal Theatre for the opening date of her latest tour. As some commentators noted, there was a positive outpouring of hipsters into what is normally a suits ‘n’ heels kind of area, with trendily dressed people at varying stages of youth milling around the windswept square and gleaming lobby of the theatre from the early evening onwards. But unlike some events that draw that kind of crowd, this was no exclusivist gig designed to alienate those ‘not in the know’. From the moment a smiling Joanna appeared on stage to rapturous applause, she showed yet again why she and the musicians she works with deserve all the praise they get.

Her music is complex but hugely accessible, even more so when performed live. My companion, who’d never heard her music before, was astounded and delighted at the beauty and richness of the arrangements performed, reproduced almost note-perfectly from her latest album Have One On Me. The band, comprising uber-arranger and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Francesconi, percussionist Neal Morgan, two women on violin and viola respectively whose names I didn’t catch and Andrew Strain on trombone (who, incidentally, looked like the love child of Dougie Howser MD and Spencer from The Hills – thanks to Alice for that observation!) performed such epics as the album’s title track, ‘Easy’, ‘Kingfisher’ and a tremendous new arrangement of Ys’ Monkey and Bear with passion and military precision.

Joanna’s harp playing is better than ever, showcased beautifully on the show opener, ‘Jackrabbits’ and on ‘Peach Plum Pear’, performed as an encore. She took to the piano a number of times too, though the location of the instrument toward the back of the stage meant her voice carried less powerfully during these tracks and was sometimes drowned out by the drumkit. (I have heard since that those sitting further back actually had a better acoustic experience, as the instruments sounded more balanced when heard from further away). Her voice is less abrasive than in recent years but still carries a tune powerfully, with only a few bum notes hit. Uncharacteristically for her, she mixed up some of the lyrics in Soft As Chalk, but considering the vast quantity of words she manages to learn by heart and sing perfectly every night a small blunder is easily forgiven. A slightly fuzzy memory was also revealed when she repeated a story she told the last time she played in Dublin, about how she overheard some people criticising her performance. From what I can tell, this incident occurred the first time she was in Dublin, not in 2007, since she told the same story at the last gig. Anyway, the criticisers would be eating their words if they were in attendance last night!

Small mistakes such as these also makes her seem more human, a side of her that came out during a brief interlude when she interacted with the audience while re-gluing her fingers (necessary for harp-playing). Joanna may look the picture of innocence, but I laughed heartily when she commented ‘This is taking longer than I anticipated because I haven’t finished gluing my fingers….that’s what she said’. A funny back-and-forth between her and Neal Morgan about Twitter and its lack of appeal for them indicated a good rapport within the band.

She played two tracks, Kingfisher and Autumn, that I tend to skip over on the CD, but the live context brought out a richness to these delicate tunes that I will be going back to investigate further. Soft As Chalk and the the aforementioned Monkey and Bear were highlights, full of excitement and drama. Neal Morgan’s percussion was astounding, on a par with Joanna’s harp playing, as he switched between a variety of sticks and surfaces to get exactly the right sound.

The show was just under 90 minutes long, time that seemed to shoot by. The pre-encore closer was the wonderful Good Intentions Paving Company, with its piano and trombone coda extended to a rocking jam that nearly had the audience on its feet – proof yet again that Joanna can really rock out when she wants to. A richer arrangement of Peach Plum Pear was actually an improvement on the album original. The near-capacity crowd (in a venue that accommodates 2,000 people) gave a riotous standing ovation and the trendyheads even cracked a few smiles on their way out. Let’s hope Joanna doesn’t leave it as long for her next visit.

Chapter 1: Dead in the morning

Chapter 2: This cross is your heart, this line is your path

New fic: Under his carpet

Under his carpet: Linda Eastman McCartney reflects on the ups and downs her marriage to Paul in a series of snapshots between 1968 and 1990. Chapter 1 of 5 posted.

Plinda fans/Paul superfans dni (JOKING! No sugarcoating, but not a hatchet job on either. Most of it is based on fact, but plenty is invented - speculative fiction an' all that.)

While not shying away from the darker sides of the marriage, this story is primarily intended as a character study about flawed individuals, none of whom are villains. It also explores the tension between visually appearing liberated, as many Boomer women did, and the reality of their domestic lives. A tension which is still relevant today.

Swinging through the ivories

Last Saturday saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mary Lou Williams, jazz pianist, composer, arranger and, in later life, founder of an organisation devoted to help jazz musicians suffering from drug addiction. Williams, like the blues singer Memphis Minnie, was a person whose personality and talent helped her rise above the strictures imposed by gender and race at the time.

She cut her teeth in the 30s writing and arranging for Benny Goodman’s and Duke Ellington’s bands, and in the 40s she mentored Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk, among others. She wasn’t restricted to playing in bands either – her large-scale compositions include the Zodiac Suite, a series of musical sketches, the long hymn called Black Christ of the Andes and several masses (following her conversion to Catholicism in the 50s).

As pianist Billy Taylor remembers, when Williams was mentoring Thelonius Monk she helped him refine his playing style – basically, she stopped him battering the holy shit out of the keyboard! Monk’s style needed to be toned down a bit, and the end result was still characteristically muscular but infused with greater feeling. No doubt Monk had many different mentors. but Taylor’s story shows that Williams was not an insignificant one.

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