The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid, is not – as one is likely to assume from the title – another novel about terrorists or religious fanaticism. It is the monologue of a young man’s infatuation with America, his successful career there, unsuccessful love affair and eventual disenchantment with it all.

Over a meal in Lahore, Changez, the protagonist, explains to an American stranger at this table how he won a scholarship to Princeton and secured a top job in New York. He had felt a bit of an outsider until he moved to New York in 2001, where he loved his new office job and the buzz and cosmopolitan mix of the city. Until he heard about the 9/11 attacks.

When he heard about the attack he smiled. This surprised him. He began to question his view of America. And he began to question the ethos of his employers business - one in which he had to ‘focus on the fundamentals’ – the bottom line (the irony of the title?). This led him to question how he could live in luxury in the USA whilst his fellow countrymen were living on the breadline with American soldiers in their midst.


Working on the valuation of a company, the owner likens him to a janissary. Already a little disenchanted with his role, the discrimination he encounters and the ignorance about world affairs, Changez finds himself in a quandary: is he too working against the interests of his own Pakistan community and culture.

He explains to the American how he gave up his job in America and now works for the university in Lahore organizing anti- American protests. We, the readers, feel at every point that the American is about to hear about the reluctant radicalization of Changez. In turn, Changez asks us to consider whether every Muslim who criticizes America is a fundamentalist.

Alongside the indoctrination of Changez into the corporate world is interwoven his love for Erica, a friend from Princeton. She is as obsessed with her past - the sweetheart who died young - as Changez is with her and his work. The novel would have worked just as well without this love angle: the character of Erica lends nothing to it, and is not quite believable.

Changez, the narrator, notes that the American is on a “mission”, is constantly on his mobile phone, has a holster-like bulge in his jacket and is uneasy with the waiters hanging around. I would be a spoil sport to explain what happens at the end of the book: will it end in the demise of Changez or the American? Hamid keeps the reader guessing.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is very well written as is to be expected from anything shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. Our groupie host gave us a very full background to the novel, the slightly clunky allegorical references (America/Erica both look to the past, Changez/changes etc) and the author’s other rather obvious devices.

We all agreed that the theme was both moral and political. A few thought of it as a love story, most as a thriller. But two of the group found it trite, and one took exception to one message in the book that 9/11 brought home to America what the rest of the world had suffered so long.

When I noted that dates in the story did not quite add up – Changez’ time in the USA, the date of the World Trade Centre attack etc – it was interesting to learn that Hamid had started the book before the attacks and only incorporated the event later. It won’t be the last book to use 9/11 as a disaster to pin stories on, nor the last to examine East/West conflicts. But The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a thought provoking novel, and an enjoyable and easy one to read at that.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Nature or nurture in the garden

So, if according to the press there are fewer butterflies, bees and garden birds than ever, how come my little slice of green heaven is bursting with them? The former may be due to the profusion of blossom I identified last blog, and the birds may be that I have finally managed to refill the feeders with peanuts on a regular basis. But, even so, how come? Is it natural or have I encouraged them?

I managed – in spite of being up to my ears in projects – to waste hours last week glued to the kitchen window watching my bird table. On a roll, I also spent my entire ‘coffee break’ chasing butterflies and ages (when I should have been filing) taking photos of bees.

My recent bird watching obsession is because there are woodpeckers in the garden. The Greater Spotted Woodpecker could be heard tapping away from January: sending morse signals out for a mate. Now they’ve reared their young. And pretty hungry and demanding young they are too.

Because of this the female woodpecker had been hogging all the nuts for some time. Then last week there she was, pecking away, and next to her on the leg of the bird table was her young: a fully fledged, fluffed up, beautiful young woodpecker. She pecked at the nuts then hopped to the fledgling and fed it!

I was mesmerised. I set up the camera and tripod by the window and spent the rest of the morning hiding behind the curtains, taking snaps whenever I happened to spot her. Woodpeckers are very nervous and easily scared off. This is my excuse for having so very few decent photos in spite of wasting so very many hours. Of course the infant woodpecker did not come back for an encore.

Not only did I get mum and dad woodpecker – each on a separate feeder – but I got nuthatches in pairs. These birds are the most elegantly attired. As tree creepers they feed upside down, usually searching out grubs in tree bark. It makes a fun show to watch on the feeder.

When the woodpecker family visited the weather was perfect – not too hot, not too cold. Neither windy or wet. So in between photo shoots I took a turn around the homestead. The garden looked great in the sunshine (the trick is to let your eye skim over the weeds in a grand sweep), positively glowing. There is blossom everywhere: trees are laden with it, and perennials and wild flowers are in every bed and border, each corner and crevice.

On the flowers in the herb garden – sounds very grand, is in fact very basic – there were dozens of bees. Pairs again! The great clumps of comfrey are a favourite, the chive pompoms a hit and the few rosemary flowers left still popular.

Most were bumble bees, but here and there Best Beloved’s honey bees were massed on a plant. They will travel up to three miles for their pollen but I think his find most of their goodies within the garden. If they are not on garden flowers, they are gathering pollen from trees or wild flowers in the grass.

And in those wilder bits of the garden butterflies were everywhere: little brown frittillaries fluttering around each other in a courtly dance, others settling on knautia, nettles or clover. Small blues and larger browns and middling oranges were flitting around the meadow grass.

But also nature at its most gross. Big fat caterpillars destroying verbascum at the rate of knots. What will they turn into: vampire butterflies? Some confused butterflies were caught in the conservatory – trying to get out through the glass. They will die if they don't get out. There went another half an hour trying to guide them out of windows and through doorways only to have their siblings take their place. Frustrated, I had to stop.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that the high incidence of all this wildlife in the garden is a combination of nature and nurture. The stuff I’ve planted – and the weeds I let stay - encourages wild life into the garden. Then nature does the rest.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Glorious June

Well, not quite yet. We’ve had some lovely days, some very hot ones and some very cold ones. And, only a couple of nights ago, a torrential downpour, thunder and lightning. But, generally, ever optimistic, we expect a glorious June.

It’s not just weather that encourages us to think it’s going to be glorious: it’s the flowers. So far, this year, there seem to be the best bloom in years. The roses have never been more prolific and beautiful. Climbers that usually seem as if they had the Snow Queen treatment have produced beautiful and multiple flowers.

Shrub roses that are usually cursed with scabby, cankerous disease appear to be in the peak of fitness. Weedy, pathetic little rose bushes that knew they were for the chop have rallied and burgeoned thus winning themselves a reprieve for another year. Ramblers have more flowers on them than they usually produce in decades.

And it’s not just the roses. My cornus tree – Cornus kousa Chinensis – is a mass of dramatic creamy white waxy bracts. It’s a dream to behold. The wedding cake shrub – Viburnum tomentosum ‘Mariesii’ - has also been spectacular with its elegant tiers of white heads. In fact, all the viburnums have equally been at their peak. The garden smells like a veritable perfume factory.

And prennials look like they will be strong competition. The dark deep purple salvia, lime fresh alchemilla and striking foxgloves are as beautiful as any on the stands at Chelsea. And the colours! My first Day Lily has opened as rich as orange marmalade; the mauve of the geranium is as vibrant a violet as any painter could conjure up. Whilst purple heuchera is as plush as velvet, its flowers as delicate as lace.

So what’s it all about, this blooming bounty. I guess it could be that we had a very cold winter: killed off all the bugs. Or perhaps it was due to the infestations of ladybirds that we had in every window reveal of the house: when they hatched they had a ready prepared meal of greenfly and blackfly to feast on. Then again, we had a very wet and late spring: gave them all a good start and protection from frost.

Or, could it be that – although I was not aware of any sudden new ability - I am in fact now a gardener of exceptional talent blessed with the Midas touch. No? Oh. So it’s down to just luck, then. Well, what do I care. I shall just bask in the glory of the garden and graciously accept any compliments that come my way. Long live a glorious June.

Lucy

Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father

Obama is the son of a white American mother, a black Kenyan father. He comes from two different worlds and feels comfortable in neither. With his mother and her parents (white folks) he is accepted and accepting but when he first goes to school in Hawaii he feels out of place. In Origins, the first part of Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, he describes his early life.

Obama makes a point of aligning himself with the black population, the brotherhood, the dispossessed and disenchanted. He describes many white people as having a life “bought off the rack or found in a magazine”. Throughout the book he is trying to come to terms with being a Black American.

In the second part – after he has gained his degree at university – he goes to Chicago. He works as an organizer helping communities help themselves. He learns that to get people organized he has to plug into their self-interest. For example, a woman’s worries about her son’s safety might be the impetus needed to get her involved in a programme to make the community safer.

It is the beginning of his political career. He learns how to get people motivated, and about “individual advancement and collective decline”. As a student his friend told him “It’s not about you, it’s about people who need your help” and he learns the truth of this in Chicago. He finally relaxes into his skin and finds the people around him accept him for himself: not for whom he thinks he should be.

Finally, Obama comes to realise that he does not have to be part of the brotherhood, at the same level as everyone else in his sphere. He can further his studies and offer more to communities by doing so. The reader gets a glimpse of where Obama’s presidential speeches were nurtured, where such phrases as “the audacity of hope” were hatched.

He applies for Harvard and in the meantime visits Kenya and his father’s family there. In this third part of the book, Kenya, he is trying to find his roots. By trying to understand his dead father, and attempting to uncover his father’s motives and aspirations, he hopes to understand himself.

The life and family he experiences in Kenya opens his eyes to the fact that Africa is not his spiritual home. He is black, yes, but he is American. His sister, Auma, is a soul-mate, but some of his wider Kenyan family are as grasping as others are generous. They too are human. But his family and their life in Kenya does make him more committed to black empowerment.

Whilst in Kenya, to help find his true self, he searches for those things that had inspired his father: the dreams from his father. But he discovers that his father was not the paragon he thought. And by the end of his holiday in Kenya Obama is no longer in thrall to the romance of Africa, nor in the shadow of his father but accepting of himself and his American inheritance. He returns to law school, becomes the first black President of Harvard in 1995, and the rest is history.

This is a fictionalized autobiography – some of us liked the style, others would have preferred a factual account. But I can quite understand why he made it more chatty. To make the book more accessible, more alive, less the heavy hand of facts and incidents.

This version of his autobiography was first published 2004. At 442 pages the book is way too long. The first part, Origins, is fine. The middle section, Chicago, is three times as long as it needs. Much is repetitive - apart from sister Auma’s visit - and a lot of it boringly so. The section, Keyna, is twice as long as it should be. It’s a good book but, cut in length, it would be so much better.

But it is fascinating to see the seeds of Obama’s political awareness. Throughout the book – as throughout his life it seems - he asks philosophical questions and looks for practical answers. He has lofty principles and great aspirations. He talks about big issues: Community, Freedom, Hope. He has faith is in “participatory democracy” and he has “faith in other people”. If just some small part of these concepts and aspirations come to pass, we shall all be glad of his dreams.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The Chelsea Flower Show 2009

The Flower Show at Chelsea heralds the start of the social year for the glitterati. For the rest of us lesser mortals it reminds us that we better hurry up and get those plants in, and weeds out, if we are to have any planting even vaguely resembling a decent border.

Of course no gardener in their right mind thinks that the show gardens could be reproduced in their own modest plot. These are set pieces. Brought on, held back, hot-housed, frozen. Everything blooming in unison. Hedges and shrubs cut and clipped. Water without algae, plants without pests.

And the plants that the growers are showing – no doubt about it – are the epitome of perfection and beauty. Not one dead bloom, not one fading flower, not a scabby, scraggy leaf in sight. The best plantsmen in the country are showing at Chelsea.

One purpose of Chelsea in years gone by - when those living in their London properties visited the show to choose the plants for their country house - has long become a thing of the past. Chelsea is now for the gardening masses. And, yes, there are lots of us. All chasing our dreams.

But, nevertheless, for garden junkies like me it is an exciting and intriguing show piece. These are garden to imagine; there are wonderful new combinations to consider. They are, in short, inspirational. Occasionally amusing. Sometimes shocking. And so it was yesterday.

My favourite show garden was the Champagne Laurent-Perrier Garden. I liked the firm structure and clean lines, the architectural form of clipped hedges and the straight allee, the planting repetition, restricted colour palette, clean lines and water feature. And today I hear it did get Gold so my Landscape Architect antennae are still keen.

But the Daily Telegraph Garden also got Gold and Best in Show. I liked it, it just didn’t excite me. But then I like what the designer usually does with his plantings. Prairie plantings of grasses and daisy like perennials that associate well with them.

The third garden I liked was the Cancer Research Garden. It was a very striking, sculptural garden. All curving lines and geometric shapes, cool whites, black water, and lush green planting. It won Silver-Gilt. It dared to be different and I think it deserved a Gold.

The one that was truly different was the garden made of plastic plants. It was a joke. It should have stayed a joke and not been awarded any prize. This is a flower show, for goodness sake.

One of the most popular features of this years Chelsea was the pleached hornbeam hedge. Such an accommodatiing species, the hornbeam. And so versatile. It featured in all three gardens I mention. For flower colour, purple and claret were popular: in the Laurent-Perrier garden these were provided by a magnificent Paeonie ‘Buckeye Belle’, a glowing deep raspberry, and a darkest purple Iris ‘Superstition'. Fabulous.

And the plant of the moment that featured in so many of the show gardens? Well, there were plenty of 'living' walls but the real star was The Vegetable. There were rows of salad vegs, beds of brassica’s, canes of peas and beans. No poncy potagers, just sensible raised beds filled with beautiful, colourful, gorgeous crops. If only my vegetable patch could look so divine!

This year’s Chelsea Flower Show has given me ample room for thought: I shall spend the week-end pottering in the garden. Putting in the pots I haven’t planted yet, pulling out weeds and murdering pests. But in my mind I shall dreaming of Chelsea perfection.

Lucy

Calender Girls and Critics

Don’t believe everything your read - critics don’t always get it right. The reviews for the play, Calendar Girls, were not enthusiastic. I suspect that some of the time critics – whether food, theatre or book critics – write negative reviews because they feel they have to justify themselves. I guess it can become tedious: watching yet another play, reading ones twenty-fourth book this month, eating out…again.

Perhaps they figure that there are only so many superlatives and so much praise that any reader wants to hear. They feel the need to be edgy, perhaps contentious. The press do love to shock, to stir things up. To get a reaction.

Of course I like to read reviews before I see an exhibition, go to a show or visit a restaurant. And they are often illuminating. But, as long as they are not thoroughly damning, I take them with a pinch of salt. I have learnt that critics don’t always get it right. And this goes for the reviews I read about the Calendar Girls, newly opened in the West End.

The reviews were either condescending or dismissive. We already had the tickets. Lynda Bellingham, Sian Phillips and Patricia Hodge were the lead roles. A first rate cast. Surely they would not want to in something second rate. We were going, it would be an outing, it would be alright on the night.

And guess what? It was. In fact it was good and it was funny, well scripted and well acted. So how come the reviews were less than complimentary. Well, I think it has something to do with sex. This was a play about women, with a (nearly) all female cast, and jokes that appeal to women. And women of a certain age at that.

Now, what young male critic would get that? All the poor reviews I read were written by male critics. And most – like many in the youth obsessed media – were probably only half way to their three score years and ten. Now, how many of them could appreciate a joke about the nitty gritty of women’s lives.

Two of the reviewers wrote that once the actresses had got their kit off there wasn’t much left to the play. For them that was obviously the raison d’etre of the play. That was to miss much that they probably thought derisive.

The play is based on the book. The story – as you probably all know – is about a group of Women’s Institute ladies. The husband of one of them dies of cancer, and they decide to raise funds for research. The calendar, on which they pose tastefully nude, raises a great deal of money and makes them famous.

But the play is as much about morals as anything – nothing to do with nakedness – that success can go to ones head, that jealousy is destructive and fame and fortune don’t equate to happiness. And that appearances are not everything, but life and the support of friends is all. And the message of the play works because it’s not preachy, or glum.

There’s a bit of pathos in the second act, yes, but like the best of messages it all goes down best with a good swig of humour. But obviously not the sort of humour appreciated by a jaded or sophisticated critic. Fortunately there are enough WI members and mature wives out there to appreciate the gentle jokes and connect in some way with the wider message. That alone should make Calendar Girls critic proof.

The Reader, by Bernard Schlink

I may be the only person you know who hasn’t seen the film of The Reader yet. The week it was showing locally I was up to my eyes in other boring stuff. Then I heard that we were doing it in our book-group and decided to read the book before seeing the film.

Somehow that works best. Reading a novel you build your own pictures of a character. Very often it’s not down to the descriptions of characters. For me, building a picture of a character is more likely to be based on their behaviour, or a name, perhaps a mannerism.

So we don’t only have a picture in our mind of the character’s appearance but of the way they move, talk, smile. Then out comes the film: if it’s well cast we say, Ah, Just as I imagined them! Or perhaps – rather more often - quite the opposite. If the film is really good, the viewer can live with the difference between the personally imagined and the film-makers vision.

But to see a film then read the book does mean that the imagination does not kick in the same. The picture of the character is already there and it often jars with the description. And one of the things I love about reading is the pictures …and the suspense. See the film first – no suspense. Why bother reading it. The moving images have already been filtered and digested. The plot has been simplified and truncated.

Needless to say, there was so much in the press about the film, The Reader, that although I hadn’t seen the film I had seen clips. I knew that the central character was played by Kate Winslet, so I saw the character Hanna as her. She was well cast, fortunately, but it means I was denied my own image.

Bernard Schlink is quite a writer. The book is easy to read. Deceptively simple. Short chapters, large print, not (for a refreshing change) very long. And it was not, we all agreed in the book group, a holocaust novel. It was a novel about relationships, primarily, and shame.

A young boy, Michael, aged fifteen, is seduced by a mature woman, Hanna. He becomes totally besotted by her. She uses him. He is fixated on her to such an extent that when she has left he is unable to form other lasting bonds. He learns of her shameful past in the Second World War. But it is her other shame – that of being found to be uneducated – that informs her actions. Not the shame that should.

And we, the readers, are expected to believe that Hanna’s fear that her secret will be discovered is the prime reason for her hateful work in the war. Schlink leaves some points such as this unclear, questions not answered, things unresolved. Some found this annoying, others challenging.

But as the we never get under Hanna’s skin, never get to know her true motives, or any bar those rather tenuous ones, the character Hanna gets little sympathy from the reader. Certainly not those in our group. Although, at the end, one or two had begun to pity her.

For my part, I thought that Hanna was portrayed as someone who finally learnt about victims’ reactions to imprisonment, torture and death through their printed stories. Not as someone who instinctively came to realise that what she had done was wrong. She was amoral. If she had known that what she did was wrong then she could have done something about it sooner.

Michael was another of Hanna’s victims. Although not everyone agreed with that view either. Some felt that his actions were just too far fetched. Others that he loved her, simple as that, and continued to do so. Personally I think that’s over simplified. In my mind his personal life had been blighted by his relationship with her. And I did not feel there was any redemption at the end of the novel. The ending was not a surprise.

But, in spite of all this, it was a good read, an interesting story to discuss and it generated much talk about emotions – fear, shame, cruelty, love – and how a people come to terms with the sins of their fathers. Now all I have to do, is watch the film.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com