One Hand Clapping (replay)

I have blogged about One Hand Clapping, the novel by Anthony Burgess and and the play adaptation by Lucia Cox and House of Orphans often before. I was enthusiastic about it, so much so that Lucia Cox wrote on Facebook: "We should make you head of marketing." This is good enough to be a great unknown line. Well, anyway, they are showing it again at The Lowry, on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th of January, so if you are either living in Manchester, or near Manchester, or if you are nearby around these dates, I encourage you, no I urge you to go and watch it. The story is about the disintegration of culture and education in consumerism. I am leaving you here two videos, the first one is the monologue at the beginning of the play, told by Eve Burley who plays Janet. And the second one is an interview with Lucia Cox about the play itself. As a failed thespian, I envy the actors who participated in this one.

One Hand Clapping

I promised I was going to blog about it. So I was lucky enough to see the brilliant stage adaptation of Anthony Burgess' One Hand Clapping by House of Orphans. You can see a picture of the stage at your right. A small stage, where the action is very close to you. The  small, claustrophobic working class home of the 1950s-1960s easily come to life, and the omnipresent televisions, the (then and now) modern icon that is also a stultifying tool.

The hero is Howard, a used car salesman with a photographic memory, which is a gift and a curse. With it, he can remember the name of many authors, the titles of their works, etc. However, he cannot understand much of his knowledge. The story is told by his wife Janet, an uneducated supermarket employee. After winning a lot of money, first on a game show then by betting on horse races, and becoming a local celebrity, Howard and Janet start living a life of luxury, only to have Howard disillusioned and bitter about consumerism, his own ignorance, and the consensual ignorance of the British society. To make a statement he wants to commit suicide and force his wife to do the same. I will not say more so you can read the novel and appreciate its story fully. Hopefully, Lucia Cox will also give another life to the play by showing it around the country, so people can discover it. I told her it deserved a much wider audience. Three performances in Manchester is simply not enough.

The adaptation was very faithful, and efficiently managed to picture the couple's travelling to London and the United States, as well as pictures British society in a state of decay, a state you can easily recognise now, which makes the story very contemporary. One Hand Clapping is about the disintegration of civilisation and the failure of ideals, where history and culture become the matter for game shows questions and where people live happily in a state of blissful ignorance, reading only tabloids, their television set showing them through advertisement nothing more of life than the familiar content of their cupboard. Janet's life is only about cigarettes, tea, baked beans and cleaning products, she is contented with it. If Howard can see beyond his working class environment, he cannot escape it, even with his new found wealth. It is a dark comedy, the accent being on dark, which makes you laugh as much as it makes you shiver. It is also a cautionary tale, but it is not a moral tale, in the sense that it does not give a straight moral answer to the problem of Britain (I say Britain but it could be anywhere else in the West), Howard's idealism and alienation, although understandable, lead to self destruction and potentially murder. Janet does have a point when she opposes the fantasist nature of Howard's passeism to modern comfort and modern security. The great poets and writers of the past lived in times of dirt, diseases, wars, famine. Yet we may be reaching a point where comfort will replace, even annihilate, our sensibility, maybe our humanity. That there is maybe no way to escape this decay is frightening. More frightening even is to see how contemporary One Hand Clapping is.

Back from Manchester

Quick catch up blog post. As the title says, I am back from Manchester, where I went to see a play. I will tell you more about it, right now just know that it was an amazing experience and worth the price of the journey and stay in itself (and the tickets were cheap, too). I wish I could have plugged it again when I was there, I considered blogging quickly using my phone yesterday, something like ''Live from Manchester'', but typing on a phone something like a blog post, even short, is tricky and in the end I spent my time being a bookworm at the ABF. I experienced the city by day and night, or at least a small portion of it. I had done it before, but that was a long time ago. I am not certain I would enjoy living there if I was, the nights are noisier than Montreal's, but I would take Manchester over London any day. It is always a pleasure to be in touch with Northerners, they are a friendly lot. In any case, however tired I am after such a long journey, Manchester is certainly worth a visit.

The way to Manchester

I hope nobody finds me a repetitive blogger these days. I know I don't switch topic very often, let's put it this way. Tomorrow, I will journey to Manchester for my pilgrimage, which will consist of visiting the Anthony Burgess Foundation and see a play. More about it here and here. I am plugging it again: it's only £6.00 and it is on tomorrow and Saturday.

So I will be on the road, on the train, for quite a while. Last time I have been to Manchester, I had only been through Manchester really, I didn't stop there. At work, people wondered what the heck I was going to do there. It is a big city, but not exactly a tourist location. I am going there, of course, as a pilgrim. And for the long train journey I will of course read a novel of Anthony Burgess: Abba Abba. So many to read, so many to reread. It is one thing I love about long train journeys, the opportunity to read a lot.

A house, a play, a pilgrimage

This is another post about Anthony Burgess, I hope my readership does not mind a third post on my favourite author in such a short period of time. I blogged recently about the adaptation of One Hand Clapping by House of Orphans, in association with the ABF. Logo of the theatre and film production company on your right, I uploaded it here because I just love it and because the black and white fits Vraie Fiction so well. So anyway, I have purchased my ticket today and I will see the play. I could not pass this opportunity. I get goosebumps watching the second vlog of Lucia Cox. I envy the actors (as always), yet I am so grateful for them for giving us this play. So I will have my pilgrimage in Manchester, visit the Foundation in its new buildings, have a meal in its café (or at least a drink or two!) and will book shop in the mean time like a kid in a candy store.

One Hand Clapping on stage

I learnt the news from the Anthony Burgess Foundation: One Hand Clapping, which I blogged about here, one of Anthony Burgess' lesser known novels, is going to be produced by House of Orphans in collaboration with the Foundation. This is one of my dreams coming true: a play inspired by the work of Anthony Burgess that is not A Clockwork Orange. Produced. On the stage. Back in 2007, at the symposium in Liverpool, we were discussing this very thing, all hoping it would happen. The novel is a magnificent modern fable/dark comedy about the disintegration of culture. If the play is half as good, it will be s great production. More about it here and here. And click here for a v-log by Lucia Cox who adapted it. Bless her. It can be seen on the 14th, 15th and 16th of March. Tickets available here, they are only £6.00. For anyone who might be interested. I am tempted to buy myself a trip to Manchester just for this. I have not seen a play in ages (years in fact). The only thing that would make me happier would be to play in it. With my accent and still unprofessional acting skills, it is unlikely to happen.

More on knowledge, culture and Anthony Burgess

"Literature is not easy, but without literature we are lost."

I found this video on Youtube today, an old interview with Anthony Burgess (well, it has to be old, he died in 1993 after all). Too bad I cannot get the rest. Anyway, what he said in this interview touches subjects that he adressed in One Hand Clapping and which I talked about on this post. I don't have much more to say about it, except that as a former teacher it touches me a lot. Maybe I am paranoid and fatalist, but I fear of a time when culture in general and literature in particular will be devalued universally in the educational system.

On a side note, I loved the allusion to Nausicaa in The Odyssey and it reminds me that I still haven't had my pilgrimage. Not since 2007. There is also a series of videos about the IABF which you can find on Youtube. Makes me long for a trip to Manchester

Cultural oblivion

This post is a follow up to that one, and pretty much a rambling post. I am reading One Hand Clapping at the moment, about to finish it actually. It is taking me too long and I should have read it in a weekend. It is nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable read, very funny yet very bitter. It is this bitterness that got me thinking. The story, set in Brittain of the sixties (but it could almost be today) is about a used car salesman who has little instruction but a photographic memory, which allows him to win a thousand pounds on a TV quizz then a lot of money through betting. Wealthy, he is still unable to appreciate life and modern consumerism make him suicidal. Like for A Clockwork Orange, I have been wondering if the novel was not prophetic: books are not read anymore, great artists are now just names for quizz shows questions, songs are now just stuff for aspiring pop stars in talent shows, education is often devalued, we get lots of wealth, but losing culture. Maybe we are already in a cultural wasteland. I remember how much I felt contented rediscovering stage performances last summer, how much I thought I had missed something for so long, something simple and genuine. I am glad I can at least appreciate it still, I wonder if the stage, like librairies and bookstores, is not in danger of disappearing. Through the laugh I got reading One Hand Clapping, I cannot help but shiver with dread.

Finding time and discipline to read

Something struck me today, as it strikes me from time to time: I barely have time or energy to read anymore. Which is a shame. I have decided to start One Hand Clapping as I need to read more Anthony Burgess and because I wanted to read more serious, "profound" stuff. It is a delicious satire about consumerism and a viciously bitter picture of a society which culture is disintegrating and I want to blog about it and its subject, but I am reading it at a snail's pace. And I am ashamed about this. I read a few pages when I commute and during weekends, but the evenings I am usually absorbed by other things, house chores and my own exhaustion. It is the kind of novel that can be read within a week. it took me a weekend to read A Clockwork Orange when I was a teenager. I should take that long for One Hand Clapping.

It is not the only book which I read slowly. Last year was a shameful time for me reading wise. Maybe it is because I work. I just hope I am not getting acultured like the people depicted in the book. I miss academia, I want my brain to be active doing something else than work related stuff. Until I start acting again, reading is pretty much the only mental exercise that keep my brain alive and human (and here is another hint at A Clockwork Orange for those who read it). So I want to discipline myself and read more. I used to be an intellectual, after all.

I got more books

This is something that cheered me up yesterday: I managed to get my hands on some novels of Anthony Burgess, the ones that have been reedited recently and which I was desperate to find. To be more precise, I bought One Hand Clapping (which I never read but always wanted to) and 1985 (which I read in French but wanted to re-read). So I missed their launch in Manchester, but I have at least some of them and am now hopeful to find the others.

Booklaunch in Manchester

I mentioned it before, I wish I could go to Manchester sometimes. But this time I am green with envy. I learned from the Anthony Burgess Foundation that many books of Anthony Burgess will be (re)launched on the 3rd of December, including 1985 (an study of George Orwell's 1984), Tremor of Intent, A Dead Man in Deptford and more. I own many of them, I have read most of them, but many of those only in their French translations. And they will be there, available again after a long absence from the bookshelves. I wanted to go book hunting, that would have been the perfect opportunity. In the meantime, I would have made a long overdue pilgrimage. Instead, it is going to be everyday life here on the 3rd of december, just an ordinary Friday.