It takes a peculiar, remarkable talent to write a novel quite as unsuccessful as "Darkness Visible". Unquestionably, William Golding was that peculiar, remarkable talent.
It wasn't genius. Not quite that: his truly great work carries the mark of a different persona. It strains every sinew in a quest for understanding, for first-hand experience...and that's not the flighty impetuousity of genius. Still, that searching did take him to some strange, unlikely places. After a couple of lazy fizzles - "The Pyramid" and "The Scorpion God", both in the archives - "Darkness Visible" is perhaps strangest of all.
He's trying again. There is a fresh sense of purpose here, a vision to convey. In itself, that's thrilling, a reminder that this is a writer still to win the Nobel Prize, still to be lauded for that very distinctive not-genius.
But he's trying too hard. Far too hard. "Darkness Visible" is over-written to the point of absurdity, its pages strewn with ideas like an untidy office. Somewhere, perhaps inside Golding's mind, there's a unique, serious novel to match his finest. What's found its way into print, however, is a completely impenetrable muddle, lost in translation.
For other writers, it might still succeed. I have no idea at all, for example, what much of Haruki Murakami's work is about. But I don't need to know: I understand it instinctively, emotionally. It affects me, goes through me as music more than fiction. For Golding, a writer in search of physical, dense, tangible understanding, instinct is not enough. It just leaves cold bewilderment, and a novel that rises to the challenge and fails, bravely but somewhat foolishly.
26 February 2006
20 February 2006
Film review: Downfall
This is a brave film. Almost breathtaking. It's brave in the most obvious sense, for it represents a very deliberate attempt to open some closed doors in Germany's history, and it really doesn't flinch from what it finds behind them. This is the kind of thing that can only be done by the nation itself, a process of acceptance, realisation, brave discovery.
Really, that'd be enough, and during the slightly self-conscious, theatrical opening stages, there's a sense that "Downfall" is impressed by its own existence, unsure of quite what to do next. But it becomes less tentative with each passing minute, in the process gaining the confidence to start painting in shades of grey rather than rashly splashing black and white.
Given the sensitivity of the subject matter, it's an extraordinary achievement that this is a deeply and increasingly compelling piece of cinema rather than just a praiseworthy exercise. It's bloody ugly, of course, but it's much more than that: in the midst of Hitler's downfall, and Berlin's downfall beyond the bunker door, we find all manner of human life, from blind, misguided heroism to rank cowardice.
There's an odd reticence about political detail, but that perhaps lets something more important come through: an essential humanity, even in such extremity. Remarkably, brilliantly, there appears to be no moral here, no particular point to be made...except that it happened, that these people existed, led a nation to psychopathic slaughter, and died utterly defeated. That's what it's about, in the end: defeat. Free from the victors' triumph, either in front of or behind the camera, that defeat looks rank, sordid, and savagely human. You can't look away.
Really, that'd be enough, and during the slightly self-conscious, theatrical opening stages, there's a sense that "Downfall" is impressed by its own existence, unsure of quite what to do next. But it becomes less tentative with each passing minute, in the process gaining the confidence to start painting in shades of grey rather than rashly splashing black and white.
Given the sensitivity of the subject matter, it's an extraordinary achievement that this is a deeply and increasingly compelling piece of cinema rather than just a praiseworthy exercise. It's bloody ugly, of course, but it's much more than that: in the midst of Hitler's downfall, and Berlin's downfall beyond the bunker door, we find all manner of human life, from blind, misguided heroism to rank cowardice.
There's an odd reticence about political detail, but that perhaps lets something more important come through: an essential humanity, even in such extremity. Remarkably, brilliantly, there appears to be no moral here, no particular point to be made...except that it happened, that these people existed, led a nation to psychopathic slaughter, and died utterly defeated. That's what it's about, in the end: defeat. Free from the victors' triumph, either in front of or behind the camera, that defeat looks rank, sordid, and savagely human. You can't look away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)