The Last Of England, Ford Madox Brown
A conversation earlier this week with M at Random Distractions about the importance of home, and then reflecting on human rights, reminded me that for so many of the students I met when I worked with colleges in London, home had become a distant dream. Some had arrived in this country alone and as little more than children, having fled violence and horrors that we can barely imagine. One student came to the UK as a teenager, having seen his entire family murdered in Somalia. All these young people had learned English, were studying hard to gain A-levels and were aiming for university. Some cherished the hope that one day they might return to their mother country - as doctors, lawyers, engineers. For others, this was impossible, unless or until brutal regimes were overthrown or some semblance of justice and the rule of law could be imposed.
For an insight into what it means to be an asylum seeker, I can strongly recommend Abdulrazak Gurnah's fine novel, By the Sea. Originally from Zanzibar, Abdulrazak Gurnah is now Professor of English and Post-Colonial Studies at the University of Kent. Freedom, identity, migration and displacement are recurring themes in his work.
In Isaac Bashevis Singer's novels that I have been reading recently, such as The Manor and The Family Moskat, Polish Jews leave for other European countries, for America or forIsrael, in search of freedom from persecution or to live out their dream of building a homeland.
In some cases, of course, exile is self-imposed, as is the case in the second of J. M. Coetzee's fictionalised memoirs, Youth, which I finished earlier today. The central character - a young mathematician and aspiring poet - cannot wait to get away from his family and escape the suffocation of 1960s South Africa. Arriving in London, he has no desire to return. But London does not turn out to be the city of his dreams; a sense of anomie and alienation pervades every page of this singular, melancholic, meditative book. But don't let that put you off. It is extraordinarily well written; Coetzee's ability to evoke quiet despair never falters and is compelling. A writer who can maintain our curiosity about and interest in a character who is not particularly likeable is definitely worth reading. Youth is also a reminder that being young in London in the '60s, wasn't necessarily 'very heaven' for everyone.
(As I was reading it, I found myself hearing echos of Albert Camus, which took me straight back to the '60s, swanning around with a copy of The Outsider - or, ahem, L'Etranger, in the original French, if I was being really pretentious. For mega-pretentiousness, nothing could beat being seen with Sartre's Being or Nothingness. Does anyone read Camus these days? Or Sartre?)
There are books that force us to step out of our own comfort zones. And, sometimes, that is no bad thing.
You are so good at those blasts from the past and triggering happy memories. I still have my copy of The Outsider (Penguin Modern Classic, priced 3s and 6d). I had to read the original for French A level but I must have gotten rid of that over the years. As you describe, it was SO important to be seen clutching the "right" books and LPs (covers facing outwards, of course). Other titles on my bookshelf from that period are Hesse's Steppenwolf and Timothy Leary's Politics of Ecstasy. I haven't read them since.
Posted by: Liz | 19 May 2008 at 11:34 AM
Liz - what were we like?! A-level French has got a lot to answer for.
Funnily enough, I've just recycled my Penguin edition of Steppenwolf - I know I'll never read it again. Sad but true. As for Timothy O'L, I borrowed the boyfriend's. However, I do still have the Camus but only the English version . . .
Posted by: 60 Going on 16 | 19 May 2008 at 01:36 PM
"A writer who can maintain our curiosity about and interest in a character who is not particularly likeable is definitely worth reading." This sentence was in my mind yesterday as I was writing about 'David Golder'. This rare ability separates the brilliant writers from the good.
Posted by: Maureen | 19 May 2008 at 04:51 PM