Miss Wyoming

I couldn't resist another Douglas Coupland novel, which I picked up in the free book exchange in my local shopping precinct, at the same time as Waterland. Miss Wyoming, is about ex-Beauty Queen, second-rate actress, and former rock star wife, Susan Colgate.

  

Susan has had the kind of nightmarish upbringing embodied by the beauty pageant contestants of that most excellent film: "Little Miss Sunshine". Pushy moms, spraytanning, back combing and primping their little girls, making them look too old for their years, sacrificing their daughters to their own egos, and the beauty pageant meat market. Susan's mom, Marilyn, is a prize fighter of a mom, resorting to plastic surgery and blackmail to get her daughter on top of the winner's podium. "..it doesn't  matter if Miss Iowa cures cancer on stage, or if Miss Idaho gets stigmata, my daughter wins."

Similarly, John Johnson, as a producer of big budget movies, has had the same exposure to Tinseltown, and all its follies. "John's role was to walk into a room where nothing really existed except for a few money guys .....John would conjure up a spell for these Don Duncan's, Norm Numbnuts and Darrens-from-Citicorp. He had to cram his aura deep, deep, deep inside their guts, spin it around like a juicer's blade, then withdraw and watch the suits ejaculate dollars." (Coupland has the best darkly comic take on Fame's skewed reality, and is a genius with words.)

No wonder then, that two damaged individuals from the shallow end of life, are looking for something with deeper meaning. When John has a near-death experience of soap star, Susan Colgate persuading him to come out of a coma, and subsequently bumps into her at a restaurant, he feels like they are destined to be together. John decides that with Susan he "might actually raise something better out of himself than a hot pitch for a pointless film. Something moral and fine inside each of them might sprout and grow." The only problem is, that Susan has gone missing, but with the help of Ryan from the local film rental store, and his techie girlfriend Vanessa, John is determined to track her down.

It turns out that both of them have form, when it comes to disappearing and reinventing themselves. In a series of flashbacks, we are given clever glimpses into their tawdry past, interspersed with their current quest to find love and happiness. The plot may be as unbelievable as a Hollywood blockbuster, but it is thoroughly entertaining, and darkly comic. Although it may seem trailer-trashy, and as light as a bucket of popcorn in places, as with all the Coupland I've read, it really gets to the core of the human condition.  His characters mess up, and they mess up big time. Then almost heroically, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again, always hoping for something better.

Waterland

After leafy Surrey, we travel to the Fens, for something far more grittier, and full of silt: Graham Swift's Waterland. this novel is the winner of many prizes, but I'm not sure whether I will enjoy navigating it. However, I am curious to experience his story-telling, and as Swift himself says:"Nothing is worse than when curiosity stops."

Swift's narrator, Tom Crick, about to be forced into early retirement from his post as a History teacher, drop kicks the syllabus into touch, and instead, regales his class with his own local history. In particular, he enters a game of wits, and verbal sparring with the class anarchist, Price. At times it is hard to work out whether his pupils are actually before him, or whether they are a figment of his imagination.  Dreams, visions, superstition and madness are themes which run through the book, like eels running down a river to the sea. In fact, the whole epic sweep of the story is running through the Fens to the Wash.

Tom has been an educator since his youth, undertaking to teach his older brother Dick how to read and write, when their parents had given up on his schooling. Whilst Tom is clever and academic, Dick is a lumbering hulk, slow at learning, but good at practical, hard labour.

As the adult Tom unravels the story of his life, interspersed with snippets from revolutionary France, History becomes very much HIS story. The author is continually posing the question: "What exactly is history?", and blurring the edges between recorded events and reality. Everyone has their story, for Man is "a story-telling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories."

Events in the past, have a tragic impact on the future, and mistakes of youth turn out to haunt the perpetrators for the rest of their lives, for "History is a thin garment, easily punctured by a knife blade called Now."

I reached the end of the story, when all the tales had been told, and felt that I had read a great novel, which had connected me to the landscape of the Fens, and the lives of the Fenlanders. It does what all great literature does: it makes the reader feel more alive, and to appreciate how incredibly fragile is our grip on life and sanity.

Notwithstanding

I have just finished Louis de Bernieres' collection of short stories, set in a fictional Surrey village called Notwithstanding. It is loosely based on his own memories of growing up in a similar place, and it captures beautifully the rhythms of rural life, but especially the eccentric, quintessentially English characters who inhabited such villages in the past.

Nowadays, Surrey villages are more likely to be filled with wealthy incomers, who commute to London, or by weekenders, who stay in town all week, and escape to their second homes at the weekend. Local families have been out priced, and have had to move away to work. Consequently, these stories hark back to a lost world, populated by retired Majors, Molers and the Hedging and Ditching man. He seems to pop up at the side of the road in every story, as villagers move from A to B, which is a lovely touch, linking all of the stories together. We catch glimpses of certain characters who have had their own stories written, making guest appearances in others, even if they just appear fleetingly in the distance, or at the side of the road. The reader feels like they are getting to know the layout of the village, and to recognise its inhabitants from the highest to the lowest, and from the younger to the older.

The author demonstrates impressive knowledge of country ways, including the precise tackle needed to catch a Pike, and how to lay out a new putting green. In addition, he seems to know a considerable amount about wind instruments and music.

Although initially the stories seem to have been published individually in a range of newspapers and journals, they gain considerable charm from appearing together in this collection. It is very hard to pick a favourite, as they are all equally appealing.

I love the variety of people and stories on offer here. Some are funny and gentle, whilst others are poignant. The effect of the whole is like taking a literary warm bath. It is a winsome book, which I was sorry to finish. Traditional, old-fashioned and charming, like the best of English villages.