.: The Red Brick – Dubai College's Student Newspaper :.

“Dear Osama they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop. There’s a reward of 25 million dollars on your head but don’t lose sleep on my account Osama. I wouldn’t know how to spend 25 million dollars. It’s not as if I’ve got anyone to spend it on since you blew up my husband and boy.”

From the first page of Chris Cleave’s debut novel Incendiary, the reader learns that the narrative takes place in a modern London, in shock after a devastating suicide bomb attack on a football stadium. The young, female, working-class protagonist reveals equally early that the terrorist act resulted in the death of her husband and young son and the novel takes the form of her letter to Osama Bin Laden in which she writes to him about ‘the emptiness that was left when you took my boy away’. The narrator is convinced that if Osama was to ‘see [her] son with all his heart’ and ‘feel the sharp edges’ of the hole left in her heart after his death , he would understand her devastation and stop the ‘terror’ that has ravaged London.

Rather than the explosion being the crux of the story, the protagonist’s description of her life before the attack is brief and the majority of the story details the events that transpire in its aftermath. The reader knows from the very beginning that the attack has taken place and rather than detail the events leading up to it or the initial shock, Cleave explores both the nationwide mourning and decent into constant terror and the grieving of a mother and wife simultaneously.

As the protagonist struggles to come to terms with how drastically her world has changed, Cleave uses her relationships with other characters to make smaller observations about England and its class divides. Cleave’s representations of wealthy, materialistic, largely uncaring journalists and a tough-but-troubled policeman tie together to create an image of Britain’s civilisation crumbling as it deals with constant fear. These characters, while sympathetic to the protagonist’s tragic circumstances, all ultimately have their own agendas and look out for themselves and their is the strong sense that in the midst of the great fear, all sections of society are taken over by their instinctual will to survive.

Many of Cleave’s observations of the aftermath of the attack are eerily authentic and strike the reader as being a true reflection on real life circumstances. Details such as airports closing or increasing security, viciously indiscriminate reprisals against Muslims and Elton John securing the number one slot with a single called "England's Heart is Bleeding", all hit close to home for most readers. The scenario presented in Incendiary is one with great relevance to life today, as in the last few decades terrorist attacks have become more common and with improving technology, more cause for alarm. In fact, in a macabre coincidence, the intended release for the book, July 7th 2005, had to be postponed due to the suicide bomb attacks that took place on the London Underground that day, proving just how close to reality the novel is.

“It is difficult to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there.”

-Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

Why do we look to poems? Not for news, as Williams seems to suggest in ‘Asphodel, That Greeny Flower’. What do we lack that we seek in poems; what is it in us that is drawn, always, to that which we cannot fully explain or understand? In short, what is a poem? Man has used poetry for beauty, direction, reassurance, hope, expression- but still he is no closer to being able to describe what it is that lends a poem its inexpressible grace and elegance. All of us yearn for some kind of poetry in our lives, but the loveliness of poetry is that we see it in different forms- in maths, in music, in nature, in God. Though some may scorn poetry in its literary form, the truth is, we all have a predilection for poems, even if we do not see it ourselves.

In my opinion, the fundamental point of poetry is that it plays on thoughts and feelings which are an inextricable part of the human experience. A good poem shares unabashedly with the reader the emotions of the poet, yet also includes the reader in its stream of consciousness. How strange it is that we should seek uniqueness, when it is togetherness that we truly desire. All we want to feel is that someone else feels the same way, and that if we are lonely, it is not our loneliness, but rather the loneliness of time. Ultimately, we want to be reassured that this too shall pass. Poetry tells us this. It comforts us in our sadness, it adds to our joys, and when we do not want to be cured of our miseries, at least it paints a prettier picture of them so that we may delight in the elegiac quality of our own travesties, so that we feel, perhaps, that our grief, too, is beautiful in its own way. In its greatest form, poetry is a constant companion to us. One is reminded of the Pablo Neruda poem which begins with the consoling line, “ In these lonely regions I have been powerful…” . What gives one that power? Perhaps something as simple and delicate as a line from a beloved poem; the knowledge that, even in these lonely regions, there is beauty- if that is what one accepts poetry is- and that one is never truly alone. The truth of poetry is that we can never be alone once we have read it- and that in itself is something marvellous to behold.

There is neither a conclusion nor an ultimate point to make on this topic. I encourage everyone to read poetry, and to decide for themselves what it is; there are no wrong answers. Perhaps you will not see poetry as a thing of beauty, necessarily; perhaps that is not its function. Shelley once noted that poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Delusions of grandeur, a cynic might say, as he wryly notes that Shelley, too, was a poet. I, too, once dismissed this view, as I believe firmly that the aim of poetry is not to influence politics, nor to bring governments and countries to their knees; we have enough of such literature in the world without the taint of the political sphere entering the world of poems as well. But was Shelley really talking about such ‘legislation’? The dictionary simply defines legislation as “laws”, and one may immediately associate legislature with the government, and laws of society. However, in a deeper sense, there are other laws; laws of the heart and of human nature; the laws that all of mankind is bound to obey, not because of societal convention, but because of a deeper instinctual pull which poets perhaps understand more thoroughly. Poets may not create this legislation, but they write it, and in their writing, we, the readers of their laws, understand more about ourselves and the human condition. Ultimately, we read poetry because poetry appeals to us. We read poetry to learn about ourselves, and to listen to the legislation which we have forgotten, but which poets have kept alive in their words. As one of my favourite poems notes, “I learn by going where I have to go.” Similarly with poetry, I learn by reading where I have to go, and what I have to do. Not all poetry is meant as legislation. Not all poetry can guide us through times of despair. But sometimes , a poem is enough to make you feel as though you, too, have travelled, and have experienced things beyond the scope of your existence. Is this legislation? A road map of sorts? A comfort? All of these things, and more: this is a poem.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Published in 2011 by Fourth Estate (HarperCollins), £12.99

“There is no good or evil, only power and those who are too weak to see it.”

-Professor Quirrell to Harry Potter while explaining why he became a supporter of Lord Voldemort, in ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, JK Rowling.

The debate over the meaning of good and evil has raged amongst mankind for as long as, well, mankind’s been around. Every ancient scripture, every Disney movie, firmly reassures that good will always triumph over evil: as long as you do no wrong, you can come to no harm. As perpetual optimists, we like to stay secure among our Manichaean beliefs that sticking to the straight and narrow is a guaranteed way of staying out of trouble, resisting the sweet fruit of temptation growing on the hedges beside that straight and narrow path will keep misfortune at bay. But what happens if your own body rebels against you?

Disease is not discriminating; it can strike anyone. Yes, the risk of lifestyle illnesses can be decreased, but who is to blame if someone in the pink of health succumbs to an invisible nemesis? Two years ago, my grandma lost a hard fought battle against leukaemia, and battle’s the right word, not a cliché: fighting cancer is every bit as exhausting and emotionally difficult as guerrilla warfare. She ate a balanced diet, didn’t smoke or drink, went for power walks everyday and used no products that could be potentially carcinogenic.
Cancer came silently and swiftly, sapping her of her energy and morale. Radiation and chemotherapy did the rest of the job, obliterating her immunity. My grandma was relatively young; she didn’t deserve to die. No victim of cancer deserves to die. Her spiritual beliefs, and the rest of our family’s, were severely tested: was there no good in the world, only power and victims? Worse, cancer is a power you cannot usurp: you can try your best to survive but as long as even a single mutant cell remains in your body, it will get you in the end.

Scientists have worked tirelessly to put an end to this injustice, not reaching a definite conclusion but making healthy, if erratic, progress. In his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee documents this struggle. He asserts that “Ask any biological question, no matter how seemingly distant- what makes the heart fail, or why worms age, or even how birds learn songs- and you will end up, in fewer than six genetic steps, connecting with a proto-oncogene or tumour suppressor.” In other words, cancer causing or preventing agents. The Emperor of All Maladies, apart from being extremely relevant in a world where 7 million people died of cancer in 2010 alone, achieves what generations of authors have tried to achieve but failed miserably: it makes for a good read. The highly publicized death of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, has once again put cancer in the spotlight: pancreatic cancer claimed his life, and it is perhaps all the more important now for readers to understand and appreciate the illness.

Too many literary works, in particular non fictional ones, are simply and undeniably dull. Most medical write-ups groan with the weight of copious amounts of unneeded scientific jargon, making the reader have to consult an encyclopaedia a minimum of twenty five times before she reaches the end of the first page. Others adopt the monotonic voice of a textbook, perfectly understandable, everything beautifully explained, but full of information as sterile as a freshly disinfected operating theatre.

Mukherjee’s triumph is his ability to maintain the delicate equilibrium between fulfilling his purpose- to relate a concise history of cancer and attempted cures- and holding the reader’s attention. Quotations before every chapter, heartbreaking accounts of sufferers, researcher’s frustration and spectacular moments of hope add human interest to the too-sanitary concepts of DNA mutation and overactive cellular reproduction. A tale of a Persian queen who was one of the first recorded patients, gory details of amputation and accounts of searching for signs of this emperor of all maladies in far-flung graveyards throw in the pinch of glamour that turns a book from merely well-documented to a remarkable one that can be actively discussed in literary circles. It follows the journeys of a host of key characters involved in the fight against cancer, among them Mary Lasker, Sidney Farber, pioneers of chemotherapy, and Henry Kaplan who brought Hodgkin’s disease to the forefront.

If Mukherjee has written a scientific book, he has also penned a story of a ‘four thousand year old battle’, an epic where the enemy is your own body turning against you. It has been aptly titled ‘A Biography of Cancer’, a living thing with a mind of its own, unvanquished for millennia in its jeering tirade against humanity. Cancer is here a terrible villain, and while An Emperor also offers consolation and the anticipation of a conquest that seems far away, the disease becomes a personified creature mockingly watching as you crumble before its might: “Her illness had tried to humiliate her. It had made her anonymous and seemingly humourless; it had sentenced her to die an unsightly death… She had responded with vengeance, moving to be always one step ahead, trying to outwit it.” In fact, the book is a grown up version of the popular children’s edutainment series, Horrible Science. While it does not revel in everything macabre and gooey and squelchy, it is as varied a potpourri of information and experiences even as it deals with its ruthless subject, its tone crisp but lyrical simultaneously.

It deals not only with the discovery of multiple drugs, many failures and few successes, but also follows how cancer has been perceived by the public eye over the ages. It narrates how smoking, for instance, now known as a major killer, used to be recommended by doctors to ‘soothe the nerves’ -and is in fact still seen as the height of ‘cool’ among many young people. At this time in history lung cancer was attributed to car exhausts. It wonderingly muses on how Time magazine once refused to print an advertisement for a breast cancer support group because ‘breast’ and ‘cancer’ were censored words, the editor suggesting that they could call it instead a support group for ‘a disease of the chest wall’.

In a way, has come at the right moment. We are making massive strides everyday in the world of cancer treatment, yet even as our knowledge increases and awareness spreads, we realize how far away we are from completing this punishing journey. The time is ripe for the publishing of a biography of cancer; a gentle reminder not to grow too complacent but continue with our struggle against an enemy you cannot emerge victorious over but at best, contain- the very building blocks that make up your life essence.

“In September the first cool nights came, then the days were cool and the leaves on the trees in the park began to turn color and we knew the summer was gone.”

It takes a very special writer to be able to remove a writer’s work from the concept of time. In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway does this beautifully, crafting language that is so honest and luminous that every word is a truth somewhere in the human condition. Maybe that’s why eighty years on from its date of publication, the work still resonates with freshness and poignancy.

The novel is carried by two parallel plotlines – narrator Frederic Henry’s growing disillusionment with the ongoing First World War and the drama of his developing love for Catherine Barkley, a nurse’s aide. Henry is one of Hemingway’s more realistic protagonists because he exists beyond the glorified masculinity that the writer’s characters were known for. He is, for instance, in some ways emotionally vulnerable, evident in the way he throws his love to a woman he barely knows, to escape the reality of war. On the other hand, Barkley too uses their relationship, this time as a means to overcome the death of a former lover. But as the war draws on and the fiction in their love wears away, the two are left with something wholesome and full of life. When this is contrasted with the horrors of war, a reader recognises the keenness of Henry to remove himself from the war and live in the redemptive quality of his love.

All of this is told in simple, lucid prose that cuts through adjectives to tap into real emotions. Subsequently, the novel is, in true Hemingway style, raw and unflinching. It could only have been written by someone who lived his way and it is appropriate that such a powerful book came out of his own experiences in the First World War. The latter makes A Farewell to Arms brutally realistic. Hemingway writes love and war with such compassion and depth that you know what he says, truly and honestly in yourself. And he contrasts the two themes, one a personal journey and the other impersonal destruction, so well that for an instant a reader may understand the significance (or insignificance) of a single tragedy amongst many. Given such heavy subject material, A Farewell to Arms is understandably bleak, but it is a bleakness whose humanity makes it a beautiful and enduring work of art.

”She closed the door on the little white face, turned the key in the lock. Then she slipped the key into her pocket. The lock was hidden by a pivoting device shaped like a light switch. It was impossible to see the outline of the cupboard in the panelling of the wall. Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. “I’ll come back for you later. I promise.”

It is July in Paris, 1942 and ten- year old Sarah is taken from her home, along with her parents, by the French Police as they go from home to home arresting Jewish families. In an attempt to keep her younger brother safe and believing she will be back home within hours, Sarah locks him in a hidden cupboard in their bedroom before she leaves. Sarah’s family are kept in the Paris indoor cycle track, The Vélodrome d’Hiver, in inhumane conditions for days on end, with thousands of other Parisian Jews before being sent on to a concentration camp in rural France. All the while she keeps the key to the cupboard that holds her brother close to her.

Sixty years later, in May 2002, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris is given the task of  investigating the infamous round-up and stumbles upon Sarah’s story. Obsessed by what she finds and desperate for knowledge on what happened to Sarah, Julia digs deeper and deeper and learns that Sarah’s tale is more entwined with her life than she had originally thought.

Rosnay tells the narrative alternating between past and present, developing each story piece by piece. While Sarah’s story is primarily about her quest to get back to Paris and to her brother, throughout the novel Julia deals with a disintegrating marriage, a lack of belonging and isolation from an extended family and society which she has been a part of for years. Although the novel is based around the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up and Julia’s story is largely about her pursuit for information on it, towards the end of the book, Julia’s personal issues become the main focus and she becomes increasingly self-involved and focused on what she wants, rather than how her actions may affect the people around her. This was a disappointing end to the novel which was at first fast paced and completely compelling, and the most interesting part of the narrative seemed to fade somewhat into the background.

However, overall, Rosnay’s exploration of the role of French police in the mass arrests of the Jewish population in France gives great insight into a shocking part of history that is often overlooked and the fact that she chronicles a young girl’s experiences in such appalling conditions adds extra tragedy to the tale and affects the reader even more powerfully. Furthermore, the alternation between past and present that Rosnay provides, allows the reader to realise the immensity and significance of what happened in the past and the shame that France still feels regarding the role of the French people in the horrific events that took place.   Rated: 3/5 Stars. Recommended.

“It says NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

but it don’t say why…”

In 1999, Simon Armitage was commissioned to write a 1,000-line poem to celebrate the passing of the millennium. Killing Time is the manic countdown to the new millennium as the past twelve months spool past like a newsreel. Armitage’s informal and conversational approach takes a detached stance on events as he refrains from imposing his own opinions on the reader. The understatement of pivotal events undermines expectations of the reader as Armitage emphasises the impact through the nuances and subtleties of their presentation.

Through the use of extended metaphors, Killing Time becomes allegorical as often what is being described means something completely different but could be used as a way of describing the events; for example, the use of floral imagery when describing the Columbus High School massacre could be interpreted as a symbol of the flowers laid outside of the school in grief, or of the innocence of those who committed such an atrocity. The poem is a vision full of humorous and bleaker possibilities, which ranges forwards and backwards through time and space.

By creating a kind of linguistic tension, Armitage comments as much on the reportage of the events in the media as the events themselves as he makes an enquiry into the role of poetry in speaking about public events. In the Age of Communication, Killing Time portrays a world picked clean by a microphone and a camera, where nothing is sacred, secret or even true. By distorting the literal reality, Armitage seems to be questioning whether poetry can reveal unexpected and greater truths than those contained in eye-witness description and conventional comment; it is the function of poetry, in particular, to see the world afresh and to ask different questions. Public poetry should not merely be written to reflect current events or memorialise prominent people but it should in fact, be no different to poetry written from the poet’s own impulses – it should still promote, stimulate and enquire.