A is for Alien

By the age of six I knew I was an alien. Not the peculiar breed that are an off green colour and have enlarged heads, stretched limbs and protruding eyes. Not the kind that you would see in E.T, Star Trek, or Doctor Who. I was more subtle than this. An alien in disguise. When I was born my mother neglected to inform me of this information, even despite the fact that being a different species is quite big news. She didn’t seem very alien-like herself though, and nor did dad, and I’m not even sure if they knew that I was one despite all the clues they had at their disposal. The humans at school all seemed to know though.
My throat was becoming sore and dry but tears persisted to race down my hot clammy face. It was my first day of junior school and I needed to stop crying now but my eyes had not yet been emptied of this salty liquid. The howling was still stinging my throat as my mother carried me across the playground towards Mrs Banks. Mrs Banks was a strange looking human because none of her features seemed to fit on her face. Her nose and chin were like plants that had been kept in the dark and were extending their stems to the only slither of light that was in sight. Her hair was scraped up into a pony tail with only one long wiry strand hanging down and tickling her nose. She grasped my hand and led me into the school building, along the corridor towards the classroom where the other young humans had already gathered. I remember feeling awkward and uneasy next to this stranger but she promised she wouldn’t leave me when we entered the classroom. Still walking along the hallway I remember seeing the door which had four glass panes in the top half so I could see an old hairy human talking to the class. We reached the door and the human plant released me from her tight grasp and left. She said she wouldn’t leave. Panic consumed my body as I saw the judging eyes that were looking up at me. The old hairy human was Mr Baker, my year three teacher. He asked me some polite questions but I seized up and didn’t know how to reply, as if I had forgotten how to speak. I remember feeling exposed, as if my disguise was fading, revealing my long green limbs and my inhuman shaped head. Without saying a word I slowly walked to the back of classroom in the hope that I would become invisible and fade into the surroundings like a piece of furniture. I was seated in an empty space next to Jimmy Cork. I nervously glanced at his face to size up what this particular specimen was like but there was no comfort to be found. He stuck his unnaturally long mobile tongue out of his mouth and forced his face to look like a screwed up ball of paper. To add to my shock, Jimmy Cork slyly leaned across and, using his fingers as pincers, sharply nipped the flesh of my upper arm.
I wanted to escape from this planet because I was different to these people.
I was an Alien.

Book review of Joan Didion’s ‘The year of magical thinking’

This memoir focuses on a year of Joan Didion’s life in which she is grieving for the loss of her husband and at the same time experiencing great distress as her daughter is critically ill in hospital. The title of the book, ‘The year of magical thinking’ refers to her belief that her husband will return. She expresses this conviction several times in the memoir and even keeps his shoes because she thinks he will need them for when he reappears. It is very rare that authors write about bereavement and grief to this extent. These emotions are often kept private and can sometimes be embarrassing or too difficult to discuss with others.

Initially this memoir evokes an emotional response and the reader may feel that they can relate to Didion’s shock and disbelief when her husband is suddenly taken from her and writing this was probably a cathartic experience, helping her to come to terms with her pain and to accept that he has gone. As the memoir progresses however, Didion goes over and over the same events which may be necessary for her but is not so interesting for the reader. In addition to this she introduces a lot of incomprehensible medical jargon in an attempt to understand exactly what caused her husbands death. It may be concluded that although this is a brave book to write, it fails to hold the reader’s interest.

F is for forgetting

In ‘The importance of being Ernest’ Oscar Wilde once said, ‘memory is the diary that we all carry about with us’. It is an integral part of our daily routines and of our lives. But what happens if we misplace our diary? What if it gets suffocated under the pile of unnecessary junk that we refuse to dispose of? Our first loves would come and go leaving no trace of their existence, as if they were a sweet dream that managed to escape the world of reality. Our arguments, our mistakes, and our achievements would no longer exist. We would be bed ridden, we would be vegetables, and we would be dependable on everyone apart from ourselves.

Walking along the cracked pavement stones that were lined with beds of pink and yellow flowers I remember feeling confused. We were going to visit grandpa but this wasn’t his house. I remember it as a large grey building that seemed to be caught in the middle of the 1930’s, even though I have since seen photographs that showed it as a dainty and recently painted white modern structure. Perhaps my mistaken grey image was just a reflection on the day itself.
Dad pressed firmly on the loud speaker system and announced our family to the people on the other end. The door abruptly buzzed open and we all entered this unfamiliar territory. Dad stepped in front of us, leading me and mum towards the woman at the reception. He was taking charge and purposely putting on a brave face in the hope that he would fool us both into believing that this situation was just like any other day. As we walked down the hallway in the direction of grandpa’s room my eyes began to prickle with tears. My feet became reluctant to take steps forward and had to be persuaded not to turn around and run back to the safety of the car.
A nurse swept past us as we approached the door. Dad breezily opened it as it if was the door to a restaurant or a pub and we were just going in for a casual drink. He stepped in with us shuffling behind him.
‘Hi Dad! It’s Dave and I’ve bought Jess and Val with me to see you’
I crept out from behind dad and went to sit on the chair at the far side of the room. The word ‘small’ was the word that immediately struck me when I saw this man, my granddad, lying emotionless on the bed in the middle of the room. He just looked so much smaller than usual. He looked different. His skin was a dull grey colour, and he seemed to be sinking into the bed as if he wanted it to take him away. His eyes also seemed grey and were stretched wide but projected no emotion. They turned to focus on me.
‘Who’s this?’
‘That’s Jess your Grand Daughter, dad, remember?’

Dementia is a disease of the brain and can cause severe memory loss and problems with everyday functioning. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘memory is the diary that we all carry about with us’ and my grandpa had lost his diary and he never got it back.

Book Review of Vladimir Nabokov's 'Speak, Memory'

‘Speak Memory’ is Nabokov’s memoir of his early life. It is subtitled ‘An Autobiography Revisited’ because each of the chapters was originally a magazine article as he explains in the foreword. These articles were written over a period of several years and when they were ‘revisited’ he made changes and corrections. Each chapter deals with a main topic which explores a particular memory. However, the chapters are not linked together into a fluent narrative which can make it difficult to follow.

Nabokov’s autobiography is a challenging read. The style is distinctive and often poetic but the sentences are exhaustingly long and the vocabulary is highly sophisticated. He includes vocabulary from a whole range of semantic fields, such as, science, literature, politics and nature and some phrases are in French or Russian.

A main theme of his autobiography is Memory itself. The title ‘Speak, Memory’ is expressed as a command as if he is urging his memory to recall significant moments in his life. In chapter 7 he states that he is aiming for precision in memory and he pushes himself until he recalls the name of the dog that he has forgotten. In chapter 8 he discusses ‘the supreme achievement of memory’ which appears to mean the way it brings together disjointed images into a harmonious whole. This description continues for a page of densely poetic writing describing images, movements and sounds to create an almost cinematic image. This style of writing contrasts with chapter three which mostly consists of a list of his family members and their brief biographies.

Parts of this book are frustratingly difficult to follow but Nabokov’s poetic use of language often compensates for this.

Book Review of Augusten Burrough's 'Runing with Scissors'

A constant theme that runs through Augusten Burroughs ‘Running with Scissors’ seems to be surrealism and insanity. Every character that the reader is introduced to lacks traits of normality and behaves in bizarre ways. Dr Finch and his family for example, seem to possess no inhibitions or constraints as when the Doctor turns his excrements into sculpture like artefacts in the belief that they are messages from God.

Augusten has been abandoned by his insane mother and is left to the mercy of this eccentric family, this encourages the reader to feel sympathetic towards his situation. Burroughs memoir of his childhood is surreal to say the least. So much so that it almost seems like a fictionalised family from an extreme sitcom and it makes one question the reliability of his account. The main response to all this is incredulous laughter but underlying this is the serious plight of a vulnerable and neglected young person who is abandoned by almost everyone who he has come to depend on.

The amoral and crazy world in which Augusten finds himself draws the reader in until they feel disorientated because it becomes impossible to judge who is the most insane. In almost everything you read there is some character who embodies what we think of as ‘normal’ or moral standards. But in this memoir there is no standard of normality to compare the characters to, even Augusten’s boyfriend Neil, who appears to love him, displays signs of being potentially dangerous. Reading this book was an enjoyable experience. However, the unhinged characters and the alien and chaotic world they live in makes it an unsettling experience too.

E is for Emily.

I have often wondered why we end up having the friends that we do. What attracts us to them and them to us? Is it our similarities? Similar interests or similar fashions? Or do we like to unconsciously swim away from traits that we find in ourselves and pick friends that are our complete opposites? Opposites do seem to attract; sweet and sour, hot and cold, tall and short, fat and thin, rich and poor and even at times intelligent and.. less intelligent.
Do we even pick our friends or are they occasionally forced upon us? Are we friends with the other girl that got left out of playing kiss chase because no one wants to kiss her either, resulting in no other choice but to team up to form the ‘undesirable two’.
Finding friends at school is like trying to get hold of the perfect dress that has recently gone on sale. Those who arrive at the shop first manage to grab the dresses that fit them best, but if you arrive too late you are left with the slightly baggy around the chest dresses, the ones that don’t really fit but they will do.
Emily was my baggy dress. She was a largely plump girl, with a perfectly rounded face. This face always seemed to be creased with an eye squinting smile that often looked like she was experiencing mild pain. Her lips were thin and noticeably chapped and when they opened they released a high pitched twang in her voice. Her mannerisms were always exaggerated: when she laughed at jokes her laugh turned into a brutal cackle and when she’d hug me hello she would boisterously launch her arms at me causing me to topple over.
As a child I was relatively timid, or ‘painfully shy’ as my mother would say. I would never leave her side when at a children’ party and when I was spoken to I would hide underneath mums coat. To the observer I was a very blonde and scrawny little girl; I wasn’t much of a talker and tended to keep myself to myself. The complete opposite of Emily. Emily’s family were all incredibly similar to her, when I walked into her house I felt small and inferior, an alien to their way of living and acting. However, in a strange way I didn’t seem to mind. I would happily spend my time with this slightly over powering brute. Once, we even went as far as sticking our hands together with super glue so that I would never have to leave her house. Obviously our plan failed when my mother was forced to enter the house to help Emily’s mother prize our hands off of each other’s using fairy liquid and water. To my mother’s relief, when I left to go to a separate secondary school I never saw my opposite, Emily, again.

Book Review of Nigel Slater’s ‘Toast’

Nigel Slater uses the ongoing theme of food to provide an interesting structure to the autobiography of his childhood and early years. However, the memoir is much more than just a catalogue of food. It is a memoir of the senses – the colours, tastes, smells and textures of the different foods are lovingly described, and these all evoke memories of childhood experiences, both happy and sad. Often the tone is nostalgic, as for example he describes the pleasures of eating sweets which are no longer commonly found in shops. There is also frequent humour in Slater’s descriptions of tastes and textures and the discovery of new and ‘exotic ‘ foods such as spaghetti illustrates this.

Food is used to set the scene for many of his childhood experiences. For example it is always a background to the description of his relationship with his mother. He obviously loves her very much but is frustrated with her lack of cooking skills, ‘how could you let the flapjacks burn?’

After Slater’s mother’s death food is used in a battle of wills between father and son as his father tries to force him to eat things that make him feel physically sick. So, in this autobiography, as in everyday life, food is never simply food, it always connotes other things such as comfort, love or control.

Although Slater’s technique is an innovative way of structuring his story, after a while the obsessive focus on food becomes rather relentless, although it does convey his passion for something that is to become his career.