So last weekend we went to see “Polar Bear” by Mark Haddon and I was really looking forward to it.  I had been quite disappointed to hear initially that we could not get seats, which also surprised me because I had it on good authority that the reviews were quite mixed.  So all the more exciting to be going and even taking a friend along and dinner to follow after the matinee.  Sadly our friend’s partner was called away to Mexico City, and I think he missed out on something he may very well have enjoyed a great deal.

There is no interval and the performance is an hour and a half, but after seeing it I can quite see how no break is a necessary part to the entire piece.  The narrative is not chronological and as a result a break could add to any confusion.  I loved the set and the way it worked, it was not quite “in the round” but it had that feeling to it.  No one actor “upstaged” any other, though Celia Imrie’s performance was masterful, if you can use that word in the context.  I was embarrassed on entering the foyer to get her name wrong and think it was Imelda Staunton.

If I had to single any one actor as impressing me it would actually be the female lead though.  She played the part of Kelly who as it turns out is the manic depressive in the play.  When the play starts she is in fact dead, or at least we are led to believe so. As the narrative moves along and back and forth in time I personally began to wonder if there was some ambiguity on that score, if in fact her husband had become deranged and she was actually in Oslo and not the body in the cellar.

Our friend noticed and we all agreed that since we realise bipolar disorder is a big part of the play then we all thought the husband was the person affected by it (and of course he was, but only indirectly).  It is not until the change in scene that it becomes apparent Kelly is the primary focus for the bipolar, though there is the shadow of her father and his depressive suicide hanging over the whole play menacingly.

Later we have a Jesus figure (several perhaps!), and I especially loved the scene where he said true love is when the person you love does not know your name and went on to itemise the stages of decomposition of a corpse and the associated “symptoms”. This was interesting, the husband is a philosophy professor and I felt we were being played with for Mr Haddon to display a knowledge of the subject on a par with mine (IE very amateur!).  Mark Haddon always manages to irritate me at some level, and in this play it was the mention of a coach tour through the philosophers of the ages and the “stopping at Kierkegaard for someone to be sick” which I thought was a cheap laugh (I have a LOT of respect for the Dane).

On leaving the theatre none of us could understand the poor reviews - apparently it was slated by quite a few critics - but since we believed there were good reviews too we settled on the play having “bipolar reviews”!  Over dinner I asked everyone what they thought they would remember from the play (we had all enjoyed it thoroughly).  For me ultimately it is the subject of suicide, mental disorder, family, and the ensuing trauma from the act and ripples down the generations that shall be my abiding interest and memory.

One could be forgiven for thinking that this book might fall into the Dan Brown/Da Vinci code “genre” to go by the title, but you’d be wrong.  There is a narrative device of two journals which alternate and one of these is necessarily hidden away and secret.  Perhaps secret is the wrong word, but there is a big “secret” which is only revealed towards the end of the book.  It is hard for me to talk about plot specifics without revealing this secret without “spoiling” the plot.

I was really quite taken with the way this book covers the sweep of an entire century, yet does so in a very engaging way by literally covering the life story of a woman from the last century to this.  All this in the context of Ireland.  There always seem to be questions I am left asking myself after reading a book, and I think the more of them I have usually is a pretty reliable indicator as to how good the book is or at least how much it engaged me.

For this book one question was if Sebastian Barry were Irish and another was whether he started the book with the ending in mind and some sort of plot outline.  For the former a quick google has revealed that he was Dublin born and is indeed Irish, as I expected since the book is immersed in Irish culture and history which was one of the reasons I so enjoyed it.  This also enabled me to learn a lot of history and background both of the troubles and of the recent revelations of abuse cases endemic in Ireland and a few other island nations (such as the island of Jersey where a residential childrens’ facility apparently had many many historic abuse cases).

As to where he started his planning of the book - well Google is less revealing of course and we can likely only speculate.

But this does lead me to the last thing I am curious about, which is how many readers are surprised by the final “twist” to the plot.  As the interleaving narratives progress we are left wondering if they will overlap in any other way than their perspectives on Roseanne’s life (it is told in the first person from the beginning and in third person from the end).  The third person is not the narrator per se, but another character in the book.  I found this plot device immensely satisfying and it gave Mr Barry a lot of opportunity to show what a fine writer he is.

To conclude - thoroughly recommended!  And please please do leave a comment to let me know if you were totally surprised as you finished the book or if you, like me, had intimations as to what was to be revealed before it was!

This was written by my daughter at the weekend, I shall photograph the original text and post it, but this is my version typed as faithfully as I can:-

Look! a leaf
Scrunkling my life away.

Look! a rabbit hole
Like a bowl
Eating my life away.

Look!…a nest
Like a bed
Sleeping my life away

Look at the green grass
Like  a bean
I roll my life away

Isabel Eleanor Amelia Wrighton, November 2009.

I may have mentioned Tobias Hill in an earlier post but since then have read his first published novel. The title of “Underground” works on two levels, it is both the London Underground and a more murky underground in the past; a subteranian incident from our protagonist’s childhood.  It could even be argued that the sub-plot from childhood is using the term “underground” in another sense, the one of the shadey dealer who is not legitimate.

The writing is probably even more strikingly original than it was for “The Cryptographer” which I have already mentioned (see that earlier post of mine).  I especially enjoyed the way we are given to understand the attraction between the feral female who he finds inhabiting the underground and the subsequent play on our emotioons when we discover she is not all we might have hoped for.  But this plot development is entirely necessary in the context.

And it is this context, one of childhood and the abuse that can occur there, both from monstrous parents and from others who are not parents but perhaps even more monstrous, it is this which forms the actual “meat” of the novel.  I truly loved the way these issues are explored tangentially and yet the plot remains one of a gripping thriller which accelerates towards the ending with a born and assured gifted writers natural grace of expression.

There is a new person in my life, and she suffers a degenerative eye condition ( retinitis pigmentosa) which means that her vision is already severaly compromised and will eventually fail entirely.  Although at the time of reading I was not thinking about this, with the benefit of hindsight I am finding all sorts of resonances with that.  He seems to find both loneliness and comfort in the darkness.  He wants to be alone and at the same time recognises it as a special quality, and not necessarily a healthy one.  I think it is no accident that the flourescent light which is his only source of illumination at times is coming from a watch his father gave him as a boy, one which incidentally bore the image of Stalin’s head on the watchface.  Many times in the story being in the absolute darkness of the underground, be it a mineshaft or a train tunnel, is used as a great way to sharpen our sense of danger or even perhaps to enhance the erotic.  These moments in the writing are used as springboards for us to speculate or join with the protagnoist exploring emotional issues.  he is clearly profoundly affected as a young man both by his mother abandoning him (and his father) and by his subsequent perception of his father as a monster whom he in turn abandons when he leaves the country and comes to London.

All of these observations can only be made after completely reading the novel - and many of them only after a little time to digest it.  So I fully recommend this fine first novel to anyone who chances upon this post in my blog.  And if anyone can comment and add their own opinions, well that too is most welcome!

Come on you burglers

Come and have a go

Take every thing I own

I’m a Quaker so

that’s OK….

The riches of my spirit

far outweigh your karma

if you want to hurt me

You’ll have to try harder

Come on all you burglars

You got my daughter’s DS

now you really shouldn’t

Mess with my princess

Come on all you burglars

show me your face somehow

I may be a Quaker

But I could kill you now

All the stuff you have is tainted

You can have it all

But frightening my daughter

You really didn’t oughta

That made it personal

that made me care

Makes me see your life as worthless

But I can’t go there

We’ll get our home back

we have our love

You have some stuff

and when you go above

You’re going to fucking pay for this in ways you never could imagine you fucking bastard.

Sorry I’m a Quaker

What I meant to say

was God bless and I feel sorry for you

and listen to a voice inside next time

Just LEAVE THE DS, OK?!