Adam Mars-JonesBesprekingen

On a trip out to Box Hill in Surrey on his eighteenth birthday in summer 1975, plump, insecure Colin trips over the cool, sophisticated biker Ray. Something prompts him to answer Ray's rhetorical "What am I going to do with you?" with "Anything you like," and before Colin knows quite what is happening, he's on the back of Ray's Norton, setting out on an unexpected new career as a sex-slave in the suburban hinterland of Hampton Court palace.

Although the relationship between Ray and Colin is clearly very unequal and exploitative, and it doesn't end happily, when it ends it does, counterintuitively, leave Colin more at ease with who he is and what he wants out of life. He is in a position to build a new, happy life for himself. This in contrast to Colin's father, whose similarly dependent relationship with Colin's mother drives him into a spiral of mental breakdown.

Fun because of all the nice period detail about bikers and sex in the seventies, before everyone got hung up on motorcycle safety and AIDS, but the plot felt a bit facile.

Basically a downer about a relationship between a biker fanboy and a biker. I enjoyed it enough to finish it. It's a depressing character study about someone with no self esteem who gets into what's basically an abusive relationship. Good times!

I thought I'd read this back in 2011 when it came out, but I picked it up off the shelf recently and noticed a bookmark half way through. I love Ozu and I like the idea of throwing off the weight of accepted criticism and taking a "layman" approach to analysing one of his best films. Why would I have given up on such a short book about a subject I find fascinating?

I suspect it's because Mars-Jones' forensic dissection of every single shot in the film eventually begins to suck all the life out of it. This approach offers occasional insights but a lot of the time it's the text equivalent of an Arnold Schwarzenegger DVD commentary: "Here's Noriko. She comes into the house. She's upset but she's hiding it. She avoids her father's eyes and goes upstairs..." and on and on. You can almost see him checking the word count, sighing, and adding one more paragraph about hankies.

It's not all bad, and it provides some interesting background on the conditions in which the film was made and the general history of Japanese cinema. I think I'll stick with the critics in future though.

The second instalment of John Cromer's life story picks up where the first left off, with our youthful white British suburban Hindu starting his A-Level studies. Unfortunately, this continuation of the school career is very much more of the same thing covered at length in the first volume and it gets a bit dull.

Things liven up considerably when Cromer goes off to India on a spiritual quest, then upon returning heads to Downs College, Cambridge where life proves to be neither easy nor stereotypical and being a wheel chair user makes one prone to being kidnapped, exploited and dropped down stairs...

We're left on a bit of a physical and emotional cliff-hanger and who knows when a Volume 3 might appear to tell us where John and his adapted Mini might go next?

Box Hill is a short novel, reflecting on a relationship long in the past but still very meaningful to the narrator Colin. I’d hesitate to call this a love story because it isn’t an equal relationship but it is a story about relationships of unequal standing.

It’s Colin’s eighteenth birthday as the book opens, and he’s gone to Box Hill to check out the bikes. A spot for bikers to congregate, Colin knows that it’s not really his place (being overweight and only in possession of a cheap leather jacket and restrained flares) but he fantasises about the leathers and the bikes. He’s wandering when he trips over a man, Ray. Ray is a biker from top to toe in leathers and a motorbike he takes intricate care for. Ray wakes up and propositions Colin, and they move in together that evening. From the very first evening, the reader gets the idea that this isn’t a normal relationship. Ray dominates Colin to the point of rape, yet Colin is transfixed by Ray and deeply in love. Ray is controlling, discarding Colin’s toiletries and never giving Colin a key to the flat (despite living together for six years). Colin is there as Ray’s trophy, a thing, to share with the other bikers. He’s an object and reflecting on this time, Colin realises that this relationship has dominated his future ones. How does it end? I won’t spoil it, but there is no closure which gives reason for Colin returning to his relationship with Ray over and over again.

The story is told by Colin in the first person, so the reader doesn’t ever get to know Ray’s feelings or intent. Colin clearly has insecurities about his looks and intelligence and repeatedly tells the reader how grateful he is for Ray. Unfortunately, that’s another reason for poor Colin to cop the physical and mental abuse from Ray. An interesting parallel to Colin and Ray’s relationship is that of Colin’s parents. His father becomes incredibly clingy and worried without his wife, to the point where she can’t leave the room without telling him where she’s going. Another form of abuse or dementia? It’s interesting that both Colin and his mum are used by others for security and sex.

Mars-Jones writes Colin incredibly well, to the point where it feels like reading an autobiography. It’s honest and unflinching, no matter what the topic. I raced through this.

Thank you to Scribe for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com

Liked this a lot, although I must say that nothing really happens for 640 pages and then it just stops. (Apparently it is part 1 of a trilogy.) But it is quite well-written and John is excellent company, so I was content to drift along. It reminded me a little bit of the first sections of David Copperfield, but I'm not sure whether that is because there are actual parallels or just because I compare everything I like to something by Dickens. So I recommend it, as long as you are not devoted to plot; if you want an actual plot, this book will most likely frustrate you.

Absolutely brilliant memoir. Prose style is gorgeous. Great insight into character.

These memories have no structure at all, they just meander from one subject to another and do require more background knowledge of British culture than I can come up with.

Liked this a lot, although I must say that nothing really happens for 640 pages and then it just stops. (Apparently it is part 1 of a trilogy.) But it is quite well-written and John is excellent company, so I was content to drift along. It reminded me a little bit of the first sections of David Copperfield, but I'm not sure whether that is because there are actual parallels or just because I compare everything I like to something by Dickens. So I recommend it, as long as you are not devoted to plot; if you want an actual plot, this book will most likely frustrate you.

I needed to be determined about this book and I am glad that I persisted. There are no chapters - it is just a stream of thoughts about Adam Mars-Jones and his relationship with his father. In the end I thought it was more autobiographical and more about the son than father.

Some parts were hard going for example his description of Sir William Mars-Jones' taste in popular music and I confess to skimming at this point.

The New Zealand connection was interesting.

I recently referred to this book when reviewing Kergan Edwards-Stout's Gifts Not Yet Given. The two books are similar in that they are collections of short stories which deal with individuals who are cut off, one way or another, from their families and/or friends. Both are books I can see reading and re-reading again and again. Edwards-Stout's book got me to pick up Mars-Jones' volume and re-read it, cover to cover. All the stories in Monopolies of Loss center on AIDS and its impact to the gay community back in the 1980s. They are deeply personal, and speak to me on a level that makes it impossible for me to be impersonal in any approach to this book. One of the stories, Bears in Mourning, is a story that I have recommended time and time again when the inevitable discussion comes up concerning just what a Bear is. Curiously, it is the only story in the book where the death is not AIDS related. Monopolies of Loss may seem a bit dated today, but for those of us who lived through the outbreak of the epidemic and lost so many friends to it, these stories will bring familiar faces to mind. I heartily recommend Monopolies of Loss.

The second part of a trilogy, Cedilla follows on from Pilcrow with our hero John Cromer taking us through to the completion of his education, now in the mainstream. His education covers his time at grammar school and through to attaining a degree, and along the way includes a spell in India in pursuit of his spiritual interests.

This is very much in the same vein as Pilcrow, but on an even larger scale, a marathon read but a marathon that never tires one while it switches between episodes of John's progress through day to day life and digressions into thoughts often of his spiritual quest.

John may be physically small and severely restricted as a result of Still's disease, but he has a strength of character more than enough to compensate. He gradually discovers how to achieve what he wants and to use a disadvantage to advantage, including maneuvering the occasional grope of any boy who appeals. His accounts are invariable couched in humour, and are at times moving.

However long Cedilla maybe it is not long enough, for I could happily spend some time each day in John's company in the assurance that I will be entertained, enlightened and possibly moved. There are no great dramas or major events, but again that is part of its appeal. Yet the closing pages I found especially moving, and hope it is not too long to wait for the third part of this trilogy to discover where John goes from here.

John Cromer suffers with Still's Disease which leaves him more than partially paralysed, this is his account of the onset of the disease and how he copes with the early years of his life. Written as a fictional autobiography it has the ring of truth about it, and not just because of the inclusion of real people and places (one has to be careful here, while some people appear as themselves, other sometimes well known people are re-invented or re-cast, and the same applies to places!). But it is the keen observation, attention to detail and wonderful characterisation the makes this convincing.

John relates his life in very short episodes which often follow on from one another, but he can also digress into other areas. He is an inquisitive, intelligent boy with ambitions often beyond his physical capabilities. He is honest in the telling of his story, and it is this honesty that enables one to forgive him his often selfish behaviour, along with the humour that accompanies his candour. For ultimately one cannot help but fall in love with John, he does have many redeeming features, and he frequently expresses remorse over his actions, also the concern he shows for and the comradeship he shares with his younger brother is a delight.

Compounding John's difficulties is the gradual onset of puberty and awareness of the effect of having so many lovely boys around him, he needs to explore but that is not so easy for someone in his situation.

In Pilcrow John takes us up to the age of around sixteen (Cedilla picks up where Pilcrow leaves off I believe, and on the strength of the former I have ordered the latter).

I initially found this slow and a little uninvolving and as a result somewhat daunting as I looked at the seemingly vast number of pages still to be read, but it is well worth sticky with for one will be amply rewarded. I found it soon to be a thoroughly engrossing read, one of those books that is hard to put down and ultimately rather than seeming too long I felt it ought to continue (hence my delight in finding there is a sequel, and a third in the pipeline?).

I must also mention, as it is far from insignificant, the quality of the writing here. Adam Mars-Johnson clearly has a love of English (as dose his character John), and the writing here amply demonstrates that love not just in the beauty and correctness of the writing but in some of the little diversions that delve into language.

There is a great deal to like in Adam Mars-Jones’ extended essay on Yasujiro Ozu’s 1949 film Late Spring. Like the renowned benshi narrators who accompanied the virtuoso performances of silent films in Japan’s pre-talkie film era, Mars-Jones steps through Ozu’s film with us from establishing shot to final image. At times he offers almost a frame by frame study pointing up oblique glances or nuanced non-committal grunts from lead actor Chishû Ryû whose import might be lost on a first (or tenth) viewing. This can be illuminating. It makes Noriko Smiling well worth reading by Ozu fans despite whatever other drawbacks may be present in the text.

The book as a whole consists in one long essay that, apart from the scene-by-scene and near-shot-by-shot description, canvasses the wide range of commentary that has been written on Ozu, and Late Spring in particular, by film critics, Japanologists, and even historians of censorship. It is clear that Adam Mars-Jones is well versed in the critical background. But at this point a couple of unfortunate habits of his post-modern essay style come to the fore.

He repeatedly disavows any specialist knowledge, frequently (apparently) undercutting his authority by appealing to Wikipedia and the buzz on Internet to support his points (or to rail against). Sometimes these come in the form of asides, sometimes in the form of explicit (proud?) claims to ignorance. None of them can be taken seriously, and cumulatively they present as a kind of argumentative tic or, since they are clearly deliberate, posturing. The effect is not unlike a famous American academic philosopher from Harvard giving a talk on metaphysics but with an “ah-shucks, I’m just a country boy, y’know” patter. Maybe it works on radio; in print it just looks silly.

The other aspect of the book which, I think, many readers will find distasteful is Mars-Jones’ invariable need to belittle, mock, chastise, and outright dismiss every critic to whom he refers in the course of the essay. That kind of camp snarkiness might work in short doses on BBC Radio 4 (where you can sometimes find Mars-Jones appearing) but in an essay over 200-pages long, it just comes across as shrill.

I said above that these were unfortunate habits. They are unfortunate because they are unnecessary, contributing nothing to Adam Mars-Jones’ eventual interpretive stance, and distracting, since one might well suspect that it is the snide comments that are the real point of writing such an essay. In the end, Mars-Jones has a useful interpretive suggestion for how to read Ozu’s Late Spring. And while I disagree with it, I won’t do him the same disservice that he offers other critics of dismissing it out of hand and then repeatedly mocking the person over the ensuing text. I’ll just let you decide for yourself.

If you can ignore the stylistic dross, then Noriko Smiling is well worth reading, whether or not you ultimately agree with Adam Mars-Jones’ interpretation.½

I loved the first 2/3 of this book, in which John narrates his life story from toddler-hood until about age 13/14. The last third of the book dragged for me a bit, perhaps because I felt that many of the episodes were repetitious, and perhaps because my personal reading preferences do not include the subject of a young boy's first sexual experiences (homosexual in this case).

John's narrative voice is delightful, and his story is for the most part humorous, made all the more so by the fact that he is paralyzed. He was struck at an early age by a joint disease initially diagnosed as a form of rheumatoid arthritis, for which the doctor prescribed complete bed rest and immobility. (Ever try to keep a 3-year old still? John's mother does a valiant job of keeping him quiet and amused.) Several years later, the correct diagnosis of Still's Disease is made. The treatment for Still's Disease is the exact opposite of immobility--the patient should move as much as possible to keep the joints lubricated. As John states, "I had done nothing of the sort. I had been lying down on the job, and bed rest had let the disease's effects run riot through my body. Still's disease had taken away my power of movement without meeting even token resistance."

This book is in no way a downer, however, nor could it even be classified into the "disease of the week" genre. John is able to make even descriptions of his wallpaper amusing, and keeps us interested in reading about even the most trivial events in his life:

"By now it was a big thing if two wet leaves of different colours, one red, one yellow, happened to be plastered against the window....It was headline news if Dad hung up his trousers in the bedroom upstairs without taking the change out of his pockets, so that the coins rained down on the floorboards."

The characters around him are vivid and humorously real. On his mother:

"Mum hoarded the recipes from magazines, but was afraid to try them until she had scanned subsequent issues in search of corrections and misprints. She had once been tempted by a recipe for home-salted beef, only to read in a later issue that the amount of saltpetre had been overstated by a factor of ten, making it potentially toxic. We might all have been killed by a typographical error--except that I wouldn't have touched it. I alone would have been left alive to charge "Woman's Own" with manslaughter by misprint."

John's mother and her mother ("Granny") have certain unresolved issues:

"Granny was always a vivid figure to me, though not in the oppressive way she was to Mum. I stood up to her sometimes. I knew no better....I remember Granny squashing Mum flat one day just by rearranging the washing while she was out."

Granny's household was one in which, "there might as well have been a motto in cross-stitch over the fireplace, reading HOUSEWORK IS A SERIOUS ENTERPRISE, and a companion piece on the opposite wall declaring ANY FOOL CAN MIND A CHILD."

Granny's advice to John:

"What she did when she couldn't sleep, she said, and what I should do also, was to imagine herself being inside one of the cells {of a honeycomb} with a little brush, a brush as soft as a whisper. Only when my brush had done its work and the little chamber was perfectly clean and shining should I move onto the next chamber with the whispering brush. In this way the mind might be calmed and sleep invited. I liked the idea of polyhedral infinity, my mind as the empire of cells needing proper maintenance."

John's Dad to some extent was a man of the 1950's, perhaps disappointed not to have a son to do sports with, and to some extent jealous of the attention John received from his mother. "Dad always said I could wrap Mum around my little finger, which was a delicious image. I pictured a mother shrunken, made pliable, a plasticene woman I could wear like a toy ring or a sticking plaster." Yet his Dad is the one who believes John can have a "normal" future. When John said he might want to be an actor when he grows up and his mother throws cold water on that idea--

"Be realistic--what part could he play?
"'Well,' said Dad, 'he could be an old lady sitting in an upright wing chair in the corner.'
"'But what sort of role is that?' she pleaded.
"'Oh I would say that it's quite a good one!' he shot back. 'For one thing, he could direct operations like a general in battle....'"

John's world expands when he is sent to the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital, run by an expert in Still's Disease, although in those days, John says, "being an expert in Still's Disease didn't actually mean you knew very much." The doctor is also an expert in childhood leukemia, and half the patients are leukemia patients. Many of the children aren't quite sure which they are, knowing only that the leukemia patients usually die. The ward's bullies led by Wendy (who spoils "Peter Pan" forever for John) use this uncertainty to keep the other children under their thumbs. The treatment for the Still's Disease children consists of physical therapy by sadistic technicians. "Walking was an absolute passion and obsession of the establishment... Not to walk qualified as...a moral defect, but was no good telling that to my joints." Still, John keeps the story of his life in the hospital interesting and funny.

After several years at the hospital, John is sent to The Vulcan School for Disabled and Intelligent Boys. Its headmaster had been crippled in the war, and John says, "I was alerted to his disabled status, which was presented as a wonderful treat for me, as if he had let his legs be smashed by a tank just to make me feel at home."

It is at the Vulcan School that John begins puberty and his focus shifts to sexual fantasies about the various school masters on whom he develops crushes, as well as his plotting and maneuvering for some sort of sexual encounter with one of the boys to whom he is attracted. Admittedly, John's narrative tone continues to be engaging, light-hearted and self-deprecating. His descriptions of the travails of two boys with immobile joints, who have finally managed to find themselves alone and without supervision, trying to attain some sort of sexual touching can be amusing. However, I didn't enjoy this part of the book as much as I did the story of John's more innocent years.

The book ends with John's decision to leave Vulcan and attend a traditional boarding school. Pilcrow is the first of an intended trilogy. The second volume has been published, and I will probably read it at some point. The third volume is not yet published.½

This novel was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2008.

The narrator, John Cromer, is the first born son of a mildly eccentric Royal Air Force pilot and his neurotic and socially obsessed wife, who is such a beautiful baby that he appears on a magazine cover in post-war Britain. A couple of years later he is tormented by severe joint pains and fever, and is diagnosed with acute rheumatic fever. He is condemned to bed rest, on the advice of his physicians, as no medications are effective in treating this disorder. This inactivity, however, causes his joints to become stiff and immobile, as he actually has Still's disease, a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which leaves him unable to walk, stand or even sit upright.

His parents arrange for him to attend a converted hospital for children with Still's disease, where he encounters a stern but loving matron, and several sadistic physiotherapists and nurses. The other patients, mainly girls, appear to be more fortunate than he, as they were diagnosed earlier and given corticosteroids, a new and potentially revolutionary therapy. The long-term effects of treatment later become tragically apparent; despite his greater immobility, John is actually the most fortunate of the group.

In later childhood, he is transferred to a school for chronically ill boys, where he undergoes an intellectual and sexual awakening as he enters his pre-teen years.

The first 2/3 of this work was elegantly written and a joy to read, with rich descriptions of the life of a chronic child in mid-20th century institutions that were frequently harmful and repressive. Despite these conditions, John manages to get as much fun out of life as he possibly can, and is as mischievous as one would expect from a boy in his situation. For me, the wheels fell off the story after he moved to the new school, and his sexual experiences with his fellow students and his male teachers overshadowed everything else. The story also ended abruptly, as it is supposedly the first book in a trilogy about John Cromer.

I'd give 5 stars to the first 1/3 of the book, 4 stars to the middle 1/3, and 2 stars for the last portion.½

Too long, James Wood writing in the the London Review of books (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n08/wood02_.html) put me on to this book. Certain pieces are very well done but I cannot help but feel that they would have been better appreciated if they were closer together.½

This collection includes four stories by Adam Mars-Jones - "Slim", "An Executor", "A Small Spade" and "The Break" and two stories by Edmund White - "Palace Days" and "An Oracle".

I came across this book in the library when I was checking what Adam Mars-Jones they had and as I saw the collection included White's "Palace Days" which I remembered reading years ago in an anthology of gay literature I decided it might be interesting to read the stories. Which I then proceeded to do.

But at some point I started wondering why a collection of AIDS themed short stories had been published in the first place. It must have seemed topical in 1987, I wouldn't know, I was seven at the time. If we assume that good literature reflects the times in which it was written and published, then of course there's nothing strange in putting together six stories by two known gay writers; it would be noticed and it would sell and the writers would be describing experiences familiar to people at the time. But having this book in my hands in 2004 I felt uncomfortable about the whole idea - why would AIDS stories have to be put together, published in one volume, as if it would put everything right, as if it would signal that the matter has been done and dusted by the writers and publishers who then can move on. Maybe it's just me getting too tangled up with everything.

The stories are not bad at all, in a way I got a lot more out of "Palace Days" this time than I did as a teenager. Mars-Jones's stories were rather good too; looking at the publishing history of the stories more closely I discovered I have probably read "Slim" in an anthology of gay and lesbian literature but it hadn't had any greater impact on me.½