>>Nostalgia For Infinity

Late, as usual, and just a very short piece. Hey, why not go read that awesome announcement again?

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Here’s my offering for this week, presented in a timely fashion no less. Don’t forget to check out the other F3ers: Gareth Lyn Powell, Paul Raven, Martin McGrath, Neil Beynon, Gareth D. Jones, Justin Pickard, Dan Pawley, newcomer Greg O’Byrne, and possibly even Ian Hocking – although his first flash may have been a one off as it was on a Sunday.
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In ‘Walthamstow Central’, author Ellis Sharp pushes the boundaries of what readers have come to expect from literature. Part other-worldly police procedural, part science fiction thriller, part political diatribe, with these components alone the novel would be fascinating. But more interesting is the engagement with the artifice of the text. The lines between author and authored, between reality and fiction, between character and history and time are all blurred, and this technique pervades every element of the novel.

Sharp’s narrative technique is underpinned by a certain sense of weariness, both with life and with fiction, and this tiredness is shared by his characters. In a telling early scene, PC Daisy Spenser converses with PC Andy Scurr in his home. The narrator asserts that “the dialogue was as banal as the interior of the kitchen in Scurr’s flat”; minutes later, Daisy makes her excuses to leave:

“Your speech has a cold, narcotic quality. It’s dead.”
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“The sooner we stop this dialogue the better.” (All quotes p.39-40)

These lines are issued and acknowledged without comment, accepted as part of the world in which the characters operate – or, more precisely, the narrative. Indeed, immediately after her departure Daisy reflects momentarily on Scurr, before realising that her mind is open, that her interior monologue is exposed for all to see. She draws a mental curtain before her taxi driver reads her thoughts. It’s perhaps too late, as the reader has already parsed them.

Even a simple exchange such as this is telling. There’s a critical weariness with the mundane triviality of human social interaction, the cold and passionless sexual endeavours of men like Scurr. Observations about the banality of this dialogue, of the emptiness of the setting, not only characterise the voices and faces of ‘Walthamstow Central’, but also critique the lack of ambition and imagination in fiction that does not seek to step beyond this. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’ve been mulling this one over for a while. The review, not the book. It’s taken me quite a while to figure out how I should begin, and to establish exactly what there is for me to say. Eventually I decided this fairly rambling, conversational tone is probably the best (and, as an added bonus, easiest!) approach to adopt. As an added benefit it matches the tone of Diary of Indignities quite nicely. Sadly, I’m not going to be as funny as this book is. Which is very, very funny indeed.

It’s safe to say that you might not entirely agree with that claim. This is a book, based on a blog, written by a man “pimping out half-assed, embarrassing stories and mocking his family on the Internet in order to get the positive reinforcement denied him in his dead-end career or train-wreck social life”. It’s composed of self-deprecatory tales of indignity, woe, failure, drink and drug abuse, and every so often the author’s arse and its exciting adventures in medicine and blood. If you don’t find shit like this terribly amusing – you might, for example, consider it to be puerile, stupid, self-destructive or what have you – then stroll on by. Why are you reading about a book called Diary of Indignities, anyway?

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The following is a conversation between Yusef and Jehangir, drawn from around the middle of the novel. If you’ve not yet read my review, I’d suggest you go and do so before reading on. Or just do what you want: it’s your call. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this extract from what is quite possibly my favourite novel of 2007.
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Michael Muhammad Knight’s ‘The Taqwacores’ is a novel of unusual provenance. Originally photocopied and distributed in mosque car parks, it has since spawned a punk subculture based on the fictional taqwacore it portrayed and, if the blurb is to be believed, has been “confiscated in Malaysia, taught in numerous colleges and universities and cited as an influence in the American Muslim woman-led prayer movement.” Not bad for what is, on one level, just a tale of drop-out punks and counter-culture philosophy.

But really, ‘The Taqwacores’ is so much more than this.

The novel is written from the perspective of Yusef, who is something of an outsider in the punk house where he lives, deep in run-down Buffalo. He shares the house with several other Muslim punks, all with their unique takes on Islam. Umar is straightedge, and more of a religious hardliner than his housemates. He is festooned in halal tattoos: a black X on each hand; star and crescent on one forearm; salalaho alayhe wa salaam, the name of Muhammad, on the other; across his neck, in green, 2:219. Rabeya, the sole female occupant of the house, wears a burqa, and has never been seen by most of her friends. She is also an ardent feminist and a fan of Propagandhi.

Fasiq is a stoner or hashishiyyun and, aside from Yusef, is perhaps the most quiet and reclusive member of the household. He can often be found on the roof of the house, Quran and joint in hand. His usual companion is Jehangir, who tells drunken tales of the taqwacores out West and punk Islamic philosophy to anyone who’ll listen.

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