The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills – A Book Review

 

The restraint of who? – The restraint of beasts!

But where are the beasts?

Two workers, Tam and Ritchie, and the foreman, the narrator, are responsible for building high tensile fences on their clients’ farms. Their manager, Mr. Donald is a fastidious boss. So, they drive, smoke, rest, have tea, sleep, work, visit the local pub, look for women, have beer, get drunk, sleep. And again, and again. They need to be prodded, instigated, Tam and Ritchie, for them to be out of their beds and do some work. If not, they would rather have beer and sleep all day, and night of course. The fence is finally built and it’s looking good. Oh, but the client is accidentally killed. And buried.

So they move on to the next assignment. They drive, smoke, rest, have tea, sleep, work, visit the local pub, look for women, have beer, get drunk, sleep. And again, and again. The fence is finally built and it’s looking good. Oh, but the client is accidentally killed, and buried, yet again.

And then they move to the next assignment.......

The fences are built, but there’s no sign of no animals, and now there are no owners as they peacefully lie in the depth of the buried earth.

I surprised myself by not getting bored with the ludicrously trite routine of the characters; rather enjoyed their idiosyncrasies. I grinned at their indolence as they reminded me of some people I’ve had the misfortune to work with.

The author, Magnus Mills has subtly and metaphorically drawn the need to restrain the two legged creature as much as is deemed necessary for the four legged ones (Between 1979 and 1986 Magnus Mills built high-tensile fences for a living, an experience he drew upon for this novel). The need to be tamed, disciplined, berated, to move, to be motivated to move to greener pastures is felt needed by both; the safety in confines is the disposition of both. Like the beasts, we are born, live and die; we don’t give much thought to the goat that was served for dinner, do we, except maybe to the tenderness of the meat? Maybe, that explains the dead-pan humour (discovered this phrase when reading about the author) in the cold (accidental) killings of the clients. Was it sorrowful – no, was it deliberate – no, did it evoke reproach – no, was it funny – no, why should it? Was it forgotten – easily! Life goes on...

On another note, we feel free, safe in our confines, don’t we? We aren’t born to be free, we are born to be restrained – to do as we are told, do this, don’t do that, do it this way, behave, sit, stand, brush, eat, travel, go to work, return home, sleep, ready yourselves for another day of a mundane struggle – the more taut the string, the more effective the fence. An introvert would feel as free in a crowded party as would a garrulous person on a marooned island.

We are tethered by the invisible shackles of our thoughts and imposed values and we roam around feeling free only till we feel the tug of the chain, and then we saunter back to our safer grounds. We are herded into the influential lives that we live; only few choose to, resolve to break free and live in the wilderness.

As Oscar Wilde said “To define is to limit.” But then again, was that for humans? :)

 

My rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 6/10 

Image Copyright:

Magnus Mills - https://alchetron.com/Magnus-Mills-256041-W

Book cover - https://www.amazon.com/Restraint-Beasts-Magnus-Mills/dp/0684865114

 

 

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – A Book Review

Why are we born? Why do we die?

And what happens in between?

What is truth? What is fear?

What is religion?

Isn’t fear religion? Or is religion fear?

Can we love everyone the same way; are we supposed to?

Who tells us what we’re supposed to; who tells the eagle to soar and the snake to slither?

And we can think, yes! So? Do we create our destiny?

Was I destined to write this review?

Is there a purpose?

As the books of Bokonon say, “In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.” And God created every living creature that now moveth, and was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. “What is the purpose of all this?” he asked politely.

“Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.

“Certainly!” said man.

“Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this.” said God. And He went away.

He’s John, a journalist. He’s out there to collect material for a book ‘The Day the World Ended’ – a factual book giving an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Dr. Felix Hoenikker, a scientist, the father of the atomic bomb is long dead; so all John is left with are his three erratic children, Angela, the tall horse faced, caring daughter who soulfully plays the clarinet, Frank, the quiet modeller and thinker and little Newt (Newton), a midget, a painter.  Stumbling upon their whereabouts, he crosses paths with Dr. Breed, Felix’s associate and comes across a brilliant discovery by Dr. Felix, a discovery that could change the world like all ‘Eureka’ian discoveries do.

“Dr. Breed keeps telling me the main thing with Dr. Hoenikker was truth.”

“You don’t seem to agree.”

“I don’t know whether I agree or not. I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.”

The endeavour to know more about Dr. Felix and the discovery finds him on the island of San Lorenzo, an island cultivating utopian thoughts, where everyone believes in Bokonon and his books but are not supposed to. A roller coaster ride follows, where he meets the most beautiful girl in the world, is asked to marry her, is to become the President of the island and then – then he encounters Dr. Felix’s sinister discovery, in the most inexorably devastating way as all good discoveries are inadvertently showcased. The island, its caretakers, its people, all is made, bred, destroyed by the preaching of Bokonon and a higher authority, of course!

“What is sacred to Bokononists? I asked after a while.

“Not even God as near as I can tell.”

“Nothing?”

“Just one thing.”

I made some guesses. “The ocean? The sun?”

“Man,” said Frank. “That’s all, just man.” 

Now, who’s Bokonon? Is it important? Yes and no. Replace him with any religious preacher, teacher, leader that you believe in, have been asked to, forced to believe in; anyone or everyone your parents, your society asked you to listen to, follow and why? Because their parents and so did their parents asked them to; religion is traditional isn’t it?

The first sentence in the books of Bokonon is this “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies”

“She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing.” writes Bokonon

Isn’t every religion created? By a selected few, a privileged few? And who gave them the privilege to tell us what we should do, what we should believe, the way we should or shouldn’t live? And should we listen to them, to these obstinate men of God or these political zealots? We do, don’t we? Is there an option? Look around you, we are surrounded by preaching, teaching, lies; do we really believe in them, maybe not, but that’s not important. What is important is that we cling on to them, why, of course for safety, like a drowning man holding on to a float for dear life! Our existence!

“Are you a Bokononist?” I asked him.

“I agree with one Bokononist idea. I agree that all religions, including Bokononism, are nothing but lies.”

“I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense
So we all could be happy
instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
and I made this sad world,
A par-a-dise.”
- from the books of Bokonon

 

And if we break the shackles and become free thinkers, we say we create our own world, our own destinies. We think, we work, be creative, we wonder, we invent and He laughs. We send a man on the moon, we create satellites, we create penicillin and other vaccines and He laughs. Have you heard of earthquakes and volcanoes and tornadoes and floods and tsunamis and plagues and forest fires and of course wars, He mocks!

“Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why go right ahead and scold Him. He’ll just smile and nod.”
- from the Books of Bokonon

 

So then, are we mere puppets, is ignorance bliss? If everything was destined to happen the way it did, does, will, why then are we equipped with the ability to think? Is there any respite from this despair?

I say “Oh! What a plight!”

He says, “Just hold on tight.”

“My God – life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?”

“Don’t try,” he said “just pretend you understand.” He quoted another poem:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to sit and wonder, “why, why why?
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand.

This book is high on nihilism, there are no clear answers, and if there are, there is more confusion, more dilemmas. The more you delve deep, the more the confusion rises and all that it does is wake you from your somnolent safety and takes you a step closer to a lurking insanity.

Thought of and written in the most eloquent form, Kurt Vonnegut raises a subject of poignant interest, the most basic one. His wit and sarcasm is evident in his story telling as you grin and laud and applaud at his cunningness, his deceptions, and his clever ambiguities. You lose and find yourself between pangs of lucidity. You look at the sky now and smile OR you look at the sky now, frown and get back to what you were doing.

Some more Bokononism -

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before,” Bokonon tells us. “He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”

My rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 10/10

Kurt Vonnegut

Image Copyright:

Kurt Vonnegut1 - http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/72006-the-10-best-kurt-vonnegut-books.html

Cat's Cradle image - https://www.amazon.com/Cats-Cradle-Novel-Kurt-Vonnegut/dp/038533348X

 

 

 

Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge - A Book Review

 

 

George Hardy, rather Master George is an obsessed medical practitioner, a surgeon and an ardent photographer too. Shortly after his father’s untimely death, the whereabouts of which are to be kept a secret from the other members of his family, a choleric proliferation and the waging war against Russia sets Master George on a journey to offer his services to his countrymen, to the sufferers of war. Could he have possibly known that he was to turn into one, a sufferer and likewise, the ones around him?

Myrtle is an orphaned girl, taken into the Hardy family, raised to be a lady, to all - George’s adoptive sister, but that’s possibly an introduction for the world. For her, she’d rather be Georgie’s skin, which can be cut, wounded, torn, sutured, and repaired but remains till the very end, before it withers, fades. So, convoyed by Myrtle the infatuated, Dr.Potter the geologist brother-in-law, a caravan of relatives and of course Pompey Jones, the assistant, George walks into the labyrinthine decay of the war.

Beryl Bainbridge fascinates us with the numbness of war; the dead are luckier than the unfortunate living. Every brush stroke only deepens and darkens the colour, a singular one, of red, a bloody one at that, the only miscellany presented in its shades. And as one inebriates in the gory visuals, the putrid miasma of decay suffocates you but there is nothing to cover your nose, your eyes with, not even your willingness.

        a gun is meant to kill and so it will!
                a soldier is meant to, made to kill and so he will!
                a war is meant to destroy, burn, annihilate and so it does!

No dissuasion can keep a moth from the light; no enticing would keep Master George away from the war. Cut, cut, cut, tear, tear, tear, sawing limbs is the norm of the day; stripping a dead body of its soiled clothes to adorn a living is no dread. Nonchalance isn’t an option. Like Dr. Potter who’s losing it with all the delusions and hallucinations, one would agree that to be insensitive to the calamities of war is the only sensible thing to do; how would one breathe otherwise? To be insane is the only way to be sane.

In this decadence, in this coldness, the author manages to light up emotions and allure the reader with their dancing shadows. There aren’t any secret lives, or any secret emotions, almost everything is blatantly real, only trampled on by the squalor of war. Pompey Jones likes Myrtle, he believes the attraction more to come from the nasty cavern of poverty and squalor that they once belonged to. Myrtle is hopeless when it’s about George but he, the curer, is only a curer of the surface, the body; the soul isn’t a surgeon’s lookout. Can love possibly surface in such abominable conditions? Is it still important to know if you’re loved when a cover from the next bullet or the next chance for a meal are the only things you should really care for?

       "I stood , resentment wriggling like a worm within my breast. It had been my conceit that it was enough to give love, that to receive it would have altered the nature of my obsession. When passion is mutual, there is always the danger of the fire burning to ashes. Rather than lose love it was better to not have known it." - Myrtle

Bainbridge’s eloquent portrayal scratches beyond the surface and delves deep; the emotions infused in the characters are real and hence felt. Whether you shed a tear for the dead or not, the eyes will be in vain for the living, the living dead. The book and its gory descriptions reminded me of the movie ‘The Pianist’. I’ve read Beryl Bainbridge before, ‘Every man for himself’ but this one has struck a chord, an effective one!

 

My rating - * * * * * * * * * * - 10/10

Image copyrights:
Master Georgie cover - http://www.readersparadise-me.com/book-for-rent/9780349111698-master-georgie-a-beryl-bainbridge.html
Beryl Bainbridge - http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=54418878

Beryl Bainbridge