WHEN DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY …..

Pratchett Death in Discworld (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night I saw the 1998 movie Meet Joe Black  (that delicious Brad Pitt with an equally compelling Sir Anthony Hopkins) wherein a business tycoon is visited by Death, who is on holiday (well, sort of, partly, in-between usual duties, as it were) and who – for a short period – stands by the tycoon’s shoulder as he fights his last business battle and makes things right with his two daughters.  All is tidied up in the end: virtue triumphs, Death stalks away, Hopkins dies tactfully off-screen, and the mortal Joe Black lands up with the younger daughter in his arms.

And then there is Mr Golightly’s Holiday by Sally Vickers, a book I didn’t particularly enjoy, although other Book Club members raved about it. It follows the same theme, but this time it’s God who takes the holiday instead of Death.

The movie set me thinking about books featuring Death, which leads me instantly to the marvellous Terry Pratchett and his Discworld books.  There is the book Mort where Death takes on a human apprentice, called Mort, would you believe?  Death appears in many of the Discworld romps, always SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS and has a nice white horse called Binky, which he rides when calling upon people.. Say no more.  He also – on occasion – rides a Harley. The front mudguard of which has been replaced by a large animal skull. Other than this, Death’s accoutrements are standard: a damn great scythe, an infinite store-room of hour-glasses (yours & mine, I regret to say), hooded robes, and a tiny assistant, the Death of Rats, known as the Grim Squeaker. No comment.

Pratchett is quite at home with the gods, too. His Discworld is overseen?  supervised ? trifled with? by whole pantheon of gods one of whom is Anoia – “The minor goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers, Anoia is praised by rattling a drawer and crying “How can it close on the damned thing but not open with it? Who bought this? Do we ever use it?” As she says, sooner or later every curse is a prayer. She also eats corkscrews and is responsible for Things Down The Backs of Sofas, and is considering moving into stuck zips.” I suspect Anoia is at work in our world too, never mind the Discworld..

Pratchett’s Gods live atop a mountain called Dunmanifestin (“Done Manifesting”, which is also as a pun on the traditional British house name Dunroamin).

If you haven’t experienced the riotous satire that exists in the Discworld, run to your nearest book store NOW and rectify this omission.

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AFK & A THOROUGHLY PEEVED CHOCOLAT

why? (Photo credit: currawongwhisper42)

 

Chocolat isn’t talking to me, ever since I wheeled my big green suitcase through from the garage.  She watched me balefully while I packed books, clothes, shoes, toiletries, gifts. Halfway through the process she stalked away, angrily swishing her tail. She knows from  bitter past experience that Suitcase = Cattery.

I’ve tried to ease the pain by offering her something light-hearted to read in my absence, like  P G Wodehouse’s Jeeves  novels – I always find Bertie Wooster very entertaining, and comfort myself that I don’t have fearsome Aunts to contend with.

Since that suggestion sank like a lead balloon, I tried again: what about Terry Pratchett and his wonderful Discworld novels I said?  Chocolat glared at me, swiped at my ankles with an angry claw and buzzed off for the rest of the day. Clearly nothing will suit Madam in her current bad mood, so she’ll just have to endure the durance vile, and for entertainment she can  shout loud abuse at the resident Staffies as they race around the lawn in front of the cattery runs.

So, dear readers, I shall be AFK as my friend Dr Sheldon Cooper would say – you don’t know Dr Cooper? The insanely picky genius scientist from TV’s Big Bang Theory?   Ag shame, as we say in South Africa. AFK = Absent From Keyboard.  I’ll be back – meanwhile: stay safe, stay happy and keep on reading!

BOOKS ABOUT DESERTS

Recent Reads

Desert  by  JMG Le Clezio (translated from the French)

Where to start?  I wanted to read this because I’m fascinated by deserts and this book is about nomads in the Sahara.  Secondly, the writer has a huge reputation.  He won the 2008 Nobel Prize of Literature.  He has written over forty books and been translated into thirty six languages!

The cover blurb said “A writer of something akin to genius”.

His style was to do long lyrical passages about the desert, the heat, the light – which was okay at first, quite spellbinding actually  – but very repetitive after the first hundred pages.  And then he did the same thing, when he was describing the poor areas of Marseilles.  Somehow this  approach was incongruous when applied to an urban setting.

And the book structure. It opened with a historical account of the early 1900s – the great trek of the  tribal people to the coast, under the leadership of a mystical sheik – and their eventual wholesale slaughter at the end of the book.  I suppose part of the novel – apart from the beautiful prose aspect – was an indictment of European colonial policy in North Africa.  I had to read the Morocco section of Michael Palin’s Sahara   to get a perspective.

The gist of it all was that Lalla – the chief protagonist, a young nomad girl, – was a descendant of the mystical sheik  – she was filled with wanderlust and had an affinity to the desert – which pulled her back from urban immigrant life in Marseilles.  You could take the girl out of the desert but not the desert out of the girl.

His portrayal of immigrant urban life was really grim and makes you wonder if they would not have been better off staying in North Africa.  But I suppose it’s the lure of a cash economy.

Apparently this book is considered to be le Clezio’s “definitive breakthrough as a novelist”.  Was quite surprised to read this.  I found I really had to work hard to read the book and to finish it (350 pages).  Had I not know this was such a landmark book, I’m not sure I would have laboured on to the end.

Just imagine: over forty books!  Alexander McCall Smith has a similar (in fact bigger, I think) score, but he won’t be nominated for the Nobel prize –apparently comic novels don’t really count when it comes to prestigious global  prizes.  And look at Terry Pratchett’s output – also over the forty mark.   The master of them all, P. G. Wodehouse wrote something  ninety six  books in addition to  plays, song lyrics, poems, and articles. No Nobel Lit Prize for him!

SAHARA – by Michael Palin, photos by Basil Pao

This is the book version of the BBC TV series.  The series was entertaining at the time, but by flipping though the book just to enjoy the photographs, one is spared Michael Palin’s somewhat forced humour.  I enjoyed the rich ochre colours of the dunes and the wave-like ripple patterns in the sand.  Pao perfectly captures the mystique of deserts, their immensity, the sheer emptiness and the vivid contrast of a blazing blue sky that definitely borders eternity.  And his portraits of the natives of the Sahel: pitch black skin and vivid boldly patterned fabric wraps – the colours are so bold and so primary.  Perhaps they make such an impact because the backgrounds are sand and there is nothing to distract the eye?
I’m fascinated by deserts  – quite why, I’m not sure.  All that space and emptiness?  An echo  – of sorts –  of the Buddha’s teaching as seen by the Zennists where emptiness is a recurring theme.

Note to self:  I must hunt up my review of the Freya Stark autobiog, plus my notes about her own voluminous travel diaries and writings. And then there is the  book I borrowed from the Ixopo Library, in 1990, which has haunted me for years – an account by a young Westerner who joins one of the few remaining salt caravans across the Sahara, and nearly dies on the journey, from heat, thirst, loneliness … the book made a huge impression on me, and of course, I’ve forgotten his name and the title.