For a while I lapped up James Lever’s Me Cheeta, although its length ultimately reveals its limitations. As a short story it would have been marvellous. Something found by chance in The New Yorker or Granta perhaps, or part of a collection by the obviously highly imaginitive Lever. But novel-sized a definite no.
Now in his late 70s and in retirement as he spends his days mostly painting, Cheeta looks back on his former career which reached its height during the Tarzan films of the 1930s. He begins by recounting a hilarious encounter with Rex Harrison during filming of the ill-fated Dr Dollittle in 1967. The book appears to be taking an immediate and satisfying shape; Lever is witty and the conceit of the monkey narrator well executed. Things however take a frustrating turn, where Cheeta goes back to his jungle roots and appears to take a very long and meandering time to reach a proper narrative. These early chapters struck me as padding, perhaps an attempt to expand a much slighter work.
Me Cheeta is best when looking at the Tarzan/ape dynamic, and when Cheeta meets the elderly and dying Johnny Weissmuller it’s a surprisingly moving chapter. There’s also a very witty account of Charlie Chaplin, although it appears out of sorts with the rest of the book. Elsewhere Lever shows flashes of brilliance, for example Cheeta reaching the States and running wild in a movie theatre showing King Kong (the resulting chaos means he misses the end of the film and he wrongly assumes that Kong’s ascent of the Empire State Building was a wise move). There’s also a grand joke that runs with the well worn theme of giving enough monkeys enough time and typewriters (as the myth goes, one of them will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare).
However, I’m perplexed as to why this book has received such praise. The joke wears a little thin after a while, and I was itching for some human company.
During my recent travels Down Under I became acquainted with the work of Christos Tsiolkas. The Australian author’s latest novel The Slap was the winner of this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards and also the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. This is a book that has brought Tsiolkas to the mainstream, at least if the count of holidaymakers reading this by the poolside is anything to go by.
The Slap is a far more accessible novel than Tsiolkas’s previous work Dead Europe, published four years ago. Although very rewarding, Dead Europe is a dense, disturbing and meandering piece of fiction. I found it at times inpenetrable, reminding me of my recent encounters with Roberto Bolano and Jonathan Littell. There is also a supernatural thread which recalled to me the most difficult to digest of Neil Gaiman’s work, American Gods.
Dead Europe is part ghost story, part disturbing travelogue and part rumination on the nomadic nature of man. It follows Isaac, an Australian photographer of Greek descent, as he follows an uneasy path through Europe, one full of homosexual encounters and disturbing experiences in the dark corners of European cities. Isaac has a knack of stumbling into the underbelly of culture, and a fascinating backstory told in alternating chapters frames his plight brilliantly. Dead Europe is an extraordinary novel. It isn’t for the light hearted and I never felt comfortable with this book, but it is one I may challenge myself to read again.
But onto The Slap. It’s remarkable that the author of Dead Europe could also produce this, an apparently mainstream novel that nevertheless reveals a highly talented author. The Slap begins simply but slowly develops into an absorbing and mulitlayered work. During a suburban Australian barbecue a man hits a small child. Somebody else’s small child, and the fallout of the event provides a hook for Tsiolkas to explore class and status. The events that unfold are seen from the point of view of eight people present at the barbecue, and The Slap takes in different views of life ranging from a teenage boy discovering his sexuality to an elderly grandfather perplexed at the changing world before him. Impressively, Tsiolkas also appears at ease when writing from either a male of female perspective.
Christos Tsiolkas is a highly gifted writer. The Slap is an engaging entry into his world but be warned. Although it is vastly different to Dead Europe both novels succeed in shocking, both in language and sexual reference. His world is an adult one, and worryingly so.
Possibly it was the high altitude, or maybe just because I was trapped on a plane, but I managed to sit through Richard Curtis’s The Boat That Rocked in its entirety. Although the film takes a point in recent history that’s so fascinating that you may find it incredible that the idea isn’t already taken, the film manages to make a complete fudge of depicting pirate radio in the 1960s.
Curtis employs a couple of his usual regulars, Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans, and adds Philip Seymour Hoffman in what should have been inspired casting. Familiar faces also include Nick Frost, the brilliant Ralph Brown (from Withnail and I) and two stars of The IT Crowd who play their usual gormless selves. Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson also appear again the the same cast, although they don’t get to meet onscreen. All the actors do their best but this is a film that only barely reaches Carry On credibility; skilled performers reduced to delivering their usual turns (specifically with Nighy and Ifans). Imagine the call:
Oh hi Bill, it’s Richard here. Yeah, not so bad thanks. I was wondering – could you turn up for a few days filming please and do your usual? Yes, it’ll be a full Bill Nighy turn. Insoucience, slightly camp etc. Okay, speak later – need to call Rhys and get him to repeat his Peter Cook impersonation.
The Boat That Rocked is set in 1966, the year before pirate radio was brought to an abrupt halt. Branagh and Jack Davenport play nasty men from the ministry who, by hook or by crook, plot the end of the seafaring DJs. As you might typically expect, the film includes a rich soundtrack from the era, although the music doesn’t appear to be confined to ’66 and resembles the soundtrack to Heartbeat with its anything from the 60s will do approach. Similarly, fashion and decor looks suitable from the era although just as little research probably went into styling the film.
What’s ultimately irritating about this movie is its sheer laziness of script and characterisation. The pirate radio stars don’t come across as stars at all, just a bunch of stupid idiots, which too many frankly embarrassing scenes where the repetition of the word ‘lesbian’ just isn’t amusing. The dialogue remains embarrassingly sexist throughout and Curtis seems unable, or unwilling, to write substantial female characters. The appreciation of pirate radio by the British public goes little further than shots of people at home or at work, generally going about their business, stopping and enjoying the hilarious radio sounds. Similar in fact to the Radio 2 tv ads from a couple of years back.
The Boat That Rocked isn’t terrible, just disappointing. It’s a bit of a waste of time, although it isn’t a crime against cinema. That award goes to the new Terminator movie…
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