Some stories are true that never happened.

Bellerive Oval, home of the might Tasmanian Tigers. As seen from Rosny Hill. December 2011.

Two quick reviews today. Raymond Radiguet’s The Devil in the Flesh was written when the author was just 18 years old in 1922. A grubby little tale about a nasty, selfish young Frenchman as he conducts an affair with a married woman whose husband is off fighting in World War One.

I dunno, but the narrator – a very superior and self-aware bastard – put me right off the whole thing. This book has a world of admirers, but I can’t help that it has more to do with the author’s early demise than it does the quality of his prose. I didn’t like it much. Give it a miss.

Thankfully, I liked the second book this week much more. I’ve read all of Dan Rhodes’ novels, and have to say that his latest Little Hands Clapping is probably his oddest yet. If you’re familiar with his oeuvre, that comment might come as a little shocking itself.

A plot synopsis? Set primarily in a German museum dedicated to suicide – created by a well-meaning woman obsessed by Luciano Pavarotti – and features a cast of colourful characters: a dangerously apathetic polyglot caretaker; a child-abuse survivor turned cleaner (convinced that she is damned to hell); numerous nameless people of various nationalities driven to ending their lives; a psychopathic GP with a tragic past, very peculiar tastes and a chubby Black Labrador named Hans; a Portuguese male model with the most beautiful face in the world; as well as his ex-girlfriend and a love-stricken baker.

Straightforward? Not quite....

Rhodes’ black comedy reminds me of a modern day fairy tale, very Brothers Grimm (meets the League of Gentleman) in its graphic exploration of human foibles and desires. For such a monstrous fare, the book is surprisingly light in its touch and warm in its telling. This is not something I’d expect to write when scenes involve Hans (the dog) coughing up an enormous severed penis while walking in the park.

There is humanity in the horror, and more than a bit of humour. If this sounds like your bag, get cracking and read it now! Highly recommended.

Comments

Roddy said…

Looks like a small crowd, on the day.

20 January 2012 at 13:52

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

This will hurt me...

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