The Grass Arena by John Healy

John Healy was born in London of poor Irish parents. His autobiography, The Grass Arena (1988) describes his descent from a poverty-stricken childhood to a down and out alcoholic, ending in his triumphant recovery into sobriety.

Healy's confessional narrative is sincere and unflinching, each moment of violence and abuse is combined with dark humour giving an honest reflection of the author's past. Perhaps, The Grass Arena is a hardened version of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist, albeit without the pretensions of modernism. The flow of the story is not entirely chronological, Healy gives a concise history of life with his family, bullying at school and his first ventures into the working world, involving petty theft and fighting. Yet, later on in the novel when Healy's alcoholism dominates the narrative the reader is dragged down into the dirty side of London through pub fights, sickness and death. The delirious flow of events only adds to the authenticity of Healy's voice; the experiences described are not feigned or dramatised, but merely drawn from the author's inebriated memory. 

The Grass Arena is a relatively short autobiography at under 300 pages, yet Healy compresses all his past demons into this work. His language is simple and devoid of pretension, his mimicry of London and Irish dialogue, unlike authors of fiction, is not laboured but reads naturally. 

Though it would be easy to compare The Grass Arena to other 'dirty' London novels, such as Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London or anything from the Will Self back catalogue, Healy's novel stands above these other works. Its exposure of the true London underworld is unparalleled, the vagrants who live in 'the grass arena' i.e: a public park use desperate tricks to avoid arrest and procure alcohol at one point they drink methylated spirits just to get drunk. All this, along with Healy's humourous nick-names for his fellow drinkers such as Bottle Joe, Humpy Smith and One-Eyed Tony add to the appeal of the novel. 

Healy was not a writer, he was not someone who dreamt up stories. He went out and lived his story before finding the time to write it all down as penance/catharsis. 

I don't wish to reveal the ending of The Grass Arena here, as I found it pleasantly surprising to read through pages of despair and intoxication before the author redeems himself with sobriety. I would recommend this book to any interested in The London Novel, or even any form of 'dark' autobiography. Healy's London is as dark as any horror story.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary (1856) is a story of hasty marriages and female independence. The title character is a young woman of some distinction living in provincial North France. Flaubert, renowned for his sense of le mot juste, creates a convincing portrait of Madame Bovary, the pressures put on her by her parents to find a suitable husband as well as her own consciousness that is skillfully blended into the narrative. This is Flaubert's first novel and perhaps best work, despite receiving criticism for its sexualised themes when it was published.
Emma Bovary marries a doctor who soon becomes a notable figure in society for his expertise, yet Emma does not find much fulfillment in this recognition and her mind soon wanders into vice and temptation. Charles Bovary, husband of Emma is oblivious to her frustrations and mistakes her reticence as a symptom of illness. This is where Flaubert is successful in portraying the male ignorance of complex female emotions. The novel is an exemplary work of gender portrayal in literature, Flaubert gives a convincing 3rd person narrative that does not cloud the work with sentiment but instead delivers a steady plot that is interspersed with revealing thoughts, most notably Emma's question of: 'Why, dear God, did I marry him?'
The decline of the Bovary family is caused by Emma's overspending on luxuries and later on a string of affairs, all brought on by the ennui she feels towards her marriage with Charles. Yet, Emma Bovary's frustration is the result of Charles' mundane, cyclic existence, the pair being unsuited to each other.
Emma is portrayed a beautiful young woman who has a host of admirers willing to marry her, yet her decision to marry Charles is due to both her fickle nature and her independent mindset. It is this attribute of the character of Emma Bovary that make the work revolutionary, in the same vein as Tess of the D'Urbervilles or Jane Eyre. The idea of female independence was controversial during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it is for this reason that Flaubert may be categorized as proto-Feminist. This being said, the novel still has dominant male characters who are in charge of money and business matters, yet behind this is the struggle of Emma Bovary as she submits to the temptations put before her.
Madame Bovary is written in lucid and at times beautifully poetic prose that is perhaps easier to digest than Proust's lengthy, digressive monologues. The plot has all the features of a Romantic novel, particularly in its tragic end, where the reader learns the consequences of an unhappy marriage and an incarcerated soul.

A Romance with Cocaine by M.Ageyev

A Romance with Cocaine is a roman-a-clef novel by the Russian author M.Ageyev. The copy that I have used for this blog post is published by Hesperus.
The first person narrative is delivered by a young man named Maslennikov. The novel begins by describing the tempestuous relationship the protagonist has with his ageing mother. Given that the work was first published in 1934, the social attitudes may seem out of place to the modern reader. That said, the adolescent frustrations of the protagonist are relevant to a modern audience.
Some readers may be disappointed by the lack of drug-related subject matter, but this novel is not to be judged on its title alone, it is a Romance in the traditional sense, with life itself as well as cocaine.
The first part of the novel establishes the protagonist's fractured relationship with his classmates as he competes to become top of the class. As well the author describes the numerous visits to brothels and prostitutes that a teenage school boy of this period in Russia would be familiar with, or at least would know of; James Joyce and JD Salinger are examples of the bildungsroman sexual experience.
The next part of the novel continues on from Maslennikov's exploits with prostitutes where he meets Sonya, the mistress of a house. The two fall in love yet their Romance is cut short by Maslennikov's fickle mind, he cheats on her with a young girl.
The next part is titled simply 'Cocaine' and it begins with a dingy description of a cafe the protagonist frequents. There he recognizes the waitress as a girl he previously had sex with, he also meets an old school friend. They all meet in a backroom and Maslennikov gets his first taste of cocaine albeit with the faux pas of spilling the powder at first. There is rich imagery of the gradual effects of the drug, something that will either entice or perturb the reader.
The final section titled 'Thoughts' is the protagonist's reflection on his cocaine addiction. The retrospective narrative changes the tone of the novel to a more a more confessional piece.
The ending, which readers will love or hate, is told by an authoritative figure who has read Maslennikov's notes and describes how his school friend Burklewitz, who by this time had a high position in the revolution, had refused him help and as a result Maslennikov had died of cocaine poisoning.
Readers should not be attracted to this novel expecting a full out description of drug culture, if anything cocaine is used by Ageyev as an allegory of the Russian revolution. This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in 20th century European politics and the beginnings of counter culture.

The Pied-Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning

This poem was published in the collection Dramatic Lyrics, 1842. It is a classic children's story told here in Browning's easily accessible rhyming verse. Though many are familiar with the story of a town overrun with rats which are then dispersed by the piper's notes and the subsequent loss of the town's children by the piper as he is not paid by the greedy mayor, there are perhaps less who have read Browning's interpretation. Unlike the stuffy, Romanticized verse that was typical of the 1800s, Browning writes lucid verse that would easily be understood. The poem itself is dedicated to 'W.M the Younger', that is the son of theatre owner and friend of Browning, William McReady.
The dividing up of the poem into stanzas breaks the narrative into episodic chunks, avoiding the long-windedness of other narrative poems such as Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Though the story itself may be taken to be allegorical of poor living conditions and authoritative greed, Browning maintains a charm and innocence through his playful and captivating language. The second stanza evokes immediacy with the single word line: 'Rats!' (l.10), this sets the scene for the proceeding narrative:

'They fought the dogs and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradle,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles' (ll. 11-14)

This tale of rat infestation could potentially have been a grotesque account of poverty and disease, but instead Browning creates a fairy-tale atmosphere for 'Hamelin's town in Brunswick/ By famous Hanover city'

The mysterious appearance of the piper dressed like a gypsy creates an unlikely hero figure although this is ultimately not his role as he exacts his revenge by kidnapping the town's children after being refused 'the thousand gilder' for ridding the town of rats. Nevertheless, the Pied-Piper of Hamelin serves as both an endearing fairy-tale in simple rhyming verse but also as a profound allegorical text of social injustice.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

This Gothic novel (published in 1824) tells the story of Robert Wringhim, a zealous Christian living in rural Scotland. The novel is divided into three parts, the beginning and end are 'The Editor's Narrative' while the middle is the supposed transcription of Wringhim's confessions.
Hogg satirises the duality of 19th century society; the extremes of religious fanaticism are portrayed through Wringhim, whilst the conservative objectiveness of the narrator represent secularism and rationalism. The plot of the story is relatively simple compared to the more complex allegorical aspects, essentially Wringhim meets a man who looks just like himself, a twin. There is a strong supernatural theme throughout the book, but Hogg's fluctuating narrative disguises this as mystery at times. Wringhim's doppelganger persuades him to commit various sins, such as the murder of his brother George, all the while assuring Robert that his actions are justified in keeping Christianity pure. Wringhim's terribly misguided actions cause him great distress but he avoids punishment as his doppelganger is able to create sufficient alibis for his innocence. Hogg is keen to illustrate the dangers of fundamentalism and false messiahs, yet at times the dialogue of his characters appears more as sermon than speech; this is however acceptable due to the religious interests of the characters themselves.
The epistolary novel may appear repetitive to the modern reader, the first section of the novel describes intimately the strange events of the evil Wringhim and then Wringhim's confessions re-tell this story through his own perspective, the final editor's narrative serving as a conclusion to the novel. Hogg uses Scottish dialect which may frustrate some readers, but it does, in my opinion, add an air of authenticity to the work, a sort of cultural identity.
Confessions of a Justified Sinner may be a comparatively obscure Gothic novel, but its allegorical message is common up to this day. The reader is left to question whether Wringhim actually perceives his doppelganger or whether it is a mere delusion brought on by his over-zealous religious practice. This novel shows an intriguing dark side to religion that was so often overlooked by other authors of the time, Hogg demonstrates the nightmarish consequences of self-justified sin.

La Bas by J.K Husymans

This Gothic-Decadent thriller is by the same author of Against Nature, and is no less shocking. It tells the story of Durtal, a writer loosely based on Husymans himself, who is writing a biography of the medieval knight, Gilles de Rais. Durtal is obsessed with the occult and Satanism. The novel itself was published around about the same time as The Picture of Dorian Gray, but this novel is a thousand times more graphic than Wilde's depiction of decadence. Durtal befriends a bell-ringer in a local bell tower and there he learns more of the occult. The novel is essentially an essay on Satanism and religious piety, culminating in a black mass in which Durtal encounters Canon Docre, a perverse Satanist involved with Madame Charteouve, Durtal's lover. This novel is not for the squeamish as it graphically describes the murders of boys and girls by the hand of Gilles de Rais, a knight who once protected Joan of Arc but later turned to  Satanism. Husymans shocking display of graphic narrative will deter the faint-hearted reader, but his unflinching attention to detail and esoteric references will enthrall those who are willing to take a pinch of salt and read this work for it's literary value.
La Bas is a novel that is not for everyone, if you are not thrown off by the debate of naturalism at the beginning you will probably become bored by Carhaix's lengthy harangue on bell-ringing. But once Durtal begins describing the terrible crimes of Gilles de Rais the reader cannot help but be drawn in even if only out of curiosity. If you are looking for a new author to shock and educate you, I suggest you read Husymans and then judge contemporary thriller novels.

Against Nature by J.K Husymans

This novel is a key Decadent text, aiming to dispel the effects of idealistic Naturalism of the 1800s and instead reveal the perverse pleasures and practices of the 19th century dandy. It is worth mentioning that this text inspired Oscar Wilde to write The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel exploring the depths of sin and social reactions. Against Nature tells the story of Des Essientes, an aristocratic French gentleman who has become wearied by recent social changes and as a result decides to live in solitude in a secluded area. The reader is instantly reminded of Henry Thoreau's Walden, an autobiographical account of life in the woods away from the harshness of urban environs. But no, Husymans is wholly cynical in his diagnosis of society, his irreverence towards monarch and government is characteristic of the Decadent movement.
It should be noted here that the novel itself has only one major character, Des Essientes. The only other character are his staff and others referenced throughout. This unique format allows Husymans to deliver a well thought out character study as well as avoiding distracting the reader from these ideas by any kind of narrative plot. The neurotic nature of Des Esseintes may seem frustrating to the modern reader as he plunges into a lengthy discourse on the 'gamy flavours' of classical literature, but I assert that it is not necessary to understand every literary allusion to understand this text. Moreover, Des Essientes represents a part of 19th century society that was overlooked by common man, for being too perverse and obscure. There is a hint of pederasty where Des Essientes is attracted to a young boy, but the overall sexual theme of this novel is that of ennui and disillusionment. Des Essientes is a man with infinite needs but finite pleasures, his sickness towards the end of the novel is the result of his neurosis and isolation, this is resolved by his reluctant move back to the city. Whereas other Naturalist writers such as Zola would assert that peace is to be found amongst nature, Husymans shows how isolation in nature only results in the fulfilling of perverse wants and obsessive states. This short novel is painfully relevant to our modern age of impulse and luxury, that we want it all now, even if that means compromising our ethics.