Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
For the past couple of weeks my catchphrase around Barker Towers has been “There’s this bit in David Mitchell.” Black Swan Green is going back to the library tomorrow and I’m still doing it.
I loved this book and right now I can’t think of any book I like better (well maybe Ragged Trousered Philanthropists). It’s clever, it’s accurate, it’s brutal and it’s full of wisdom.
Like this manifesto for dealing with bullies:
Contrary to popular wisdom, bullies are rarely cowards.
Bullies come in various shapes and sizes. Observe yours. Gather intelligence.
Shunning one hopeless battle is not an act of cowardice.
Hankering for security or popularity makes you weak and vulnerable.
Which is worse? Scorn earnt by informers? Misery earnt by victims?
The brutal may have been moulded by a brutality you cannot exceed. Let guile be your ally.
Respect earnt by integrity cannot be lost without your consent.
Don’t laugh at what you don’t find funny. Don’t support an opinion you don’t hold.
The independent befriend the independent.
Adolescence dies in its fourth year. You live to be eighty.
Or this bit about wordcraft:
Teachers’re always using that ‘in your own words’. I hate that. Authors knit their sentences tight. Its their job. Why make us unpick them, just to put them back together more shonkily.
And this bit about what good writing means:
“Anyone can be truthful.”
“About superficialities, Jason, yes, is easy. About pain, no, is not. So you want a double life. One Jason Taylor who seeks approval of hairy barbarians. Another Jason Taylor is Eliot Bolivar, who seeks approval of the literary world.”
“Is that so impossible?”
“If you wish to be a versifier,” she answered, whirlpooling her wine, “very possible. If you are a true artist” — she schwurked wine round her mouth — “absolutely never. If you are not truthful to the world about who and what you are, your art will stink of falsenesses.”
Or this bit about being true to yourself:
How about an Outside You who is your Inside You too? A One You? If people like your One You, great. If they don’t, tough. Trying to win approval for your Outside You is a drag. That’s what makes you weak. It’s boring.
I was bullied relentlessly at school. I never stood up to my tormentors, so Jason’s 13 month journey is something of a wish fulfillment for me.
Now I want to read Eva van Crommelynck’s reading list: Hemingway, Chekhov, Madame Bovary, Thomas Mann, Rilke, Gogol, Proust, Bugakov, Victor Hugo, Kafka and Le Grand Meaulnes. And more blimming David Mitchell too.
Posted: April 6th, 2012 under Book Club.
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