After weeks of deciding whether
to finish reading David Mitchell’s “Black Swan Green” or not, I’ve finally
reached its final chapters with both relief and palpable sadness. Weird. I don’t
usually hold on to books for more than 3 weeks. But I’ve warmed up to this book’s
central character which drew a not-so-new
story but is still a brainchild of one of the greatest contemporary writers.
In the midst of violins exams, pedagogy classes and violin recitals, I kept Black
Swan Green safely tucked in my bag for work or as I travel, with hopes of not
wanting it to be an “unfinished affair” with its author. It would’ve been sacrilege,
really.
I remember buying this book
during my short trip back to the Philippines in October of 2012. Among the 10
others which I hand carried back to Brunei (God, I even took this with me
during my month-long trip wintering in the UK).
The story is about this 13-year
old boy, Jason Taylor, who (like Mitchell himself) suffers a stammer which
makes him quite an odd kid and a favourite bug bear for village prats. He is
not popular (but, mind you, he is a published poet under spurious name Eliot
Bolivar) and he gets tormented on a daily basis. And to make things worse, his
parents are on the brink of a breakup. The story may seem like an-all-too-written-of, coming-of-age genre, in fact, it is. But
again, what’s so special about this book is Mitchell’s obvious literary gift;
he dazzles his readers with such fine and subtle prose that seems to sing out
of the pages plus the fact that it is semiautobiographical, one can’t help but
sympathize with both Jason Taylor and David Mitchell. I have come to like the
introspective way of writing. One will come to experience the deep-seated
struggles of a stammerer – their complicated way of uttering even the simplest
of words or sentences; which consonants triggers The Hangman and which words
would catapult him into fame by school misfits. The story took place in the
year 1982 during the Thatcher Era. One will find out about the Falkland’s war,
I think David Mitchell is well-equipped with so much repainted sceneries that
mirrors England during the cold war.
The truth is, I didn’t like the
book (nor would I say that I hated it). It just didn’t work for me as did his
other works like Cloud Atlas (which
delved away from the traditional novel genre), or the beautiful literary
landscape of his “The Thousand Autumns of
Jacob de Zoet”, the surreal, creative mess that was “Number9 Dream”, this was like a walk down a bleak and muddy village
in the midst of war, a firsthand narrative of a tormented schoolboy in a village
threatened by gypsy settlement and a family on the verge of collapse. Although there
were interesting characters, they were not given enough time to develop like
Madame Crommelynck, who happens to be the daughter of composer Vyvyan Ayrs the
composer mentioned in Cloud Atlas (their discussion of life and poetry were
quite interesting) or the old lady from that freaky house in the woods who
nursed his broken ankle in a skating incident or his cousin Hugo. Among the 13
chapters (the book covers a whole year in the life of Jayce) it is only during
its last 3 chapters that his life turns on a better promise. By its penultimate
chapter, I was breathing in atoms of its happy and uplifting ending.
One will find himself in the
person of Jason; his village life full of mischief, the bitter phase of being an
easy pick by village spooks and of course through his tragic flaws.
I especially liked the way David
Mitchell recreates this era through the songs. At some point it’s like Stephen
Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” where I ended up listening to its
central character’s choice of songs. With Black Swan Green, I ended up with an awesome
80’s-inspired soundtrack. “Stand and Deliver” by Adam and the Ants blares out
from the speakers as I write this now. Donna Summer’s “I feel Love”, John
Lennon’s “Number9Dream”, the Locomotion, Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on
Eileen”, Spandau Ballet.
“Right now. That’s what freaks me. I dip my fountain pen into a pot of
ink, and a Wessex helicopter crashes into a glacier in South Georgia. I line up
my protractor on an angle in my Maths book and a Sidewinder missile locks onto
a Mirage III. I draw a circle with my compass and a Welsh Guard stands up in a
patch of burning gorse and gets a bullet through his eye. How can the world
just go on, as if none of this is happening?”
“Shadows passed the frosted-glass window as teachers rushed to the staff
room to smoke and drink coffee. Joking, moaning shadows. Nobody came into the
storeroom to get me. The entire third year’d be talking about what I’d done in
the Metalwork, I knew. The whole school. People say your ears burn when
people’re talking about you, but I get a hum in the cellar of my stomach. Jason
Taylor, he didn’t, Jason Taylor, he did, oh my God really he grassed who off?
Writing buries this hum. The bell went for the end of break and the shadows
passed by in other direction. Still nobody came.” (p. 262)
June 24, 2013
