The Word For World Is Forest - Ursula K Le Guin

THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST -

URSULA K LE GUIN

The premise of Ursula K Le Guin's The Word For World Is Forest is that resistance to oppression can profoundly change those resisting, and for the worse. Written on the back of the Vietnam War that Le Guin organised and participated in non-violent demonstrations against, it's an example of how science fiction can be a medium and vehicle for ideas that when taken at face value seem to hold no relevancy to the real world but are in actual fact of profound relevance to the Big Picture. At the same time, throwing into question what exactly is 'the real world'.

Le Guin was an interesting writer, to say the least. It's been said, in fact, that she was one of the finest writers of our time. She had a certain style that was very fluid and very natural, that didn't pander to the reader or condescend. For example, in The Word For World Is Forest she quite casually drops in a line like 'it was clear to anybody who hadn't gone spla from geoshock' and expects the reader to know what it means. And the thing is that yes, you do know what it means because it's all part of the rhythm of her writing and you're tuned-in as if you're clicking your fingers and tapping your feet to music.

And then she'll write 'Davidson lit his first reefer of the day' and then give no more credence to it. Davidson is one of the main characters in the book, and out of the blue Le Guin suggests he might be smoking weed all day as casually as you might chew gum - but then doesn't mention it again until right at the end of the book when his stash is getting low. As if it's all a very natural thing for a person in a science fiction book to be doing and doesn't warrant any more attention.

There's a lot going on in The Word For World Is Forest. The Vietnam War, for a start. The hideous obliteration of all life by fire in a given area via Napalm-type bombs. The equivalent of a My-Lai massacre. 'Swarming' in the way the Viet Cong might do, emerging en masse from nest holes. The idea of destroying to 'save'. Massive power, wealth and technology against so-called primitiveness. Colonization and subjugation under the guise of freedom. It's all there and intentionally so. Le Guin, however, sets her Vietnam on another planet.

On Earth, wood has become almost non-existent and is subsequently more valuable than gold, so when a planet is discovered where its surface is almost entirely covered by forest, it's immediately colonized and plundered. The native inhabitants of the planet are monkey-like, green-furred people who hunt with bows and arrows and live in huts. Like Native Americans and Aborigines, these native inhabitants are adept at transcending world-time and entering dream-time, going back and forth between the two but holding no distinction between each. Though they are two distinct and separate worlds, to them, both world-time and dream-time are as real as each other.

They are a meek, humble and peaceful people who possess no real concept of violence until that is, the humans arrive and start enslaving them, brutalizing them and cutting down their world. They ultimately come to understand that their world is being killed and they either accept it or retaliate. From there on, the battle is joined.

The tragedy of the story that Le Guin communicates so well is that from being a gentle, pacifist people where any fights are settled through singing, it's only a small leap to the adoption of ruthless and unforgiving violence as a tactic and that once that leap has been made there is no turning back. The Pandora's Box has been opened.

It's the eternal paradox. Fools step in where angels fear to tread but once that step has been taken there is no longer anything to reason. The bridge between dream and reality has been crossed. The wall is down and what has been freed can no longer be put back. As the main protagonist of the native inhabitants explains: 'You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream with walls and pretenses. That is insanity. What is, is. There is no use pretending, now, that we do not know how to kill one another'.

Ursula K Le Guin's The Word For World Is Forest is an example of science fiction at its best.

John Serpico

Moleskin Joe - Patrick Macgill

MOLESKIN JOE - PATRICK MACGILL

What do you need to do to earn a nickname like 'Moleskin Joe'? It's enough to make you want to read the book of that title just to find the answer, and the fact that it was published by New English Library in 1973 only adds to the curiosity. The NEL publication, however, is actually a reprint of the original first published in 1923, but on realizing this it simply serves to put the subject matter into some sort of context.

Moleskin Joe is a navvy - a manual labourer of old - working on the construction of canals and railway lines just like those whom Shane MacGowan sang about in his song Navigator on The Pogues' debut 'Rum, Sodomy & The Lash' album. Moleskin Joe is also somewhat of a gentleman of the road as they used to be called, bedding down at night in barns, sheds or under haystacks if the night is balmy enough. He's a confirmed bachelor too, that is until the night he saves the life of a girl from drowning and after her planting a kiss upon him is struck with love. From there on he's a man possessed, and when the girl leaves town the next day with her family, Joe spends his days thinking of little other than making her his wife and so sets out on an endless quest to find her again.

All in all it's quite a simple story but the beauty and joy of it is in the way it's written and the command of English that author Patrick Macgill displays. It's classic English language, I would say, filled with colloquialisms and phrases that are no longer heard nowadays but which at one time would have been the everyday parlance of the English underclass. It's Shakespearian. That's right, the language of the uneducated, English proletarian underclass was once the stuff of Shakespeare. 

Early on in the book, Moleskin Joe returns to the farm where he was raised as an orphan by a farmer who had mercilessly exploited him to the hilt. The farmer, however, has passed away during the six years since Joe had fled. 'What did you want him for?' asks the new owner of the farm. 'To make him die violent,' Joe replies. And what more eloquent way could there be to declare an intention to murder? The book is full of phrases just like this. As for the police, the navvies hold an almost natural dislike of them: 'The devil roast them!' as one of them puts it.

Moleskin Joe by Patrick Macgill is in no way a brilliant book especially as it's let down by some glaringly obvious plot turns that you can see coming like an articulated lorry reversing with all lights flashing. It is, however, a seemingly forgotten curiosity that captures a beautifully vibrant sub-strata of Englishness now long gone. Apart from learning that moleskin is the material used for durable clothing favoured by working men, we don't, unfortunately, discover how Joe came by the name 'Moleskin'. Not that it particularly matters though because Joe's characteristic traits are so well portrayed that you end up seeing the man behind the name, as a fully-rounded character with a heart of gold who, I'm happy to reveal without spoiling the plot, wins out in the end against all the odds.

In his song about 'navigators', Shane MacGowan showed nothing but respect for them, acknowledging the fact that they were a breed of worker who are now somewhat forgotten to history: 'They died in their hundreds with no sign to mark where, save the brass in the pocket of the entrepreneur.' Shane's song acts a poignant marker to their memory and so too does Patrick Macgill's book.

John Serpico

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

I AM LEGEND - RICHARD MATHESON

The last man alive in a world of vampires, and what could this be a metaphor for, I wonder? 'The strength of the vampire is that no-one will believe in him' as Dr Van Helsing said in regard to Dracula. So what is it in our modern age that we refuse to believe in? That we refuse to believe is real until finally once its swallowed us whole and it's too late? Well, the possible choices are manifold really, aren't they? The horses are on the track.

I'm late coming to the show in reading Richard Matheson's I Am Legend but in being so it's very easy and possibly much easier to see the influence this book - written in 1954 - has had upon culture. For a start, it's obviously the genesis for the whole vampire genre being reimagined along with the idea of the modern-day zombie, right up to Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later saga. In fact, I'd say practically every book or film I can think of post-1960 that involves infection or the living dead owes a debt to Richard Matheson.

As Stephen King, one of the most famous horror writers in the world says in I Am Legend's afterword: without Matheson, he wouldn't be around; or to put it another way: Richard Matheson is as much Stephen King's father as Bessie Smith was Elvis Presley's mother.

Because of all this you might be inclined to think I Am Legend is old hat nowadays? That you've seen and read it all before? A book, however, is never labelled as being a classic for no reason and I Am Legend is indeed a classic and for very good reason. What makes it so is not only in how well-written and composed it is but in its perpetual forward motion, with each set-piece in the story upping the ante and expounding its own inner-world until the completion of a whole universe unto itself. The last page - the ending - being the final coup de grace.

I Am Legend is an excellent book.

John Serpico

Skinhead - Richard Allen

SKINHEAD - RICHARD ALLEN

As a certain Welsh skinhead/Oi! band by the name of The Oppressed once informed us: 'He's the king, the king of the skins. What's his name? Joe Hawkins'. And yes, after all these years he still holds the crown. And yes, if by chance you think you've never been introduced to Joe before then you're wrong because I can assure you, you have. Joe's always been with us and probably always will, with the only thing really changing about him being his style of dress. In Richard Allen's classic, pulp fiction book Skinhead, Joe is exactly what it says on the cover and exactly as described in the song named after him: 'See him walking down the street, Doctor Marten's on his feet. Levi jeans, Ben Sherman shirt, fuck with him and you'll get hurt'.

Joe Hawkins is the British folk devil incarnate, as conceptualized by sociologist Stanley Cohen in his book 'Folk Devils And Moral Panics'. He exists in the flesh but also very much so in our minds. In literature, the obvious comparison is with arch-droog Alex, in Anthony Burgess's 'A Clockwork Orange', except that Joe doesn't possess any of Alex's redeeming qualities such as a love for Beethoven or a knack at turning a good phrase in his native argot. No, the only thing that Joe's got going for him is his love of aggro that he sees as the pathway to him being respected. His motto could even be that which Emperor Caligula was fond of espousing: 'Oderint dum metuant', which as any common or garden Latin scholar would know as meaning 'Let them hate me, so long as they fear me'. 

First published in 1970, Skinhead by Richard Allen was a veritable phenomenon that was picked up and read by a huge number of working class kids. More people probably read it, in fact, than copies sold as it was a book that was passed around, particularly in the school playground and from older brother to younger brother. Teachers, of course, hated it due to the themes of mindless violence, racism and misogyny that ran through it. And they were right to - but then teachers were never meant to like it.

It needs to be pointed out, however, that just because Skinhead found a working class readership, it doesn't mean that violence, racism and misogyny are working class values. Far from it, in fact. In the book, Joe Hawkins' own father for example is a London docker who though quite capable of being violent, shows no signs at all of being racist or misogynist. Rather, he's a solid union man who believes in solidarity and the right if need be for 'the working man to withdraw his labour for better pay'. The only violence he actually displays in the book is when he gives Joe a thrashing in a bid to teach him a (rather too little too late) lesson.

Richard Allen on the other hand is the one who's really driving the book but it's difficult to tell where his personal politics might lie. A literary work exists independently of its author's personality, life or intentions and with Allen this was certainly the case, particularly when it was revealed his real name was James Moffat and he was a Canadian hack writer who lived in Devon. In a somewhat tranquil town called Sidmouth on the East Devon coast, in fact, as far removed from the London East End of old and skinhead violence as might be possible.

Popular culture, of which Joe Hawkins and Skinhead were very much a part of at one point can be an unpredictable thing that can often take on a life of its own, not only permeating and seeping into corners of society that other things fail to reach but also emanating and spreading out from those same corners. Which in this case leaves us at the end of the day with a book like Skinhead and its place in both sub-culture and popular culture alike.

Skinhead by Richard Allen may not be the most ideologically sound of books but it's still a fascinating artefact for all kinds of reasons.

John Serpico

1988 - The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion - Caroline Coon

 1988 - THE NEW WAVE PUNK ROCK EXPLOSION - CAROLINE COON

More so than Virginia Boston's 'Shockwave' book, Caroline Coon's 1988 - The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion once acted as an inspirational blueprint for the punk rock scene in its ascendency. What Caroline did was to capture punk both at its embryonic stage and - some might say - at its height. More so than any other book apart possibly from Ray Stevenson's 'Sex Pistols File', 1988 was the punk style bible that became required reading.

Based on a series of interviews Caroline conducted between July 1976 and June 1977, her book captures a vision being born. The remarkable thing about it is that at the time, she was almost on her own, being one of the few journalists astute enough to realise the importance of the Sex Pistols and the movement she foresaw them inspiring. As she explains in the introduction, she first saw the Pistols in March 1976 at the Nashville in London but on floating the idea of writing an article on them to her editor at Melody Maker music newspaper she was practically laughed out the office. It was a whole five months later that her proposition was finally accepted and in August 1976 one of the first articles ever printed on punk was published, starting with the line 'Johnny Rotten looks bored'. The rest is history.

Like a lot of music journalists at that time, Caroline had been heavily involved in the late Sixties/early Seventies hippy counterculture. She had been in attendance at the UFO psychedelic nights with Pink Floyd, written for Oz magazine, defended and supported Oz at their obscenity trial, and even co-founded Release - the free, independent drug charity.

The difference between Caroline and many of her fellow travellers, however, was that rather than mocking or even being frightened of the new, emerging punk attitude, she recognised the similarities between the two cultures and their shared oppositional positions to the mainstream. Punks were the antithesis to hippies, for sure, but the commonalities were undeniable.

'What's so different about youth today?' she asks The Clash during her interview with them. She's met with silence. But then Joe Strummer stands up and almost relishing the drama of the moment, turns around to reveal the stark, hand-painted graffiti on the back of his boiler suit that says 'Hate and War'. It's the hippy 'Love and Peace' motto but reversed, of course. And right there, like a line being drawn in the sand, history was in the making and Caroline Coon was there recording it.

Interestingly, Caroline ends the book with the words 'Whatever happens now, the force of punk rock will be felt in society at least until 1988'. Hence the title of the book. A whole fifty years later, though no longer viewed as a 'force' as such, punk is still with us in multiple guises with even many of the original school of '76 bands still performing to mixed-age audiences.

The fallout from the 'force of punk rock' is another thing entirely. Punk rock changed lives. Some for the good, some for the bad. Some for the better, some for the worse. Punk rock ruined lives but again for some even in this it was for the best. Like an eternal paradox.

Punk rock was never the be-all and end-all of life as we know it but for those caught in its explosion at whatever period or stage of it, it certainly made life a bit more interesting than the staid, generic version sold as being 'normal'. Better a punk life than a life punked. And as for Caroline Coon? Her legacy is safe but she still deserves to be honoured once in a while and our praise to her offered.

John Serpico

Shockwave - Virginia Boston

 SHOCKWAVE - VIRGINIA BOSTON

As this is its 50th anniversary, punk rock is in for some serious revisionism over the coming months and so, when in Rome, as they say. Shockwave by Virginia Boston was one of the first books to catalogue the very early days of punk although on being published in 1978, because things were moving so incredibly fast with urgent dispatches from the frontline in the form of new, iconic records being released on a weekly basis, it was already somewhat out-of-date.

Not that it mattered, however, because Shockwave acted almost as a drawing of breath. A sort of pit-stop before plunging once more onto the super-highway of cultural discourse. Punk was - it's important to remember - centred on music though this wasn't its sole reason for being of value. Punk was a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional thing. Punk was anything you wanted it to be and was there to take whatever you wanted from it. Punk was a free-for-all. 

Shockwave starts with a quote that says 'It was going to go down as one of the most boring decades in history I should think musically. The Seventies will now be a landmark in history because of what's gone on'. The quote is from Jordan, described as being 'Punk personality'. Nowadays, of course, we all know that Jordan was in actual fact the queen and punk was her once mighty kingdom.

Shockwave is a scrapbook, essentially, composed of photographs, quotes and snippets of lyrics; and that's not to belittle it in any way as there's absolutely nothing wrong with a good scrapbook. From the introduction you can tell it's been written just after the Sex Pistols have split up in San Francisco so therefore Public Image Ltd have yet to be formed, The Clash haven't quite left England for America, Stiff Little Fingers are yet to land, and Crass have yet to rear their angry heads.

All the usual suspects from the '77 school of punk are featured in glorious black-and-white snapshots but in addition to this and just as importantly, there are lots of photos of the audiences and individuals within those audiences. This in itself speaks volumes in regard to the punk idea of levelling the playing field and breaking down the wall between audience and performer. Here it is - within the pages of Shockwave - in practice. Underscoring this is also the amount of attention paid to fanzines and all the many quotes from their editors.

Shockwave is a good book and the enthusiasm it captures is palpable. Its purpose nowadays of course is to serve as a social document of a time now long gone but the problem with this is that if you're mad enough, you can end up paying up to £200 for a copy. The lesson in this is whatever you want it to be - that coincidentally is the same lesson to be gained from punk, really. The lesson is you.

John Serpico

Revolutions And Revolutionaries - A J P Taylor

 REVOLUTIONS AND REVOLUTIONARIES -

A J P TAYLOR

Based in part on his 1978 television lectures, Revolution And Revolutionaries is arch historian A J P Taylor explaining to the masses all about the revolutionary tradition. It's all pretty simple stuff, really, with Taylor writing in layman's terms about the points in time when the narrative was disrupted and the world turned upside down even if only for a brief moment before being righted again.

Starting with the French Revolution, Taylor writes 'There have been violent political upheavals as long as there have been political communities: kings have been overthrown, empires have fallen, new dynasties have arisen. But only from the time of the great French Revolution have there been revolutions that sought not merely to change the rulers, but to transform the entire social and political system. The French Revolution originated revolutions in the modern sense and it was not until after it that people knew what revolutions were like. Its events echoed down the corridors of history.'

It's an important point he raises because it seems as if the idea of revolution these days is that of simply replacing one set of rulers for another, or as Crass once put it: 'Just another set of bigots with their rifle sights on me'.

Ah, Crass. Now there's a  name to conjure with. 'Good old Crass,' as one of their critics once opined 'our make believe secret society, our let's pretend passport to perversity,' though personally, I always had a lot of respect for them. I admit, I was never that much enamoured by their slogans such as 'Fight War Not Wars' because - to put it bluntly - I always felt they were re-hashed and oversimplified hippy tropes, but their sentiments and what they were saying as asides and between the lines were sound. In fact, in a way it was the seemingly throwaway lines tucked away in their songs that held more weight than their grand statements. That what they were implying but not actually saying was better than what they were actually saying.

'Can't imagine a revolution could deal with anything so sad,' for example, from Deadhead. Suggesting a lot more than the whole of their better-known track, Bloody Revolutions. Or the random lines at the start of their A Series Of Shock Slogans booklet: 'Waiter, I came in here for breakfast, you haven't served me yet and now it's lunchtime, perhaps I could order supper?' The point of and the reason for putting the lines there being left for the reader to decide.

But I digress. The point being that a revolution doesn't just mean the chopping-off of the king's head or the deposing of one tyrant only to be replaced by another. Revolution means total revolution from top to bottom. 

A J P Taylor was a serious historian of course, and Revolution And Revolutionaries is a serious book but that doesn't stop him gently mocking in its pages the likes of Trotsky and seeing the comical side of certain events. Interestingly, he relays an anecdote about the time the BBC asked him to give a talk on the man he most admired in history. He offered to talk on Captain Swing but then for some unknown reason the BBC never got back to him about it. Was there an anti-Captain Swing bias at the BBC? Or perhaps the BBC thought Taylor was mocking them by suggesting a person who may never have even existed?

For all that, the best parts of the book is when Taylor is quoting some of the revolutionaries he's writing about such as Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor and his habit of addressing crowds as 'Ye horny-handed sons of toil'. 

Or anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his 'Universal suffrage is counter-revolution'. 

Or better still, French revolutionary Louis-Auguste Blanqui who on being asked what would happen after the revolution, replied 'If you are on one bank of a river you can have no idea what are the problems on the other side. LET US CROSS THE RIVER AND SEE.'

John Serpico