The Music of Migration

After reviewing my second Arnold Zable book recently, I was very keen to read his latest work, Violin Lessons, and I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from Text Publishing.  Unlike Scraps of Heaven (but similar to Café Scheherazade), Violin Lessons is less of a novel and more of a reworking of fact, a blending of real life events and fiction.

Over close to two-hundred pages, Zable travels around the world, exploring the themes of music, migration, suffering and hope, uncovering incredible stories in unlikely places.  In each section, the writer takes elements from stories he has been told and weaves them into a brief, poignant tale, one part of the tapestry of words culminating with the tragic, yet exultant, finale of the fate of Amal Basry and the SIEVX, a boat carrying asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia.  From Carlton to Baghdad, Saigon to Berlin, Ithaca to Warsaw, we learn of the repeated fate of the displaced and the strength they show in moving on.

Violin Lessons, while consisting of stories, is also about stories, and the importance of telling them and keeping them alive.  Zable has a unique style of writing, episodic and circular, darting off on tangents and giving the reader time to digest what is being said before moving on.  He also has a habit of slipping out of the role of narrator, leaving the story to its owner through the liberal use of direct speech.  Each character has their own recognisable style of telling their story, from Amal Basry's repeated claims that she has been spared to tell the tale, or Phillip Maisel's constant remarks to the listener, telling them that the next part is interesting or important.  In effect, Zable is letting the affected speak, giving them a voice - and an opportunity to have their story heard.

A theme running through most of the tales is war and the effect it has on ordinary people.  The author's background seems to compel him to seek out people who have been affected by the past, not only in his ancestral homelands in Eastern Poland and Lithuania, but also in South-East Asia and the Middle East.  While the details may vary, there are several chilling similarities: the repeated ghettoisation of minorities, whether it be in Venice or Woomera; the inability of many sufferers to exorcise the ghosts of the past; and the difficulty of forgetting about a place you once called home.  As Andrei, a Pole in exile on a visit home says:

"Words conceal more than they reveal... They cannot convey how I longed to get away, yet how, within days of leaving I long to return - the curse of nostalgia." p.74, (Text Publishing, 2011)

However, the further you get into the book, the more you realise that it is just as much about the writer as it is about the people he interviews.  Zable paints himself as a restless wanderer, never satisfied, always needing to penetrate to the source of a story in an attempt to find out one thing: why?  His travels to various conflict-ridden countries are both an attempt to understand the past and to return to his roots, to uncover more about his family and himself.  In a book like this one, it is apt that one of the chapters centres on the Greek island of Ithaca, home of another famous wanderer...

The other major issue the reader must confront when reading Violin Lessons is to understand just what it is they are reading.  The collection reads, at times, like a work of fiction, a series of loosely-connected stories, yet they are all based on true stories and interviews Zable has had with the protagonists.  Just when you have adapted to the idea of a work of non-fiction though, you see the author's notes at the end of the book, where he explains how he has, in some cases, combined several characters and events into one composite story.

So which is it, fiction or non-fiction?  And does it actually matter?  Perhaps the binary split is a misleading one anyway.  Stories have their own weight, their own momentum, and it is the essence, the core of the story that is vital.  The important question is whether we can trust the writer to keep the essential information while adapting certain elements of the tales to enable readers to get to the core truth more easily.  It's a matter of trust, and a decision each reader must make for themself - having read several of Zable's books now (and read up a little on his literary and journalistic background), I am willing to suspend my disbelief and allow myself to be drawn into the stories without any feelings of suspicion.

Violin Lessons is a wonderful book, a series of vignettes, each of which is fascinating and thought-provoking in its own right.  Together though, they build up to a fitting climax, The Ancient Mariner, the story of Amal Basry and the sinking of the SIEVX.  It is clear that this is the story closest to Zable's heart, and one he is determined to get right.  He promises Amal that he will tell her story:

"Yet each time I sit down to write, anxiety rises for fear I will not do the story justice, will not find the words that convey the terror and beauty of Amal's telling, the fire in her eyes, the look of incredulity and wonder she retained..." p.146-7  

Now more than ever, in a time when the Prime Minister is attempting to make deals to avoid having to handle the messy problem of boats arriving on Australia's shores, it is important to hear stories like these, stories which help us to remember the past and avoid repeating our mistakes in the future.  As for the writer's fears above... I, for one, am sure that Amal would be very happy indeed with the way Zable brought her story - and the way she told it - to life.

The Streets of Melbourne

When taking on Booklover Book Reviews' Aussie Author Challenge for the second straight year, I had the feeling that the devil was, once again, in the fine print.  To complete the challenge (or, at least, the higher True Blue level), you needed to read twelve books by an Australian writer.  Sadly, as I prepared to celebrate after completing my previous Aussie novels, I remembered the second condition of the challenge - the twelve books had to be by at least nine different writers, and I'd only managed to knock off eight...

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Luckily, I've finally managed to rectify that with my fourteenth Australian work for the year, Scraps of Heaven by Arnold Zable, whose Café Scheherazade was one of my favourite books of 2010.  This novel takes us back in time to 1958, to the Inner-City Melbourne suburb of Carlton, where Josh, a young Jewish boy, roams the familiar streets of his neighbourhood in search of something to do and a reason to belong.  Meanwhile, his parents Romek and Zofia, Polish Jews and survivors of the dreaded concentration camps, carry on their stuttering marriage, a partnership overshadowed by the ghosts of what they have seen.

Scraps of Heaven is split into four parts, one for each season of the (southern) year, and as we start off roaming the roads and laneways of Carlton, I found myself constantly referring to the Melway (Melbourne's ubiquitous A-Z).  The idea of the compactness of the setting is emphasised by the daily walks of another of the main characters, Bloomfield, a fellow veteran of the wartime terrors who literally is a wandering Jew.  In rain and shine, Bloomfield ambles around the streets, always returning to his favourite park, content to soak in the sunshine and the silence - when he can get it.

The first part of the book, with its nostalgic look back at life in the late 1950s, eventually moves on into a more serious examination of the memories haunting the lives of those who escaped Europe.  The longer the book goes on, the more the reader is shown of what happened before Carlton.  In fact, the writer divides time into three distinct periods - before, after and during the horrors of the war and the holocaust -, and some of the characters have trouble communicating with those who were (or weren't) there.  As the past continues to seep into the future, the homeliness and comfort of the small suburb, for many of the characters a welcoming environment, eventually become stifling.  It's no wonder that by the end of the book the younger generation is dreaming of escape - both from the over-familiar streets and the constant battles with the past at home.

Scraps of Heaven is an enjoyable book, and the style is just as effortless as in Café Scheherazade.  There are also many parallels with Steven Carroll's tales of suburban Melbourne (Glenroy is just a few kilometres up the road, and Scraps of Heaven is set half-way between the settings for The Art of the Engine Driver and The Gift of Speed).  However, it wasn't a perfect read by any means.  The constant introduction (and subsequent translation into English) of Yiddish expressions grated after a while, and there were a few too many migrant clichés for my liking.

The most off-putting part for me though was the introduction of a fantasy, older love interest for Josh, which culminated in a rather unlikely moment towards the end of the novel.  I won't go into details, but I'll just say that beautiful Swedish teenagers rarely stumble into one's life in this way outside Hollywood movies...  I mentioned The Gift of Speed above, and Carroll's handling of Michael and Kathleen's blossoming relationship in the second of The Glenroy Trilogy books is light years ahead of Zable's clumsy handling of what is essentially a bit of a male fantasy.  Perhaps I'm overreacting, but this one small sub-sub-plot detracted from my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

Still, don't let me persuade you that this is not worth reading because it certainly is.  I love Zable's languid, poetic style of writing, and anyone who (like me) enjoys learning more about Melbourne's past, even if (especially if) they didn't grow up here, will get a lot out of Scraps of Heaven.  Its slowly evolving story shows us all that home, while it may be where the heart is, can also hide some dark, disturbing remnants of the past...

The Subtle Art of Telling Stories

From 2003 to 2009, I worked as an English language teacher at a university language centre in Melbourne, and one of my colleagues throughout that time was a genial fellow named Harry Zable.  Harry was born in New Zealand, but emigrated with his family (of Polish-Jewish background) to Australia when he was a kid.  Which is all well and good, you may say, but what has that got to do with literature?  Well, dear reader, Harry has a brother, Arnold, and it turns out that he is a writer, a fairly successful writer at that, and I recently read one of his books for the first time - and it was a cracker...

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As the final piece in the Aussie Author Challenge, I decided to look up Arnold Zable in the library database and was able to reserve a copy of Café Scheherazade, a short reflective novel set in St. Kilda, a bohemian coastal suburb in my adopted hometown of Melbourne, and (via memories) in various cities all around the world.  Scheherazade was, of course, the queen who kept herself alive by weaving spellbinding tales for her husband over a thousand-and-one nights, so it is no surprise that this book is centred on stories and the power they have, even decades after they happened.

The titular cafe, located in Acland Street in St. Kilda and run by Avram and Masha, is a meeting place for immigrants from eastern Europe.  They drop by every day to eat, drink, argue, reminisce... In short, the cafe is a social hub for the displaced.  Martin, a journalist, starts coming to the cafe to interview Avram and Masha for a story he is writing, but he is entranced by the never-ending tales they spin and becomes a regular, sipping his coffee while listening to stories and watching the people walk by.  As he gets to know more of the café's patrons, and hears of their incredible histories, he begins to believe that these stories need to be written down, chronicled for future generations, before the old immigrants slowly fade away.

The stories the old men tell have to do with the Second World War - what they did, where they went and how they lived to tell the tale.  Some escaped eastwards through Asia, travelling through Russia, over to Japan, and then on to Shanghai, a neutral haven for a while.  Others hid behind false walls, hoping not to be found by, or betrayed to, the Nazis.  Still others retreated to the forests, surviving as resistance fighters, living each moment as if it was their last.  Each retelling gives a different gloss to the story unfolding, and each time Martin learns a little more of what happened, the more determined he becomes to let other people know.

The most important story though is that of Avram and Masha, and of how Café Scheherazade came to bear its unusual name.  After their various wanderings throughout eastern Europe, the two meet and fall in love, arranging, once the war has finished, to have their first official date in Paris - not under the Eiffel Tower or in front of Notre Dame, but in a café mentioned in a book by Erich Maria Remarque (Arc de Triomphe): Café Scheherazade (guess what my next purchase from the Book Depository is likely to be...).

One of the strong points of this book is the use of language, with different styles used for different functions.  While each chapter begins with a languid, poetic description of St. Kilda, usually with one of the characters making their way through the streets to the café, the dialogue is very different.  Vibrant, colloquial, argumentative, aggressive - the old men (and Masha!) tell their tales in their own inimitable style.  As the conversations are supposed to take place mainly in Yiddish, the writer throws in some Yiddish words and plays around with word order to give the English text a slightly foreign, off-kilter feel.  It definitely works, and the contrast between the descriptive prose and the lively conversation gives greater emphasis to the stories unfolding in the café.

As much as this book is about the tales though, it is also about Melbourne, a city of stories, and end station of sorts for refugees and asylum seekers from all over the world.  Here, standing on the St. Kilda foreshore, staring in the direction (far in the distance) of Antarctica, you can feel that you have reached the end - the end of your journey, the end of the world.  Many people in Melbourne are either immigrants or children of immigrants, and it's easy to believe that these stories exist everywhere.  Every time you enter the supermarket, every time you step onto a (chronically delayed) train, every time you walk into a café: there are people all around you with similar, fascinating, amazing stories to tell, if only you have the time to listen.

We all have stories - maybe I'll tell mine one day (it's a good one), but I'll leave you with one which Zable unfolds in the book in his typically hypnotic style.  You may have been wondering about the journey I mentioned above, where thousands of Polish Jews fled through Asia.  This was because they were able to obtain Japanese transit visas, allowing them to receive travel documents through Russia and escape to the relative safety of Japan and, later, Shanghai.  But why and how did a German ally allow so many Jews to leave Europe and find sanctuary within its borders?  Go to Wikipedia, and look up the name Chiune Sugihara...

Some stories should never be forgotten.