THE MASQUE OF AFRICA

The Masque of Africa
Sir V. S. Naipaul

‘Masque’ comes from 16th/17th century Italian musical theatre. This masque is neither courtly nor festive. It is no entertainment, no pageant.

Sir V. S. Naipaul is one of my favourite authors. I am an avid reader of his writings and have a good collection of the author’s books. But with ‘The Masque of Africa’ he has sorely disappointed me.

In ‘Finding the Center’, V. S. Naipaul says “Half a writer’s work . . . is the discovery of his subject”. The Nobel Laureate has chosen to travel through six African countries to get to know his subject. Beginning with Uganda, the centre of the African continent, he travels through Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Gabon and completes his journey in the southern part the continent, South Africa. He sets out to study subversion of old Africa by an outside world. It was to be a cultural one and the author succeeds in keeping it to just that in all the countries but when gets to S. Africa he plunges headlong into politics.

He has attempted to capture the mystique of some of the traditional and indigenous beliefs of the countries he visits, no single cultural unit. He touches on Animism, Islam and Christianity. It is too challenging and vast an attempt on African culture and in trying to cover too much the writing becomes sketchy and superficial. The author fails to come up with a passionate study. There is no enticement for a would-be traveller. It is not a book on African beliefs either.

As a knighted author of much fame he is, without doubt, a vip traveller in these countries he would have been given special treatment in places he went to. He is accompanied by citizens well placed – politicians, bankers and writers but throughout the book the author sounds like he is a budget traveller and often alludes to petty finance. He has no money to give for offerings to witch doctors; fails to observe the custom of taking gifts. At times he implies he’s afraid of the witch doctors in spite of his highly placed entourage. Burial places of kings, shrines, witch doctors have been randomly selected but much of the interpretations of tribal customs, the cult and invocation of spirits seems to have been covered halfheartedly.

The keen observation often shown by Naipaul as a writer comes through from time to time but not enough to redeem this book. Sad to say there is much oversight. It could be fault lies with the editor(s), agents and publisher.
The word ‘perhaps’ is used too often, once it is used four times in eight lines.
A blanket, meaningless statements occur, one example: “Near Lagos it has two wide lanes; and just as in India” – India is a continent, where in India?

The author’s love of animals is seen when he makes observations about cats and kittens but at times it is like something out of a child’s book and come as a distraction.
“In the second gateway a small white kitten with a patch of colour on its back was crying. It was like the kitten I had seen in…It was possibly the last of its litter, surviving heaven knows how. I had to leave the dainty little creature opening its mouth and crying, still remarkably whole, still nourished by the milk of its mother, now perhaps persecuted and killed.”

In “A Way in the World” Naipaul’s abhorrence to cruelty is mentioned and here too he talks about cruelty, cruelty to animals – the cruelty of eating animals like horses, elephants, cats, dogs, bats. So wherein comes the ‘un-cruelty’ of eating cows, chickens and fish I wonder.

I thought a certain amount of arrogance is displayed when visiting a Babalawo magician:
“in the corner something lavatorial and disagreeable were three shrines the oracles…”

Naipaul’s uncluttered prose is evident in all his writings. Quote: I wish my prose to be transparent—I don’t want the reader to stumble over me.
But here his unclutter borders on simplistic.
“I went to the lavatory. I saw the family dogs in two big paved cages at the back of the yard. One cage had small dogs. The other cage had big dogs, a Dalmatian and various hounds, all fine and well exercised and happy. While I watched I saw them fed by a servant who entered the cages with their food. I could have looked at the feeding scene for a long time.”

Sir Naipaul did not achieve his purpose:
“To reach that beginning was the purpose of my book”.
But he left me happy with this lovely piece of Bantu wisdom -

“YOU ARE A PERSON BECAUSE OF ANOTHER PERSON”

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4

GHOST PROTOCOL

‘Your mission should you choose to accept it’ statement and the familiar toe tapping music throw us right into the action – the latest impossible mission – Ghost Protocol, an action filled, spellbinding, adventure thriller. The Imax format scenes get the adrenaline pumping for more than two hours, long enough to keep us engaged in MI world.

Starring Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the lead role. The rest of the team are Simon Pegg as Benji, Jeremy Renner as Brant and agent Jane, Paula Patton; the film directed by Brad Bird.

It opens in Budapest, to the well-known and exciting tune invoking the thrilling ‘Mission Impossibles’ of before. A handsome agent code-named “Cobalt” is assassinated by an attractive lady agent who disappears with documents containing nuclear codes.

A mayhem prison break is arranged allowing Ethan, an iron-man body and a focused mind, escape from his cell. He makes his way through various cell-blocks and opening-grill doors but not before he goes in search of a Russian prisoner whom he wants to save.

A seemingly impossible task for the mission team led by Ethan Hunt is to retrieve the nuclear codes before they fall into the hands of a crazy terrorist bent world-annihilation. But the documents do pass on and fall into wrong hands.

We see great aerial scenes of a Kremlin that is later bombed. When blame falls on Ethan and his team discrediting them they are disowned by the US government. The team has to conduct the operation of retrieving the codes on its own, hence the name ‘Ghost Protocol’. We move with the agents to the Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and are in the midst of hair-raising scenes: Ethan breaking through the glass window of the hotel, climbing up a sheer glass curtain wall over a 100 floors and later hurtling down it. From the finger biting scenes we go on a blinding, choking chase in a sandstorm.

Following the disappearance of the codes from Dubai the team moves to Mumbai or maybe not, looks like Mumbai. The aerial view seems genuine enough. We are set at a party in a palace of Maharaja splendour. We meet another villain, a tycoon playboy Brij Nath (Bollywood’s Anil Kapoor). The MI team’s sexy agent Jane arrives to unearth the satellite codes from the tycoon who is unable to resist Jane. But the terrorist manages to run off with the codes.

More taut scenes follow. The hero chases the terrorist with the briefcase codes, now a fully-fledged nuclear activation device, through an automated multi story car park of moving steel platforms that raise and lower cars. The two men swing and fall from floor to floor, fighting each other and are much mangled. The briefcase moves from the clutches of the terrorist to the hero and back again.

Finally Ethan Hunt and his team do manage to save the world for us. Adrenaline rush is constant throughout the film and so is humour. Many a tense moment is relieved by much wit and funny comments.

Gadgets are exciting too – gloves that stick to the sheer glass wall allowing one to climb, showing blue when they work and red when they don’t:
Blue is glue and Red is dead.
Bionic contact lenses that can take photos and decipher codes.
And a BMW concept car with a touch screen windshield that allows onscreen interface (GPS) to bring up locations and objects.
An illusion wall that can be moved to change the look of indoor locations.

Cruise loves running and we love watching him run: the tight coiled, lightning run, and we get not only scenes of his run on the ground but also up and down sheer walls.

Mission accomplished the team meets in Seattle where they part accepting new ‘missions’. We get a touching glimpse of Cruise and his wife, who now having assumed a new identity from a previous problem, exchange glances across a wide separating distance. They disappear in two different ways.

I give 5 stars.

Guest Writer Wendy McTavish

A short excerpt from:
EXPAT – Opinionated memories of forty years in Hong Kong

Suburban Psycho

Flush with the image of myself as an emerging earth mother I decided to go the whole hog and get a cat and a dog. The cat we adopted from a litter down the road. I asked Robbie to name her and he chose the extraordinary name of Wilma.

‘Wilma? Why Wilma?’

‘The dog next door is called Fred so now we have Fred and Wilma Flintstone!’

Encouraged by my aunt we purchased one of these dogs. A fat white and ugly-beautiful puppy she was christened Miss Piggy for the obvious reason. Miss Piggy turned out to be extremely stupid and also most promiscuous. No clothes hanging on the line were safe from her predations. No male dog could resist her canine charms.

At great expense we erected a fence around our property to keep her inside. Bull terriers are unable to jump high because of their sturdy front quarters. However, we forgot that the neighbourhood mongrels did not have the same disability. They could jump in and they did. Miss Piggy and I went to the local vet for an ante-natal visit. However, the vet told me something of which I’d not been previously aware. If bitches are aborted they cannot give birth another day as we humans can. Not wanting to deprive Miss Piggy of the joys of motherhood and being reluctant to deprive my children of witnessing the mystery of birth, I decided that my teenage, unmarried dog should proceed with her pregnancy.

What a mistake! Miss Piggy gave birth to her first puppy at about 8 AM one school morning. After watching three puppies come into the world my children regarded it all as a bit ‘ho hum’ and wandered off to school. Miss Piggy’s twelfth puppy saw the light of day at 5 PM, after nine hours of labour. I was exhausted but not as much as ‘Miss Piggy’.

The puppies were cute and obviously had several fathers. (This is another fact of nature of which I’d been ignorant. A bitch can carry the pups of many different fathers at once.) Twelve puppies were far too many for such a young mother. Over the next weeks I would arise each morning to find a dead puppy lying beside Miss Piggy. I could not understand it as they all looked extremely healthy.

One day the mystery was solved. I put them in the back garden to gambol with their mother and went inside only to emerge hurriedly when I heard a terrible squealing. I was confronted with the sight of Miss Piggy’s big paw grinding her offspring’s face into the earth, trying to suffocate it. I guess it was an understandable reaction to a multiple birth of such proportions plus severe mastitis.

One by one little puppies were buried about the garden. When Miss Piggy started digging them up and eating them we decided that we could never feel the same way about her again and found new homes for her and her remaining few offspring.

Author Wendy McTavish

Wendy McTavish

OCCUPY CENTRAL HONG KONG

This new social experiment needs a due date

Occupy Central Hong Kong

Occupation Central began as early as the 70’s. Having spent six-week days looking after Hong Kong families and children and pets, our domestic helpers occupy pavements, walkways and parks in Central on their day off. They gather to meet friends and relatives, to socialize, share food, news and gossip.

Sunday, their day off.

Foreign domestic helpers in Central

As of the 15th October 2011 we have another Occupy Central group.
Protesters have occupied the ground floor space of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation for more than a month. The migrant workers, an accommodating lot, have been displaced from this space. On Sundays they are squeezed around the periphery.

The Meeting

Periphery

There is much admiration for this peaceful demonstration, Occupy Central. It is indeed a noble gesture that a group of our citizens demonstrated, showed their support for the Occupy Wall Street Movement with placards and slogans and waving fists, denouncing the greed of our own Banks and other Corporations.

Forty or so demonstrators decided to occupy the ground floor beneath the HSBC with all the paraphernalia of a home away from home. Tents, sleeping bags, sofas, bicycles, bookshelves, guitars, tables, stools, computers, laundry, a clothesline, a generator, and a mini-kitchen make this the most unsightly happening in our lovely city.

I have much sympathy for the demonstrators and their cause…the ‘Greed’ has indeed spread around the world. ‘1% holds the wealth of the world’ the placard says but looking at the occupiers last Sunday afternoon did not give me much hope for a successful outcome of snatching part of that 1%. What I saw seemed an untidy group of twelve or so tired and bored.

Our HK group is indeed lucky, they do not have to worry about inclement weather, the very bank they are angry about gives them a comfortable squatting space beneath its tower, the Asian headquarters of HSBC Holdings.

Accessible and nearby is the clean public loo and washing facility. Rubbish collection and ample lighting are provided by the very government one wishes to topple.

‘Everyone is equal’ said one slogan. It reminded me of the slogan that some are more equal since the migrant workers had their space taken by the all are equal group.

‘There are no designated leaders at “Occupy Central”, and all matters are put through an extensive decision-making process to reach a consensus. Everything is shared, from water to food and cigarettes,’ said a report.

Great sentiment, I thought, but leaderless leads to nowhere.

‘I want to tear down capitalism’ screamed a placard. Anti-capitalist passion, and I hope the how has been sorted out.

‘The gap between the poor and the rich people in Hong Kong is the most serious in the world,’ said another.

And one twitter has the right invitation:‘to night let us bros and sis have our first hot pot together at occupy central’

What is the focus?
What is the outcome so far?
What, when is the end?

The food and hygiene and environment and other authorise have turned a blind eye to the unsightly squatter mess of sleeping quarters, a mini kitchen, and laundry blowing in the breeze on Queens Road, Central.

Let us hope when the authorities finally decide enough is enough, as is happening in the US right now, they will be compassionate and give our squatters enough time to move away. And our protestors for their part will peacefully move on to somewhere else or find a different route to solving the international problem.

This new social experiment needs a due date.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo

November 2011, the 13th Annual National Novel Writing Month

November, our Writers Month is here. NaNoWriMo, Nation Novel Writing Month has become more of a World Wide Writing November. On the 1st of November you start writing and continue to the end, 30th November, a 50,OOO-word novel (same year, within that one month, you may well note). it is a workable goal and important to many of us who ‘talk’ about writing and do no writing to talk about. It’s getting started that is the hardest.

The Novella can be any genre. 50,000 words don’t really a novel make, more a novella, but it can become a novel. Once inspired you would want to continue writing and may end up with a 500-page novel.

NaNoWriMo involves planning, thinking, and furiously writing a readable prose. A plan set out for us. A timetable to keep to. 50,000 words is the minimum. Keep to the goal each day, but writing more than required would be better.

It would be a very good idea to prepare a rough outline or guide, a storyline before the 1st of November, an idea of the plot and the characters that have been running around in your head. No pre-written, stuff of course, for you’d defeat the purpose of this challenge. There is no time for research, so writing what one knows would be best. Not much time to plan for many chapters either.

Whether one writes less or more it is a good exercise in training the mind to focus and to write in flow, the pressure to get some writing done.

Only those with tremendous courage and discipline need apply. Get started, get that creative rush.

Sign up here:http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Good Luck.

Let me know below how you get along.

What am I going to be doing? Need to clean out my wardrobe, bring out the winter wear. Need to look good for my Mr Mac.