When I was a younger man, we used to live in a house with a long corridor. With dark brown walls and floorboards stained black, walking down it was a little like travelling through the centre of a tree. I do not lapse into the production of poetry very often, but when once I did, I imagined myself (in melodious verse, of course) as an ant, traipsing through a murky tube of bamboo. This corridor was my model.
It served other purposes also. In autumn, when the leaves embarked upon their customary exodus from the mother branch, I extended the joy of jumping on crisp piles of foliage to the letters that fell, with equal prolificacy – and with hurtful irony besides – upon my welcome mat. First I would collect these ungenerous letters, along with other sorry pages, and stack them loosely at the end of the corridor. Then, withdrawing to the far end of the virtual tunnel, I would dash along the given track, a living echo of those great Greek athletes of yore, a golden limbed sapling on the cusp of athletic maturity, shaking as I ran past the rare German prints (Gräup, mostly) that lined the walls, caring not for the frantic creaking of the floorboards, from the final plank of which I leapt into air at last, like a grasshopper from a leaf, cutting the air effortlessly, before falling with inconsistently heavy grace into the pile of guilty papers, which both suffered and – in some cases – scattered under the impact. I put no limit on the stamping I gave those letters. One can never stamp on a mean missive enough times. And though stamping on paper does little to destroy it in a physical sense, it is yet a preferable course of action to that of burning it. I have never seen the appeal of throwing pages on the fire. I do my own dirty work. I will not feed my unwanted objects to a voracious fire. I am my own flame – and ever more shall remain. What a pity it is that the technological advances of the last decade have driven a wedge between the relationship of man and his hate mails. My enemies (of which there are a fair few) no longer send me letters, but e-mails. To stamp on these, I would need to print them out, thereby paying for the pleasure of being insulted. An easier, but much less satisfying solution is to press the ‘delete’ button. This I duly do, but not without regret and due fear for the increasing dismantling of tactile sensations that the internet and his friends (whose various appeals are made, almost without exception, to the eyes alone) have brought about.
Question (relating to the earlier anecdote regarding the process of jumping on letters): what had these late epistles and their companions done to deserve such treatment? Answer (relating, of course, to the question): the crimes were many – and varied. Here were essays that had lost their way; submissions to whatever journal I was editing at this time which had, to my chagrin, toppled off the tightrope on which good literature restlessly sits. Here were notes of my own; the seeds of long-lost stories, alongside many other aborted children of mine. But most of all, as mentioned, here were the letters of complaint, from all my not-so-friendly fans.
I have always found complaints to come in crowds, to perch (perchance) like evil starlings on the telegraph wire of my conscience. And at this stage of my life, there were indeed flocks of them, examples of which continue to haunt me. I talk, for instanc, of the spurious claims that I have always sought to support (and surreptitiously indulge) in what I know to be inferior forms, shunning the supposed ‘greats’ for the mere sake of it. We are looking at something rather similar to the recent Kakfa V Kafka debate – the details of which you will know well (if not, where have you been?) Then there are those oft-recurring accusations that I am in the habit of penning other writers’ works (the Yevgeny Nonik case being only the latest example of this). Elsewhere we find a few of those theoretically ‘just’ grumblings, pointing out the odd grammatical error with which articles of mine (and those produced under my orders) have always been sporadically strewn. Such errors are pitiable things; as sad a sight to see as that of cuckolded salamander. And I do confess that I have been – and still am – guilty, profusely and consistently guilty of this crime. But as Mr Aldous Huxley wrote at the beginning of the seventeenth chapter of his first novel: ‘Small details matter little so long as the general effect is good’. Breathing serpents! Could the giraffe-like bespectacled consumer of encyclopedias have really supported such a notion? What a weakling! The ‘general effect’… Zounds! Let us not talk of ‘general effects’! Let us be crueler to ourselves. Let us draw our arrows with caution, aiming only for perfection. And let us promise never to print another er…
But let us do all that tomorrow. For I am remembering as I write another of the most common complaints against my noble person: that I support the practice of reviewing books in a manner in which the book itself is only a side issue. Again, I will not relent, at least not absolutely. I am all in favour of approaching a subject quietly and calmly: at a leisurely pace. And yet the point is a visible one – and I do, indeed, see it. Not that this introduction has been a careless diversion. By no means! Or not entirely, at least. For there are concealed in it themes central to our discussion; themes that shall, or should resurface with subtlety, were it not for the fact that few things are able to operate with subtlety after an author has drawn attention to their, well, subtlety. I see you comprehend me. How very lovely. Mutual understanding. It can happen. Or can it?
Not if you believe that humanity is in crisis; that ‘the masks worn by mankind may be peeled off, layer by layer, but that a new mask grows quicker than an old mask is removed’ – as the English-speaking Romanian novelist Ka Naurauch once put it. But then, Ka Naurauch has always been at the top of the cynical tree, balanced on its uppermost branch like the blood-stained sickle-beaked bird of prey that she is, surveying every inch of a slowly rotting kingdom with two piercing, thoroughly unsentimental eyes. Not for her the small pleasures of life, enjoyed even by the most rampant sceptics. From her first novel, Rabbit Pie (1978) to her most recent, The Fractured Cloud (1999) Naurauch has always preached against the wonders of beauty. She would have it another way – ‘I do not condemn beauty, no. Merely those who believe and swear by it’ – but by detesting the concept, she despises the thing (since that thing is, ultimately, a concept). The root of the problem, however, does seem to lie in a solid unswerving conception of beauty: her very own beauty, which is in fact the source of all her cynicism. For Ka Naurauch is, and always has been, a remarkably, frighteningly beautiful woman: a veritable magnet of men and, as such, object of much female jealously (which remains the one thing in the way of her becoming the feminist idol she deserves to be). Yes, indeed. Ka is really something. Her beauty is of the sort one cannot even begin to describe, lest the inability to do so leads to a loss of faith in the very application of language (a loss which would, I fancy, leave me jobless). If you have ever seen her, however, you will know what I mean. Oh yes.
To be admired by so many men ought to be a good thing. In Ka’s case (Ka, incidentally, stands for Katherine, as well as having deliberate Egyptian resonances) it has never been so.[1] The way that men have always behaved in her presence has led her to despise them. As she wrote in Rabbit Pie, ‘a man in love is a most unlovely thing’. Or later, in Slaughtering Orchids (1985), her most vicious novel, ‘Oh the robotic male masses! How sweet men must be when small; before their brains sink below their waists and they harbour, in essence, the personality of a pathetic shipwreck’.[2] But of course, men are not the only enemy. Other objects of love are scorned, in equal measure. And whilst these objects may refer, in a symbolic sense, to the author herself, they are ably despised on their own terms. In Rabbit Pie, as the title alludes to, the adversary is clearly ‘cuteness’, embodied by the much-loved image of the baby rabbit.[3] Slaughtering Orchids sticks the knife into a higher sort of beauty, with no less venom. The book of short stories, The Blood Bath and the Blighted Star (1992) does the same, across an even wider range, as does The Fractured Cloud (1999) the title of which alludes to Naurauch’s well-known ability to sharpen typically fuzzy edges; to cut up fluffiness: to dissect the soft down of contemporary thought.
This capacity for blunt, strident, violent storytelling is well borne out by the memorable graphics of her book-covers, of all which have been designed by Naurauch herself. As you can see for yourselves, her palette is limited, consisting almost entirely of red, black and white, accompanied by bold unflinching lettering. Ironically, these are somewhat beautiful images in their own right, but try not to tell Naurauch that – or she’ll have you for dinner (as she did the rabbits, and the baby seals, and many more besides).
The covers of Rabbit Pie and Slaughtering Orchids are deserved classics – even if few can stomach the prose that lies within. And few can. It isn’t all that easy, after all, to read the work of an author who clearly despises both you and pretty much everything that you value. Iconoclasm can be exciting, but only in small, overstated dosages. This, however, is pure miserliness. Naurauch is one fierce lady. Iron doesn’t come into it. This girl cuts like a diamond. As mean-spirited writers go, she has only one equal.
Yes, I know. But don’t think you’re the first person to have had that thought. People have been trying to set up Ka Naurauch and Pyetr Turgidovksy for several years now, with very little luck. It’s not that they don’t get on – indeed, they are said to have a strong mutual appreciation for each other’s work – merely that they both leave the house so rarely and treat social occasions with such disdain that any chances of their meeting each other (and sharing a rabbit pie, perhaps) remain severely limited.[4] One day, perhaps, these two misanthropes will meet, in front of a sunset, clouded over of course, on one of those days in which hailstones fall like bombs and the ground sinks under the touch of a sturdy boot – and there they will exchange a few pleasantries concerning their shared hatred of mankind, and share a thousand frowns and leave feeling thoroughly unloved which, for Naurauch at least, will be a step in the right direction. In decades to come, this romantic, or should I say purely logical, affair will be captured on film, winning plaudits from a society whose faith in progress may have already fallen as far as that of our struck-by-nothing lovers.
But these are mere visions. Meanwhile, Turgidovsky and Naurauch must remain apart, pedalling their sordid visions of the world alone; engaging in random acts of violence in the comfort of their own homes. Or is that last statement a little unfair? These are miserable writers, after all, not outwardly cruel characters. They write about violence, surely, rather than commit it? As far as Turgidovsky goes, this is indeed the case – at least, until they prove that it was him who spiked Jarni Kolovsky’s drink on that fateful day in Spitzberg. Ka Naurauch, however, does face more clearcut charges. I probably don’t need to tell you that she has been, at certain points in her career, prone to rather hysterical acts of semi-violent behaviour. If this is news to you, you may nonetheless remain unsurprised. Anyone who wrote Slaughtering Orchids was likely to have some sort of problem: it’d be a difficult novel to write without having had a mental crisis of one sort or another. Nevertheless, I continue to contend that the events of November 1999 were not necessary in character with – or best seen in relation to – The Fractured Cloud, published in September of the same year.
If you were to compare The Fractured Cloud with other examples of European fiction from that year, you would undoubtedly come to the conclusion that this was an unbelievably vicious and severe attack on humanity; a novel which treated all men like robots, patronised every woman in sight and attacked near everything else without an ounce of sympathy. Seen in the context of Naurauch’s entire oeuvre, however – and out of context of the ‘December episode’ – I believe that The Fractured Cloud is not only Naurauch’s best novel, but also her softest.
The clue is in the cover. At first sights, it looks like any Naurauch front cover. But look closely and you will notice the presence of a colour not normally seen on her books. No, your eyes are not (for once) deceiving you. Those are flecks of blue. And since the central motif is clearly meant to represent the cloud of the title, we can fairly say that these are flecks of, wait for it, blue sky. A symbol of positive thinking, on the cover of a Naurauch novel! And it isn’t purely ironic. At least, not entirely so…
Yes, I really do believe that The Fractured Cloud stands as evidence that the ice queen has thawed a little. Admittedly, her general form remains the same. But there are just the slightest signs of a melting heart. Read it again, after Slaughtering Orchids perhaps, and see how her depiction of men has changed. Think of her portrayal of Roger in Chapter Five. If he’d appeared in Slaughtering Orchids, he would have been decimated. Yet in The Fractured Cloud he is permitted to retain the tiniest sliver of dignity: metaphorically burnt to a crisp, of course, but at least she’s allowing the crisp. That’s right: a hint of sympathy has entered Naurauch’s prose: a very very small one, true, but not quite invisible. And if you’re feeling doubtful, think again about Chapter Nineteen. Is there not a smidgen of tenderness in the way she describes the death of the kitten? Or what about that scene in the penultimate chapter, when Susan stabs the ice-cream vendor with the propelling pencil? If this were Rabbit Pie, this whole episode would be presented from an entirely neutral viewpoint. This time round, I can’t help feeling a wee bit of sympathy for the poor frozen-foods merchant. After all, it wasn’t necessarily his fault that there was a brazil nut in the pistachio ice-cream.
Ultimately, there are no end of examples at hand to prove that The Fractured Cloud is the work of someone whose harsh vision of reality has cooled somewhat; the optimist blue streaks of the cover more than clearly relatred to the narrative within. So why didn’t anyone notice this at the time? And why didn’t readers warm to the book? No doubt it was because its publication coincided with the aforementioned act of violence, an act which seemed to suggest that Naurauch’s brutal personality was as strong as ever. Actions speak louder than words? Well, indeed.
It all started with the first review. This is where mention of Naurauch’s ‘cooling-off’ should have been made. Unfortunately, the reviewer in question was the incomparable Siegfried Siderbome, whose critical powers are universally known to be as incisive as a meringue. Fond of controversy, but essentially unsure as how to bring it about, Siderbome has made a career out of pedantry, putting aside the essential questions of our time for the sake of what he calls ‘correct grammatical protocol’. Needless to say a letter or two of his would appear on the pile onto which I used to jump, all those merry days ago.
Having received a copy of The Fractured Cloud, it seems that Siderbome’s last thoughts were of its place within Naurauch’s oeuvre; or the manner in which it examined the pitfalls of modern philosophy, or the eternal hypocrisy of weak-willed men. What bothered him, more than anything, was the fact that on page seventy-six a coverlet was described as being ‘hand-weaved’ rather than ‘hand-woven’. For this error he was quick in castigating the unfortunate Ka, adding unnecessary fuel to the fire that burned steadily within her miserable soul, resulting in even sadder implications for her editor, Maxwell Lees, whose responsibility it was to ensure that such glaring errors were not to be printed. Of course, if she wore a head as wise as mine, she would not have responded in the way she did. She would have merely screwed up the review and stamped on it repeatedly, followed by several hours of unrestrained growling, grumbling and frowning. Instead, she stamped on Maxwell. This, along with having the entire works of Goethe (in hardback) flung at him, did little for the editor’s spine and, when news of the assault reached the newspapers, it caused similar damage to Naurauch’s reputation.[5]
Now, it seemed, was not the time for reviewers to claim that The Fractured Cloud was in fact a much gentler novel than readers would expect from Naurauch – and if they did, no one was going to listen anyway. For the vicious passages were, after all, still there; accordingly amplified by events out of their control: taken to a volume at which the softer passages – hardly obvious in the first place – would never be heard. It was not that Naurauch was (or is) ever going to endear herself to thousands of readers; but at the very least she might have avoided being unconditionally demonised. And then The Fractured Cloud might have been seen for what it was; which is everything we’d expect from a Naurauch novel and a little bit more: a refreshing lack of sentimentality, complete disregard for stupidity, a touch of gratuitous rabbit slaughter and a parade of idiotic lovelorn men, described with the most minuscule dab of self-deprecating humour (the one new element in Naurauch’s already ferocious armoury).
Alas, this was not to be the case. The lamentable ‘hand-weaved’ error stood in the doorway like a fat stinking tramp, blocking the passage of sensible thought. Oh, Siegfried Siderbome, when will you ever learn? Never, replies the oaf of my imagination. After all, did I not read the greatness of The Fractured Cloud from its details? Why then should he not plot its downfall from a similarly small base? Mistakes must not be let through, squeals the dogmatic and desperate pedant. Details do matter.
I see that we will not yet come to an agreement on this. Indeed, I would be foolish to expect such a thing. But if these thoughts of mine may lead a person or two to reconsider The Fractured Cloud, I may consider that these words have not been written in vain. To such readers, I say this: it will not be an easy read, by any means – and what I have said concerning the thawing of the ice queen will not be immediately obvious. But if you persevere, I promise that you will discover The Fractured Cloud to contain prose of amiably less severity than its predecessors (which are, I should say, fine works of art in their own right). And if you find that this is not the case, rest assured that the cover of the book is, as with all Naurauch’s works, of a certain ‘collectable’ quality; a quality which should, by all logic, dissuade any reader from tossing the book onto a pile of papers upon which, if so driven, they might leap – as doth the child in autumn, as also doth a version of myself, as told, from yesteryear.
Ka Naurauch, the beautiful Ka Naurauch, was one described as a lady who would not even think of turning away from the ruthless approach of her early work. The received wisdom, bolstered by dramatic tales of her tête-à-tête with the luckless editor, was that this has been borne out. The moral of my story, however, is that one should never receive wisdom quite so willingly, just as one should never turn against a novel on the basis of a single miswritten phrase. The Fractured Cloud reveals that this lady is indeed for turning – just not very much.
[1] Naurauch’s identification with the similarly (or supposedly) beautiful Cleopatra, as well as an interest in Egyptian funeral rites are only two of multiple Egyptian influences discussed in Betty Hsu’s thesis: A Pyramid of Detestation: Egyptian Influences and Egyptian Actions in the work of Ka Naurach (University of Ninjong, 2001). Hsu was the first academic to link the ‘Ka’ of Naurauch’s name with the ‘Ba’ from the title of her 1992 short story collection – which has, obviously, had far-reaching implications for the field.
[2] This quotation has been cited by many (female) commentators as evidence of Naurauch’s very much unproved paedophilic tendencies. In truth, however, I believe the analogy is made not to signal a fondness for young boys, but merely to further denigrate men (or ‘older boys’, as Naurauch would probably have it).
[3] For more on this topic, I direct you to Henrik Dorçet’s article ‘A Floppy Ear Too Far? Why Rabbits are First in Line’ in The Sentimental Slain – a collection of essays edited by Betty Hsu (Ink and Poop Press, 2004)
[4] Was it Jave de Lasse or Caspar Netscher who once said that ‘getting Turgidovsky to attend any sort of social occasion is like pushing a rhinoceros through the keyhole of a water vole’s front door’? The answer is neither – it was in fact me, but it is a comment I sincerely regret and which must have been made under the influence of some ridiculously strong coffee, for at any other time I would have been well aware of the fact that the abode of a water vole is not equipped with a front door – and certainly not one with a keyhole. This is fanciful stuff – and not my receptacle of chai at all.
[5] For a longer description of this episode, I advise you peruse the aforementioned work, A Pyramid of Detestation: Egyptian Influences and Egyptian Actions in the work of Ka Naurach by Betty Hsu. Though it may be that Hsu pushes the Egyptian analogies a little too far, her knowledge of the circumstances leading up to Naurauch’s assault on Lees is second to none – and includes a supremely detailed map of the bruises left on the editor’s body (which is perhaps unnecessarily compared to an ancient star chart).
Review by Georgy Riecke
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