The self and its abuse

Lewis Jones

1982 Janine Alasdair Gray (Cape £8.95) Unlikely Stories, Mostly Alasdair Gray (Penguin £4.95)

Alasdair Gray's first novel, Lanark, I orandomcasined comparison with Dante, bJoyce any more. This was partly ecause Mr Gray had plagiarised Dante & (engagingly, he provided an 'Index .of tagiarisms') and partly, it must be sa.id., °ecause he comes from Scotland. Still, it is a Wonderful novel. Lanark is a dour little Scot, 'shrewd, cinb. stinate and adequately intelligent', w. ho b,es,nd goes to Hell. Of the novel's four t'°Ks, three offer an ingenious and ex- th`ava8ant fantasy, satirical and poetical.by r-rns, on the conditions down there (it s lather like Glasgow); but what's wonderful, ea”t11hlnk, is the book about Lanark's life on w–`' The author explains that this part as initially autobiographical, and that he ehetn, it some 30 years ago. A fairly harsh ad"Lnlood, very nice family and an °Iescence of high artistic promise are

:ns.cribed in a plain strong prose, impressive its integrity tenderness and humour.

wi,:7`arK goes to Hell because of sex, had seemed to him 'so disgusting that it na: to be indulged secretly and not men- s'ned to others. It fed on dreams of cruel- „Ir., had its clim in a jet of jelly and left tnotrn feeling w ax weak and lonely.' His inability lovrnake the connection between sex. a. nd The brought him to murder and suicide. lif:re are, of course, ethical echoes between ta` .ann afterlife; but the realistic and fan- breystf elements ents of the novel are also united of games-playing — the 'self- Laerential' or 'fictionalisr . According to

Wallark, there a kin are two sorts of story: 'One d of written cinema, with plenty of ac'1°n and hardly any thought. The other kind was about clever unhappy people, often authors themselves, who thought a lot but didn't do very much.'

1982 Janine, Mr Gray's second novel, resembles Lanark in its structure, theme and hero: it differs in the nature of its preponderant fantasy, which lies more within Lanark's first category of story. This is described exactly in a discussion between Lanark and a dragon, once a woman, whom he falls in love with when in Hell. In the hope of undoing her metamorphosis, he reads books to her, of which her favourite is No Orchids for Miss Blandish:

'Oh, yes I like this book! Crazy hopes of a glamorous, rich, colourful life and then abduction, rape, slavery. This book, at least, is true.'

'It is not true. It is a male sex fantasy.'

1982 Janine is about a night in the life of Jock, a middle-aged security technician, spent in a Scottish hotel room. For the first 150 pages or so, Jock masturbates, fantasis- ing about Janine — a figure he has devised over the years, who has crazy hopes and the rest of it. The fantasy is repeated with varia- tions — figures such as Superbitch and Big Momma are brought into play — and con- stantly interrupted: by the desire to prolong pleasure and postpone disgust; by memory and regret; by failures of imagination; and by divine sabotage. After much fantasy, whisky and soul-searching, Jock becomes nauseated by himself and, in a chapter that is a monument to the craft of the typographer, tries suicide; he is saved, though, by God. Repentant, he decides to give a true account of the life we have so far only glimpsed at. Over the next 100 pages,

Jock tells of a fairly harsh childhood, a very nice family and an adolescence of high ar- tistic promise. Again, it is wonderful funny, true and imbued with noble senti- ment; and again the life is ruined by a failure to connect sex and love.

Pornography is problematic. Mr Gray

seeks to disarm criticism, both by anticipa- tion (impatient at the idea of 'attaching a brainy little essay by a French critic to The Story of 0 to make the porn-eaters think they are in first-class intellectual company') and by intimidation (referring to 'Mad Toda, Crazy Shuggy, Tam the Barn and Razor King, literature-loving friends in the Glasgow Mafia who will go to any length to reason with editors, critics and judges who fail to celebrate the shining merit of the foregoing volume').

My only objection to pornography is that

it is dead: it can excite a part of the imagina- tion, but comes to bore and then sicken it — it cannot engage the whole imagination. This novel certainly is pornographic, but the purpose is apparently to demonstrate the nature of the stuff — that it is exciting, boring and sickening. According to taste, one can call this cowardly and hypocritical or brave and clever: on the strength of the non-pornographic parts I am inclined to the latter view. As in Lanark, Mr Gray intends the fantasy part to be an allegory of the realistic part; he tries to incorporate the pornography in an imaginative whole. His intention is proclaimed by some lines by Alan Jackson, which are printed on the book's cover in gold:

'TRULY THE REMEDY'S INSIDE THE DISEASE AND THE MEANING OF BEING ILL IS TO BRING THE EYE TO THE HEART.'

After his suicide attempt, Jock decides that his Janine fantasy is really the story of his life. He has never noticed it before, because of 'the femaleness of the main character . . My fancies keep reliving that moment of torture for Janine because I have never fully faced it in my own life ...' At the end of his story, having come to face it, he returns to his fantasy and finds it changed: '0 Janine, my silly soul, come to me now. I will be gentle. 1 will be kind.'

1982 Janine, then, tries to be an onanist's Song of Solomon. As I've said, I think the attempt is brave and clever; I don't think it succeeds, though. It is perhaps better that it should be inspired by gentleness than by rage, but a wank's a wank for a' that. Mr Gray shows pornography to be dead and then attempts to bring it to life. One cannot expect miracles.

A collection of Mr Gray's short stories, Unlikely Stories, Mostly, was first publish- ed last year. They range from the simplest (like The Star, a three-page tale of microcosm — first published in Collins Magazine for Boys and Girls, 1951) to the most byzantine (like Five Letters From An Eastern Empire, an allegory of the political role of the poet). The price is explained by the illustrations (also by Mr Gray, in a style that is strong and plain).