FINISHED READING - Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

 

I don't know whether the choice of title is by way of a satirical wink towards Hemingway's book of the same title. This book is populated by less muscular gristly types of masculinity. These seven short stories are about men who are far less sure footed, doubtfilled and anxious twenty first century men. Most of them are struggling with the consequences of their choices in life and are in someway cast adrift from a feminine presence. Due to a range of events; bereavement, adultery, misfortune, personal idiosyncrasies or simply crippling shyness. Each feels an emptiness within them, they don't understand why what happened to them happened. Its a space where they vainly flounder, trying to create a way forward, to find something to compensate or plug the void that has unexpectedly opened up.

These stories exist in their own Murakami world, with its uniquely off kilter rationale. In the opening story Drive My Car, an actor employs a female driver to take him too and from the theatre and do errands. The relationship between him, the driver and the taxi becomes more confessional. The actor tells her he has never really understood why his recently deceased wife had so many extra marital affairs. He knew about all of them, but not why. Recounting how he deliberately cultivated a friendship with one of her boyfriends, simply to try to understand what she saw in him, or what she found lacking in himself. Creepy it is. These tales are all full of these telling little details. 

In the eponymous story Men Without Women a man is phoned by the husband of an former girlfriend from high school who has died. He recollects the time she gave him half of her eraser, obsessing over it, as if it symbolised so much more to him. In Samsa In Love, Samsa finds himself in a situation the very opposite of in Kafka's Metamorphosis. He feels he was previously an insect but now he's woken up in a man's body. Having to learn how to dress it, to eat. And to deal with a hunchback female locksmith who turns up to mend a lock. As I said, weird, but in a good way. The objectified and feminine sense of other, hovering in the wings whenever its not centre stage.

Murakami in these translations at least, has a clean, succinct and unfussy writing style. The stories flow, always with this strong sense of  dialogue or narrative propelling the tale on, whilst you simply enjoy being taken along for the ride. Men Without Women understands our era of somewhat lost, if not entirely clueless men. Unclear about where they are heading or what they should be doing. Often in quiet rebellion against their own shadow. Its a thought provoking as well as enthralling read.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

CARROT CAKE REVIEW 28 - And So, To The Carrot Cave, Baby!

 Southwold, Suffolk

This is a petite fronted bakery/cafe on the main street of Southwold. The Two Magpies are currently on something of pincer movement across the lowly mounds of Norfolk, with new sites recently opened, or due to open, in Norwich, Blackney and Holt. Stumbling across them on a jolly to a favourite seaside town in Suffolk, was an opportunity to get a sneak preview. Like casually encountering a caravan park arranged on a Stalinist Gulag theme, its not to be overlooked.

The Southwold establishment is this aspirational chains source cafe. It is very tiny with only a few tables at the back and to one side of the serving counter. So the emphasis is primarily on takeaway. The first thing to notice is the terrific range of confectionery. I was absolutely wetting myself with glee at the choice. But I was thinking of my duty and devotion to you, dear readers, when I settled on a slice of carrot cake with my standard Flat White chaser.

So, lets get the Flat White over with. The one thing to say in its favour was that it came in the right sized cup. But a Flat White, well, it is so much more than a ceramic cup isn't it?. Its like congratulating me for turning up in clean trousers, with a body slotted inside them that's not seen soap for weeks. Well done, for getting the cup size right chaps. The coffee contained inside was... not good. The base coffee was far too harsh, with not sufficient depth or roundness in its roast. Hubbies Iced Latte was similarly coarse in flavour, so it couldn't be put down to the ubiquitous badly trained Barista. As far as their coffee goes, I wouldn't rate them very high on the Richter scale, or any scale for that matter. Creamy it was not.

But let's be fair, most businesses have their short comings, drastic or not. Most have a couple of unique selling points too. The Two Magpies win purely on the range and the superlative quality of the confectionery they produce. My first thought about the Carrot Cake was, that this was a f.....g massive piece! Three layers of carrot cake separated by the slimmest rendering layers of frostings. They obviously pay great homage to the same gods as me, as that frosting was the semi-divine cream cheese of legend.

As regular readers will know, a good cream cheese frosting these days is on the 'at danger list' for slipping into extinction. So it is Glory Hallelujah when I find one. I then cross my legs hoping it turns out to be a good one. And this frosting? Well it was very delicately sweetened, and had not been drenched in an unhealthy amount of vanilla essence either. It had a natural light texture and taste, tickling all the right taste buds mischievously on the tongue. Orgasm boys and girls, Orgasm!

And so to the carrot cave, baby! An excellent colour, a dark tan brown, with just a hint of ginger carrot strands woven through it like a jacquard textile. Once it hit my gob, it turned out to have an expertly balanced mix of moist and heft. Not so wet that it compacted under the gravitational force of its own weight, forming a squidgy foundation layer at the base. I've wasted my hunger on too many under cooked damp courses, thank you. Accompanied by that feeling in the pit of the stomach of a masticated cake settling like concrete pebble dash down there. Ugh! That sort of carrot cake is just not nice.

But no, I digress, this cake was weighty, but with that lovely textural feeling of lightly rolling on the tongue its uneven carrot strand bedecked nature. All done without much suggestion of it being over padded out with raisins, sultanas or walnuts. It was spiced, but in a subtly suggestive way. No danger of this one infringing my Carrot Cake Rule No 1 then. Bet you are all mightily relieved.

Something else, however, not to rate them on, is the cost. Be warned, though the cakes are way above normal in quality, two coffees and cakes turn in at around £16, which is steep! This cafe is then for special treats only. The sort of place you'd take your most life embittered Grandma, to impress her with the size of your love and largesse. If the coffee could be brought up to match the quality of the cakes, it might actually be worth it.

CARROT CAKE SCORE  7/8

FINISHED READING - The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

Superstitions abound in Essex of the return of a beast from folklore, the Essex Serpent. There's been just too many deaths and unexplained disappearances of livestock and people for it not to be so. In the middle of The Trouble as he refers to it, the local vicar Will Ransome tries to keep a lid on the speculations and belief in it. Not helped by an old pew carving of the serpent in his own church, which if he felt courageous enough he'd have removed.

Meanwhile in London Cora Seabourne, recently bereaved, is feeling greatly relieved by the death of her oppressive, manipulative husband. She's re-engaging with her life as an independent woman, able to freely follow her enthusiasms and interests. Starting to live her own life, however unconventional others might see it. Moving out to Essex to take herself away from her old self, that life and those circumstances. 

Cora's fascination with fossils and paleontology becomes obsessed with the idea of the serpent, as a possible lost species waiting to be rediscovered. Through the recommendation of her friends Charles and Elizabeth she visits and befriends Will and his family. What starts off as a series of combative conversations with Will about ideas, facts and beliefs turns eventually into something with a much deeper and profound consequence. Liable, should they let it, to overturn everyone's life and sense of propriety.

The scope of this novel set in Victorian England is wide and panoramic. The broad sweeping descriptions of the Essex landscape and of scientific inquiry are matched by the well described emotional realm its characters inhabit. As much at home with intellectual ideas and debates, as the emotional conflicts between self, duty and expectations. Its a beautifully executed novel, pushing at the conventions of the period set novel, whilst honouring its legacy from the likes of Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Elliot. A thoroughly engrossing read.

CARROT REVIEW 6/8

STREAMING FAVE RAVE - Hibana : Spark

Adapted from the novel Hibana by Naoki Matayoshi this series of Spark on Netflix is a quietly captivating drama. Drawing on Matayoshi's own experience of the manzai comedy circuit in Tokyo. It takes its time, the pace is slow from the start, so you have to relax and be with it. Manzai are usually comedy duos, but are a very particular Japanese twist on that format. Comedy routines involve a lot of weird word play, snappy often ludirous repartee that to English ears don't come across as remotely amusing. Manzai performers vary from crowd pleasing slapstick all the way to extremely out there alternative performance comedy.

Tokunaga is in a manzai act Spark with his childhood friend. He's always wanted to be a comedian, though lacks confidence and has an dorky way of being and looking at the world. Their act, however much they rehearse, is just not firing on all cylinders yet. At a comedy festival he meets Kamiya a more seasoned performer.  Kamiya is an intense, self possessed, narcissistic man, who is quite wild. His act is edgy and socially confrontational, he takes a lot of risks. Tokunaga is in awe and is inspired and requests to be in a mentor relationship with him. Kamiya agrees on the basis that Tokunaga should note everything down, he must write his biography.

Manzai acts like Spark want to get a regular spot on TV, to get their upward career trajectory established. Though there is often a trade off in conforming to popular comedy tropes, and a loss of personal integrity. Kamiya, never willing to stick to a predictable format, self sabotages repeatedly. Hibana Spark has real moments where it deftly shifts from being wacky and funny, to revealing, to extremely moving. Its about the very identifiable human struggle to stay true to yourself. To not allow your creative integrity to be eaten up by your desire for success. In an entertainment industry that does not mind one way or the other if you exist.

On a personal level Tokunaga wants to have Kamiya's restless devil may care attitude. But never can quite do it. As Kamiya's own career and life goes down the pan, he comes to realise there is a cost to holding too tightly to one's integrity. Kamiya actually has few allies or real friends. Is he admiring someone who can't even hold himself together, an individualist, who is actually a complete loser in life?

 

The street singer shown in this clip becomes a sort of conduit for unspoken feelings. Tokunaga always gives him money that the street singer then returns to him later. Its an arrangement he has with Tokunaga in order to encourage more street donations. But this is indicative of the poignancy tucked away in the backstreets of Hibana: Spark.  A drama with lots to say about the often flawed nature of male bonding, friendship, admiration and ambition in contemporary Japan, but also universally. I loved it. As do Netflix who have commissioned a second series.

Still available to steam on Netflix.

CARROT REVIEW  6/8

EVERYDAY RITUALS - No 1 Making Coffee

Everyday rituals are present in our daily life. Mostly we are unconscious of them,  they are just what we do as part of our regular routine. Until you observe the details of any activity you won't necessarily perceive what their qualities as a ritual are. This series of articles shine a light on ritualised elements in our lifestyles. Discovering along the way how we could make more of them. To deepen and enrich our experience of our life as we already live it.

No 1 MAKING COFFEE 

When and where you drink your coffee.

I rise early. But taking a coffee then, before I've eaten usually upsets my digestion for the rest of the day. So a pot of green tea will be my very first drink of the day. Once I've lined my stomach with porridge, then coffee is definitely on the cards. But as it will be my one and only coffee of the day, I choose carefully the time and the place. Sometimes it does accompany breakfast. If I'm taking a walk, then its with the walk. If I'm going out to The Black Apollo Coffee House for the best Flat White in North Norfolk, its more than beneficial to wait til then. I endeavour whenever possible, to turn my everyday cup of coffee into a special occasion.

I find its always best to allow yourself time, once you are up and about, to take stock of your current state, naked of caffiene, before you kick start the engine. Coffee is an addictive stimulant. In the 18th century coffee houses had to be licensed and initially were considered drug dens. So, before you casually knock back the golden nectar, be aware that how you feel is about to be chemically adjusted, to an artificially heightened version of you. Coffee lifts, enhances and dresses you up to be able to kick ass with the best of them. If you've taken the time to get in touch with your original raw unfiltered state before drinking coffee, you'll be under no illusions that the confidence and joi de vivre you now possess is a temporary illusion of a fake persona.

How you make your coffee.

When we make ourselves a drink, on a practical level we are simply slaking our thirst. But its rarely a pragmatic act or we would only ever drink water. What we choose to drink chimes in with our mood, our desires, our state of mind. We may need something to sweeten bitterness or a stimulant to stir our sleepy mind or body into greater clarity and alertness. Taking in any food or drink alters our mood. 

How we make that drink is important. Whether we pour juice out of a pre-bought carton or hand pick and squeeze the oranges ourselves, affects the quality of the drink. The experience and taste of it will be greater or poorer. How the coffee came to be here, how it was made before you purchased it is then a consideration. The nature of the bean, how it was grown, prepared, roasted and ground create the distinct quality of each coffee. Now you could say its just a caffeine hit in the morning Stephen, stop being so precious about it. But there is a point here about everyday rituals,  concerning the breadth of attention you can bring to them.

There are so many ways to make coffee. There is the instant granules straight in the pot with the water. The cafetiere, add the ground coffee, then the boiling water, wait a few minutes before slowly descending the plunger. The stove top espresso pot, put water in the base, coffee granules in the pierced funnel/pan, place on a heat source until the water and coffee percolates upward into the top chamber. Pour into a cup, add water and milk of your choosing. Not to forget the coffee percolator, the aero-press, coffee pods, filter coffee machines, and the full monty Italian espresso machine. Using any of these is ritualistic, they have a dramatic nature. Bring love and care with you whenever you use them.

Essentially the means and the process of how you choose to make yourself a cup of coffee relates to your state of mind. If you are truly present with this, you can't help but notice. Experience and appreciate the result, it brings more than two shots of caffeine with it. Coffee making is an example of an everyday ritual. Which coffee making method you have chosen reflects something about you, how you are first thing in the morning, the day you are having, or hope to have. 

How you serve your coffee.

There ought to be no difference between how you serve coffee to yourself and how you serve it to others. But often there is. How you serve coffee to yourself is often downgraded in the amount of effort you are willing to put into it. Everyday rituals are often about ways to meet a need, they are acts of service. Serve yourself as well as you would someone else. Serving is an expression of love, appreciation and worth.

What you serve coffee in speaks loudly of you and your outlook on life. Whether it's served in a mug with a rude message on it, one wrapped in a cartoon character, decorated with a flowery or geometric design or pattern, in a porcelain cup and saucer, a travel cup, or the generic plastic cup from a drinks machine. Well, you respond differently to all of these, don't you? Consider then the role, qualities and value that presentation brings to your life in these everyday rituals. There is always an element of magic and theatre within them.

Think of it as alchemy, the transformation of black earthy beans into a golden ochre elixir, that then transforms you. The ritual of coffee making sets you up for the entire day. Don't rush this, allow yourself the time and space to relax and absorb it. If you tend to hurriedly make a coffee before you dash out the door travel cup in hand, spilling it on the entrance floor as you leave. Then a speedy and scattered mind may be following you, trying to keep up with your race to awaken and be off. Do one thing at a time. Stop right there where you are, sit down and drink your coffee slowly in some semblance of peace. Catch up with yourself. Start your day from that place.

LISTENIING TO - Incomplete by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Incomplete, is an occasional series of music videos by Ryiuchi Sakamoto posted on his You Tube site. These available online only pieces include a wide variety of collaborations with the likes of Alva Noto, Laurie Anderson, Arto Lindsey, Christian Fennez, Kenzen Kudo, Ross Kare, Lim Giong etc. Musically Sakamoto continues to utilise fertile conjunctions of electronic drone with sputtering interjections, randon cracklings and bursts of rustling and twitterings drawn from or imitative of natural sound. 

The videos are shot in starkly contrasted black and white of country, streets and houses in the night time, often overlooked by the same cloud wrapped moon. Each track is definitely a mood piece, some of them have far too much melancholy or an unsettled tone to ever be considered ambient. But they possess a brittle involving beauty that I find entrancing. Here's a link to my playlist and a sample video just to wet your appetite 

Incomplete

SHERINGHAM DIARY 52 - A Whole Lotta Lush In Every Cup of Slush

The light in the early dawn of morning emerges slowly. sometimes it does not feel too welcome. Oh, don't give me yet another one of those brash smeared sky days, let it be sharp and bright edged, let it be just serenely simple, like a curtain rising. No misty fanfare or billowing blousy chorus. Just let it be there. Ta Da!

My mood has not been robust of late. The length of my sleep poor. One does what one does to keep going, but when enthusiasm and energy is lacking, it can be hard. Like slogging up a mountain with no sense of whether it will be peaceful or yet another skirmish all the way to the top. I'm at an age now when the future begins to develop a tentative quality. The question mark of how long my presence will endure hangs over it. One beautiful bright morning my bedroom mirror will find itself alone.

How many more times? How many more times do I get to be me? Is it decades, years, weeks, days, hours, seconds, how much more of all these moments bundled together to make up a life do I have? What is there time for?  What is whatever the time remaining to be for? Some projects certainly may never be started now, excessive amounts of drive to push, pioneer or strive are rare qualities to mine these days. Whether things get completed, comes with the option of a shrug.

The project of ones spiritual life, if indeed it should ever be seen as such, remains never ending while there is one corpuscle left alive. Your judgements do not leave you alone, pointing out short comings and blind vanities. Sometimes I doubt, I really do. What does all this effort serve? Is this just my ego wanking for enlightenment? And I pause, no answer surfaces or suffices, and then I carry on walking, shamefaced.

I tell myself I don't need to be labelled. I say I'm a Buddhist. Its a thirty year positive habit. I stopped consciously thinking about whether Buddhist fittingly describes the current state of my beliefs a long while ago. Have I conformed myself into what I imagined a Buddhist should be like, ignoring anything else that didn't quite fit? And yet, and yet, whatever I choose to call myself will have its built in limitations. Just one window from which to view the world and our place within it, never the complete panorama.

Even if you decide to be a non conformist, a non joiner of organised religions, a free spirit, it is equally a label, an imaginative habit to blend a sense of one's self into. Though its dressed up in the language of liberty and freedom of expression, it is basically another vague catagory to place a boundary around what you might be or become. 

Whilst I may imagine myself as free to be anything I want, I feel the pull of grasping at external circumstances for identity. A sense of belonging to mirror your reflection through. So I hover, without settling on either certainty or uncertainty, the holding on to craving or the letting go into the unknown. Travelling this 'middle way' can be lonely work. It's impossible to truly know who you really are and what you want. One is never entirely free of ones history, habits and hubris, and why should we be?

We talk quite casually about realising our True Self, as if you can cast off everything that you've been previously. Who I am seems more akin to an ongoing evolution, everything built upon the foundations of whatever has preceded it. Zen talks of rediscovering the Original Self, the state once papancha (mental proliferation ) ceases to dominate. This resembles a way of being more at peace with whatever we are right now, whether its a mixed up muddle or clear headed clarity. Whichever it is matters not. Let go of it. Avoid rigidly aligning a sense of who you are with anything. For all these things will fade in order to become something else, as will I.

I've disliked football from early childhood. Too many memories of the indignities and bullying on and off the field, to remain charitable. These mean I often think of the sport entirely through my bruised pride, with a large degree of pain and derision. Yes, I can affect a mild interest, if only for the sake of male small talk. But there is no real enthusiasm, no passion there. So whilst I wished our national team well in the Euros, I would be lying if I said I cared that much about the outcome. Football, for me is too tied up with a particular form of masculine endeavour, prowess and competitiveness, that I have always felt kept on the outside of. And don't get me started on patriotism as a substitute for self esteem. For me football is not so much of a beautiful but a revolting game.

One sultry evening Hubby and I sat on the beach having an alfresco evening meal. In our line of sight a gaggle of mothers watched their offspring happily swimming in the sea. One by one the kids got out and dried off, the Mums started packing up in order to go eat. One twelve year old boy carried on splashing around. The chubby boy complained, he didn't want chips again, and sulked uncooperative amongst the tidal foam. The Mum repeatedly urging him to get out. The boy began making halfhearted attempts to emerge, bleating about how he was tired, and then that he couldn't get out because the sea was dragging him back under. The kid got wilder in his hysteria. The Mum refusing to put on her beach shoes to come and rescue him. 'I'm dying' he cried with all the melodramatic pathos a ten year old can summon.

Then a near by gentleman came forward to kindly offer his help. The kid very noticeably rejected him and pushed his hands away. Evidently this was not a real life threatening situation.  Was this pride, or emotional manipulation, a strategy to get his Mum to do his bidding. It was so transparently the latter that it was rather pathetic. The boy's whining tone turned increasingly tearful and shrill. Oh the indignity of having such an uncaring Mum. If only he realised how unsympathetically we surrounding beach goers were, viewing this obvious charade going on among the waves. It was embarrassing to behold.

I recently re-watched Jason & The Argonauts, a film I fondly remember from my childhood. These days it is known as a Ray Harryhausen movie. Poor Don Chaffey, the actual director, has had his entire career upstaged by animated dolls. These stop motion animated figures were part of an emerging technical revolution that made this movie famous. Released in 1963, the movie stands up well. However wobbly and stilted the animation, it brings a certain otherworldly character to them, that todays more hyper realistic CGI rarely does. The acting declaims a lot, but is more than passable, some of the stuck on beards are unbelievably fake, the togas far too pristine, the women's hair are either 60's bouffants or Bardot bobs, and the Golden Fleece had gold tinsel very obviously woven through it. But for the period the production values were quite high. 

If such a film were made today they would have shoehorned a female into the Argonauts, who could kick ass better than the men. And the men, well, they'd all show signs of spending far too much rehearsal time in the gym making sure they were as buff as possible on camera. In 1963 however, you saw a much wider variety of body torso types, in a spectrum ranging from skinny twinks to flabby old codgers, only one of them looked to have identifiable muscles and abs. This was a quite representative range of body shapes in sixties manhood, at least within the acting profession, than that of todays film 'fit til they bulge' generation.

Well, in the shop July has been our best ever months takings. So Hurrah's and Well Done's all round to us. Its hard work keeping up with sales of some items we make. But I think we are getting the hang of using our time better and refining production methods. More importantly managing our expectations of how much stuff we can keep fully stocked at any one time. We've just had to become more realistic. It reduces the pressure we put upon ourselves.

One of our early morning pleasures this summer, before we open the shop, is to drive to Cromer and walk along the Promenade. Heading in the direction of North Sea Coffee. Where the coffee is good but not gold star, the cakes are homely and made in heaven. A Flat White and a Date Slice, in my case, and a Large White Americano and a Brownie, for Jnanasalin, awaits. 

On our way there, we pass another cafe in mid process if setting up. It has a banner outside that continues to amuses me. It is really a very profound spiritual teaching on the true nature of reality, declaring boldly that there is - 'A Whole Lotta Lush In Every Cup of Slush'

Couldn't agree more.

FINISHED READING - For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

2021 is some sort of Hemingway anniversary. But mainly, my cynicism tells me, its a chance for a publisher to re-market a back catalogue in classic literature. Hemingway is everywhere. An excellent six part documentary and a repeat of Michael Palin's retreading of his adventures. So much of what we know about him, mythologised by himself in his own lifetime. Its worked though. Here I am realising I've never read any Hemingway, so I dived in to read a generally accepted Hemingway masterpiece.

The first thing I had to adjust to was the language. The famed sparseness,  his 'iceberg' theory of writing. Not a lot happens for a large part of For Whom The Bell Tolls. There is, nonetheless, a tenseness in the dialogue. Robert Jordan, an American, has joined a republican group hiding in a cave behind fascist lines. He is there to blow up a bridge, on a particular day, at a particular time. Plans are made and unmade in response to events. The dynamics of the Spanish Civil War are revealed through the individuals in this group of guerilla fighters. 

No one really trusts anyone, there are infiltrators, anarchists and local tribal loyalties everywhere. Who can say what they will do in the end?  Who is really in charge? All Jordan knows is that no one trusts Pablo, he"s the obvious loose cannon. They sit around camp fires and tell tales of the best way to die. We learn of the atrocities they've seen or partaken in.  These are damaged people. Including Maria, a woman who Robert has unexpectedly fallen in love with.

I struggled for half the novel with the lack of overt emotion coming from the narrative. You learn everything reading between the lines of what they say or don't say. Once the blowing of the bridge starts to happen the intensity ramps up. We are given all that's going on in Robert's mind as he lays the explosives. His doubts, his panic, his talking himself down, his fearful rationalisations, trying to calm himself as the outcome of the bridge attack begins to go wrong. Suddenly we get terse but really gripping writing.

Over time the myth of Hemingway the man has come to drown out Hemingway the writer. But in Civil War Spain there is no 'Boys Own' daring do, lives hang by a thread, one mistake and its curtains. No one is under any illusions about what is happening in the Civil War, its a tangle of intrigue and counter bluff, a complete mess. Roughly thrown together bands left to fight against the advance of fascism. People are afraid, behave stupidly, they fuck up all the time. There is a lot of self doubt and uncertainty, over a mission that's to be carried out blindly. Who can you rely on?

I'm left questioning whether the supposed machismo of Hemingway is useful to know when reading his books. You appear inevitably to end up talking about him, the larger than life character, and not the book before you. As a man Hemingway, the extrovert, macho, hunter, womaniser, he has come to represent a type of masculinity that is more problematic these days. There were aspects of him that were, in the modern parlance 'toxic', undoubtedly cruel and abusive. But that was not all that he was. He was also, at his best, able through his writing to express great sensitivity for ordinary human motivations and frailties with a rare honesty and frankness.

Hemingway undoubtedly was flawed, bullied by his Mother, tormented by his Father's suicide, spending his life overcompensating by taking these 'heroic' but mostly foolhardy risks. He had several close calls with death. Repeated head injuries did start to alter his personality, you can see it in his face in the photos of the time. His behaviour becomes more akin to someone suffering from Alzheimers, with unpredictable mood swings, violent, and verbally lashing out. The quality of his writing also begins to suffers, until eventually he can't write at all. Then he takes his own life. The toll that living up to his own ultra masculine reputation took, is rarely assessed. However, the potency of that image and myth lives on all this time later. Able still to put his writing in the shadows, because his written words tell a slightly subtler, more nuanced and less stereotypical story.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8