Burgess succeeds with bright 'Byrne'

Byrne

Carroll & Graf

It's not very often today that someone writes an epic poem. Anthony Burgess succeeded with "Byrne," his final work before his death in 1993. Burgess was mainly a novelist, and his most famous work, "A Clockwork Orange," was immortalized by Stanley Kubrick's movie by the same name.
"Byrne" spans two generations, following the life of Michael Byrne, "a lecherous defective dreamer," and the lives of his many illegitimate children. The tale is told by a poor poet, paid by Byrne to "tell what they call a cautionary tale" about the accomplishments of Byrne's mad family. This narrative voice is not what it seems, however, as Burgess displays a powerful poetic talent, buried beneath the mock-epic form.

Burgess' lifelong attention to literature guides the work, applying the forms of poets from Spenser to Homer, changing rhythms and rhymes schemes like favorite shirts. While these forms receive little attention from modern poets, Burgess resurrects them with lines bursting with words and crashing sounds. Even a doctor's diagnosis of terminal disease becomes music under his pen, "Oh, androblastomas and God knows what ... shocking. There's seminomas, teratomas blocking the seminiferous ducts."

Byrne's story perfectly fits this chaotic form with his anti-hero failures, including, singing, trombone playing, composing, and painting avant-garde nude pictures. Burgess calls Byrne an "aesthetic martyr ... (who) ought ... rejoice in being totally rejected and work away like (a) disregarded beaver." It seems Byrne can only succeed at conception, fathering children with scores of women and mysteriously disappearing at middle age.

After Byrne leaves the picture, the story turns to the present, where his children struggle to make it in the world. Ironically, they each struggle in some of the same occupations as their absent father. While their father's tale dealt with the chaos early in our century, from World Wars, the Nazi rise to power, and the "death of God," his children's stories are set against contemporary problems like Vietnam, skinheads, and priests falling from grace. "We may find we're lined up to face eternal nothingness to hide in. So we must worship zero- faith, no hope," muses one of Byrne's children.

Just as "epic" best captures the themes and structures of "Byrne," "symphonic" describes the overall production. Burgess' famous play with language shines through in puns, alliteration, and imaginary words like "lagoonscape." Through this musical presentation, critiques of Calvinistic determinism blend flawlessly with images of Islamic fanatics burning copies of Dante's "Inferno." Literary masterpieces are contrasted against the dark, comic excesses of the present. Only in Byrne's version of modern times can T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland" be made into a musical and John Calvin's life made into a TV miniseries. This is the same cold satire that made Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" famous.

"Byrne" is a beautiful end to an important career. It is a tribute to the literature and culture which Burgess lived his entire life. The books concluding lines capture his balance between angry satire and hope for humanity. Burgess leaves his characters, "smiling, Christmas-elated, somewhat sad too, blessing the filthy world. Somebody had to."

- Jason Boog

The Midnight Special

VH1 Books

Only four years old when it went off the air in 1981, I was too young to appreciate "The Midnight Special" as a television show. But it can be argued that the show's hosts and special guests - including David Bowie, Wolfman Jack, The Village People, and many others -defined both that generation and our own. In "The Midnight Special 1972-1981: Late Night's Original Rock & Roll Show," all of the best of the more than 400 episodes have been collected and highlighted in one eye-catching volume, spanning the ten years from John Denver to Skip Stephenson and listing the hits, misses, and evolution of rock 'n' roll.

The collection forms a psychedelic hodgepodge of 1970's graphics and hairstyles. Snapshots of the various stars crowd each page, along with a short description of that show's best moments. Each of the highlighted shows is in some way unique, and each star receives special acknowledgement for their participation in the first late night rock 'n' roll show (before this, for those of you too young to remember, all of the networks went off the air each evening after Johnny Carson.)

There are also quotes from the show's staff, raving about this innovation and creativity of "The Midnight Special," and stars' comments are occasionally included. Says musician Steve Miller, "When you look at "The Midnight Special" today, you can see that eery band in the world was coming through there on a regular basis. It's one of the definitive documents of what was really going on in music then."

A song index at the end of the book concisely lists every aired episode, its guest host, and all of the performed songs; this is enough to keep you singing "Dancing Queen" for weeks nonstop.

One of the book's high points is a special two-page showcase of Wolfman Jack's career. It includes a short biography, photographs, quotes from the racio legend's co-workers, and a short comment from his widow about his life and impact on people's lives.

Seeing these two pages as a high point, however, accentuates what the book as a whole is lacking. It is a great memoir for a diehard fan of the show, or for someone attempting to regress into the '70s. However, it contains almost no real substance or description, and it isn't enough to intrigue someone not already familiar with the show (even a '70s fan such as myself.) The photographs are small and unexceptional, and the show descriptions often read like playlists. As a whole, though, "The Midnight Special" has potential, and if you are old enough to remember sitting in front of the TV and watching The Hollies perform "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," then this will take you back.

- Jessica Eaton

Shadow of Ashland

Forge

Letters form the focal point of "Shadow of Ashland." These simple messages between a brother and sister are the record of their desperate attempt to keep close and under normal circumstances they should be a successful means of communication through their separation. In this case, however, things don't work quite as planned; the letters arrive fifty years too late.

Jack Radey left his family during the Great Depression and traveled from Canada to the United States in order to seek a better life. Except for one letter, his family never received news from him again. Now, as she lies on her deathbed, Leo Nolan's mother has one request. She wants him to find her brother, Jack, and to bring him to see her before she dies.

Then a letter arrives at his family home. It is from Jack, and it is postmarked 1934. Others follow, all arriving in date order, chronicling his journey south into America and his settlement in Ashland, Kentucky. Leo leaves Canada to follow his uncle. And as he follows, he discovers the secrets of his family's history and of a man he never met.

"Shadow of Ashland" interchanges time and place in a perplexing way. When Leo goes to Ashland, he is also literally sent back in time, and through this transposition Green develops the character of Jack Radey both historically and personally. By using long historical flashbacks and a series of dream sequences, Green develops a response to the questions that had been left unanswered for fifty years. The reader is just as surprised as Leo to discover Jack's change in lifestyle following his arrival in Kentucky, and his sincere search for something worth writing home to tell his sister about.

Green writes with an extremely personal connection to his characters; he, like Leo, went through his own genealogical search for a lost uncle. Jack's old letters home are a touching method of displaying the fine line between truth and lies, especially where pride and family are concerned. But this frankness can be seen as both the high point of the book and as its downfall, for none of the characters ever receive more than a surface development. Everything to be seen is eventually laid out in painful clarity for the reader, and although "Shadow of Ashland" is a book of secrets, when Jack finally leaves Ashland everything has been explained to its fullest extent. As the journey answered Leo's questions and fulfilled his research, perhaps this does form a suiting resolution for him, but its lack of interpretation and depth leaves it echoing in the same way that Jack Radey's missing letters must have left his family ... with the reader yearning for words.

- Jessica Eaton

12-10-97