The Horror of Endurance: When the Shit Hits the Fan & There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

Note: I haven't been on Blogger in like the past 3 weeks because my laptop broke (that's what you get for eating food while watching 4od) so this is a post I meant to make ages ago. It's good, really, because this post was written when I was in a dark place and in a horrible situation, and so much has happened since then! I'm much happier now and I will write a proper update soon!

PART 1 (BOOKS)

Now I realise I said I wasn't going to relate the books that I reviewed to the bullshit in my life, but I guess I lied. Continuing on the idea of discussing books that really affected me and impacted me when I was younger  (although, older high-school age for these books), I want to discuss "How I Live Now" by Meg Rosoff & "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Both books take horrible situations and present them as if they are completely normal. Without wanting to ruin the books for you, "How I Live Now" is effectively about war and what happens when (somewhat) ordinary people get caught in the middle of it, whereas "Never Let Me Go" is about the ethics of cloning, although neither actually address their issues face on. They present the human cost of the "greater good" from different angles but both produce a remarkably disturbing atmosphere.

"How I Live Now" somehow manages to be simultaneously dreary and despairingly depressing and yet bursting with life and energy and joie de vivre. It is bleak but brilliant.

"Never Let Me Go", on the other hand, is more reflective, so a tad more dull in my opinion, as the character-narrator is older and although both narrate from the present looking into the past, Ishiguro's writing style is just that bit more sombre and mournful.

The horror of these texts is not a visual, graphic kind but a quiet, desperate horror. The horror lies in the readiness with which the characters accept their fate. They face a world that they have no control over and that doesn't value them and there isn't anything they can do about it. There is no Katniss Everdeen in these stories. No Harry Potter or Bella Swan. They create worlds in which something epic is taking place, but focus on a few characters; indeed, both books have a local area, a house in the English countryside and a boarding school called Hailsham, which seem ordinary but become contaminated by the evils of their respective worlds as the novels progress. My only criticism is that the narratives can become a bit plodding (and then this happened, and then this happened, and then, etc.) but I think this pace helps pack the overall punch. Although that's an crap way to describe it. It's less punch, more slowly degenerative disease. As if you almost don't notice the effect. Like Joyce's Godawfully boring sermon-scenes in  "A Portrait of The Artist As A Young Man", which point out how boring real sermons are in real life. According to my Uni Tutor.

Back to the books.

The helpless protagonists do not transform into the most important players in an epic battle as in a lot of YA fiction, instead they remain desperate and vulnerable while their situations get worse and worse. I suppose this makes it more realistic, but it also makes for very grim reading. You've been warned.

I hope I haven't revealed too much. I hope I haven't put you off. These texts are excellent, particularly Meg Rosoff's one, in the way they reveal the terrible price of their alternative universes through the domestic and the local and the ordinary. And of course, their alternative universes are not really any different from our own.

I realise this isn't a great review, but bear with me, I'm new here.

PART 2 (BULLSHIT)

How does this relate to my life? Prepare for an unhappy slice of Bullshit.

I thought these books were relevant for the stifling tones they create. That sounds terrible and far too dramatic! The truth, though, is that right now my life feels quite dramatic. It is as if I'm living in a vacuum and all the air is being sucked out of the house and I'm just struggling to keep a hold of everything because if I don't it'll all go flying down into some dark, ominous hole of doom.

It's not really that bad, but I've recently been experiencing the dark side of student accommodation. I had better provide some exposition here, so you understand what I'm on about.

I live in a house with six people (myself included in that number), and all of us students. Two of my housemates are my best friends from first-year, Allison and Samuel. The other three are third-years who are about to graduate, who we didn't know before we moved in. My full first name is William and that also happens to be the name of one of the third-years. Early on in the year, some conflict arose between me and the other Will and I'm not really sure whose fault it was. As the year went on I fell into depression which was caused by personal issues but which led me to become quite isolated. During this period of depression I wasn't a very good housemate, but neither were my housemates very tolerating of me. Understandably, they got fed up having this dreary mess who never left his room and moped about feeling shitty all the time.

Anyway, it reached a point in early-April when I had an incident which led me to get very drunk and very confrontational and I woke everyone up at like 4am. My best-friend Samuel decided he had had enough and cut me off. Completely ignoring me at every opportunity.

I realise I must seem like a total dick here, and I guess I sort of was, so it was totally my own fault that the house has become so unbearable to live in, but at the same time, I have definitely also been scape-goated and unfairly picked on. (This was meant to be a succinct summary of events; TOTAL FAIL.)

There are two sides to every story, and I am definitely sharing the one that paints me in the worst light, which is probably rather accurate, but I do believe this year I was genuinely ill and although my housemates may not want a depressed person living with them, that's what they have and it was not fair of them to make me unwelcome in my own house (which I have to pay £390 a month for!).

Anyway, the reason it is such a big deal that Samuel has been ignoring me for two months is that since early February I have realised that I am in love with him. Part of the reason for my depression this year was having to come to terms with my sexuality (I'm gay) and the loss of my faith (I was Catholic). In addition, I have never been in love with anyone before, so having him ignore me like I'm nothing to him, because he doesn't want anything more to do with me, is making me really understand what all those lonely Adele songs mean.

The worst part is that I know I have single-handedly destroyed our friendship. I never realised how poisonous unrequited love could be! And I never thought I would do anything like this.

I went to an all boys' school and it was while I was there that I decided that I would never think about or fantasise about straight guys (consciously anyway) to stop myself getting in this sort of situation. I had known people who had fallen for other people who were out of their league and so on, but I thought nothing could be stupider than falling for someone who is out of your orientation! But now I've done it too!

It feels as if it has crept up on me like a thief in the night, taking my rationality and replacing it with crazy stupid yearning. A gay man in love with his best friend, I'm such a cliché!

So recently we went on a meal out as a house, and Samuel ignored me the whole time, as expected, but what I didn't see coming was how he tried to exclude me from the group conversations. On the rare occasions when I did join in, he would flat out ignore whatever I'd said, which made it awkward for my other housemates who didn't know what to do or how to react.

I've never found it hard to be in social situations. Sure, in some instances I might be shy, or reserved. But in this situation I should have been relaxed and enjoying myself. Instead, I was having panic attacks. I kept having to excuse myself to go to the bathroom so I could regain posture. Eventually, I just left and ran to the beach, where I met my friend Mathilde, who let me sit with her and chat, to try and take my mind off the fact that I couldn't breathe properly. (On a side note: a surprising result of me running away from the house-meal was that Catriona, one of the third years, had a go at Samuel for his behaviour and exclusion of me, which is a very touching act, that I did not expect from her.)

Now part of having a panic attack is an urge to flee the scene, run away somewhere and the feeling that you're going to die, all of which I've experienced before, but never so often and never as a direct result of a claustrophobic social environment.

It's not like at school either, where I was targeted for my homosexuality by bullies and other bastards who all thought I had a big gay crush on them, because I can't go home and feel like I've got my own space. Instead, I go home and sit in my room and I'm afraid to go to the kitchen or the toilet lest I see my housemates on the way. There's no escaping this sensation of oppressive terror. If you've ever been on one of those fairground rides where you feel like you're being crushed by G-force; well, that's how it is to live in my house right now. I can hear my pulse in my ears and it feels as if someone has tried to tear my heart from my chest with an ice-cream scooper. It's this intense, agonising misery and if this is what it is to be in love I'd gladly never feel this way again. Because as bad a housemate as I've been, the real issue here is that it's made Samuel not want to be friends with me. And I have become so dependent on him this past year, so close to him that I don't know how to stop being in love with him.

I know that love is a verb, it's an action, a doing-word, and it is something I am actively doing, but I don't know how to stop. I don't even know when or how I started. It seems like ever since he cut me off, I just feel everything ten times stronger.

So this doesn't relate that well to living in a war zone or being a clone, but at the moment my world feels just as desperate, vulnerable and powerless. And I really don't think there is much I can do, I just have to endure it.

Until my next post,

Billy xx

The Devil & The Angel: A book about child murder and a strange night out

So this blog, as the title suggests, is intended to be a combination of two things: Books & Bullshit. The first part will chronicle my thoughts on what I'm reading, and hopefully help me improve my ability to discuss and review books. The second part will probably just be me ranting about my life, but hopefully it'll be more interesting than that. If the two parts of the blog come together, than that'll be great, but I'm not going to go all teen-movie and try to apply the meaning of each book to some piece of drama in my life. I realise that this might produce a blog that is two halves and poorly stuck together, but I've wanted to make a Review-Blog and Journal-Blog for a while now, so this is my attempt to kill two birds with one stone.

My name is Billy Whittard, and I'm a twenty-year old university student. Pleased to meet you :)

PART 1 (Books)

So the book of this blog post is my most recent read: 'Looking for JJ' by Anne Cassidy. I first read it when I was about 11, at school, and then never came across it again. It was one of the first "Youth Fiction" books I read when I was transitioning from Children's literature to Young Adult, and it was almost certainly one of the books that had the biggest impact. I was quite young, but I had experienced the murder of a friend about a year or so before, and though the murderer of my friend was 16, whereas the child-murderer is 10 in the book, it was the first time I had read anything written from the POV of the murderer themselves.

Without wanting to give away too much information, 'Looking for JJ' details the attempt at rehabilitation of a notorious child-killer, back into society. The present story runs parallel with details of the past, showing how the protagonist, then-Jennifer Jones-now-Alice Tully, grew up with a neglecting mother, an unstable childhood and a good heart despite a tendency to lose her temper in little fits of rage every now and again. Unfortunately, for 10 year old Jennifer Jones, that temper results in a terrible crime.

The story is very well constructed and written. It provides us with a lot of material to create sympathy for JJ, but it doesn't shy away from making it clear that JJ killed another child, and must be thought of as a killer. Still, it does a good job at humanising a child-murderer as the media so often portrays children who kill as monsters or creepy evil children without a trace of innocence. Cassidy is also excellent at creating her other child characters. Although, I felt the other children were largely had to empathise with, (in fact I'd say many of them were grating and annoying) I distinctly remember childhood feeling more like this complex social world of enemies and allies that is suggested in 'Looking for JJ', than the 'everyone-was-friends' notion that gets created when people look back and discuss their childhoods or when they talk of the recently deceased. I also felt the ending very appropriate, but somewhat inevitable. Nonetheless, I admire this book for its ability to tackle a controversial topic, and write on it in a way accessible to children and adults, creating a compelling story that I couldn't put down.

Additionally, I felt a lot of distaste towards myself after reading this book; although this was probably just because I was thinking about it so much. But I definitely felt as repulsive as the media which relentlessly hunts down JJ and shares all the grizzly details it can come up with in the daily papers. I devoured this book with a thirst for all the juicy details in the same way the media scrutinise real murder cases, making the experiences doubly painful for everyone involved, from the killer to the victims to the community.

It reminded me of the murder that happened to my own childhood-friend, and of a more recent child-murder that happened in a nearby town - the town that my friend Mel has gone home to. I'm sure if you read it, it will remind you of your own particular cases. I'm not sure if the book was meant to carry a specific message, but I certainly took away from it the understanding of how important it is to try to empathise. Even when people have done terrible things. And it also raised the importance of sensitivity and respect, and that these should prevail over curiosity and humanity's inherent interest in grizzly and morbid details.

I think Anne Cassidy's book addresses a well-trodden topic, from an original but potentially dangerous/offensive point-of-view and crafts a well-thought-out and sensitive story.

PART 2 (Bullshit)

I suppose the most notable thing to happen to my recently was a particularly peculiar night out. I had met my friend Mel Rigby earlier in the day, and she had invited me out on the spur of the moment, however, because she had gone for pre-drinks, I didn't actually go to meet her until much later than usual at around 11.30pm. I was to meet her and two mates in Academia, a local bar which was almost a club, very popular with students and which had also once been a church.

Academia has two main rooms and an upstairs, which was boarded off by a rope and security for a private party. Mel had texted me that she was upstairs to which I had exasperatedly told her that there was a private party and upstairs was closed off! She then told me she was part of the private party, and I should come up to meet them, even though I did not know the birthday girl herself. The strangeness of this may bypass you if you are not a penniless student as well. A private party at a popular bar! That must have cost money to book! To rent out and use for some purpose I couldn't quite see, given that nobody seemed to be having any more fun than they might on a normal night out... It was just surprisingly sophisticated for a student birthday. :S

Anyway, it was there that I met Mel's mates: Alice and Ruby. Both were very beautiful, long-legged and looked like Bond Girls. I couldn't really hear what was being said though, (as in Academia they play the music at a volume that seems to be trying to turn its audience deaf) so our introductions began with an awkward case of misidentification.

- 'My name is Ruby.'
- 'OH, AS IN RUBY RUTHERFORD?'
- 'Sorry?'
- 'RUTHERFORD?'
- 'Sorry?'
- 'RUTHERFORD?'
- 'Sorry?'
- 'ARE YOU RUBY RUTHERFORD?'
- 'No, my surname is Surrey!'
- ... 'Oh.'

This awkward encounter prefigured the later bizarro convo at the Vanity pub, where we went next for Cocktails. Somehow we stumbled upon the subject of religion, whereupon Alice and Ruby announced themselves both devout Christians who believed in the devil.

I should probably stop here to add a bit of context - I was also discussing my own beliefs, and I shared that I had come to the realisation that I was most likely gay and most likely unable to change that.

So both girls assured me they had personal experience of the power of God transforming the sexuality of people who had been 'of the devil', although when I asked them at what age they had chosen to be heterosexual, both admitted they had never had to choose. But they implored me to seek God, and suggested that they each knew men who had been gay and had been cured, and Alice even knew one man who had gone on to marry and have children.

This may not be shocking to you. Maybe a few years ago, when I was still religious myself, it would not have shocked me. I think what I was most taken aback by was the fervour with which they proclaimed that homosexuality is a sin, and an abomination. It was not malicious, however, in the way they spoke, but something altogether more scary; a sense of total righteousness, as if they were doing me a favour by informing me of my status as an 'abomination'.

After the Cocktails, Alice and Ruby opted to go home, and although Mel was returning home to her parents' house the next day, I convinced her to stay out and join me at The Angel. Our town is a small town, with only two clubs, plus The Angel, which somehow didn't really count. It is almost as if it is a secret club, but I suppose the real reason it isn't billed as a nightclub is that it isn't very popular. The dance floor and DJ area are hidden at the back, behind a run-down bar, which the barmaid likes to boast is the 'roughest bar in town'.

But when the students are in town (for I live and study in a 'University town'), The Angel is my favourite place. Depending on the night it is either full of hipsters who can't dance or losers who can't dance. I belong to the latter category, so that suits me fine. The drinks are fairly cheap, though not Free-Love cheap like the other nearby nightclub, which I appreciate as it means you're not swamped with sports societies downing as many shots as they can before puking all over other people's shoes. The music is either high-tech-dub-step-electro-synthetic-liquid-house (none of these labels mean anything to me- all I can hear is music that seems to me to be what epilepsy might sound like if it were a song) or good old sing-along songs ranging from Bonnie Tyler to Queen to Rihanna to the Beach Boys. Cheesy, mainstream, my kind of stuff. Leave sophistication to the sober, that's what I think. I want to dance to songs I know.

But when the students aren't in town, The Angel reveals itself in it's true form. Like Superman stepping out of his Lycra and returning to his crappy office job, so an empty Angel reveals a run-down bar, seedy people, dingy decor, and drunken loners. Of the creepy old kind.

Still, it wasn't quite empty enough to be so bleak when Mel and I arrived. We met my friend Catrin, a petite blonde girl with a heart-shaped face and a love of owls. Catrin was dancing with some other friend/acquaintances, namely Louise, 'Little Man' and a very drunk Fernando. The dancing was briefly punctuated when I endured a twenty-minute panic attack, and Mel loyally came outside with me and rolled some tobacco for me to calm down with. (I'll post more on these panic attacks in my next post.) Luckily, the attack subsided, and we went back in. The rest of the night was great fun. The sort of semi-drunk, bad-dancing, passing-by-in-a-haze, carefree fun that soars above its seedy surroundings, and can't be done justice in writing.

Until my next post,

Billy xx