Just some quick thoughts as a sort of review of David Almond‘s book, published by Puffin, 2011, which I used with my Y3 students reflecting on the literary representations of learning to read. It could just as well have been for the Spirituality students next semester.
Spirituality
Almond moves through the issues of spirituality and transcendence in a number of works – perhaps most notably (until now) his masterpiece Skellig. Here again, themes (or at least images) re-emerge: wings, beetles, healing and decay, death and rebirth, as if to underline the similarity of the material. But this is a very different book: the narrator, moving through his life from infancy onwards (don’t worry; I will avoid a spoiler, since the final chapters are rather a page-turner) in the bombed town of Blinkbonny, reflects on his identity in a number of ways, most notably in who he is as a healer in his community. The storytelling is superb.
The premise of the book – that a child brought up in such unusual circumstances might grow up to be such an accomplished writer (despite his spelling – see below) gives the reader a lot to ponder. Is this a parable of “Becoming a Writer”? Is the folk-tale type about the Boy Overcoming Adversity? At one level, the child Billy has an upbringing that is difficult to comprehend: he grows up in near isolation, in a landscape and society destroyed by bombs, but has reasonable food, a supply of physical needs. I asked myself at various whether I should suspend disbelief (as one has to with Harry Potter, of course) about how well Billy grows up. Some entry into the fictional world Almond creates requires us to trust him in the improbabilities of the narrative, and some suspending of disbelief is certainly necessary, although some, perhaps, is not (and I’m avoiding a spoiler here): Billy is in the end faced with possibilities of escape and healing that are wholly consistent with his context.
So, this is a book about – hmmmm: I fight shy of such a simple solution. David Almond deals with a tragic situation , with exceptionally complex characters in search of resolutions that do not neatly dovetail. And this, for me, is why this is a very deep exploration of spirituality: Billy and his mother Veronica seem to want one thing; Billy’s father, Wilfrid is desperate for another. The butcher seeks a realisation or a self-actualisation about himself as a father; the nurse seeks solace in seeking for the voice of her daughter among the dead. Not everybody gets what they want as they grapple with the “why” of the narrative. Or do they? The characters are all depicted from Billy’s point of view, from his erratic reportage and weird orthography. Maybe their search for meaning is realised.
Maybe I shouldn’t make such an immediate judgement.
Language
Billy, whose literacy education has been erratic, from his irascible and largely absent father to the planchette of his spiritualist neighbour, writes a curious phonetically plausible English. This is a taste of it:
But we kept on tryin & I kept on not lernin & 1 day hed had enuf & he got mad with me cos I wos so thik.
Some of his words look and feel like proper misspellings, and while some may not, arguing about Billy’s orthography is a pointless distraction. This makes the work a challenging read, but emphasises Billy’s background and allows Almond to create a genuine voice for Billy. The chapter “The World Within” towards the end of the narrative where Billy, weary of the role he finds himself in, expresses sadness and delight at what we might think of as a mystical spiritualty is as a powerful set of insights into spirituality and suffering as I have ever seen in a book for young people:
Its like I turn into the world and the world turns into me.
And when it’s a world of beests and dust & water & fish then its so fine. Its like I am dancing…
But at other times it is a world of pane & death and war. The bomin of Blinkbonny takes place within me. I see it clearly… I don’t want these things taykin plays inside me time & time & time agen. But ther is no way to close my eres & eyes no way to block it all out.
Mebbe this is how things become for God.
This unusual and inconsistent use of unorthodox spelling also allows a very subtle language play, where, for example, right is written rite but retains, from time to time, its sense of ritual as well. Almond knows what he is doing here, and with rite and childe and cum (this is a book for older readers, if we can make that distinction) he pushes language to express multiple meanings. As Billy’s life becomes clearer, there are times when his spelling also rights itself like a wobbly raft:
Like the stars the sand the sea is he astounding.
I watch him. I write him.
And this is an astounding book.