What Is A Hero?
Sebastian Faulks is presenting a series on the novel, Saturday nights, and is taking the interesting approach of concentrating on characters rather than novelists. So far so good. He tends to start well in each programme, saying lots of sensible things about Robinson Crusoe, for instance, or Tom Jones. It’s when he gets close to the present that his mind seems to blur.
For instance, he ended the first programme – on The Hero – by considering the protagonist of Martin Amis’s novel, Money, John Self. (Geddit? He’s all Self.) Actually he isn’t even that. He’s just a tube along which pass drugs, alcohol and fast food in one direction, and semen, vomit etc in the other. What makes him heroic in the Faulks view? The vigour of his language – an idea which would have its merits, except John Self is too much of a moron to be capable of it. So whose language is it then? The author’s (hang on, I thought we weren’t considering them). In which case, who is the hero – Martin Amis or his moist and sprawling protagonist?
Don’t worry about the question too much, though, because Sebastian Faulks assures us at the end of the programme that heroes may have decamped to crime or children’s novels, “but for literary novels it’s over, the hero is dead, end of story.” How does he arrive at this clever but vacuous assertion? I think we may sniff the scent of historiography in this. He wants to sketch a story over time: decline and fall of the hero. He wants a ‘narrative arc’ stretching from admirable beginning to contemptible ending. He wants to arrive at the standard ‘nowadays-is-shit’ mantra.
However, that’s his problem, not ours. I would say the scope for heroes (male and female) is greater than ever now. Why? Because widespread education and tolerant attitudes allow us to learn far more about people than we might have done in the past. We can glimpse great triumphs in cramped spaces, noble struggles in impossible situations, uplifting compassion in the midst of oppression.
We can, of course, see plenty of unheroic things too. However, as my mum kept quoting at me: ‘Two look out from prison bars; one sees mud and the other sees stars.’ It’s up to us what we wish to focus on, but to say the hero is dead is to give the victory to mud.
Have a look at this. It’s the final of the
1972 Olympic 800 metres race, and the guy in the golf cap at the
back is a total no-hoper, not even in the same race as the rest.
But keep watching. Who’s the hero by the end?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwGxLfWSnEM
That, for me, is an image to bear in mind as I look about me at life’s no-hopers. The hero can take many forms, some of them highly unpromising.
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15 Comments
I expect that Mr Faulks, as you say, is working his way to a smug and cynical "life is shit and then you die" conclusion, probably expressed in a rather more pretentious way.
Well, people have needed heroes since stories began - The Hero's Journey is the grandaddy of all plots. And they will continue to need them - I wonder what Mr Faulks makes of the fact that so many "adult" versions of children's books are produced?
Either that, or he has been listening to too many Stranglers and Tina Turner songs.
BTW, I think SF has seriously lost his way as a novelist. I loved Birdsong, The Girl at the Lion D'Or and even forgave him the psychology lectures in "Human Traces" but his latest offering, "A Week in December" was seriously dire. Maybe he should introduce a hero into his next book.
I was really looking forward to it which makes the disappointment worse. And what happened to Ivanhoe? It's lovers in episode two isn't it?
Great bit of video, Gerry.
BTW Spi, for what it's worth I think Lion D'Or is his best.
I wouldn't volunteer to hold a candle for Martin Amis to write by (What? The man would need to suffer brain damage before writing for children?! Amis is a buffoon!) but he has a point when he says that the hero has decamped to crime or childrens' novels. I am no longer able to read as avidly as I used to, but I would be interested to know where there is a true hero in English literature awarded a prize in the last ten years.
I agree that the scope for heroes (in my country) was never greater than it is today. Not because 'widespread education and tolerant attitudes' allow us to learn more about people but because state education - cramped by laws against the nurturing of above-average intelligence - plus PC intolerance of talking to each other in any meaningful way rob us of the ability to interact with our fellows.
"Nowadays-is-shit" is not the mantra for you and me, Gerry because we care and want to make a difference. But there is no denying that our young people - the most beautiful young people - are in increasing numbers under-achieving, poisoning their bodies with chemicals, sleeping on the streets or in squats, spewing in gutters, urinating on memorials to the dead, attacking medics called out to help them in our cities every day.
Yes, we can glimpse great triumphs in cramped spaces; noble struggles in impossible situations; uplifting compassion in the midst of oppression but we would need to travel to Africa (as you did in your youth), Asia, South America at al for that, Gerry; or live through the intense blitzkrieg waged on Britain during World War 2 (as I did in mine) to experience more than a passing glimpse of all that.
Your Mother's quotation is beautiful and I love it. It was meant to inspire you to focus on the best you could aspire to and I believe we all have it in us to reach for the stars but yet ... should we ignore the mud beneath our feet? I don't think so, and I don't believe you do either. A hero for our time would save our vulnerable young people from the mud they seem determined to wallow in for want of any other exciting or challenging experience.
I don't know how to do that but a true hero for our time would.
BTW, I think we are being a bit hard on SF, who has achieved quite a lot in my book (sorry!). I would swap my writing CV with his. Tall poppy syndrome?
Surely the point of programmes like this is to appeal to a much wider audience than the enthusiasts. If this gets more people interested in books and literature, I think its very welcome.
If he is right, is it not because the movers and shakers shy away from, literally, heroic investment? There is no way that there is a lack of writers in the literary hero mould. I just refuse to believe it.
And yup, we got both mud and stars - and so far as I'm concerned the job is to raise the sights from one to the other, which means you got to start with the mud, at least. (Which is probably more or less what you said.)
Imp, yet we mustn't cane S Faulks- indeed must remember no work of art - be it a book, play or TV prog - is ever perfect - and some of the most imperfect are the greatest (e.g. Hamlet). He talked good stuff about Robinson Crusoe, Tom Jones, Becky Sharp, Sherlock Holmes, Winston Smith (1984) and Lucky Jim Dixon - so I think he'd bought enough cred to get away with being silly about Martin Amis (but it was a risk!)
EzBloke - I do suspect he gave in to being a guru - plugging his own book mid-prog struck me as pushing his luck.
John: must look out for Cool Running - inspiration always welcome
SecretSpi - yes indeed, the Hero's Journey - I also like the Heroine's Journey - Inanna's descent into the underworld (and other tales) c.5000 y.a. - possibly predating Gilgamesh
AlanP: did you look at Lovers (episode 2)? - he dived straight into the urban wasteland again as soon as he hit mid 20th century - I think he's trying to say something
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