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John Cromer #2
Cedilla
"Cedilla" continues the history of John Cromer begun by "Pilcrow", described by "The London Review of Books" as 'peculiar, original, utterly idiosyncratic' and by "The Sunday Times" as 'truly exhilarating'. These huge and sparkling books are particularly surprising coming from a writer of previously (let's be tactful) modest productivity, who had seemed stubbornly attached to small forms. Now the alleged miniaturist has rumbled into the literary traffic in his monster truck, and seems determined to overtake Proust's cork-lined limousine while it's stopped at the lights. John Cromer is the weakest hero in literature - unless he's one of the strongest. In "Cedilla" he launches himself into the wider world of mainstream education, and comes upon deeper joys, subtler setbacks. The tone and texture of the two books is similar, but their emotional worlds are very different. The slow unfolding of themes is perhaps closer to Indian classical music than the Western tradition - raga/saga, anyone? This isn't an epic novel as such things are normally understood, to be sure. It contains no physical battles and the bare minimum of travel, yet surely it qualifies. None of the reviews of "Pilcrow" explicitly compared it to a coral reef made of a billion tiny Crunchie bars, but that was the drift of opinion. Page by page, "Cedilla" too provides unfailing pleasure. It's the book you can read between meals without ruining your appetite.
733 pages, Hardcover
First published January 12, 2011
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211 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 29, 2012
I thought this one wandered a bit at the end, particularly as the narrator wraps up his Cambridge experience, but I could read Adam Mars-Jones forever. He writes with a rare combination of empathy, intellect, and gay sensibility. Can't wait for the third volume in this trilogy!
September 27, 2022
Is this book long? Yes. Also, I'm hoping for another 500 pages or so, as soon as quality permits, please. When I started this volume (the second in a promised trilogy), I presumed the author and publishers decided to combine books 2 and 3 into one large conclusion. Having completed this part of the journey with John, I am happy at the prospect for more.
What's it like? From page 11:
"In heaven there is to be no weeping, and presumably no wiping of arses. There isn't much literature about the after-life of bottoms, but there's enough. As Rabelais describes the virtuous dead in the Elysian Fields they're up to their arseholes in bliss, since they enjoy the great privilege of wiping themselves on the necks of live white geese, whose softness (in Sir Thomas Urquhart's version) 'imparts a sensible heat to the nockhole'. Something to look forward to, unless you're a goose."
(Wiping is a big problem for John because his limbs and hands have been severely compromised by the combined effects of a vicious arthritic disease and bungled medical treatment.)
What's it about? In PILCROW, John learned the power of language to manage others and to control his perception. His horizon-expanding triumph at that book's conclusion leads him, in CEDILLA, to make good on the opportunity and build on the result with diet, drugs of every variety, Hindu spiritualism, adventure, and counter-culture activism. It's fantastic, compulsive, and somehow consistent. Here's a quote from page 208 that summarizes the story:
"As for withdrawing from the world, it was not an attractive idea for me. I had only a toehold there and could easily lose my very marginal place. To adapt an old joke: the family is an institution - but who wants to live in an institution? Certainly not me. Even if I established some sort of independence from Mum and Dad there would always be institutions - hospitals, 'homes' - yawning to swallow me. To enter one of those would not be a way of transcending the world, only being shut out of it. That's not mystic withdrawal, that's eviction.
All my impetus was toward involvement. Between them my spiritual and pragmatic sides cooked up a rationale for this that suited them both: If you weren't really part of the world then withdrawing from it had no value. Let me get stuck in the life people lead. Then I would transcend its futility. But not before."
What's it like? From page 11:
"In heaven there is to be no weeping, and presumably no wiping of arses. There isn't much literature about the after-life of bottoms, but there's enough. As Rabelais describes the virtuous dead in the Elysian Fields they're up to their arseholes in bliss, since they enjoy the great privilege of wiping themselves on the necks of live white geese, whose softness (in Sir Thomas Urquhart's version) 'imparts a sensible heat to the nockhole'. Something to look forward to, unless you're a goose."
(Wiping is a big problem for John because his limbs and hands have been severely compromised by the combined effects of a vicious arthritic disease and bungled medical treatment.)
What's it about? In PILCROW, John learned the power of language to manage others and to control his perception. His horizon-expanding triumph at that book's conclusion leads him, in CEDILLA, to make good on the opportunity and build on the result with diet, drugs of every variety, Hindu spiritualism, adventure, and counter-culture activism. It's fantastic, compulsive, and somehow consistent. Here's a quote from page 208 that summarizes the story:
"As for withdrawing from the world, it was not an attractive idea for me. I had only a toehold there and could easily lose my very marginal place. To adapt an old joke: the family is an institution - but who wants to live in an institution? Certainly not me. Even if I established some sort of independence from Mum and Dad there would always be institutions - hospitals, 'homes' - yawning to swallow me. To enter one of those would not be a way of transcending the world, only being shut out of it. That's not mystic withdrawal, that's eviction.
All my impetus was toward involvement. Between them my spiritual and pragmatic sides cooked up a rationale for this that suited them both: If you weren't really part of the world then withdrawing from it had no value. Let me get stuck in the life people lead. Then I would transcend its futility. But not before."
January 20, 2018
The second instalment of John Cromer's life story picks up where the first left off, with our youthful white British suburban Hindu starting his A-Level studies. Unfortunately, this continuation of the school career is very much more of the same thing covered at length in the first volume and it gets a bit dull.
Things liven up considerably when Cromer goes off to India on a spiritual quest, then upon returning heads to Downs College, Cambridge where life proves to be neither easy nor stereotypical and being a wheel chair user makes one prone to being kidnapped, exploited and dropped down stairs...
We're left on a bit of a physical and emotional cliff-hanger and who knows when a Volume 3 might appear to tell us where John and his adapted Mini might go next?
Things liven up considerably when Cromer goes off to India on a spiritual quest, then upon returning heads to Downs College, Cambridge where life proves to be neither easy nor stereotypical and being a wheel chair user makes one prone to being kidnapped, exploited and dropped down stairs...
We're left on a bit of a physical and emotional cliff-hanger and who knows when a Volume 3 might appear to tell us where John and his adapted Mini might go next?
March 17, 2021
The second part of a trilogy, Cedilla follows on from Pilcrow with our hero John Cromer taking us through to the completion of his education, now in the mainstream. His education covers his time at grammar school and through to attaining a degree, and along the way includes a spell in India in pursuit of his spiritual interests.
This is very much in the same vein as Pilcrow, but on an even larger scale, a marathon read but a marathon that never tires one while it switches between episodes of John's progress through day to day life and digressions into thoughts often of his spiritual quest.
John may be physically small and severely restricted as a result of Still's disease, but he has a strength of character more than enough to compensate. He gradually discovers how to achieve what he wants and to use a disadvantage to advantage, including manoeuvring the occasional grope of any boy who appeals. His accounts are invariable couched in humour, and are at times moving.
However long Cedilla maybe it is not long enough, for I could happily spend some time each day in John's company in the assurance that I will be entertained, enlightened and possibly moved. There are no great dramas or major events, but again that is part of its appeal. Yet the closing pages I found especially moving, and hope it is not too long to wait for the third part of this trilogy to discover where John goes from here.
This is very much in the same vein as Pilcrow, but on an even larger scale, a marathon read but a marathon that never tires one while it switches between episodes of John's progress through day to day life and digressions into thoughts often of his spiritual quest.
John may be physically small and severely restricted as a result of Still's disease, but he has a strength of character more than enough to compensate. He gradually discovers how to achieve what he wants and to use a disadvantage to advantage, including manoeuvring the occasional grope of any boy who appeals. His accounts are invariable couched in humour, and are at times moving.
However long Cedilla maybe it is not long enough, for I could happily spend some time each day in John's company in the assurance that I will be entertained, enlightened and possibly moved. There are no great dramas or major events, but again that is part of its appeal. Yet the closing pages I found especially moving, and hope it is not too long to wait for the third part of this trilogy to discover where John goes from here.
Currently reading
February 22, 2011It is, veritably, a fractal brocade.
September 2, 2024
Not quite as polished as Pilcrow. But a real odyssey of disability, western Hinduism and realization of sexuality
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews