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The Book of Voices
edited by Michael Butscher
(in support of Sierra Leone PEN; Flame Books, £8, March 2005;
ISBN 095459455-X.)
Review by Nick Jackson
 This
collection of 14 stories has been well-chosen to convey the book's message:
that storytelling has the power to guide thought and opinion and to
influence culture. From the darkly fantastic to the bleakly urban, from
sharply satirical to gently poignant, the pieces are diverse and original.
They are also collectively powerful; themes and images are developed
and echoed in successive stories.
The collection opens with Catherynne M. Valente's evocative 'Psalm
of the Second Body' which takes the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh inscribed
on clay tablets and elaborates on the ability of language and poetry
to awaken the spirit. The power of the written word is explored further
in Gregory Norminton's 'The Soul Surgeons', a description of the persecution
of playwrights in Elizabethan England for religious and political motives.
Told through the eyes of a scribe who sets down the confessions of a
tortured dramatist accused of heresy, Norminton lays bare the dilemma
of those who are compelled to participate in the brutality of suppression,
in precise and visceral imagery. The imagery of suppression and torture
recurs in 'Electric Fence', Gary Quinn's surreal black comedy, concerning
the horrors of Irish partition. The fate of the livestock in the story
is a bitter comment on man's inhumanity and the ending has a chilling
supernatural quality.
A much gentler pace and tone is set by Marc Paoletti in his story,
'Polenta', which depicts the suffering of dementia. Paoletti sets the
scene and develops his characters with careful detail. There is great
warmth and insight in this story, which encapsulates the cultural alienation
of Italian immigrants in the US. The wonderful thing about this collection
is its scope and diversity at the same time as the themes of the stories
seem to merge. Paoletti's story of loss is echoed by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar's
'Dasi', an enigmatic portrayal of the subjugation of women in Hindi
religion. Through a series of minutely observed episodes in the lives
of different women, all widows, Rajakumar reveals their shared state
of dependence and humiliation outside of the institution of marriage.
Neil Grimmett explores another facet of loss in the complex story of
a Cretan woman's search for her lost family. The sense of mourning and
the poignancy of her search is rather diluted by the unsympathetic narrator
but the unravelling of truths is well-handled and the imagery is strong
and effective.
In 'Sally Moore', Yolanda Sorores focuses more closely on the act
of writing and what this means for the writer. The story describes a
young author's increasing success, gradually overcoming the fear of
writing instilled in her by a school teacher. The writer's quest is
redefined in 'Home' by Moshe Bennaroch, who takes up many of the earlier
themes of this collection: the search for origins, the sense of alienation
and indefinable loss. A journalist searches obsessively for a mysterious
book he remembers from his childhood - the text of which is different
for each reader. The Borgesian enigma is rather muddied by a rambling
narrative, but the author successfully captures the journalist's despair
on realising that the 'home' of the title is not to be found.
Political manipulation and forms of oppression are explored in work
by Andrew Hook and Patrick Neate. In 'Beyond Each Blue Horizon', Hook
conveys a claustrophobic vision of a country gripped by political censorship
on the eve of an election. The atmosphere of tension and paranoia builds
as the regime's opponents are gradually picked off: their fate symbolised
by the husks of clothes and possessions they leave behind. Neate adopts
a broad-brush approach to the political arena in 'The Age of Universal
Deceit', a humorous satire on the manipulation of language and morality
for political and commercial ends. Neate invents a future in which an
intellectual reflects back on our present world and comments on our
political and moral decay to devastating effect. From the sphere of
international politics we are brought down to earth by Scott Kelly's
'No Story At All', which delves deeply into the essence of alienation
through a bar conversation between a small-town drunk and a recently
arrived drifter. Kelly subtly brings out the inexplicable fear underlying
the veneer of casual interactions.
Jeffrey Ford's 'Boatman's Holiday', which employs macabre fantasy
to evoke a vision of Hell, initially struck me as out of place in this
anthology. The author leaves it late to develop his theme: that the
human spirit is capable of transcending bodily torment. The power of
the imagination is elaborated further in Brian James' story, 'On the
Road to Godiva', a blending of traditional West African myths and alternative
reality. A young girl's desire to escape from the misery of her poverty-stricken
homeland to the USA is slowly broken down through a series of dream-like
episodes leading to a realisation of her power to effect change by staying
and striving for a better world. The power of the writer's spirit and
the transcendent qualities of the imagination are the defining elements
of Tanith Lee's story 'The Flame' which, reiterating many of the collection's
themes and images, provides a compelling conclusion to the anthology.
The image of the flame occurs as the ultimate symbol of the writer's
vocation.
The Book of Voices is more than the sum of its parts. The authors
conspire to lead us on a journey to fascinating corners of the world
and reveal surprising truths in persuasive and richly imaginative tongues.
Ambitious in its intention, it is a collection which deserves to be
widely read and appreciated.
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