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In 2013, the Irish journalist Joanne Hayden reviewed “two welcome and vital new voices in Irish fiction”, Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, and Anakana Schofield’s Malarky: A Novel in Episodes.
Malarky (my review) starred the eccentric Philomena, aka Our Woman. But Hayden's review drew attention to the supporting cast, particularly noting that “Bina, one of the gang, is every bit as bonkers and entertaining as Philomena”, to Schofield’s delight (http://anakanaschofield.com/2013/08/): “I love that Joanne Hayden so intelligently discerned the overturning of stereotypes in Malarky and that she picked up on Bina in the book who I’m partial to.” Bina’s first scene from Malarky:
In a later scene in Malarky, Bina visits Our Woman (aka Phil) in hospital, where she is receiving both physical and psychological care, encountering an eccentric fellow patient, who they nickname Beirut, due to his obsession with the city.
When his mother visits, they discover his real name, Martin John, (and the delusional nature of his obsession): "Our Woman decides its not a good name for him." A footnote says ‘See Martin John: A footnote novel” and indeed Martin John’s story was the subject of Schofield’s eponymous 2nd novel (my review), which is essentially A Novel in Refrains.
Now Schofield’s 3rd novel, inspired as she acknowledges by Hayden’s review, focuses on the story of Bina. Called Bina: A Novel in Warnings, the 74 year-old first-person narrator immediately sets us right on the pronunciation of her name, and gives her first two warnings.
My name is Bina and I'm a very busy woman. That's Bye-na, not Beena. I don't know who Beena is but I expect she's having a happy life. I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come all this way here to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you not to reassure you.
I am a modern person with modern thoughts on modern things. I’m not a young person, so I’m used to being ignored. I expect you won’t listen. The last time we met nobody listened to me[1].
If you see me on the road and I pay no heed to you, know I have very good reasons for doing so. If you ever see a person lying in a ditch[2], drive straight past them as fast as you can. And if a man comes to your door, do not open it.
These serve as my first two warnings.
Footnotes:
[1] See, Malarky, a Novel in Episodes.
[2]. Because I was reassured. He’s a nice lad they said, he wasn’t.
The first of these men is the ‘pretend son’ that featured briefly in Malarky. His name Eddie, he crashed his motorcycle into the wall outside her house, where she finds him in a ditch, and when he later leaves hospital, she takes him in, only to spend the following years strongly regretting it. As the novel opens, he has finally, to her relief, flown the nest, to Canada – which leads to a great comic set-piece comparing Justin Trudeau to the Taoiseach:
I didn’t like their Prime Minister, he was flighty. Looks like it take off if he went rolling up an escalator too fast. But he’s a good coat on him. I don’t like our prime minister. He is an awful man. I can’t remember his name but he’s very hairy ears though. A bit like a wolf.
I’ll be honest I’m only repeating what a woman I delivered Meals on Wheels to said about him, because I’m not much for television. Her name was Mary and one day out of nowhere she said, would you look at the ears on him. She was pointing at the television channel claiming it was the Taoiseach. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was actually a badger and now I’m after repeating the story myself without remembering the woman was confused. She was angry about something, I forget what. I agreed with what she was angry about. For I’m angry about a lot of things and I have no one agreeing with me at all.
That’s a warning. Two even.
Find someone who will agree with you.
Don’t repeat stories about people on the television.
But many of her warnings to the reader, and her own anger, follow from her experience with Eddie. Bina’s kidney problems were noted in Malarky, and here she blames them on him:
He’s mad as a goat, they’ll say. Yet I never met a goat as mad as a man.
Goats never caused me mounds of grief.
Goats never sat like a pile of rank mush in my kitchen.
Worse thing they ever did was eat something they couldn’t digest, yet you’d no more go down their throat after it. You leave them be. You let them decide, do you want to live or die? Do you want to carry on or take a left turn?
A man though, he could get into your kidneys and irritate them & you in a very special way. It’s why women are up in the night to go to the toilet as they age. They are widdling the confused strain of anger gathered up in there all day. I’ve no explanation as to why men are up piddling all night too, except perhaps it’s God’s subtle way of tormenting them. He goes straight for the pipe does our Saviour.
Out of the toilet quick, Bina!
Before I’m distracted.
I’m an awful woman for distraction.
Curiosity was my downfall.
You’ll see yet.
The second, known as The Tall Man, who came to her door, is the reason for her warnings about curiosity. He represents ‘The Group’ and wants her, using her position and compassion as a Meals-on-Wheels lady, visiting the home-bound and vulnerable, to help them in their highly secretive, and probably illegal, mission. When she accepts he trains her, largely using Scrabble:
Think about it, he said. Think about how words sit beside each other, think about how one word can blend and become another. Become aware of the shape of the words leaving your mouth. Be noncommittal in all that you say. We are using the language of cover. We have to cover. We have to protect. We have to honour the wishes of our clients.
I had no good clue what he was wittering on about so I covered and nodded.
Exactly what she is asked to do becomes clearer, although never 100% explicit, as the novel progresses. We do soon learn that Phil, from Malarky, has recently died, her daughters blame Bina, who herself is devastated by the loss of her friend, that Bina has spent a week on remand in prison and is facing a trial, that David Bowie comes to her in dreams with messages although he is gradually turning into a penguin, and her house is now protected from the authorities by a gang of Crusties (shades of another recent Irish novel, Kevin Barry's Night Boat to Tangier) who tell her it's not her fault and everything is ultimately the fault of the ECB ... or is it the TSB (Bina isn’t clear):
The TSB Is digging up Nigeria, they say. The TSB is doing all kinds of bad things to mammals and kerbs and eating tires and beating clouds and imprisoning pandas.
The novel consists of Bina’s Warnings and Remarkings from what she has learned from her experience, but all told rather obliquely given the risk as her solicitor and The Group advise her, that things may be used in evidence against her:
But if she is talking and saying nothing
There's sometimes a lot being said
Listen into the gaps of what's not being said and you'll find your answer.
Another excellent novel from Schofield – experimental in literary terms, funny, and yet wise and compassionate. Not yet published in the UK (I had to buy my copy from Canada) but a sure-fire Goldsmiths contender when it does.
An interview with the author (which does explain what Bina is asked to do, so may be best read after the novel):
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2019/05/16/anakana-schofields-new-novel-bina-asks-would-you-help-a-friend-to-die.html
I feel like this book could provoke an interesting public conversation, but it doesn’t have to. It’s a work of literature. I take language, I take form, I take character, I take cadence and I put that on the page. And through those literary terms I try to explore some fundamental questions.”
Two other reviews:
https://consumedbyink.ca/2019/06/12/bina-by-anakana-schofield/
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/bina-a-novel-in-warnings-a-book-you-must-read-but-can-t-1.3950360
Malarky (my review) starred the eccentric Philomena, aka Our Woman. But Hayden's review drew attention to the supporting cast, particularly noting that “Bina, one of the gang, is every bit as bonkers and entertaining as Philomena”, to Schofield’s delight (http://anakanaschofield.com/2013/08/): “I love that Joanne Hayden so intelligently discerned the overturning of stereotypes in Malarky and that she picked up on Bina in the book who I’m partial to.” Bina’s first scene from Malarky:
In a later scene in Malarky, Bina visits Our Woman (aka Phil) in hospital, where she is receiving both physical and psychological care, encountering an eccentric fellow patient, who they nickname Beirut, due to his obsession with the city.
When his mother visits, they discover his real name, Martin John, (and the delusional nature of his obsession): "Our Woman decides its not a good name for him." A footnote says ‘See Martin John: A footnote novel” and indeed Martin John’s story was the subject of Schofield’s eponymous 2nd novel (my review), which is essentially A Novel in Refrains.
Now Schofield’s 3rd novel, inspired as she acknowledges by Hayden’s review, focuses on the story of Bina. Called Bina: A Novel in Warnings, the 74 year-old first-person narrator immediately sets us right on the pronunciation of her name, and gives her first two warnings.
My name is Bina and I'm a very busy woman. That's Bye-na, not Beena. I don't know who Beena is but I expect she's having a happy life. I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come all this way here to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you not to reassure you.
I am a modern person with modern thoughts on modern things. I’m not a young person, so I’m used to being ignored. I expect you won’t listen. The last time we met nobody listened to me[1].
If you see me on the road and I pay no heed to you, know I have very good reasons for doing so. If you ever see a person lying in a ditch[2], drive straight past them as fast as you can. And if a man comes to your door, do not open it.
These serve as my first two warnings.
Footnotes:
[1] See, Malarky, a Novel in Episodes.
[2]. Because I was reassured. He’s a nice lad they said, he wasn’t.
The first of these men is the ‘pretend son’ that featured briefly in Malarky. His name Eddie, he crashed his motorcycle into the wall outside her house, where she finds him in a ditch, and when he later leaves hospital, she takes him in, only to spend the following years strongly regretting it. As the novel opens, he has finally, to her relief, flown the nest, to Canada – which leads to a great comic set-piece comparing Justin Trudeau to the Taoiseach:
I didn’t like their Prime Minister, he was flighty. Looks like it take off if he went rolling up an escalator too fast. But he’s a good coat on him. I don’t like our prime minister. He is an awful man. I can’t remember his name but he’s very hairy ears though. A bit like a wolf.
I’ll be honest I’m only repeating what a woman I delivered Meals on Wheels to said about him, because I’m not much for television. Her name was Mary and one day out of nowhere she said, would you look at the ears on him. She was pointing at the television channel claiming it was the Taoiseach. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was actually a badger and now I’m after repeating the story myself without remembering the woman was confused. She was angry about something, I forget what. I agreed with what she was angry about. For I’m angry about a lot of things and I have no one agreeing with me at all.
That’s a warning. Two even.
Find someone who will agree with you.
Don’t repeat stories about people on the television.
But many of her warnings to the reader, and her own anger, follow from her experience with Eddie. Bina’s kidney problems were noted in Malarky, and here she blames them on him:
He’s mad as a goat, they’ll say. Yet I never met a goat as mad as a man.
Goats never caused me mounds of grief.
Goats never sat like a pile of rank mush in my kitchen.
Worse thing they ever did was eat something they couldn’t digest, yet you’d no more go down their throat after it. You leave them be. You let them decide, do you want to live or die? Do you want to carry on or take a left turn?
A man though, he could get into your kidneys and irritate them & you in a very special way. It’s why women are up in the night to go to the toilet as they age. They are widdling the confused strain of anger gathered up in there all day. I’ve no explanation as to why men are up piddling all night too, except perhaps it’s God’s subtle way of tormenting them. He goes straight for the pipe does our Saviour.
Out of the toilet quick, Bina!
Before I’m distracted.
I’m an awful woman for distraction.
Curiosity was my downfall.
You’ll see yet.
The second, known as The Tall Man, who came to her door, is the reason for her warnings about curiosity. He represents ‘The Group’ and wants her, using her position and compassion as a Meals-on-Wheels lady, visiting the home-bound and vulnerable, to help them in their highly secretive, and probably illegal, mission. When she accepts he trains her, largely using Scrabble:
Think about it, he said. Think about how words sit beside each other, think about how one word can blend and become another. Become aware of the shape of the words leaving your mouth. Be noncommittal in all that you say. We are using the language of cover. We have to cover. We have to protect. We have to honour the wishes of our clients.
I had no good clue what he was wittering on about so I covered and nodded.
Exactly what she is asked to do becomes clearer, although never 100% explicit, as the novel progresses. We do soon learn that Phil, from Malarky, has recently died, her daughters blame Bina, who herself is devastated by the loss of her friend, that Bina has spent a week on remand in prison and is facing a trial, that David Bowie comes to her in dreams with messages although he is gradually turning into a penguin, and her house is now protected from the authorities by a gang of Crusties (shades of another recent Irish novel, Kevin Barry's Night Boat to Tangier) who tell her it's not her fault and everything is ultimately the fault of the ECB ... or is it the TSB (Bina isn’t clear):
The TSB Is digging up Nigeria, they say. The TSB is doing all kinds of bad things to mammals and kerbs and eating tires and beating clouds and imprisoning pandas.
The novel consists of Bina’s Warnings and Remarkings from what she has learned from her experience, but all told rather obliquely given the risk as her solicitor and The Group advise her, that things may be used in evidence against her:
But if she is talking and saying nothing
There's sometimes a lot being said
Listen into the gaps of what's not being said and you'll find your answer.
Another excellent novel from Schofield – experimental in literary terms, funny, and yet wise and compassionate. Not yet published in the UK (I had to buy my copy from Canada) but a sure-fire Goldsmiths contender when it does.
An interview with the author (which does explain what Bina is asked to do, so may be best read after the novel):
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2019/05/16/anakana-schofields-new-novel-bina-asks-would-you-help-a-friend-to-die.html
I feel like this book could provoke an interesting public conversation, but it doesn’t have to. It’s a work of literature. I take language, I take form, I take character, I take cadence and I put that on the page. And through those literary terms I try to explore some fundamental questions.”
Two other reviews:
https://consumedbyink.ca/2019/06/12/bina-by-anakana-schofield/
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/bina-a-novel-in-warnings-a-book-you-must-read-but-can-t-1.3950360