Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/455578
IX This week maltatoday, Sunday, 1 February 2015 cHarlEs BriFFa Carmel Scicluna is a writer who does not turn away in lethargy, apathy, and repulsion from overbearing problems of social living includ- ing political and religious pressure. His attention is on the intractable social conditions as found in his time around him, and his allegiance seems to be to the truth. In his writings, there is a genuine sense of authorial decency that revolts at in- equity and iniquity. Although most of the stories are set in the political atmosphere of the seventies, eighties, and nineties of the 20th century, their essential qualities are still ap- plicable to present-day Malta. The accounts in this collection are among the best short stories of con- temporary life. They reflect a state of social tension as they depict the past decades since the 1970s – Scicluna was born in 1969. In Feruti – the word translates into 'the wounded people' and implies the wounds and pains of modern society – there are various documentary extracts in which the author uses his own personal experience and observa- tion of vulnerable and precarious spots to underline his sense of the world's inhumanity or insecurity. His characters are generally nurses or journalists, because they often have to face life's anguish and aches. By 'documentary' I mean that his narratives assume the attitude of recording social aspects that affect the individual. There are documentary stories like 'Ulied Stella' (which deals with a broken marriage because of health problems arising from the birth of the couple's children), 'Safra sa Vjenna' (which attempts to define political journalism), 'Ilma min- erali mlaqqat' (which treats political self-centredness despite health hazard to the general public), and 'L-artikolista' (sic) (which shows a columnist who can't express himself about the truth). Sometimes these documentary stories are presented in the style of journalistic narratives as in 'Mat-trab ta' din l-art' (which presents a missionary volunteer who experiences the extreme squalor and hunger of Brazil's neglected areas) and 'Pupi' (which depicts the ailment of children in Disneyland, Karen Grech's Hospital). With astringent clarity, Scicluna portrays the unfriendly local attitude towards the unwanted sick immigrant ('Bla nifs') and the desperate situation of a young girl who becomes a junkie and a single mother who ruins her life and that of her baby and for whom the only solution is suicide ('Una nox dormienda'). Theoreti- cally speaking, the perspective of each account (i.e. the factor of who sees the action) is important as it con- nects the story with the narrative. For instance, in 'Il-pupu' the story (set in the early 1980s) is told from the perspec- tive of a student who is interrupted during an exam and forced to go to the rector's office because his parents failed to pay the school fee. The boy finds himself terrorised in this office and he interprets this as a sort of violence nobody cared about because, the narrative says, violence was then politically approved by the authorities. Perspective, here, covers both the physical and psychological conditions of the victim (i.e. the stu- dent) and therefore it can be termed internal perspective since there is the student's consciousness involved. Another instance of this type of pe- spective is 'Bejn tnejn', which depicts dangerous children's games from the perspective of one of the two boys. However, in other cases we are given an external focalisation as in 'Mat-trab ta' din l-art', where Brazil's squalor, poverty, and hunger are lim- ited to what the Maltese helper ob- serves from the outside so that focus goes on the victims (i.e. the deprived characters), and not through them as in the case of the student. The cultural references (e.g. Homer, Virgil, Catullus, Ovid, Patri Piju, Pushkin, DH Lawrence, Keats, Matthew Arnold, the Rotarians, Or- lando, and other Mal- tese personages) set the collection in a historical and literary context, whereas the technical remarks (e.g. on Nephrotic Syndrome, folic acid, Ventolin, nebuliser, valium, heroin) set it in a social context. The impli- cation is that the inherited problems, pangs, and privation are still worthy of consideration in today's society. Culture is very evident in 'Filom- ela', where Scicluna blends Ancient Greek mythology with recent Maltese society with its history, religion, and politics that over the years created a mentality of male domination. The Greek Philomela was the younger of two princesses, and she was raped and mutilated by her sister's husband,Tereus, who cut out her tongue. Unable to speak, she weaves a tapestry to tell her story and sends it to her sister. Then the two sisters conspire together to serve Tereus a meal of his own son's flesh. After this cannibalistic meal, Tereus chases the two sisters to kill them; the two sisters escape by praying to the gods to transform them into birds. Scicluna's tale turns this story into an account of the plight of women in different genera- tions within a patriarchal society. The power of phallocentrism pervades patterns of thought consciously and un- consciously, and makes woman not only a natural subject to this power (and therefore subservient to man) but a property that belongs to man. But the tale ends with the figure of woman as the crucified Christ, implying redemp- tion from the ideological colouring of the phallus. This tale is further complicated by the political references it contains. Phallocentrism is depicted in these terms (where Melita is the mother, Duminku is the father, and the others are the children): "Melita kienet il-propjetà ta' Du- minku; hekk ukoll kienu wliedu, Karmenu u Fredu". The political implications are obvious especially when a couple of lines further on he adds rather sarcastically the following when the narrator speaks of Duminku: "Lil ommi (i.e. Melita) kien iħobbha, u kienet tiġi l-ewwel u qabel kollox," which echoes Mintoff's colossal cry of Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox given a couple of paragraphs before – a cry whose semantic position is sarcastically situated (by this 2014 publication) in the present cry of "Malta tagħna lkoll". So the documentary technique, mixed with an occasional journal- istic stance in the narrative, brings out a social significance that is never imposed by the author. Scicluna is a remarkably readable short-story writer – a writer from whom one remembers scenes. You feel his presence in the stories as one feels the producer in a film. He presents sharply visualised episodes height- ened by description and metaphor to intensify atmosphere; they are, however, never long or dull passages, yet they often force the reader to ruminate over the presented events. Scicluna's stories present a snap- shot of life with social significance, and they frequently use an observ- er's tone that is often detached and never surprised, showing a world (or is it a nation?) becoming trapped in insensitivity. Stylistically they are very effective: they use the immedi- ate word of the living language and various aspects of the mechanism of the tale (e.g. flashbacks, perspective, voice) to put across the alarming state of the Maltese scene. Themati- cally, some of them lay stress on the incoherence and inhospitability of contemporary behaviour among the Maltese, who at times seem to lose their humanity. Their characters are people who are crushed and almost crippled by the sense of their own individuality or condition – and the reader feels the threatening atmos- phere of the episodes. Furthermore, in the face of life's suffering and anguish, political matters jog along rather inhumanely. xxxx Political matters jogging inhumanely mother who ruins her life and that suicide ('Una nox the perspective of each account (i.e. the factor of who sees the action) is important as it con- nects the story with the narrative. For instance, in 'Il-pupu' the story (set in the early 1980s) is told from the perspec- tive of a student who is interrupted during an exam and forced to go to the rector's office because his parents failed to pay the school fee. The boy lando, and other Mal- tese personages) set the collection into an account of the plight of women in different genera- tions within a patriarchal society. The power of phallocentrism pervades patterns of thought consciously and un- consciously, and makes woman not only a natural subject to this power (and therefore subservient to man) but a property that belongs to man. But the tale ends with the figure of woman as the crucified Christ, implying redemp- tion from the ideological colouring of the phallus. complicated by the political references it contains. Phallocentrism is depicted in these terms (where Melita is the mother, Duminku is the father, and the others are the children): "Melita kienet il-propjetà ta' Du- minku; hekk ukoll kienu wliedu, Karmenu u Fredu". The political implications are obvious especially when a couple of lines further on he adds rather sarcastically the following when the narrator speaks of Duminku: "Lil ommi (i.e. Melita) kien iħobbha, u kienet tiġi l-ewwel u qabel kollox," which echoes Mintoff's colossal cry of Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox Political matters jogging inhumanely Carmel Scicluna, Feruti (Horizons, Malta, 2014) Kindle edition for Great Siege publication With this year 2015 being the 450th anniversary of the 1565 Great Siege of Malta, a second edition of Arnold Cassola's The 1565 Great Siege of Malta and Hipólito Sans's La Maltea has just been republished as a Kindle Book. This eyewitness account by Sans is a real must both for the professional academic and for lovers of history, in particular Ottoman, Christian and Maltese 16th century history. This work is about the fully-fledged epic poem La Maltea, consisting of twelve cantos built on the model of the classical tradition, of Virgilian fame. The real intention of Hipólito Sans (c. 1604/1605), who published La Maltea in Valencia, Spain, in 1582, was the glorification of the heroism of the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, in their defence of the island of Malta against the mighty Armada sent by Suleyman the Mag- nificent in 1565 to conquer the island. Sans must have had first-hand knowledge of what went on in Malta during the 1565 Siege, since he was one of the defenders on the island. Of course, one must keep in mind that Sans's La Maltea is a poetical work, which cannot fulfil the role of a faithful historical chronicle. History and fiction are intermingled in La Maltea, as Sans himself admits in the prologue. However, much of what he relates is credible not only because the author was a witness to events during the Siege of Malta, but even more so because he insists strongly on the fact that he only wants to stick to factual truth. Suleyman and his Armada, La Val- ette and his most courageous knights, Dragut, Toni Bajada and the Maltese defenders are all given prominence in Sans's account, from which we also learn that La Valette was 67 years old at the time of the Great Siege and that Suleyman intended invading Italy after having conquered Malta. The Kindle edition of the book can be accessed on internet through: http://tinyurl.com/kvhpa78, or http:// tinyurl.com/lmuceor