_—-

Arts/Review

Medieval
rich as

poor might
see them

THE WHITE CUTTER. By David
Pownall. Viking Penguin, New York.
1989. 320 pp.

Historical novels, even when not
outright bodice rippers, earn a
deserved reputation for being, shall
we say, less than intellectually stimu-
lating. To the rather short list of
exceptions to this rule one can add
David Pownall’s The White Cutter.

While not losing sight of the nove-
list’s duty to entertain as well as
instruct, Pownall has created a book
of great complexity and interest which
demands more than one reading. Yet
unlike The Name of the Rose,
Umberto Eco’s enormously popular
but rather too convoluted piece of his-
torical ‘fiction, The White Cutter
never threatens to collapse under the
weight of its own brilliance. It is
unfortunate that it has not received
the same exposure in North America
as did The Name of the Rose.

Set in the England of Henry III,
prominent persons such the king him-
self, Simon de Montfort and Roger
Bacon figure largely in the book, but
they are seen through what we might
call a worm’s eye view. The hero,
whose life we follow literally from
birth to the age of 14, when he
murders his father, is the son and
apprentice of a journeyman mason
whose ambitions outstrip his talent.

The consequences of the father’s
attempts to realize his ambitions, their
shared Catharism and hatred of
Christianity (called Cretinism in the
book) and the fact that the son’s abili-
ties far exceed the father’s provide the
fuel for the plot. This is so well con-
structed and the atmosphere of the
period so thoroughly recreated that
by the end of the novel we accept
historical impossibilities without a
murmur, recognizing that even if this
is not what actually happened, it is
what should have happened.

Using craftsmen as protagonists
allows Pownall to do something
which is far too seldom attempted in
historical novels — show us the rich
and the powerful as the poor and
humble might well have seen them. It
also allows him to discuss art and its
relationship to society from a far
more interesting perspective than the
one among most theoreticians and
historians of the subject. The fact that
the protagonists are Cathars also
results in a extremely interesting
examination of the effects of being
heterodox in a highly orthodox,
repressive society.

Unfortunately, a brief review does
not permit a catalogue of all the
points raised by Pownall, and very
ably dealt with besides. The plot is of
the type in which revealing anything
which occurs after the first chapter
tends to detract from the enjoyment
of the book, nor can the potential
reader’s interest be piqued with a plot
summary. All I can suggest is that,
provided you don’t have a prejudice
against novels as a class, this is one
which is well worth reading.

— M.C. Warrior

Story of single widowed parent
a valentine to working mothers

MEN DON’T LEAVE. Starring Jessica
Lange, Joan Cusack, Chris O'Donnell,
Charles Korsmo, Arliss Howard. Directed
by Paul Brickman. Written by Barbara
Benedek and Paul Brickman. At Famous
Players theatres.

After being bombarded for so long with
movies that show the lives of working-class
people as repulsive, alien and a prison to
which the sole option is escape to affluence,
it is refreshing to come upon a movie like
Men Don’t Leave. Jessica Lange stars as a
suddenly single mother who sticks with it
and copes, becoming an_ independent,
stronger and more courageous person in the
course of the survival struggle.

Lange’s character, a mother of two boys,
lives a serene existence in a wealthy Mary-
land suburb until her husband is killed in a
work accident. Widowhood is the least of
her troubles, as Lange discovers the true
fragility of middle-class status. She is left
with no life insurance, a pile of debts froma
living-on-credit lifestyle, and no work skills
except a talent for cooking.

Jobs aren’t exactly plentiful in isolated
suburbia, and a brief stint as a local super-
market cashier just can’t pay the bills. (It’s
not even considered a “real” job by elitist
neighbours, as one oblivious housewife asks

what kind of job slie’s found, even as Lange
is bagging the woman’s groceries.)

The family is eventually forced to sell
everything and move to inner city Balti-
more, where, she assumes, work might be
found, living is cheaper, and the landlord
fixes things that break. Lange peddles her
sole skill and finds work as an assistant in a
gourmet deli, where she is hounded and
humiliated by the overbearing female boss.
(After yelling at Lange for a mistake made
by another worker, the tyrant sniffs, “Well,
you’re all beginning to look alike.”’)

Lange looks to her children for moral

strength, but they’re too overwhelmed by_

their own grief to be supportive. Both turn
elsewhere for a sense of family: the younger
boy to the substitute family ofa new friend,
the teenager to romance with an older
woman, who also fills in as a surrogate
mother. On top of this, the landlord does
not fix anything after all, so it’s still up to
mom.

Finding herself unable to bear any more
abuse from the caustic boss, Lange dares
the woman to fire her — which she
promptly does. After that, the nightly emo-
tional solace the now unemployed Lange
has derived from compulsive baking
doesn’t seem to work anymore; the cookies
crumble, so to speak, and both she and the

family disintegrate.

It is only after Lange’s younger son runs —
away, and subsequently shares the pain of —
the father’s loss with his mother, that she is _

|

able to put her life and family back together _
and continue, with the knowledge and —
‘insight that “heartbreak educates.” She asks —
for her old job back, but demands to be —
treated with respect and makes the surpris-

ing discovery that her boss is mean because —

she shares similar personal sorrows.

There are aspects of Men Don’t Leave —

that don’t ring true. Lange’s new boyfriend —
is just a bit too patient, passive and under- _

standing. And jobs are not likely to be lost

and found again so easily.

But Men Don’t Leave addresses the very —
real economic anxiety that characterizes the —
ever increasingly shaky position of the mid- —
dle class today in what is becoming more —
and more a society of two class extremes. _
And Lange’s intense and captivating per- —
formance as a woman slowly growing as a _—
person even as her life is being shattered isa —
movie valentine for all working mothers out —
there trying to hold it all together against an —

indifferent system.

— Prairie Miller
People’s Daily World

Co-op Radio celebrates its 15th birthday
with a “rockin” birthday bash” — a
fundraiser — at The Town Pump in Van-
couver on Sunday, March 18. Bands
include the Jazzmanian Devils, Bolero
Lava, The Hardrock Miners. It will also be
simulcast live on Cable 4 and Co-op
Radio. Starts at 8 p.m.

* * *

views: The play we called Chevy is in fact
Powder Blue Chevy. It concerns the trials
and triumphs of two Chinese immigrants
in a small B.C. town, is by Wen Jee, and
runs at the Firehall Theatre, 280 East Cor-
dova St. in Vancouver (note new dates)
March 10-March 31, Tuesday-Saturday, 8
p-m.; 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday. Tickets
are $10, $8 seniors and students. Phone
689-0926 to reserve.

* * *

Ever get that sinking feeling at a demo
or a meeting that despite your advertising,
your leafletting, or your phone-treeing
you are fighting a losing battle because
only the faithful turn out?

A Vancouver-based magazine called
Adbusters is striking at the root cause of
the lack of street activism in the West —
television.

The lead article in Adbusters states that
programming is premised ‘“‘on viewer iner-
tia.”

Articles in the latest issue analyze the
selectiveness of foreign news coverage —
its racism and sexism, and inherent
violence — and the way the corporations
are selling themselves as “green environ-
mentalists.”

An excellent article by Joyce Neilson
gives in-depth coverage of how the Argen-
tinian military junta of 1976 hired one of
the top independent P.R. firms in North
America — Burston Marsteller — to im-
prove its international image.

Above all, this magazine gives you con-
crete steps to take action.

Both serious and hilarious examples of

A slight correction to last week’s pre- -

Co-op radio bash; Adbusters mag

EXXON VALDEZ SPILL, MARCH 23, 1989...

negligence, broken promises.

outright ingenious ads are described. It
makes a good case for spending our min-
imal funds at reaching peoplé through the
medium they are watching, rather than
paying money for speakers to address a
handful of people, because the messages of
our speakers are made entirely null and
void if people just return to TV again to be
propagated.

Write to: Adbusters, The Media Foun-
dation, 1243, West 7th Ave., Vancouver,
B.C. V6H 1B7. A subscription costs $16.

— Josie Wallenius

ok * *

Better-late-than-never notice: The
women’s sector of the B.C. Committee for
Human Rights in the Philippines presents

Kababaihan — Filipina Portraits, a video .

on Philippines women activists on March
5, 7:30 p.m. (during International Women’s

documentary on PBS expores the

Week) at Lakeview United Church, 2776
Semlin Dr. (at 12th) in Vancouver.

* * *

TV stuff: Knowledge Network presents
the final episode of Climate and Man
entitled, “Predicting the Future,” an argu-
ment that the “greenhouse effect” is inev-
itable, on Sunday, March 11, 8 p.m.; also
an NFB double-bill, Crown Prince; Bombs
Away, the first on teenagers and domestic
violence, the second on nuclear war froma
child’s perspective, on Monday, March 12,
9 p.m. and Wednesday, March 14, 10 p.m.

KCTS public television in Seattle airs on
Frontline the feature, “Anatomy of an Oil
Spill”, on the “complacency, negligence
and broken promises” behind the Exxon
Valdez marine disaster, for one hour
Tuesday, March 20, 8 p.m.; Friday, March —
23, 2 a.m.; Saturday, March -, 9: 30 a.m.
Closed-captioned.

10 + Pacific Tribune, March 5, 1990