Any Human Heart

As a treat for finishing my dissertation (well, at least until my supervisor reads and critiques it), I re-watched Channel 4's wonderful mini-series, Any Human Heart, which first aired in late 2010. Based on William Boyd's 2002 novel of the same name, it is both a very individual tale of one man and a complete history of the twentieth century. I've never found anything else that so perfectly combines so many of my interests: identity construction and reconstruction, self and history, writing and memory, artistic and literary history... all that plus romance, action, humour and an incredible cast.

We are an anthology, a composite of many selves - William Boyd

Over four episodes (about an hour and a quarter each), we are introduced to the many sides of Logan Mountstuart, from young and earnest aspiring writer through to serene octogenarian. It is not just age that changes Logan but the multitude of ordinary and extraordinary experiences that make up his long life. Living from 1906 to 1991, Logan not only witnesses, but actively participates in, the events which so drastically changed our world over the course of the twentieth century. From the Spanish Civil War and World War II to left-wing terrorism and Thatcherism, Logan writes about it all alongside banal details of everyday life. It's not just politics that graces Logan's journal either, but, as you'd expect from a 'man of letters', the vagaries of art and literary fashion. From Hemingway to Prince/King/Duke Edward, Logan fortuitously interacts with many of the most famous names of the twentieth century.

Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfayden and Sam Clafin
as the three ages of Logan Mountstuart

At the same time, Any Human Heart is deeply personal. Each stage of Logan's journey through the twentieth century is marked by one of his many women, yet his love for one particular woman lasts his whole life and outweighs everything else. This is my favourite part of the story, beautiful and heartbreaking. Logan's philosophy is that "It's all luck in the end: good luck and bad luck". He is a man who experiences plenty of both and carries on regardless.

I know the novel has even more to offer that couldn't fit into five hours of TV, and so look forward to reading it soon. I particularly like how Boyd tries to pass it off as a real diary, with an editors preface, footnotes, list of works by Logan Mountstuart, and all the other trappings you would expect of an edited volume. Boyd had previously written a biography of a fictional artist, Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 (1998) which had been so realistic it had fooled many art critics. His blurring of the lines between fiction and reality is just another reason why I'm so fascinated by his work.

Any Human Heart is available to watch on 4oD. You can buy the book on Amazon here

Ramón Otero Pedrayo - Arredor De Sí

While I've had limited mobility these last few days, I have at least been able to get on with my dissertation. I've tried to combine as many of my favourite topics in it as possible: literature, travel, Europe, nationalism, identity and Galicia. It's about the travelogues of people from Galicia who travelled around Europe in search of themselves and in the process became the leaders of the Galician nationalist movement: Ramón Otero Pedrayo, Alfonso Castelao and Vincente Risco.

The first of my books is Otero Pedrayo's Arredor de sí (Around oneself). I recently wrote about Eduardo Blanco Amor's A Esmorga (On A Bender) as the best and most beloved example of Galician literature. While this is true, Arredor de sí is probably the most important piece of Galician literature, because of what it inspired.

Written in 1930, Arredor de sí is a fictionalised version of Otero Pedrayo's youth. A highly intelligent young man from a landed family, Otero's alter-ego, Adrián Solovio, is desperate to get out of Galicia. He doesn't feel at home there, and doesn't even really know who he is. He starts by exploring Spain - Madrid, Toledo, Burgos, before moving on to the rest of Europe. It's through visiting France, Germany and Belgium that he slowly realises that he belongs in Galicia and that Galicia deserves its own place in Europe. Where he once believed the Galician language was backwards and for peasants, he returns from his travels determined to prove that Galician is a worthwhile vehicle for deep philosophical thought and modern writing.

As a piece of literature, Arredor de sí isn't the finest example. It's very academic, constantly name-dropping philosophers and writers (not surprising considering the main character is a devout student, but it doesn't really help the flow of the story). However, it's important for what it represents. It's a call to arms for Galicians, an assertion of the value of Galician culture and a demand for a Europe where small nations are equal and respected. It's also a testament to the importance of travel and getting to know other cultures in the search for one's own identity.

Europe & Me Magazine - a new way of seeing Europe

Having taken European Studies as both my BA and my MA, one question I've asked and been asked more than any other is "What is Europe?" 

Europe is certainly getting a bad rep at the moment. When I mention I take European Studies, the response on the street is generally a negative comment about Europe, either the dire state of the Euro (even before the recent crisis) or how Brussels is ruining things for everyone in Britain. This is undoubtedly a symptom of British Euroscepticism, but I think a large part of the problem is that people have little emotional connection with Europe - they can't imagine the EU beyond economics and politics. In fact, when I got the chance to study identification with Europe in a research project at Sciences Po, I found that people had two very different images of Europe - the EU was far away, opaque and difficult to understand, while Europe more generally was linked to more positive images of experiences in different countries and with different people.

I therefore truly believe that for Europe to ever succeed as a stable, supranational project, we need to increase identification with Europe - and other Europeans. As a result of my interest in languages, and my time travelling and studying abroad, I am very aware of the similarities between myself and other Europeans and what knowledge of their cultures adds to my own, all of which makes me feel like I belong in Europe. It's vitally important that other young people get to know the bonds that unite them with Europe, to create a new generation of Europeans. That's where Europe & Me Magazine comes in.

Europe & Me is a quarterly magazine voluntarily written, edited and produced my young people from over 20 different countries. There aim is to write about all aspects of Europe, to give a more complete picture of Europe - the good and the bad - beyond official EU programmes (they are completely independent of the EU). They admit that Europe is incredibly hard to define geographically, historically or politically, so their motto is "Europe is a state of mind". The magazine is divided into different body parts:

The Brain considers serious issues related to Europe, the Heart is all about feeling and emotion, the Diaphragm laughs at the silly side of Europe, Baby is all about sex, and the Legs are "Europe on the move", highlighting European mobility.

I recommend that anyone who wants to understand what young, committed Europeans think it means to be European should read this magazine - issue #15 is out in just 12 days.

Diego Rivera and Google

So today was the 125th 'birthday' of celebrated Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. To honour the occasion, Google's doodle of the day portrayed Rivera creating one of his great public murals:

The question is, what would Rivera think of it? 

On the one hand, he was an active communist, so it could be assumed that he would be opposed to the appropriation of his work and character by one of the biggest corporations in the world.

However, the reason Rivera painted immense murals on public buildings was because he believed that art should not be locked away in galleries for the enjoyment of the elites, but available for everyone. Public art was a means of educating the people about Mexican history and identity. In that spirit, perhaps Rivera would approve of the doodle. After all, what is more public than the internet? And if the doodle inspired people who previously had not heard of Rivera before to investigate his work and then to delve further into the issues of the Mexican revolution and questions of identity (ethnic mestizaje, cultural tensions between the modern and the traditional, the American and the indigenous), then it would be achieving what Rivera set out to do all those years ago.