Review: Pure and undiluted
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2012
This is a difficult piece of writing to review. I know nothing practically of what it means for an adolescent in the MC's position to grow up, learn, survive as a human male in a UK boarding school since these things are alien to me. The writing is pure, raw and undiluted--like artists who are true to their craft, including writers, poets, musicians, composers and so on, I say with confidence that Connal refuses to compromise the true form of his art--as say, artists like Beefheart, Coltrane,  Hendrix, or a poet like Walcott, or a writer like Dostoevsky, refused to do. Artists like these recreate their own worlds and want us to share in them, because that's what being human means, sharing. This way, fiction created through personal art, and life, become synonymous. Connal in this piece introduces the reader to his world. To appreciate this world, one must break down the barriers between it and the reader's world. One must approach it like a child would because the child is non-judgmental--to the child, an apple and a rusty old tin are equal in weight; gold and brass have equal value. The world of the artist is not our world, it is his world, but still our world for all worlds make one world. To appreciate Connal's narrative, the reader must break down the walls around him and break down his familiar books of reference that are his crutches. I can't identify with much of what's in this book because this is Connal's world but I can certainly applaud him for refusing to compromise the true form of his art.