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Devising a travel novel that people actually want to read is tough. It’s clearly necessary to communicate the great and the good; the bad and the ugly, sure. However a discourse that is solely descriptive, even in beautiful prose, can get tedious. ‘What I did on my holidays’ is nice enough for an article, but downright dull for a book. Nico Hobhouse, a second-year Classicist at Trinity, is therefore wise in his attempt to marry colourful description with spirited polemic in his self-published book Dancing on the Frontier: Travels by Land through China and Tibet.

Dullness is absolutely not Hobhouse’s problem. Some randy passages hit you like a bus, especially since they come from nowhere. Fresh from describing a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, Chapter 11 takes a sudden and inexplicably lewd turn: “Down one narrow alley I spotted two donkeys rutting. The female seemed less eager and pulled away. The male trotted after her, his member still primed to go…The poor jenny was having a rough day.” These entertaining but stand-alone remarks are far from atypical. More than once the reader is thrown off the scent of what he thinks is an emerging theme by a slightly wacky observation.

The paragraphs are short and fairly punchy; it is an easy read (mostly: I confess to having to look up ‘somnolent’) though the images Hobhouse evokes are nonetheless vivid and varied. However the overall effect is diminished by numerous typos and an episodic structure that leaves the passages disjointed. And once in a while the language is a bit clumsy: in one instance he suggests that the ‘lack of [political] openess in China…is as alive as ever.’ Can an absense of something be alive? Probably not. It’s one of the areas in which self-publishing – otherwise a fantastic blessing for first-time authors – falls down. 

The typical passage – which provides an original story followed by a fascinating insight – works well. There is a well-scripted section about his experience of the visceral antipathy felt by otherwise sophisticated Chinese urbanites against the Japanese. Staying in Nanjing, the sight of a brutal massacre at the hands of Imperial Japan in 1937, Hobhouse movingly describes the sensation of Western guilt as “more powerful that disgust at what I saw. I felt ashamed that I had not known about the incident before I had come to China. The scale and horror of the massacre were comparable to the Holocaust and yet I had never really cared back home in England.”

Occasionally though the formula breaks down; the weakest parts of the book generally crop up when it does. Anecdotal, albeit unusual, tit bits are used to draw predictable and not especially profound conclusions: “I saw two toads copulating – a reminder that early spring was approaching – and reflected that nature was losing out in a big way to China’s urbanisation.” Ew. Is this really what Hobhouse, observing the amphibian fornication, thought at the time? Or is he indulging in a bit of post hoc analysis that matches up his travelling experiences to the well-established assertions commonly bandied about in The Economist? 

By contrast the strongest sections occur when he is more modest in his ambition. Sharing a minibus, with an elderly monk, trundling through Tibet Hobhouse recounts the monk’s contradictory behaviour. “The senior of the two took out some prayer beads…[A]fter chanting for a long time he took a few swigs from his bottle of water. When he had finished, to my astonishment, he casually tossed the empty bottle out of the window. He had a fake Tissot wristwatch…and a mobile phone on which he took my photo.” The reader does not need to be explicitly told what Hobhouse is implying: that the monk’s contradictions betray a disconcerting truth about modern China. The effect is immensely satisfying.

One final groan: Hobhouse clearly takes his liberalism seriously. From Bautou to Beijing, Shanghai to Lhasa, he strikes up an argument about the virtues of Western democracy vs. authoritarian capitalism with just about every poor chap he meets. Each time he presents the dispute fairly crudely, though given the fact that he had to conduct these Socratic dialogues in Mandarin we can forgive him for that. The issue is rather that when it comes to the book he keeps banging on about it without saying anything new each time. Travelling alone, off the beaten track, meeting bucolic village folk who had perhaps never spoken to a white man before, Hobhouse’s account really should have been stronger in explaining how China understands itself, as well as the world it will shortly dominate.

Yet the final result is really quite impressive. Hobhouse has taken a year of his life that is tough to characterise in any one definitive way, and has turned it into a thoroughly readable, thoughtful and playful journal. Were he to write a second travel book, as I am told he is planning to, I suspect he would avoid most of the mistakes made in Dancing on the Frontier. Through it Hobhouse has nonetheless cultivated an authentic tone and an inquiring style that will serve him well into the future.

‘Dancing on the Frontier’ is published by Xlibris. A paper copy can be purchased through Amazon or alternatively as an eBook through W.H.Smith

“You’re building me a funeral parlour with these flowers – I’m suffocating.” Madame cries as she returns home to find her Kitsch room bedecked with gladioli. And indeed the spectators of Chris Adams and Anna Koch’s powerful adaptation of The Maids find themselves equally enmeshed in a web of string-taught flowers and gilded mirrors, gaudily coloured bedspreads and luxurious dresses.

These very items are symbols of what Jean Genet, controversial French playwright and author, considered the oppressiveness of opulence, which Madame, played by the phonetically masterful Alice Porter, is the embodiment of as well as Solange and Claire’s obsession. The two sisters are played by Zoe Bullock and Hannah Gliksten respectively, and are perfect as monsters of self-loathing, slippery identity, and pervasive paranoia, straining under the pressure of a self-imposed mission of murder, and a mistress saccharine and melodramatic – a constant caricature of herself, who doesn’t even know, as Genet himself put it, “the extent to which Madame is playing Madame”.

The play – its insular, effectively maddening one-track plot of maids seeking freedom and revenge through the assassination of their insufferable mistress excepted – presents a complexity which the three actresses and the Koch/Adams duo have clearly perceived. Solange is far more than a bullish, bullying murderess; she is also the life-deprived older sister, desperate to protect and free the younger Claire, profoundly resentful of what her social status has made them both endure.

Claire is more than the domineering, jeering executor of most of their risky plan (the audience is made to understand she has forged letters of accusation to place Monsieur, Madame’s lover, in prison). She is also the self-doubting brunt-bearer of much of Solange’s hysterical blame-laying, and the inhumanly brave precipitator of the play’s startling (if you’re discovering it for the first time) denouement. Similarly, Porter’s carefully put-together rendition of Madame fortunately sidesteps the trap of extravagance and consequent implausibility inherent to the character, and presents us with a very subtly nuanced performance.

The play’s unfolding demonstrates a highly creative use of set and props. The former is quite small and square, with a three-sided audience front, allowing a proximity which only adds to the riveting intensity of the action. The impressive web of string woven above and around the spectators contains what the sisters see as the objects denouncing their guilt – a disconnected telephone, a buzzing radio, a poison-laden tea-table, the despotic alarm-clock, and the dozens of bouquets. On the threshold between a twisted fantasy bordering on the incestuous, and a sordid tale of personality confusion and self-revulsion, The Maids is a great piece of student drama, complete with stellar cast, inspired direction and production, and intelligent design.

A word of warning: for those who will struggle beneath the play’s leaden atmosphere and high decibel level, know that the actresses are working with something that is infamously characteristic of Genet, and that, if anything, they transcend it with the force and stamina of their performances.

FIVE STARS

With their debut CD last year earning them widespread critical praise, Oxford’s most recent choral foundation has a lot riding on their shoulders. The Choir of Merton College proves that this reputation is deserved with a range of repertoire spanning between the fourteenth-century and some of today’s leading composers.

From the opening Matthew Martin setting Ecce concipies, Merton demonstrate their characteristic clarity of sound. The rhythmic vitality and energy which is present for the rest of the CD is established from this very first track. The opening soprano idea gradually broadens both texturally and registrally, building to a tumultuous apotheosis before fading back to nothing. The blend is impressive for such a young ensemble (particularly in Howard Skempton’s O Sapientia), although some prominent vibrato within the soprano section occasionally disturbs this.

Benjamin Nicholas’ conducting invites dramatic realisations from the choir, elucidating a range of moods, dynamics and tone colours from the singers. A particular highlight was James MacMillan’s Advent Antiphon. As in the later Ä’riks Ešenvalds, the soloist is drawn from within the choir: in this case, tenor Christopher Watson. The Delphian recording allows Watson’s voice to catch the resonant acoustics of Merton Chapel to poignant effect, lingering over the portamenti which ornament the elegiac melody. This resonance suits the spacious soundworld created by Peter Phillips. This is particularly effective in Ecce Virgo Concipiet, with the legato sound in contrast with the earlier piece of Byrd (Rorate caeli desuper).

The central part of the CD is the Seven Magnificat Antiphons commissioned for the Merton Choirbook (part of the college’s impending 750^th anniversary). Uniting such names as Gabriel Jackson, John Tavener and Cecilia McDowall, each anthem celebrates a different aspect of the coming Christ. These 7 pieces test the choir to their limits, but they rise to the challenge: the angular soprano lines of the Tavener are bridged smoothly and the synchronised ornaments in Gabriel Jackson’s O Clavis David brought off with ease. The choir seem to be more comfortable with the forte end of the dynamic spectrum: points in Cecilia McDowall’s O Oriens could benefit from a touch more support.

Anna Steppler’s two interludes bookmark these Seven Magnificat Anthems, showcasing the chapel’s neo-classical Walker organ. The Praetorius sees ornaments seamlessly integrated into the flowing chorale, while Heiller’s adaptation of the Advent chorale Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen sees her explore the instrument’s different registral colours.

Such a selection of repertoire allows the Choir of Merton College to demonstrate their technical and expressive capabilities. With impressive blend and range of tones, Merton shows that their relative youth is no barrier to top-class performances. As their 750^th anniversary approaches, the choir is definitely going from strength to strength.