Truthis a fish. So speaks the hero of Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish (Atlantic Books, £7.99) by Richard Flanagan, a novel by name, but in reality, an extended dramatic monologue. Sent to Australia for every crime you’d care to mention, Billie Gould is given the task by the prison surgeon, one of the many certifiable characters in the novel, to paint exotic fish for the Royal Academy back home in London.
Despite being imprisoned in the Tasmanian settlement of Sarah Island, perhaps the most brutal in the whole British Empire in the first half of the nineteenth century, Gould maintains his honesty, integrity and most importantly, his sense of humour. His aim in the bleak world of beatings, rape and cells which flood every night is to paint the beauty of fish and the cruelty of men. As he writes in one of his early chapters, sorry, early fish, “I am William Buelow Gould… I tell you that I will try to show you everything, mad & cracked & bad as it was”.
It is easy to spot stylistic similarities between Gould’s Book of Fish and Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. In the descriptions of their shared homeland, both employ a nostalgic prose, the language always maintaining a poetic element (even when describing the way Gould tosses his turds at the prison warden). Likewise the use of a central metaphor around which the narrative revolves is common to both books. Carey chooses a glass church to reflect the vulnerability of the protagonist’s sense of self, one that is liable to crack at any moment while Flanagan, typically, invests something more prosaic, a blowfish for example, with a force of emotion quite unexpected.
The juxtaposition of slimy sea creatures with the beautiful notions of love, truth and freedom lends itself toward bathos, and generally the tone of this novel, which breezes through racism, politics, and technological progress, maintains an objective distance through facetiousness.
The humour, which ranges from the scatological to the satirical to the surreal (I wonder if the author’s mother liked the book’s dedication to her- “My mother is a fish”) is as integral to the style as is the use of Dickensian language and characterisation.
Behind the humour, however, one finds a novel of great merit and depth, constructed in the most poetic language, and not at all about fish.
ARCHIVE: 3rd Week TT 2003

Smalltown America is not a pretty sight. For the most part the towns are modern yet faded and characterless with minimal allure, unless of course you like spending time in Hicksville which boasts only two rusty gas pumps, a trailer park and the “World’s Largest Eggplant”. These places are better left alone and in any case can be well enough appreciated from the window of a Greyhound bus or Amtrak train as it sweeps (or more accurately trundles) between the major cities. And it is the major cities which demand to be seen and appreciated, especially those on the East Coast. On my first return to New York, I slept with the hotel window open so I could hear the car horns, the groups of drunken students and the shouts of the van drivers making their 3am delivery to the pizza place below the hotel. I was determined to see more. Starting in Boston this time, I found that many Americans, especially New Yorkers, seem to hate it, apparently because of some kind of baseball rivalry. However, I enjoyed the city and found it easy to walk around. The high concentration of colleges and universities also makes Boston a young, trendy student town, though by no means cheap. Just across the Charles River lies Cambridge, home of Harvard’s beautiful, sprawling campus – the oldest university in America. I spent a pleasant day there, out of the big city, fantasizing about studying there. I regretted not being able to meet more Bostonians when I was there, my youth hostel being full of other Brits. I did meet one though: an expunk- rocker called John, who drank tea with me and told me about his divorce and “Baby” (his ferret) who keeps him company. On my fourth day, I jumped on bus and jumped off four hours later in the middle of Manhattan. Manhattan is the centre of perhaps the most exciting city in the world. Sure NYC has its fair share of dirt, strange smells and crazy people: before I went there, I was under the impression that I must on no account make eye contact with anyone, use the subway or set foot Central Park. Ever. Once there, however, I realised that it was no more dangerous than London and as for crazy people, we’re all used that in Oxford. Even Harlem’s ok you visit it during daylight. But if you take the Staten Island ferry, don’t bother getting off at the other end. My friend and I made this mistake two years back and ended up having a drink with a couple of gangsters a bar complete with bullet hole riddled windows. In a strange way, I think sightseeing in NYC is rather a waste of the city. New York isn’t the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty; it’s the whole of Manhattan and the different districts with their individual character, smells and atmosphere. The best way to see the city is on foot; walking down the man-made ravines of 5th Avenue or Broadway is one spectacular experience. In Times Square, which where much of the excitement of Manhattan is concentrated, I had wonderful feeling of anonymity. Imagine a massive version of Piccadilly Circus, stretching out in every direction – so crowded and busy that even with a map, a compass and a GPS unit, you would still feel lost. Philadelphia, my next destination, was a shock after the twenty four hour madness of NYC. There were far fewer sketchy characters on the streets and it was calmer and more conservative city. Museums and shops close earlier (and are often closed on Mondays) and the stylish, bohemian character which permeates places like the Village in New York and Camden Town in London, is confined to few blocks on the mildly curious and trendy South Street. Here you can buy your obligatory Philly cheese steak and then spend the rest of the day regretting it. I found it appropriate to see Philadelphia after Boston because their dual roles in the events leading to American Independence. Unfortunately, though, many of the buildings which were in the Historic Area were pulled down before the Americans began to treasure and preserve anything historic. Among those demolished was Benjamin Franklin’s house, but the site now has an underground museum dedicated to this extraordinary printer, diplomat and inventor of, amongst other things, the lightning rod and bizarre instrument called the armonica, based on glasses filled with different amounts of water, sounding at different pitches. There is however, only so much city life I can take – I think the hours I spent in art galleries Boston one afternoon, including hour and a half just to find an exit from the Museum of Fine Arts, almost did me in. By the time I had seen as much of these cities as possible and absorbed culture until I was saturated, I needed small town America, where there’s nothing do but eat pancakes, drink Sam Adams beer and fight off the evangelical rednecks. Destination: Virginia.
ARCHIVE: 3rd Week TT 2003

I’m in Oxford’s stuffiest taxi shouting apologies into my mobile. The driver is plodding along smoking interminable cigarillos, insisting on the windows being up, and asking me for the third time the name of the restaurant. I am sweating in the heat, I have just bought a new jumper I don’t like, I don’t know anything about the essay on narratology I have to do, and to cap it all I have to go to Summertown just to get a bite of lunch. But it’s the slap-spanking kind of day that demands, once I finally sit down and apologise again to my blonde companion and her daughter, a Manhattan before the starters. This arrives in a brimming glass sloshing a lonesome shred of lemon peel about, and doesn’t taste of very much except dulled booze. Our waiter forgets to take our menus once we’ve ordered, brings sparkling instead of still, and doesn’t understand what ‘blue’ means as an order for steak, but at least we’re on the terrace and in the sunshine. “If you’re reviewing this place you and I should share their mixed specialty starter plate for two,” suggests Blonde (her daughter isn’t eating due to GCSE stress but enjoys a packet of millions as we do). When this comes it is at best forgettable: bit of humous, some kind of salsa dip, pitta bread that goes cardboardy too quickly, an over-spiced sauce with crumbly mince, and a shredded iceberg and onion salad in the middle. My tuna steak, which is not rare despite specifically being advertised as such in the menu, comes in a watery ratatouille which overcomes its own delicate flavour. Blonde’s steak is clearly not a sirloin as the menu promised. On inspection it is probably a fore rib or classic French entrecôte, but the kitchen failing to notice this difference, or worse, to fob us off with an inferior cut, simply won’t do. Still, nice to be in the sunshine. Oliver JP Thring
ARCHIVE: 3rd Week TT 2003

The Three Goat’s Heads is the kind of pub that you only get in city centres. First impressions are that it is a joyless, characterless pub, staffed by disinterested graduate students and other ingrates, with bizarrely obscure (but not in a good way) range of beers.
It’s a poky little venue on two floors, right next to the Union’s St Michael’s Street entrance, but it isn’t pokey in a charming way. The decor is unpleasant and the music is usually the esoteric taste of whoever is behind the bar (get there on a Friday afternoon for driller bass and techno).
Why bother going then? George Street and its environs are riddled with similar pointless boozers. But it does have several redeeming features that saw it rocket from, “F**king awful, worse than the Cock and Camel,” to a coveted, “Ten pints out of ten!” rating during one night on the sauce.
First, it’s tiny and there are two bars, so getting served takes about fifteen seconds. Second, it’s miraculously free of twats. With it being so close to some of Oxford’s worst pubs and, more worryingly, the Union, we feared a particularly noxious clientele, but we were greeted by cheery locals and inoffensive students.
And crucially, they sell Ayingerbrau Pils, aka Magic Beer. Magic Beer is called Magic Beer because it has magical powers. Nominally it’s a strong pilsner, but we started to feel strangely pissed after the first pint. We were headed for a party at the naval mess, and after three pints we were sufficiently armed to make one hell of a mess. Rumours that people have drunk over five pints of this stuff are nothing short of lies.
“That’s got some funky shit in it,” said Pat, swearing needlessly. “It’s petrol and mescaline,” explained Texas.
Pat T Cake and The Boy Texas
ARCHIVE: 3rd Week TT 2003

Everyone has an addiction. There are little things that if we didn’t do everyday, would leave us with an uncomfortable feeling, a withdrawal symptom of sorts. Some people go jogging or take a trip to the gym, some go shopping for clothes, others tidy their room. I, for one, cannot communicate with the Englishspeaking world in the morning without a cup of tea and a cigarette. And feel mildly perturbed at the possibility that my Frank Zappa collection has not been placed in some sort of order: be it chronological, biographical, or more recently, by colour. But there is no long term problem with my making sure that the shift from the light green of Joe’s Garage, to the midnight blue of Zoot Allures, is a smooth one. Though for someone who has a significant addiction, long term suffering is the result of dependance on short term benefits. Alcohol, gambling, sex, drugs or eating, which to the majority of people are normal elements of life, are used by addicts to cope with feelings or situations which are otherwise too difficult to endure. Stressful environments are a nightmare to people with such problems. Places like Oxford, where living + here = stress, have the effect of accelerating initial use as a crutch, to abuse, the point at which people find themselves suffering from one of life’s most crippling diseases: addiction. So why isn’t addiction a more commonplace aspect of life here? Oxford has to be one of the worst places for any addict or potential addict to be. Like any university, it is a place where initially no one knows your name – you can become invisible. Coupled with the fact that it’s about four times as hard to succeed here, you will find addicts vanishing before your eyes. One of the essential problems is that Oxford relies on addictive tendencies. Addiction to your degree is the goal. Tutors often stress breaks as an important element to study, but if I was compelled to do an hour’s work before breakfast every morning, life would be so much easier. What happens though, when failure to succeed, social stresses or the general burden of life here, cause you to drink before breakfast, get caned, or miss breakfast altogether and go to the bookies instead? The camouflage of an addiction is made more effective in a university: out of a group of drunk students, how can an outsider, let alone the students themselves, tell the difference between someone who drinking compulsively, and someone who, like most students, just drinks too much Alcoholics Anonymous has twelve questions for young people with worries about alcoholism. If you answer yes one of them, then there is a possibility that you may have a problem you need to address. I’m not alcoholic, but I answered yes seven of the twelve questions. Addictions in Oxford, especially alcohol, can become dangerously swallowed up in ‘student life’. I’ve had to ask questions about my own drinking from time to time, just assure myself that my behaviour that of a typical student, and not an alcoholic. It would help if problems with addiction received more exposure. Unfortunately, most of the coverage they receive is based around celebrities who have addictions, go to The Priory for treatment, or lose the cartillage in their noses from cocaine abuse. For people in the limelight addiction is a tough thing to hide. Alex Higgins sitting at the Embassy World Snooker Championship, weeping into his vodka and orange as people politely made their way out, is a heartbreaking piece of footage. But for many hundreds of thousands of people, there is no camera watching. Universities are not only ideal places to gain a habit, but can also serve to hide them. By the time an addiction becomes so advanced that it can no longer dwell unnoticed under the disguise of ‘student life’, it is too late to simply make lifestyle changes. We need to be acutely aware of the fact that Oxford is an environment which not only lends itself to an addictive lifestyle, but is a place which can merge the distinctions between normality and the chaos of addiction. This clouding of boundaries means that almost unnoticed, people can find themselves in the situation where chaos reigns supreme. Facilities for managing addiction go about as far as the Anonymous groups. OUSU does organise workshops, but unless you’re a JCR Welfare Officer you won’t know about them. To any recovering addict who regularly attends an Anonymous meeting, they owe not only their abstinence to the group, but their life. An Anonymous Group is simply a fellowship of men and women who have joined together to do something about their own addiction. They are based on a self help recovery programme, built around the twelve steps that have been in place for over sixty years. As any Anonymous Group’s literature will tell you, the greatest importance of the twelve steps “lies in the fact that they work”. A Gamblers Anonymous meeting started in Oxford two weeks ago, AA groups run here every day of the week, there are five NA meetings in Oxford and also an SA meeting. If your life has become unmanageable due to addiction, help is at hand. The first of the revered twelve steps of the anonymous programme is this: “we admitted we were powerless over addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable”. How many people feel, at this moment in time, that their life is “unmanageable”? I’d be surprised if anyone studying at Oxford said that their life was ever fully manageable. It is when we cannot manage life, when the level of stress outweighs mechanisms for coping with stress, that we fall apart. The likelihood is that often these coping mechanisms are frequently destructive and addictive, it is woefully apparent that we need to be on our guard. To get in touch with your nearest Anonymous Group meeting, ring the respective national 24hr helpline, who will put you straight through to your region. Gamblers Anonymous 08700 50 88 80 Sexaholics Anonymous 07000 725 463 Narcotics Anonymous 0207 7300009 Alcoholics Anonymous 0845 769 7555.
ARCHIVE: 3rd Week TT 2003

Walking down a central street at my university in America, I approach a confused looking tourist and her daughter. Asking if they need directions, “well,” the mother says brightly, “do you know where the sorority houses are?” A crucial stop for the young prospective, apparently. “Oh, they’re all in this area,” I reply; “mine’s over there.” “Which one are you in?” the mother asks, smiling. I tell her, and suddenly, she appears to go into convulsions, and nearly starts to hyperventilate. “OH MY GOD. I WAS IN THAT ONE TOO!” She then starts to speak very quickly, her words running together with excitement. “Duke-University-Beta- Gamma-Chapter-class-of-75-it-is” she pauses briefly for air “SO-nice-tomeet you!” I feel like I should start doing a sorority cheer or a secret handshake, or at least attempt to mimic her overwhelming enthusiasm, but instead I just look sympathetically at her equally excited daughter. Some parents push their children to excel academically, but perhaps an even more devastating type of parental pressure is that of social expectations. Months before sorority recruitment – ‘rush’ – starts, eager mothers, aunts and grandmothers will send letters to their alma mater sorority recommending their child/niece/grandchild as a fabulous potential new member. Generally this consists of an enthusiastic description of the girl, complete with her CV and photograph. Often the girls themselves are just as keen to impress, for indeed it is their future university social life on the line. And the pressure is not just to get into a sorority – it is to get into a good one. ‘Good ones’ are qualified by the calibre of the current and former members, a reputation largely dependent on the perceived overall appearance, financial status and charisma of the girls. (Many have nicknames: Visa Visa Mastercard in lieu of Kappa Kappa Gamma is a personal favourite.) Good sororities will socialize with good fraternities, whose reputation is similarly determined, and presumably this social elite will mate and have wealthy, attractive, captivating children. Hence the pressure. So necessarily, rush is gruelling, both for those going through the rigorous process and for sorority ‘sisters’ meeting the prospective new members. #In the first round, the ‘rushees’ are divided into groups, and must go to every sorority house – larger universities will boast up to twenty – chatting to several members for a few minutes each. As one rushee group leaves and one arrives, the current sisters will cursorily vote on the girls based on their scintillating five minute conversation. Those with high scores will be invited to the next round the following day, which involves more conversation, generally superficialities such as where one is from and what subject one does, until every girl involved feels as though she has just been on one hundred getting-to-know-you first dates. Without as much as a glass of wine to loosen the conversation. (Ultimately, however, being a member of a sorority will make alcohol, that forbidden fruit of American undergraduate life, much more accessible.) The rounds continue, each eliminating more girls, and each lasting a full day – generally five days in total over the course of two weeks. By the final round, in which each prospective attends three sorority ‘parties’, schoolwork has declined and exhaustion has taken over, but the rushees continue to smile cheerfully, a testament more to their stamina than their personality. At the end of this round they will rank the three in preferential order, a decision that will probably determine their future friends and social scene at university. Meanwhile the current sisters must make one final cut to the list of girls they hope will well represent their sorority and perpetuate or augment its reputation. The subsequent all-nighter is not the result of academic pressures (those have been put by the wayside) but of social necessity, as different sorority members describe each of the one hundred remaining potential new members for several minutes, saying two positive and two negative comments about each. Due to the need to differentiate the great personality of a particular rushee from those of the dozens of other great girls, a list of positive descriptive adjectives is circulated for member use, including the distinguishers: ‘spunky,’ ‘bad-ass chicken,’ and ‘beautiful (inside)’. (As in, “Amanda would be a great new member, she’s really beautiful… on the inside”). The ‘con’ statements are not malicious, and are generally limited to a polite “better suited for another sorority” – a phrase that may indeed change the life of an unsuspecting first year girl. However superficial the process may seem, it is difficult to condemn sororities unilaterally. At larger American universities, where no Oxonian college system exists, a large or closely knit group of friends is often hard to come by. Andrea Goldberg, a masters student at Green College who attended Yale University as an undergraduate, noted that while she was not in a sorority, “for a lot of people they provide a positive social outlet for people who don’t play a sport or aren’t in the newspaper or don’t otherwise have a group to hang out with on campus.” networking aspect of sorority life is often helpful in a collegiate system that doesn’t often encourage inter-year fraternizing. “It’s a nice chance to meet older girls who can become mentors and help you with academics and non-academic aspects of college,” explained Hayden Odell, an undergraduate at Princeton University. And, as evidenced by my chance encounter on the street, sorority associations can help later in life as well; a well-organized national network of alumni ‘sisters’ doesn’t hurt when looking for a job, a place to stay abroad, or a publisher for that book on relationships. Incidentally, the friendships, while perhaps superficially formed, are often enduring. “I’ve met girls I never would have met otherwise – girls who will undoubtedly be friends for life,” said Kelly Melton, a member of the sorority system at the University of Virginia. And at Oxford, while a social system based on networking, charisma and appearance might not be institutionalised to quite the same degree, a cautious proposition is that one .
ARCHIVE: 3rd Week TT 2003