Friday, May 9, 2025
Blog Page 781

‘Cat Person’ — how does literature survive in a viral age?

Victoria Gawlik
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‘Cat Person’ — how does literature survive in a viral age?

“Cat Person”, Kristen Roupenian’s ubiquitous short story about the difficulties of modern relationships and unwanted sex, has captured the internet consciousness with a speed and virulence unlike any other piece of literature that has emerged online. The piece feels entirely germane to the current zeitgeist, released within the ongoing discourse on sexual harassment and abuse within the media.

Its is a piece of fiction that resonates with online dating experiences, where people are constantly contactable, and the resulting ease at which the actual people involved can be overlooked. Roupenian states in an interview: “our initial impression of a person is pretty much entirely a mirage of guesswork and projection”. Being online only magnifies these projections, where personal profiles signify superficial images of individuals. Social media has helped to craft this story from within and without. People and content are so easily consumable on the internet, and thus, especially given our current cultural moment, “Cat Person” is suddenly everywhere, and everyone has an opinion on it.

The purpose of fiction in the internet age has entered the keyboard battlefield. Emily Temple writes that the problem with many reactions to “Cat Person” is the rhetoric of relatability that it is criticised or praised with. “Cat Person” is about the pressures facing women who find themselves in situations where they feel threatened. The positive reaction to the story, driven by young women, is largely a gut-sense of ‘I know how this experience feels’.

Temple’s point is that it becomes problematic when people are using relatability as the sole way to gauge whether this story has meaning. Is literature more important when it stimulates conversation than when it achieves a certain degree literary quality? Internet culture has turned relatability into a currency. In the case of “Cat Person”, this seems to have happened at the expense of the piece’s innate status as literature.

As a piece of fiction, there is specific intent and creative capital with which the story is crafted and in whose experience the reader partakes. This is lost when the piece is interpreted and discussed as a relatable think-piece or essay to be toyed with.

Enter “Cat Person: What Robert (probably) thought”. Published a week later by BBC Three, the piece is an egregious attempt to produce an alternative narrative and turn Robert into a character to empathise with. Dangerously, the text isn’t presented as an accompanying short story, but as a hypothetical response excusing a character who is purposefully underwritten in the original. In doing so, the piece violently negates the validity of Roupenian’s narrative of female interior experience and her reader’s response.

The fact “Cat Person: What Robert (probably) thought” has been published without an author abuses Roupenian’s status as one. Her name and details of the original publication are not mentioned until the piece ends: its subtitle, “The New Yorker told Margot’s story. Here’s Robert’s”, nullifies the function of “Cat Person” as fiction and asks Roupenian’s characters to be real people and, thus, accountable. The criticism that “Cat Person” is biased against Robert is unproductive. It is a story of female experience, Margot’s interaction with Robert’s character is driven by his ambiguity and how she projects a persona for him to inhabit. BBC Three shatters this narrative by developing Robert beyond this projection.

Most distressingly, however, “Cat Person: What Robert (probably) thought” seems to be jumping on the fact that “Cat Person” is viral more than trying to engage in a discussion with its content. Fundamentally, this ‘developed’ Robert is an extended projection of the persona created by Margot in the original, but only this time on part of the reader. As we only have Margot’s impressions from Roupenian’s story to compare with, “Cat Person: What Robert (probably) thought” fails in its attempt to attack Margot’s accountability because it forgets that neither character is real. Fiction does not have to present rounded individuals to make a point.

“Cat Person” is a formidable cultural monument for our present political and social landscape. In the world of post-truth and fake-news, the fact that fiction is driving our current debate is pertinent. We don’t yet know how to talk about viral fiction. But the development of a critical framework online is exciting, relevant, and most importantly accessible. Literature matters, and the importance of “Cat Person” to the evolving language with which we analyse online fiction is unprecedented.

Evidence of magic at the British Library

Raffaella Sero
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Evidence of magic at the British Library

Upon entering the first room of the British Library exhibition, Harry Potter: a History of Magic, one’s attention is immediately captured by the pencil drawing of a familiar-looking boy, wearing round glasses kept together by a certain amount of sellotape.

A mass of unkempt dark hair falls disorderly on his forehead, hiding, as the viewer must know, a thin, lightning-shaped scar: the only mark of the boy’s survival, and one of the many symbols the world has learned to associate with Harry Potter.

The eyes in Jim Kay’s portrait of Harry have an almost entrancing quality, forcing the visitor to take a closer look, inviting them to start the journey. This is the name of the first room in the exhibition, ‘Journey’, and a very appropriate name it is, too. Just past Harry’s portrait, we find the premise of the first volume in the saga, typed by J.K. Rowling in 1995,

“Harry Potter lives with his aunt, uncle and cousins because his par- ents died in a car-crash – or so he has always been told …”. Next to it hangs the extraordinary reader’s report of Alice Newton, the (at the time) eight-year-old daughter of the founder and Chief Executive of Bloomsbury, reading: “The excitement of this book made me feel warm inside. I think it is possibly one of the best books an 8/9 year old could read”.

Together with the Rowling’s premise, this note, scribbled in pencil all those years ago, helps the viewer truly perceive how far J.K. Rowling’s story has come, how long and fraught with dangers its journey.

The first room, then, puts us in the right mind set to want to learn more, and to explore not only the history of the story, in terms of how it was conceived and written and published, but the past before the story, the hoard of history and myth that is buried at the very foundation of the Harry Potter universe, and that which distinguishes it from all other imaginary worlds.

The crowd of books flying against the black ceiling leads us forward, towards two of Jim Kay’s portraits at the end of the corridor, respectively depicting Professor Dumbledore eating sherbet lemons and Professor McGonagall looking serenely intimidating.

These seem to be inviting us to peer into the next room, and to the portrait at its entrance. This belongs to another Hogwarts headmaster, Severus Snape (or Snivellus, as we like to call him in the Gryffindor common room), as part of the ‘Potions’ room.

Indeed each room in the exhibition is associated with a Hogwarts subject, allowing those who feel firmly part of the the Wizarding world to indulge in the nostalgia of Hogwarts school, while at the same time helping the crowds of Muggles find their way among objects like Iron Age cauldrons and scrolls detailing the making of the philosopher’s stone.

While it is certainly pieces like the golden-enclosed bezoar (apparently, a mass of undigested fibre actually found in the stomach of goats!) which immediately attract the attention of unashamed, hardcore potterheads (like the writer of this article), the magic of the British Library exhibition is that all its items, apart from their Potter associations, are incredibly fascinating in their own right.

In fact, a beautiful balance is achieved between all that is Rowling-related, such as the writer’s notes and plans and the lovely sketches she drew while working on the books, and items whose only association with Harry Potter is their existence in the same world of magic and mystery.

Moreover, Jim Kay’s superb illustrations of the first three books act as thread all through this wonderful assemblage of enchanting objects. However, the success of Harry Potter: a History of Magic is more than the sum of its parts. It is due at least in part to its bewitching atmosphere, which manages incredibly well to capture the subtle irony of the books.

With its star-ridden ceilings, its floating cups, its invisibility cloak “only visible as a slight shimmer if you look at it out of the corner of your eye”, it truly respects the character of the story it aims to bring to life.

A woman weaving herself into history

Anoushka Kavanagh
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A woman weaving herself into history

Hanging midway through Modern Art Oxford’s latest exhibition, ‘Blood in the Grass’ (1966) is a piece unlike any of Hannah Ryggen’s other tapestries. Perhaps that’s why it’s so poignant. The emerald matted grass-like threads are intersected by violent, red stripes – hypnotising acidic colours screaming out at their audience for attention.

Lyndon B. Johnson stands rigidly to the right: adorned in crimson Navajo prints, and mouth drawn in a tight frown, he dangles his dog by the ears. To viewers of the ‘60s, this image would have been familiar, as it recalls a 1964 photograph of the President, widely circulated in the press.

‘Blood in the Grass’ is the only work in which Ryggen made use of manufactured dye, straying from her practice of natural colouring. And everything about it – from the vigorous colours to repurposing of a symbolic press image – reflects the excitable spirit of the new protest decade in which it was woven.

In fact, the Norwegian artist was herself taking a stand against Western media in this work: in Ryggen’s eyes, the papers’ focus on Johnson mistreating his pooch over escalating US airstrikes on Vietnam indicated a disingenuous focus of the press.

Ryggen was no stranger to protest though, taking up objection and opposition through her weaving long before the 60s. Born in 1894, she lived through the economic crises of the 1930s, Nazi occupation of Norway the following decade, and the Vietnam War. She was a member of Norway’s Communist Party and a fierce defender of democracy, her husband was imprisoned in the labour camp Grini, and her only daughter was diagnosed with the then little understood condition, epilepsy.

The overwhelming weavings on the walls chart this political and personal upheaval of her lifetime, visualising the struggle against oppression. Both the mental and physical brutality of the Nazi regime are brought out in ‘Death of Dreams’ (1936) for instance, in which a lifeless corpse is dragged by Hitler, Hermann Göring, and Joseph Goebbels over a pit of Swastikas, towards a cage of incarcerated, comatose souls.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Carl von Ossietzky chillingly shakes his shackled hands at us from behind bars on the far left – reflecting the artist’s defence of pacifism. Activism for peace again arises in later weavings, notably the symbolic ‘Mr Atom’ (1952). Here, the haloed Atom King – a personification of nuclear weapons – floats cross-legged above Adam and Eve.

Seen as an almighty God-like figure, and attributed the Norwegian abbreviation of HRH, the focal figure suggests Ryggen views nuclear power as an undemocratic and unassailable threat to the human race.

‘Mr Atom’ depicts one more figure of note – the artist herself. Clutching Eve in one hand, and her tapestry needle in the other, this was not the first time Ryggen had woven herself into her work. She appears in ‘Jul Kvale’ (1956), grabbing the Communist politician’s arm. In ‘6 October 1942’ (1943), in a small boat in choppy waters, floating among the heads of local police leaders who had betrayed Norway to the Nazis, and in ‘A Free One’ (1947/8), amidst struggling workers, holding a shining sunflower. Encasing oneself in political pieces like this is not all too common for artists, and Ryggen writing herself into the protest raises an interesting point, especially given her gender.

In directly tying herself to the issue at stake – be it nuclear armament, Nazi occupation, or dissolution of class boundaries – Ryggen makes a point of bringing women visibly into the public, political sphere.

And though her medium may be traditional ‘women’s work’, her compositions and subjects are anything but. Tapestries of this scale and ambition resemble history paintings by the likes of David and Goya.

Recording events of the twentieth century, Ryggen too was depicting history. Yet through her woven works, with the presence of the female artist, she ensured there would now be space for women in the writing. Interestingly, Ryggen never described herself as a weaver, always as a painter. It just so happened that her tool was “not the brush, but the loom”.

Unfazed by contemporary gender norms, it seems she was an unknowing pioneer for women in the art – and wider world, long before the feminist movement of the 1970s broke out. And as activist feminist art seems recently to have peaked once more, this relatively unknown artist’s work is the perfect source of reflection and inspiration we all need.

The legend of Sherlock Holmes

Erin O'Neill
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The legend of Sherlock Holmes

In 1893, swarms of English citizens wore grieving black armbands. There was a sombre mood in the air; one even described it as ‘life’s darkest hour’. What national hero had died to create such a reaction? It was none other than the cleverest hero of them all, Sherlock Holmes.

Obviously Sherlock could never die in a literal sense, after all, he was a work of fiction. But he was not dead in a canonical sense either.

To those Victorian fanboys and fangirls, and subsequent generations, Sherlock was, and always will be, an extraordinary figure. His powers of deduction have earned him a status that has extended beyond literature, achieved only by select others such as Dracula. Holmes is no longer just a Doylean creation – he is an icon of British culture, and a type upon which to base fictional creations, such as Dr Gregory House.

Thanks to the character becoming public domain in the UK and USA, Sherlock has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the ‘most portrayed movie character’, having had 70 actors play him in over 200 films. The most recent of these starred Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock, and reinvented Sherlock into a bare-knuckle fighting hero more in line with contemporary action heroes. It is this ability for reinvention that is his lasting genius. Sherlock can be a gun-wielding fighter, or a pipe-wielding gentleman, or an animated gnome, but he remains recognisable as the shrewd and sassy detective.

It is not only in film we see evidence of this; Sherlock’s ability to be transported into different media forms has kept the character thriving in our technological climate. Apart from books, magazines and theatre, Sherlock has been brought to life in comics, computer games, and perhaps most famously in recent years, television.

The BBC’s Sherlock is the perfect example of the adaptable nature of the character. Not only is Sherlock independently humanised alongside the foil of Watson, but he is brought into the modern world in a seamless translation that does not infringe on his character. This unique timelessness and mutability is what allows the recreation of Sherlock again and again without damaging his figure.

In short, detective Holmes continues to be reborn, in what has now become not only The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but The Legend of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle, however, would probably not have approved of Sherlock’s continuing legend – after all, he did try to kill the character off in The Final Problem. But perhaps Sherlock’s now iconic status would change his mind.

The Christie Mystery

Raffaella Sero
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The Christie Mystery

Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express must be at least the third adaptation I have seen of the famous novel. When I first watched the trailer, I was so captured with Branagh’s facial hair (the moustache is formidable, and rightly so, but what on earth does he have on his chin?) that I hardly noticed the pompous grandiosity of the production’s cast. I must admit it was with some misgiving that I found my way into the cinema one Saturday afternoon.

My fears were not in the least dispelled by the first, action-packed, ten minutes or so of the film , eggs-measuring scene notwithstanding. It seemed to me that, while the Belgian detective’s little quirks had been picked on and exaggerated, all of the real charm of a Poirot mystery had been sacrificed to the construction of a flashier, rather incredible and perhaps more popular sort of character, a character who was not Hercule Poirot. To my delight, I soon discovered that I was wrong. It was a detail in Branagh’s performance that, slowly sinking in, gave me hope as to the insight his new adaptation could offer into one of Christie’s most beloved masterpieces. For, all through the film, Branagh’s eyes have the right sparkle.

In the books, Poirot’s small green eyes are of great importance. They are always full of expression – they are cat’s eyes, shrewd and vigilant, and the light that animates them is often the light of secret knowledge, of a private joke. This knowledge often corresponds with the solution of the crime at hand, and the joke is invariably on Hastings, or on whoever, including the reader, is witnessing Poirot’s display of genius. At one point in An Autobiography, Christie muses: “Do you instinctively need something to combat, to overcome – to, as it were, prove yourself to yourself?” This question is one that one could easily apply to the enduring charm her novels have had, and still do have, on generations of readers.

There is indeed something incredibly satisfying in an Agatha Christie mystery, at least when one uses one’s ‘little grey cells’ and gets the solution right. John Curran, the editor of Christie’s notebooks, ascribes her long-lasting, boundless popularity to the fact that “no other crime writer did it so well, so often or for so long; no one else matched her combination of readability, plotting, fairness and productivity. And no one ever will”. While all these elements are certainly true, and would be enough (and to spare) to grant any author eternal fame, however, they are far from being Christie’s only charm. They are the mechanics of her greatness, its sinews and bones – they are not its heart and soul.

Similarly, one is usually given the impression that, behind the little sparkle in Poirot’s eyes, there is something more than the solution to a problem, something more than the frantic working of his ‘little grey cells’ and the serene application of ‘order and method’. And indeed, all through his series of exploits, there is some greater, deeper secret ‘papa Poirot’ is in the knowledge of: that is the secret of understanding life and its power, as much as murder and its appearance.

For there is a real appreciation of life in Poirot’s character. It is something that goes beyond the mere insight in human nature that is essential for the solving of all Christie’s mysteries. When I first started reading Christie, I pledged my full devotion to Miss Marple over Poirot. I suppose I pictured her, and kept on picturing her for some time even against the evidence of the novels, as this sweet old lady who happened to solve crimes. To me, her personality was not really affected by the murders she came across, which she only bothered with because she was too clever to let them pass her by; not to mention that, of course, she felt more British. To a certain extent, this first impression was correct, for Jane Marple is indeed too clever to let murders go unsolved. The extraordinary working of her mind is something she certainly shares with Poirot.

A crucial aspect, however, differentiates Miss Marple from Poirot: while both revel in solving crime, the sweet old lady genuinely enjoys pointing her wrinkled finger towards those who have committed it. For Miss Marple, that the murderer should be punished is as crucial as that the murder should be solved. Not so for Hercule Poirot, who cares for justice and believes in the existence of good and evil, but who also understands compassion. This is not to say that Poirot would lightly let a criminal go unpunished, but he does recognize that there are many more and multicolored layers to justice than Miss Marple would grant for. In 4.50 from Paddington, the unyielding old lady regrets the fact that death penalty is no longer available for punishing the abominable murderer she has just exposed. By contrast, on different occasions Poirot mercifully allows his murders the shortcut of suicide.

This ability to recognize the complexity of the world, to hate the murder and, at the same time, feel pity for the murder, stems from the same source as Poirot’s contempt for bloodshed: it stems from his joie de vivre. This is something Miss Marple lacks, but which the little Belgian detective shares with his creator. In An Autobiography, Christie writes: “Always when I woke up, I had the feeling which I am sure must be natural to all of us, a joy of being alive … there you are, you are alive, and you open your eyes and here is another day; another step, as it were, on your journey to an unknown place. That very exciting journey which is your life.” This deep love, this true enjoyment of life is present as an undercurrent in all of Christie’s most enduring successes. Paradoxically, it is what serves to make them such: that the success of a murder story should rest upon its tribute to life, is Christie’s greatest achievement, and her greatest mystery.

Empty Lush shop to become homeless shelter

Greg Ritchie
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Empty Lush shop to become homeless shelter

Cosmetics retailer Lush will allow its Cornmarket site to be used as a temporary homeless shelter, after facing condemnation for boarding it up.

The company was criticised last month after boards were placed outside the entrance of the empty store, denying rough sleepers shelter.

The move provoked outrage, with David Thomas, leader of the council’s Green Party group, describing it as “heartless”. In response, Lush issued an apology and took down the boarding.

The retailer has now approached Homes4All, a homelessness action group, to convert the space into temporary accommodation for rough sleepers.

The shelter, set to open on Saturday, will accommodate 19 beds.

Lush moved out to a new unit in the Westgate Centre in October but remains responsible for the Cornmarket Street shop until the end of the lease.

Homes4All founder, Deborah Robson-Grey, said: “We were thrilled when Lush approached us to say we could use their old business premises on Cornmarket Street until their lease runs out at the end of January next year.”

She added the unused retail space would act as a “stop gap” until they achieve their ambition of converting a bus into a mobile homeless shelter. A request of £20,000 funding for this project was rejected by councillors in November.

Councillor David Thomas said: “Two weeks ago the council refused to fund Homes4All’s idea of converting buses into homeless shelters.

“Now, with one of the coldest winters in a decade upon us, Home4All have come up with an alternative.”

In a statement responding to the shop’s conversion, Councillor Mike Rowley, board member for housing, said: “Oxford City Council, in conjunction with St Mungo’s, Homeless Oxfordshire and The Porch, has opened emergency accommodation over the past four nights during the cold weather for all rough sleepers, whether or not they have a local connection.

“From January, churches in Oxford will be operating an emergency night shelter with OxSpot, our Outreach Team, making referrals to the scheme.

“It may be that this latest initiative could become part of the ‘rolling provision’.”

Lush did not respond to a request for comment.

Exeter backtracks on housing guarantee

Fred Dimbleby and Matthew Roller
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Exeter backtracks on housing guarantee

First-year students at Exeter College have expressed outrage after a warning that they are unlikely to receive college accommodation in the next academic year.

The college claims to guarantee its students three years of accommodation but as many as thirty current freshers may now need to seek private housing in their second year.

At the start of eighth week, an email informed undergraduates them of “a potential shortfall of about 30 college bedrooms available for the next academic year, 2018-2019,” with “implications for those…currently placed between 146–176 on the housing ballot”.

Students have expressed anger, telling Cherwell that they have been “left in the lurch”.

On Friday of 9th week, Exeter students received another email, informing them of “the efforts the College is making to secure additional accommodation”.

It said: “The Bursar is exploring what, if any, opportunities exist in Oxford for the college to lease a block of student accommodation for the 2018-2019 academic year.

“The reality is that there is hardly any commercial student accommodation that would be acceptable to Exeter students, taking into account location, quality and cost.”

Students were told that they “should be aware that the college may not succeed in finding additional accommodation… many of you may need to consider private letting”.

Private letting is often more expensive than college accommodation. Analysis by Lloyds Bank earlier this year named Oxford the least affordable place to live in the UK.

Students have expressed their frustration at the college for their handling of the situation.

One first-year undergraduate, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Cherwell: “We were basically sent an email saying ‘sorry, sort yourselves out’.

“We haven’t been given proper access to any realistic alternatives, and have been told that the college can’t find any suitable housing.

“I can’t realistically get private housing until I know I will have financial support, as I can’t afford it with my loan. Meanwhile, all the good houses are going.”

The student also said that guaranteed accommodation was “a major factor” in their choice of college, as they “didn’t want to have to deal with private landlords”.

Another fresher described the situation as “depressing”.

“Telling us to find private housing at the end of Michaelmas is pretty irresponsible,” they said. “The main reasons I applied to Exeter were guaranteed accommodation and the central location.”

Exeter students currently live in accommodation on the college’s Turl Street site, at the recently-opened Cohen Quad on Walton Street, and in four college-owned houses and a graduate block on Iffley Road. The college also has accommodation on Banbury Road, which houses visiting students as part of its exchange programme with Williams College.

This is not the first time that Exeter College has failed to deliver on its guarantees for student accommodation. In 2016, 86 Exeter students were moved into Jury’s Inn, a four-star hotel in Wolvercote, after delays to the opening of Cohen Quad.

Exeter’s JCR position of Domestic and Accommodation Officer is currently vacant, after no candidate stood in the recent elections.

Neither the college nor the accommodation manager responded to a request for comment.

Keeping abreast of the sinful round robin

Rosalind Perrett
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Keeping abreast of the sinful round robin

It’s December 20th. The new day is sounded by the neighbour’s hacking cough, and by the soft thump of an envelope on the doormat. Tucked inside is a summary of your failings in size 12 font, or, as it’s more commonly known, the ‘Round Robin’.

‘Round Robin’ letters can be difficult to decipher, not least because your vision tends to blur with the tears of your own inadequacy. Stuffed like a turkey with spiced-up descriptions of family life, these Christmas newsletters can cause you to start losing your grip on reality, and the lighter you’re holding at the edge of the paper.

Is this even for me? Is often your first thought, because how can you know? It seems like Liz was so fired-up with relaying Helena’s SATs results that she forgot to address the letter personally, never mind to ask you how you are or how the divorce is going.

But it’s not just the sheer smugness of these letters which makes them hard to read. Many writers insist on ending every single sentence with an exclamation mark, making you feel a little like the ball on an over-excited two year-old’s paddle-bat. Sometimes, one isn’t even enough, you get a line of three or four, the textual equivalent of a grin, raised eyebrows, and thumbs-up. This can leave you wondering if these people find everything so utterly astonishing, or just their own extraordinary lives.

“Bob and I went for a gorgeous walk in the Quantocks last week! It was sunny! A wonderful day, only ruined slightly by Bob’s knee exploding halfway down Beacon Hill!”

Now, in my opinion, only one of these sentences warrants an exclamation mark – Meredith must have been very surprised to have such good weather. We can therefore assume that the other two are merely used to continue the jocular tone of the letter – full stops can be rather cold and impersonal (just like some people you might know).

Having slogged through the bit about the writer themselves, you’ll be faced with the next most important thing in their lives – their endearing and exceptionally skilful spawn.

“Samantha is making astounding progress on the hurdy-gurdy, passing Grade 8 alongside revising for her 19 GCSEs (we don’t know how she does it!). Phil and I simply cannot keep a rein on her truly admirable ‘zest for life’.”

No one can be average these days. Put simply, you can’t just be mediocre at making a snowman, you have to be spectacularly brilliant at making a snowman. In fact, if Aled Jones doesn’t launch into a spontaneous fluting warble as soon as you finish making your snowman, you may as well just go home.

Note the cliché thrown in here. Sounds like something you’d write, doesn’t it? You see, you and Alison aren’t that different really – you speak the same language! It’s like you’re one big happy family.

Now, mind the gap (year student).

“This month, Pamela is building drainage systems in Uganda – hard work, but she’s not one to complain! She’ll be back for a few weeks in June before setting off for Somalia to help in a hydrotherapy centre for aardvarks.”

What they’re not telling you here is that Pamela complains incessantly because the ground’s too hard to dig (‘so hard!’), and because she’s subsisting on insect larvae when she’s used to eating flambéed quail.

And of course, the angelic youngest child, adored by his quadruple CRB-checked teachers.

“Not to forget 8 year-old Titus, who can now put on his Velcro-shoes unaided, and who is a whirlwind on the rugby pitch! The referee at the last match actually forgot to blow the whistle, so transfixed was he by our little sporting phenomenon!”

The metaphor may have momentarily sparked your grossly depleted interest, but probably not. ‘Revolving plate in a microwave’ would have been more captivating, and accurate. Speaking of microwaves, your Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Additives’ mac ‘n’ cheese has just pinged. Best go get that, you’ll need all your strength for the travel section.

“Rose at 5:20 sharp and caught the 5:59 train from Reading to London Paddington, changing platforms for London Kings Cross with 52 minutes spare to grab a coffee and eat a raisin bagel in the waiting room. A slight hold-up of 12 minutes at Peterborough due to detachment of carriages, but I arrived more or less on-time in Lincoln at 10:05.”

Such over-sharing isn’t just limited to journeys. You’ll most likely reach the end of the letter (keep the faith) with precise knowledge of the circumference of Jolie the Dalmatian’s hind-quarters. This is preferable to knowledge of Sandra the writer’s hind-quarters, however.

Unlike these people’s taxes, family photographs in Christmas newsletters can’t be avoided. Shots of all 15 Robson’s crammed into frame, eating marinated feta al fresco under waxen fronds. Perhaps a snap of Tina and Jeremy, arms around each other in a visceral embrace, obscuring a large proportion of the Basilica behind them.

By this point you’ve concluded that the senders of these ‘Round Robins’ don’t care one ounce of currants about your puny sorrowful life. This is not the impression that Julian, who likes to talk about traffic calming measures, and who you haven’t seen in 17 years for precisely that reason, wants to give you. So, into the mix of stodgy self-aggrandisement he sprinkles some sugar, or candied orange peel if you prefer, in the form of a mention of you, dear reader. This can cause you to fall backwards in shock, to salute yourself in the mirror, or perhaps, to lose it completely and destroy the letter with relish (or petrol, which tends to be more flammable).

“We hope you are well, Laura, and keeping off the booze. We must make sure to pop over sometime in 2018.”

If you’re erratically splashing a red cross on your door, there’s no need. This is never going to happen. Don’t you know these people are ‘so incredibly busy’? Stop thinking you’re so important.

We need diverse books now more than ever

Sally Christmas
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We need diverse books now more than ever

A good book comes down to two things: characters and plot. Whilst you rarely find two books with the same story, many seem to reuse a certain type of character, focusing on straight, white, able-bodied protagonists. When written well, these characters can be related to, but they will never be truly representative of the wider world. The lack of diversity in modern literature is not just a problem for the minority groups who struggle to find stories about people like them – we’re all missing out because of it.

This issue has gained a lot of attention in recent years, thanks to movements like the ‘We Need Diverse Books’ campaign, but a quick look around any bookshop will tell you there’s still a huge shortage of diversity on our shelves. The books that do make it to publication are often ‘issue books’, where the whole story focuses on a character’s marginalisation, implying their race, sexuality or disability defines their entire life. These books are incredibly important to those who want to see themselves and their struggles represented accurately, but they can also be frustrating. In an ideal world, ‘diverse books’ would simply be ‘books’, written for everyone and enjoyable for all, where the characters are different just because they can be. Take a look at Harry Potter – there was no reason why Harry couldn’t be black, Hermione an immigrant, or Ron bisexual. The books would’ve been no less enjoyable for anyone, but so much more magical for the children who finally got to see someone like them saving the day.

But why is this actually important for the world outside of the bookshop? And not just for minority groups, but for everyone, even those of us who are already represented in the books we read? The answer is empathy. The connection between reading regularly and being able to empathise with those around us has been well documented, and, intuitively, we can see why. A good book asks us to consider a character’s point of view, to want what they want and to experience the hardships they experience. If we only ever read books about people like us, surely our empathy will only go so far.

Our world is becoming harsher and more divisive. As we find our views drifting further and further from those of the people around us, it’s all too easy to become more defensive, more likely to fall into the mentality of ‘us vs them’. We are encouraged to define ourselves and separate ourselves into groups of people whose views and experiences are the same as ours – left and right, immigrant and nationalist, Brexiteer and Remainer – and as we do so, it becomes more difficult to empathise with those who we deem to be different. Conversations turn into arguments, and nothing ever gets done.

But, if we expose ourselves to stories about people who, on the surface, are nothing like us, but who still think and feel and suffer like we do, we can remind ourselves that, despite our differences, we’re all still human. We can tackle hatred and bigotry in all its forms, and we can learn to empathise with people, even when we share no common ground. Where there is empathy, there is room for compassion, and only when there is compassion can there ever be progress.

Foals to make return to Cellar

Libby Cherry
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Foals to make return to Cellar

The Foals will perform at The Cellar’s Christmas Home Town Reunion in celebration of the venue’s prevented closure.

The landlord of Cellar withdrew his application for the site to be redeveloped into a retail space in October.

The event, which is planned for the 19th December, will begin with a set from Oxford band Low Island. This will then be followed by DJ sets from Foals and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, a London-based DJ and producer.

Foals have a well-forged relationship with The Cellar. They performed some of their earliest concerts at the venue and were involved in the campaign against the club’s closure.

Low Island, who will play their debut Cellar set at the event, spoke to Cherwell about the venue’s role in discovering Oxford-based new music.

“As a new band, you need platforms that will take a risk,” they said.

“The Cellar constantly take the leap of faith with new artists based purely on their music alone – not their Facebook likes.”

“We’ve all played/djed so many times in there over the years that it really feels like our club. I’d assume this is true for many of Oxford’s musicians and must be testament to the musical family that’s so strong and committed in Oxford.”

“It’s really the ‘safe space’ for the Oxford music scene, where anything goes and music is listened to without the pre-determined stereotypes or genre baggage.”

The profits from the event will go to The Highfield Adolescent Mental Health Unit and Crisis Skylight.

Abigail Rose, a representative of Crisis Skylight Oxford, agreed that the event was “very exciting” in its potential to raise money and awareness for the issue of homelessness.

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