I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GRUFF RHYS-Candylion (2006).

I’ve mentioned before that I really like Super Furry Animals. This is the lead singer’s solo album. It sounds very similar to an SFA album, although it’s a little less bizarre, a little less indulgent (which somehow seems odd for a solo album, but whatever.) Overall, it sounds somewhat more mellow, but it’s not exactly a mellow affair. The title song is a pretty little ballad. However, the album also has some great, if not rocking, then certainly rollicking songs that are great to sing along to like “Cycle of Violence” and “Now That the Feeling is Gone.” There’s lots of la la’s and Whooos! to add to the exictemnet.

And, even better, there are two songs in Welsh: “Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru” (that’s most of the lyrics, and it means “Drive”) and “Ffwydruad yn y Ffurfafen” which is just fun to imagine how to pronoucet. So, overall it sounds not unlike any other SFA album,

There is one thing though, the last song is a near 15 minute epic story called “Skylon!” It tells the tale of a mundane flight that turns into a near plane crash. There’s an actress on board as well and a bomb, and, well frankly, between Gruff’s accent and the meandering nature of the song, I’m not exactly sure what’s happening. And yet I like and learn more of the song with each listen.

I accept that this record will never be a big seller, except maybe in Wales, but you can do your part by ordering it and enjoying all of the coolness that is Gruff.

[READ: Feb 29, 2008] “The Shelter of the World.”

When the Satantic Verses came out, I was in college, and was somewhat friendly with an Indian guy (who two years later turned out to be the best friend of my then roommate…small world? Nope, small campus.) Anyhow I was talking to him about the hoopla and the fatwa and, he, very smugly, I felt, told me that I would never understand the book because it was very Indian, and an American like myself simply couldn’t get what was going on. I was rather offended by this, (and I’m sure I remember it being much more insulting than it actually was). But, when I finally read the Satanic Verses a few years after that, it turns out he was completely right. I had no idea what was going on in that book. And even though I may someday try again, I’m still pretty sure I won’t get it. That didn’t stop me from reading and enjoying Rushdie’s other books. However, I haven’t read much by him lately. So, when I saw this story in the New Yorker I thought I’d give it a go.

This story is also very Indian, but it is also mythic. The story concerns Akbar the Great and his true love, a woman he has created as his ideal. She becomes more powerful when he is around, and his other flesh and blood wives know of her and are very jealous of her.

Akbar pillages the local villages and proves his mettle on the battleground, but all the time he thinks of his woman, Jodha. Jodha, being non-corporeal resents that she exists only in his mind and plans to chastise him for leaving her. Yet as he returns she feels his belief in her and she grows stronger. Although she loves the thrill of the power she receives, she also resents that it is he who gives her strength, and that she has none of her own. She prepares to give his a good tongue lashing once he returns.

Meanwhile, while Akbar was away, he decided to give Jodha the ultimate sign of his love for her, he is willing to drop the royal We, and refer to himself as I in front of her, something that he has never done in front of anyone before. He has always been a plural, for he is the king and his country, they are him. He practices saying “I” and musters up the courage and love to refer to himself in the singular when at last he returns.

His return signals the change in their relationship. She chastises him and deigns to refer to his flesh and blood wives. This reveal seems to break the spell of their love. He then feels foolish for referring to himself in the singular. Like an inverse “Gift of the Magi” neither will be the same again.

I don’t normally like to give so much away about a story, but really, the story is quite simple, and it’s tough not to just reveal the major points. It is the telling of the story that’s what counts. And Rushdie does a good job of getting into the mind of the king as well as making you believe that the whole kingdom knows of and respects this imaginary woman.

A neat story. It comes across as simultaneously powerful and common.