Hope and Loss Go Hand in Hand

            On Sunday morning after the alarm went off I got up and washed and prepared to do my yoga. I turned on Radio Canada and was surprised that they were playing jazz when there’s usually a classical program at that hour. Then I remembered that the clocks had been turned back. I looked at my phone and it was just after 4:00, so I went back to bed. But I couldn’t sleep and so I got up at 4:30 and started yoga. 

            Today was the day I wanted to finish my Canadian Literature essay outline on David Chariandy’s Brother and so after doing two journal posts I started doing my research at around 7:00. 

            Because I’d already done some research and found that Chariandy had gotten a DJ to give him a play list of songs, while the choice to include Nina Simone in the novel was entirely his own, because the meaning she puts into the songs is so important, I focused the rest of my research on Nina Simone. I searched for all the downloadable biographies of Simone I could find and spent the next several hours scanning those while making notes. I also downloaded her 1965 album “I Put a Spell on You”. 

            After the research I had to justify how the research would help my argument and finally write a conclusion. I really hate this high school style planning out of an essay. I’m used to an organic approach. 

            Title: Two Songs that Flank the Emotional Range of David Chariandy's Brother 

            Thesis: The songs “Feeling Good” and “Ne me quitte pas” bookend the spectrum of sentiments expressed in David Chariandy’s Brother. 

            Rationale: “Feeling Good” by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse expresses hope while “Ne me quitte pas” by Jacques Brel deals with the despair of loss. “Feeling Good” is the musical background in this story for the memory of a family briefly together and uplifted in joyful dancing harmony ." The title “Ne me quitte pas” is also the repeated refrain of the song, meaning “please don't quit me now." It is used in Brother to address losses with which one has not yet come to terms, such as the loss of a father by abandonment, the loss of opportunity and the loss of a brother's life. I will show how these two songs as sung by Nina Simone are returned to throughout the story to establish vital moments of connection and disconnection for the main characters. 

            Major Points: 

1. Brother is grounded in nostalgia that serves as its foundation for hope. The very last line of the prologue establishes this with the declaration that, “If you can’t memory right … you lose (1).” 

2. “Feeling Good” and “Ne me quitte pas” embody the nostalgia, the hope and loss of Brother. “Feeling Good” plays during Michael’s earliest memory and only recollection of his father (84) and Michael’s mother unconsciously quotes a hopeful line from the song in the end when she declares, “It is a new day (176).” “Ne me quitte pas” is used symbolically as a shared experience of loss between the two characters who will be lost to everyone else (110, 173-174). 

3. Nina Simone’s "sweet and sad voice" is the connection between these songs and therefore between their themes of hope and loss being essentially bound together. “Nina Simone, her opening to ‘Feeling Good’ … forever looping back (97).” “We must have played Nina Simone’s version of ‘Ne me quitte pas’ at least a dozen times (174).” 

            Research: 

1. Interview with David Chariandy by Alexander Varty for the Georgia Straight in October 2017, in which Chariandy says, "to be able to access and feel what Nina Simone was … coding into the music … that’s so important." This shows that the use of these songs as interpreted by Simone are essential to the heart of the story. 

2. Three biographies of Nina Simone: What Happened Miss Simone? by Alan Light; Nina Simone: Love Me or Leave Me by Mathilde Hirsche and Florence Noiville; and Women in the Arts: Nina Simone by Kerry Acker. Citations from these works will show how Nina Simone takes ownership of these songs and communicates through them an experience which she shares with the main characters of the novel, especially with Ruth. 

           Conclusion: The songs “Feeling Good” and “Ne me quitte pas” as interpreted by Nina Simone gel in the gut of David Chariandy's Brother. Their combined gravity teaches us that hope and loss are intimately embracing ideas. 

            I uploaded my outline at 16:30 and just relaxed. 

            I heard Benji and Shankar talking in the hallway and thought that I heard a knock on my door. I opened my door and they hadn’t rapped but I’ve been hearing knocking sounds every now and then since the heat came on and I think it might be part of the building shifting. I chatted with Benji and Shankar for about an hour on various topics. 

            I shaved my neck and showered. 

            I sliced another bottom off the round fruit-nut loaf and covered it with sauce, cheese and ham. I put it in the oven for twenty minutes and had it with a beer while watching Interpol Calling. 

            The intro of the show always shows someone smashing through a border between countries and the voice always says, “Crime knows no frontiers!” But obviously crime knows that particular frontier since it smashed through it every week. 

            In this story Duval goes to a remote town in Australia called Cranby’s Creek to escort a man named Brock who escaped an arrest for murder in Belgium. When he arrives there he finds that Brock is on trial for an attempted murder of a deputy that happened the night before and also theft of opals from the town’s mine. The town is holding an illegal "kangaroo court" with Cranby the founder of the town as the judge. As Cranby is the employer of everyone all of the witnesses he calls say what he wants them to say. Duval decides to defend Brock while waiting for real officials to arrive. A man named Graham, who is there on business is the only one that tries to help Duval by contacting the authorities, while all of the locals, except for Cranby’s daughter Ruth are trying to undermine Duval's efforts. The only phone in town is smashed. Ruth is the nurse treating the deputy but she is also Brock's lover. Brock says that he did not shoot the deputy and he also did not murder the man in Belgium but rather killed him in a knife fight that the other initiated. Meanwhile the deputy dies and so Brock’s trial becomes a murder trial. Everyone says they saw Brock enter the deputy's office before he was shot. They did not see him with a rifle and assumed he had used the deputy’s rifle but Duval shows that the deputy’s rifle had not been fired and also that there was no room to shoot the deputy from where he was sitting at his desk. He shows the court powder burns on the window ledge from outside the office and concludes that someone must have shot the deputy from outside. Cranby hesitates and calls a recess but doesn’t seem convinced. Brock is sure he will be found guilty and hanged before the real judges can get there so he struggles with guard and takes his rifle. He forces everyone but Duval and Graham out of the courtroom and plans to hold them off until the authorities arrive. But suddenly Graham grabs a rifle and points it at Brock, ordering him to shoot Duval. Duval realizes Graham is the killer and the opal thief. Brock turns his gun on Graham and Graham fires at Brock, wounding him. Duval gives Graham a karate massage and all ends well. It’s funny how Duval nabs everybody else but never catches that person that smashes through the border every week. 

            Ruth was played by Felicity Young, who played Helen of Troy in “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus”, co-starred in “Freedom to Die”, and was in the cast of the TV series “Flower of Evil.” At around 21:30 I couldn’t keep my eyes open and so I just went to bed without washing my face or brushing my teeth.