Henry Holland dwar “Il-Baqta”

Intervista ta’ Adrian Grima (2002)

Narrating Violence

Writer Henry Holland talks to Adrian Grima about his daring short story “Il-Baqta” (Bliet u Miti - poeżija u proża, Inizjamed, 2002)

The name Henry Holland doesn’t ring many bells among readers of Maltese literature and yet his collection of poetry in Maltese, L-Artist tat-Trapiż (1996), is one of the most innovative works of literature written in recent years. And his three short stories that have since appeared in collections by Inizjamed suggest that Holland is working out with a narrative style that cannot pass unnoticed. L-Artist tat-Trapiż, which was published by the author himself (as normally happens in Malta), has quietly challenged the language of contemporary Maltese poetry and set many young poets thinking.

I first interviewed Henry Holland in March 2000. The full text of this interview in Maltese is available here. In this second conversation we talked about his daring short story “Il-Baqta” which was published by Inizjamed in August 2002.

“Il-Baqta” tells the story of how two violent men bully their mate known by the nickname “Il-Baqta” (which literally means “curd, curdled milk”) both physically and psychologically. It’s a captivating snapshot of the sad world of violence and the immobilizing effects it has on its victims; it is also a dramatic story of disorientation and loneliness.

Like all of Holland’s works, this is a profoundly serious work that has waited for eight years to be published, perhaps because of the aggressive, obscene language that captures so vividly the violence on which the relationships between the characters is based.

The interview was carried out in Maltese.

What do you consider to be the “essence”, whatever that may mean, of this story?

Il-Baqta is a character who is always controlled by others, who never expresses himself; in some ways he resembles various the characters in James Joyce’s collection of short stories, Dubliners, people who are always left behind, who are “paralysed”. In a way, Il-Baqta is one of them, a victim of the violence of others, a man who is a bit “too good”, who allows people to manipulate him. He somehow represents those in our society who are naive and pitiable.

“Il-Baqta” is not only dominated by his mates but also by his mother. He represents those Maltese bachelors of a certain age (he’s almost 50) who remain attached to their mother (what in Italy I think they call “mammismo”). Il-Baqta is afraid to take certain decisions. In a way he resembles characters in some of my other stories.

Tell me about this resemblance.

Many of the protagonists of my stories are like Il-Baqta, victims of the violence perpetrated by other people.

In ”Il-Ġrieden”  (“The Rats”), the protagonist is dominated by Neville; in “Il-Ħabib ta’ l-Eroj Myles” (“The Friend of the Hero Myles” - Myles is a character in a novel by Howard Pyle called Men of Iron’) there is a similar situation. In ”Il-Bir” (“The Well”) the old man seems subjugated by his wife but he passes through a metamorphosis that renews him and this makes his wife jealous of him. This theme reminds me of the collection of short stories Beautiful Losers by the Canadian Jew Leonard Cohen; in another unpublished story called “Is-Sinna,” the only one written from the point of view of a woman, the protagonist is dominated by a man.

Eventually I would like to collect ten stories: I have already written six of them and I’ve sketched out the other four in my mind.

When and why did you write “Il-Baqta”?

I wrote it about eight years ago; I showed it to an established writer who told me to be careful because of the type of language I was using. When you phoned and invited me to take part in the “Bliet u Miti” [Cities and Myths] project the story was still in draft form, with some kind of “framework”. I hadn’t yet published it because the opportunity hadn’t cropped up. I wasn’t happy with it as it was so before I gave it to you I did a lot of revising.

The characters are based on people I know – the aggressiveness, the violence is in everyone. It’s not a story in favour of Il-Baqta; he has his own defects. In fact, I twice describe him as “the submissive Baqta”.

In the story I tried to narrate violence, a violence that steadily escalates: in the first stage, in which the three men encounter a young parker, the violence is verbal; then there’s the dirty trick, the scene in which Mikiel grabs Il-Baqta’s hair and bangs his head against the ceiling of the car he’s driving – this is physical violence being “acted out”, a physical violence that is supposedly only a playful hint of the real; then there’s real violence, when Mikiel beats his sister. I know these violent people like Mikiel; they do not exist only in my imagination. They’re always roaming around looking for trouble.

I have always been inspired, from a young age, by the somewhat harsh stories by Giovanni Verga; they say that that which you read at a young age leaves a lasting impression on you more than anything else.

You can also feel the violence in metaphors taken from the world of animals, like “żeher” (he neighed), “bagħal” (mule), “ħanżir” (pig) and “lupu” (wolf). Mikiel’s behaviour towards other people is almost worse than that of an animal... Incidentally, something I really like about the Maltese language is the sensuality of its words. I love the sounds of words like “ifarrkek”, “inkissrek”, ”inqaċċtek”, “nilwik”, “tqarmeċ”. Maltese is very rich in onomatopoeia.

I also like to use the stream of consciousness. In fact in my stories nothing really happens; but I can see “Il-Baqta” as a play because there is a dramatic element in it that to me dominates the story; after all drama is conflict. At the same time, the text is open-ended. I don’t like to make things obvious. In “Il-Ġrieden”, for instance, the story ends with the narrator boy saying that his friend Neville is a bit of a show-off and that the rat should have never come out in the open that day.

“Il-Bir” ends with the jealously of the wife who seems convinced that she dominates her husband but then realizes a moment later that he is better off than she is; eventually, whether or not I publish these stories, “I see “Il-Bir” as the best one in the book. Joyce’s Dubliners finishes with “The Dead”, one of the best short stories, because it anticipates death, the end – I would put “Il-Bir” at the end of this collection for similar reasons.

I am very much influenced by the writers of the modern period of the early twentieth century like James Joyce. The old man in “Il-Bir” (“The Well”) dreams that he has descended into the well; it’s a mixture of realism and symbolism, and not simply what has been called “a slice of life”. The title “Il-Ġrieden” is metaphorical, symbolic: the rats are actually victims because everyone wants to kill them, but the Maltese word “ġurdien” (“rat”) is also associated with shrewdness, as in the expression “ġurdien xiħ”, “an old rat”, meaning a crafty and shrewd person.

Do you think that the Maltese audience is ready for a literature that contains harsh and obscene words?

First of all I would like to emphasize that I do not use “obscene” language just for the fun of it... there is coherence and consistency between the words and the character.

To answer your question: well yes, it seems that they are ready. Generally speaking, the Maltese are not exposed enough to literature, especially to a certain kind of daring literature, but from what I’ve seen from some books of prose that have been published recently, like Ġużè Stagno’s Inbid ta’ Kuljum, Karl Schembri’s Taħt il-Kappa tax-Xemx and Alfred Sant’s La Bidu La Tmiem (the first part of which I really liked, especially the narrator’s ability to put you in the scene, so to speak), things are starting to change. Besides, the Maltese see a lot of things on television and they have access to literature in English. But I suppose that the real test for “transgressive” Maltese literature goes beyond publication and lies within the educational system: this kind of literature will only be really and truly accepted when people start to read it in schools.

Which part of “Il-Baqta” are you most satisfied with?

I suppose the best parts are the beginning and the scene in which Mikiel bangs Il-Baqta’s head against the ceiling of the car; there’s also the bit at the end, when even his mother gets confused and walks away. This part looks like a scene in a film. (In “Il-Bir” the wife of the old man is disoriented by her husband’s metamorphosis.) The last part of the story is full of pathos. There’s a sense of death – Il-Baqta is almost dead, as in Joyce’s “The Dead”. Incidentally, in Maltese, we describe a person who is a bit too good as “qisu mejjet” (meaning “he looks dead”).

In this area of our language, Maltese is fascinating: we pity a “good” person, and this is evident in expressions like “dak orrajt, miskin,” (he’s a nice person, poor guy). In our culture you have to be macho. The tough guy (an expression we also use when we talk in Maltese) is admired: the tough guy does as he wishes, whatever the consequences, while the good guy “tista’ tqatta’ u tiekol minnu, miskin.” (literally, you can cut him up and eat him, poor guy).

In my stories I suppose the beginning is always the best part, perhaps because I would have been thinking about it for some time. In the case of “Il-Baqta” I also worked hard on the last sentence. And I think that it has created the effect I wanted it to create.

Translated from Maltese by Adrian Grima – December, 2002