#BTColumn – Charlie Hardears by Stokely Murray (A review)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

By Ralph A. Thorne, Q.C.

 

If the survival of a people is dependent on its access to food, clothing and shelter, it is its literature that becomes its legacy to future generations.

It must be an absolute delight for a son to receive the gift of his father’s foreword in the son’s first book.

Glyne Murray, himself a published author, places Stokely Murray’s new work within the literary tradition of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Billy Bunter and William Brown. In the father’s estimation and ours, his son has now created a Barbadian version of foreign characters who “lived real lives in my fertile imagination enthralled by their seemingly near limitless adventures, undertaken by awesome daring and endearing cheekiness.”

Stokely’s literary device is humour and he presents his work with quite bold graphic content to immediately attract his young readers.

Employing humour, Charlie Hardears then sits within the tradition of calypso, which nevertheless conveys very serious messages.

Calypso has affected the outcome of elections. Charlie Hardears intends no such effect, but in a broader philosophical sense, the book engages political sub-themes, where our protagonist Charlie challenges the authority of Mr. Millington. The story of the grouchy, but protective old man and the mischievous little boy recalls a familiar relationship within the Barbadian village.

We read a story that begins, interestingly, with rain, that most feared of the elements in Barbadian culture. It is a superstitious fear that finds cynical expression in the saying, “Bajans run from rain, but run to fire.”

The story begins with Mr. Millington shouting, “Charlie, get inside now and out of the rain.”

The author’s use of imagery betrays the dread of rain when he writes of “sheets of rain coming down furiously” and “the water hitting his skin like sharp pebbles.”

A relationship of hostility is therefore established between humanity and the rain. It is often a spoiler of fun and sometimes a forerunner to disaster.

A question that must now be asked with urgency is whether our young people are reading. We lived in simpler times when we played outdoors and read books indoors. I wonder if that time has passed.

That failure to read is also a failure to engage the virtues of positive learning, deep reflection and patience, which now manifests itself in our performances in cricket and many of our human endeavours.

We are literate, but we are not literary.

Our children, who do not read Charlie Hardears, will lose the opportunity to make contact with a figure of no less importance in Barbadian folk culture than was Tom Sawyer in American culture.Charlie Hardears will become that journey into the mind of a little boy and bring us to endearment, amusement, nostalgia, wonderment and pleasure. This first edition will remind us of the need to create peace out of disorder and to keep that peace amidst the occasional and inevitable turbulence.

Stokely Murray subtly explores themes of politico-cultural difference in the Argentina-England football dialogue between Charlie and his best friend Paul. It is a dialogue that will evoke memories among parents of England-Argentina conflicts on the battlefields of the Falklands and on the football fields of Mexico in the 1986 World Cup.

The writer is more explicit in his desire to present a work that is entirely wholesome and in an age of crass vulgarity in the arts, parents will safely expose their children to this important work. The graphic artist, Tristan Roach, tells his story with no less intent than Stokely. In the book’s graphic aspect, Tristan displays that rare skill of creating expressive faces that fit the emotive content of the narrative.

I believe that Stokely Murray’s book will contribute in returning our youth to lives of order and constructive peace and pleasure.

If wholesomeness is an old-fashioned virtue, we are indebted to Stokely Murray for placing this virtue on our agenda once again, even if paradoxically implanted in the experience of a mischievous little fellow called Charlie Hardears.

This is a literary adventure that our children deserve.

Ralph A. Thorne, Q.C., is a Member of Parliament with a life-long interest and involvement in the arts.