‘The most ordinary things had become extraordinary.’ (p 66)
And now . . .
Only very rarely does an author build a high reputation on a very small number of books. However, when they do, they often turn out to be amongst the finest writers; Thankfully, there are many discerning readers prepared to value quality over quantity. This is certainly the case with SF Said’s output; his three children’s novels to date are widely read and enormously loved for very good reason.
However, we haven’t had anything new from him for nine years or so. This means that the recent publication of a fourth book, Tyger, is very exciting indeed. I could not have avoided noticing the enormous number of plaudits and recommendations it has received on social media, but I have deliberately not yet read other people’s reviews, or listened to author interviews and the like. It is not that I am not interested in what others think, quite the contrary, but I like to gather my own impressions of a book before being influenced by others. So if what I have to say below just repeats what many others have already said, I apologise - although I will not be surprised at all if this is the case. How can anyone not recognise this book as the modern masterpiece it is?
Deep London
The whole of this new narrative is deeply rooted in its location, London. True, this is not as completely straightforward as it sounds. Although a contextualising page places this as the London in the 21st Century, it is pointedly an alternative history version, where a number of events that have shaped our own society have simply not taken place. The rule of the British Empire continues and has in fact developed as a highly stratified society under harsh totalitarian regime. Slavery has never been abolished, the encloseure of the countryside is only just happening, and racism is rife, with even those born in England but of immigrant descent, classified as ‘foreign’ and forcibly confined to an impoverished ‘ghetto’. Alongside this creativity and the arts are being suppressed too.
Nevertheless, there are enough references to ‘real’ London history and tradition, for example, the ancient rivers of the capital and key locations like Oxford Street and Tyburn, for it to feel authentically grounded.The story is central to its particular location and vice versa. Growing from this, a riveting narrative emerges about a boy and a girl from the ghetto, who learn about their own ‘magical’ gifts and have to use them to help a numinous ‘tyger’ escape the clutches of a terrifyingly villain. Their ‘quest’ is to open a hidden portal into a new and better world, thus freeing the Tyger from its wounded mortal form. On the one hand, this places SF Said’s new book firmly in the wonderful tradition of children’s fantasy developed by such greats as Alan Garner, Susan Cooper and Philip Pullman. At the same time, it is every bit original and enthralling enough a story to engage compellingly and affect deeply..
If it were nothing more that this, I would rate it a very fine addition to the contemporary children’s canon. However, it is more. Far, far more.
Tyger with a ‘y’
I hesitate to compare Tyger too closely to His Dark Materials, as they are very different works However, there is a real sense in which, just as the Philip Pullman’s books are underpinned by Dante Alighieri, so SF Said’s new work draws extensively for some of its key imagery on the writings of William Blake. There is an immediate distinction too, of course; whereas Philip Pullman is concerned to subvert the fundamental, Christian tenets presented in The Divine Comedy, SF Said seems rather to seeks to re-present Blake’s visionary spirituality and his reforming zeal for our own times.
The clearest Blake allusion is obviously the Tyger itself, its eyes unmissably burning brightly. However there are numerous other references threaded through the story, the lamb, the ‘Doors of Perception’, the use of the name Urizen for the personification of all that is corrupt and corrupting in the world, the intense experience where the Tyger helps protagonist Adam to ‘see the world in a grain of sand’. And it is the representation of London itself that is perhaps the other most potent link. For this is very much Blake’s London, with all its ‘dark satanic mills’, not only as physical reality but as a metaphor for the darkness of a vile, soulless society.
Rich in resonance
Yet, whilst the strands of SF Said’s narrative are woven through with multiple resonant images, not all of them are drawn from Blake. In fact this erudite author’s eclectic mind fires off allusions as illuminating sparks through his story. Some are blatant, others far more subtle, yet others the merest shades, yet discovering them is always a profound readerly delight. To name but a few, there are echoes here of Androcles and the Lion, of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods to give to mankind, there is an archetypal apple tree, and even Shakespeare’s Polonius gets a thinly veiled reference. (‘Doubt anything you like . . . But never, ever doubt me.’ p 92) It all contributes to a literary crucible of incredible potency. One particular parallel that struck me very forcibly was the image of the Tyger, a creature with a wound that does not heal, lying in the ruins of a derelict building, itself surrounded by a rubbish tip. Surely there is an echo here of The Fisher King waiting in the Authurian Waste Land and met again in the writings of T S Eliot?
Spiritual more than moral
There is a very real sense, I feel, in which Tyger is a morality tale (like Pilgrim’s Progress or Everyman) but with the specifically Christian goal of these much older works replaced by a universal, metaphysical ‘heaven’. This means that both characters and settings, although conjured with most telling sensitivity, are in a sense representational rather than individual. In this way, Adam, the main character, has a name shared by different faiths as the representation of the first, and therefore of all humans, of ‘Everyman’. Whilst his companion in his ‘quest’ is Zadie, Z to his A, so that the two represent the whole spectrum of people A-Z. They are alpha and omega; the beginning and the end. And yet they are completely human. That is the utter wonder of this book. They are simple, they are deeply human, they are universal, but they are also very particular individual children. It is a story for us, for our time.
For us, for now
However distanced the images and ills of Blake’s London, and of SF Said’s London, however much evils such as Empire and slavery might seem to already have been conquered, we do not need to do much more than scratch the surface of our own world and our own society to find much the same sores festering. However much we may congratulate ourselves as human beings on what has been achieved and improved, is there not so much more in our world, our ‘London’, still in need of improvement?
More than the images of Blake, Tyger is embued with the spirit of Blake. What the Tyger does is show Adan and Zadie the power they hold inside themselves; the power to see things as they truly are, as they could be
‘ At once, the power rose up inside him. And the world looked very different.
He saw shards of broken glass gleaming on the ground like diamonds. He saw crushed tin cans glowing silver in the light. He could feel the wind on his skin; the whole world moving and turning and spinning around him.
All of it was beautiful, and all of it alive.’ (p 64)
She shows the children that
‘“Nothing is ordinary . . . Everything is extraordinary. . . And the same is true of you. Nothing special? You are miraculous beyond measure.”’ (p 60)
She opens to them the potential of books, of libraries and school, the power of imagination and creativity, and ultimately that:
‘“It is not the doors of imagination you must open,” said the tyger. “It is yourself.”’ (p 96)
All seas, all ships
However, there is also great significance that Adam, the main character, is a British Muslim boy whose family has its origin in the Middle East. The strong representation of this ethnicity gives others children of similar background a still all too rare opportunity to see themselves represented in books. At the same time it gives others a much needed chance to see the character in positive light and, dare I say, imagine his life and that of his family. Similarly the equally sympathetic/empathetic character of the darker-skinned Zadie. In fact there is wide representation here of the major faiths, with for example, the librarian of the underground library, Lady Judith, providing strong reflection of Jewish heritage and culture. Yet Tyger, like indeed much of Blake’s work, represents a universal spirituality rather than promoting any particular religious doctrine, even where particular doctrinal heritage provides the images to conjure this.
The advantage and importance of a story with so many resonant images, so many references, firing off in so many directions, like a whole box of fireworks ignited at once, is that individuals can read their own messages, find their own truths in it. This is the mark of a very great book. And, although I said I would not draw too many parallels with His Dark Materials, here is another.
Growing towards infinity
Does it matter then if young readers, or indeed others, do not pick up all the book’s many Blake references and allusions? No. Not at all. For the story and its telling are infused with the spirit of Blake and his thinking, Something of the essence of Blake is made explicit through the story. For many, Tyger, will help readers to understand the world of Blake, rather than the reverse. But even that is not necessary. Tyger brings Blake’s commitment to the power and importance of imagination directly to its readers.
John Higgs, in William Blake Now: Why He Matters More Than Ever, says of that artist/poet ‘He has found his way to a numinous place and wants us to accompany him. His work is a trail he has left and, if we follow it, it will lead us there.’ (p 7)
Much the same can now be said of SF Said in his transcendent book Tyger. And the place his trail leads is richly life enhancing and world-building. World-building not in a fantasy sense, but in the sense of imagining how our world can be built better. We oldies have not always done too well at building that better world, but the post-millennials must, and many are. But only, as Blake and S F Said understand, by being able to imagine it better. As Blake himself said, ‘What is now proved, was once only imagin’d.’ (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). So what is now imagined will one day be proved. What is seen by those who have passed through the doors of perception is the reality of things. And those who perceive can imagine and ultimately create.
Images of images
Tyger glories in being an illustrated novel, which is to say far more than a novel with some Illustrations, David McKean’s powerful images, some illuminating, some deeply moving, some almost terrifying, are not merely a complement to the text, but an integral element of the narration. Totally compelling, they yet have something of the same quality of the text, representational, almost archetypal rather than uber-realistic. With many wonders en route, for me they reach a peak in the brilliantly simple facing profiles on pages 240-241, culminating in the upward reaching image across pages 244-245, which captures so perfectly the essence of the book as a whole. However, the sequence of sparse text and ‘vanishing’ visual images that closes the book is also something close to sublime.
Opening doors
Adding his own inspiration to that of William Blake and the greats of children’s literature , SFSaid takes the portals between worlds and opens them onto a new spirituality of hope.What Tyger offers to its young readers is the perception to see things as they are, the imagination to see how they could be different, and the creativity to build a new and better world.
And ‘when the stars throw down their spears.’ the Tyger confronts Urizen, the embodiment of all that is evil in the world, and attests:
‘You were wrong about the mortals, Urizen . . . Every one of them can do what these two have done tonight. The power belongs to them now.’ (p254)
More than anything, this is a book that believes in children. Long may it burn bright in the forest of the night.
Tyger not only reserves itself a place on my list for Books of the Year 2022, but takes the very top slot. It is theoretically possible that it may be knocked off by something else I read between now and early December. But I think it very unlikely.