Read The Long Take by Robin Robertson Online

The Long Take Reviews

• 
  Antonomasia

  I bloody love long narrative poems, and I wish there were a lot more modern novels in this form. Not sure why I find poetry faster to read - know it isn't the case for everyone. For me, it goes straight into the veins, and it omits the extraneous, leaving only the most vital impressions. Or maybe it's the presentation: shorter lines and more white space on the page make it visually easier to take in.
  
  It was the form that made me keen to read this, but the US setting held little interest. If a pr I bloody love long narrative poems, and I wish there were a lot more modern novels in this form. Not sure why I find poetry faster to read - know it isn't the case for everyone. For me, it goes straight into the veins, and it omits the extraneous, leaving only the most vital impressions. Or maybe it's the presentation: shorter lines and more white space on the page make it visually easier to take in.
  
  It was the form that made me keen to read this, but the US setting held little interest. If a prose novel about a demobbed Canadian serviceman adrift in post-WWII America had been longlisted for the Booker, I'd have been in no hurry to get round to it. And if The Long Take had been set anywhere other than North America, I could have seen myself giving it five stars.
  
  I haven't read anything about Robin Robertson yet; it would be interesting to learn why a Scottish poet chose to set a long work there. I have a hunch that the protagonist, Walker, was one of those characters who appears to a writer from the subconscious: a British writer's use of Dad's Army names Walker and Pike for characters who bear little resemblance (other than Pike's youth) to their sitcom namesakes feels like the product of a dream.
  
  The Scottishness of Nova Scotia, where Walker grew up, was a revelation, full of shielings and strathspeys and slaters. (The last of course being a better word than the standard English, reflecting the creatures' hard, flat dark-panelled appearance; 'woodlouse' has always sounded like it ought to mean another, leggier, creepy-crawly.) The place felt Scottish or British even without dialect words: at first in the nostalgic passages about nature, I thought Robertson was writing about Scotland, perhaps from a different viewpoint, maybe his own, and perhaps we would hear later in these sections about the writing process. (There turns out to be no such meta content.) He is at his most vividly poetic and metaphorical when writing about animals and nature - these are largely asides in this book, such as the spider that winches itself from the lampshade in Walker's apartment: were I to read more of his work, it would be nature poetry I'd look for first.
  
  Thank you to this thread for a couple of insights. Firstly, putting me on the alert for elements of contemporary relevance; what jumped out at me, as if it had been highlighted, was the homelessness problem in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, and characters' criticism of the government and media being more concerned with Russians it said Russians rather than Soviets) and McCarthyism than with the housing shortage. A modern feature of the narrative, when set against 1940s attitudes and writing, is that characters are never explicitly described by their race: there were once or twice names that might be Latin, or Native American, and characters who were explicitly stated to be black only once it came up in conversation, in both instances due to racists. (This approach seeks to transmit a sense of comradeship between men in the story as veterans and/or as homeless, regardless of colour, and to imply Walker's progressive outlook, in contrast with some of his contemporaries.) Secondly, a point which is a spoiler if you enjoy working out conundra while you read - but as I read a good chunk of The Long Take whilst I had a headache so bad it hurt even to put my head on a pillow, and could not have read anything very complex, it was simply useful: (view spoiler)[that Pike is probably more than one person. I would add that I think he only becomes so in the final chapter, 1953. As Walker's mental state deteriorates, Pike becomes a generalised identity he maps on to various antagonists. (hide spoiler)]
  
  The story sometimes felt nebulous, but the final chapter (about 1/3 of the book) pulled it together - and retrospectively it became increasingly obvious that this randomness and half-rootedness, interspersed with episodes of purposefulness, had always reflected Walker's state of mind, as trauma seeped in, even when intrusive memories of horrific army experiences were not at the forefront of his memories. I hadn't bonded with the book until that final third; what led me to was seeing the trajectory of how Walker worked with a group of disadvantaged people with whom he felt an affinity, only to later find his own situation deteriorating so that he gets closer and closer to becoming one of them; to being on the other side of the desk, object not subject. A revelation during that chapter also explains certain points earlier in the story. (view spoiler)[Though are we meant to be sure that Walker did those things - or to wonder if he imagined them in his traumatised state? (hide spoiler)]
  
  But The Long Take is not all psychological drama. It's immersed in the culture of its time. There is jazz. And it is a paean to US film noir of the late 1940s and 1950s, set alongside the messy real lives of some of the men who watched it in movie theaters, and witnessed it being filmed in the streets where they went about their daily lives. It is suffused with references to favourite scenes (the 'long take' is from Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy aka Deadly is the Female), and characters are described as looking like actors of the period. (And at least one, from a 1958 film seems to denote a lapse of time once years stop being mentioned explicitly.) If you like these films this book will probably be rather amazing. I've hardly seen any of the films referenced, yet something is still added in the general understanding, as they conjure visuals for Walker's story in trenchcoat-clad black and white, and in the symbiosis between man and city, Walker disintegrating as 1950s LA becomes less human in scale, more corrupt and more corporate. (I could imagine just how much I'd love an equivalent prose-poem shot through with cinematic movements I know well, such as French New Wave, or British films of the 1960s and 70s. Or, for that matter, classic Ealing films being made on the other side of the Atlantic contemporaneously with these noirs.)
  
  It is an impressive work in pulling together, as poetry and narrative, elements of this era that the public rarely regards together. The modern idealisation of the Greatest Generation, bulldog spirit and so forth disregards the extent to which the war was traumatic for many, and that not everyone could keep calm and carry on, no matter how much they wanted to. Noir and jazz, still seen as epitomes of cool were created against this backdrop. The death of Charlie Parker, born the same year as the protagonist, is starkly announced to make his and the reader's blood run cold. This is echoed (two years) later with the bombshell news "Bogart is dead", like another big bump downwards in Walker's trajectory: an end of an era and an icon of always keeping it together under pressure. In a very subtle way, using history, cinema and music, Robertson appears to be looking at the demands on men to keep up a façade, and how things may be when they can't. (The white men in the book are dealing with war trauma, the black men with that and racial violence.) But interpretation is optional here: this is a story so fully about itself and its setting (absolutely no sledgehammers here) that it also doesn't have to be anything else. ...more
• 
  Daniel Sevitt

  Undeniably noir. Less convincingly poetry, at least to this poor reader of poetry. Actually it reminded me of James Ellroy who has covered a fair bit of this kind of 40s in L.A. ground and has made a reasonable stab at noir poetry himself in books like White Jazz. Robertson is more concerned here with the city and how it is failing its inhabitants and its homeless. There is a real sense of urgency as the rise of McCarthyism mirrors the creeping sense of unease about modern America and how it is Undeniably noir. Less convincingly poetry, at least to this poor reader of poetry. Actually it reminded me of James Ellroy who has covered a fair bit of this kind of 40s in L.A. ground and has made a reasonable stab at noir poetry himself in books like White Jazz. Robertson is more concerned here with the city and how it is failing its inhabitants and its homeless. There is a real sense of urgency as the rise of McCarthyism mirrors the creeping sense of unease about modern America and how it is failing its most vulnerable citizens today. ...more
• 
  Maddie C.

  “ I’m interested in films and jazz. Cities.’
  
  ‘Cities?’
  
  ‘Yes. American cities.’
  
  ‘What about American cities?’
  
  ‘How they fail.’ ”

  
  
  The Long Take is an incredibly raw look at the post-war experience, illustrating the particular trials and tribulations felt after the second world war ended, specifically as the veterans of the war returned to their home countries and tried to rebuild their lives. Written in verse, an epic of mini proportions, Robin Robertson lyrical writing conjures beautiful images

  “ I’m interested in films and jazz. Cities.’
  
  ‘Cities?’
  
  ‘Yes. American cities.’
  
  ‘What about American cities?’
  
  ‘How they fail.’ ”

  
  
  The Long Take is an incredibly raw look at the post-war experience, illustrating the particular trials and tribulations felt after the second world war ended, specifically as the veterans of the war returned to their home countries and tried to rebuild their lives. Written in verse, an epic of mini proportions, Robin Robertson lyrical writing conjures beautiful images of the american cities, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, while discussing the very real issues that arose after the war was over, and that became contemporary in this day and age.
  
  

  “We won the war, but we’re living like we lost it.” (*)

  
  
  The story we follow comes from the point of view of Walker, one of the “lucky ones” that managed to survive the war. A canadian from Nova Scotia, Walker can’t bring himself to return home, preferring instead to try and start anew, an attempt to strip himself of the horrors he has lived, done and witnessed.
  
  

  “ ‘You had a girl back home, in Nova Scotia. You gonna see her again?’
  
  Walker took a long pull on his bottle, tapped out another cigarette, lit it, drew in deeply; blew. ‘I can’t, Billy. The island. My family. Annie. It’s all gone now.’ He stared hard at the floor. ‘I can’t let her see me. What I’ve become.’ ”

  
  
  

  “ He could not call her back to his life: which is a horror, which is the dead calf in the bank-head field, a black flap bubbling with maggots, ugly and wrong. ”

  
  
  It is clear, through instances like the quote below (in a metaphorical way, but there’s also some very real examples of Walker being startled by sudden and loud noises), that Walker is struggling with PTSD, and as the book advances and his journey does too, we begin to get more and more often transported to his recollections of war, narrated to us through the sporadic moments of prove in this otherwise novel in verse.
  
  

  “ This is not the worst. The worst is the hall of mirrors where you catch sight of yourself, twisted, swollen, unrecognizable. (...) It’s the worst thing in the world, catching sight of yourself. ”

  
  
  Starting in New York, Walker witnesses for the first time the reality of many veterans who have returned home: with an incredible keen eye and jarring imagery, we get to know the dark side of society, through the image of a city, not only the beautiful, clean and rich side of it, but also, and mostly, the dark corners, the filth and the misery, the prostitution and the abandoned boroughs where most veterans come to live, homeless, after they are unable to reintegrate back into society.
  
  After, he is transported to Los Angeles, where he finds a job working as a journalist to the Press, which in turn lead him to San Francisco. However, Los Angeles truly is the main character in this book; New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco: the cities are characters all of their own, alive, changing, decaying.
  
  

  “And then he felt a presence behind him. Turning round, he saw the city, stretching out below.”

  
  
  It was that sense of pulsating atmosphere that really enhanced the experience for me; the idea that the city is always watching, always changing, growing, like a human, falling, crumbling, like Walker does.
  
  

  “Building and demolition seem to happen here within the span of a human life – so citizens can either watch their own mortal decline, or see themselves outliving their cities.”

  
  
  

  “The city is constantly changing, blocks being bought and sold, demolished and rebuilt, so it has no memory: it knows only this timeless present.”

  
  
  In a text that relies mostly on the beauty of its language, Robertson excels at it spectacularly. Although poetry is not my strongest suit, I have always had the idea that poets have a way with words that excels, seers through the pages and manages to touch the heart of the reader. The Long Take did nothing if not confirm that theory: even if some of the images were shocking and unpleasant, Robin Robertson’s unflinching fragility made it easier to swallow. For example:
  
  

  “(...) one slash opened the black guy’s buttock like a plum, then this neat stab to the throat and with it a twisting rope so hot it steamed as it splashed on the cobbles; the blood that ran out of him till he ran out of blood.”

  
  
  Taking this quote to continue the discussion of the book’s themes, besides the issue of homelessness and displacement that, while not in this particular context, will always be a contemporary and, unfortunately, long-lived issue, Robinson also tackles the tensions that follow the war: the 50s and 60s were eras of incredible racial and political tension, particularly in the United States, where the social rights movement made history and the cold war would start to brew. We get glimpses of those important issues in this text, a passage about McCarthyism that really stuck with me:
  
  

  “ ‘McCarthyism is fascism. Exactly the same. Propaganda and lies, opening divisions, fueling fear, paranoia. Just like the thirties: a state of emergency, followed by fascism, followed by war. You’ve just defeated Hitler. Can’t anyone see you’ve made another, all of your own?’ ”

  
  
  And if we look at the current political and social climate in the US particularly, right now, we can see how contemporary all these issues are, even if, again, played out with some minor differences:
  
  

  “ America has to have its monsters, so we can zone them, segregate them, if possible, shoot them. ”

  
  
  However, what made me think of this novel as an incredibly powerful achievement in portraying the reality of the 50s was the apparent amount of research the writer did in order to make it authentic: long descriptions of the city transport you right back into them, even if you’ve never visited them, even if you can’t know how they look now or in the fifties. But while that shows the amount of dedication and love for the american cities cited above, it can also be a detriment to the book and the reader who isn’t all that interested in the noir and the film era often associated with this period. There are an excruciating amount of little “cameos”, nods to movies and directors and scenes and actors of Old Hollywood, that while charming to those who know them, can just be overwhelming to those who don’t (I fell somewhat in between). Those, at times, kept me from fully enjoying the book and the character's journey. For that reason, I don’t think this is a book for everyone.
  
  I couldn’t complete this review without mentioning another small aspect of this book that completely won me over: the beauty in it isn't exclusive to the prose. As a photography enthusiast, I loved the pictures at the beginning of every chapter, which helped the continuous transportation to another times, another atmosphere.
  
  Overall, The Long Take is a tremendous achievement that should be read and enjoyed, a book that needs the readers full attention and commitment but that, in the end, will absolutely pay off.
  
  (*) All the quotes should be written in verse but for some reason my eBook didn’t retain the format of the text so although the transcribed quotes appear to be written in prose, know this is not how they are presented in the book. ...more
• 
  Britta Böhler

  Absolutely brilliant!
• 
  Krista

  The paper said he could try out on movie reviews, 
  
  so he went to see Deadly is the Female in the Cameo, or the Star, 
  
  one of those theatres next to the Arcade. 
  
  He thought about it all night. That long take 
  
  inside the getaway car: one shot lasted three minutes easy 
  
  and was just real life, right there.
  
  The Long Take is another Man Booker shortlist title that I wouldn't have picked up if not for its place on that list; another book this year that challenges my idea of what makes a “novel”. Written as The paper said he could try out on movie reviews, 
  
  so he went to see Deadly is the Female in the Cameo, or the Star, 
  
  one of those theatres next to the Arcade. 
  
  He thought about it all night. That long take 
  
  inside the getaway car: one shot lasted three minutes easy 
  
  and was just real life, right there.
  
  The Long Take is another Man Booker shortlist title that I wouldn't have picked up if not for its place on that list; another book this year that challenges my idea of what makes a “novel”. Written as a book-length free verse poem – as were all the great epics – not only do the short stanzas and plenty of white space on the page make for eye-friendly reading, but because it was written by multiple award-winning poet Robin Robertson, the writing is able to pack an abundance of mood and meaning into every carefully crafted line. In the moment, I found this to be a very engaging reading experience, but in retrospect, I have to wonder if maybe this was a little too crafted; a little too tricksy.
  
  Walker (just Walker) is a PTSD-suffering D-Day veteran, freshly demobbed, and finds he simply can't return to his Cape Breton home; not after what he has seen; not after what he has done. Travelling first to NYC and eventually to LA (from where he decamps to San Francisco for a couple of years), the would-be writer eventually gets a job at the City Desk of a newspaper; specialising in movie reviews and exposés on these cities' underclasses. Identifying best with the indigent ex-servicemen, Walker spends most of his free time drinking hard with them on Skid Row, and as the years go by (1946 – 57) and he watches the flophouses and fleabag hotels of L.A. (his friends' homes) be razed for freeways and parking lots, his own mental state seems also to be crumbling, brick-by-brick. This is all done fairly subtly and we meet a lot of interesting characters who deserve better from their government.
  
  As for the format, Walker is constantly moving through the present in prose-like poetry, but just about anything can trigger a memory – either of his happy life with the girlfriend he loved in Cape Breton, or some horrifying memory of landing at Normandy and what followed – and these are inserted in italics. And as a budding writer, sometimes Walker's bolded literary observations are included as well, making for pages that look like this:
  
  5:30, Sunday morning,
  
  a man with a hose preceded him up Main Street,
  
  fanning an aisle through the Styrofoam, food wrappers,
  
  cigarette packets, torn shirts, snapped stilettos, and the sour mulch
  
  of broken glass, blood, and butts and sick –
  
  moving like a priest with a censer,
  
  hosing the center down.
  
  The rating with the bilge-bucket is swilling off the puke, and what was left of Joe McPherson who hadn't timed it right, his jump from the nets to this landing craft below.
  
  

  Sunlight blooms in one window – five – ten – twenty – fifty – and the city was a field of standing light.
  
  April, 48

  
  
  ("mulch" isn't supposed to be on its own line there, but it won't fit properly in this review.) This did not feel gimmicky, and I liked the format very much (ultimately, it didn't really feel like reading poetry; I probably need a better definition of “poetry”.) Walker spends most of his time, er, walking, and whether in NY, LA, or Frisco, he is constantly naming and describing streets, neighbourhoods, and the significant buildings that were there at the time. He also watches countless films (even watches them being filmed when he can), and their titles (and many of the actors that he namedrops) were fairly obscure to me. At one point Walker writes, “American cities have no past, no history. Sometimes I think the only American history is on film.” So while the listing of street and film names became a bit repetitive to me, I can appreciate that Robertson was likely trying to bring life back to this history; the history of streets and old buildings and the films in which they can still be seen. (As an added bonus, the book contains many lovely black and white photos of these old spaces.)
  
  Beyond the poor treatment of returning war veterans, The Long Take is a very political book – describing greed and corruption at City Hall, racism (from segregated troops to Emmet Till and Rosa Parks), common disbelief at entering a new war in Korea. Writing often about shadows and light, keeping the action at the edges of polite society, Robertson pulls off the literary equivalent of film noir and there's an oppressive sense of pessimism that seems to belie the official Happy Days memory of these times. (Walker's boss at the newspaper declares, “We won the war, but we're living like we lost it.”) And because this is mostly set in the LA of the time, and because Walker is so interested in the movies, Joseph McCarthy and his HUAC witch-hunt are malevolently hovering over everything:
  
  McCarthyism is fascism. Exactly the same. Propaganda and lies, opening divisions, fueling fear, paranoia. Just like the thirties: a state of emergency, followed by fascism, followed by war. You’ve just defeated Hitler. Can’t anyone see you’ve made another, all of your own?
  
  To ensure that the parallels to modern day America are obvious, Robertson notes in the “Credits” at the end that Senator McCarthy's legal adviser was Roy Cohn, and in the 1970s, Cohn was a friend, mentor, and legal adviser to Donald Trump. Ah, so there's the real point of it all then (which, in interviews, Robertson confirms: McCarthyism led directly to the current administration). I like that Robertson chose a Cape Bretoner as this book's main character – the nonpartisan witness to the effects of America's postwar, hyper-Capitalistic, greed and corruption years – and I particularly identified with Walker as I spent time this summer exploring his highlands homeland, from Broad Cove to Chéticamp; just exactly as described (maybe the point is that some paradises don't get paved over to put up a parking lot?). Ultimately, I found the parallels to modern day America to be a bit too overt, I found the constant street and film names to be tiresome (even if a worthy act of commemoration), but there were many, many fine scenes – related in this engaging jump scene format – and the overall mood and ethos were masterfully accomplished by a practised poetic hand. I don't think I loved this book, and I only grudgingly acknowledge it as a “novel”, but I can't really give it fewer than four stars. ...more
• 
  Will

  I keep bumping this one up. Now a full 5 stars.
• 
  Nicky

  4.5* rounded up. Thoughts to follow once I get my head around it and after I see the author in person next week (it was pretty bleak but great).
  
  Updated 30/8: After seeing an interview, hearing Robin Robertson read in his dramatic Scottish accent and speaking to him about this book and other’s I give all the stars. 5**
  
  I really feel I need to read this again with his voice in my head and appreciate all the little nuances and themes he discussed.
  
  These were his thoughts that struck me the most:
  
  - Thi 4.5* rounded up. Thoughts to follow once I get my head around it and after I see the author in person next week (it was pretty bleak but great).
  
  Updated 30/8: After seeing an interview, hearing Robin Robertson read in his dramatic Scottish accent and speaking to him about this book and other’s I give all the stars. 5**
  
  I really feel I need to read this again with his voice in my head and appreciate all the little nuances and themes he discussed.
  
  These were his thoughts that struck me the most:
  
  - This time representing the end of the American Dream. i.e. pulled into a war they were trying to avoid, then followed by Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Trump (his words ;-)).
  
  - He needed to get Walker to LA as it is a “hopeless city, a place of despair”and described the veterans as "tattered flags in the sand" - the last of a community, banded together to try find that camaraderie they had in the trenches. They preferred the streets as “before” (purity) was a place they no longer deserved to be due to the sins of war. ...more
• 
  Sarah

  Poetry and the Second World War - two things I often struggle with in books. I needn't have worried. The Long Take is a stunning look at how the War impacted upon one man, Walker, a Canadian soldier who was demobilised after fighting in Normandy. Dreading the prospect of going home to rural Nova Scotia, we follow Walker as he moves to New York, and later LA and San Francisco, and experience his PTSD (flashbacks to which increase as the story progresses).
  
  I think the poetic telling of the story wo Poetry and the Second World War - two things I often struggle with in books. I needn't have worried. The Long Take is a stunning look at how the War impacted upon one man, Walker, a Canadian soldier who was demobilised after fighting in Normandy. Dreading the prospect of going home to rural Nova Scotia, we follow Walker as he moves to New York, and later LA and San Francisco, and experience his PTSD (flashbacks to which increase as the story progresses).
  
  I think the poetic telling of the story worked incredibly well - I've really read nothing else like this. While I didn't love this as much as The Mars Room, I wouldn't be mad if it won the Booker. ...more