Iraqi Icicle 

a novel

Bernie Dowling

Introduction to the third edition

THE Australian library supplier with the delightful business name Peter Pal asked me to sell them a hardback copy of Iraqi Icicle. My publishing hut Bent Banana Books had not produced a hardback edition. But the customer being always right until they are proven otherwise, it was high time for such a format. The new format meant it was also timely for a new edition in paperback and eBook. Yoo-hoo!

A new format might induce other changes.

One was the cover. I absolutely love the photography taken by professional shooter Russell Brown in provincial Dayboro on a winter morning. It has foreboding and evocative images suited to a neo-noir novel like Iraqi Icicle. Unfortunately it has no ambience of humor. So I shared my ideas with cover designer Dhrupod and he came up with a cover which is humorously sinister or sinisterly humorous.

Next I considered whether I should render the text in American spellings. Many of my book sales have been in the United States and so again the customer is always right until proven overbearingly parochial. I concede my spelling might prove challenging/ difficult/ annoying for an American reader. My novel also is replete with Australian slang, the meaning of which is rarely explained. One of the novel’s reviewers wrote: “Seriously, at one time I had dreams of going to Australia. Thinking they spoke English . . .” Glenda navigated my slanguage enough to give Iraqi Icicle five stars. In the end, I decided I would trust the generosity of most American readers in understanding why I used Austral English to complement the colloquialisms. I did change US to U.S. and LA to L.A. along the lines of the principle ‘when in Rome . . .’

As a compromise, for readers who are not so understanding of Australiana, the third addition has a glossary of the Australian slang scattered through the book.

I do like the concept of a novel with a glossary at the end, far more impressive than a map at the beginning. And slang is fun.

It is still fun after the academics took hold of it and called it argot or, worse, cant, supposedly a secret language to include/exclude strangers. British Professor of English Julie Coleman put it succinctly: ‘Using slang can operate as a kind of password.’ That definition works for academics as it implies passing between two universes which is what the professional slangologists do.

Another way of seeing slang is to look at the context of three institutions in which it is present: the army, the prison and the high school. These three can be considered total institutions, as defined by Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman. A total institution is a closed social system in which a minority group (officers, guards, teachers) tries to direct the behaviour and thought processes of the majority (enlisted personnel, convicts, students) In these contexts, slang is best seen as the language of the Resistance. Check out one of the vids for the Ramones’ Rock 'n Roll High School to see what teenage slang is about.

Finally slang is fun fun fun. In Iraqi Icicle the reader meets an array of shady characters who might on occasion have call for coded lingo but for the most part the novel’s slang is what has been dubbed ‘the poetry of the streets’.

It is no real surprise how slang enters the common language when we understand how culture drifts upwards. The underclasses with little to lose are more adventuresome in most cultural pursuits including lingual play.

As much as I like a glossary at the tail of a tale, and I remember being most impressed by Anthony Burgess’ invention of a language for A Clockwork Orange, I am not sure how a reader is supposed to use the thing. If they come across an unfamiliar word or phrase, do they head to the glossary to seek explanation? Or like me, do they take a stab at the meaning, press on and read the glossary from start to finish at novel’s end.

Smaller changes to the third edition came from my being impressed by colloquialisms which really should have been in the second edition. One example is how Australians by and large do not say okay but quite a few do say akay.

The Australian expression with all the versatility of okay is ‘all right’ though it is pronounced as one word, awlright, and I have rendered it as such.

Similarly, I have rendered yer or yeah as yair which I have a notion was how it was written in dime westerns. You can call this my homage to American style.

Enjoy Iraqi Icicle, third edition. It is not quite a text from the neo-noir crime school. There are no exams.

– Bernie Dowling Pine Rivers district of Australia,

January, 2017.

For Trish, Kevin and Daniel

and

In memory of the Go-Betweens’ lyricist/ bassist

Grant McLennan

Born summer, 1958

Died autumn, 2006

Iraqi Icicle

Watch the butcher shine his knives

And this town is full of battered wives

...........................................

They shut it down

They pulled it down

They shut it down

They pulled it down

Round and round, up and down

Through the streets of your town

Everyday I make my way

Through the streets of your town

Brisbane rock band the Go-Betweens

Where I grew up there is an annual picnic race meeting where the people from the surrounding cattle stations come and race their horses and relax. Whenever I'm there I get asked to play some songs but I find it really difficult because I don't know any of the songs they like. If I play my own, especially the early ones, they say "do you know any with a tune?" (much laughter)

Grant McLennan in conversation with Nick Cave, 1993.

Even as I approach the gambling hall

as soon as I hear

two three rooms away

the jingle of money

I almost go into convulsions.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler