Book Review: The White Ship by Charles Spencer

The White Ship, by Charles Spencer (William Collins 2011) tells the story of a shipwreck outside Barfleur Harbour in 1120. The significance of this event lay in the identity of the ship’s passengers. These included William Atheling, the heir to Henry 1 of England, as well as a large number of young men who were either titled or the heirs to titles in both England and Normandy.

This is a history book then, but narrated as a story as much as a historical enquiry, which makes it very readable. All the more so since the story concerns a relatively small number of people; the top layers of society in the feudal states of England, Normandy and the various states that made up the territory we today call France. Troublesome uncles, supportive aunts, fractious siblings and family black sheep vie for attention on its pages so that at times it reads like one of those doorstop family sagas. Grudges are nurtured and revenges taken as families vie for supremacy.

All this drama is however underpinned by a bedrock of thoroughly researched history, which frequently references contemporary chroniclers. These include William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Walter Map, Orderic Vitalis and Robert Wace. This list of names raises the question of the target audience for the book.

Those medieval historians are familiar names to professional historians and to well-read amateurs. For a lot of people though, 1066 and the battle of Hastings is as much as they know. The satirical history 1066 and all that gives 1066 as one of only two memorable dates in English history, the other being 55 BC when Julius visited Britain. Of the century leading up to Hastings only Canute’s vain attempt to hold back the sea stands out as being part of the folk memory, whilst in the century following William Rufus coming to an unfortunate end in the New Forest also stands on its own.

 

The sheer level of historical detail covered by Spencer could be considered too overwhelming to the casual reader, were it not for the fact that he spins such an entertaining tale. To do so he creates a very clear structure for the narrative. The sinking of the White Ship, which Spencer argues deserves more recognition as a key event in our history, comes in the middle of his story. First, he takes us on a whistle stop tour of the history of Normandy, from its founding in 911 by Rolf the Ganger, which provides context for the Norman invasion of England. Spencer helps the reader understand that the Conquerors heirs very much still saw themselves as rulers of the Duchy of Normandy with continental aspirations as well as insular ones.

 After a detailed explanation of the sinking of the Blanche Nef (White Ship) we are guided through its messy consequences, chiefly the Civil war between Henry I daughter Matilda and his nephew Stephen, until we reach a resolution of sorts with the beginning of the reign of Henry II.

 This passage through two and a half centuries of history can sometimes be bewildering. When I talked of a relatively small group of people at the top of society, this still runs to a cast of up to a hundred characters. Spencer keeps on track by not losing sight of the strategic big picture. At the same time, the small details often surprise and entertain.

My favourite example of this concerns the aftermath of the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106. Henry had been made king of England after the death of William Rufus, his brother. The oldest sibling of William the Conquerors children, Robert, had been made Duke of Normandy by William, but still harboured ambitions of ruling England. In 1106 Henry had crossed the channel to confront Robert, meeting him in battle at Tinchebrai. The strategic build-up and outcome of the battle are well described. But Spencer also gives us this little nugget; among the captured knights was a certain Edgar the Atheling. Edgar belonged to the West Saxon ruling family. After Harold Godwinson’s death at Hastings, the Witan, the council leading English nobles, had declared Edgar, then a teenager, as king. But a week later, when William arrived in London, Edgar, lacking an army to back him up, stepped aside and went into exile. Forty years later, there he was at at Tinchebrai, surrendering to Henry, whose wife was Edgar’s niece.

 This tantalising glimpse of a single thread is typical of the book, hinting at a story that would bear investigation. There are so many individuals whose stories deserve a book of their own who have walk-on parts in the central story of the family of William of Normandy. Robert De Belleme, for example, is the quintessential Norman bad guy, the Sherriff of Nottingham on steroids, who would make a perfect blockbuster villain. Violent, scheming, a born survivor, he leaps off the page. He would also be right at home in the Westeros of George Martin’s Fire and Ice series, which both as books and as  TV series, have become part of the pop culture of the last decade. When they first became popular initial comparisons were made with the Wars of the Roses to describe the set-up of Noble Houses vying to control the throne. In truth though, the two centuries following the Norman Conquest make a much better template for the society and the way of warfare of the Game of Thrones universe.

It is no co-incidence that the first book in Martin’s series  opens with a jousting tournament. Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, set in the first decade of the thirteenth century, does exactly the same, for the same reason, to introduce the cast of characters. The White Ship will undoubtedly appeal to Game of Thrones aficionados. There is another literary connection we can make. Ellis Peters Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, the herbalist monk of Shrewsbury Abbey who has a sideline solving murders, is set during the Civil war described in the final third of the White Ship. This book would be instructive for Cadfael fans, who through these books are familiar with Stephen’s siege of Shrewsbury (One Corpse too many) and defeat and capture at Lincoln (Dead Mans' Ransom). Cadfael himself is an ex-crusader who fought in the army of Robert of Normandy in the Holy Land. He understands the chivalric demands of fealty to a chosen Lord and does his best to be even-handed in his treatment of protagonists on both sides. His confidant though is Hugh Beringer, who is very much King Stephens man and opposed to the Empress Matilda. We inevitably get a more sympathetic portrait of the King than of Matilda.

 

Spencer goes a long way to redressing this. In particular, he is at pains to argue that the many criticisms of Matilda, voiced at length in the Cadfael novels, are of traits that would be considered virtues in a male protagonist. That is another strength of Spencer in this book. He is describing a world which was very much male, given the warrior ethos of the ruling classes. However, even in that world some women managed to carve out a space for themselves. In addition to Matilda there is Stephen’s Queen, Mathilde of Boulogne, who keeps his cause alive even when he is captured at Lincoln and imprisoned in Bristol. There is also, right at the beginning of the story, Emma of Normandy, daughter of the Duke, who is married to Ethelred, king of England, and then, after the death of Ethelred and his heir Edmund Ironside, to Canute, the Danish conqueror. Both of her sons by Canute become king of England. Emma is a fascinating character who influences English History for two generations. Royal women may have been deployed as pawns in the strategic chess game, but the strong-minded ones, like Emma and Matilda, often wrote their own rules.

 As a keen amateur historian I was aware of many of the events in this book, but it made me realise there was much more to learn. For instance, I had always thought that Robert, as Duke William’s eldest son, had inherited Normandy through seniority and was content with that. The White Ship made me realise it wasn’t as simple. The strife with his brothers may have influenced Henry to be happy with having a single male heir, which turned out not be good for England after the death of William Atheling. The competition between Robert, William Rufus and Henry also foreshadowed that between the children of Matilda’s son Henry, who eventually ruled as Henry II of England. Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland would be another set of battling brothers, but that is another story………..

 

 

Atlas of the Invisible- a review

 

This book has a bold claim on it's front; 'maps and graphics that will change how you see the world', so is it justified? The authors had already already published similar books. One, 'Where the animals go', used data from tracking animals and birds to visualise migration patterns, population densities and so on, This builds on that premise to look at how societies function by mapping connectivity, commuting patterns and population movements. But it goes into more problematical areas too, straying into politics and not shying away from more controversial subjects such as lynchings in American states and the passage of slaves from Africa to the Americas, as well as misogyny and gender inequality.

Through it all they illustrate the essential truth of the dictum that a picture paints a thousand words. We all know about the idea of gerrymandering; re-drawing the boundaries of districts to favour one party against another. But seeing the outlines of districts that are stretched out and twisted to achieve the desired result makes it more real somehow. 

Later chapters of the book deal with global warming, another subject that is brought to life through imagery far more effectively than by tables of statistics. The map of Majuro in the Marshall Islands shows just how much of it is at risk of being underwater, but the map is sufficiently Zoomed in to show not just which residential districts but which Government buildings will be inundated or cut off, bringing home just how real the threat is. 

Some of the most interesting maps show things at the opposite scale; the Global overview of mobile phone connections clearly shows how much further down this route Western Europe, the Eastern United States, Korea and Japan are compared to China and India, whilst the isolation of North Korea shows up starkly in the almost total absence of phone towers in that country. The map of China that shows population movement from the countrside to cities is another great example of an overview that illustrates a truth, with the blue showing areas of population drop and the red showing where they have moved to. 

If you are some-one who thinks that all this data mapping is a two-edged sword will be disturbed by the use of mobile phone data to show how people moved from Puerto Rico to the United States after Hurricane Maria struck the island; where they went to and in what numbers, as well as when they began to return. This, however, is the world we live in now. I am one of those who was instinctively opposed to too much connectivity; but being unable to change it I now seek to understand it.

So, back to that claim on the cover. I think it stands up; the various spreads make you think about subjects as mundane as commuting and as controversial as slavery with fresh eyes, as well as exciting thought about what it all means for our lives. I would recommend this book to anyone who thinks about our world and about human society and endeavour and seeks understanding. You need to be prepared to have your conceptions and ideas challenged, and it should awaken a desire to explore further. 

Graphic showing popularity of names across the globe

The Dynasties of China: An explanatory reference table

 

Table showing the Dynasties of China with Chronology and brief listings of ‘contemporaries’:

Dynasty/Period	Approximate Dates	Contemporaries
Xia	1900 BCE-1520 BCE	Egypt, Minoan Civilisation on Crete, Hittites, ‘Megalithic’ culture in Europe and Britain
Shang	1520 BCE- 1030 BCE	New Kingdom in Egypt, Babylon, Mycenae
Zhou	1030 BCE- 600 BCE	Assyria, First Emperor in Japan
Warring states period	500 BCE- 221 BCE	City states in Greece, Media and Persia, Hellenic kingdoms in Near East, Mauryan kingdom in India
Qin	221 BCE 202 BCE	Rome, Carthage, Parthia
Early Han	202 BCE- 9 AD	Rome,Parthia
Hsin	9 AD- 23 AD	Roman Empire established
Later Han	25 AD- 220 AD	Roman Empire expansion, Kushana Empire in India
China divided	220 AD- 589 AD	Roman Empire contracts, Huns, Goths, Vandals
Sui	589 AD- 617 AD	Byzantium, Sassanids in Persia
Tang	618 AD- 900 AD	Arab conquests, Charlemagne, Cordoba Caliphate, Korean States
Song	960 AD- 1264 AD	Normans, Rise of the Russian state
Yuan (Mongol Dynasty)	1264 AD-1368 AD	Mongol Khanates, Turks, Italian City States
Ming	1368 AD- 1644	Venetian Republic, Ottoman Empire, Moghul India
Qin	1644 AD- 1910 AD	France, Spain, Britain, Netherlands, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Safavids in Persia
Chinese Republic	1910 AD- 1949 AD	Modernised Japan, Germany, Communist Russia
Peoples Republic of China	1949 AD- present	Global connectedness

The Story of China: A book review

 

The Story Of China: A portrait of a civilisation and its people 

Michael Wood

Simon and Schuster 2020

 

Introduction

Michael Wood is a historian with a well-deserved reputation for telling the story of the past in a way that people can relate to. With his Television series ‘In search of the Dark Ages’, ‘In search of the Trojan War’ and ‘In search of Alexander the Great’ he did for Television history what Brian Cox has recently done for science; made it accessible and attracting new audiences. He is arguably approaching National Treasure status, not that he would thank any-one for describing him in that way.

But even he must have had doubts when he sat down to write a one volume history of China, even though he had already made the TV series on the subject. The Story of China tells a tale on a bigger scale even than that of the career of Alexander the Great, a story that itself that stretched from Macedonia to India. There is so much material, much of it recently available as China has opened up and begun to engage with its past again. Everything about China is on the Grand scale. To begin with, the chronology; any meaningful study must encompass the span of time from the Bronze Age to the present day. Secondly, geography; at various times the borders of China have stretched from Tibet in the Southwest to Manchuria in the North-East and from the Western deserts of the silk road to the Coasts of the South China Sea. Within these borders are two of the world’s mightiest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow River. The history of China also encompasses multiple ethnicities and languages and as if that wasn’t complex enough, has been influenced by many of the major religions of the world, including Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and the Philosophy of Confucius and Mencius (and various strands of communism, which despite being ostensibly anti-religion, shares many of religions characteristics).

Across this vast expanse of time, space and culture the stories of a bewildering cast of characters have played out, exemplars of the great populations who have occupied this land. The task that the author set himself was to make a coherent narrative out of this. In this review, I will explore how he set about telling this epic tale as well as evaluating the book.

Basic structure

To begin with, by contrast with the books of his earlier series, this is a fully integrated history .The books that accompanied those series were very much adjuncts to the programmes, with chapters mirroring each episode and layouts that relied heavily on images; photographs, maps, diagrams.  This book has a narrative flow which at times almost reads like a novel, with a clear storyline. Wood’s narrative runs through the tapestry of China’s history like a golden thread, interwoven with many other stories (that of the Mongols, for instance) but always clearly visible.

Any historian has to make choices. What to include, what to leave out, where to start and finish, who are the heroes and who the villains, are just a few of the dilemmas to wrestle with. In making those choices, the historian must be aware of their own prejudices, either endeavouring to suppress them or being honest about them. They also have to be aware of possible prejudices in the readership; they can either re-inforce these or endeavour to dispel them. When it comes to China this is a particular issue. For young adults today, China is a superpower; perhaps indeed the coming superpower. For older people, China can have different connotations. When they were coming of age China was often portrayed as the home of a particularly virulent (or pure, depending on your viewpoint) strand of communism, or worse, a backward country that the world had left behind.

So the author’s choices clearly affect the nature of a book as it is written. Which choices are visible in this book? The clearest is that the author has chosen to follow a linear time structure in constructing his narrative. This might seem a statement of the obvious but there were other possibilities open to the author. He could have looked at each region of the country in turn, or looked at China through the prism of each of the major religions. A writer could approach the subject through the medium of the inventions China gave to the world. The Story of China mainly travels from the Bronze Age and to the present day. The only exception to this is the opening mis en scene, which describes the ceremonial trappings of Empire at the very moment they ceased to have meaning (1899). This traditional narrative approach has many advantages. It brings to the fore the storytelling aspect and creates a strong sense of the story developing over time. In telling such a long story of course, there is a danger of the reader losing their way. The author is aware of this and has some tools at his disposal to aid his readers. These tools provide signposts to guide the reader on their journey and illustrate his choices over what he feels is important to include.

Dynasties

The most important signposts are the Dynasties. Like England with its Plantagenets, Tudors and Stuarts, China was ruled at different times by various ruling clans. Shang, Zhou,Tang , Song, Ming; each had their turn in the limelight. In between there were often periods of flux, or as the Chinese themselves put it, chaos, where the unity of the state was lost. These divisions are of course to some extent artificial; England did not change overnight just because James of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth. In China’s case, these dynastic changes were often significant and so they are useful markers. Also, as you read about the rise and fall of each dynasty, you begin to appreciate the recurring patterns; environmental catastrophe, periodic rises in inequality, the constant push/pull of centralism and regionalism, how the practical actions are underpinned by philosophical beliefs. These all hint at continuity, despite the initial impression of change.

 There is a danger that a history written in this way can become merely a series of dates. Although due weight is given to both the founding and the fall of each dynasty, the author does so much more. He presents portraits of the society ruled by each dynasty, touching on commerce, intellectual atmosphere and technological innovation, as well as carefully chosen vignettes of individuals and families that bring each period to life. For instance, when discussing the first Emperor (he of the terracotta army) we the readers are shown correspondence between rank and file soldiers and their families back home, asking for money and clothes and enquiring about the welfare of family members.

References to the wider world

Possibly aware that many readers will be relatively unaware of the chronology of Chinese history, the author makes frequent comparative references to what was happening elsewhere in the world. We hear that the Shang Emperors were the contemporaries of Bronze Age Mycenae, that the Byzantines were aware of the Tang Emperor Taizong and that he came to power on the eve of the Arab Conquests in the Middle East.  These little asides help the reader to anchor the story with their existing knowledge. This becomes more important in more recent history, when events in the wider world began to impinge on China.

 Capital Cities

In the UK, London, once it gained capital status at the expense of Winchester, has never lost it. In China no less than five major cities were at one time the capital of the Empire. This rotation is explained by, and helps to explain, the changes in the country at large; for instance the change in the centre of gravity in the country from North to South and then back to North again. The author shows us each city at its height of influence, shedding light on the bigger picture in the process, for instance how some were fortified centres of administration and others were hubs of commercial activity or centres of intellectual ferment. Again and again, the descriptions of these capital cities make the point that they were bigger, more populous and home to more advanced societies, than anything Europe had to offer at the corresponding period.

Local examples of national trends

In writing this book Michael Wood has also drawn on devices used his previous writings. In 1986 his book Domesday approached the 900^th anniversary of the creation of the Domesday Book by William the Conqueror partly through the lens of looking at individual villages. In this book he incorporates ‘the view from the village’ into every chapter, which allows him to tell the story through the words of individuals who explain how the national events impacted on them and their families. This brings the history alive and personalises it, which is especially important where the epic scale of the story deals in groups of people numbered in the millions. He sometimes revisits places during different epochs, showing us the continuity of places and families over time.

Poetry

Another, perhaps slightly surprising element in this book is its use of poetry as a reference, including the poetry of women. A moments thought will remind us of the usefulness of this; very few books about World War One do not reference the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon or Wilfred Owen. In using this the author is reminding us that to be a refugee when the Song dynasty fell, or a woman trying to protect her children when the Manchu invasion overran the Ming, was no less traumatic or worthy of remembrance than anything that happened in twentieth century Europe.

Beyond this though, the poetry of China is a treasure trove of human experience given shape and form by those with a mastery of words and handed down to those who came after. China is as much those poems as it is a list of Dynasties, or inventions, or religious ideas.

Using the tools listed above to give structure to his story, the Author has written a book that is not only informative but intensely based on human experience. The dates and the individual Emperors and conquerors are important, but they are not the whole story. The life of a city, the fate of a family, the words of a poet, all these shed an illuminating light on the tapestry.

Does this book do what it sets out to?

As I hope I have made clear, the history of China is a vast repository of knowledge. To attempt a synthesis like this is to accept that this book amounts to an introduction; one might almost say a teaser. For those already interested in History, some chapters will appeal more than others. As an aficionado of the Dark Ages, I was particularly taken with the chapter on the Tang Dynasty, rulers of China in that period, which put the events in England into a perspective that leaves them looking like  squabbles that might get a paragraph in the local paper but scarcely register on a wider level. Those with an interest in the fine arts may be more enthralled by the Ming or the Qing.

 As an overview, an introduction to those who come to it not knowing whether the Zhou or the Ming come first in time, it succeeds admirably. Michael Wood tells a clear story whilst exploring many byways and differing ideas. The book leaves the reader feeling they know enough facts to answer a test whilst also being more equipped to be empathetic to the country and its people.

To my mind, it fulfils a need we have in this country to know more about the country that is going to be the dominant power as this century plays out. As mentioned earlier, the view of English people over, say, fifty years of age is all too often the one held by people in this country since the early nineteenth century, that China allowed itself to be overtaken by the Europeans because they were superior and China was backward. As a child, my reading material all too often offered Chinese people as villains, drug addicts and coolies, with a side order of magic and trickery.

It takes a historian like Mr Wood to show us that, viewed through the prism of the Chinese experience, the last couple of hundred years are a passing phase, one of those periods of disruption and chaos between the times of order and harmony. I am of the view that we need to see the country as it is; a country with a fifth of the world’s population, the third biggest land mass of any country, and a culture with a long history of technological and artistic achievement. The rise of Donald Trump to my mind was fuelled by the anger of those who became obscurely aware that America’s time as top dog was coming to an end and didn’t know what to do about it.

There are things about modern China that deserve criticism. The current treatment of the Uighurs, the crackdown in Hong Kong, the suppression of dissent, are all legitimate subjects for comment by the West. But when you read about the Opium wars, the forcible opening up of China to Western trade at the barrel of a gun, our right act as moral arbiters in relation to China begins to look more than a bit suspect. Michael Wood treats the recent history of China with tact and sympathy, not shying away from the disastrous consequences of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, but trying to understand how they fit into the historical pattern he has woven.

China is a nation whose time has come and the challenge for the West will be to realise this. As a result, The Story of China is a book whose time has come; I hope as many people as possible read it. But I also hope it inspires them to read more, to delve into the poetry and the literature, the philosophy and the religion and the folk tales of this rich and complex culture. In so doing the reader will enlarge their own view of the world and make sense of the present.

I am reluctant to call this Michael Wood’s Magnum Opus, since that would imply that he has peaked, there is, I’m sure, more to come from him. But it certainly feels like the culmination of his writing to date, retaining his enthusiasm for his subject and ability to bring the past to life whilst exploring deeper issues of philosophy and society. He also deserves credit for attempting to remedy the tendency for the historical record to make the stories of women invisible. Here you will find women given a voice, not simply as adjuncts to men but as actors in their own lives.  I am therefore happy to bestow on it the Mandate of Heaven and give it five capitals!

Afterthoughts and Caveats

There is very little about this book I would wish to criticise. I was perhaps slightly disappointed he did not reference one of the off-beat historical theories that appeals to me; namely that China’s stagnation under the Qing can be partly explained by the fact of the Wests commercial success being fuelled by the stimulant of coffee whilst the Chinese remained wedded to tea. I’m being facetious, but remember that Lloyds of London began life as a Coffee House!

I would have also liked to see one or two more maps; especially since Geography is so important in this story. However, I had a remedy to hand in The Times Complete History of the World, which contains excellent two page spreads covering each of the main epochs of Chinese History, to which I frequently referred whilst reading. Finally, although technically it was not part of the remit he set himself, some commentary on the influence in the world of the Chinese Diaspora, including the community in this country, would have been interesting. That is a book that also needs writing if some-one has not already tackled that subject.

 I have also published a table listing the Dynasties with approximate dates and Global contemporaries: 

https://curiousmiscellanies.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-dynasties-of-china-explanatory.html

 

A review of the TV version of 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth.

 

A Suitable Boy for TV- a half-term report

We’ve now had three episodes of a Suitable Boy on Sunday evenings, as adapted by Andrew Davis. So how does it measure up? Of course, you first have to decide what you are measuring against. To compare with the book seems fairly pointless; they are two different products. They say a picture points a thousand words, these televisual pictures are having to cover fourteen hundred pages and nineteen chapters, a task that is beyond six one hour episodes. So let’s discuss Andrew Davis’ show on its own merits; as television.

The Sunday night 'rules'

This is of course Sunday evening at nine o’clock television, which dictates several things. If there is to be violence, it is kept within bounds, the same goes for sex. As a costume drama it has more boxes to tick; visual spectacle, sumptuous locations and stunning clothes. The story is allowed to unfold within these parameters. A Suitable Boy has a simple enough main story, but the book includes many side plots. To adapt such a book, the trick is be judicious in what to include and what to leave out, unlike the author, Vikram Seth, who tells the reader he has endeavoured to include everything.

In the main, the show does this well, keeping the number of introduced characters under control and never letting the incidental stuff overrule the prime plot trajectory, which is to find a husband for Lata Mehra. Many of them are first seen at her sister Savita’s wedding, a good opportunity to present pen portaits of each of them. The most engaging is Maan Kapoor, the son of a politician and brother to Savita’s new husband. A young man who has so far avoided any form of responsibility, Maan is about to fall fathoms deep for the enigmatic singer and courtesan Saeeda Bai, who definitely comes under the heading of unsuitable, rather like Lata’s first choice, the handsome Kabir, who labours under the major drawback of belonging to the wrong religious group.

A Suitable Boy also has a few tiger pits to negotiate in the form of previous representations of India, from The Jewel in the Crown to the good Karma Hospital. The former portrayed the British Raj whilst the latter purports to show the present day. Boy is neither, being set shortly after Independence, which allows it to depict Indian society without too much recourse to the British point of view. It does this very well, with an all Indian cast and a subtle switching between English and Indian language. I think it manages to immerse the viewer in that society in all its richness, so that we accept its mores and the constraints the characters operate under. For instance, though Lata strives to be independent, her independence has its limits; she has to allow her mother the last word, because this is India in 1951, we accept that.

Incidental pleasures

The pleasures of this show are often to be found in the deft way it can paint a picture in a short scene, such as the one that shows us Meenakshi, the wife of Lata’s brother, enjoying the intimate attentions of his best friend. Her flightiness is appealing and you can’t help but see that being married to Arun might well drive her to seek out his polar opposite, the reckless and flamboyant Billy Irani. In a different vein, The frequent religious observances of Maan’s mother provide us with an insight into her essential nature and her constant anxieties hint at the still fragile state of post-partition Indian society.

For me the best thing that Davis has managed to retain from the book is the saturation of society in music and poetry. Saeeda Bai might sell her body but people admire her for her ability to take them somewhere else when she sings, and literature and poetry are never far from the lips of some-one. Another bonus is the frequent mention of snacks and food in general; again, true to the book.

After three episodes we have been introduced to all three of Lata’s suitors, who each have their strong points and drawbacks, as does Lata herself. She is not conventionally attractive, not a Bollywood beauty. Her appeal is based on personality, her independent spirit, her enjoyment of attention that is in conflict with her fear of committing and getting it wrong. All this makes her a heroine to warm to. At this point the viewer would be wise not to pick a winner from the three candidates for her hand, mainly because Lata is still undecided.

Summary

Having said all I have about its good points, I realise that it may be insufficiently racy for some, or not political enough for others. Most, although not all, of its characters are solidly Middle-class, but it is no bad thing to be reminded that India has such a group as well as its lower caste poor. It is ultimately a story about family and relationships and does not deserve to be castigated for not tackling contentious issues in sufficient depth.

I feel it needs to pick up a gear before the end, although there are plenty of exciting plot points to come. I would encourage viewers to stick with it, but also to try the book afterwards, which will give you far more detail.  If nothing else, enjoying the chemistry between Saeeda and Maan and cheering him on as he is forced to grow up is reason enough to watch.  I look forward to reviewing it again after the last episode has aired.

 

 

 

The Secret Commonwealth- a review

The Secret Commonwealth

 

'Young people don't believe in the Secret Commonwealth, Brabandt said. It's all chemistry and measuring things as far as they're concerned.They got an explanation for everything. and they're all wrong'

Introduction

The Secret Commonwealth is the fifth book set in Philip Pullman’s multiverse and the second in a trilogy entitled ‘The Book of Dust’. The first of these, ‘La Belle Sauvage’ dealt with events prior to the original trilogy.Lyra Silvertongue, the heroine of the ‘His Dark Materials books is an infant and the action happens around her.  By contrast, The Secret Commonwealth is a sequel to ‘His Dark Materials’ that presents us with Lyra as a young woman who is now an Oxford undergraduate.  

In many ways too it is a direct sequel to ‘La Belle Sauvage’. It deals with characters first encountered in that book and the motivation of the characters opposed to Lyra and her friends stems from the events chronicled in it just as much as those in ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

An adult Lyra is going to inhabit a very different book to its predecessors, a fact which is key to understanding it. Whilst the child Lyra was an elemental spirit driven by the black and white certainties of childhood, the Lyra of this book is more nuanced, complex even. She is also very uncertain of herself as the story commences. We quickly find that the student Lyra has been influenced by her study reading, in particular by a novel and a text book, away from imagination and towards rationality and logic. By contrast Pantalaimon, her daemon (the visible manifestation of her soul that people in her world share their lives with), retains the outlook they shared in her youth. The two of them have become estranged, so much so that Pan leaves her; but not before he has embroiled her in a murder case.

A genre discussion

Which brings us to the question of genre. This book straddles, indeed defies genres. There are elements of the film noirs typified by Humphrey Bogart, or the thrillers of writers like Alastair Maclean, or books like Graham Greene’s the Third Man (it has many of the spy genre staples such as coded messages between spies and a secret department in Whitehall), whilst the cover speaks to us of the graphic art from between the wars. It is also a coming of age novel with links to the fantasy genre and a vehicle for philosophical discussion. At the same time it delights in offering homage to a completely different reference point; the Indiana Jones films. I offer in evidence a History Professor who can handle himself in a fight and travels the world getting embroiled in quixotic adventures, local fixers who provide assistance to our hero and shadowy villains up to no good, with a good dose of action and excitement.  

Yet overlaying all this (or do I mean underlying?) are some very deliberate contemporary references. As Lyra travels across Europe to the Middle East she encounters boatloads of refugees on the Mediterranean, whilst the growing authoritarian grip of the Magisterium in Europe echoes current concerns of the resurgence of the right and the dangers of a return to Fascism. The book also explores attitudes to minorities and the way scarce resources (in this case a mysterious rose oil) can cause conflict, being waged by what seem like first cousins to Muslim extremists in our world but influenced behind the scenes by multi-national companies.

Wider Themes

As if all this wasn’t complex enough Pullman adds two more layers of theming. The first concerns the element in the original stories that they are most famous for; the visible daemons. From Northern Lights onwards every human we meet is accompanied by a Daemon, a visible incarnation of their soul. Usually of the opposite gender, your daemon is an aspect of you, but one you can touch and talk to, your conscience or your inner voice. In Northern Lights Lyra and Pantalaimon are nearly forcibly severed from each other; in The Amber Spyglass they voluntarily separate to allow Lyra to fulfil her quest, but they remain a partnership, a symbiotic pairing.

In this Book the author takes all the readers certainties and strips them away. First it is revealed that Lyra and her daemon have become more like separate entities, and soon they are parted. Then Lyra, who sets out to find Pan, discovers that there are other people in the world who are living without their daemons, whilst later still she discovers a black market trade in daemons where desperate poor people sell their daemons to dealers who sell them on to those who have lost theirs.

This all very unsettling for the reader, as it is for Lyra, who is already grappling with the proposition from one of her favourite writers that daemons are no more than figments of people’s imaginations, a self-created psychological prop. There are echoes here, although I doubt it is consciously intended by Mr Pullman, of the way J.K. Rowling makes her readers re-evaluate Professor Dumbledore in books six and seven. She is able reveal a more complex Dumbledore at this point because Harry, her hero, has become old enough to realise that things don’t have the simple explanations you accept as a child. In this book the adult Lyra is undergoing a similar process.

The second over-arching theme is the battle, not between good and evil, but between scientific rationality and the world of the imagination. Pitted against the logic and reductionism of the modern authors who have seduced Lyra is the Secret Commonwealth of the book’s title, the hidden world of sprites, ghosts, spectres and nature spirits. The book sees Lyra gradually move from one side to the other, in the process re-discovering the imagination Pan accuses her of losing. It is fairly clear which side Philip Pullman is on; I am reminded of the views of J.R.R. Tolkien. In more than one essay he talked about the human need for imagination as well as science, stating a preference for trees over lamp-posts and preferring to see the Moon as a mysterious influencer of men’s lives rather than as a lump of rock. In the Lord of the Rings the characters who prefer science are the bad guys; Saruman who is described as having a mind of cogs and wheels and Sauron who undertakes genetic experiments to produce the orcs.

As a child Lyra was able to read her Alethiometer, a device for revealing truth and information, instinctively. As a grown-up she can no longer do this. Instead she has to learn to open her mind to hints from the Secret Commonwealth, to trust to instinct. In this way she can be guided on her quest to find Pan. In an intriguing twist, she is being stalked through an Alethiometer by one of the bad guys who has learned to read it instinctively. They can sense each other through their instruments. If that sounds familiar, it is- Kylo Ren and Ray in the recent Star Wars offerings can sense each other through the force. Again, I doubt this influenced Mr Pullman’s writing, but it is an intriguing congruence of an idea that clearly appeals to us.

The elephant in the room

When discussing genre I missed one out- Romance. This book could also be filed under Romance, but this brings us to its most problematic issue. The Indiana Jones style character, Malcolm Polstead, was one of the two young people who rescued Lyra as a baby. When she was a moody teenager (no doubt going through a Goth phase) he was an (unsuccessful) personal tutor to her. Now they meet again and she begins to realise how involved he has been in her life. For his part, Malcolm admits to himself something that is blindingly obvious to colleagues and friends, he is in love with her. As it stands at this point, with her twenty and him having reached his thirties, it is not an outrageous proposition. But it is made clear that he has had these feelings a long time, since she was in her mid-teens, which throws it into a different light.

In the light of #metoo, this is a red flag for many readers that throws their enjoyment of the book into question. We are clearly told early on that a previous relationship with a good-looking gypsy boy had a physical element (her virginity is long gone, is the message), which establishes she is ready for a relationship. Mr Pullmans problem here is that he is a middle-aged male writing about a man having feelings for an under-age girl. We all know such things happen and it’s not as if Malcolm acted on it at the time, but it still leaves a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. My problem here is that I share Mr Pullman’s age and gender; if they disqualify him from writing about it then I probably should be wary of commenting on it. But speaking as a man with daughters it definitely spoiled the book for me, together with a scene at the end of the story which describes a sexual assault and its aftermath. I, and other reviewers, are not suggesting such things should never be written about. But this book is the fifth in a series that started out life in the children’s section, which makes it much more likely that it will be read by children. The ones who started out with Northern Lights twenty-five years ago are now in their thirties. But the precocious reader who has devoured ‘His Dark Materials after seeing it on Television could well be under ten years old.

It is this which makes this book so problematic for me. It is a shame, because the world it inhabits is so rich and interesting, and the ideas explored so pertinent to the human condition, that it makes for compelling reading. As I read the closing scene I still wanted to know what will happen in the final instalment. But I know I would not have wanted the child sat in a chair in my house reading Northern lights back in the 1990’s to have picked up this book afterwards. It is a rare example of Mr Pullman striking a discordant note. But I guess you should read the book and decide for yourself.

 

 

A Suitable Boy- a primer

A Suitable Boy- a basic primer.

What is a novel? You can find several definitions in various dictionaries; this one sums it up pretty well:

Novel: ‘a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organisation of action and scenes’.

Source: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/novel

So let’s consider for a moment how it applies to a particular example; namely, A suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth. Why this book? Well, its adaptation for Television by Andrew Davis provides a suitable excuse (pun absolutely intended) to discuss it. So this is  a Suitable Boy Primer that also ponders the nature of the novel. I like to give value for money.

‘A fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity’ is a perfect description of Vikram Seth’s creation. At thirteen hundred and forty-nine pages it’s a veritable door stop of a book, one that is rapidly overtaking War and Peace as shorthand for going on at length. ‘portraying characters’ is  a massive understatement for this story. The family trees of the main four families in the book contain nigh on forty names for a start. Finally, ‘a sequential organisation of action and scenes’ certainly applies. The action and scenes described take place over the course of a year and nineteen chapters in a variety of locations.

So ‘A suitable Boy’ is indisputably a Novel in the classic sense. Novels are artificial constructs that tell a story in a choreographed way, in which the end of the story seems inevitable and satisfactory once you reach it. But like the best novels, the story, both the narrative and the seemingly inconsequential details, are so immersive that you scarcely notice the structure and the artifice. They are there nonetheless, as are nods to the history of the novel, for those who have eyes to see.

Seth employs a neat device to signpost his chapters; each has a rhyming couplet that hints at the content without giving too much away. These allusive fragments constitute a poem in their own right, by turns matter of fact, descriptive and shocking. ‘A kiss stokes fury, Twelfth night sparks a snub, and even bridge stokes tumult at the club’ promises a chapter of conflict and intrigue.

The Novel begins with a wedding. Savita Mehra is marrying Pran Kapoor and her mother voices her determination to procure a similar outcome for Savita’s younger sister, Lata. The ’suitable boy’ of the title is the one who will marry Lata. This is the main arc of the story. But presaging the search for the aforementioned paragon is not the only purpose of Savita’s wedding. It also serves as a device to bring together most of the main characters in the book in order to introduce them, as well as launching several sub-plots. If this seems familiar it should be. Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe starts with a tournament at which he introduces the main players in his medieval romance. This actual scenario re-occurs in George Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’ to good effect.

Without giving away too much I can reveal that Lata has three main suitors for her hand as the story unfolds. This mirrors Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding crowd’ in which Bathsheba Everdene is wooed by three very different men; Shepherd Gabriel Oak, Soldier Troy and Farmer Boldwood. (yes, she is called Everdene, just like Katniss in ‘The Hunger Games’, you think that’s accidental?)

There are many ways to write a novel. The Basque novelist Miguel Unamuno attempted, in Abel Sanchez, to write a story that was devoid of anything that could tie it to geography or time period; he wanted the characterisation to be paramount. Other writers include details that provide clues to the period in which they were writing. Jane Austen’s female characters meet Militia officers and Naval Captains because Napoleon was on the other side of the channel at the time. Still other writers, describing a period that is already in the past, use objects, events and music to evoke the particular time they are describing.

A Suitable Boy is unashamedly anchored in time and place. The time is 1951, the place is India. The year is important, just four years after Independence, a fact that colours many of the plotlines. Seth puts his characters into a fictional city, Brahmpur, so convincingly described that the reader accepts it as real. The history and culture of India suffuses the book and provides a realistic background for the characters actions. The reader soon accepts the attitudes of individual characters as being in keeping with the setting.

This is an introduction to the story which is trying not to give too much away, in case you are planning to watch the Television adaptation or read the book. I think though, I can get away with mentioning one or two characters. Lata, as has been said, is at the centre of the story and other characters revolve around her. But they are all individually drawn and fascinating in their own right. Veena Kapoor, for instance, Savita’s husband’s sister is an example of a woman trying to maintain some sense of being something other than just a wife and mother. Her son Bhaskar is a mathematical prodigy and her husband is the sort of calm presence any family needs at times of crisis. Yet they would be classed as ‘minor’ characters.Veena's other brother Maan is a slightly more prominent character, indeed you could argue that the book is as much about him as about Lata. The infatuation that he is subject to begins at Savita's wedding and runs like a thread through the book. This is the extent of Seth’s achievement; to give every-one their due and weave all their stories together.

So whether you watch or read, you are in for a treat. I have read the book cover to cover on two occasions, some years apart, and fully intend to read it again. It is so rich, so varied and so life-affirming, and somehow defies definition. Is it a romance? A historical novel? An explanation of a political moment in time? A family saga? A hymn to India? It is all of these and more.