26/4/12 “A DANCE CALLED AMERICA” by JAMES HUNTER

 

The proposer of “A Dance Called America” (1994) is well-versed in history. At Edinburgh University he read Scottish and American history. His interest in this particular book was sparked during a visit last summer to the US and eastern Canada, particularly Quebec and Nova Scotia (Quebec City, Cape Breton Island, Fortress Louisburg and Halifax). He read the book during his travels.

The author of this month’s book, James Hunter, is a Highlander by birth and residence, and has written a few books on Highland-related subjects. Our proposer gave a brief résumé of Hunter’s output and life. There are about 14 books.  “Last of the Free” is an excellent history of Scotland from the ‘Highland viewpoint’.  The author tends to view the Lowland Scots much in the same way as Lowland Scots view the English, i.e. aggressive centralisers. He is a well-kent face in the Highlands and formerly the Chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise.  One of our members recalled that in this role he had a major influence on the "Fresh Talent" proposal to encourage immigration into Scotland, and had a vision of the Highlands being repopulated.

This book is an account of those Highlanders who emigrated to North America. It complements another book we have been reading lately, the novel by Neil Gunn The Silver Darlings.

Our proposer donned his historian’s cap and reminded us of the context of Highland emigration. Until the Union of 1707 Scots were unable legally to go to England’s American colonies. Early Scots emigration did occur, to America (e.g. Georgia), but a trickle became a flood after the collapse of traditional clan system following the 1745 Jacobite Rising.

Outline of the chapters

Chapters 2 and 4 discuss the Highlanders who went to what became the US. Those who had supported the Stuarts in 1745 mainly supported King George in 1775. The author makes a parallel with the French Canadians who supported the British both in 1775 and 1812. Indeed many of the Highlanders who were on the losing side in the American Revolution made their way to the surviving British colonies in Canada.

Many of Highland descent remained in the USA. A diversion is the way the whites in the South, whether of Scottish descent or not, have emphasised their Celtic heritage. Celtic South has a long pedigree. Mark Twain said Walter Scott caused the War Between the States.  Now that overt racism is out, a lot of Southerners have hit on something to which blacks cannot belong. Tying Southern history into Scottish history enables an emphasis on the heroic and romantic elements without the politically incorrect baggage of slavery.

Chapter 3 deals with the Highlanders’ military contribution to the defeat of the French in Canada. General Wolfe’s infamous quote probably sums up the initial English view:    “They are hardy, intrepid and no great mischief if they fall.”   But the British Government needed troops able to operate in N America and the Highlanders fitted the bill, thus launching a military tradition. Clan tradition and solidarity has been a very important part of regimental esprit de corps.  The victory of the Highlanders in Canada elevated their reputation amongst the English and Lowland Scot for ever. Somehow, Scots now identified with the British Empire.

Chapter 5 deals with the emotive topic of the mass evictions/ clearances on Highland estates. The author’s analysis of the emotional and controversial subject of the Highland Clearances is balanced and persuasive. Our proposer had visited the Hector in Pictou, Nova Scotia, a replica of the ship that brought the first Highlanders to Nova Scotia in 1773. A good point made by the author is that conditions on the emigrant ships were no better than on slave ships. Indeed emigrants paid in advance. Money for slaves was paid on arrival, so some have argued there were better conditions on ships for slaves. He also makes the important point that Highlander emigrants in the 19^th century were much poorer than their predecessors in the 18^th century. Nonetheless, as he makes clear, the emigrants considered they were better off in Canada than in Scotland, in particular through being in charge of their own destinies. Even so, farming small crofts - whether in Scotland or Cape Breton - has not for many years provided an acceptable standard of living.

Chapter 6 deals with Cape Breton Island. Our proposer reported this as being a fascinating place, with many familiar Scottish surnames including his own. It has a Gaelic College and much Celtic music (and festivals). Signs are often in Gaelic. In the 1930s there were as many Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton as in Scotland, but the inexorable advance of English has much reduced the number (read Alistair Macleod’s great novel No Great Mischief).

Chapter 7 deals with the fur trade and the exploration of Western Canada, and the Highlanders’ role in it. The North West Company was a Highland family business.

Chapter 8 deals with the Sutherland clearance in Kildonan, and how many of the cleared Highlanders went to the Red River from Thurso via Hudsons Bay.  Others of course stayed in Sutherland, and turned to herring fishing.

Chapter 9 describes the contribution of various Scots (in particular John Macdonald) in the bringing together of the various provinces within Canada to form a Federation. Undoubtedly this was motivated in part by the fear of USA territorial ambitions. The Canadian Pacific railway was vital to the Canadian national identity. Highlanders made an immense contribution to it.  Whereas it would be a wild exaggeration to claim Canada as a Scottish Highland creation, they certainly played an important role. Perhaps as the author is writing about the Highlanders’ contribution, a somewhat unbalanced picture emerges.

What we discussed

The title of the book is strange. It comes from James Boswell’s Journal of 1773. He describes a whirling dance coming from Skye, presumably invented to represent the emigration to America. They call the dance, America. Later, in the 1980s, the Celtic rock band from Skye wrote the song Dance called America.

The landlords came
The peasant trials
To sacrifice of men
Through the past and that quite darkly
The presence once again
In the name of capital
Establishment
Improvers, it’s a name
The hidden truths
The hidden lies
That once nailed you
To the pain

Not all of us are as familiar with Scottish history as our proposer!

One of our members, unable to attend, sent an enthusiastic set of comments: “I found almost all of it riveting. The militias in the US in the eighteenth century were of course particularly absorbing for me given my military history interests”.

But some of us thought the book was ‘heavy going’, with so many clan names, place-names and dates. We would have liked a few maps (Scotland and N America) to show where the places were. Perhaps some statistics on the numbers emigrating could have been given. One of our members complained of having to use Wikipedia to follow the narrative. It was in that encyclopaedia that I found the following remarkable factoid:

 “According to the 2001 Census of Canada, the number of Canadians claiming full or partial Scottish descent is 5,219,850 ”.

That is about the same as Scotland’s own population, and hugely more than the present-day Highland population. Of course, there are Highland diaspora all over the world, and plenty in the USA. But can we be given some data?  Or perhaps a Table to show the chronology? Other books about Scottish history have been more helpful in this regard  (Prebble’s Highland Clearances, Smout’s History of the Scottish People).

Probably, one needs to be a Highlander oneself or a historian from the Lowlands to enjoy this book without ‘further study’. If, like your humble scribe, you are English (!) then this book is an uphill struggle, although one undoubtedly learns a lot, and in the end it is a satisfying read. But Prebble and Smout write for audiences anywhere.

We discussed the Highland Clearances at some length. We English (of whom I was the only representative this month), may well be ‘aggressive centralisers’ and we do feel a little uncomfortable discussing the sins of our forefathers, especially in Scottish or Irish company. Interestingly, I found my Scottish friends (Lowlanders all, I think) also sensitive on matters to do with the Clearances.

In his enthusiasm for all things Highlander, we thought Hunter had not always been fair to Lowlanders and the English. Our member who could not be with us expressed it thus:

“The Glencoe massacre was portrayed as English imperialism rather than yet

another internecine clan horror - in his world Highlanders don't slaughter

each other. He applauds Highlanders finding jobs for their nephews and

cousins as admirable clan solidarity, while others might see this as nepotism (which I can vouch is rife to this day in the Gaelic speaking world). However, it was in his favour that his more sentimental or emotional points were generally then qualified by a more rational appraisal”.

It is difficult to imagine the living conditions in the Highlands at the time when the Scottish Enlightenment was in full swing in the Lowlands, and the Industrial Revolution was well underway throughout Europe. These huge cultural and social movements had touched the Highlands only inasmuch as they created demand for product such as herrings and kelp, and then sheep.

Prebble’s book may have exaggerated the level of oppression associated with the Clearances, with its focus on the ‘Year of the Burnings’ (1814) and the single incident at Strathnaver in which Patrick Sellar the factor to the Sutherland family torched dwellings, sometimes whilst people were still inside them. It rapidly became a cause célèbre partly because of the literary skill of one Donald Macleod, a stonemaker from Strathnaver, who later emigrated to Canada and wrote passionately about the incident. The author confronts us with these words, written by Richard Hugo an American poet who lived in Uig for a few months:

Lord, it took no more than a wave of a glove,

A nod of the head over tea. People were torn from their crofts

And herded aboard, their land turned over to sheep.

They sailed. They wept.

The sea said nothing and said I’ll get even.

Their last look at Skye lasted one hour. Then fog.

But clearances were not confined to Scotland. They occurred earlier in England during the British Agricultural Revolution. And much of all social change during the Industrial Revolution has the same ingredients: a nod of the head, people losing livelihoods, violence, long-lasting resentment and then sadness.

It is impossible to visit the Highlands today without being struck by a sense of melancholy.

Before the Clearances, however, life in the Highlands was no bed of roses. It should be kept in mind that the climate and soils of the Highlands are marginal for agriculture. The growing season is short and unreliable. Moreover, the period covered by the book was especially cold and stormy. A succession of bad harvests may well have been a factor forcing people to flee to the coast where kelp and herring could provide a livelihood, as portrayed in Neil Gunn’s novel, The Silver Darlings.  During the so-called Little Ice Age (from about 1550 to 1850) the temperatures of the Northern Hemisphere were about a degree colder than in the late 19^th Century (hence ice skating and curling were popular sports in Scotland, and Ice Fairs were held annually on the Thames). The year 1816 is known as ‘the year without a summer’ and sometimes ‘Poverty Year’ – this occurred in the midst of the second phase of the Clearances and must have exacerbated the hardship and misery.

We digressed into a discussion of how to pronounce the word Gaelic, as in the language. You should definitely pronounce it ‘Gallic’ for the Scottish version of the language, and ‘Gaellic’ for the Irish form. No-one told the editors of my Longman’s Dictionary (i-pad edition with sound).

We learn from Hunter’s book that the more fortunate emigrants who had survived the transatlantic journey were more or less dumped on Canadian soil, and had to build their own shelters and attempt to grow crops. Winter was damn cold in Canada too. Many starved when their first crops failed. This is hardship on a scale far beyond the experience of our generation. One imagines that a high degree of selection must have occurred, a human example of the Survival of the Fittest.  Certainly those who survived did well, keeping up the Highland traditions of music, bagpipes, shinty and curling. Bonspiels today are nearly as important in parts of Canada as the Olympics elsewhere!

Given this enthusiasm for all things Scottish, one might expect a few of the successful Scottish Americans to send money home. A few have. Andrew Carnegie emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 and made a fortune in steel. He was a scholar and philanthropist who gave much back to Scotland (and England).  Not all have been as generous as Carnegie. Donald Trump’s wealth is said to exceed 3 billion dollars. His mother was born on the Isle of Lewis. Hasn’t he done well, a real-estate magnate and owner of the Miss Universe Organisation?  Rupert Murdoch, the Australian newspaper owner of Scottish descent is no philanthropist either. The descendants of William Cargill, a sea captain from Orkney, amassed immense wealth from the family agro-business; in recent times Margaret Cargill became known as a major philanthropist. Scottish-American business woman Mary Maxwell Gates helped her clever son, Bill Gates, get started. Blame Bill for all those bugs in Microsoft Word if you like, but salute him please for the good works he has done thorough the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

A complete list of Scottish-Americans is lacking in this book. The author might have made a bit more of this. Again, I had to do my own research! 30-40 million Americans claim Scottish descent.  Scots are certainly well-represented in a roll-call of American presidents (there are 23 of them, including Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon), famous astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin), food magnates (Campbell’s soups, MacDonald’s fast-food, the secretive Cargill family), car-makers (David Dunbar Buik), musicians (Elvis, Bill Munro, and John Baez’s mum came from Edinburgh) and even Uncle Sam himself is supposed to be the son of a nice young couple from Greenock.   For further details of the widespread influence of Scottish people in the USA, possible not entirely without a Scottish bias, be amused by this: http://www.scotland.org/features/item/scotlands-influence-on-the-usa/

The Scottish Government organised Homecoming Scotland in 2009 to attract talent and money back home. However, it was reported to have been a financial failure.

The night was drawing on, and as we gathered up our belongings to go, our host suddenly remembered the special treat he had waiting for us. He produced a bottle of Cape Breton Malt Whisky. It was like a Speyside, not as good as a Dalwhinnie but pretty decent.

29/3/12 “SEX, LIES AND SHAKESPEARE” by Christopher Rush

Well, they told me sex was being discussed in Morningside. It was so implausible that your intrepid international correspondent dropped the tequila bottle and jetted back to Scotland for the Monthly Book Group.

Just in time to hear the proposer say that the author had been recommended to him on the golf course. And indeed he already knew the author, who had briefly taught his son English, and had found him very lively, likeable and intelligent. The subject matter of the book – coming of age in a Scottish fishing village – also linked well with the Group’s recent discussion of “The Silver Darlings”, and its forthcoming discussion of “A Dance Called America”.

Christopher Rush was born in St Monans in Fife in 1944. After primary schooling in St Monans, he went to Waid Academy in Anstruther, and this volume of his autobiography dealt with his experiences there. (Jocky Wilson, the darts player, who had just died, had also gone to Waid a few years later). Rush had read English at Aberdeen, and had excelled. He was offered a research fellowship at Cambridge, but had chosen to go into school teaching instead, and had spent his career teaching English literature in Edinburgh. He was the author of over a dozen books, comprising poetry, novels, short stories, biography and an autobiographical trilogy of which this was one volume. The film “Venus Peter” was based on one of his books.

His first wife, an author and biologist, had died in 1993. Distraught, he had travelled, following Stevenson’s “Travels with a Donkey” route through the Cevennes. He was now remarried – to a Russian lecturer in English literature and stylistics.

The proposer had enjoyed reading the book, and could identify with the sort of adolescent sexual experiences described (other than, alas, the climactic scene with Kirsty Miller). The use of poetry and songs helped keep the book alive. One interesting comment on the book was that he wrote better when praising people than when complaining about them. But the book rang true in showing how much one’s school experience was dependent on the individual teacher, who could have such a large inspirational or negative effect.

So what was the reaction of the Group? Well, some gazed fondly on the rosy cheeks of youth Rush conjured up; some found a pustule or two marring the youth’s complexion; and nobody seemed to agree on quite what the youth looked like.

One, for example, thought many of the experiences were magnificently vivid. For example the description of Honeybunch, the statuesque vagrant who was stripped and washed, was a breath of fresh air in the first section. Otherwise he did not much care to be reminded of sweaty 11 year olds jostling to go to the school toilets. For him, the second part of the book, once Rush had had his epiphany about Shakespeare, worked better. For another, however, the evocation of the long lost days as a young schoolboy was the most engaging part of the book.

What about the “Sex”, then? Most recognised only too clearly the adolescent fumblings of their youth, and the intense importance that minor triumphs had for them, although some had been glad to put these memories behind them. Rush certainly evoked such moments very effectively. But was there not something slightly uncomfortable about them being recreated with such relish by a man in his mid-sixties? Would the book have worked better without the epilogue bringing the much older persona of the author before us? Or had his editor merely stipulated that sex was what was needed to sell books - the Monthly Book Group had certainly been keen to read the book on the strength of the title alone.

“Lies” then? Well, perhaps in an effort to justify the catchy title (derived of course from the film “Sex, Lies and Videotape”) Rush makes a few comments about the “lies” of his early spinster teachers – such as that if you worked hard at school you would have a better life (so that’s a lie??).

But we did wonder if the lies extended more covertly to Rush being an unreliable narrator, consciously or unconsciously, at some points. Was that why so many of the girls seemed to vanish into thin air? Was the appalling Croxford - arch manipulator, sexual explorer and general villain – quite as extreme as that? Was he really a son of the manse and a leader of choirboys? Well, some of us at least had known a Croxford at school….

Did Rush’s voyeurism really pull out the plum of the best looking female teacher in the nude? Hmm… voyeurism at that age was not unusual, and his frightened departure had the ring of some element of truth in the tale…And Honeybunch was a plausible character, but the scene with her in the wood less so….

And above all did he comprehensively nail Kirsty in the summer fields in the splendidly evoked (“pornographic”? No! – “explicit”) scene at the end. Definitely not, because we were all too jealous…

As for Shakespeare, we liked the remarkable story of Rush’s epiphany when watching Olivier’s Richard III on a little black and white television. The tale of his consequent obsession with Shakespeare, and transformation from dunce to dux, was compelling. The sonnets had thus been drawn to the attention of one of our number, and, in our own mini-epiphany, he would now explore them.

We could have done with hearing more about Rush’s insights into Shakespeare, but the best on offer was to read his book “Will”, which might soon become a film. Similarly, it would have been interesting to hear more about St Monans’ life and about his parents, but for that we would need to consult the other volumes of his autobiography.

There was no doubt Rush could write in simple, effective prose, as in the moving story of death at sea, or as in this description of Kirsty:

“there she was, just coming in…stuck between her sober parents like a gorgeous book between two Bibles. She filled the whitewashed whispering silence of the old stones with a loud shout of colour. The Old Kirk was a Spartan Presbyterian barn. And there she stood – in a poppy-red blouse with a large wide-brimmed hat and shoes to match. Her skirt and jacket were like morning milk…”

However, for some he often over-elaborated his prose. “Why use one word when fifteen will do?” asked one unruly pupil.

Another member confessed to not enjoying the book at all – he found it irritating and self-indulgent. It was perhaps the most erudite pornography he had ever read. Often a literary allusion enhanced an image, but he felt Rush was more inclined to drown an image. In describing his early experiences the speech might be child-like, but was accompanied by prose with showy literary quotations, which he could not resist putting in. It seemed a quite inappropriate style to adopt when writing about a teenager. The author was self-conscious all the time. The book just did not ring true, occupying a territory half-way between autobiography and poetry.

On the other hand, another suggested, there was a much better balance between style and subject matter once Rush was writing abut his Shakespearean period.

Another aspect that some disliked was the sense of self-importance, or at least self-absorption, of someone who had done nothing very remarkable, but felt it appropriate to write a trilogy of autobiographies. This sense of self-importance was revealed unwittingly in the Epilogue. To get agreement to refer to her in the book, he phones up Judy (she of the erotic private organ recital) who remembers nothing about the treasured event. “Did she know that I’d become a writer? No, why should she care? Did she care? Scarcely. Would she like me to send her some of my books? Not really.….”

However, to his credit, Rush has the honesty to record this exchange and to admit: “For a time I felt crushed, humiliated, bewildered – and a right silly old fool”. He goes on to reflect, like Julian Barnes recently, on the distortions and selectiveness of memory, of how “we protect ourselves from the cold by harbouring illusions, a polite philosophical word for lies…”

Where there was more consensus was that Rush brought to life a rich and engaging gallery of characters. For at least one member that was the main strength of the book. All their foibles and eccentricities – such as those of the remarkable Dr Ogg - were brought out delightfully. Most were approached with a warm Shakespearean empathy, but Rush’s empathy did not extend to the spinster teachers of his early years in Waid Academy, such as the dread Fanny Fergusson. He did not attempt to consider what experiences might have led her to be as she was – for him, she was still the complete villain as seen through the eyes of childhood. But perhaps we were all like that in relation to teachers we disliked.

So how was it that – post-epiphany – Rush now had the best teachers in the world? As recorded Alistair Mackie and Alistair Leslie seemed between them to have offered a higher standard of English Literature teaching than any of us had encountered at school. Was this a new breed of enthusiastic young male teachers replacing the dessicated spinsters, as Rush suggests, and as one of our number had also experienced in a rural school? Or was it that an enthusiastic student finds much more to commend in his teachers than a switched–off student? Or, suggested one from the profession, that teachers become more inspired and inspiring with the fifth and sixth years as the students become capable of offering some intellectual challenge?

Hmmm…..too difficult, at least for your jet-lagged correspondent, who had reached the end of his vino rosso rotgutto. Just a little pause to peer at the empty glass and the ever-attentive host was at my elbow opening a fine bottle of Glenesk Pinot Noir…

Don’t ask me about the rest of the discussion, I was dreaming……….. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” I was whispering to Kirsty Miller in a field of butttercups….

23/2/12 “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” by Emily Brontë

Out on the wiley, windy moors,
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper, like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me?
When I needed to possess you.....

As we arrived at the venue for the discussion, the lock drew back and the door creaked open. “Enter”, exclaimed our host, warmly. “Thank you”, we replied, nervously. “Would you like a drink”, he continued, perspicaciously. “We have brought some ale”, interjected a colleague, thirstily. “Come in and sit down”, he exclaimed, tartly. “I have no more adverbs. Ms Brontë may help us as she has plenty to spare, but I can certainly find a bottle opener”. And so we assembled in the living room, some of us with our backs to an exposed, un-shuttered window that seemed to invite a ghostly presence. We fingered our fiction, feverishly. We began.

This is clearly one of the most influential novels in the English Language, and not just on the 1978 Kate Bush song and performance recorded on film. This is a book selected by the Guardian in 2003 as the 17th greatest novel of all time, one ahead of Jane Eyre, no less, although one has to suspect the compilers have only read English language classics. Is the novel influential because of its inherent quality, its unusual claustrophobic setting and quasi-Gothic atmosphere, the associated tragedies of the Brontë family, or more recently, the many filmed treatments? Is the Monthly Book Group qualified to offer an opinion? The answer to this last question is almost certainly “No”, especially when viewed against the many literary theses from the many English Literature departments in the many Universities, but herein is recorded an inaccurate record of the discussion.

Our host introduced the author and the book. The history of the gifted Brontës is well known, and is not repeated at length here. Emily was born on July 30th 1818 at Thornton, Bradford and survived the loss of her mother and two of her sisters to live a rather secluded existence in Haworth, after unhappy experiences at educational establishments in England and abroad. None of the literary Brontës lived to a ripe old age, possibly due to the insanitary water supply. One of us gave the startling information that the life expectancy in Haworth was then 25!

Of early significance was the collaboration between Emily, Charlotte and Anne to write and publish a book of poems following early youthful efforts in an imaginary world, Gondal. The poems were published under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, which prompted discussion about prejudice against women authors, as Mary Ann Evans slightly later used the pen name “George Eliot” to ensure her books were taken seriously. However, there were already many examples of women publishing as women, such as Mrs Radcliffe. Jane Austen, who predated Emily Brontë, published her books anonymously “by a lady”. It was said that only three copies of the poems were sold, which is probably less than Pam Ayres, not included in the Guardian listing of the best poets to the best of our knowledge.. Our host informed us that a signed copy of the Bronte work still existed, and he recommended Emily’s poetry. From “A death scene”:

He cannot leave thee now,
While fresh west winds are blowing,
And all around his youthful brow
Thy cheerful light is glowing!

Familiar to those who have read the novel?

Anyway, it is thought that Emily started the novel in 1845; it was published in 1847. Emily died a year later at age 30. Subsequently, Mrs Gaskell wrote a biography of Charlotte Brontë, covering all the siblings.

One of the group suggested that the unique place of the novel owes so much the cloistered imagination dominating realism, as the extraordinary behaviour and circumstances of the participants tend to the supernatural. To a large extent this may have arisen out of their family circumstances. Certainly, ill health dominates the novel.

The proposer continued that he had been inspired to read the novel initially at age 17, following a visit to Haworth, before the Yorkshire Tourist Board defined it as ‘Brontë country’. He suggested the development of Heathcliff as a psychopath, and showed how the complete action stemmed from the impulse of Mr Linton to bring Heathcliff into the family. There was some discussion about whether Heathcliff was really Linton’s child out of wedlock, of which more later. It was not clear whether such ambiguity was clever and deliberate, or whether it arose from reluctance by the author to be more explicit.

Following this point, there was much discussion about the ambiguity of the several names of the intertwined families, and the difficulties in keeping track of Earnshaws, Lintons, and Heathcliffs, as exemplified by the many surnames of Catherine on the ledge observed by Lockwood at the beginning of chapter 3. Certainly, this reader had to keep referring to the family tree.

Then again, there was the apparently contradictory parentage of Hareton and Linton. Although Hareton is supposedly the son of Hindley and Frances, he is dark in complexion and with the behavioural traits of Heathcliff. So we may reasonably suppose that Heathcliff was his biological father, supported by the fact that Heathcliff caught baby Hareton when Hindley 'accidentally' dropped him. Isabella notes that he has "a look of Catherine [Earnshaw] in his eyes". Again, Linton did not have any Heathcliff characteristics, being pale and lacking in energy, so perhaps Hindley was intended to be the biological father. There is a famous line in which Cathy realises she is destined to be at one with Heathcliff, in death if not in life. “I am Heathcliff”.

So the questions arise. Was there an affair between Frances and Heathcliff to beget Hareton, and between Hindley and Isabella to produce Linton, based on the relative health and complexions? All sorts of other possible relationships were suggested. "Cousins were fair game" declared one of our group, with an air of experience.

The conversation turned to Nelly Dean, the unreliable(?) narrator. The pub song came some 60 years later, but no connection has been established! It was suggested that Nelly was the one stable and perceptive character in the book; although sometimes she did not appear to act rationally, for example when imprisoned she failed to alert the visiting servants. The unusual structure of the book was mentioned, as the story was related through Nelly to Lockwood to the reader. Did this further add to the mystery and uncertainty?

To what extent is the heroines’ behaviour ruled by social convention? Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar rather than Heathcliff was noted. On the other hand, Isabella ran off with Heathcliff at age 19. Was this an illegal marriage? Our resident historians embarked on lengthy discussion, but I am unsure of the conclusion. Catherine and Heathcliff were never really engaged in a sexual relationship, we assume, and as noted above one could speculate that they may have been related. Initially Catherine misused Heathcliff as she was the supremely self confident and dominant partner. However, Heathcliff was changed by his time away and the relationship changed. Again, there is no certainty about his absence. When he returned, it did not seem to some of us that he was motivated by revenge at the outset. Yet, did he now think of Catherine as a possession? Ultimately, Cathy formed a relationship with Hareton to defeat Heathcliff, although a more likely explanation was debated; he just lost his energy and drive. He had achieved his goals in acquiring both properties, and destroying the families. He wanted to be reunited with Cathy in death. Touching again on the ambiguity, Heathcliff is portrayed as the romantic hero, a mirror image of Catherine herself. The debates between Cathy and Nelly about Heathcliff are very telling in that regard.

It was time for dissenting voices. This is a novel about “stupid people doing stupid things”. For example, the section where Nellie fails to act when salvation is at hand from the searching servants defies belief. Lockwood was a complete “bampot”. Why did he go back on day 2? He had a shine on the younger Cathy. It was argued that the characterisation was also weak, the characters owing much to Hammer Film portrayals. This was caricature rather than character. Or is this too anachronistic? What about the preceding ‘Gothic novels’? To what extent did they influence this book? The one most people knew of was Shelley’s Franklenstein, written in 1818, A heated debate broke out; the room seemed to divide on geographical grounds with the proposer leading the debate to declare EB a very fine novelist as well as a poetess. There seemed to be general agreement on the evocative nature of the descriptions of the landscape, somewhat romanticised like the 19th century paintings that hang in the National Galleries, and so the perceived deficiencies were in characters, plot, and dialogue. Oh dear! At least she did not resort to ‘bampot’.

We returned again to the origins of Heathcliff. We talked of the common motif of the adopted child who behaves appallingly. Heathcliff was portrayed as an elemental force, of swarthy skin, a social and racial outcast, possibly a gypsy? In fact, Earnshaw brought back Heathcliff instead of a whip! Is he therefore a metaphorical whip? And so we turned to the Marxist analysis; Heathcliff as the oppressed; rises up against the state. A slightly modified version of ‘The Red Flag’ ensued; you probably know the words. What about some sign of solidarity with Joseph? What about his conversion to capitalism? Were the women no better than chattels?

Hold on. Here, we have three proud, spirited women - the two Cathies and Isabella. From a feminist point of view, what? All literature reveals how women are exploited. So Emily writes about this. The company was reeling from Marxism to feminism to alcoholism...

We turned to the animals; is this an apologue? Dogs are a much reiterated image; there were many metaphors about dogs. Returning to the alleged weak characters and claustrophobic family circumstances, one suggested that Emily knows more about dogs than people. The spot, Penistone Crags, in the hills is perhaps a metaphor for sex, which is rather absent in an explicit sense. Yet, does it end well? Heathcliff puts his hair in Cathy's locket; Nellie twists them together in the locket. There is Cathy at the window, and so Heathcliff and Cathy reunited at the last. The thoughts, like this account, were assuming a rather random pattern. So,

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, come home
I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering,
Wuthering heights

Kate Bush and Emily Brontë have the same birthday. Maybe Kate is .......spooky or what?

26/1/12 “THE SILVER DARLINGS” By Neil Gunn

Rumours of free whisky at the Monthly Book Group in honour of Burns night, so your eagle-eyed reporter was on the case! Arrived just in time to see the whisky bottles put out (“for later”), so cracked open a travelling companion of Vaucluse, and tuned in to the host introducing “The Silver Darlings”.

The darlings in question, I was surprised to glean, were herrings, and were written about in 1941 by Neil Gunn. This cove with feelings for fish (whatever next?) was born in 1891 in Dunbeath in Caithness, the son of a fisherman who captained his own herring boat. He moved for his secondary education to Kirkcudbrightshire, then took the Civil Service exam at 16. Before you could say “mine’s a double”, he was a Customs Officer back in Caithness and dealing with whisky. Such a hard life….that it left him plenty of time to be a prolific writer, and he became a full-time writer in 1937 after the success of “Highland River”. And time to dabble in both nationalism and socialism (so… your sharp-as-a-tack reporter spotted…. must have been a national socialist?).

His work encompassed the novel, short stories, essays, travel and even a history of whisky. He is best remembered for his novels. They fell into three broad groups. The first, and earliest, novels were grim depictions of Scottish life, and the proposer particularly recommended works from this group, such as “The Grey Coast”. The second group of novels, to which “The Silver Darlings” belonged, were written in mid-life, and saw Gunn at his most assured. They dealt again with Scottish themes, but were much more positive in outlook. The last novels were more philosophical and dealt with modern life.

This book found a very fair wind with the Group. Such a convincing portrait of rural life in the early nineteenth century in Caithness, from which many of the Group had ancestors, was beguiling. Gunn’s sense of place was a particular strength.

He painted this life as simple but dangerous. He brought into vivid relief the dangers of the sea and the elements. He described avaricious landlords, and a predatory press gang who took off at the beginning of the book the man who had looked set to be the hero. We saw the temptations of the whisky bottle and the flesh counterpointed with the fulminations of a puritanical church. And the tenets of the church were contrasted with the much older myths and superstitions by which the fishermen lived. There was a particularly vivid account of a plague of cholera and how the villagers struggled to cope with its horrors. And then there was the sudden shock of finding the sea silver with herring.

He was outstanding as a writer of dramatic adventure scenes. One such was the fishermen trying for the first time in their lives to sail round the north of Scotland to Lewis, with little other than verbal advice as a navigation aid. Another was the scene of Finn scaling dizzy sea cliffs in search of water to drink and gulls to eat:

Roddie’s whole weight threw itself instinctively on the rope, but it was torn through his hands as the Seafoam rose up and up on the towering wave. Along the rock walls it smashed in a roar flinging white arms at crevice and ledge. Swung seaward on the crest of it, they hung for a dizzying moment on a level with Finn. He had seen it coming and flattened to the sloping rock, gripping with fingers and knees and toes. The solid water swept the soles of his feet, but the white spray covered him like a shroud…”

One reader was reminded of the novels of Conrad, with the scenes of the companionship of men on the sea, and how they had to act together against the elements.

Running as a thread through the somewhat episodic book was the development of the herring industry. Gunn was perceptive and informative about the economics and impact of such an industry, on which the community came to depend. But his central story was the coming of age of Finn.

His characters were very convincing. He shrewdly charted the interplay of gesture and mood in his story of Finn’s development. This was both in relation to Finn’s quasi-Oedipal resistance of Roddy coming into his mother’s life, and to Finn’s faltering steps to acquiring a girlfriend.

We felt admiration for his portrayal of childhood, for example in his account of how the young Finn felt on getting a toy trumpet. The analysis of mother/son relationships was an important theme of the novel, primarily in relation to Finn and his mother Catrine. The theme was developed in very striking form when the cold feet of an apparently drowned fisherman were warmed between his mother’s breasts.

It was also interesting that one of Finn’s first female interests also had the name Catrine, and one member observed that this was perhaps suggested by Gunn’s interest in the works of Jung, who suggested that such a “coincidence” was common. Well, jings, makes you think….

(Okay, I’ve drained the Vaucluse now……what was that about whisky?...and the famous home bakes??...)

Gunn’s writing at his best was simple and evocative. It could convey a lyrical feeling for the Caithness landscapes and the world of the sea:

“They were bound for Stornoway, and it was a brilliant morning, with an air of wind off the land. Green had come through the grey of winter, for it was the beginning of May, and a waft of wood-smoke from a cooper’s fire brought the smell of summer, as if they were setting sail for it…”

So any reservations at all? Some found the book on the long side, particularly those reading it for a second time. And one found rather irksome the authorial presence, sometimes sententious and sometimes arch, when Gunn was telling rather than showing.

The characters were perhaps too good to be true. There were no villains in the book. And, when Roddy was depicted as a head-banging drunken fighter, it did not seem quite convincing set against his normal roles of prudent captain and circumspect suitor of Catrine. Gunn had some of the same social concerns as Dickens for the impoverished, but, at least in this case, the novel did not have the same campaigning edge as Dickens.

Some expressed surprise that Gunn, as a Socialist and Nationalist, did not come down harder on the role of landlords such as the Duke of Sutherland in the Highland Clearances. Gunn did allow one of his characters to criticize landlords regularly, but there were also explanations of why they might have acted as they did.

This typified the way in which Gunn’s overall mood in this book was one of serenity. He depicted some awful threats to life in the press gang, sea storms and cholera, and several characters met horrible deaths, but the reader always felt that life would turn out all right for the central characters. This was the positive mood that characterised Gunn’s second phase as a writer.

Had anyone noticed that at the start of the novel Finn could speak only Gaelic, but soon he and his ship-mates seem to be speaking English without difficulty? A continuity problem?....Well, maybe, but Gunn did not himself speak Gaelic and always regretted that……So how many Scots at the time spoke only Gaelic ?…Ah, said our resident history adviser, we do have a figure that, some sixty years earlier in 1755, some 300,000 Scots out of a population of 1.2 million were monoglot Gaelic speakers, ie about 23%.

And, added our history adviser, how many were aware that while the population of England in 1801 was 8.3million (and that of Scotland 1.6 million), the population of Ireland was over 5 million, rising to over 8 million in 1841 before the potato famine? Surprising….

So what did we make of the mysticism in the novel, and the section in South Uist with the old man making prophecies and reciting a poem full of symbolism? ……Liked the mysticism….didn’t think the South Uist seer and his symbols worked…reminded me of Gunn’s “The Green Isle of the Great Deep”, which was when I stopped reading him….yes he did have a “Zen’ phase letter on….

(Get on with it…I only came along for the whisky….)

So, taking the broad view, did we not think that heroes such as Roddy and Finn no longer existed in the world? Indeed Gunn several times draws a parallel between his Finn and Finn McCoul, the Irish hero of legend. Had we not witnessed the death of the hero in modern times? Well….. it was true that we lived in a much safer world than that of the fishermen and it was difficult to portray as a hero someone who, for their own amusement and gratification, sets themselves a dangerous task such as sailing round the world. But after some discussion we agreed that heroism was still to be found in people who fought for the lives of others during a natural disaster, or during a war.

However, there was unanimity that this enduringly popular novel was a fine achievement, and a great Scottish novel from the twentieth century renaissance in Scottish writing.

Ah!!! Here came the famous home-bakes! Tuck in! Yes, don’t mind if I do…

And why don’t you try comparing these two whiskies? Yes, don’t mind if I do…..(hmmm…thought you would never ask)….

They’re both Japanese…..

Run that one by me again?

Both Japanese…..

Oh……………………Gunn the Scottish nationalist would not have approved, but Gunn the international socialist might have….

Oh well, any port in a storm for your eagle-eyed reporter……

Actually, that one’s quite decent, ok if I just help myself?

24/11/11 “THE TIN DRUM” by Gunter Grass.

The Proposer of “The Tin Drum“ introduced the book, which had been recommended to him by a German friend as an example of a rich literary tradition within Germany.

This controversial assertion sparked some debate and momentarily diverted the group from its consideration of “The Tin Drum”.

Getting back on task the proposer found the book challenging, a “difficult read”. Complex and somewhat disjointed. The novel is based on the life of Oscar Matzerath who decided at the age of three to stop growing by throwing himself down stairs. He communicates through his tin drum and by means of other “gifts”. He considers himself as both Jesus and the devil.

The story is narrated by Oscar who is an inmate of a mental institution. It is a complex mélange of fact and fiction, partly autobiographical, dealing with guilt and loss in equal measure.

It was published in 1959 and translated into English by Ralph Manheim a couple of years later to international acclaim. Grass initiated a new translation to mark the 50th anniversary of its first publication and Breon Mitchell undertook this work. The new translation is generally considered to have captured much more of the subtlety of Grass’s use of language.

The group discussed this further with some having read the original translation while others had read the Mitchell version. One member who had read the original felt that he had missed a great deal but thought that any translation from German into English is likely to lose some meaning. Examples of where improvements had been made in the Mitchell version were shared, in particular in sentences where words were used to mimic the sound of the drumbeat.

The Proposer gave a brief overview of the author’s family background, explaining the importance of this to providing an insight into the source of Grass’s story. He was born in Danzig in 1927 of Polish-German parents. They ran a grocery shop through the years of the depression. Gunter’s mother had the greater influence on him encouraging him to pursue his “talents” while his father wanted him to become an engineer.

He left school at 15 and was conscripted into the Waffen SS, wounded at the age of 17 while serving with a Panzer Division and interred as an American Prisoner of War.
It was when in captivity and in the years immediately after the war that he first began to question his support for the German cause and to acquire the feelings of guilt and shame which lie at the heart of much of his early work.

With Danzig mostly destroyed Grass became a refugee following his “talents” via stonemasonry, to Art College where he studied sculpture and graphics and eventually to writing. He was a lifelong Social Democrat though no longer a party member. He opposed the unification of Germany on the basis that there would be a risk that a unified country would revert to the behaviors that brought about the Second World War. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999 and now aged 84 he lives in Berlin.

Returning to the Group discussion it was confirmed that most, if not all, agreed that it had proved to be a difficult read. Some had read the book before and found that a second reading helped them to better appreciate and understand the complexity of the book. Everyone recognized and admired the quality of the writing but there was a unanimous view that the book was too long, that it was episodic with several chapters almost standing alone as if short stories.

The Group endeavored to compare the book with others but concluded that it was a “one off”. No one confessed to reading any of Grass’s subsequent books and given that the “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and the “Dog Years”(1963) were, together with the Tin Drum, known as the Danzig trilogy it was suggested that these would have to be read before a comparison can be made. There was little enthusiasm for this idea!

The group puzzled over how the book had been conceived and whether or not it had been planned. While chronology gave it some structure it was pointed out that there remains a randomness and lack of coherence. One member described the writing as a “creative ferment of ideas and images” but also applauded the imaginative use of wordplay eg “brain explodes on to page”.

Some members appreciated the allegorical approach adopted by Grass while others felt it was overdone. Most were impressed by the imagery, sarcasm, and moral ambiguity that pervades the novel and serves to add layers of complexity to what is a very complicated story.

The purpose behind the use of a three-year-old child (Oscar) to narrate the story was discussed and it was agreed that this enabled Grass to deal with the difficult issue of responsibility. The observational position given to Oscar allowed him to more freely comment on what was happening around him and it was suggested that being a three year old enabled Oscar to remain unnoticed and to avoid being accused by anyone for his actions.

Some members remarked on the book’s pervasive sense of futility and on the use of humour that often had an unpleasant edge. They considered the book to be overrated, better received by people outside Germany than by German people themselves. It was suggested that the reason that the book was so warmly welcomed by the English speaking community was because it acknowledged guilt and expressed shame about Germany’s role through the events of the war and postwar years.

It was mentioned that some critics regarded the book as blasphemous and pornographic when it was first published. This drew much protest from certain members who were particularly incredulous about the suggestion that the book was pornographic. The loudest protest came from those members of the group who have demonstrated in the past a startling liking for what many would describe as racy literature.

A more sympathetic explanation for the strength of feeling was eventually attributed to the differences in the two translations with the later Breon Mitchell translation restoring some overtly sexual references thought to be too shocking for British readers 50 years ago.

In conclusion the book was highly regarded by some but not by all. While everyone considered it to be too long they all admired the quality of the writing and the complex treatment of difficult issues. The majority agreed that while the book had been a challenging read it had been worth persevering with.

27/10/11 “THE GREAT GATSBY” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The introducer of “The Great Gatsby” (1925) began by asserting that Ernest Hemingway, one of the literary heroes of this book group, had a rather low opinion of Scott Fitzgerald. He exemplified this by reading passages from Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and Kenneth Lynn’s 1987 biography of Hemingway. Judging from the quotes, Hemingway thought Fitzgerald a bit soft. I have reproduced some of these quotes in a little Appendix below.

The book deals with American society during the Jazz Age of the 1920s, a period when the USA became the richest country in the world. A class of super-rich people emerged, employment was high and ownership of cars and property was booming. But there were gangsters and much illegal activity associated with bootlegging. The Prohibition (1920-1933) failed to prevent people from partying with liquor, and some bootleggers became millionaires.

As for the story: the mysterious Gatsby hails from the west but has moved east; he now owns a mansion on Long Island where he regularly throws lavish parties for all and sundry. His idea is to impress and attract a particular married woman, Daisy Buchanan, who lives across the bay, and with whom he had fallen madly in love years ago. He is still obsessed with the memory, and besotted with her. But when they do finally meet (through an elaborate plan that he has devised) the magic of the past relationship has gone; moreover the story ends tragically with the death of major characters including Gatsby himself, whose wealth is apparently derived from ignoble activities. As we had all guessed, he is not what he appears to be, but a flawed character. Ironically, he is ultimately undone not by his illegal activities but by his romantic aspirations.

‘Yet Gatsby is the central and noble theme, a dramatic and interesting character resonating with the age and country in which he lives’.

So said one of our members. However, for all its praise from the critics, the book was not immediately popular in the USA, perhaps because at one level it is a harsh critique of the American Dream, wherein Gatsby is the metaphor that suggests the Dream to be false, unattainable, a convenient illusion. Or perhaps the book was too vague, as suggested by the publisher after reading the first draft. For whatever reason it was not widely read until the 1960s. But now The Great Gatsby ranks second in the top 100 of the Modern Library (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/), behind James Joyce’s Ulysses and in front of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Most of us enjoyed the book, especially for its style and fine writing. We would not however place it in our top 100! Some of our members saw the work as almost poetic, or at least ‘within poetic territory’. Comparison was made with Shakespeare. Others were less sanguine and remarked on how American authors are often obsessed with style (Chandler, Hemingway, Capote). One member expressed disappointment:

‘What is all the fuss about, I thought it was rather shallow?’
‘That’s because you read it on a Kindle’.


We all liked the imagery. For example, Gatsby’s mansion with its bright (electric!) lights and colour; the contrast between that and the Valley of Ash (presumed to be an influence of T.S. Elliot’s poem The Waste Land); the huge pair of eyes on the billboard (of God, watching?); the yellow Rolls Royce. And the imagery in the famous aspiration ‘to suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder’. That line might have been written by Shakespeare. In fact, breasts feature quite a lot.

It is Fitzgerald’s representation of the roaring 20’s, with his sharp imagery and real understanding of high society in this most charismatic decade that has led to several successful Great Gatsby movies, notably the 1974 version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. The relationship between Fitzgerald and Hemingway, whilst they were together in Paris, is also the inspiration for Woody Allen’s brilliant 2011 movie, Midnight in Paris.

There were disturbing symbolic elements, particularly the deaths of Myrtle (gruesomely killed by the yellow Rolls Royce) and Gatsby’s own death (shot whilst on a mattress floating in the swimming pool). We were intrigued to see a number of comments which would now be judged anti-Semitic, and use of the words swastika and holocaust twenty years before the Holocaust. And why did so many of Gatsby’s house guests have animal or plant surnames (Leech, Civet, Blackbuck, Fishguards, Whitebait, Ferret, Bull, Catlip, Endive, Orchid, Hornbeam and Duckweed). To be sure, the book is rich in symbolism (although our members might not have all interpreted the symbols in the same way!). Isn’t the yellow Rolls really the rich society that destroys people in cold blood, and don’t the families with animal names represent the animal forces of capitalism? But perhaps the author is merely being playful with names: it is unlikely that Fitzgerald had read Das Capital; Orwell had not yet written Animal Farm!

The decadent lifestyles depicted in the book reflect to some extent the way the author himself lived, and there may be some autobiographical elements. But his life was marred by his addiction to alcohol and difficulties with his wife Zelda, who suffered from schizophrenia and spent her last years in mental institutions whilst he formed a relationship with the New York gossip-columnist Sheilah Graham (British, Born in Leeds), who loved him dearly and cared for him until he died of cancer (or alcohol) when he was only 44. Obituaries speak of his fine writing but unfilled promise. He completed only four novels, of which The Great Gatsby is considered to be his masterpiece. The Herald Tribune said

‘Fitzgerald understood this world perhaps better than any of his contemporaries. And as a literary craftsman he described it, accurately and sometimes poignantly, in work that deserves respect’.


Notes on Hemingway’s comments about Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald and Hemingway both travelled to France and were members of the American expatriate community in Paris in the early 1920s, and they had the same publisher (Charles Scribner's Sons). When they met, few had heard of Hemingway while Fitzgerald was already famous, and helped Hemingway directly by suggesting improvements to his writing and indirectly by introducing him to those whose views were important. But over the next 20 years Hemingway eclipsed Fitzgerald. They were friends and helped each other with short stories, but later (1936) in his book A Moveable Feast, Hemingway portrays Scott Fitzgerald as rather a weak character who could not spell and had a shaky marriage, as illustrated by these passages.

‘Scott was a man who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have been the mouth of a beauty. His chin was well built and he had good ears and a handsome, almost beautiful unmarked nose. This should not have added up to a pretty face, but that came from the coloring, the very fair hair and the pretty mouth. The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.’

‘I knew him for two years before he could spell my name, but then it was a long name to spell and perhaps it became harder to spell all of the time, and I give him great credit for spelling it correctly finally. He learned to spell more important things and he tried to think straight about many more.’

Scott’s wife Zelda had complained that Scot’s penis was too small to satisfy her. Scott confided in Hemingway on this matter, and Hemingway took Scott to the Louvre to examine the male genitalia of statues. Hemingway assured him ‘It is not basically a question of the size in repose, it is the size it becomes. It is also a question of angle’.

Scott Fitzgerald admired Ernest Hemingway, who was much more famous although three years younger. But the two men were as different as chalk and cheese, as exemplified by this extract from a famous letter from Hemingway to Fitzgerald, recounted by Kenneth Lynn in his 1987 biography of Hemingway.

‘I wonder what your idea of heaven would be – a beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists, all powerful and members of the best families, all drinking themselves to death…To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no-one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on 9 floors.’

29/9/2011 “THE PRINCE” by Niccolo Machiavelli

The proposer introduced Machiavelli by remarking that he had first read ‘The Prince’ in his early twenties and found it profoundly influential (one assumes in a general way, rather than as a guide to his own conduct).

As a prolific writer and with a range of other activities and achievements, Machiavelli was an archetypical ‘Renaissance Man’. “The Prince” describes in some detail the employment of cunning and duplicity in political affairs, and the proposer considered it to be a book with no moral compass, demonstrating a low opinion of the human race. A moral vocabulary is sometimes employed, but shorn of its moral meaning. The appearance of virtue, for example, is considered as valuable as virtue itself. In some respects the book is a sycophantic job application, but its enduring interest lies more in the proposal of various taxonomies, which can be applied to the behaviour of power-holders and power-seekers in all periods of history. A particularly interesting game to be played, therefore, is applying Machiavelli’s precepts and taxonomies to illuminate the methods of contemporary politicians and rulers.

The proposer identified three relevant omissions in the book’s approach: it assumes the possibility of secrecy, it ignores technology, and it leaves out God.

Discussion opened out with a range of questions and views loosely clustering around the key enquiry: is the book applicable today?

Is it a manual for behaviour? Or was he writing for common people, to explain to them how princes behave? After all, it wasn’t written in Latin. Is it written as a warning to the naïve? Is it satirical?

These questions divided the group, and a number of conflicting views came up.

The proposer – a computer scientist - suggested it could be viewed almost as if it were a guide to writing a computer programme, since it sets rules and parameters for actions: if ‘x’ then ‘y’.

Another reader wondered if it was written with an eye on a wider audience, and said that it would have multiple layers of meaning for different audiences.

Some detected irony and satire. Others suggested that it was neutrally descriptive – blunt, but neither a manual for behaviour nor ironic. However, it was agreed that it was hard not to detect satire in Machiavelli’s advice not to waste time ingratiating oneself with Popes because they only lasted ten years!

Another reader commented that it was an accurate account of political science, spanning all historical periods. In his view it correctly identified the chief aim of all politicians – including those in modern democracies – as being to stay in power. In modern democracies, one reader commented, attention-seeking was also a key motivation. There was some discussion of what motivated those who sought power, or sought to hold onto it once gained. There was general agreement that this was not typical or normal human behaviour. The power game was played best by those who acknowledged no raison d’etre outside its boundaries, whether their original starting point had been idealistic or cynical. In Machiavelli’s book, and in the eyes of contemporary politicians, to be in power is taken as a given good, and objectives beyond that are little considered.

This interpretation and application of the book was not accepted by all. One reader commented that in unstable times – such as when the book was written – strong rule was essential to provide stability. It was remarked by others that war can be taken cynically as a pretext for taking extra powers. Creating an ‘enemy’ is a well-known strategy for leaders in difficulties.

War is certainly a main focus of Machiavelli’s account – business, trade, banking, culture – all key elements of the Renaissance Italy in which he lived – are absent from his discussion. ‘The business of a prince is war’, he says.

Some more discussion of contemporary applications of Machiavelli followed. There are parts of the world that still operate exactly like the warring city states of Machiavelli’s Italy. The situation of General Gaddafi in Libya was brought into the debate. Had his use of mercenaries been rash? How effective had been his manipulation of tribal rivalries? Would Machiavelli have awarded him a gold star, or merely a ‘could do better’?

On the other hand, one reader suggested that modern western democracies practise Machiavellian principles ‘with the gloves on’. Someone remarked on Margaret Thatcher’s political ‘executions’, but it was pointed out that the only heads to roll did so metaphorically. A wag remarked that in our present coalition government, Liberal Democrats had had their spines removed.

One reader pointed out that the modern banking crisis perfectly illustrated Machiavelli’s advice to princes that they should be particularly liberal with money that did not belong to them.

Another reader considered Machiavelli’s ideas so sound that it was in effect impossible to be a successful political leader without employing the methods he describes. This reader, not unconnected with the world of local government, was supported by a chorus of hardened cynics with political experiences of their own. The ghost of Jonathan Swift also drifted through the room. Some voices were raised in defence of a rosier view of human nature, and debate heated up nicely for a while.

Your blogger raised a small side-bar debate on Machiavelli’s proposition that ‘Man’s nature is to feel beholden to those who have done them favours’ (to paraphrase the Italian). Various members of the group identified their experience of strategies to get opponents onside by seeming to seek their advice.

As we moved into summary mode at the end of the evening, one reader said that he thought the book’s main function was to warn the uninitiated about how a lot of people in power act, acting as a guide to how others manipulate. Most agreed that these principles could be observed at work in all organisations, and that, even if we abide by a moral code ourselves, at least we’ve been warned about those who don’t!

Looking at the evening on the whole, the cynical Machiavellians outplayed the gentle moralists, and emerged victorious, as they generally do.

25/8/2011 “NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF” by Julian Barnes

Edinburgh, August, Festival crowds going everywhere, trams going nowhere… but the hottest tickets in town were for the Monthly Book Group’s annual discussion by the seaside. And – yes! - your indefatigable correspondent is back from the dead for a guest re-appearance.

Some things had changed from my last visit 6 months ago. Most members looked rather older, though two were youthfully displaying Kindles.… And some things had not changed, as two compared their fine Pinot Noirs while disdaining a swallae of your correspondent’s cheapissimo red, “Selected by Tesco”….

The youthful proposer had found Barnes’ book in Oxfam (better not tell the author) and bought it as he had good memories of “Arthur and George”. He liked it very much, partly because he found he had so much in common with our Julian. This started with being brought up initially in Leicester, having as parents a dominant mother and quiet father, and going on to study French literature. Like Barnes he was concerned by not having proper knowledge of his parents’ lives, he feared flying, and was troubled by memory becoming more unreliable as time passed. There was even in his family a photo of a female relation with the face scratched out, similar to the mystery Barnes writes about (but in this case the solution was known: the lady disliked the photo and had scratched it out herself, which was unfortunate as no other photo of her survived). A veritable Julian Barnes doppelganger.

Therefore he could relate very easily to the book – but could others? It was difficult to define the genre of the book – it was not a novel, a history or even an essay. It was a rambling on the theme of mortality. Barnes knew it rambled, and admitted it. Barnes’ brother, the philosopher, was the logical thinker; Julian by contrast was not a sequential writer and moved from anecdote to anecdote, pulling in much that seemed irrelevant. There was a sort of sequence – looking at all the things that might prove a consolation to the fact of death. And he failed to find any that helped.

There was a large spread of opinion about the book. One member (who indeed had first introduced the Book Group to Barnes) did not attend, reporting that he found the book both difficult and boring, and had not finished it.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was one who very much enjoyed it, and who also found he had a large amount in common with Barnes, especially through having a similar family background. (Another Julian Barnes doppelganger, indeed – a trippelganger, one might say?) He had been sufficiently enthused to start reading the book for a second time, make copious notes, and hunt down on the internet paintings eulogised by Barnes.

But the majority opinion was that of admiration – some grudging, some less so – for the cleverness of the book, mingled with substantial reservations about it. More specifically, there was admiration for the precision and concision of his language, in tandem with a chatty style. We liked the wealth of anecdotes and the breadth of ideas (from the latest scientific thinking about the nature of the brain, to quirky facts such as that your nails do not actually continue to grow after death). We liked the nimbleness of his mind, and the range of literary, artistic, and biographical reference. Some found the book funny (as in the anecdote of the man who hailed a passing hearse asking if it were free), while others found more irony, some of it rather bitter, than laugh-out-loud humour.

One major reservation for many was the length of the book, padded out with irrelevant anecdotes and repetition. “If a student gave me this,” one opined in professorial tones, “I’d tell him to cut the length by at least half ”. Related to this was the chapterless lack of structure and proper conclusion. “If you cut the book up and threw it on the floor, you couldn’t put it back in order. Nor indeed would it matter what order you read it in.” (At this point the speaker fessed up to having not bothered to read forty pages, but doubted if he had missed anything). “Barnes records” observed another, coldly putting the boot in, “that Oxford told him he did not have the right kind of mind to study philosophy. They were right. There’s enough that’s good in this to encourage me to read another Barnes’ novel, but not another rambling quasi-philosophical book like this. ”

“But”, chimed in the doppelgangers, “a sort of structure begins to emerge if you read it for the second time…”.

“And” suggested a doppelganger ally “if Barnes were here” (what did he mean? There were already two of them here) “he would say that one of his central points is that life does not follow the shapely narrative of a novel – it is random and rambling, and that’s why he is writing the book in the same way…” “???!!!” “Well, ok, maybe that is sophistry…

“So another reason is that he felt death is a big subject requiring a big book”… “yes, you often get the feeling he’s sitting at his desk wondering what on earth to write about today”… “but other writers have managed to sum up life and death in a sentence!”

Another reservation was that, in the process of resolutely knocking down every possible means of consoling himself about death, you felt that Barnes did not actually value anything in his godless world. He contrived to sound unenthusiastic about life in general, his interest in football (oh well, Leicester were doing badly then), about novel-writing, about relationships, about beauty, about the natural world, and even about his daily bottle of wine ( “sure you won’t try this cheapissimo red?” I asked a doppelganger. No, oh well…). Not for him the spiritual dimension that many still find in a godless world. It was not that we found the book depressing; it was that Barnes seemed depressed. And his endless, abstract cleverness served finally to muffle the real horror of death.

The oddest thing about the book, the most energetic, and the one that had attracted most public attention, was the autobiographical material included about his family. It had an emotional charge which suggested unresolved conflicts. You could admire the novelist’s skill he brought to the descriptions of his family, and to imagining what might be the story of his grandfather’s war. You could also admire his honesty in examining and recording his own feelings. But – really – did he have to write so bitterly about his mother? Did he need to unburden himself in this way? What was the relevance to a book about death? And why so much jocularly jealous material about his brother? It was surely significant that those of the Group most attracted to the book were those who could relate most easily to the autobiographical material.

And where was the novelist’s capacity for empathy when he thought about his family? He seemed to lack empathy at other points too – for example in the sneering account of the approach to death of the “A-type” American businessman…. Even the doppelgangers found him arrogant in referring to famous French writers as his “non-blood relations”. He excoriated his mother for a solipsistic view of the world, and then devoted reams to his own solipsistic worries about when readers would finally stop reading his books.

The discussion then moved from the book to the issues raised by it, though without provoking self-revelation on the Barnesian scale. All maintained they had no fear of death but perhaps did have of dying (but were they being honest?). First intimations of mortality (the “reveil mortel” of the book) were recorded. We noted the difference that having children made (Barnes did not have them) as fear of your death was replaced by fear that your children would pre-decease you. And perhaps the way in which people slowly lost their faculties and interests in their medically-supported old age, until their identity was the last thing they could let go of, offered a sort of consolation, a way of coming to terms with death.

So who had suffered from what Barnes records as the Stendhal Syndrome (breathlessness, overwhelmed by the power of art)? Several: overwhelmed by Verdi’s Requiem, by Michelangelo’s David, by the Iguazo Falls, ………and indeed, your indefatigable correspondent ventured, by Rooney’s overhead kick to defeat City …

(Why were they all glaring? Had the philosopher Shankly not observed that football was not a matter of life and death, but more important than that?)

The ever more youthful proposer (had he been reading Dorian Gray again?) had shifted from Oxfam to Kindle to source Barnes’ new novel “The Sense of an Ending”. He reported that, contrary to some reports, it was only loosely related to the current work – through exploring the theme that memory was identity. This was a strand of thought we had liked in the current book.

So now we had three Kindlers in the room. One had deployed the Kindle to particularly good effect in producing telling quotations at the key moment while others were struggling with folded-down corners of pages. “Ah, yes” said the Kindler “this is the ‘my clippings' feature.”

“So do they continue to grow after your death?”

Finally, the young proposer, in a first for this or surely any other Book Group, asked that his last words should be recorded now for posterity. This was just in case they were somehow missed on his deathbed. (Apparently the words are based on something a young lady had once said to him).

Reader, they are:

“BETTER THAN THE DENTIST”

28/7/11 “THE GINGER TREE” by Oswald Wynd



Ginger Tree Oswald Wynd
B.U.S 16, off Dalhousie
July 28th, 2011, 8pm

Having travelled from town, we made landfall at Dalhousie at 8pm with a full complement of passengers, untroubled by storms or traffic diversions. A number of natives of strange demeanour were assembled to greet us, and so the discussion began.

This month's novel told the story of Mary MacKenzie, taken from her genteel and strict upbringing in Edinburgh to no less strict societies in Japan and China, and how the life changing event of an extra-marital liaison led to her eventual, partial integration and development in her chosen land. We learnt about Eastern attitudes, ambitions and the foretold expansionism of Japan through her personal and diplomatic relationships with a number of strong and diverse characters in the diplomatic and social sphere. Written in 1977, it was possible that some of the early 20th century foresight of Mary about Eastern progress may have been coloured by the hindsight of the author!

The host introduced the author, a fascinating character, and drew comparisons between Wynd’s life and the subject of the book. He wrote this book on the basis of his understanding of Japanese language and culture, his experiences as a child of missionary parents, and his subsequent experience as a prisoner of war. After the war, he vowed never to return, and it is interesting that his apparent antipathy to the Japanese people is not obvious in the book. Indeed, one big attraction of the book for the host was the contrast drawn between the two rigid cultural attitudes in Japan and Scotland. Given that the author was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and he vowed never to go back to Japan, why was the book so sympathetic to Japanese culture? Possibly, the passage of time had mellowed his opinion, and he recalled his happy childhood rather than his war experience.

The host suggested that, technically, the use of letters and diaries to draw out the plot was very effective. In the journals and letters, Mary was able to introduce the characters quite naturally, and develop them through the story. The author was able to get inside the female character very effectively, writing consistently and honestly. Was the style too consistent? Do we tend to alter our writing style to suit the recipient? Probably we do not. The interest was maintained by the use of these letters and journals, sometimes with significant gaps.

The character of Mary herself was very well realised: as her experience grew so her character developed maturity and confidence, from a naive young girl abroad to a confident young businesswoman. Some commented on her Scottish attitude to developing a business through solid foundations, her hard-nosed dealing with Bob in connection with the initial funding and the maintenance of her own control. Before it became fashionable, she developed a business plan. She invested in property, and she did not take the easy path. She also resisted the attempt of Peter to buy her house, recognising the value of bricks and mortar.

The group all thought the author wrote very convincingly as a woman, both in her comments on her own life, and in her observations on those around her, e.g. in describing the clothes of those she met, (Is this sexist? ed.) and of how this developed into a successful business. For example, the author described the consul's wife on page 19, and how her clothes did not bring out her best features.

The book was praised for its portrayal of Japanese society. For example, the description of Aiko emphasised the societal rigidity through the contrast of her revolt, possibly arising from long periods of isolation. Again, portraying the society in which she finds herself, she described how the housing was built to suit the conditions. She described the social strata well, and interacted successfully with the servant class. One of us maintained that although she made reference to people living in poor conditions, she did not really develop this as well. There was a section, 7.4.1910, in which she gives a vivid description of the sanctity of poverty: 'how a frugal diet be recorded in your favour in a big ledger.' However, these were philosophical and political arguments rather than a true emotional description of the impoverished state, as for example in a previous club book 'Hunger'.

There was discussion about the relationship of Mary to her two children, each separated early from their mother. In particular, it was suggested that the description of Mary's feelings at the loss of Jane was weak; should she have stronger expression of loss? Perhaps the author had not really understood the female psyche in this instance? On the other hand was this a manifestation of the practical and pragmatic Scottish heritage of Mary? Likewise, the speaker thought the affair was under-explained. Mary did not discuss the birth either. Was this due to the lack of mother-daughter relationship? Was it due to the shame of the act? Were the similarities between the two societies stronger than the differences?

Returning to the societal portrayal, the Japanese were presented as ruthless and expansionist in their dealings with both China and Russia. One suggested that the Japanese expansionism came from the divinity of the emperor, or earlier from the all powerful Shoguns. Alternatively, the expansionism was driven primarily by the need for natural resources. When talking of the Japanese and their discipline of the Chinese, Mary suggested that the Japanese were not the correct people to administer this, being too hard-hearted. It was clever how Tomo was portrayed as an airman, and we wondered what fate befell him, attacking Pearl Harbour, becoming a Kamikaze pilot? However, it was pertinent to note how, in the reunion, Kentaro's attitude changes, in asking Mary, rather than commanding Mary, if he can come to Yokohama.

The descriptions of the earthquakes, tsunamis and fire were very relevant to 2011. The frequency of natural disaster led to the stoicism of the population. Mary also anticipated the growth of the Japanese economy through imitation. One of our number had direct and possibly painful experience of this as he talked of the rise of the Japanese electronics industry on borrowed expertise. The author had hit a nerve!

The discussion turned to the plausibility of the plot. Generally we were comfortable with the idea of Mary developing from her arranged marriage, through her affair and banishment, to become a successful exile and businesswoman. Was the plot plausible? Yes! So, although, to a large extent, it was a portrayal of Japanese society through the eyes of an outsider, it was also a tale of one woman's emancipation. Japan was also portrayed as a land of opportunity. One drew parallels between Mary's establishment of a business and the career of Thomas Glover who helped found the Mitsubishi empire.

Thus far, our discussion had been more than usually focussed but we now started to digress. There was a passage of the book, p31, in which Mary transports her thoughts back to Morningside, and recalls a Sunday when all the church bells were heralding morning service. The scepticism of our camponologist was raised. Surely most churches didn't have bells then? Oh, yes they did! Oh, no they didn't! Oh yes they did! On balance we were happy to confirm the accuracy of the description.

We had concentrated on the source text, but a mini series was filmed in 1989. Not many remembered it, but those who did believed it to be rather poor. For some reason, the initial ‘contact' between Mary and her diplomat husband stuck in the mind. "Richard crept in, it was all over in 5 seconds, and he rolled over", said one. On the other hand, Kentaro was 'there for ever', according to our resident Barry Norman. Actually, your scribe thought the descriptions in the book of the first sexual contacts between Mary and Kentaro in the Western Hills were very effective. The sudden terse nature of her journal statements, "God forgive me. I went to him", "I stayed too long today", "I think Armand knows", showed vividly the conflict between her upbringing, the societal conventions and her sexual desire. This was a defining moment in the book, as it led inevitably to her final emancipation. The contrast in style between these and the other journal entries was very telling.

What about the title? What was the symbolism of the Ginger Tree? We talked of survival and an attempt to take root in a harsh, initially alien environment. Taking off her stays symbolised what: the coming liberation, her future fallen state, the 'fur coat and nae knickers' policy of the Morningside lady?

One hour and fifteen minutes in, there is a digression towards Ian McEwan's book, “Solar”; not sure why. Apparently McEwan writes slowly, satisfied with 500 words a day. An unkind critic suggested you could see the joins. I don't think this relates to The Ginger Tree; can we get back on message, as our former leader, Tony B., might have said?

There were some slightly less believable sections on prediction, e.g. on the stock exchange, the future of automobiles and flying machines. Two Americans were rumoured to have flown 20 miles. Gosh! This is post rationalising, after the event, said one. In a true diary there would be much more discussion of now unknown events. Others argued that she was entirely consistent in her knowledge of important contemporary advances.

Given the disagreement about the prescience of the significance of external events, the discussion turned to who had editorial control of the final content of the book. Was this the original text of the author, or could it have benefited from further revision? The question was not resolved.

To conclude the book was very readable. Everyone enjoyed it. One of the key properties was the writing style, in particular the very direct and factual structure and the relatively short sentences. It was not indulgent, with no flowery phrases and page- long sentences, and where descriptions were made these were short and to the point. We thanked the host for his choice.

30/6/11 “AFRICAN DIARY” by Bill Bryson.

Bill Bryson’s “African Diary” was published by in 2002.

It really is, just a diary. Bill describes what happened to him over an eight-day visit to Kenya, sponsored by the charity CARE international. It isn’t an analysis, it isn’t especially thoughtful, it’s merely a diary written up with entertaining and generally cheerful comments. It’s only about 11 thousand words on 56 pages. Please don’t think we are shirkers this month; the proposer of the book has added this book to the month’s reading because he thought the main book was a bit short. It was light relief after Loung Ung’s First They Killed my Father.

Despite being short, it provoked much discussion about the nature of Africa and Africans, and the nature of Aid.

Why do African cities have so much abject poverty, and why does Africa not develop economically like India and many of the SE Asian countries, especially when they are so blessed with natural resources? Bryson describes the slum of Kibera, the biggest slum in Nairobi. The rural poor come to the city to earn small money, but perhaps enough to afford education for their children. He tells of their poverty in a way that makes us smile rather than cry; for example the ‘flying toilet’. One shits in a plastic bag, and then hurls the bag as far away as possible. The stock answer to the question, of course, is that ‘greed and corruption’ takes the money away from where the need is greatest. We are told of a dirt road that is marked on the map as a highway to disguise the fact that the money that was suppose to pay for a proper road was siphoned off into someone’s pocket.

All of us that have been to Africa can tell tales of corruption, but our own society has corruption too (the example given was ‘cash for Honours’ but there are many others such as MPs expenses). Our corruption might not be on the same scale, or perhaps we are better at hiding it.

We reflected on what we think may have happened, or ‘gone wrong’, in the colonial era to make Africa what it is today. The imposition of European statehood on a tribal system was heavy-handed by today’s standards. To some extent the behaviour of today’s Africans must have been influenced by the way the colonial masters were perceived. In Britain the colonial era was the era of ‘fair play’, where British behaved decently towards each other, wasn’t it? Well no, not entirely. We had our own brand of abject poverty, we had child labour, sexual exploitation of women and so forth and so on. Well, let’s not go there. Keep Pandora’s box closed tonight.

Bryson tells stories of incidents and accidents with trains and planes, all of which serve to re-inforce our general view that the place is, above all, disorganised. I’ve been to several West African countries and that, for sure, is my abiding impression. Disorganised and sweaty. Yet, like me, he sees the positive side of things. One of these was his meeting with William Gumbo, a man who was shown how to be a small-scale market gardener, and he’s taken to it in spades.

What about Aid? CARE’s philosophy, we are told, is to make a little go a long way, and to help people to help themselves. For example, make a bore hole and install a pump. It means people can grow crops in the dry season which transforms their lives. No-one would disagree, so why do the government of these resource-rich countries (in some cases oil rich) not take similar actions? Like most people, I find this question especially hard to answer; as one who has talked to academics and a few government people from Africa I can say that I find them erudite, thoughtful, and compassionate. Perhaps they are on average more excitable than most of us are, and certainly they are more inclined to laughter, and more inclined to believe in God.

India is a bit different. Ghandi’s influence perhaps. Who knows?

As with all of Bryson’s books, it’s well-written, engaging, and hard to put down. There are good photos of life in the slums and in a refugee camp, taken by Jenny Matthews. The revenue goes to CARE international, so we didn’t begrudge our £9.99 for this little book.

This was Bryson’s first visit to Africa. I wonder if he will return.