4/7/2008 “SMALL ISLAND” ANDREA LEVY; “WHITE TEETH” ZADIE SMITH

The discussion of these two books had been suggested to us by academic researchers as part of their study of the reception of migrant literature. This research was using Book Groups as a way of discovering how different readers approach such texts (see http://www.devolvingdiasporas.com/). We chose to focus on “Small Island” by Andrea Levy (2004) as the main text, with “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith (2000) as the optional extra.

Such was the enthusiasm for this unusual discussion that one member arrived twenty- four hours early, unable to contain his excitement. However, the great evening finally arrived, a charming young lady put the electronic gizmos in place, and the host introduced the discussion to the silent roll of the cameras and sound recorder (plus the scratching of your correspondent’s outmoded pen).

Andrea Levy was the daughter of one of the original Jamaican immigrants to arrive in Britain on the “Empire Windrush” in 1948. So she had close family links to the “Small Island” story, if not first hand experience.

He could see that the novel had deserved so many awards. Initially he had found the structure disconcerting, with its switches of narrator and timeframe. However, after a the point emerged of focussing on the four very distinct characters, telling the story from their perspectives, and dealing with the periods before, during and after the Second World War. The characterisation was good, with none of the characters drawn in simplistic good/bad terms. Even the racist Bernard changed with time.

The host had found it easy to identify with the issues raised by these books. Although only just born when the Empire Windrush arrived, he had relations who lived in North London, amongst whom some of the older generation were racist. He had spent some 30 years working in London, for an organisation 30% of whose staff were from ethnic minorities.

One member, however, felt that the book reinforced stereotypes. It was hardly a revelation that there was much racism at that time. He could remember his mother’s shock the first time he brought home a black friend, and could remember a relation saying as late as 1968 that he had to understand she was racist. He preferred a book with more mystery and intrigue, a book that made you reflect more.

But not all the characters were racist ? What about Queenie – she was not racist? No, but she was a stereotype too!

For another the characters were not stereotypes. They were fully developed in three dimensions. The book had an exclusive focus on character and event, rather than intellectualising. (This made it an interesting contrast to George Orwell’s “Coming Up for Air”, which he had just read, which had plenty of character and incident, but also plenty of judgements and moralising). It was a good read, and he liked the dialogue particularly.

However, he was not sure he agreed that all the characters had a mix of good and bad. Wasn’t Gilbert a saintly figure? No – he took Hortense’s money, without intending to honour the agreement. Yes, but he did stick with her.

Perhaps the lack of judgments reflected the use of first person narrators: it might be different with a third person narrator.

Another member drew a contrast with “White Teeth”. In that book the author breathed life on to the characters and they then almost wrote the book: it had tremendous vivacity. “Small Island” by contrast was more stylised and less instinctive with its separate sections on each character. It was also rather episodic. Some of it felt rather contrived – for example it seemed that the main reason for Queenie taking Arthur into the countryside was to place him at the scene of the GI’s fight which was to cost him his life. The military sections – for someone with a specialist interest in the subject – contained several mistakes. For example, the Indian Army was a volunteer Army not a conscript army, and Imphal essentially the name of a battlefield. Perhaps she had used too limited a range of sources, but, once the reader had doubts about her reliability and authority, it affected the reader’s perception of the rest of the book, making it seem more contrived.

But the book’s great strength was its description of the racial discrimination suffered by Gilbert in the army and in seeking employment. This was both powerful and sad, and very well-written.

Another felt that the best aspects of the book were the portrayal of life in Jamaica, the corrosive racial discrimination suffered, and the way in which Empire – and its associated narrative and myths – impacted on the lives and motivations of the characters. The sustaining myth of all races being equal in the Empire jarred hideously with the experience of the Jamaicans coming to Britain. It was no coincidence that the book opened with the British Empire Exhibition, and a character called Queenie. These were the elements which seemed really to engage the creative imagination of the author, and were of great quality. What was particularly attractive was the warm empathy and non-judgemental style with which she presented her characters.

The other elements – the war-time exploits of Bernard, and Queenie’s grim upbringing – were well-written and engaging, but written with less emotional pressure. It was as if the novelist had been encouraged by her publisher to tap into the fashion for stories of World War 2 and grim childhoods. There was nothing wrong with a writer trying to write a more popular book, but it made the novel uneven as a work of the imagination.

On the other hand, suggested another (himself a novelist) it was inevitable that the section about Bernard would be the most difficult for the author, as he was neither black nor female, and was a racist. But it was essential for the structure to present Bernard in the first person. She had worked very hard to get it right, even if, inevitably, it seemed a little artificial compared with the authentic Jamaican voice of Gilbert. Novelists were aiming to convince 99.9% of their readers that what they presented was accurate – there would always be experts who could spot flaws. He had found the Burmese section very well-researched and well-written. Her depiction of Jamaican dialect was of course excellent; he wondered, however, if having Queenie take elocution lessons was not a device to escape having to write Queenie’s dialogue in a less familiar dialect?

Having tip-toed delicately around issues of race, the Group then plunged recklessly into issues of sex. Did you not detect a lot of sexual tension between members of different races? Some did; some didn’t. There was also a lot about sexual tensions between members of the same race – between Hortense and Gilbert, and between Queenie and Bernard – so perhaps the novel was reflecting general sexual tensions in a more inhibited age. And there was a clear suggestion that Bernard – fascinated by Maxi – had homosexual leanings, even if unconscious.

But perhaps the theme was really that of miscegenation? This emerged often – in the hint that Hortense’s father was white, in Gilbert’s part Jewish background, and in the mixed parentage of Queenie’s baby. At one level this reflected the reality of the background of many “black” - and “white” – people (and indeed, we understood, of the author herself); at another level it revealed the superficiality of our racial constructs.

And there were some intriguing puzzles in the book. Was Arthur meant to be aware of – and condoning – his daughter-in-law’s fling with Michael? On balance we thought he was. Was either Gilbert or Hortense meant to know it was Michael’s child they were adopting? We felt on balance Gilbert was, but not Hortense. And what about the relationship between Celia and Hortense? It started with an erotic charge, and ended with Hortense usurping Celia’s place with Gilbert by means of “innocently” drawing attention to Celia’s insane mother. Hortense was surely being disingenuous in her description of this episode – an example of an “unreliable narrator”?

Most felt the ending was rather weak (and less satisfactory than “White Teeth”) but then an ending for a novel of social history is always difficult. And perhaps Andrea Levy has a sequel in mind involving the baby Michael in later years?

In this book the author made no attempt to describe what happened after 1948, or to draw any explicit lessons for modern Britain (and it was refreshing that she did not write with a didactic agenda, but focussed solely on understanding what had happened and why).

So it was appropriate also to read “White Teeth” (another winner of many awards) which dealt with the very different period of the eighties and nineties, alongside “Small Island”.

The host noted that it dealt with the later lives of two wartime friends – one English and one a Bangladeshi – and their families in London. Smith herself, however, was the child of a Jamaican mother and an English father. The reviews of the book had been very mixed, with some thinking it of very fine quality, while others disliked it, finding the plotting loose and random, and the characterisation unconvincing.

Not all members had been able to read the book, but there was a fair spread of opinion amongst those who had. One could relate personally to the descriptions of London and eccentric religious sects. He enjoyed the book. It was funny and over-exuberant, slapdash and wandering all over the place – but that was perhaps to be expected of a first novel by a young writer. It dealt with the different strands of immigration in London– not just the older West Indian immigrants, but Muslims (with one brother being a businessman and the other a fundamentalist) – and caught well the feel of London life at the time.

Another thought it was absolutely marvellous, and loved it from start to finish. There was so much life and vivacity in the book, and so many amusing – and perceptive – passages. For example, Samad, chatting up Poppy, being interrupted by Mad Mary:

“Mad Mary slapped him around the ankles with her stick. ‘WHAT’S DE SOLUTION, BLACK MAN?’

“Mad Mary was a beautiful, a striking woman: a noble forehead, a prominent nose, ageless midnight skin and a long neck that only Queens can dream about. But it was her alarming eyes, which shot out an anger on the brink of total collapse, that Samad was concentrated on, because he saw that they were speaking to him and him alone…Mad Mary was looking at him with recognition. Poppy had nothing to do with this. Mad Mary had spotted a fellow traveller. She had spotted the madman in him (which is to say the prophet). He felt sure she had spotted the angry man, the masturbating man….

‘Believe me. I understand your concerns’ said Samad, taking his inspiration from that other great North London street-preacher, Ken Livingstone… Samad took Poppy by the hand and walked on, while Mad Mary stood dumbstruck only briefly before rushing to the church door and spraying saliva upon the congregation…”

Or this passage:

“To Alsana’s mind the real difference between people was not colour. Nor did it lie in gender, faith, their relative ability to dance to a syncopated rhythm or open their fists to reveal a handful of gold coins. The real difference was far more fundamental. It was in the earth. It was in the sky. You could divide the whole of humanity into two distinct camps, as far as she was concerned, simply by asking them to complete a very simple questionnaire, of the kind you find in Woman’s Own on a Tuesday:

(a) Are the skies you sleep under likely to open up for weeks on end?
(b) Is the ground you walk on likely to tremble and split?
(c) Is there a chance…that the ominous mountain casting a midday shadow over your home might one day erupt with no rhyme or reason?”

And this:

“He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he smelt of curry; had no sexual indentity; took other people’s jobs; or had no job and bummed off the state; or gave all jobs to his relatives…In short, he knew he had no face in this country, no voice in the country, until the week before last when suddenly people like Millat were on every channel and every radio and every newspaper and they were angry, and Millat recognized the anger, thought it recognised him, and grabbed it with both hands….”.

There was a lot about the alienation of people like Millat – although the book was published before 9/11 – and to some extent the book was making fun of them and to some extent was serious.

The structure reflected the multi-ethnic community, right from the opening scene with its clash of cultures: Archie’s attempt to gas himself in his car is cut short by a Halal butcher objecting to his parking place being taken, which leads directly to Archie meeting the Jamaican bombshell Clara. In addition to the Jones family and the Iqbal family, the third ingredient is a Jewish family. There were a lot of valuable insights into the experiences of first and second-generation immigrants.

However, “White Teeth” was very much about London, and its citizens’ experience of living and working alongside a kaleidoscope of different races. The narrative of “multi-cultural Britain” was one that politicians had evolved because of their experience of living in London. As so often, London life – and the political concepts it engendered – was different to experience elsewhere in Britain. A “White Teeth” set in Bradford might have been a very different book.

For another member the book was reminiscent in some ways of Dickens’ “Pickwick Papers”: an exuberant comic first novel recording the quirks of contemporary London, but episodic and lacking a strong structure. The book was also too long (although the same could be said of “Small Island”). And, like Dickens, her characters – other than Millat – do not really develop (Dickens being the only one of the great novelists whose characters do not develop).

The book had been described as celebrating multi-cultural Britain, but was that really right? It seemed more ironic in tone, laughing at rather than laughing with the succession of oddities to be found in the streets of London. This was a difference in tone from the warm empathy of Andrea Levy. And Zadie Smith had said specifically that she had not intended to write about racial issues – although one had to be mindful of the “Intentional Fallacy” (i.e. that a book is not necessarily about what the writer consciously intended).

Perhaps that was commonly the case with literature about migrants. The author was not writing with the intention of spreading understanding of the experience of migrants: the author was writing to get published, and was using the material to hand. Andrea Levy was an exception in writing “un roman à these” about Jamaican migration. But given that so few writers from immigrant communities reached the attention of the host community, it did make it very important what these voices had to say.

Often literature about migration presented the immigrants as funny, and perhaps that made migrants less threatening and more human. A clear recent example of this was “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian”, another first novel, which was very funny about immigrants. In this case again the novelist’s real concerns did not seem to be migration as such, but the history of the Ukraine and its families.

Walter Scott – a writer who like Levy had some very conscious objectives for his writing - was at one level aiming to reconcile the English to the Scots who had joined the Union, and he did so by making them seem comic as well as by romanticising them. He was also trying to reconcile Lowland and Highland Scots. In so doing he had created such a powerful myth that it had shaped perceptions of Scotland throughout the world right up to the present day.

That set us off on in digression mode, with some reflections on Scotland and race, encouraged by the fact the Andrea Levy has some Scottish blood, and Zadie Smith’s mother has a Scottish name. Was racism worse in England than in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, suggested one (English) member? Nobody was confident about signing up for that one - was it not a question of experiencing less immigration recently? What about the vehement reactions to Irish immigration into Scotland? It had been heartening that the recent “Fresh Talent” initiative to promote immigration into Scotland had been so widely welcomed, and that it had been recognised at Scottish political level that economic migrants were go-getters and entrepreneurial. But was it not unreasonable to place asylum seekers in Glasgow’s toughest estates? And it was easier to welcome immigrants in times of skill shortage than it had been at the end of the Second World War, when there was a great pressure on available jobs as the Army was demobilised.

And what about the differing experiences of the Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities in Britain?

At which point – perhaps as well - the charming young lady re-appeared, switched off the electronic gizmos, and advised against Zadie Smith’s second novel. Your correspondent closed his non-electronic notebook. And that was it.



See also the Monthly Book Group's new web-site at: http://www.monthlybookgroup.com/

28/5/2008 “DANCE, DANCE, DANCE” by HARUKI MURAKAMI

The proposer – appropriately framed by three pictures of dance and a leaning tower of Murakami paperbacks –explained that he had first encountered the work of the writer by picking up a book at the airport. He had then become addicted to his books, liking their dream-like qualities, and would purchase one of his books when faced with a long journey.

Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949, the son of two teachers of Japanese literature and the grandson of a Buddhist priest. Following the success of his early ventures into writing he had left Japan to become for some years a writing fellow in America. He had translated a number of American writers – including Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote and Raymond Carver – into Japanese. He was also interested in the work of Kafka, which had made him popular in the Czech Republic. His work had acquired cult following in Japan, but was unusual for a Japanese writer and had attracted opprobrium from traditionalists because of its overt Western influence.

This book was published in 1988, and the proposer felt there was a watershed in Japan between the seventies and the eighties. The prim and proper Japanese he had met in the seventies had given way to people of a more casual and normal manner in the eighties. The book thus caught Japanese society in a process of transition. But it was still a divided society, which to this day faced major problems.

Murakami had set up a jazz club in Japan with his wife after leaving university, and his love of western music was very prominent in his work. There were many references to specific songs, even in his book titles (including this one – from the Steve Miller band).

This particular example of his work followed up a trilogy - its last work was “A Wild Sheep Chase” - thus making a “tetralogy”. A prominent character in the trilogy was a god-like figure called “the rat”. Murakami had been unhappy with the first two books and had resisted their translation.

There were several common elements to be found in the many Murakami novels he had read:

• dream-like
• weak males, who often took time off work, and who were good at cooking
• strong women (and he often focussed on their special characteristics, such as Kiki’s ears in this novel)
• loneliness
• a cat to be looked after
• satire on capitalism
• eroticism
• a quest
• strange stories, with discontinuities. This was the tightest, with a clear plot, and relatively polished. Other plots were looser, and had to be re-read to make sense

He had come across one critic who said the books dealt with “the spiritual emptiness of the generation”.

Reviewers in papers such as the Guardian and the Independent might maintain Murakami was a great novelist. But for the proposer – addicted as he might be – Murakami fell short of greatness. He was very readable and surprisingly addictive, but he was too one-track and lacked gravitas. There were too many common elements between the books, and too little development.

Momentarily silenced by the sweep of this comprehensive introduction (silence? now there’s a first!) the Group soon found its voice.

A jolly good read that kept going to the very end. It was reminiscent of “Morvern Callar” – the girl with the playlists of music in her head.

There was a pointed contrast between the controlled passion of the Japanese and the free and easy Western approach. The book tellingly revealed how controlling Japanese society was. The characters were very passive, contrasting sharply, for example, with the vibrancy and spontaneity of the London immigrants in “White Teeth”. But the characters were very well-drawn.

There were prominent elements of self-satire and self-deprecation – running down the quality of the hero’s writing, producing a writer with an obvious anagram of the author’s name, and endlessly repeating “what’s all this about?”

Another who loved it found it intoxicating and seductive. It was remarkable how it managed to blend seamlessly the disparate elements of a detective story, the telepathic, a critique of Japanese capitalism, some Japanese philosophising and even a supernatural figure in sheep’s clothing. The transitions were particularly smooth when the book was read in conjunction with a generous measure of tequila.

One reviewer had suggested that it was therefore perhaps not a good book to start with, because of its links with the previous trilogy. However, none of the Book Group members felt it was not sufficiently self-contained, including one who had read “A Wild Sheep Chase” and had indeed not noticed the links with this book. Other books the proposer recommended for those who wished to read more were “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” and “South of the Border, West of the Sun”.

So no problems? Well, not quite. One member had not liked it at all. He had met many Japanese people who sought to prove how sophisticated they were by endlessly name-dropping about Western products, which made them seem simply naïve. Murakami – or at least his hero – did this constantly. This member had hoped to read a Japanese novel about Japan – but in his eyes Japan was only notionally the setting of the novel. Others had also noted the peculiar harping on Western brand names – did it reflect what was considered fashionable in Japan of the eighties? – or was it an attempt to sell the book into Western markets? In any event, to bang on about how cool the hero was in visiting Dunkin Donuts did not seem cool in post-Iraq 2008, nor did it sit comfortably with a critique of Japanese capitalism.

But was it fair to criticize the book for being insufficiently Japanese? Would it be fine if it had been written by a Californian? Hmmm…lost in translation.

During the last month sundry Japanese residents in Edinburgh had found themselves approached by earnest MBG members to be asked what they thought of the great Murakami. A famous Japanese artist had given him the thumbs-down as pretentious. On the other hand some young Japanese females had tittered with amusement at the mention of his name –no doubt because of the erotic content of the books.

Part of the attraction found in the book for Japan in the 80s might be the portrait of a hero not locked into the conventional hard-working world of Japan. The richest and most successful character – Gotanda - was the unhappiest. Together with the emphasis on music, it gave the hero a hippy-type allure, and perhaps it was wrong to see him as a weak figure. However, it was easy for him to scorn the working world when he kept on being given large cheques for looking after Yuki.

What about Yumiyoshi, his current love interest? Was she unhappy? No – she seemed fulfilled in her hotel job. She again was a well-drawn character, even if there was a large element of male wish-fulfilment in the seduction of a strait-laced hotel receptionist. (Perhaps, suggested one member, it was the seamed stockings that did it, but I fear I may have promised not to record this observation).

So what did we make of the relationship between the hero and the 13 years old Yuki? Some thought it innocent; others detected a sexual undertone. And had there not recently been a fuss about Japanese comics – Manga – depicting relationships between adults and children?

And what of Murakami’s philosophising, Japanese or otherwise? According to the sheepman:

“Yougottadance. Don’t even thinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop…Yougottadance”.

Perhaps an alternative hippy version of Wittgenstein’s “The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the question”? It was striking that the anonymous hero really lost his temper –for the first time - when the young girl Yuki only showed some appreciation of Dick when he was dead and it was too late. Again, the emphasis was on living life in the present. And was that sense of the skull beneath the skin – as in the gothic vision of the skeletons – not characteristically Japanese?

Another sheepman theme that seemed central to the book was that of “connection”:

‘“Weconnectthings. That’swhatwedo. Likeaswitchboard, weconnectthings. Youlostyourway. Yourconnectionscomeundone….”

‘I broke off… “But the other thing, the person I hear crying in my dreams, is there a connection here? I think I can feel it…”’

But is connection that important? After all, he draws a diagram of the links between the characters at one point and says he can’t solve it, but it might make a good Agatha Christie - this is typical of his playful, self-satirising approach. And even at the finish not every loose end is tied up – for example who is the last skeleton in his vision of the future?

Well, yes, he’s not trying to write an Agatha Christie-type novel in which everything is made crystal clear in the last chapter, but connection is central to the book. He creates a series of shadowy and suggestive links between the characters, mysterious links between past, present and future in the Dolphin hotel and in the room with the skeletons, and a sense of the sinister intrigue beneath the glossy surface of the Japanese capitalist world in Tokyo. It is more like the world of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles than Christie’s rural England.

As noted two months ago: “The essence of a Chandler novel was that sense of Byzantine mystery and human venality that lurked beneath the surface of American society. His method of cannibalising two or three separate short stories to produce a novel helped create this haunting sense of mystery – if not a very coherent plot”. And that was the role of several urban novelists, from Dickens to Murakami: to bring imagination and feeling to bear in interpreting a dehumanised environment, to make connections between anonymous urban dwellers.

This led on to a discussion of Murakami’s debt to Chandler, whom he acknowledges as a source. Surprisingly, there was a sharp split between those who saw clear signs of debt to Chandler and those who saw none. Those who did see influence saw it not just in the sense of mystery and complex plotting as above, but in the hero as the man of integrity standing outside a corrupt society, in some of the imagery, in his pair of policemen and in the beach house setting. And the novelists shared a pervasive sense of melancholy and loss. But this hero did not suffer from Marlowe’s prudishness.

It was impossible to tell through the lens of translation how similar the original style of language might be, and we expressed some surprise that Murakami had not tried to translate the book himself.

But what about the loose ends, the shifts into the surreal and the world of dream? Was it a reasonable hypothesis that each of us had a different threshold, a different level of tolerance for illogicality? So some would be comfortable with a book like this and others would find it quite unacceptable? Well maybe, but the one member who felt this book had too many loose ends was nevertheless a fan of “Ulysses”, a book which very few ever finish. And didn’t dream have a logic of its own? Arguably dream was another symbolic form like art, language and myth…

Hmmm…. too difficult, at least for your amanuensis, who could sense the discussion straining towards the stratosphere… and sure enough off we soared. Did “Dance, Dance, Dance” contain surrealism, or magic realism, or at least some sort of “ism”? (or maybe just an old-fashioned ghost story?) …and why was Murakami so obsessed with Kiki’s earlobes? And the nape of the neck? ...errr… obsessive/compulsive disorder… or wasn’t the earlobe an erogenous zone? … Well, of course, where have you been!... Which reminds me of a joke…..

Which shall remain unrecorded, for I had spotted the proposer reaching for a fine bottle of Japanese Sake on the mantlepiece (“THE REFINED AWAMURI SHIMAUTA KURO 30%” - to be precise) and proferring a cup to one and all. What a handsome gesture! Let us hope other proposers will follow suit.

Although no doubt Murakami would have preferred J and B. Which reminds me of a joke…..



See also the Monthly Book Group's new web-site at: http://www.monthlybookgroup.com/

30/4/2008 “IN SIBERIA” BY COLIN THUBRON

Introducing the book, the proposer said that he had bought it because some friends had talked of doing a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The trip had not materialised, but he had found an excellent book.

Thubron, educated at Eton, was seen as one of the last of the British “gentlemen-travellers”. He was prepared to spend many months immersing himself in a foreign country, and was not prone to the gimmicks in which many other “travel-writers” indulged. He had started writing in the sixties, and had written novels as well as travel books.

The book attracted universal approbation from the Group, who had turned out in bumper numbers to applaud it.

What did we like? The depth of research Thubron had carried out, and the ease with which he brought it to bear. The gripping vignettes, and the remarkable characters. The black horror of the region he exposed, which, for one at least, exerted a masochistic fascination. The way in which – unlike many other writers in the genre – he did not patronise or ridicule the people he met. The fact that he was not judgmental. The taut, episodic structure, without introduction or conclusion. The intriguing historical links to the world we had considered in Alan Clarke’s “Barbarossa” (see discussion 30/11/06) – such as the removal of Russian factories to the East, and the reminder that Stalin’s appetite for the heartless murder of millions matched that of Hitler.

However, the style of Thubron’s language provoked debate. For some the book was a difficult read. Not that it was badly written – every word was carefully chosen, and every image precise. But the language was densely packed and concentrated. His language did not have the rhythm and flow of a master of descriptive prose such as Capote. He also had the habit of shifting from character to character without signalling the change, forcing the reader to concentrate hard to find out what he was referring to (although he did not have this trait to the irritating degree found in McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men”).

Others felt they must have been reading a different book. For them he always grabbed their attention. His opening sentences were particularly well-crafted, plunging the reader into the scene, and the closing sentences of episodes were equally well honed –

“So I let the old women trail away. I never did help one of them.

“This is a passage of shame”.

“As gripping as Chandler!” opined one member, who was not too concerned by having to re-read passages to find out what was going on – after all, that was the norm for those of us whose reading pattern was twenty pages at night before falling asleep.

Thubron’s method was to present the facts as they appeared to him, without overt comment or judgement. But did this mean it was a totally objective record of Siberia? We could not accept that was possible. It was Thubron who selected the episodes, the characters and the details to appear in his book. And inevitably this would, as a minimum, reflect the character and values of the observer – of an Eton-educated Briton in his late fifties.

Moreover, some of us felt there was a more active agenda lurking beneath the presentation he orchestrated. In one of his very few asides he noted that the Russians were always happiest when they had faith, and the world he presented was one in which their faith in communism had been shattered, and in which it was very difficult to find a new faith. For some religion was returning to fill the vacuum (and how intriguing it was to discover that Marshal Zhukov had carried concealed icons with him on the battlefield). Others were even trying to return to paganism. But for many only alcohol and despair filled the vacuum.

The peoples of Siberia had been ruthlessly exploited by the Czars and the Communists, and new exploiters such as the Chinese lurked on the horizon. Imitation of the culture and language of the West was portrayed as sadly pathetic. The book was an unrelentingly grim and tragic portrayal of the loss of hope, of betrayal, of brutality, and of grinding poverty. He had a particular skill for bringing alive the horrors of the past that lay beneath the surface of the present.

So was this an accurate portrait? Who could say? We suspected that a different observer might have chosen to focus on more green shoots of hope and recovery. (It was surprising perhaps that he made nothing of the fact that Siberia had been to Russia as Australia had been to Britain as a dumping ground for prisoners). He certainly seemed to select for display many characters who were freaks. And what sort of book would a Russian travel writer write about Scotland today? There were plenty of freaks who could be showcased to make Scotland seem a bizarre and tragic place (no names, no pack drill).

Or did the elegiac tone of the book partly reflect the age Thubron was? Or his personal circumstances? Or did it fit with a wider portrayal of the tragedy of Russia in his other books (which none of us could claim yet to have read)? Or maybe Siberia was indeed simply every bit as awful as the compelling portrait he painted.
Thubron once or twice lifted the veil to make gnomic statements about his wider views.

Thus we learn that:

“A traveller needs to believe in the significance of where he is, and therefore his own meaning” and that:

“I had been looking for patterns…I wanted their security. I wanted some unity or shape to human diversity. But instead this land had become diffused and unexpected …”

The ending of the book was clearly significant:

“Stalin’s empire, like Hitler’s Reich, was meant to last through all imaginable time. The past had been reorganised for ever, the future preordained.

“I say, not knowing: ‘You’ll never go back to that.’

“Yuri says: We’re not the same as you in the West. Maybe we’re more like you centuries ago. We’re late with our history here. With us, time still goes in circles.

“I don’t want to hear this, not here in the heart of darkness. I want him to call this place an atrocious mystery…

‘Maybe we spiral a little… a little upwards…we can joke about anything now. We’ve still got that. Jokes…’

“ And on that frozen hillside he starts to sing.”

Profound statements for some; too contrived for others.

So how did this travel book match up against others? No-one would confess to being an inveterate reader of the travel genre, but we agreed Thubron was not a normal travel writer, in the sense of a writer encouraging one to dream of summer holidays.
In one sense it was not really about travel at all. His perspective was historical rather than geographical, and his skill to bring alive the essence of the history of his places and use it to illuminate the present. In that respect he was similar to William Dalrymple (see discussion 30/8/06), a “travel” writer whose imagination was essentially historical. Or de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”? Thubron was not as funny as Bryson, but then Bryson really only wrote about himself, and Thubron definitely did not do that, nor did he belittle the subjects of his work.

The whole idea of being a travel writer (as opposed to a writer who sometimes wrote about his travels) seemed to be a twentieth century phenomenon. And far too often the whole point of the journey was to write the book, which devalued the exercise before it had started. Thubron – as a ”gentleman traveller” (why were they all Etonians?) – seemed much more authentic than that. Perhaps Wilfred Thesiger’s “The Marsh Arabs” was a book of similar weight, also made particularly significant by the point in time at which it was written.

Inevitably the discussion moved on before too long to accounts of vodka breakfasts, of the visitors to Russia who returned with Russian lovers and Russian drink problems – and the trips to Moscow that might not be made for either Liverpool FC or Chelsea (their semi-final was stretching into extra time as the Monthly Book Group meditated).
But why not? Here was a rare phenomenon for Scots to contemplate - a country with worse weather, mosquitoes worse than midges, a worse murder rate and worse drink problems.



See also the Monthly Book Group's new web-site at: http://www.monthlybookgroup.com/

26/3/2008 “MEN WITHOUT WOMEN” by HEMINGWAY; “FAREWELL MY LOVELY” by CHANDLER

The “set book” for this discussion was “Men Without Women” (1928) – a book of short stories by Hemingway, with “Farewell My Lovely” (1940) – the novel by Chandler – the “optional extra”.

Introducing “Men Without Women”, the proposer said he felt Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an under-rated writer. He was undoubtedly an American icon, but he was often thought of simply as a macho man, addicted to hunting and fishing, and assumed to be of the political right. Hemingway himself, with his gift for self-publicity, had created this image.

But the reality was different. Hemingway was torn between his macho side – which his father has helped to foster – and a more gentle, sensitive side, the sort of person that his mother had hoped he would become. The conflict between his masculine and feminine sides gave his writing much of its depth (and indeed one of his last works had been about a transsexual relationship). Politically he had been very much left wing, opposing the growth of fascism in Italy and championing the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

Hemingway has started life as a journalist – which had helped develop his distinctively succinct prose style – and had continued to produce a fine journalistic output throughout his life. Notably he had worked as a journalist during the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, where he had covered the D-Day landings and the Battle of the Bulge, and claimed a hand in liberating Paris. His early work as a journalist in the US was interrupted when he volunteered to work for the Red Cross, ending up as an ambulance driver in Italy. That experience shaped some of these stories, as well as his novel “A Farewell to Arms” (also published in 1928). After the war he had decided that he wanted to be a serious writer, and had moved to Paris, where he had known and been influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. However, he had been able to stand up to Pound, and accept only what he wanted to from him.

He had also fallen under the spell of the country of Spain, and in particular bull-fighting. This sport dominated much of his writing, including the first (and perhaps the finest) of these short stories – “The Undefeated”.

The title of the book (and Hemingway placed a lot of weight on titles) suggested that the stories would all be about tough guys. Perhaps they were superficially. But, looking more carefully, some of the men were very dependent on women – such as the prize fighter who was solely motivated by helping his wife. And in “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway’s sympathies seem to lie with the woman as the man seeks to persuade her to agree to an operation.

The proposer had chosen this book because he felt that the short stories showed Hemingway at his best, in concentrated form where he gets the idea over quickly. Some of his novels– such as “For Whom The Bell Tolls” – had some rather irritating weaknesses and self-indulgence. But he also put in a plea for some other works to gain more recognition, such as the superb “Dangerous Summer” about bullfighting (first published in Life in 1960), and the fine posthumously published novel “Islands in the Stream” (1970), which included scenes set in Cuba.

There was universal acclaim for “Men Without Women” from the group This included some who had not enjoyed previous encounters with Hemingway, and some of whom did not normally like the short story format. What did we like about it?

The concentrated, chiselled story-telling, which could reveal a whole world in just a few pages. Thus the “Undefeated”, in which the whole bull-fighting system, with the roles and attitudes of all the participants, was brought to life. Every single word counted, as in poetry.

The colour, variety, and sensitivity, which had not been expected, alongside the harshness, which had been expected.

The way in which a deceptively simple story inferred a wider world beyond. Thus the world of Fascist Italy was revealed by a scene in a restaurant and a couple of motoring incidents. The world of war was revealed by how someone relived the memories of his childhood to keep at bay thoughts of the war going on outside.

The sparse, staccato dialogue, that caught the way men talk to each other obliquely rather than reveal their true emotions (but a note of dissent here – wasn’t there rather too much dialogue sometimes?)

Hemingway’s wonderful descriptive language, with which he could capture the essence of a scene, a season, a country, a character, a mood with a few simple brush-strokes. And how accurately he caught the way people in Italy and Spain talk and behave.

The tension he effortlessly builds, and the ability – as in “A Canary for One” – to turn a whole story on its head with one telling last line.

The stoic, tragic fatalism of many of his heroes, and (for a young writer) his ability to empathise with people near the end of their lives.

Although some of the characters were indeed dependent on their women, some of the tales – in particular the last one ( “Now I Lay Me”) painted grim pictures of dysfunctional relationships.

Not all stories were rated equally - with “Today is Friday”, dealing with post-crucifixion Roman soldiers, the least favourite – but at least the short story format allowed you to focus on the ones you liked best.

It was remarkable that the indefatigable Ezra Pound had latched on to Hemingway, as to so many other writers of the period, and sought to influence him. Perhaps Pound’s imagist doctrine – of favouring precision of imagery and clear sharp language – had worked better for Hemingway’s prose than for some of the poets it was aimed at.

But were there not some fingerprints of Pound’s wilful obscurity in the stories? For example, was the operation discussed in “Hills like White Elephants” an abortion, trepanning, or a vasectomy? Most thought abortion, but it was not certain. Was “An Alpine Idyll” meant to be tragic or funny? Or perhaps both? What was the point of “A Pursuit Race”? Perhaps it was a parable that we strive to keep ahead in life but our weaknesses - and indeed death - will always eventually catch up with us. Was that indeed a homosexual proposition in “A Simple Enquiry”? But we felt this limited degree of ambivalence and enigma – of leaving the reader to work at the significance of the minimalist tales– was a strength, giving the stories more resonance.

There was a sense of innovation and experimentation in the stories, of a young writer trying out different subjects and techniques that he might later pursue in more depth. But it was also a remarkably assured performance. We agreed with the proposer that this was Hemingway at his very best, and perhaps only also in “A Farewell to Arms” and “The Old Man and the Sea”, plus some other short stories, did Hemingway fully realise his genius as an artist.

But perhaps also “Death in the Afternoon”? This had inspired one member to see a bull fight, which he would not otherwise have done. This started the group down the highways and byways of the tragedy of the bull, comparing and contrasting bullfights in France, Portugal and different regions of Spain….

We shall leave our bulls rampaging there, and pick up the subsequent discussion of “Farewell my Lovely”. The proposer told us that Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was born in Chicago, but moved to London after his parents split up. He was educated at Dulwich College. Despite doing exceptionally well in the Civil Service exams, he soon left and returned to Los Angeles. He had already written one book of poems and a short story. After serving with the Canadian Army in the First World War, he went through an endless series of jobs, not helped by his drinking problems and rudeness.

He married a woman 18 years his senior, to whom he was very devoted, and she funded him to start on a career as a writer. After working as a writer of pulp fiction, he published his first novel – “The Big Sleep” in 1939, and then “Farewell My Lovely” in 1940. His success as a novelist also brought him work as a Hollywood screenplay writer.

While Hemingway assiduously studied the great nineteenth century Russian novelists to help him develop, Chandler listed his main influences as Dashiell Hammet and Erle Stanley Gardner. Chandler wrote a famous essay on the detective novel, which defined the style of hard-boiled novel, derived from Hammet, that was his goal. In such a novel the private detective was the only man of integrity in the mean streets he walked down. This literary genre was to have immense influence on subsequent novels and films. It was intriguing that Marlowe nicknames one of his policemen in the novel “Hemingway”, apparently satirically, but there was a letter extant which indicated Chandler’s strong support for Hemingway’s work. We did not know what Hemingway thought of Chandler.

This book (which not all had managed to read, and one had accidentally read in abbreviated form – a new trend for the busy Book Group member?) produced more divided views than the Hemingway. One found the plot terrible by the standards of other detective stories – another found it very clever. And for another the plot was uneven - the scenes with the “Psychic Consultant” and in the dope house did not seem well integrated.

For another the essence of a Chandler novel was that sense of Byzantine mystery and human venality that lurked beneath the surface of American society. His method of cannibalising two or three separate short stories to produce a novel helped create this haunting sense of mystery – if not a very coherent plot. The novel brought out the sharp contrasts between the seediness of the negro bar and the squalor of Mrs Florian’s drink-sodden existence on the one hand, and the high gloss life of the Grayles and Lindsay Marriott on the other. And it was the tragedy of little Velma that she had managed to cross that great divide and live the American dream, but reverted to viciousness when her past caught up with her. Thus the closing words of the novel: “It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way - but not as far as Velma had gone”. His themes transcended the boundaries of a conventional detective story.

But – here was an interesting question – who was the lovely to whom someone was bidding farewell? Was it Moose to Velma? Marlowe to Mrs Grayle/Velma? Velma to Moose? Mrs Grayle to her former self in Velma? Velma to Mrs Grayle? No consensus here –except that it was great title, embodying a sense of poignant loss. Saying goodbye in a title appealed to Hemingway too (“A Farewell to Arms”) and later again to Chandler (“The Long Goodbye” – a title itself echoed by many imitators).

And did his characters show any development? Perhaps not, but you did not expect that in a detective novel – unless there was a development in the character of the detective during a series of novels. But were his characters much differentiated from each other – for example the policemen? Yes for some of us; no for others – but then arguably their dramatic role was to be the straight man for Marlowe’s wisecracks, a role which did not need much differentiation.

There was, however, unanimity about the quality and richness of the language. The book was beautifully written, and a delight to read. Chandler had the ability – similar to that of Hemingway – to write simple prose descriptions that were poignantly evocative of place and emotion. His wit was legendary, and his imagery fresh and surprisingly lyrical. One newcomer to Chandler had loved the language so much that he kept re-reading each page – to the detriment of following the plot.

And what a start to a novel, with the giant Moose Malloy – “as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food” – barging into Florians, shortly followed by Marlowe climbing up in the dusk endless steps above the beach at Montemar Vista – “the handrail was as cold and wet as a toad’s belly” – in pursuit of an enigmatic assignment. While so many of Chandler’s plots and characters had been endlessly copied, so that they may seem less original to someone approaching him for the first time, none of his imitators had matched that quality of language.

The discussion then tiptoed up to the subject of …sex…Why did Marlowe keep turning down the bevy of beauties who propositioned him? Was it that Dulwich schooling that made Marlowe such a finely spoken, chess-playing chap, who felt it not cricket to take advantage of the Velmas of this world? If it were a fastidiousness about getting the hero engaged with the immoral Velma, why also reject the fragrant Anne Riordan? Did it reveal Chandler’s own lack of experience on sexual matters? Or – diving right in now – was it caused by the repressed homosexuality that a recent biographer had claimed to uncover, and which the jarring comment about Red’s wonderful eyes might substantiate?

But, mercifully for Chandler, the cold light of reason then shone. We were not going to have truck with the critical fad for exhuming sexual skeletons from dead writers’closets. The kissing scene with Velma was surely hot-blooded heterosexuality enough! And one sufficient reason for Marlowe’s priggishness was the mores of the 1940s - for both novelists and film-makers. By the time of Chandler’s last novel “Playback” (1958) Marlowe is succumbing fully to the dames. Nevertheless, a striking difference between Marlowe and Hammet’s Sam Spade was the moral ambivalence of Spade compared with the probity of Marlowe.

Picking up on Chandler’s Dulwich education, had anyone noted that another famous Dulwich schoolboy had spent much of his life in America and produced novels of remarkable wit – viz P.G. Wodehouse?

So – what conclusions could be drawn from the intriguing comparison of Hemingway and Chandler?

One was how great the similarities were. Both lived in the same era. Both spent much of their formative years outside America. Both had drink problems. Both had exceptional power in writing simple but evocative language –perhaps only D.H.Lawrence of that generation could rival them. And the language of both ran foul of today’s political correctness regime! Both writers created some very memorable titles for their books. Both books came near the beginning of the writer’s career, and in both cases the writer did not go on to produce books of significantly higher quality later in their careers. Some famous American writers of the nineteenth century perhaps owe their fame more to the paucity of American rivals than to their absolute merits. But Hemingway and Chandler are both writers who can compete successfully with the best of those writing in English in their times.

But there were important differences. Chandler’s novels are the high point of the American hard-boiled private investigator school, in some ways transcending the genre, and helped spark off a whole genre of film noir. Important as the detective genre is for the twentieth century, Hemingway has a much greater range as a writer. Hemingway devoted his life to his art, while Chandler seems to have fallen into writing as a career because of the failure of other options. Hemingway remained open to the outside world, whereas Chandler retreated into California. And there is perhaps more of Hemingway’s soul in his works.

Moreover, added one member, Chandle”s novels were consistently of a high standard, with only his seventh and last (“Playback”) of markedly lesser quality. By contrast Hemingway’s works were inconsistent in quality, with only a few being fully realised works of art. Yes, but, replied another, isn’t that true of all great artists? This discussion then soared off into the literary stratosphere, at which point your fatigued correspondent closed his book, and his eyes, and dreamt of little Velma…



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27/2/2008 ‘THE ITALIAN JOB” BY GIANLUCA VIALLI AND GABRIELLE MARCOTTI

Introducing the book, the proposer said that – although he was indeed a Chelsea fan - he had chosen it because it was an unusually intelligent and thought–provoking book about football. It was very different from the standard “kiss and tell” fare. The book had been one of the nominations for Sports Book of the Year in 2006.

Vialli came from an affluent and educated Italian background. As Vialli noted, such a background was almost unheard of amongst English footballers. That footballers came exclusively from the working classes in England had important implications – such as the reluctance amongst English teams to consider tactics seriously, and their approach to training.

His whole approach was refreshing, for example in his empirical approach to issues. Rather than simply discuss the impact of climate on English versus Italian football, he examined the statistics, showing that the key difference is not in temperature or in rainfall, but in the wind.

The historian A. J. P. Taylor liked to begin lectures by saying that:
“As good historians we should not use generalisations about nationalities ……if it were not for the strange fact that they are all true”

Vialli was particularly interesting in similar vein as he wrestled to define the national/cultural/attitudinal differences between England and Italy in relation to football.

He identified that English managers were less intellectual because of their working class background. He put his finger on the English habit of selecting “celebrity” managers whose fame lay in their playing skill, not in their managerial qualifications and experience. Vialli recognised that he himself fell into this category when appointed at Chelsea – an appointment which had astonished Italians, but not English.

An interesting issue for the proposer – (and for the largely Scottish group he addressed, although it included some representation of both English and Italian interests) – was where Scottish managers fitted into this schema. Vialli treated Scottish managers in the Premiership as essentially English, but also notes that the number of “foreign managers” of the top English teams was even higher if the Scots such as Ferguson and Moyes were classified as foreign. But the proposer put forward for discussion the thesis that Scottish managers fell somewhere between the English and the Italian managers, as they came from a working class background that put more emphasis on thinking skills. This might explain their disproportionate success in England.

And there were all sorts of other interesting ideas and suggestions in the book, for example about the media and the rules.

While the book was written in an engaging way, what marked it out was the unusual range and depth of thought, and he invited the group to focus on the issues that were raised in the book.

And, in a manner totally unprecedented for the Monthly Book Group, the team pursued the proferred ball relentlessly, without pause for diversion or amusement, and not even playing the man instead of the ball. (Is there any subject other than football which would generate such sustained concentration and serious debate amongst Scots? Certainly not money, last month….)

The opening phase saw some pretty play around the book as a whole. “Tremendous, really interesting”. “One of these books that will forever change the way I see certain things”. Even for a non-football-fanatic (yes, there was one) the book had proved quite interesting, although frustrating in having an index but no contents section. However, kicking the ball back to the centre, it was a pity that his early empirical method deteriorated into assertion backed up by selective quotation. The second half of the book was weaker than the first, as he rushed to squeeze in extra topics.

Was the book aimed at England or Italy? We assumed England, as there was no evidence it had been published in Italy. And the subtext – disguised by Vialli’s tact and charm – was the question of why the English (particularly the English national team and English managers) were less successful than they expected to be. At the time of the meeting, the top eight clubs in the English Premiership were managed by managers who were not English.

Vialli’s co-author – Gabrielle Marcotti - was a journalist. Was his role simply that of polishing the ideas into prose, or were they in fact Marcotti’s ideas and research promoted with Vialli’s name? The introduction said they had done the research jointly, and – nutmeg! – if you had listened to the recent Times podcast with Vialli, it was clear that he had the intellect and ideas sufficient to have played the lead role in the book.

The next phase of play raged around the managers. One Hibs aficionado was less than convinced by the theory that experience was the key. There was a trade-off between the dynamism and energy of youth, and the experience of age. Bobby Williamson had fared badly at Hibs, while Alex Miller had done much better during his ten-year stay, but had stayed too long. (However, Miller had admittedly gone on to an important role as assistant at Liverpool). On the other hand, countered another fan of the green, John Collins might have had coaching qualifications, but was a “celebrity” appointment with no managerial experience, which compared badly with the managerial apprenticeship served by Paatalainen. And McLeish and Turnbull had both benefited from their managerial apprenticeships, as, classically, had Ferguson.

But – nowadays – Ferguson would never be left so long in place at Manchester when unsuccessful early on. And was Fergie really – as Vialli suggested – a man of reason and logic rather than passion, whereas paradoxically Wenger was a man of passion rather than reason? We weren’t too convinced, particularly when told the uncensored story –red card! - of why the boot had been thrown at Beckham. On the other hand, it was remarkable that Fergie had taken his coaching qualifications while a young player, and that the reason he gave for not taking press conferences in England was that he was never asked about tactics. And how polite Vialli was about the managers he interviewed. Could this modest and diplomatic person emerging from the pages really be Mourinho? Or was this more Italian tact…

Play now switched into the penalty box of national stereotypes. Given the stereotype of Italians as fun-loving but with a chaotic public sector, the book’s image of Italian footballers – obsessed with tactics, superbly organised, and finding no joy at all in football – was totally contrary to prejudice. Perhaps our stereotype was of the south, with Italians of the north different people? But the Mafia is another lethally efficient organisation…and do the wrong people get into government positions? Penalty!

There was general support for the view that the Scottish working class have more of an interest in ideas than their English counterparts, with the self-improvement tradition of the “lad o’pairts”, and the higher participation rate in universities. The English – two-footed tackle! – had a distinctively anti-intellectual tradition. Where else would you find a phrase such as “too clever by half”? This might indeed explain why Scottish managers adapted more easily than English to the study of tactics.

Another side to the Scottish working class tradition which might be helpful in this context was the propensity to argument and dissent, or discussion as Scots would see it, and to challenging received wisdom (such as four-four-two) The English perceived this as personal in a way the Scots did not. This difference in attitude to debate on could be seen simply by going into pubs on different sides of the border, where in England conversation would be uncontroversial but any Scottish pub would be full of heated dispute about ideas. So, yes, - goal! - we agreed with the proposer that Scottish football managers were more intellectual than their English counterparts.

Perhaps that argumentative trait was also associated with the Scottish propensity to invent, just endorsed by a comparative study of universities. But, added one disputatiously, Scots had not been particularly individualistic or challenging in the military context. And the English were more confident in speaking at meetings.

Were skill levels going up or down? 40 years ago, the Scottish team could boast the skills of players such as Johnstone, Law and Baxter, but there was nobody comparable now. Was this skill gap because of the loss of the freedom to play in the street and the park, that had developed the “tanner ba” skills? Or was it competition from other pastimes, or poor training? On the other hand, most of the Scottish teams with great flair players in the past had underachieved because of a lack of team organisation. The Germans were the example of a team with little flair but great organisation, which thus overachieved.

One of our number (displaying a particularly analytical bent – could there be Italian influence?) had been sufficiently intrigued by Vialli’s quadrilaterals for evaluating players to attempt some himself. The scores are reproduced below (the Blogger software not accepting the graphs!) The scores are out of 20 for technique (T), and out of 10 for each of intelligence (I), athleticism (A) and “balls” (B):

Rooney - T 17; I 8; A 8; B 9

Ronaldhino - T 18; I 8; A 5; B 7

Paatalainen - T 10; I 9; A 7; B 9


Vialli’s point about the lack of tactical awareness in England was well borne out by the English media. They could not appreciate a tactical battle, and dismissed such games – for example the recent Chelsea/Spurs Carling Cup Final - as “boring”. Even journalists in the “quality” press would seek to demonstrate their superior literary skills, not their tactical awareness, in what they wrote. In the build-up to a game such as that night’s Falkirk/Hibernian match, the press would write up some personal interest story in terms of childish clichés. They would not focus on the key tactical issue of the formation that the Hibs midfield might play to counter the superior physical strength of Falkirk. A team such as Hibs would benefit from a more intelligent press, and more serious scrutiny. It was not easy for journalists, though, as the number of journalists had remained constant in recent years while their output had had to increase.

On the other hand, the growth of fans’ websites meant more serious tactical analysis was getting an airing. This paralleled Vialli’s point that fans – when represented through trusts on football boards - acted more sensibly than most directors on financial matters. Indeed one of the many refreshing aspects of the book was the way he empathised with - and analysed - the fans’ viewpoint. He deplored the reduction in attendances in Italy, which he convincingly attributed to unwise policies on televising matches. We noted some Italian attendances were extraordinarily low, compared say to the big attendances in Germany.

Vialli was also particularly interesting on how the role of public authorities in stadium-building in Italy had been damaging to fans’ interests. For example the authorities insisted on multi-use stadia with running tracks which wrecked the atmosphere, and focussed on how the stadium looked externally, instead of how it functioned for the football spectator. This was a healthy counterblast to the British accepted wisdom that the Italian tradition of local authorities owning football grounds was superior.

Vialli correctly noted that the English Premiership, backed by television, had now become the most commercially successful in the world, and thus attracted the best players. However, he did not analyse why that was so – given that for a while first the Italian then the Spanish leagues had held that position - or consider if it would continue. Was it possible that the English tradition he identified – with its excitement, the emphasis on the game’s narrative rather than tactics, the emphasis on effort and never-say-die heroics rather than skill and percentage calls – was a key factor in this? Or was it post-Thatcherite superior skill in selling the product? It was particularly intriguing how he identified that English teams with a foreign manager and no English players still felt themselves being sucked into the English culture of play.

We also debated why English teams had so often in recent years fallen at the last hurdle in the Champions’ league. Was it, as widely argued, exhaustion after their over-full season? Or was it that they did not have sufficient tactical guile when examined at the highest level? Vialli’s point about the Italian reverence for tactics compared to British passion was only too cruelly illustrated by the way an overly pumped up Scotland had fallen at the last hurdle to a coolly efficient Italy at Hampden in Euro 2008.

Yet another stimulating aspect of the book was his analysis of the distribution of television money in England and Italy, and the way it had helped concentrate success in a small number of top clubs. If he had looked at Scotland, he would have seen an even more starkly skewed distribution of TV money, and an even smaller number of clubs with a realistic chance of winning the league. But there was an issue he did not bring out, which was that of interdependence. The top clubs did not seem to recognise that they were dependent on the other clubs for their success, and that their greed in the distribution of gate and TV money might imperil rather than enhance their own success.

And so the MBG team kicked on, weaving with consummate artistry between topic, insight and prejudice. With the ball of relevance firmly glued to their boots, they paused only briefly to take in the news of Hibs 2-0 victory v Falkirk, and attribute it to a more tactically aware manager, and diverted from football only once - to the inaugural Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket. Cricket – “that game for Indians invented in England” - irrelevant? Not at all – the huge sums of cash being paid to buy up top players for the Indian league was also being characterised as an omen for the future of football by the Manchester United fanzine published a week later.

They were just getting stuck into the Rooney v Ronaldo debate (effort v skill? But Man U never lost when Rooney played….) when your scribe finally had to feign a wrist injury to bring the match to an end. Small knots of players emerged blinking into the Edinburgh dawn, arguing about (sorry, discussing) the wisdom of appointing an Italian as England manager, the real intentions of Romanov, the use of video evidence, undue influence on referees.....



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30/1/2008 “THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST” by Tim Harford

This was a new style of book for the Monthly Book Group, which, while attracting mixed reviews, inspired a particularly spirited discussion.

Introducing the book, the proposer said he had chosen it because his wife was buying a book for a rail journey, and, as there was a two for one offer at the station, he chose this. No, despite the analysis of railway station coffee outlets in Harford’s opening chapter, he had not also succumbed to the temptation to buy an expensive coffee. (He had been brought up to believe that food and drink was something to be consumed at home, not purchased at inflated prices outside the home, a view of continuing disappointment to his wife).

The book had intrigued him, being an interesting and enlightening review of a wide range of subjects, even if it rather skimmed over some of them. Despite his business background it had shed new light on a range of commercial practices. It was amazing that a cheaper HP printer was the more expensive one slowed down (and another member of the group with an electronics background could confirm a similar example of pricing practice for calculators with almost identical circuitry).

All agreed it was written in engaging and eminently readable prose - with many entertaining anecdotes - despite dealing with a wide range of complex subjects. Most had enjoyed and welcomed the attempts to simplify economics, and found it persuasive on non-political microeconomic matters such as retail practice. It was also a pleasant change that here was an economist who offered firm views, rather than the normal “On the one hand, on the other hand”.

However – as with attempts to write popular science books – it proved very difficult to treat complex issues satisfactorily in a simplistic, easy-reading style. And it was the big issues tackled in the second half of the book – political issues such as health care, failing countries in Africa, climate change, road pricing, and the need for more free markets – that proved red rags to some of our bulls.

Or, more precisely, blue rags, to those brought up in the twentieth century Scottish tradition of distrusting the free market. What about the need for regulation of the free market – why did he not bring that out more strongly? Didn’t the book lack balance – no mention here of Union Carbide in Bhopal! Was the cult of the free market not passing its zenith, as demonstrated by the current meltdown in the financial markets?

Yet, for others, Harford’s recommendations were uncontroversial. The points he was making about the role of the market in encouraging the more efficient use of resources and economic growth were widely accepted by economists. Climate change and excess traffic were indeed better tackled, in the main, by economic instruments, with regulation only forming a small part of the policy mix, as the recent UK Stern report on climate change had concluded.

The difficulty was in persuading democratic governments and legislators of this, and it did not seem likely that Harford’s book was going to make it any easier. His dumbed-down versions of the theory of comparative advantage, of Ricardo on rent, of supply and demand, and of marginal decision-making were not going to make people leap to accept his later analyses of a random set of big policy issues.

Indeed, it turned out that no member of the group had changed their mind about any of the political issues he discussed as a result of reading his book. Perhaps a rather less dumbed-down version – making more of use of graphs and numbers - would have had more impact. (And many big issues in economics – such as monetarism and supply side economics – were not touched on at all). But maybe we had all such fixed views on political issues that we were impervious to other opinions. “Freakonomics”, the similar book by Steven Levitt, was less political, more original, and perhaps more successful in making you look at issues differently.

Yet for everyone who disliked a particular chapter, it turned out that someone else really liked it. His analysis of why China had succeeded where Cameroon had failed annoyed several – for example because he had not brought out fully that China’s was a planned capitalist economy, or explored the one child policy, or acknowledged the scale of investment that might be needed in Cameroon. Yet others were big fans of this section of the book, including a recent visitor to the failing economy of Burma who could recognise most of what Harford had found in Cameroon. Some thought his analysis of the health sector and insurance issues impeccable, while others strongly disputed it, and so on.

Most found something intriguing in the book – such as the discussion of game theory – but what was new for one was old hat for another. And at times it seemed that we had been reading different books – some felt he failed to bring out the importance of the rule of law for allowing capitalism to work effectively, whereas others felt he brought it out particularly well.

An oddity that everyone noticed was his tendency to write at some times as if he were American and addressing an American audience, and at some times as if he were British and addressing a British audience. This might reflect his own career background and the markets he hoped to sell in, but it produced a disconcertingly schizophrenic effect. How many Tim Harfords were there? And it aggravated the feelings of those who felt he was already overly pro-American in his policy prescriptions – no mention, for example, of the indifference of the US Government to that country’s massive impact on climate change.

But, reader, do not assume from the above that we had a calm, rational and well-structured discussion. The reality was a pinball-machine discussion, ricocheting violently between the price of tomatoes and democracies’ ability to tackle climate change, luridly illuminating Civil Service corruption and the failure of Russian capitalism, and then crashing from irrational packaging taxes to the Rangers/Hearts semi-final via education in India. Occasional efforts to refocus the discussion on the book were brushed aside as we plunged into highways and byways, and as serial shoppers revealed that their supermarket loyalties were of even greater importance than their loyalties to capitalism or socialism.

Finally, however, we did reach two points of consensus. One was that structuring governments around legislatures – whether in Scotland, the UK, or the EU – produced an insatiable and undesirable urge to legislate and regulate.

The other was that more of us were now looking for own brand bargains on the bottom shelf of supermarkets. Not perhaps as world-changing an outcome as Tim Harford was hoping for from “The Undercover Economist”, but a more tangible product than from some other books…



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28/11/2007 “CANDIDE” by VOLTAIRE

“Candide” was the first book the proposer read in French, and he went on to study French literature at university and specialise on eighteenth century writers such as the “philosophes” Rousseau, Diderot and Voltaire.

Voltaire lived from 1694-1778. He wrote a massive amount of other work, including an epic poem based on the Odyssey, and tragedies in Shakespearean mode, which were more original than those of Corneille and Racine. He was a true polymath, and it was remarkable that he was only really now remembered for the “Candide”. Even other “contes” in similar vein, such as “Zadig”, have been forgotten.

Voltaire saw himself as a satirical poet, and as a result of his satire was frequently in trouble with the authorities. He was a very destructive critic in his writings – he preached tolerance, but did not practise it. In 1717 he was imprisoned for a year in the Bastille for a satire on the government, and in 1726 he went in exile for 3 years to England. Here he was influenced by the ideas of Locke, Newton, and Shaftesbury, and he met Swift (who published “Gulliver’s Travels” in 1726), Gay, Pope and Berkeley.

On his return from England he wrote his ““Lettres Philosophiques” praising English customs and institutions. This was interpreted as further criticism of the French Government, and led to a further exile, this time in the French countryside with his friend the Marquise du Chatelet.

In 1749, after her death, he moved to Prussia at the invitation of Frederick the Great, who wished to be his friend. Voltaire had been upset by Frederick’s invasion of Silesia, and very much wished to influence a despot to become an enlightened despot. (“The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination”). However, he found there were too many others at the court, and he was upset to overhear Frederick comparing him to an orange – he would put up with Voltaire for a year, suck all that was useful out of him, then spit him out. In 1753 he returned to France.

By the time he published “Candide ou l’Optimisme” in 1759, Europe was 3 years into the Seven Years War. It was also 3 years after the Lisbon earthquake, and 2 years after Admiral John Byng had been executed by the British for failing to “do his utmost” at the Battle of Minorca – “pour encourager les autres”, in Voltaire’s phrase. All these events are reflected in the book.

The Eighteenth century in France was the century of the “philosophes”, a group of philosophers who believed in reason and tolerance. Many were critical of organised religion, although they tended to be theists or deists (like Voltaire) rather than atheists (Diderot was an exception as an atheist). A deist derives the existence of God from reason and personal experience, rather than from divine revelation or holy books. Some believed in a watchmaker type god – an incomprehensibly intelligent being who created the universe and then left it to its own devices.

One issue posed by Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) had been how you accounted for evil in a world created by God. Did man have free will or was there was an evil being in the Universe? If there were an evil being, why did God not destroy it if he were omnipotent? Or was the evil of nearly equal power – the Manichean heresy?

Against this background, the German philosopher Liebniz (1646-1716) had tried to justify the imperfections of the world by saying it was the optimal among all possible worlds. It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it was created by a perfect God. This is the view parodied in “Candide” by having Pangloss repeat endlessly that “we live in the best of all possible worlds” in the face of endless evidence to the contrary. However, Voltaire had distorted Liebniz’ philosophy for his satirical purposes – the facile optimism attacked was more that of Alexander Pope. (We noted that – given that Liebniz had been brilliant enough to discover calculus independently of Newton, to discover the binary system and anticipate a whole host of scientific discoveries – it would have been pretty strange if he had held views as simplistic as those of Pangloss).

What then did we make of the book as a book? It had a very modern, timeless feel – the timelessness of a fable. And themes such as the corruption of the clergy were very contemporary.

It displayed a very modern, deadpan sense of humour – and some found it wickedly funny, although others only moderately so. The book was like an amalgam of a philosophical text and “Private Eye”, with potshots being taken at everyone. There was no real flow to the plot, and the characters did not develop: they were types or caricatures rather than individuals, as in a political cartoon. Indeed much of it was written in the sort of sound-bites that would suit a cartoon.

Much of the humour was bawdy, of a “nudge, nudge” kind – such as the wonderful scene where Cunegonde spots

“Dr Pangloss in the thickets giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother’s chambermaid, a very pretty and very docile little brunette”

Although the critics tended not to focus on the bawdiness, it must be one of the reasons for the book retaining its popularity.

Another was the simplicity of the language, which added to its charm, and the speed at which the story moved. He included a lot in a very small compass. In a number of ways Voltaire had been influenced by the satires of Swift, but a quick comparison one member had made with “A Modest Proposal” showed that Voltaire’s lapidary and economical use of language was quite distinct.

It was intriguing to reflect that a world journey today similar to that of Candide’s could encounter just as many shocks and horrors, such as visiting Iraq and Afghanistan, or Sudan, where a teacher had just been imprisoned for calling a teddy bear Mohammed.

The book, which was published anonymously, must have been viewed as scandalous and outrageous at the time, for example with its endless attacks on the clergy. Even Pangloss’ pox, acquired from the docile brunette, was acquired by her from a Jesuit monk.

Every established institution was attacked. For some this was a disappointment – he knocked everything down, and seemed to have nothing positive to assert in its place. It was a deeply pessimistic book. His caustic nature must have made him an unpleasant companion to spend a long time with - it was not surprising that Frederick the Great wanted rid of him! When he wrote “Candide” he was feeling very bitter – he was living in exile, not having been to the French court for ten years.

Voltaire was often pursuing a personal agenda against specific people in his satire. Occasionally this became too apparent and the humour was lost – as for example with the passage about Lord Pococurante, the cynical critic. However, it was surprising that his story still read so well when all the topical targets had been forgotten – the same could not be said of many other satires, such as Pope’s tedious “The Dunciad”.

We focussed on two areas of the book where there was no critical consensus about their meaning - the Eldorado episode and the enigmatic ending (“il faut cultiver notre jardin”).

Why did Candide leave Eldorado– given that it seemed to be the best of all possible worlds? Ostensibly it was to pursue Cunegonde, but perhaps there were deeper reasons. Was it because – as David Byrne sang - “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”? Was boredom the real reason, and escaping boredom an even stronger motive than the greed that would be satisfied by staying? Was it therefore a hypothesis test – would you really like a perfect world? – and thus a satire of a “golden” age. After all, in Browning’s phrase, “man’s reach should exceed his grasp”. Boredom was a theme of importance to Voltaire – at the end in the garden scene, he talks of the three great evils of “boredom, vice and need”.

A more prosaic view was that Eldorado was introduced in imitation of Swift’s fictional lands in Gulliver, and that the main reason for Candide leaving was not to prove a philosophical point or reflect a deep psychological motive, but simply to move the plot on.

Eldorado did undoubtedly serve Voltaire’s satirical purposes, as it was a happy land without priests or lawyers. The people of Eldorado were deists like Voltaire himself (“I cannot imagine the clockwork of the world existing without a clockmaker”), believing in God but not having the apparatus of an established church, such as priests and monks. The story line about Candide after leaving Eldorado also demonstrated that wealth did not bring happiness, and gave Candide plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his gullible good faith as he gave away his wealth.

But what of the ending? We could reach no consensus here. Perhaps it was optimistic in a sense? Candide had committed a sin, but found peace in the end. Cunegonde might have become ugly, but her pastry was good!

Was “cultivating our garden” a selfish withdrawal from the world? Voltaire himself was inclined to withdraw to the country at moments of stress in his life.

Or alternatively did it mean that we must try to improve the world? Was he not still attacking the philosophy of the best of all possible worlds – which was a fatalistic philosophy of inaction? From this viewpoint cultivating your garden meant you must work harder at improving things.

Yet surely gardening was exactly a philosophy of inaction? Well, Voltaire was very keen on gardening! Though he was not suggesting we all take up horticulture - the question was what he meant by the image of the garden.

A different perspective was that it meant there was a need to compromise. He needed a punch line for his ending, and it was a diminution of aspiration. Perhaps it was advice to the young – settle for what you are in the end.

Or was it a mistake to put much significance on the ending, particularly if after 250 years nobody could agree what it meant – didn’t the story simply run out of steam, and he had to end it somehow? It was an easy way to end it – tranquil old age. Voltaire’s tale was essentially a work of satire rather than a work of philosophy. The philosophy it attacked was distorted to make it a better target. Leibniz’ philosophy may have been the piece of grit that caused the growth of the pearl, but Candide’s enduring value was as a piece of literature, not a work of philosophy, and that was how it should be assessed.

Reaching no agreement on gardening, this group of Edinburgh philosophes, no doubt stimulated by the sea breezes, moved on to weightier issues.

What about the woman who had her buttock cut off? And what about the two ladies with monkeys as lovers? Examples of him taking every possibility to be outrageous.

Why did he stress the monkeys’ similarities to humans? Did he reject the conventional eighteenth century “Great Chain of Being” in favour of some early version of evolution? Pass. But he did have an impact on evolutionary science in the naming of the “Panglossian Paradigm” – the belief until recently that every feature of humans was perfectly adapted to life on earth, as opposed to being a relic or the consequence of a different adaptation.

Precedents for the book? In English “Gulliver’s Travels”, most obviously, and possibly “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. The picaresque novel, which started in Spain at the end of the sixteenth century, had imitators across Europe, including Fielding and Smollet in Britain.

Modern equivalents? One member was strongly reminded of the “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” – which also includes such elements as Eldorado, mice, and getting rid of lawyers. Another timeless fable was “Animal Farm”.

Any other book as short as this which had had an equivalent impact? “Hamlet” or “Macbeth”.

At this point, the group discussed the derivation of the names of the characters. As these alternated between the obscure and the obscene, your scribe chose this moment to close his book, and devote his attention to a fine French wine.



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31/10/2007 “CLOUD ATLAS” by DAVID MITCHELL

Introducing the book, the proposer said that he had really enjoyed it. Mitchell had graduated in English Literature from Kent (worryingly, his thesis had been on “levels of reality in the post-modern novel – but at least he satirised such pretension in this book). He had been turned down for a job in McDonalds. He had lived in Japan, and now lived in Ireland with a Japanese wife.

“Cloud Atlas” was his third book, following “Ghostwritten” and “number9dream”. It had won a number of prizes and awards and a Booker nomination. The book had generally received “messiah-like reviews”, but he had found some dissenting voices on the internet, such as “pretentious load of over-written twaddle”, “unreadable” and “a literary novel with Literary in capital letters”.

In the discussion that followed, the group divided into two halves. One thought the book first class, engrossing, beautifully written in a remarkable range of styles. They found it very original and thought provoking in its structure of six interlinked tales moving forwards and backwards through time. The other half found the book certainly enjoyable and well-written, but found its structure contrived (indeed, for some, pretentious). For them it lacked thematic originality, and lacked sufficiently meaningful linkages between the tales.

For one reader, the author was a liberal, writing about the pursuit of enlightenment. Some of the individual stories were absolutely fantastic, such as the sensational “Letters from Zedelghem” with its great characterisations, the extremely engrossing “Ghastly Ordeal of Richard Cavendish”, the excellent use of language in the “Pacific Journal” and the light but enjoyable Luisa Rey story. He was not a fan of science fiction, and had found the two futuristic tales less compelling. But overall it was great fun and very enjoyable.

A different reader had also enjoyed it, but expected more, based on the rave reviews incorporated in the paperback version. He liked the individual stories, but as a unity it did not work too well. Some of the links – such as finding the journal and the letters – were a bit artificial. The Pacific Journal reminded him of Golding’s “Ends of the Earth” trilogy, while aspects of the “Sloosha” story reminded him Golding’s “The Inheritors”. But Golding was better. He thought “Cloud Atlas” a good read, but not “Booker” class (if that were not to give too much credence to the Booker).

But, another suggested, you should focus on the reading the book, not the reviews. Reviews were always suspect, not least because reviewers often knew the person whose work they were reviewing. He had really enjoyed the book, and admired the fine writing of the stories. There were some very sympathetic touches – for example in the cabin-boy – and great observation.

Another – although he enjoyed the individual tales – had sought in vain for linkages between the stories. At the end he was still wondering what it was all about. It would have been a much better book if the links had been better constructed and clearer.

For one the overt theme was man’s lust for power, which could not be suppressed – and if anything the author overemphasised this theme, as if worried that the critics might miss the point. But a subtler theme was the cyclical nature of time, which he embodied in the structure of the book with the half stories moving out through time and then the second half of each story placed so that they then moved backwards through time. His ability to write in such different styles that reflected different times was quite remarkable. The book was very funny – for example in the fate of the critic at the beginning of the Cavendish story. There was an amused playfulness in the way he made many of the connections – for example in the deification of Somni and Cavendish. Overall there was the imagination, tolerance, linguistic range and sureness of touch that marked out a major writer.

For another, picking up on the question of themes, there was also the cyclical nature of civilization. And perhaps exploitation rather than power was the key issue. One critic had raised the issue of whether each character was essentially “Everyman”. Or more directly – as perhaps suggested by the repeated birthmark, or in Luisa’s identification with Frobisher - a reincarnation of the central character who went before?

Another member, who had enjoyed the book a lot, felt that nevertheless it would have lost nothing if it had been written in linear rather than circular form. The writing was good, but it was “clever”. And the theme was not unusual – it was trite.

Nor were the stories – such as Luisa Rey - very special, interjected another. Oh yes they were – what about the “Letters from Zedelghem” – that story was exceptional? But it was partly based on the well-known story of Delius and Eric Fenby (as the author had acknowledged). And the theme was simply that of history.

And so the debate between the two viewpoints continued, like a hamster in a treadmill, to make little progress, other than to demonstrate the circularity of time.

Here was a young storyteller of real promise and ingenuity – with a delightful freshness and vitality – who delivered much enjoyment, if not great resonance. And he had remarkable empathy to write so well about old age in the Cavendish story. He could go on to great things.

Oh no, the book was overdone and overstudied! It said – “look how clever I am – please give me a prize”. The book was not as clever as the author.

Was it unreasonable to want a prize? Authors had to earn a living. Didn’t Shakespeare write for money?

Yes, but he was better!! Admittedly, though, this reader had liked the science fiction parts – demonstrating the theme of exploitation at its limits.

Was the writer too clever by half? Yes, a bit. Are we jealous? Yes! Is his theme unoriginal? Are most of the themes of great literature – say, Jane Austen – “original” – of course not! The themes were classic, rather than trite. It was a very good read, with excellent and diverse use of language. And was the whole greater than the sum of the parts? Yes. And there was no point in criticising the Luisa Rey story for being ordinary – that story was meant to imitate pulp fiction.

Perhaps the linkages were easier to pick it up if you read it in a short period of time? It was difficult to remember all the characters if you read it over three separate plane journeys as one had done. And, even if the themes were interesting, the linkages were weak, such as the birthmark, or Frobisher deciding to read the Pacific Journal (why?), or Luisa wanting to read Frobisher’s letters,.

But wasn’t there a fallacy here? Whenever you looked backwards in time – for example in genealogy, or in looking at a film story told backwards - trivial events could take on remarkable significance. So weak linkages just reflected the nature of causality and time.

So is that new? In telling a story you always select what is relevant…

Indeed, but this novel is bringing out the idea of time being circular. And I liked the structure.

But historians have always written about the rise and fall of civilizations…

Yes, but Mitchell is looking at a more imaginative, poetic view of time as circular, which he brings out at pp 408-409:

‘The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access…in contrast the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening and ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent…….One model of time: an infinite matrioshka doll of painted moments, each “shell” (the present) encased inside a nest of “shells” (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of ‘now’ likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future’

It is to explore that idea that he adopts the structure he does – the “nested structure”, like a Russian doll –making structure and theme coherent.

There were difficulties for the modern novelist, who, like Mitchell, had studied English as an academic subject. It tended to make them overly self-aware and analytical, and could tempt them into pretension. It was interesting that Ted Hughes, whose collected letters had just been published, had switched away from studying English because of his fear of losing spontaneity through too much dissection of other texts.

And was another difficulty that for the modern writer there was not much new to do? Did he imitate styles because there was not much new that could be done stylistically? No agreement was to be found on that proposition.

Was the book pessimistic? In many ways it was very pessimistic, bringing out man’s eternal desire to exploit and eliminate his fellow men, and projecting a highly unpleasant future in which firstly Western civilization has collapsed and then its Eastern replacement has also self-destructed. Suicide was also graphically portrayed in the book.

At the same time there were elements of hope and enlightenment. And the author’s zest for life and sense of fun were also very positive.

Perhaps the last word should be given to Mitchell, who ends his book:

“ ‘…Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!’
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”



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26/9/07 "MOLLOY" by SAMUEL BECKETT

Introducing the book, the proposer (himself a writer) said that he had now re-read “Molloy” for the third or fourth time. He was a huge admirer of Beckett, and preferred his prose to his better-known drama. He had not encountered him until his mid-twenties, Beckett being too modern to feature in his English degree. The outline of Beckett’s life could be picked up from Wilkipedia, but he would strongly recommend the biography by Deirdre Bair. “Molloy” was part of a trilogy (although Beckett disliked that term) with the other parts being 'Malone Dies' and 'The Unnameable'. It was published in French in 1951.

He had chosen the book because it polarised opinion. Many reacted very strongly against Beckett, finding him very annoying - perhaps some of the group fell into this category? - and why this was so was interesting. But for him Beckett – and “Molloy” - had very positive qualities.

The prediction that some would dislike Beckett proved all too accurate, and the serried guns of the attack were soon trained on “Molloy”.

The book was totally irritating and frustrating – just completely aggravating - and this reader had vowed never to read Beckett again. The only thing of note was Beckett’s attack on religion in his sixteen questions. The book was not hateful, but it was repetitive and rambling, with no beginning or end, and nothing achieved. Its lack of structure meant it was very difficult to read in small chunks – and one member had regularly fallen asleep in trying to read Part 1 at night.

One member, who claimed the eccentricity of always finishing a book once started, found “Molloy” unfortunately reminded him of “Ulysses”, the one book he had been unable to finish. The critics quoted on his copy referred to Beckett’s remarkable sense of humour, but – with the exception of one remark on page one - he had found nothing humorous. Beckett had severely tested his patience with the first 117 page paragraph, and by five pages devoted to stone-sucking. Part II was a bit lighter – and it did have paragraphs.

There was a pattern of sorts – Molloy’s quest for his mother in Part 1, and the private detective’s quest in Part II – but you needed more clues as to what the book was meant to be about. In “Malone Dies” Beckett says Molloy is boring. If so, why does he bore the reader by writing about him? Are we guilty of not applying ourselves as readers – or is the novel actually empty? Is it a case of the Emperor’s clothes? Nevertheless some of the descriptions of the countryside – perhaps Irish countryside – were brilliant, with a lyric beauty. But you were left with a sense of emptiness and despair, as in the ’Unnameable’: “I can’t go on - I’ll go on”.

The question of the relationship between Part 1 and II intrigued another reader. He found himself wondering if Molloy and Malone were not actually the same character? Indeed at one point Molloy says there are really five Molloys.

Another disliked modernism in the novel – which he felt had been an experimental cul de sac from which contemporary novelists had mercifully retreated – and found that “Molloy” confirmed his prejudices. The novel was at the end point of the process of focussing on the internal world and rejecting traditional realist structures – the process that could be seen beginning in last month’s book “Hunger”. “Molloy” – like “Finnegan’s Wake” – was the reductio ad absurdum of this process, but compared badly even with Joyce and very badly with Proust. You could get away with dispensing with traditional forms if you were good enough in terms of language, image or creating atmosphere – but for him “Molloy” failed on all these counts. There was the odd interesting aphorism, and an intriguing analysis of a father/child relationship in Part 2, but for him Beckett was more successful at drama than the novel.

Another also made an unfavourable comparison with Proust. Proust required a lot of concentration, but was very much more rewarding. You only had so much time to devote to reading, and – if it had not been a Book Group book – “Molloy” would have been left unfinished. It was not sufficiently engaging in terms of writing or of characters.

A striking feature was the degree of anal fixation displayed in the book. Not a page could go by without some reference to an a**e or a bowel movement. We had an enema described in detail, and Malone even lived in Turdy!

Undaunted by this fusillade from the attack, the defence made its case, although recognising that the gap between the two viewpoints was not likely to be crossed by means of discussion.

Beckett portrayed an unusually bleak view of the world. For him life was meaningless, and we diverted ourselves by trying to create systems of meaning, whether through religion, work, sport or any other form of activity. Perhaps you devoted yourself to bringing up children, but they too were destined to die. Beckett exposed the props of life as meaningless, and this was very uncomfortable for his readers. Perhaps this was why he upset people?

But Beckett offset this bleak vision with an unusual degree of humour, and was in the line of great Irish humorists. His humour – through wit, epigram and little vignettes - made him preferable to Joyce (with whom he had worked closely). Indeed – although recognising that humour was a very individual response – Beckett was arguably equalled as a comic prose writer only by Dickens. One example of his humour was the scene when the crippled Molloy found another crippled person he could assault. At one level this was funny, but at another it showed how a person you think of as a victim may harbour the same aggressive impulses as the able-bodied.

His wit also made you pay close attention to the surface of language and its meanings, to words as objects in themselves, in a way that you did not when carried along by the sweep of a great prose stylist, such as Enid Wharton. Beckett was like Proust (and to some extent Henry James) in analysing the present moment in great detail, but for Proust words were used to represent things, while Beckett focussed on the surface of the words themselves. You could not glide across his densely packed prose. It forced you to stop and think what words really meant, to the extent that the flow of the narrative was interrupted. Some of his epigrams were worthy of Wilde. There was humour on every page – but if he did not appeal to your sense of humor, then no doubt it would be an irritating book to read.

It was true that Beckett dwelt heavily on anal matters in the book, but more widely he showed throughout his work disgust for the physical, including the process of birth and indeed any human bodily contact. This perhaps reflected the many physical ailments he had suffered from in real life.

An interesting feature of Beckett’s work was that he made frequent reference to the voice in his head. This phenomenon was common enough amongst writers, but in Beckett’s case it could trouble him considerably. He was a tortured individual, and a lot of the writing was in stream of consciousness mode – it just came gushing out, and the voice kept talking. He did not know where the voice came from, or what to do about it.

It was a fair point that Molloy and Malone might be the same person. In fact Beckett really only had one theme – himself. Molloy’s quest for his mother, and his unfinished business with her, reflected Beckett’s own problematic relationship with his mother. Beckett frequently became bored with the characters he invented, and concentrated on his real interest of himself. He was really always writing in the present tense, and the subject was himself – with the focus on words. This became more apparent as the trilogy progressed, with character, plot and narrative falling away, to leave just a talking head. This was not conventional writing – indeed he was trying to reject all conventionality.

So, in sum, this was the case for the defence – Beckett’s value lay in his bravery in dealing with a difficult subject-matter, combined with his humour.

Another perspective from one who had liked the book – perhaps a perspective from the no-man’s land between the attack and the defence – was that it was best to approach the book with low expectations, and to view it as listening to an Irish raconteur with a characteristic gift for language. The prose read like a speaking voice, and the stories– rambling, illogical, with occasional sub-clauses of great detail – were similar to those one could enjoy hearing an Irish raconteur tell in your local pub. And if you couldn’t find one in your pub, you could dip into “Ulysses” instead.

So had the viewpoints of the attack been changed?

Not really. It wasn’t Beckett’s philosophy that was upsetting – after all, that amounted to little more than saying “life’s a bitch and then you’re dead” – it was the tedium and obscurity of the book. In fact he used obscurity to disguise the lack of depth in his thinking. Other writers had produced works of great bleakness – such as “King Lear” or “Jude the Obscure” – that still inspired, for example through their characters and the relationships between them. Even in “Waiting for Godot” there was something of value asserted in the relationship between the characters. (But that had been written in an unusually light-hearted frame of mind!)

And was it funny for a cripple to attack a cripple – did that not reveal a telling lack of empathy on Beckett’s part? His was a solipsistic world, in which only his ego existed – like the world of an infant.

But here was an unexpected area of agreement. Beckett had been fascinated to hear Jung describing a group of people who were “not really born”. He immediately identified himself with this category of people, and would have happily accepted a charge of infantilism.

And there was general agreement that it had been interesting – if painful for many – to explore this corner of the creative map. And the discussion had been the liveliest since that of Dylan’s “Chronicles Vol 1”!

It was surprising to learn that that Beckett had been a successful sportsman, and that he had worked for the French Resistance. That experience was not reflected directly in his work, but perhaps it was reflected in his pessimism? It was easy for people in the UK or the US – not invaded during the World Wars – to underestimate the psychological impact of invasion.

Although it was not necessarily appropriate to dwell on the biographical background, it was also intriguing that the circumstances of Molloy’s initial meeting with Lousse resembled the circumstances in which Beckett had met his own wife.

And then the discussion rolled randomly on, through the links between the wars, modernism and existentialism, touching on the future of the Belgian state and whether an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU, and on to famous Belgians, such as Tintin – whose adventures might be a rather less contentious candidate for a future discussion of the Group. No doubt M. Beckett would have been highly amused.



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