Sea of Poppies

Amitav Ghosh. 2008 (November 2013) 

  This book is a fascinating story of a diverse group of people, mainly from the Calcutta region, linked in the opium trade of the early 1800s and brought together on a schooner taking them all to Mauritius. Of particular interest for me was the depictions of the lives of each of them and their associates under British rule. The various characters receive a sensitive portrait, including a high-caste peasant woman who depends on the crop of poppies she grows; an Indian aristocrat who loses his lands to the British and ends up in a British jail; a river boatman and the French woman he grew up with; a religious devotee who wants to become, and thinks he is becoming, the female god he adores; and an American seaman of mixed African and American heritage. Ghosh portrays each member of this diversity of class and culture with such care and detail that each has a unique setting and character, and all have depth and solidity. Even the minor characters, such as the British traders who show up from time to time are given detailed portraits, if less sympathetic ones. The fortunes of some rise, while the fortunes of others (the majority it seems) plunge.

  Also fascinating are the evocative images he paints – the opening descriptions of the poppy fields, or the opium factory, or the shipboard life, are clear pictures in my mind and remain with me after reading. The extraordinary incidents of setting the sail on the jib masts, or the monsoon tidal bore that sweeps up the Hooghly River, stand out like the stories that Jack London told of life at sea.

  Ghosh’s language is playful and gives another level of appreciation. He picks up words from a variety of local languages, as well as maritime slang, and if the meaning is not always obvious, the sense of it is. This gives a bit of a sense of the complex ethnic inter-relations in the region and the apparent ability of local residents to communicate effectively, if not perfectly, over language barriers. Puzzling, though, is what looks like a glossary at the back of the book, apparently compiled by one of the characters, in a highly idiosyncratic style with meanings that sometimes seem to be entirely made up. But then, that is the nature of explanatory texts – they reflect the writer’s bias and sometimes mislead. Perhaps, given the history of the region, that’s why it’s such a central preoccupation in the writing.

  More than character or exotic colour, what gives the book depth is the sociological observation – the relations between castes, between the imperial powers and their various underclasses, between genders, between religions. It’s a fascinating tapestry of different themes that gives me a much richer picture of southeast Asian lives than the simple types I had before reading the book. And, I like the way that Ghosh has some characters articulate imperialist rationalizing, although he is completely convincing in the language and attitudes expressed. His characters are not stereotypes in a set game, but complex individuals who hold certain beliefs that were, I believe, well established in their time (and it’s not hard to find reflections of them today).

  The ending is abrupt, but simply sets up the next volume in the trilogy. I look forward to reading the next books to follow the stories that are introduced in this book.

The Invention of Paris: A History in Footsteps

Eric Hazan. 2010 (November 2013) 

  This book is not for everyone, but for those interested in revolutionary history or the way that social forces shape, and are shaped by, urban geography, this is wonderful. Hazan’s rich and detailed knowledge of the history of Paris gives the reader a deep understanding of how a city develops, how each neighbourhood keeps (or doesn’t keep) its unique character and social context. Hazan describes, for example, the impact of diverse factors such as street lighting, the royal promenade, the need for railways to find a level access to the city (I always wondered why the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l'Est were so close), and sales tax policy.

  The book is in three main parts that are not linked to each other except by reference to the same regions. It seems to be a collection of essays by Hazan on different themes relating to Paris. The longest section describes each arrondissment, and the next situates the nineteenth century revolutions in specific parts of Paris. The third reflects on the literary and visual heritage of the city. Each has a different appeal, although I found the first two of greatest interest.

  Especially rich is Hazan’s frequent quotation of the descriptions by social and literary figures of the melieu in which they lived and worked. They add imagery and a sense of the atmosphere (very dark and dirty in most of the city until the twentieth century) that will certainly colour my own appreciation of Paris when I next visit or read about the city.

  This isn’t a tourist guide, although it provides a street-by-street view of many neighbourhoods that would illuminate many walks through the city. Reading it, I found many sections were much easier to follow with Google maps handy, so I could search for the street references. Even better, I could go into Street View, and look at the intersections or lanes that he describes.

  Hazan writes from the perspective of a social revolutionary, so his acidic comments on the bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century or the governments of the most recent decades are strong and entertaining. (He refuses to call the Centre Pompidou by its name, preferring to call it the Centre Beaubourg after the neighbourhood that was flattened to build it.) If you are sympathetic to his point of view, this will add an entertaining quirkiness to his text – otherwise, it will likely come across as opinionated and irritating. Tant pis, as the French say. I spent many pleasurable evenings reading through the book and thinking about the city.

Murder in the Marais

Cara Black. 1998. (October 2013)

Sadly disappointing. I had heard that this was an atmospheric detective novel set in one of my (everyone’s?) favourite cities, and had hopes for it. But it’s an action genre novel with characters of little depth who exist primarily to push the plot from one improbable point to another. It’s set in the Marais, and refers to many sites and buildings that are fond recollections, but they are used as little more than flat background. They don’t add atmosphere, just setting. The neo-Nazi plot could have been intriguing, but again it’s just a plot device in which some bad guys play, and is no more illuminating than the crime scenes in a gangster novel. There’s no emotional involvement in the characters because they are too limited, and even the attempts to give them a back-story don’t go anywhere. The final confrontation is so absurd, with literally a Deus ex machina resolution, that I had to wonder if the author was having a sly chuckle with us about the conventions of the made-for-tv novel. But I think not – it’s more like the hopeful scenario for a series that the author wants to sell to a movie or television production company. Perhaps I was expecting too much – this isn’t Victor Hugo, although it is set in his city (and home) – but I’m not drawn to try her other novels.

Dombey and Son

Charles Dickens. 1846-48. (May – September 2013) 

  Although this is not one of Dickens’ more well-known novels, and it is described as problematic, I found it quite engrossing and rewarding. Certainly, it does not have the lightheartedness of some of Dickens’ other novels, and in the psychological complexity, it reminded me more of Henry James than of Dickens. Chronologically, it comes just before his more mature biographical books, and looks like a step towards those books.

  The story of Paul Dombey junior, who has a sad life and dies early, is sentimental, although Dickens shows his skill in touching the reader in such a simple story. The story of Paul Dombey senior is sadder in his (almost) life-long arrogance, pride and emotional withdrawal. His sentimental turn at the end is undeserved, merely the contrivance needed to make the Victorian readers buy the next issue. 

  The story of Mrs. Dombey, although heavily contrived as well, is the set-up needed to explore the relationship between Dombey and those around him. She is excluded from power by the social mores of the time, and escapes only be running away with her cousin, but the psychological fight between her and her husband is epic. It makes the pain, fury and frustration of her situation clear, and could stand as an early look at women’s property and marital rights, much like the Galsworthy saga did much later.

  The story of Florence, Dombey’s daughter, is the emotional centre of the story, although a highly idealized one, weakened for a modern audience by her flawless purity and self-sacrifice. In spite of that, a reader has to sympathize with her as a lonely, motherless child who wants only to get some recognition from her father but who is completely ignored by him. When she is used as a tool to poison and manipulate the life of her step-mother, you have to feel for her emotional anguish, and feel relief when she is finally able to leave the family home and find a blissful life with her true love.

  The minor characters, as in the best of Dickens, are droll and entertaining caricatures. Their sub-plots are not very credible, but they lighten a tone that would otherwise be very somber, and they also give a social context in which the psychological drama of the main characters has to be understood.

  This was a long slow read, but I enjoyed coming back to it and felt some sadness as it came to its final end.

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005 (August 2013)

  This book was both touching and puzzling. I read it knowing the basic premise, having read the reviews and seen the movie. And yet I found several times in reading it a wave of shock and sorrow in realizing that I was reading the intimate lives of people who are being raised to be harvested for the benefit of a more privileged group. Though drawn in very accepting and low-key way, the picture described is an imagined holocaust, just more humane and genteel than the historical holocaust. I think it gets this power from the writing, which lets the reader into the minds of a sympathetic group of people with very ordinary cares and personal troubles, so that the theoretical knowledge of the storyline suddenly becomes something that affects realistic characters.

  And yet, there seems to be a major flaw in the story, in that these characters know their fate but do nothing about it. In fact, they help in it, with the population acting as Carers for the Donors, before becoming Donors themselves. Having just seen the film, Hannah Arendt, which touches on the complicity of Jewish community leaders in facilitating the Holocaust, I wonder if Ishiguro is drawing a parallel – except that there was more resistance among the ordinary Jewish population than there is among these characters. There is nothing explicit in the text making a parallel to the Holocaust, so perhaps this is a parallel in my own mind, though it brings up thoughts of Joseph Mengele and his inhuman experiments on camp inmates.

  The story is told entirely in the voice of Kathy, a sympathetic Carer reflecting on her relationships as a child and a young adult. As one of the chosen donors, she has a limited view of the situation so the reader is left to infer the reality from her descriptions – for example, the shoddy standards at the supposed elite school that she attended. (In this perspective and the long rides across the English countryside, the narrative is similar to The Remains of The Day, another novel reflecting on self-deception and fascism.) And yet, the students she encounters from other schools seem no different from her schoolmates, in spite of the intellectual training in the classics and the arts that Hailsham students are given in order see if they have, or perhaps can develop, a soul. Clearly they seem to have one, even Tommy who resists the humanities training and the students from other schools. But they are entirely passive, and that cannot be a matter of their training and their understanding of their sacrifice.

  Interesting also is the character of Madame and Miss Emily – good liberals who want to make life better for the students, but give up when they encounter obstacles and watch, with anger and bitterness, at an outcome they know is wrong. But they don’t act. Everyone is passive (possibly excepting Miss Lucy, who seems to be driven out of Hailsham when she resists a little.

  A central theme in the story is memory – Kathy frequently questions her memories or those of others, as she reconstructs her story so that it makes sense to her. Ironically, this too recalls the Holocaust memorial and the slogan Never Forget. Kathy doesn’t forget, but she does seem to interpret her memories in the most comforting way.

  Some reviewers have said this novel is about caring for others in a hopeless situation, as the Carers do, or about living with hope for a better future. Although there are oddities in the narration, this is a complex book that raises a variety of serious questions for meditation.

Possession: A Romance

A.S. Byatt 1990 (April 2013)

  This is a complex book, with many things to comment on. In parts, it is a modern romance about contemporary (post-modern) people who don’t believe in love, but nevertheless grow into a close personal connection, with elements of possession. In others, it is a romantic passion between kindred spirits, drawn together by their feelings but forced apart by social and personal demands of the nineteenth-century middle class. This is particularly interesting when it is expressed in lengthy poems, letters and journals.
  At another level, it examines different kinds of academic and literary possession, with various researchers and their obsessions for understanding, reputation, completeness and personal satisfaction. And at another level, it’s a literary tour de force, looking at the joys of literature, reading and losing yourself in the creation and re-creation of literature. Byatt manages all of these in a convincing way, combining different forms of writing that give a different perspective on and relationship to each character – some creative, some academic, some poetic, some imaginative.
  While slow-moving in parts, there’s so much to enjoy, including even comedic and satiric bits, that its 600 pages don’t become tiresome. By the end, when it turns into a melodramatic chase story, it zips along with a what-next spirit and revelations in the salon. A post-modern work about post-modern theorists, it even manages to poke questions at post-modernism when its central figures (they are hardly heroes) fall in love while rejecting the notion of romantic love.
  I enjoyed this a lot, even though had I read a description of the book I might have thought it would be too literary. So, much respect to Byatt for tackling a forbidding prospect and making it a pleasure.

Budapest Noir

Vilmos Kondor 2008

(translated from the Hungarian, Paul Olchváry, 2012) (February 2013)

An interesting book in a noir-ish style and an exotic setting, but with some contemporary feeling added. The plot concerns a young middle-class Jewish woman, who turns up dead on the street, and an American-Hungarian reporter who tracks down the nasty family and social circumstances around her death. Although not personally involved in her story, he feels compelled to follow it up and to an extent take a kind of vengeance, both for her and his troubles. There is a range strong female characters with agency, though neither the female nor the male characters are particularly attractive, and the male reporter is the centre of the story. It builds slowly to some rather sharp violence, which is probably in keeping with the style and theme of the story, and the setting of pre-Nazi Hungary. The political scene is a backdrop, and well integrated into the storyline, but not central to the plot. Although very gritty, it does give a memorable picture of the life of the middle and lower classes in a middle-European city in the 1930s.

Wolf Hall

Hillary Mantel, 2009 (January 2013)

Like some, I resisted this a bit at first but became drawn in and look forward to reading more of Mantel. The present tense and sometimes ambiguous second person require a little focus from the reader, but the layered, textured prose rewards attentive reading. This is not history, although it is historical. Mantel's interest is not in telling a story about the 1500s, but in illuminating, perhaps commenting on, themes that are very contemporary. Science, finance and religion, the role of the state, the personal in the political, even urban development are current topics, but Mantel shows that they have a long history and context. Looking at Cromwell as one of the first modern men at a time when European society was breaking out of medievalism is a fascinating take on the differences between our society and its roots. His rationalism and political manipulation, though unpopular, are the unquestioned basis of the modern society. Equally interesting to see Thomas More portrayed as a religious fanatic, and compare that to the modern image of him as a principled moralist standing up against tyranny. As we know, they are not so far apart. I liked the details of daily life in London in 1530, which set the scene but don't become laboured. My principal criticism is that it makes Cromwell into a kind of superman who can do everything. Perhaps in his time he was - perhaps that's what stands between modern and medieval.