River of Smoke

Amitav Ghosh, 2011

I finished reading the first volume of the Ibis trilogy surprised at the abrupt ending and eager to find out more about the complex lives of the characters that Ghosh had introduced his readers to. That storyline is so lightly glossed over here that I still want to know more about them; but that’s not how I feel about the characters in this book. The richness of character and setting that I liked so much in Sea of Poppies shifts to a new location with only a few of the original characters remaining. And some of the characters show up briefly at the beginning of the book never to reappear. I guess they are just holding space until they come back in the third volume, although perhaps it too will jump into something new.
  There’s still a lot of period detail, although more than once I felt that Ghosh was piling on details from his research that didn’t contribute much to the novel. There are some interesting items – the life of the traders in Canton before the Opium Wars, for example, and the elaborate gardens of the wealthy Chinese. But these are rather slight compared to the first novel. More serious, however, is the fact that the characters are, to me at least, less interesting and more contrived. Some of them, such as Neel, the Indian prince reduced to pretending to be a Bengali secretary, or Robin, the painter who seems to be there simply to narrate conversations in a voice other than the author’s, were never convincing or sympathetic. Only Bahram, the Indian opium trader who has risen to the elite of the Canton bourgeoisie, is interesting for his own story, and its end is a slow anti-climax.

  What is good here is Ghosh’s detailed depiction of the machinations and rationalizations of the British opium traders when the new Chinese governor moves to block the import and sale of opium. Ghosh reports on historical figures and gives them arguments from period texts. The convenient new philosophy of the invisible hand of free trade justifies a vast drug trade and wealth. Anything in violation of trade is anathema, in spite of criminal laws or the effect of drugs on the populace, in spite of the complete prohibition of similar trade in Britain. It’s interesting to see that a few traders argued against the trade on moral grounds, making their profits in other goods, although their objections are forcefully overruled by the majority. And while the traders demand that the Chinese government stay out of the market, they don’t hesitate to call on the British government to send gunboats to enforce their access to the market.

  The opium trade is the central issue of the book, but it also touches lightly on a variety of other moral issues, from family relationships, true identities and forgeries to the sex trade, all within the larger context of imperialism and commercial exploitation. But what is the convoluted storyline about the golden camellia? The unattainable, perhaps non-existent, mystery of the Orient?

  As in the first volume, the use of language adds an interesting note to the storyline. From nautical slang to the pidgin English that different groups of traders use to converse among each other, the language itself represents the complex relationships between the Indian, Chinese, English and international traders and labourers. The language both unites characters across cultural barriers, and divides them from each other and from a deeper understanding that comes with a shared language and culture. While I enjoyed sometimes stopping to look up unfamiliar words – to find, for example, that the non-Chinese are restricted to living in Fanqui-town, or White-ghost Town – the sense is clear enough that the language doesn’t slow down the narrative.

  So overall, some of the elements that made the first volume so interesting are still here, but I found the first volume much more engaging. I’m not sure I’d be looking for the third volume if this was the only one I had read.

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens, 1859 

I love reading Dickens, but I did not love reading this book. I doubt that it’s in the curriculum any more, but I can understand a blogger who recently wrote that he avoided Dickens for years after being forced to read it. True, it opens and closes on two of the most memorable, and quoted, sentences in English fiction, and it contains some stirring scenes. There’s also a satirical tone in many places, comparing the grandiose pretensions of the English nobility with the imperiousness of the French. The tone initially suggests some of Dickens’ usual humour, but it is far more bitter than usual with Dickens. This turns into the deep pathos of a broken man and his daughter, to be followed by the triumph of love (both familial and romantic), reversal and finally rescue and transcendence. The transcendence is big here.

  But it’s a general humourlessness and shallowness that makes the book hard to read for me. Dombey and Sons, the last Dickens novel I read, was perhaps equally somber in tone, but it had sympathetic characters and psychological depth. In Two Cities, the only sympathetic character is old Dr. Manette, wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for 16 years and psychologically fragile when released. His friend, the banker Mr. Lorry, is surprisingly sympathetic as well, although a side character to the central events of the story. The other lead characters are so thinly drawn that they have no real presence. Lucie Manette is a typical Dickens heroine, devoting her whole life first to her father, then to her husband. Charles has apparently renounced his French title in disgust, but we know little about him beyond his nobility of character and courage. Both are idealized stereotypes that I never felt any connection to, so when they first find happiness, then tragedy, I found myself wishing they’d just get on with it and bring the story to its end.

  Even the minor characters, usually so interesting in Dickens, hold little interest. Jerry Cruncher and his young son seem to be there only to entertain the English working class readers, but they add nothing to the storyline. The French nobles seem to be deliberately drawn as indistinguishable archetypes, while the French revolutionaries are so exaggerated that they are more like scary nineteenth-century cartoons than even Dickens’ usual figures. Dickens, while acknowledging their oppression, portrays the residents of the countryside, and particularly the St Antoine district of Paris, as terrifyingly out of control, insane and diseased. This contrasts starkly with the orderliness of Lorry’s good English business sense, and the common sense of Miss Pross, Lucie’s nursemaid and friend. The French revolutionary mob is a scarecrow, built out of the most frightening elements, but a hollow creation.

  Was this because Dickens’ abhorrence and fear of the French revolutions, writing just 10 years after the wide-spread upheavals of 1848, drove him to choose to demonize everything about it? The novel seems to be as much a propaganda piece against working-class revolution, and in support of British stability, as it is a paean to true love and noble virtue. Unfortunately, this thought makes me suspect many of Dickens’ other popular works. Dickens is known for his depictions of the oppressed and impoverished life of the English working class, and this is reflected here in his many references to the extreme poverty and privation of the French peasants and labourers. But the reaction that he depicts in France is so ignorant and brutal, and unbalanced, that it appears to be a warning to English readers not to do anything rash in trying to overcome the conditions he depicts in England. The novel comes across as profoundly conservative and reactionary, and makes me wonder about his actual political leanings (particularly after becoming a wealthy property owner himself). Perhaps the most charitable reading of the novel is as a warning to the English upper classes to avoid oppressing the working class so much that they have no alternative but revolution. But I think his readers are more likely to be lower or middle than ruling class, so this message, if that’s what it is, is not well directed.

Book of Sands

Karim Alrawi, 2015 

Set in the so-called Arab Spring democratic revolution of Egypt in 2011, this is a rich book, full of allusions, metaphors and varied points of view. It’s also absorbing to read, suspenseful, mysterious, descriptive and peopled with interesting characters. It centres mainly around Tarek, a former political prisoner who is drawn to the social changes, but who, to protect his safety and his family, leaves Cairo for the remote mountain plateau of southwestern Egypt (I think –the geography is deliberately vague). The story also brings in his pregnant wife and her confused religious zealot brother; his somewhat precocious child; a former political partner; and the villagers they met when they lived in a prison camp in the same mountain plateau. With shifting points of view, timeframes and locations, it covers a lot within a very readable narrative, from modern urban Cairo to very traditional village life, with variations on each of these.

  It’s also rich with poetic metaphor that expands the story further. It opens with a plague of birds that infests Cairo, which suggests both a vast range of possibilities and liberties, but includes the raucous noise they make, drowning out theatrical productions, and the bird droppings that get on everything. Tarek is a modern storyteller who, perhaps ironically. makes figures and gives puppet shows for a living. He inspires his daughter with a variety of stories that seem ambiguous but delight her in her interpretation. One central story of the beautiful stone roses formed of salt crystals almost leads to his death when he treks into the desert to find her one. A repeating theme of mathematical certainties becomes a coded love poem when its formulae are given human variables. There is a twisted parallel in this, too, when a rationalizing fundamentalist finds ways to interpret the words of the Koran to justify his personal desires.

  While Karim Alrawi is clearly supportive of the revolutionary direction of the Egyptian crowds against the ruling corrupt dictatorship, he does not suggest that there is an easy transition to a more democratic future. In fact, one of his central metaphors is the babies that refuse to be born until they (or the times) are ready. His Islamic believers all seem to be ignorant or self-serving, but moving forward means fighting against them, too. If there are any Islamic characters who are more sympathetic, they seem to be mystics who don’t actively participate in the movement, although they perhaps give others an element of hope or connectedness to the future.

  This novel provides a complex and intriguing picture of a contemporary culture that is seldom seen beyond headlines. Although the Arab Spring is just a background for the novel, the story illuminates it from several points of view and gives an understanding of many different elements in Egyptian society that are at work. The depth of traditionalism, political conservatism, privilege and religion contrast with the strength of the forces for change. While the novel has a hopeful ending, it’s also possible to see in the forces depicted why the Egyptian revolution has become wrecked.

The Illuminations

Andrew O'Hagan, 2015 

Curiously, this book raises many questions similar to those of the last one I read (Little Bastards in Springtime, also published in 2015, and with a cover image that uses the same form). It deals with the stories that we tell ourselves about war and about living our lives.
  The contemporary war in this story is the British forces in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. (It was the Bosnian civil war in Little Bastards.) It’s complicated by a separate story in which a woman is losing her memories of her husband in the second world war. Both lines of this novel involve a lot of story-telling.
  Luke (a Scot) joined the British Army to follow his father who was killed in Ireland, a bit of complicated story telling in itself. He leads a company into an Afghan skirmish that goes badly. He no longer buys the stories (even the cynical ones the soldiers tell themselves), although he does play along with his mates when he meets them later – perhaps in order not to weaken their own faith.
  Anne’s story is more complicated still. A Canadian photographer who relocated to New York where she trained with Stieglitz, then relocated to England following World War 2, she forms a relationship with a photographer in Blackpool before moving to live in Scotland. She is inspired creatively by him, and has a relationship that leads to a child. Later we find out that the stories he has told her, and that she has told her family and perhaps believes herself, are not entirely true. But by the time of the novel, she is slipping into Alzheimer’s disease, confuses the past and the present, and seems happy to believe the stories that she has been telling everyone. To her, they are the reality, and happier than the life she has led.
  The two stories come together when Luke, Anne’s grandson, takes her to Blackpool, finds out the reality, and concludes that Anne can live the rest of her life happily in her idealized fantasy. He seems to accept that the stories in his own life might be okay too, if they help people cope.
  In spite of the interesting themes, and the polished prose in this novel, it didn’t do much for me. I found it too removed and I never felt drawn to the story or the characters. There is a distant, detached tone, and the story itself is just not very interesting. This may just be an idiosyncratic response, because I know the book is well regarded, and was nominated for a Booker prize. There are many good things about the book – O’Hagen has some poetic, precise descriptive language that is quite evocative. And he has a facility for shifting viewpoints around a scene, sometimes showing how two or three people see it within a single paragraph. His descriptions of Luke’s crew in the heat of Afghanistan, not sure who to trust, not knowing what’s ahead, and the sudden reaction when things go wrong, give what seem to be a very realistic picture of a military crew.
  But all of this, somehow, leaves me unengaged. When I compare it to the reaction I had to Little Bastards, it lacks the emotional response that Jevrem’s story drew out. Possibly young Jevrem is just a more relatable character than the older introspective Luke. And Anne is barely there except as a character that other people relate to, and most of her past seems absent. Perhaps this is the challenge of writing about a character whose past is evaporating.
  Overall, I found this novel unsatisfying, and I found myself eager to get through it.

Little Bastards in Springtime

Katja Rudolph, 2015 

A boy of 11 lives through the siege of Sarajevo as his family and friends die around him. He suffers terrible physical and mental trauma. With his mother, sister and granny, he arrives in Canada five years later as a refugee. The people there (here) are nice but stupid and ineffectual. He gradually takes his own path to recovery.
  There is a lot in this book that is intense and gripping. It’s a visceral exploration of civil war and civil society from the point of view of a youth who cannot escape them, and Katja Rudolph gives the reader a textured sense of the reality. I could see what it’s like living under a siege, with little food and snipers shooting down the streets, as well as the drugged-up life of a deeply alienated kid in suburban Toronto or in jail. It’s pretty scary. Rudolph shows how people make foolish decisions, or get pushed into them, or get dragged along whether they decide or not. Even when motivated by the best intentions, in bad circumstances they make bad choices. Jevrem’s pacifist father feels he has to fight. Jevrem adopts bizarre ways to try to help people whom he thinks need his help.
  In spite of the grim scenes, the book is a positive one. Jevrem’s mother and his sister find their own ways to cope, even if they appear a bit fragile. Jevrem launches himself on a long, complex journey to a better future, which ultimately seems to work out. This gets a bit mythical in the last part of the book, although it still seems to me to be well grounded in reality.
  Rudolph makes a recurring theme of the stories people tell themselves, national and family stories and myths. Jevrem’s granny keeps retelling the stories of her life as a young Yugoslav partisan fighting the Nazis with Tito, and building the country after the war. Jevrem takes inspiration from her heroism and her victories. But her stories of surviving in the forest have parallels to Jevrem’s family starving in Sarajevo, and her building a railway while writing to her separated love sounds a bit like she’s in a forced labour camp. Her stories are idealized, justifying what she went through, although they, perhaps happily, give Jevrem the inspiration he needs to make himself a new life.
  When I first read the novel, I was a bit disappointed in the ending – it seemed a bit too idealized as Jevrem is re-inspired to take a productive new role in his life. But on further thought, I realized that in fact the whole book is told from Jevrem’s point of view, and so is the ending. It is idealized because that’s how he sees it. His ending is a story that he is telling himself and if it keeps him going on a good path, that’s a good thing. If he finds out later that it’s not entirely realistic, perhaps he’ll find another story that will keep him going.

  I liked this book quite a lot. It’s gritty and realistic, but it also raises questions about society, ranging from ideology and war to how we deal with children of war and refugees. One question that it raises for me is, what stories do we as Canadians tell ourselves about our values and our reality? Our national myths about our welcoming society and our supportive social systems have some gaping holes as Jevrem sees them.

Tom Jones

Henry Fielding, 1749 

This was another pleasure to read in that slow, reflective 18^th century style that is filled with humour, character, incident and social observation. The plot is convoluted but easy to follow, and the main story of Tom’s sexual misadventures on the way to virtuous love is never really in question – the only issue is how many diversions he will have to go through before he gets where he should be.

  The characters are satires, mainly of the landed gentry and the titled, although it’s always clear where the lines of power and authority lie (so much clearer than in our contemporary times.) Much of the humour and enjoyment of the novel comes from Fielding’s ironic descriptions of his characters’ motivations and actions, and his observations on the society they live in – apparently hypocritical at all levels.

  Through the satire and his ongoing commentary, Fielding points to the inequality of women in society, while also pointing out that many of the women are more intelligent and well read than the men they are linked to. The strongest storyline aside from Tom’s is the conflict between the strong-minded Sophia and the idiot father she loves, but who wants to command her obedience. It ends only when their two interests finally come together in the union of two large estates.

  Fielding also shows the stark contrast between the wealthy and the common people, although with no suggestion that that inequality might be a problem. Poor people struggle with their lot, and sometimes don’t make it, just like the higher class people who run out of money. But there are both good and venal lower class people as well as upper class ones. In fact, one of the interesting features of the book is that many of the characters have complex morals. They may at times be venal, and at other times generous and loyal. In this way, they are less stereotypes than the characters in many other novels where most characters except for the leading ones are either good or bad, with little shading. One of the few exceptions is the good Squire Allworthy, whose kindness and generosity are exceeded only by his wisdom and honour. He’s a bit godly, and a contrast to the more realistic common characters. The other exception is his evil nephew, whose unscrupulous lies, greed and lack of honour are also unmixed.

  Tom’s early relatively carefree life and his kind nature set him up as a good person with a natural morality, but it seems that that’s not enough. Fielding makes a strong argument for morality in the last parts of the novel, and his favoured morality is Christian. (The Christian clerics, however, don’t come off well – in fact, of the representatives of Christian and “natural” morality, although both are extremes, it’s the natural philosopher who comes off best after his deathbed conversion to real Christianity.) And while it seems that Tom’s natural inclination to enjoy life, including his relationships with women, is at first carefree, it later gets him intro trouble and he has to renounce his free sexuality to enter a relationship with his true love. (Much like Fielding did, the introduction suggests.) Interestingly, however, while Tom is a willing participant in a range of sexual adventures, it seems to be the women who initiate the relationships and get Tom in trouble. So Tom is a sort of innocent, much in contrast to the reality of young men of privilege, I suspect. The story of his parentage, however, shows that women cannot enjoy the same carefree sexuality that he does.
  I’m glad to have read this after Mason & Dixon, because it shows how closely Thomas Pynchon copied an 18^th century style in his writing, with the absurdity, authorial commentary and extraordinary characters. The formal style of Tom Jones is quite different from the informality of Mason & Dixon, but both have a complex plot, complex characters, and long discourses on side topics. But in spite of the rambling stories, it was always a pleasure to come back to both of these novels because their worlds are so rich and full of enjoyment.

The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins, 1860 

I read this as an ebook, in bits and pieces over the course of several months. Probably that does not do it justice, but I suspect that if I’d tried to read it through, I would have got tired of it and quit. It’s written in a leisurely 19^th century style, often stopping to explore and comment on a character’s thoughts and emotions, which greatly slows the pacing. I can imagine it being read aloud in a drawing room after supper, with the family enjoying the different voices, gasping in horror at the villainy of some of the characters and cheering on the plucky heros. This is probably how Wilkie Collins expected it to be read, and it would probably work best as a melodramatic entertainment with a good reader. (Apparently there are 15 versions of this at Audible.com.)
  To enjoy this kind of pacing, I think there has to be more going on than the simple, if mysterious, plotting in this book. But the characters are one-dimensional and the themes are obvious. There’s not really a lot to think about here. In that sense, it’s a bit like a superficial television detective serial. Entertainment, perhaps but mindless and not very engaging.

  What is interesting to see is the moral absoluteness of the heroic characters. The heroes are gentlemen of honour, who would not consider going back on their word, or questioning another gentleman’s honor. Women, to them, are sacrosanct, gentle beings to be elevated and protected. This makes the bad guys particularly villainous when they abuse their wives or deceive others for money. They all speak in restrained, elevated language, making the weakness of the one who loses his temper quite unspeakable. Fortunately for the English readership, the most evil of the bad guys is Italian, explaining his absolute lack of moral character and his odd habits.

  The characters of the few women are also interesting, except perhaps for the central object, one of two women in white. She, the object of the hero’s attention, is helpless, frequently sickly, and doting – the Victorian stereotype of the adored, delicate, angelic female. By contrast, her poor half-sister is energetic, intelligent, resourceful and strong. She does draw the admiration of the males, but only the most villainous of the bad guys is attracted to her, and in spite of her evident love for the hero and his admiration of her, she loses out to the cute one. If this book doesn’t have the outright racism of Collins’ Moonstone, it makes up for it in sexist stereotyping.

  Along with these black and white human values are the social and political values implicit in the text, such as the repeated references to the unimpeachable British systems of justice and democracy (especially when the villainous Italian Count Fosco extols their superiority). The highest values are reserved for the educated upper classes, while the lower classes are described as ignorant and crude.

  These same faults are common in other writers of 19^th century fiction. Dickens drags out exposition, examines his characters thinking, deals in idealized stereotypes – but he does it with greater substance and style. His depth of detail and character – even for exaggerated characters – draws a reader in, and his emotion creates sympathy. This is lacking in Collins. So for me, this is enough of Wilkie Collins – when I want a leisurely 19^th century read, I’ll turn to Dickens, George Eliot or one of their contemporaries.