An Officer and a Spy

An Oficer and a Spy by Robert Harris 

Robert Harris is famous for a number of historical novels, the only one of which I have read is the bestselling Fatherland - a detective story that takes place in an alternate historical setting in which Nazi Germany has won the Second World War. Fatherland is an exciting, well-written novel that I immensely enjoyed reading but I have to say that An Officer and a Spy is even better as it gives Harris the opportunity to fully utilise his amazing ability to create fascinating characters and illustrate complex historical events in an interesting but at the same time informative way. 

An Officer and a Spy is told through the viewpoint of Marie-Georges Picquart, a French officer who is involved with the investigation of the Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artilery officer of the French Army from the region of Alsace who was convicted on charges of treason in 1894. Early on in the novel Harris deploys his ability to use metaphor and crisp prose to create an excellent sense of place, which I believe the following passage clearly demonstrates:

"The police line bulged, tautened and then burst apart, releasing a flood of protesters, who poured across the pavement and spread along the railings. Dreyfus stopped, turned and faced them, raised him arms and said something. But he had his back tomorrow and I couldn't hear his words, only the familiar taunts of "Judas!", "Traitor!" and "Death to the Jew" that were thrown back in his face.
.........
An instant later the order was given for the parade to march past. The stamp of boots seemed to shake the ground. Bugles were blown. Drums beat time. As the band struck up "Sambre-et-Meuse" it started to snow. I felt a great sense of release. I believe we all did. Spontaneously we turned to one another and shook hands. It was as if a healthy body had purged itself of something foul and pestilential, and now life could begin anew." (1)

Picquart is an apt choice for a character through which to tell the story as, just like Dreyfus, he was an exile of the French region of Alsace that was taken over by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, which redefined the balance of power in Europe and caused great suffering to many refugees who were forced to leave their homes and move elsewhere in France:

"I was sixteen when the Germans shelled Strasbourg, thus kindly enabling me to witness at first hand an event that we teach at the Écoles Supérieure de Guerre as 'the first full-scale use of modern artillery specifically to reduce a civilian population.' I watched the city's art gallery and library burn to the ground, saw neighbourhoods blown to pieces, knelt beside friends as they died, helped dig strangers out of the rubble. After nine weeks the garrison surrended. We were offered a choice between staying put and becoming German or giving up everything and moving to France. We arrived in Paris destitute and shorn of all of illusions about the security of our civilised life." (2)

The novel successfully illustrates the horrific impact that the Franco-Prussian War had on the French people. This conflict resulted in the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the fall of Napoleon III and the establishment of the Third French Republic. The establishment of the German Empire, which became the most powerful state in central Europe, led to the development of an almost pathological fear of potential German aggression in France, which was strongly linked to the ease with which the Germans had defeated the French Army, as well as the significant numerical advantage that the new unified German state had over France. This fear was accompannied by French revanchism, rooted in the desire of nationalists to reclaim what Alsace-Lorraine, which they believed was naturally French territory. These circumstances partly explain why the French establishment decided to punish Dreyfus severely by exiling him to the penal colony of Devil's Island and placing him in dreadful living conditions:

"The exchange with Blanche unsettles me very slightly. The tiniest speck of - no, I shall not call it doubt, exactly - let us say curiosity lodges in my mind, and not so much Dreyfus's guilt as his punishment. Why, I ask myself, do we persist in this absurd and expensive rigmarole of imprisonment, which requires four or five guards to be stranded with him in silence on his tiny island? What is our policy? How many ours of bureaucratic time - including mine - are to be tied up in the endless administration, surveillance and censorship his punishment entails?
.....
Gradually over the winter I discern that we do in fact have a policy with regard to Dreyfus, it has simply never been explained to me in so many words, either verbally or on paper. We are waiting for him to die." (3)
 
Picquart is rewarded for his involvement in the Dreyfus case by a promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel and the position of head of the Statistical Section, France's top secret military intelligence department. During his tenure at the department, Picquart comes across evidence that there may be another mole in the French Army and that Dreyfus may not have been guilty of espionage. Yet his attempts to share his suspicions with the other officers involved in the case are fruitless, as the exchange underneath demonstrates:

"'Personally I suspected that brother of his, Mathieu. So did Sandherr, as a matter of fact.'
'But Mathieu wasn't in the army at the time.'
'But Mathieu wasn't in the army at the time. He wasn't even in Paris.'
'No,' replies du Paty with great signifiance, 'but he was in Germany. And he's a Jew.'"(4)

This exchange reveals another important issue in the affair - Dreyfus's ethnicity. It may seem shocking today but in the late 19th century there was a strong current of anti-Semitism in France. In fact, even the novel's narrator, Picquart, is anti-Semitic to some degree but this issue is skirted over as there are only a number of occasions on which this issue is mentioned and it is not explored in-depth.

Harris's novel also seems to make points particularly pertinent to life in the contemporary age of mostly digital communication, which allows almost everything that we send to be traced and recorded. He makes a good point that even just over 100 years, secrecy had already become something difficult to protect:

“There is no such thing as a secret—not really, not in the modern world, not with photography and telegraphy and railways and newspaper presses. The old days of an inner circle of like-minded souls communicating with parchment and quill pens is gone. Sooner or later most things will be revealed. That is what I have been attempting to make Gonse understand.”  (5) 

As Picquart acquires more and more evidence that Dreyfus may not be guilty, he decides to report to his superiors in the hope that they will take action. However, he is given to understand that reopening this issue would have a catastrophic impact on French society and that Dreyfus must be sacrificed for the greater good of the nation:


"Let's face it, dear Picquart: the investigation into Dreyfus was not handled as profesionally as it should have been. Sandherr was a sick man, and du Paty - well, we all know what Armand is like, despite his many fine qualities. But we have to proceed from where we are, and really we can't go back over it all again. It would reopen too many wounds. You've seen the press these past few days, the potential hysteria there is about Dreyfus. It would tear the country apart. We just have to shut it down. You must understand that, surely?'" (6)

Picquart's superiors advise him to drop the entire case and accept the fact that Dreyfus will eventually be forgotten, if no one decides to stir the hornet's nest. This situation is reminiscent of today's world in which scandals about government corruption, gross negligence or great injustice are not infrequent but they often simply fall off the agenda of the day as fatigue sets in and other striking news takes their place:

"He offers me his hand. His grip is dry, hard, calloused. He clamps his other hand around mine, imprisoning it. 'There's nothing easy about power, Georges. One needs the stomach to make hard decisions. But I've seen all this before. Today the press is Dreyfus, Dreyfus, Dreyfus; tomorrow, without some new disclosure, they'll have forgotten all about him, you'll see.'" (7) 

Picquart, however, is a man of honour who is not willing to give up even if all of his superiors are against him. He contemplates taking this matter all the way to the top of the republic's hierarchy but eventually comes to realise that the entire political establishment stands in firm support of the army, which it considers to be the firm foundation on which the nation stands:

"For a few days I consider appealing directly to the President, but then I read his latest speech, delivered in the presence of General Billot - The army is the nation's heart and soul, the mirror in which France perceives the most ideal image of her self-denial and patriotism; the army holds the first place in the thoughts of the government and in the pride of the nation - and I realise that he would never take up arms on behalf of a despised Jew against 'the nation's heart and soul.'" (8) 

Eventually, however, things get out of hand and news is leaked to the press about the particulars of the Dreyfus case. Picquart is hounded by his superiors and he eventually joins forces with some of the most formidable figures of the Republic in the crusade to free Dreyfus:

"There is a moment of silence and then one of the men - bald-headed and with a heavy drooping moustache, whom I recognise as Georges Clemenceau, the left-wing politician and editor of the radical newspaper L'Aurore - starts a round of clapping in which everyone joins. As Louis ushers me into the room, another man, dapper and attractive, calls out cheerfully, 'Bravo Picquart! Vive Picquart!' and I recognise him too, from the surveillance photo that used to cross my desk, as Mathieu Dreyfus. Indeed, as I go round shaking their hands, I find I know all these men by sight or reputation: the publisher Georges Charpentier, whose house this is; the heavily bearded senator for the Seine, Arthur Ranc, the oldest man in the room; Joseph Reinach, a left-wing Jewish member of the Chamber of Deputies; and of course the pudgy figure in pince-nez to whom I am introduced last, Émile Zola." (9)

Although many of you may know how the Dreyfus Affair ends, I nevertheless recommend that you read this novelisation of the case as it offers an exciting story and the opportunity to explore the state of French society at the turn of the 20th century through the viewpoint of an interesting character who makes some very pertinent observations about France, relations between France and Germany, the nature of power and many other matters. Harris has managed to create a plethora of fascinating characters that populate the exciting and, at the same time, frightening world of the Third French Republic and I am confident that anyone, even those with little interest in French history, will enjoy this book. The only minor criticism that I have of the book is that while Harris clearly tells us which historical sources he used in his research, he does not acknowledge any of the liberties that he has taken with the truth. I only realised that Harris had made some significant changes when I read a historical review of the book. However, I suggest that you disregard this issue and allow yourself to be entertained by this magnificent book. After all, if you are interested in the details of the Dreyfus Affair, there are plenty of historical books about it. It's only one of the most notorious cases of injustice in human history.

References
(1) Robert Harris, An Officer and a Spy, London: Arrow Books, 2014, pp. 16-17
(2) Harris, Officer, p. 28
(3) Harris, Officer, pp. 102-03
(4) Harris, Officer, p. 238
(5) Harris, Officer, p. 296
(6) Harris, Officer, p. 307
(7) Harris, Officer, p. 318
(8) Harris, Officer, p. 350
(9) Harris, Officer, p. 452

Image taken from Amazon.co.uk

The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life

The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life by Ryszard Kapuściński 

For those of you who are not familiar with his work, I should mention that the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński was without a doubt one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century. Many of Kapuściński's works have been translated into English and other languages, including The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat, a tale of the decline and fall of Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, The Soccer War, a collection of stories about Kapuściński's experiences in various Third World countries, and Imperium, a collection of memoirs and essays on the Soviet Union. For many years in the second half the 20th century, Kapuściński served as foreign correspondent for the Polish News Agency and covered coups, revolutions, civil wars and other momentous events in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Kapuściński's work received numerous international rewards and he is held in such high regard in his native Poland that in 2010 the Council of the capital of Poland, Warsaw, established the Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage.

The blurb on the back cover of the book that this review is about states that "The Shadow of the Sun has been hailed as the greatest modern work on Africa and as a dazzling literary masterpice." Having read all of this praise about the late Mr. Kapuściński, you might reasonably expect that I will give you a glowing review of his work. If that is the case, you will be very surprised and perhaps dismayed, if you are an admirer of his writing.

The Shadow of the Sun is without a doubt one of the best books that I've ever read as it contains prose of staggering beauty. Kapuściński is a writer who is able to bring the world to life and his descriptions of people, landscape and events such as revolutions are so poetic that very often one has to linger on certain paragraphs in order to fully appreciate them. In this aspect the book is a complete triumph and the comparison made with the Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul is completely justified as one has to wonder whether Kapuściński should have become a writer of fiction instead of reportage as he clearly has the ability to draw great characters and describe events in a unique way.

The book contains many passages of great beauty and perhaps the best thing about Kapuściński's writing is the way he uses numerous metaphors and other stylistic techniques in his descriptions. Here is just one example of Kapuściński's excellent prose:

"And finally, the most important discovery - the people. The locals. How they fit this landscape, this light, these smells. How they are as one with them. How man and environment are bound in an indissoluble, complementary and harmonious whole.
 .....
With their strength, grace, and endurance, the indigenous move about naturally, freely, at a tempo determined by climate and tradition, somewhat languid, unhurried, knowing one never achieve everything in life anyway, and besides, if one did, what would be left over for others?"(1) 

I've left a part of this passage out but I've made sure that it retains the original meaning that the author imbued it with. Kapuściński offers many such beautiful descriptions of Africans and the land that they inhabit. He explains for us in some detail how different African societies are from European ones. For instance, whereas individualism is a typical characteristic of Europe, collectivism trumps individualism in Africa and no one, even the rich, can escape it:

"But this is Africa, and the fortunate nouveau riche cannot forget the old clan tradition, one of whose supreme canons is share everything you have with your kinsmen, with another men of your clan, or, as they as say here, with your cousin. (In Europe, the bond with a cousin is by now rather weak and distant, whereas in Africa a cousin on your mother's side is more important than a husband.) So - if you have two shirts, give him one; if you have a bowl of rice, give him half. Whoever breaks this rule condemns himself to ostracism, to expulsion from the clan, to the horrifying status of outcast. Individualism in highly prized in Europe, and perhaps nowhere more so than in America; in Africa it is synonymous with unhappiness, with being accursed. African tradition is collectivist, for only in a harmonious group could one face the obstacles continually thrown up by nature." (2) 

Kapuściński explains very well how the harsh climate of Africa transforms the natives into people who lack energy and are barely able to make it through each day. I've given just one passage below but there are numerous examples that vividly explain the differences between Europeans and Africans, according to both the writer himself and Europeans who remained in Africa in the years after the European colonialist empires were pushed out of the continent:

"After a day of heat and hunger, one is weak and listless. But a certain stupor, an internal numbness, has its benefits: man could not survive here without it, for otherwise the biological, animal part of his nature would bite to death everything that is still human in him." (3) 

If you are a critical reader like me, you will have realized by now that Kapuściński often paints Africa in broad strokes. Although he gives many examples of his experiences on the continent, and unlike many other European foreign correspondents he actually made an effort to live the same way as Africans and to communicate with the locals wherever he went, Kapuściński makes generalizations about Africans such as the following:
 
"We are here among people who do not contemplate transcendence and the existence of the soul, the meaning of life and the nature of being. We are in a world in which man, crawling on the earth, tries to dig a few grains of wheat out of the mud, just to survive another day." (4)

Reading this you might think that Africa is a continent of people who struggle to survive every day, a continent bereft of intellectuals, writers, poets, artists, academics and all other people who spend a significant amount of their life pondering the meaning of life. Yet Mr. Kapuściński, despite his high intelligence and excellent observation skills, does not seem to realize that he is engaging in exactly the same stereotyping of Africa as the people that he criticizes. In fact, Kapuściński has the gall to state the following:
 
"Europe's image of Africa? Hunger; skeletal children; dry, cracked earth; urban slums; massacres; AIDS; throngs of refugees without a roof over their heads, without clothing, without medicines, water, or bread.
The world, therefore, rushes in with aid.
Today, as in the past, Africa is regarded as an object, as the reflection of some alien star, as the stomping ground of colonizers, merchants, missionaries, ethnographers, large charitable organizations (more than eighty are active in Ethiopia alone).
Meantime, most importantly, it exists for itself alone, within itself, a timeless, sealed, separate continent..." (5)

The last sentence in this passage made me pause as it reminded of the time when former French President Nicholas Sarkozy said a few years ago that "the African man has not yet entered history". One would think that someone such as Mr. Kapuściński who feels great sympathy for the plight of many poor, starving and suffering Africans would realize that despite their plight, they are part of the long history of the African continent. Yet Mr. Kapuściński astounds us even further by making an even more extraordinary statement: 

"History does not exist beyond that which we are able to recount here and now. The kind of history known in Europe as scholarly and objective can never arise here, because the African past has no documents or records, and each generation, listening to the verses being transmitted to it, changed it and continues to change it, modifies and embellishes it. But as a result history, free of the weight of archives, of the constraints of dates and date, achieves here its purest, crystalline form - that of myth.
In these myths, instead of dates and mechanical measures of time - days, months, years - other designations appear, like "long ago", "very long ago", "so long ago that no one remembers." Within these time frames everything can still be placed and arranged in a temporal hierarchy, only that within it time will not evolve in a linear fashion, but will mimic the uniform, circular revolutions of our planet. In this of view of time, the notion of development does not exist; it is replaced by the notion of the abiding. Africa is eternal abiding." (6) 

I find it difficult to decide how to begin my criticism of this passage. To state that Africa does not have any history "beyond that which we are able to recount here and now" is not just false but also incredibly ignorant. Today I spent several hours at SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies) near Russell Square and walking through of the corridors of this great educational institution, I was struck by how much the field of academic studies devoted to Africa has expanded over the years. It is hard to believe that Kapuściński's book, which was published in Polish in 1998 and translated in English in 2001, completely ignores the significant attention that African history and culture has received in recent decades.

Another significant problem with this passage is that it states that the purest form of history of myth. I don't understand how any respected journalist can peddle such nonsense and be praised by writers from The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other venerable institutitons of journalism. Not only does Mr Kapuściński demonstrate his complete ignorance of the importance of the field of history, in the next paragraph he once again affirms the notion that Africa, unlike Europe, does not have any linear history as it exists in a kind of bubble of its own in which it never changes. I am almost tempted to call this statement racist although I do not think that Kapuściński felt anything but sympathy and admiration for the simple way in which many Africans live their lives and I doubt that he felt himself superior to them.

In fact, Kapuściński does criticize the behaviour of Africa's former European colonial masters and their role in the chaotic placing of the borders in this continent whose population consists of a complicated mosaic of many different ethnicities, tribes and religious. Yet the number of times that he makes derogatory general statements about Africans, which goes completely against his claim in his 1-page introduction that Africa is too vast and varied for one to even consider such a place to exist, makes it difficult to appreciate the times when he does make perceptive comments that tell us something true about the great African continent.

Nevertheless, I recommend that you read The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life even just to appreciate the beauty of Kapuściński's writing. However, do not take for granted what he says about Africa and go and read other books about this vast and complex continent, which is still trying to find its place under the sun but will hopefully never again fall under the rule of outside people and will finally be able to extricate itself from the trap of poverty, political instability and violence, which has plagued many, but not all, of its parts ever since the old, colonial European masters left Africa in a shambles several decades ago.

References
(1) Ryszard Kapuściński, The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life, trans. Klara Glowczewska, London: Penguin Books, 2002 p. 5
(2) Kapuściński, Shadow of the Sun, p.36
(3) Kapuściński, Shadow of the Sun, p. 113
(4) Kapuściński, Shadow of the Sun, p. 200
(5) Kapuściński, Shadow of the Sun, p. 228
(6) Kapuściński, Shadow of the Sun, pp. 317-18

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Let Our Fame be Great

Let Our Fame be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus by Oliver Bullough

Although Let Our Fame be Great is Oliver Bullough's first book, it is a masterpiece that clearly demonstrates his historical training and his journalistic background. Bullough tells the story of the people of the Caucasus by successfully combining historical sources and numerous interviews that he carried out during his extensive travel in the region. What stands out most about the book is his ability to emphasize to emphasize with his interviewees and still maintain a suitable distance in order to successfully analyse their perspectives. Bullough's writing is first class and his descriptions of people and places are magnificent. He is able to bring to life every story that he tells, no matter whether he's talking about the Russian Empire in the 18th century or the 1st Chechen war in the late 20th century. The breadth of this book is truly astonishing as it takes the reader on a tour de force of the history of the Caucasus in the last 300 years by looking at the lives of many of the most notable figures of Russian history such as the Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov, various Russian emperors, the Soviet dictator Stalin and the current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. At the same time he also gives us a view into the lives of many ordinary people, thus enriching our perspective of the events presented in the book.

Bullough begins his book with the tragic tale of the Nogai people who accepted Russian rule in August 1783 only to be rewarded with an order to abandon their lands and settle south of the Urals. This resulted in a rebellion in which the leaders who had signed the pact with Russia were executed and thousands of Nogai marched against the Russians. However, these rebels were no match for the Russian armies. This event resulted in the death of many Nogai and the capture of many heads of cattle as well as many women and children. Later in that month, August, more members of the Nogai people rose up to avenge the massacre but they were pursued by the Russians and mercilessly executed.

If you find this kind of story too gruesome, sad or interesting, then you'd better leave this book alone. Although it also contains many moments of mirth, Let Our Fame be Great is primarily a story of the gradual deportation and extermination of the many peoples from the Caucasus region. The book's title comes from a tale about the Narts, the mythical ancestors of all the Caucasus nation:

"Throughout the chronicles, the Narts delight in holding meetings and discussions to decide the correct course of action. But in this tale they do not do so. Without hesitation, they tell the swallow to take their answer back to his master.

'If our lives are to be short, then let our fame be great! Let us not depart from the truth! Let fairness be our path! Let us know not grief! Let us live in freedom!' The swallow took that answer away with him and, so the story goes, 'their fame has remained undying among people.'" (1)

The book is divided into 4 parts and each of them focuses on a different period in the history of the region. The first part focuses on the tragic history of the Circassians who in 1864 were expelled from their lands following their final defeat and, according to Bullough, became victims of perhaps the first genocide of the modern era. Bullough charts the gradual Russian conquest of the Circassians and his description of the expulsion of the Circassians to the lands of the Ottoman Empire in 1864 is heart-breaking. He also makes ample use of interviews with descendants of the Circassians who proudly uphold their legacy today in the former territories of the Ottomans and within Turkey itself.

The second part of the book, called the Mountain Turks, focuses on the fate of several ethnic groups, including the Karachai-Balkar nation, the Kalmyks, as well as the Chechens and the Ingush. The displacement and killing of these people occured during one of the worst periods in the history of Caucasus - the rule of Stalin. In 1943-44 while the battle was raging between the Nazis and the Soviets, these groups suffered a similar fate to that of the Circassians as many of them were killed and the rest were transported in other, distant regions in the vast territory of the USSR.

Although the following quote by Ivan Velyaminov, chief of staff of General Alexei Yermolov, who was charged with continuing the conquest of the Caucasus begun by Suvorov, refers to the strategy that Russia utilised in the first half of the 19th century, I think that it also aptly describes the tragic events that occured in the 20th century as well:

"The Caucasus may be likened to a mighty fortress, marvellously strong by nature, artifically protected by military works, and defended by a numerous garrison. Only thoughtless men would attempt to establish such a stronghold. A wise commander would see the necessity of having recourse to military art; would lay his parallels; advance by sap and mine, and so master the place. The Caucasus, in my opinion, must be treated in the same way, and even if the method of procedure is not drawn up beforehand, so that it may be continually referred to, the very nature of things will compel such action, ' Velyaminov wrote." (2)

The third and fourth sections of Bullough's book examine the conquest of the Chechens and the development of tensions in the region in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, which eventually resulted in the 1st and 2nd Chechen wars. Bullough once again skillfully combines interviews with historical resources to present a compelling tale of the fate of the Chechens who today have become the most common European refugee seekers. He is able to demonstrate the complexity of the Chechen wars and he adds a human dimension to a conflict that could easily be seen as a case of a modern country fighting a war against a group of backward savages that refuse to accept the benefits of its civilization. Although Bullough's account presents the dire circumstances of Chechens today, it also underscores the hardiness of the Chechens and the other inhabitans of the Caucasus. Speaking of a Chechen whose application for a refugee status has been refused, the author describes the situation with the following words:

 

"He was on his way to the clearing in the forest where he would park his car and sleep that night. And after that? He had said he might go to Turkey. Or perhaps he will try his luck in western Europe again. Whatever he chooses - and I never even found out his surname, so I will never know - it will be even further from what he dreamed of us as a boy.

Had he not been a Chechen, I would have called him a broken man." (3)

In short, Bullough's book is an absolute triumph and I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in the Caucasus, the Russian Empire, Eastern Europe or European history in general. The only criticism that I can direct towards him is that he seems willing to forgive the Chechens for their backward, by modern standards, attitude to women but he is less willing to consider the fact that like other people Russian citizens are influenced by the environment that they grow up in and, just as many British and French people are unrepentant about their former colonial empires, the Russians feel no regret about the military successes of their ancestors, despite the cost at which they were achieved. Nevertheless, this is only a small caveat and I heartily vouch for the high quality of this book. I look forward to reading Bullough's second book, which is titled The Last Man in Russia and seeks to examine in greater detail the story of this vast and in so many ways contradictory country.

References

(1) Oliver Bullough, Let Out Fame be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus, London: Penguin Books, 2011, p. 9

(2) Bullough, Let Our Fame be Great, pp. 260-1

(3) Bullough, Let Our Fame be Great, p.  444

Image taken from Amazon.co.uk

Gone Girl

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

"I'd know her head anywhere.
And what's inside it. I think of that, too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?" (1)

It is the morning of the fifth wedding anniversary of Nick Dunne and his wife Amy Eliott Dunne. Nick has just gone to the bar he owns with his twin sister Go when he receives a phone call from one of his neighbours. After hearing that the front door of his house has been left open, Nick goes back home to check up on Amy. On going inside he finds evidence of a struggle and discovers that his wife has disappeared.

This is how Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl, released to much critical and popular acclaim in 2012, begins. Gone Girl has an interesting narrative structure as the story is told from both Nick's point of view as well as that of his missing wife Amy through her diary entries. Nick's story begins on the day of Amy's disappearance while Amy's starts 7 years earlier when the met Nick at a party in New York. This aspect of the novel is very important as it allows us to examine the story through two very different points of view. Utilizing this Flynn is able to create a fascinating deconstruction of the couple's marriage.

The novel gradually reveals more details about the two protagonists. Amy is the only child of two child psychologist turned authors who used her as the inspiration for their popular book series Amazing Amy. She has had a privileged upbringing, having gone to a private school and afterwards to a top university, Harvard. Despite her beautity and brains, however, Amy is unable to find love until Nick chats her up at a party in New York and this is how their romance begins.

Nick was born in a small town in North Carthage, Missouri. He works as a journalist, he's smart, handsome, charming and he manages to sweep Amy off her feet. However, while their life before their wedding is filled with bliss, their relationship starts to become complicated once they get married. We get to see this through both Nick's and Amy's eyes and it is important to note that they are both unrealiable narrators so the novel offers a lot of scope for interpretation of events.

During the financial crisis both Nick and Amy lose their jobs. An increasingly embittered Nick finds out from his twin sister Go that his mother is suffering from cancer. He makes the decision to go back to North Carthage with Amy without consulting her, which complicates relations between the two even further.

The fact that the action takes place in a small town in the US mid-west makes the novel even more complex as it also examines the impact that the financial crisis has had on the town's community. Amy's diary entries also comment on the differences between the way people interact in North Carthage and the huge metropolis of New York.

The novel takes us on a rollercoaster ride as Nick, who is at first unusually calm about the disappeance of his wife, starts to realise that there is something very disturbing about the whole affair. Gradually we get to learn about the breakdown of Nick and Amy's marriage, Nick's troubled Alzheimer-addled father, his cancer-ridden mother Mo, his twin sister Go and his parents-in-law Rand and Marybeth. Flynn's story thrives on this exploration of the different features of these people and she manages to weave a spellbinding tale in which these characters truly come alive. I have rarely read a story in which I have found the whole cast of characters so utterly convincing.

Another great feature of the book is the way it examines how modern media mass has transformed our lives. Once suspicion arises that Nick might have killed his wife, the story spins out of control as the investigation is discussed not only by the local populace but also on television talk shows. Gone Girl also demonstrates how the Internet, which has often been praised for its democratizing aspect, is destroying traditional media and the livelihood of journalists such as Nick.

The novel features several major plot surprises and it keeps the reader on his or her toes as following the timeline requires a lot of attention. The book is multi-layered, it features a cast of many interesting, well-written characters and it offers many insights into marriage, family relationships, the media, police procedures and various other things. I found it incredibly exhilarating to read although I must admit that despite the fact that I enjoyed the ending, I did find it rather difficult to believe. However, I think that each reader has to decide whether they think the novel has a satisfying conclusion and I strongly recommend that you read this book. I now leave you with a particularly interesting quote from the ending of the book.

"I was told love should be unconditional. That's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge? I am supposed to love Nick despite all his shotcomings. And Nick is supposed to love me despite my quirks. But neither of us does. It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous." (2)

References
(1) Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, London: Phoenix, 2013, p. 3
(2) Flynn, Gone Girl, p. 462

The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry

The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris

Before starting my review of this book, I must admit that I've read very little international poetry, with the exception of a few collections of international love poetry in Bulgarian. Those were excellent but it is difficult to compare them with this collection, which covers not just classic European poems of the 20th century but also includes many other poems from around the world. Ilya Kaminsky has done an excellent job in choosing a variety of poems and the book's co-editor, Susan Harris, editorial director of Worlds Without Borders, has been instrumental in dealing with permissions, copyrights and other such issues. Kaminsky notes the scarcity of quality translations of African and Asian poems as well as poems by women and I think that he is to be commended for his attitude. However, despite the difficulties encountered, I think that he and Harris have managed to create an amazingly diverse collection that has something to offer to all lovers of poetry.

The poems are arranged in chronological order from the beginning to the end of the 20th century. The book includes famous authors such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Constantine P. Cavafy, Anna Akhmatove and Paul Celan but also less well-known poets from around the world such as Anna Kamienska, Henrik Nordbrandt and Dunya Mikhail.

The book includes many excellent pieces so it is difficult to choose which ones to share with you. However, one of my absolute favourites from the collection is Yehuda Amichai's A Man in His Life. I'll include just a few lines to give you some sense of the poem:

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have season enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forigve and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

Translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch (1)

Before reading this book my experience of Jewish poetry was limited to Marc Chagall's works, which are very interesting but also, as far as I can recall, peculiarly Jewish so it takes some effort to fully appreciate them. However, Amichai's poem, which is inspired by the Biblical book Ecclesiastes, expresses something that I think we can all relate to it and the imagery that it uses is very potent.

I also very much enjoyed the poems of Adonis, one of the most famous poets writing in Arabic today, whom I had only heard of before. I include here a few lines from his work The Desert: The Diary of Beirut Under Siege, 1982:

My era tells me bluntly:
You do not belong.
I answer bluntly;
I do not belong,
I try to understand you.
Now I am a shadow
Lost in the desert
And shelter in the tent of a skull.

Translated from the Arabic by Abdullah al-Udhari

As I have already mentioned, one of the most remarkable things about this collection is that it introduced me to some amazing but little known poets from all over the world, as well as to works by famous poets that I'd meant to read for a long time. There are many excellent poems in this collection, some of which I found it easier to relate to, in particular the works by East European poets, as I have greater knowledge of the cultures of the authors. However, I also enjoyed works by authors far removed from my own cultural milieu. 

Kaminsky clearly states that what he seeks to do is to expose people to the varied and rich traditions of 20th century poetry. In this respect the collection is an absolute success as it it manages to represent a multiplicity of international voices from different artistic movements - futurism, surrealism, Acmeism, etc. I heartily recommend that you purchase this book so that you can broaden your cultural horizons and experience at least some of the excellent poetry from all over the world that the 20th century has left us as its legacy.

References 
(1) Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris (editors), The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, Ecco: New York, 2010, pp. 283-4
(2) Kaminsky and Harris (editors), Ecco Anthology, p. 315