Richard Morgan - Woken Furies

I have to admit that I really like Richard Morgan's SF. This admission is important, because what I am about to say may sound like I hate it.

Apart from the fact that one of his central thesis' seems to me to be so implausible, that no technology of the future can ever make it happen - that a human's consiousness and memories can be stored electronically for retrieval at a latter date - I really like the gritty, dirty, realism of Morgan's futures.

Ok, so the best SF of recent years has shied away from glorious future utopian worlds where robots serve your every whim, and men are men and women beautiful. Morgon does the exact opposite. The future is filled with war, revolution, bloodshed and violence, though his men are still men and the women beautiful.

But his stories. Well, there I have a problem. I just can't seem to follow the plot. It all fairly races along, you meet characters, like them, dislike them, then they are killed and the plot twists and turns like a worm in soapy water. Christ knows what's happening, but it all seems quite fun. Anyhow there it is. I'm sure it's a great SF if you can work out what is going on. But it's riveting none the less.

H. G. Wells - The History of Mr. Polly

When Leon Trotsky described the people who made up the mass backbone of the Fascist movements of Europe in the 1930s, he wrote:

"On the scales of election statistics, one thousand Fascist votes weigh as much as a thousand Communist votes. But on the scales of the revolutionary struggle, a thousand workers in one big factory represent a force a hundred times greater than a thousand petty officials, clerks, their wives and their mothers-in-law. The great bulk of the Fascists consists of human dust."

This "human dust", these clerks and petty officials etc, by and large came from the mass of the middle classes, desenfranchised and ruined by the economic collapse of the early 1930s. The Middle Class, Trotsky went on to argue spends much of it's time economically on the edge. Small changes in the economy can ruin them easily. The very nature of their employment and livelihoods mean they have little collective means to organise - often (as shown in this novel), the small business men and shopkeepers have nothing but contempt for their fellows.

H.G. Wells' novel doesn't deal with the rise of Fascism. Nor even does it deal with economic collapse. Instead, his book about the life of Mr. Polly, is about how empty life can be. How hard you have to work to make a living, and how little satisfaction you gain from it. How difficult it is to break out of your existence, or change the it's direction. How huge and powerful the forces ranged against little you are.

Mr. Polly, eventually does find a way out. He runs away into the idylic English countryside and finds the life he craved. I don't know if Wells' really that men like Mr. Polly were the reality, or that such succesful "escapism" was a route out of alienation or poverty for the majority of people, certainly it seems a perculiarly "English" notion of redemption.

The History of Mr. Polly, was written in 1910. It predates World War One and the rise of Fascism, and World War II. But you can't help but feel that Mr. Polly was really lucky. A few years later, he might well have found himself in the midst of a far bigger malestrom.

Poppy Z. Brite - Swamp Foetus

Some things are best left in the past. When I first read Poppy Z Brite, her books captured that strange fixation of the late 80s and early 90s with vampires, ghosts and the gothic horror, mixed with the emerging internet age. Very exciting. She also wrote about gay sex and a generation of goths probably thought she should be made queen or something.

Two of her novels are absolute gems. Drawing Blood and Lost Souls are by turns erotic, scary and exciting. Swap Foetus is more of the same in short story format, with consequently less character development and less plot.

Most of the stories are readable. Some are violent. Many try to have a twist at the end, but to be honest only the most naive of readers won't see what's coming. So I have to express my disappointment - after reading the two aforementioned novels years back, I pounced on this with glee upon seeing it in a second hand book shelf. I would have preferred to have kept the pleasant memories of her previous novels intact by not reading this.

Robert Graves – Claudius the God

This, the sequel to the magnificent “I Claudius” deserves to be reviewed differently to it’s predecessor. While there is little doubt in my mind that the first is a better novel, this book deals with much bigger issues and given the limits the author found imposed by history and his sources, it does so very well.

Claudius, history tells us, became Emperor of Rome after the justifiable murder of Caligula, and this book explores the realities of that reign through the eyes of Claudius himself. Here is the first contradiction – Claudius (as many emperors before him) is a committed Republican, longing for a return to the golden age of the Roman Republic, but constrained by existing circumstances. His initial plan to refuse the throne, is quickly blocked by reality, as he realises this would result in his own death and civil war for the empire. For British readers, Claudius is also important as the emperor who finally subdued the rebellious people of Britain.

Claudius spends the next 14 years of his reign trying to solve this contradiction – that the absolute power granted in the hands of a monarch cannot be resolved with his belief in democracy and republicanism. Granted, he attempts to be a “good” emperor. He repairs and rebuilds the damage wrought by years of misrule, but he cannot escape the fact that his total power enables him to right personal wrongs and deal his own brand of justice.

Ultimately you feel that Claudius becomes what he despises. An Emperor more concerned with spectacle, rather than honest rule. In that he is nothing more than a victim of his circumstance. Indeed the last months of his rule are marked by the fact that he really doesn’t rule anymore – letting others, freedmen and his fourth wife govern in his name. At the end, you feel that the sympathy you felt for the somewhat unlikely commentator on history from the first book is overshadowed by what he has become. In trying to select his son as his heir rather than the brash individual that became Emperor Nero, Claudius says it rather well

“I knew that Nero is fated to rule as my successor, carrying on the cursed business of monarchy, fated to Plague Rome and earn everlasting hatred, to be the last of the mad Caesars. Yes we are all mad, we Emperors. We begin sanely like Augustus and Tiberius and even Caligula ..... And monarchy turns our wits.”

Claudius (and we must presume Robert Graves) is using the old argument that power corrupts. Since the Roman Republic was never restored, even though many continued to proclaim its importance and necessity, it’s hard to argue anything different. Once again a fantastic novel and a great introduction to a confusing but important period of Roman history.

Related Reviews

Graves - I Claudius

Miroslav Verner - The Pyramids - Their Archaeology and History

For thousands of years people have travelled to Egypt to see the pyramids. Even when first built they must have attracted visitors from far and wide. These gigantic monuments that were thousands of years old when the ancient Greeks and Romans went to Egypt still have an unbelievable power to impress.

It seems that there is no end to the interest that the Pyramids, and ancient Egyptian society can generate - is there ever a day when the History channel doesn't have a programme about their mysteries? How many DVDs, books and films have been made?

Miroslav Verner is at the cutting edge of archaeological research into the Pyramids. For many years he has headed up the Czech research team at Abu Sir, a pyramid site 30 or so kilometres south of Cairo. His book is an attempt to bring together everything that we know about these monuments and the society that built them.

This is a massive task and credit should be due to Verner for making it so readable. Given the limited knowledge we can have about a civilisation that existed 5000 years ago, Verner lets us know precisely what is known, and were there is doubt, he explains the theories and ideas that exist.


While nothing can prepare anyone for the first time they see the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, or the Great Pyramid rising above Cairo's outskirts, Verner certainly creates an exciting read though - even when describing an empty tomb, you can smell the musty air! If there is one criticism of this book, there is too much detail about the number of rooms and corridors in some of the monuments - but this isn't a book aimed at the amateur - this is a text book and that needs to be taken into account by the reader. Saying that, Verner isn't above the odd bit of humour - like when he points out that while previous archaeologists used dynamite and slave labour to enter the tombs, this isn't standard practise these days.

It is unfortunate that Verner has to spend the last chapter of this work dismissing the lunatic ideas and theories that abound about the pyramids - but he does it with the same care and humour that he uses when telling us about burial procedures and discussing the methods that Egyptian builders may have used.

If you ever go to Egypt, take this book with you. There's nothing quite like seeing the Pyramids, except perhaps knowing exactly what you are looking at and there aren't many books that will make you feel as knowledgeable about the pyramids as this one.

Related Reviews

Romer - History of Ancient Egypt vol. 1
Romer - History of Ancient Egypt vol. 2

Dieter Kurth - The Temple of Edfu - A guide by an Ancient Egyptian Priest

The huge ancient Egyptian temple at Edfu in southern Egypt must be one of the best-preserved places of the many impressive buildings that have survived from that ancient civilisation. The temple is dedicated to the god Horus, and took many decades to build.

One of the unique aspects to the building is a long inscription, over 300 metres of hieroglyphics, around the wall of the temple. This inscription, made by an anonymous Egyptian priest are of great importance because they describe the building in great detail. It’s dimensions, it’s shape and layout, the purpose of the rooms.

The text’s language is strange to read, mingling references to kings and gods in an almost poetic way, which requires a detailed understanding of ancient Egyptian beliefs and history to get more than a rudimentary enjoyment and knowledge from it.

But this in itself is fascinating – the way clearly the Egyptians believed that there was a duality between rulers on Earth, and the Gods themselves. Dieter Kurth has done amateur Egyptologists a favour by bringing this fascinating text together with maps and a history of the temple. Kurth’s introduction to the history of Edfu’s exploration by later archaeologists and the role of religion in ancient Egyptian society is also very useful. He also documents and builds on previous attempts to understand the inscriptions.

For anyone trying to get a glimpse into life 2000 years ago, towards the end of the Egyptian civilisations domination of North Africa, this book will give you a start.

But the last word should surely go to that unknown priest who wrote the words for the side of the building that speak down the centuries to us about a monument to a different world.

They [the Gods] protect their beloved son (the king) because of his monument [Edfu] and they allow his image to endure on earth, the image of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt…whose Ka is granted power and strength on the Throne of Horus, at the head of the living, forever.

Related Reviews

Romer - A History of Ancient Egypt vol. 1
Romer - A History of Ancient Egypt vol. 2

Robert Charles Wilson - Darwinia

This 1999 science fiction novel looks at the ideas of alternate realities / universes with a somewhat different approach. Things start out promisingly, albeit with a somewhat unbelievable core idea.

This idea - that Europe vanishes overnight in 1912, being replaced by a continent identical in geography, but with a different natural evolution - has many plot holes. Some of them so big you can drive a very large bus through them. But leaving this aside, we get a promising start to the book.

Obviously Britain has vanished - on the eve of the First World War, still the greatest imperial nation, and one controlling large swaithes of the globe. With it's capital gone, parts of the empire (Egypt is mentioned) gain rapid independece, while the remnants of the British Ruling Class - lead by Lord Kitchener, from Canada, attempt to hang on to India, and the more important bits.

Britain's navy is intact, and this leads to the most exciting ideas in the book - that the vast, untapped natural resources of this new, primerial Europe, are up for grabs - and the US wants to get them. Sparking conflict between the two powers.

So the book centres on an expedition into the new/old continent. At this point, the novel falls apart. Rapidly. We get some sort of alternate-reality, future civilisation, mumbo-jumbo. Different forces at the end of the galaxy are mentioned, who seem to be using the Earth as both a store of the accumulated information over the previous eons and a battlefield. Or something.

Frankly, it's easy not to care. So I didn't. I finished it out of duty, in the hope that something interesting might happen. But when some of the main characters (I say characters, but most of them are little more than names) started to mutate into lizard like creatures with multiple arms, I found that the only reason left to finish the book, was so that I could be horrible about it in this review.

Robert Graves - I, Claudius

The 40 year rule by Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, which ended in AD14, was followed by decades of the most infamous periods of Roman history.

Robert Graves’ famous novel, “I, Claudius” views the temporary decline of Roman society, through the eyes of future emperor, Claudius.

Claudius - lame, stammering and bookish, is somewhat of a Roman “Flashman”, present at some of the major events of Roman history two thousands years ago, meeting famous writers, statesmen and soldiers, and being intimately connected through extensive family connections with the lives and loves of those around him. Though historians know that unlike the Flashman character, Claudius was actually there.

This then is a stylish read of treachery, murder, sex, incest, violence and madness. And if my all to limited knowledge of that period of history is correct, Graves has stuck pretty close to the known facts, and where he’s embellished and added things, it’s done in a way that is entirely plausible.

First published in 1934, it’s inevitable though, that later historians will dispute some ideas that where taken for granted when this novel was first written. The Emperor before Claudius, was Caligula who in popular belief was mad, murderous and extremely violent, but some later historians believe that he possibly wasn’t as insane as made out. Graves’ book may well have helped emphasise a one sided view of Caligula’s rein – a view totally distorted by the later film of his life.

However, as long as you don’t base an academic paper on the detail in this novel – the Penguin edition I have certainly makes it look like another of their series of reprints of early Roman writings – there is much to recommend this exciting read. Not least of which is the portrayal you get of everyday Roman life, the food, the slaves, the attitudes to lower and upper classes and the religion.

Related Reviews

Graves - Claudius The God

John Rose - The Myths of Zionism

The most recent demonstration in London, against the ongoing occupation of Iraq once again showed that most of those who oppose the US and UK adventures in the Middle East also oppose the persecution of the Palestinian people by the Israeli State.

The huge anti-war demonstrations follow a tradition in this respect, because the great European anti-capitalist protests, in Prague and Genoa, closely followed by the European Social Forum events, also had numerous Palestinian flags, banners and badges.

John Rose’s book is a fantastic introduction to the arguments and historical basis for the existence of the Israeli state, and the consequent oppression of the Palestinians. Israel’s existence is down to the ideology of Zionism – the belief that there should be a Jewish state which would mean an end to the centuries of anti-Semitism and oppression that Jewish people have faced. The appalling genocide of the holocaust was for many, the final impetus for the creation of such a state.

Unfortunately, many of the assumptions and arguments in favour of Zionism are, as John Rose points out, based on half-truths and myths. The biggest lie, that Israel was a “Land without people, for a people without land”. This myth has been returned to, time and time again. Rose quotes, Israeli Prime Minister Peres in 1986,

”The land to which they came, while indeed the Holy Land was desolate and uninviting; a land that had been laid waste, thirsty for water, filled with swamps and malaria, lacking in natural resources. And in the land itself there lived another people; a people who neglected the land, but who lived on it. Indeed the return to Zion was accompanied by ceaseless violent clashes with the small Arab population”

While Peres at least acknowledges the existence of the Arab population, “small” is not the correct description of a people numbering at least 650,000. His description of their “neglect” of the land shows a level of racism towards a people who had successfully farmed and lived on the land for centuries.

The author is careful not to simply blame the Zionists for the current situation – he also points his finger at western imperialism and colonialism for its role. Notorious anti-Semites like Winston Churchill were quite happy to sponsor the aims of Zionism so that they could create a “Watch Dog” country, to support British (and later US) aims in the Middle East.

Rose’s book also looks at much historical and archaeological data to back his argument for a very different historical Israel, one far from the biblical myths that Zionism often uses to justify Israel’s existence. He documents how increasingly Israel archaeologists are finding it hard to “discover” the land they expect to find. But he also shows how historically, Jews and Arabs have lived together, often using the very differences of their religions to strengthen their mutual society.

Rose ends on an optimistic, if controversial point. His optimism, is that precisely because Jews and Arabs have lived together across the Middle East in the past (and the not to distant past) they could do so in the future. His controversy comes because he argues convincingly, that for this to happen Zionism as an ideology must be discredited and removed, just as apartheid was dismantled in South Africa.

If I can make one small criticism of this book, it’s simply to do with the design. Two things are very annoying – the references Rose cites are placed within the text, making reading difficult and the sub-chapter headings are often comical in their content, reading like stilted introductions to a GCSE essay.

But these are minor criticisms in a book that will no doubt be a source of impassioned debate and argument for many years.

Gordon Childe - What happened in history

First published in 1942, Gordon Childe’s classic work “What happened in history” is an attempt to explain to the ordinary, non-academic person a history of the world. Concentrating on early history, Childe looks at how the ancient economies, their development and growth (as well as their decline) allowed civilisations to develop, flourish and in some cases, disappear.

Childe starts his work by looking at the study of history, but quickly moves on to how societies move from small bands of people, to forming small communities and then the development of a class based economy.

Alongside all this, he charts how the development of rudimentary science, tool making and the associated trade created the basis for a bigger society.

It would take a far better review (and reviewer) to do this book justice. I suspect that some of what Childe writes has now been dated by later archaeological evidence or new insights from more contemporary scientists and historians. What makes Childes work almost unique is that he was applying a basic understanding of Marx’s theories of economics to the development of human society.

Marx based his understanding on all of human history on one simple fact – that people must eat, drink and have shelter before they can do anything else. The way that people in different societies have got those basics (whether through individual farms, small collectives, slaves or modern factories) he called the “forces of production”. By looking at these forces, and how they combined with different political and ideological systems, Marx and Marxists believe that you can understand the driving forces behind every stage of human society. Of course this is a gross simplification. Deliberately so. But I wanted to point it out, because it’s at this point that I think Childe’s work is both brilliant and slightly flawed.

Childe can be contrasted with those historians, whose work concentrates entirely on kings and queens, and other “great” men and women. His understanding of how societies like that of Ancient Greece or Rome can grow, and then collapse is based on an understanding of the basic contradictions in their economies.

Marx explained how the developing forces of production – which can be crudely explained by things like invention of new tools or machines, or new ways of organising production, (factories over cottage industries say) – eventually clash with the existing methods and a ruling class wedded to the old methods. At this point society can either move forward, or fall back.

Childe for instance draws our attention to how both Greek and Roman societies had developed machines such as water pumps that could do the work of many slaves, but to get rid of slaves and replace them with machinery would start to undermine to basis of the whole economy.

Further he points out that “the institution [slavery] continued to obstruct the progress of science by making labour-saving machinery un-profitable and contributed to the impoverishment of all producer by keeping down the purchasing power of the internal market”

This could only continue for so long, before things start to collapse inwards, and the Roman empire gradually declined over decades, while successive leaders attempting to debase the currency or stimulate the economy by public building but couldn’t save the once mighty empire.

This brings me to my only problem with the work. Childe argues right at the end of his work that “Progress is real if discontinuous. The upward curve resolves itself into a series of troughs and crests. But in those domains that archaeology as well as written history can survey, no trough ever declines to the low level of the preceding one, each crest out-tops its last precursor”.

He backs this up by pointing out how after the collapse of the Roman empire, Europeans didn’t return to living in mud huts and much of the knowledge of the ancients remained alive, if in the minds of a few individuals and sacred libraries.

But Childe ignores the fact that there are many examples of societies that did expand and then contract, leaving their grand children to scrabble in the mud while looking at monuments of their forefathers former glory – the civilisation on Easter Island springs to mind.

This aside, this is a readable, if dated introduction to early history whose approach has much to teach us today. The work must have been an introduction to archaeology and history that has inspired generations since, and the errors that do occur can only be built upon to further our understanding of the past to illuminate the future.

Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler's Wife

Everyone is either talking about this novel, or about to start talking about it, and that is neither a bad thing, nor a surprising thing. When I first heard a description of the plot - probably a review in the Guardian on a bus somewhere - I knew that I had to read it. After all, I was brought up on time travel books, and I think that there are few better ways to examine the contradictions of history.

I wasn't disappointed either. For a novel that is essentially a love story (man has genetic disease that results in regular travel back and forth in time, time travel mostly takes him to the environs of future-wife as a girl or old lady, man deals with this) it does it surprisingly well.

Unfortunately, the reason most people read time-travel novels is that you get major contradictions that the author has to try and sort out. For instance, Isaac Asimov did a whole number of stories all the lines of hunters going back in time to kill dinosaurs, who then return to find the world has changed in major ways. There is another classic genre along the lines of the go back in time and kil (a) Hitler (b) Your grandfather (c) Yourself.

Nieffenegger cops out of this philosophical debate distinguishes herself by basically saying that none of this can happen. For the traveller to have gone back in time, he must have existed, thus he can't be killed in the past, or change history, etc etc etc

But as a love story with a extremely new, interesting and bold idea the novel hangs together very well indeed.

However there are some criticisms (not least the bad spelling of traveller). A book about time-travel that fails to mention anything about current/past events, politics, newspaper headlines or fashions with the exception of a rather interesting taste in music, is one thing. A novel that ignores all these things, but only mentions 9/11, says more about the US psyche than any number of mori polls could.

Additionally the book is thoroughly Middle Class. It's filled with middle class angst about relationships, babies and art. It reeks of middle class feelings of unworthiness and frustrations. It cries out for someone to be evil, rude or angry.

Nevertheless, it's a great book. But I bet there are book clubs the length and breadth of Britain arguing over it. Over a nice Bordeaux.

Alastair Reynolds – Redemption Ark

This is science fiction on a grand scale. When I say grand, I mean big. Everything about this novel is big. Firstly it’s 646 pages long. Secondly everything it discusses happens on a huge scale. From the time periods, caused by space's immense distances, to the gigantic “Doomsday” weapons that the various factions in the novel are racing to capture, across immense interstellar space, in gigantic spaceships. I think you get the picture.


In addition humanity is threatened by the rise of the inhibitors – beings with enough power, technology and energy to destroy suns and take planets apart, piece by piece. You can’t imagine a grander enemy.

If you haven’t read some of Reynolds earlier works you might suffer as he brings many strands of earlier stories together in this novel. If you have, you’ll find many of your questions answered – just why the inhibitors do what they do – destroying newly emergent intelligence in the galaxy – in particular.

Alastair Reynolds, in addition to being a bloody good SF writer, is also a trained physicist, and in his case this doesn’t just mean a university degree. It means he worked for ESA and he knows about space and stuff. Which doesn’t of course stop him playing around with faster than light drives and other wonderful future technology. It does however mean, that sometimes the detail is a little bit too technical. I’ve got a degree in physics and a healthy interest in mathematics and astronomy, but even my eyes glazed over some of the more detailed descriptions of stellar collapse and the problems with changing directions at velocities approaching the speed of light.

For Reynolds, space isn’t something that’s pure, nice and clean. People dies horrible deaths, space ships rust and breakdown. Computers get viruses. This isn’t a sanitised Star Wars story, rather this almost feels real, or at least imaginable. Sometimes however, you feel that Reynolds is trying a little too hard to write space opera:

He thought of the cruel balance of things: equating vistas of cosmic strife – millennia-long battles thrumming across the face of the galaxy – against infinitely grander vistas of cosmic silence.

But by and large this novel is well worth the time and effort, though if you’ve read none of Reynolds earlier work, I would recommend starting with his earlier novels, or his collection of two short stories Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days.

Related Reviews

Reynolds - House of Suns
Reynolds - Galactic North
Reynolds - Century Rain
Alastair Reynolds - Revenger
Reynolds - Blue Remembered Earth
Reynolds - The Prefect
Reynolds - Pushing Ice

Tom Holland - Rubicon - The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was a mass of contradictions, on the one hand it preached democracy and the power of the ordinary voter, on the other, it's wealth and economy was based on slavery, and while everyone was free to vote - the rich and powerful could afford the time to take part in the political process, so some people's votes counted for more than others. Tom Hollands book mirrors these contradictions and creates some of it's own. This is perhaps obvious from the start with the choice of quotes Holland uses to open the first chapter.

"Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude." Caeser, Gallic Wars

"Only a few prefer liberty - the majority seek nothing more than fair masters." Sallust, Histories

Unfortunately for Holland, who has attempted to write a modern introduction to the history of the decline of the Roman Republic, his book never gets ahead of the inherent problems in Roman society.

Much of our historical source material for those times is reliant on the stories of great men, written usually by other great men. Often these are very detailed - we know much of the speeches of famous orators like Cicero because they were noted at the time - but it can leave an impression of Roman history dominated by powerful individuals who seem almost magically able to create armies of soldiers and crowds of rioters out of thin air.

The history is also hampered by another problem - most of those who chronicalled anything to do with Roman history also thought that the most important factor was what was done by a few individuals - colouring their impressions and writings.

For instance, one thing that annoyed me was the way class as a division in Roman society runs all the way through the first half of the book, a real discussion of those classes and their make up is limited. For instance there is no real discusion of the hundreds of thousands of slaves who lived in the Roman empire, until the first major revolt is described.

Many of the key generals or figures in the Roman senate clearly represented different sections of Roman society (retired Soldiers for instance) and it's these factors that most of governed many of their decisions - rather than the long standing feuds and personal antagonisms that Holland favours. Indeed at times, this book feels abit like a soap opera of the ancients.

Nevertheless, there is much to recommend this book. It's entertaining, humourous and exciting in places. If you thought you knew Rome through visiting a few monuments or what you learnt in school then your eyes will be opened to the violence, cruelty and torture at the heart of this rigid society. Oh and the sexism. Roman women didn't get a look in, except to make babies.

So if you're looking for a clear analytical explanation of why the Roman republic fell from the heights of its powers, you will have to go elsewhere for further insights. But if you're looking for a brief introduction to the key features of Roman history, the importance (or over importance) of individuals and a general introduction to why there are Roman remains from Egypt to Scotland then you will get a lot out of this book, but read it, as it were, with your eyes open.

Related Reviews

Holland - Persian Fire
Beard - SPQR
Beard & Crawford - Rome in the Late Republic

Iain Banks - Whit

Iain Banks writes two types of books. Science Fiction (as Iain M Banks) and non-SF. But his novels can also be put into two other categories - really good and bloody awful. Luckily, Whit, which I have just read for the second time falls into the first category and is a damned good read.

Isis Whit isn't an ordinary young adolescent. She's the elect of God. However her upbringing on an isolated Scottish farm has left Isis is also naive to the ways of the world. Her religion shuns modern technology, preaches a form of free love as well as believing that certain individuals, born on February 29th are God's chosen.

However, the story of her attempts to rescue a "fallen" member of the religion, via a trip to London and beyond is more than an attempt to poke fun at odd cults and religions.

Isis goes out into the world knowing little about the basics of our society - the police, money, transport, technology. But she also views human relations through the prism of her religious upbringing. Isis' naivety about modern society (as well as human relationships) means Banks' can make interesting comments on almost every aspect of our society - The Police, Pornography, the Media, racism or alcohol and drugs for instance, as well as looking at religion - in it's many forms. Precisely because Isis has the naivey of a child, but is a young woman many contradictions are thrown up. We're left asking who really is living in a weird cult.

Though the ending of the novel feels a little like it's been crammed into too few pages this is an excellent read. I particular enjoyed the confrontation between Isis and the BNP. Now that's anti-fascism....

William Fishman - East End Jewish Radicals 1875 -1914

In the later years of the 19th Century, and the early decades of the twentieth, right-wing politicians led campaigns full of prejudice, lies and racism aimed at the Jewish immigrants living and working in London's East End. The editorials and front pages of today's newspapers and tabloids and politician's speeches are an eerie echo  of this statement from the past

"Their [Jews] alien looks, habits and language combined with their remarkable fecundity, tenacity and money getting gift, make them a ceaseless weight upon the poor amongst whom they live...truth compels the sentiment, that wherever the foreigner comes in any numbers, the neighbourhood in which he settles speedily drops in tone, character and in morals... Their very virtues seem prolific of evil, when like some seed blown by the wind, they fall and fructify on English soil"

The Jews who came to London in their thousands in the early part of the 20th Century fled the most vile conditions in Eastern Europe. For Jews, life under the Tsar was one of destitution, racism and regular pogroms. Violence was common, as were systematic attempts to destroy Jewish culture and traditions. It's no wonder that so many fled to Britain, with it's supposed traditions of compassion and freedom. Rarely did they get the welcome they hoped for.

Arrival in the East London docks meant abuse and poverty. If you had any wealth left after the struggle to cross Europe and bribe your way out of Russia, you soon lost it to the greedy landlords and business-men that haunted the East End. If you found a job - working in appalling conditions, for 10, 11 or 12 hours making clothes or shoes in a sweatshop, you wages barely paid for the leaking, filthy, overcrowded hovel that was supposed to be home.

The other side to this picture of despair was the brave attempts to fight back - against anti-Semitism of course, but also the struggle for shorter working days and better conditions and William Fishman's classic work, just republished, documents the struggles of ordinary people to improve their lives. Fishman paints brilliant portraits of the men and women who led the struggles, strikes and attempts to build Trade Unions, often in the face of incredible hostility. Names like Rudolf Rocker, Aaron Lieberman and many others echo down to today as another generation of immigrants struggle against oppression and racism.

For someone like myself, active in political campaigns in the East End today, this book is an inspiration. The streets where the Jewish anarchists and socialists met, planned and debated are the same ones where radicals still met today. The times have changed but the campaigns seem very similar, as do the arguments about the way forward.

There can't be many radicals alive today in Whitechapel, Poplar or Tower Hamlets generally that wouldn't give their eyeteeth to have been at the rally, whose flyer is reproduced in the book. On Nov 1st 1890, a mass meeting gathered in Mile End to "protest against the inhuman treatment and persecution of Jews in Russia". Speakers included several MPs, William Morris, Eleanor Marx, Felix Volkhovsky, Prince Kropotkin and many others.

Like so much of the radical tradition in Europe at that time, the Jewish anarchists in the East End didn't survive the repression and ideological confusion of the First World War. But the struggles then left a legacy that went beyond a simply Jewish tradition, but means that we can justly view the East End as somewhere men and women, Jew and gentile, black and white have fought for a better world many times in the past, and continue to do so today.

Related Reviews

Fishman - East End 1888
Branson - Poplarism 1919-1925
Piratin - Our Flag Stays Red
Marriott - Beyond the Tower: A History of East London

Terry Pratchett - The Colour of Magic

Well I don't care if you think that it's simplistic humour, I like Terry Pratchett's discworld series. They are nothing but humourous, escapist fantasy and if reading offers anything, then it should occasionally allow us all to escape (and smile).

There isn't a Discworld novel I haven't read, several I have read numerous times - but I certainly am not going to type thousands of words here attempting to claim them for a more high-brow audience. Pratchett's humour manages to be both subtle and obvious at the same time, he is at his best when using his invented world to lampoon the madness of our own.

The later Discworld novels do this best - when looking at such important issues as war, racism and the power struggles between nations as well as the lives of the people who make up those counties and who die in their wars . If you want a light hearted look at the ridiculous justification for war and the use of racism to do this, you could do worse than read Jingo - a thinly veiled discussion of the first Gulf war that could have been written about the more recent, ongoing adventure. Though Pratchett's more recent attempts to discuss war, in Monstrous Regiment miss the mark by a wide margin it has to be said.

The Colour of Magic is the first Discworld novel and as such is not the best. For serious fans of the Discworld, there are probably a few errors and ambiguities but this was the work of someone starting out on an odyssey of writing that world develop a whole new world, to entertain and amuse millions. As such it shouldn't be knocked too much and deserves a quick read when your feeling tired after a long day at work and need a few quick laughs.

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Pratchett - Thud
Pratchett - Going Postal
Pratchett - Wintersmith

Simon Winchester - Krakatoa (The day the world exploded)

I was given Simon Winchester's book Krakatoa for Christmas and anyone else who had the same present must have remarked on the coinicidence of the terrible tsunami in South-East Asia the following day.

As I read this book in early January, the news was full of the Tsunami, the magnificant response of ordinary people around the world and the contrastingly lack of concern from Bush and Blair.

It's impossible to seperate the stories of the tidal waves and earthquakes of 1883 with those of 2004 and the subsequant tragedies then and now have many similarities.

In 1883, the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano killed over 36,000 people. That the numbers of lifes lost was much smaller than last months is probably because that part of the world now has a larger population and the area is geared towards mass tourism in a way unimaginable in 1883.

The huge fault lines in the earth's crust where the two giant plates meet under the ocean are responsible for a number of volcanos, periodic tremors and quakes. In retrospect, Krakatoa's explosion was inevitable - but the science of 1883 could not have predicted it (which is why the effects of the huge explosion, and destruction of "six cubic miles of rock" in a instant was felt way beyond the immediate area). It is nothing short of criminal then that nobody thought to use the scientific understanding we have now in 2005 to prepare the people of South-East Asia for the something similar.

Simon Winchester is at his best when describing the science behind plate tectonics, volcanos and the consequences of the blast - both scientifically and in human terms. Personally though I found his discussion of the social consequences of the eruption less convincing - that Krakatoa helped create a mass radical Islamic, anti-western feeling in the area is possibly a step too far.

For anyone who wants to understand why natural disasters like Tsunamis occur and has an interest in the development of science and how it is part and parcel of economic and political development at the time, then this book is a great, simple introduction. For an analysis of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-colonial feeling in Asia you might want to look elsewhere, but don't let that small criticism mar what is a generally interesting read.

Rosa Luxemburg - The Mass Strike

Rosa Luxemburg is one of my heroines. Her revolutionary zeal, her lifelong confidence that "another world is possible", her powerful writing and her commitment to revolutionary politics can only serve to inspire radicals today.

However what is often forgotten about Luxemburg is that she was more than an orator and propagandist, she was also a Marxist theorist who tried to build on the writings and works of those that had gone before and made some very important new contributions to the canon of revolutionary writings.

It is in this context, as well as the centenary of the 1905 Russian Revolution that her little book The Mass Strike has been reissued by Bookmarks. The text is available online, though why bother hurting your eyes like that when it only costs four quid.

The book takes the amazing events of the Russian Revolution of 1905 as a case study. Millions of men and women, living under an almost feudal dictatorship and facing massive repression went on strike, protested and demonstrated for an improvement to their conditions. In particular the 8 hour day, instead of the 12 or 13 hours normally worked in the sweatshops and factories of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Warsaw.

But Luxemburg doesn't simply report on the events - even though she smuggled herself into Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) to take part. The mass strike in the way it was playing out in Russia was a new feature of revolution. Previously such strikes had been seen by the leaders of the international socialist movement as a defensive mechanism, but now the strikes took on an offensive stance, rapidly winning gains and rights never before seen by ordinary people in backward Russia.

Luxemburg is at her best when describing how the strikes radicalised people and gave confidence to other people, how in a few weeks of action, the strikers had gained more for themselves than German unions had in decades of peaceful activity.

But perhaps the most important part of this book is Luxemburg's understanding of how the economic demands of the strikers lead to political demands, and how the reverse is also true. The very nature of Russia's economy, the lack of political representation and the repression unleashed by the Tsar meant that workers couldn't strike about hours of work, without finding yourself in confrontation with the realities of Tsarist society.

Luxemburg generalises this further - that any economic mass strike will inevitably lead to political generalisations and vice versa. The two sides of the struggle feeding each other. You can see this in microcosm in today's debates about pensions in the British Trade Unions. Any time you hear a trade unionist talk about the lack of money for pensions, they inevitably point out that the government has money for war.

It's worth adding at this point that this book isn't the easiest book to read - unless you know a bit about the events of 1905 and some of the debates taking place in the international socialist movement at the beginning of the last century. But even if you don't there is much to be gleaned from reading this - even if you only come away wanting to know more about Rosa Luxemburg and her struggles against war and for socialism.

Luxemburg's book has stood the test of time - there have been mass strikes aplenty in the last few years around the world, there will be more in the future. The republication of her book will help arm a new generation with the lessons of the past.

Related Reviews

Campbell - A Rebel's Guide to Rosa Luxemburg
Luxemburg - Reform or Revolution
Trotsky - 1905