The 2007 list is made up of some 20-odd titles. Some I read thoroughly, some I read skimpily, some I read laboriously slowly, some I raced through in a few hours. While I remember having read them, it is shocking to realise how much of the actual content now escapes me. What I shall try to do is reconstruct, if not the take-away message, at least the take-away impression left by each book, then draw up a short list and finally announce the official winner of the ASBO book prize for 2007! In no particular order, then:
- Ruth Padel, "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem"
As a mere lyricist, I have a bit of a complex about real poetry. My own occassional efforts only rarely achieve that sense of concentrated intensity which is the true stuff of poetry. Reading more poetry is surely the best way of learning to write it better, but we are straightaway confronted with two basic problems: 1. Finding the time. 2. Wrestling with the difficulty. Above all else, Ruth Padel's book gives us the inspiration and courage to have a go. 52 poems then, one for each week of the year, each with a bit of background on the poet and a critical analysis of the poem. There is an excellent introduction which champions "complexity" as: 1. a reflection of the self-referential media-oriented world we inhabit, and 2. an expression of poetry's need to constantly renew itself. She is unflinching in her defence of the motto: "Don't explain, show" and an enthusiastic supporter of what she views as poetry's new democratic face, with a strong showing from women poets, Irish-origin poets, ethnic minority poets, working-class poets etc. Strangely, this leads to many of the poems seeming a bit "samey" in style and/or a bit self-consciously tendentious in content. Inevitably, yesterday's latest thing becomes today's unreflected conformism. She is best in her lucid advocacy of the role of poetry:
One of poetry's jobs is to transform real life imaginatively so we understand our lives new-paintedly, more fully. To make familiar things look strange so you see them new.
I would go still further. Poetry should be an instrument, an objective emotional science capable of recreating our essential state of wonder at being alive at all. That sudden realisation of existential "strangeness" is a step towards a higher consciousness, the quest for which is the witting or unwitting goal of all human life.
- Golo Mann, "Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts"
I can safely say that this is one of the best books I have ever read. This book does what so many history books fail to do - it lets you understand why things were the way they were and why they are the way they are. It is a work of empathy, I would say even of compassion. His mastery of the facts is beyond question, the pithy elegance of his style a sheer joy to read, but it is above all his psychological insight that is so breathtakingly perceptive. Above all he has an intuitive grasp of the mysterious reciprocal interplay between people's inner attitudes, the outer manifestations of those attitudes and the way in which these, in their turn, influence the inner psyche. Of course, it is a long book and in German, so it's been heavy going at times and there are chapters I've glossed over or have yet to finish, but I'll get there. Just writing it up has re-inspired me! I shan't attempt to summarise but rather offer up a couple of the most stunning passages which I marked in pencil as I read:
Of self-deluding German indignation at their "betrayal" in 1918 he writes:
Aber die Wahrheit war kompliziert und unerfreulich. Warum sich um der Wahrheit willen viel Kopfzerbrechen machen?
Of the troubled beginnings of the Weimar Republic:
Es sind nur seltene Augenblicke des Rausches, der Krise, der allgemeinen Wirrsal, in denen politische Leidenschaft den einzelnen packt, die öffentliche Sache ihm wichtiger dünkt als die private. So war es im August 1914 gewesen, so vielleicht im November 1918. So ist es nicht unter normalen Bedingungen. Da spürt der Bürger die Politik so wenig, wie der gesunde Mensch seinen eigenen Körper spürt; er weiss, dass er ihn hat, aber kümmert sich nicht darum, die Lebensfunktionen vollziehen sich von alleine. Zu einem normalen Dasein zurückzukehren, zu arbeiten und zu essen, das war jetzt der Wunsch der grössten Zahl der Deutschen.
[There's a superb chapter on Marx which I can't quote here. Get it and read it!]
Despite this being a largely a chronicle of wickedness and foolishness, Golo Mann leaves you with something very positive - the sense that, through the exercise of a truly discerning intelligence, it should be possible for us to live more human lives.
- Ferzanna Riley, "Unbroken Spirit"
I picked this up pretty much by accident in Waterstone's one day. I say by accident, but there is more than a slight suspicion that I am merely the dupe of some clever marketing ploy. Be that as it may, it made absolutely gripping reading - I got through the whole thing pretty much in one go. Subtitled "How a young Muslim refused to be enslaved by her culture", it is the author's tale of how she survived the most incredible brutality on the part of her own family to become an independent wife and mother - on her own terms. Bullied twice over at school for being Pakistani and clever, she was systematically brutalised, both physically and psychologically by her own father. As she grew older, it became clear that the only two means of escape were marriage or education. As no acceptable suitors could be found, she contrived to leave her home in Lancashire in order to study in London. All went well to start with, but her parents, shocked at reports of her loose living, caught up with her and spirited her away to Pakistan, where she was held captive by her mother's family. Her mother had turned violently against her, furious at the loss of izzat (honour) implicit in having an unmarried, immoral daughter. She was threatened with being sold into slavery and only rescued when a cousin came to her rescue. Both her and her sister had come very close to becoming the victims of "honour killings". Back in England, she finally married an Englishman and has her own family.
"Unbroken Spirit" ruthlessly identifies the cruelties and hypocrisies of islamic "tradition" and izzat psychosis. Still, I rather suspect that Ferzanna Riley would have been a "difficult" daughter for any parents, its just that for a Pakistani family that in itself is a source of almost intolerable social embarrassment. Tradition required of the parents that they "break" their daughter while it simultaneously provided them with a moral alibi for their inhuman actions. Arguments generally have more to them than meet the eye - the actual issue is of far less real importance than the business of winning. Ferzanna's tale is of a clash of wills careening wildly out of control.
One of the things I particularly enjoyed about this book was the author's choice of epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. A few examples:
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Bertrand Russel
Too often children get answers to remember rather than problems to solve. Roger Lewin
Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never the correctness of a belief. Arthur Schnitzler
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. George Santayana
I was particularly gripped by one argument Ferzanna has with her mother. Forced to wear "modest" Pakistani dress, she protests at the hypocrisy of western women being required to wear the veil in countries like Saudi Arabia, without their being any reciprocal requirement not to wear it in the west. Her mother found this perfectly normal, given the fact that Islam is the only true religion. It reminded me of a recent conversation with a Moroccan taxi driver. He was intelligent, informed and spoke very good English. We discussed the ills of the world in the usual manner. Our conversation strayed onto the subject of religion. By way of a contribution to inter-faith reconciliation, I offered the view that, deep down, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are really one and the same. Well, he answered, it's the same God, but the others lead up to Islam. He was no bigot, no fanatic, he was voicing what, for him, was a self-evident truth. I really must research that whole "Seal of the Prophets" business in detail. The notion that your team has some sort of exclusivity deal with the Almighty is the most terrible thing. God spare us from those who are convinced He is on their side.
- Melanie Phillips, " Londonistan"
I bought this at the same time as "Unbroken Spirit" and I can now remember why. Carol had sent me to get her another copy of an Alison Weir novel she'd left on the train and I swept up the other titles as part of a 3 for 2 deal. I can't really be left to go shopping on my own! Certainly adult supervision would have prevented my acquiring "Londonistan". The cover consists of a montage of mugshots of convicted islamist terrorists, but with the images manipulated as in a hall of mirrors to create an exaggeratedly sinister impression. Oops -I've already given away the story! Melanie Phillips, it turns out, is a columnist for the Daily Mail and is much exercised by the British authorities' craven refusal to crack down hard on radicalism and extremism. The book is subtitled "How Britain is creating a terror state within" and argues with considerable insistence that too little is being done to stem the tide of religious terrorism. She may have a point, but her aggressive tone of carping criticism and self-righteous indignation is tiresome and off-putting.
The problem of radicalisation is a very real one, but an issue which has to be approached with incredible sensitivity. "Cracking down" can very quickly become counter-productive. If we assume, as we must, that it is not possible to expel all Muslims from Britain, every possible effort must be made to win the hearts and minds of the muslim community, a community which already feels itself victimised for reasons of race if not of religion. The likelihood is that the indignation generated by a generalised sweep on potential islamist sympathisers (presumably a constituency largely made up of disaffected youths wanting to be important) would create ten times as many new recruits. So the security services have a watching brief. Observing, monitoring, infiltrating, compiling intelligence, stepping in only to apprehend actual perpetrators. Meanwhile British society must reach out to Islam, recognising it for what it is, one of the great religions of mankind, encouraging the "right" sort of Islam, showing sympathy and understanding, not out of hypocritical self interest, but out of genuine respect. Ms.Phillips mocks Prince Charles for his openness towards Islam, as though it somehow constituted a betrayal of Christianity. Not at all. Radical Islam will only ever be defeated by enlightened Islam. Every possible effort must be made to encourage this new Islamic enlightenment. I saw a programme on TV about Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, who having converted to Islam is now a leading light in the muslim community. If ever Britain is to become part of the Ummah, it will be through the efforts and more especially the example of figures like him, most certainly not through the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. This is the message which has to be got across to the Muslim community, not Ms.Phillips all-too-easy demonisation of fanatics. People who are prepared to blow themselves up for a cause are not insincere, they're just tragically mistaken. Also, I suspect that most of these radical movements are ultimately trends - like hippies or the hula-hoop. Gradually, gradually they slip out of fashion. They fade away when deprived of the light of attention.
- Robert Fisk, "The Great War for Civilisation"
Another impulse purchase, this time in Borders in Glasgow if I remember correctly. This work too has a subtitle: "The Conquest of the Middle East". It's a pretty chunky tome, coming in at some 1,300 pages, and I have to confess straight off that I haven't read all of them. It is a record of what a highly respected journalist has seen and reported since 1976 throughout the wider Middle East, in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Turkey and beyond. At the same time it is a record of his journalistc adventures, which include, not least, a series of interviews with Osama bin Laden. It is an interesting, informative, an exciting book even, but horribly tainted by that ghastly Besserwisser tone at which journalists all too often excell. The unspoken implication is that the world is populated entirely by rogues and fools, except, of course for Robert Fisk, who has a corner on perspicacity and moral indignation. Having said that, it would be difficult not to feel a sense of moral outrage at his desperate chronicle of greed, cruelty, foolishness, vanity, cynicism and self-seeking. Fisk seems to conclude by saying that his testimony can, of itself, serve to extricate us from the infernal spiral of fear, hatred and violence. He writes:
I think in the end we have to accept that our tragedy lies always in our past, that we have to live with our ancestors' folly and suffer for it, just as they, in their turn, suffered, and as we, through our vanity and arrogance, ensure the pain and suffering of our own children. How to correct history, that's the thing.
I don't know whether you can "correct" history. I certainly can't see how "The Great War for Civilisation" can correct anything. It is too detailed, yet at the same time too superficial. It lacks a proper esprit de synthèse. It's quite possible that by opening old wounds Robert Fisk is making matters worse. However, I do believe that it is possible to repair the past by bringing a new kind of intelligence to the present, a combination of an honest acknowledgement of what has happened and a true spirit of forgiveness. This higher intelligence, this higher emotion requires a special courage - an opening of heart and mind to something greater than the ordinary egotistical thought- and emotion-processes. I don't think it is too much to say that if a sufficient number of people were able to attain this higher state there could be peace on earth.
- Clive James, "Cultural Amnesia"
I enjoyed this book tremendously, so, although I've already written about it in a previous diary entry, I'd like to add a few more words here. Basically it's a sort of à la recherche of all the books Clive James has read and all the cultural experiences he's had. It could be dry, but Clive James wears his pretension lightly and is, above all, very funny. He is also inspiring. Just reading "Cultural Amnesia" caused my reading list to lengthen considerably. Clive James is clever and entertaining. That he is sometimes too clever and on occasion flip is the price we willingly pay to have him among us. The hero of the book is Egon Friedell, who is clearly the author as he would like to see himself:
Egon Friedell looms large in this book. Active from the early years of the twentieth century until the Nazis turned out the lights in Austria, the Viennese prodigy knew everything, or talked as if he did. There was nothing he could not talk about brilliantly. Some thought him a charlatan, but no charlatan is ever remembered for making clever remarks: only for trying to make them. One of the most famous cabaret artists of his day, Friedell in the 1920's combined his career in show business with a monkish dedication to his library, in which he produced a book of his own that must count as one of the strangest and most wonderful of the twentieth century: Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit (The Cultural History of the Modern Age). A fabulous effort of style and concentration, a prestidigitator's trick box packed with epigrammatic summaries of all the creativity in every field of art and science since the Renaissance, a prose epic raised to the level of poetry, Friedell's magic show of a book remains a fantastic demonstration of the mind at serious play.
I like the notion of serious play. It is almost a definition of culture - the antithesis of priggish "seriousness" which is often little more than self-important play-acting.
- Thomas Mann, "Bekentnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull"
Influenced by Clive James' enthusiastic recommendation, I took "Felix Krull" down from the shelf where it had waited since a much earlier failed attempt. Thomas Mann described his own work as leichtsinnig, but it is hardly light. Above all else it is an exercise in writing technique, all literary pirouettes and linguistic pyrotechnics. The ironic effect is achieved through setting the narcissistic insousiance of the hero in a ponderous décor of German Schachtelsätze - self-conscious subordinate clauses built into self-conscious subordinate clauses. Hard going, until you get the rhythm of the language, but once you do, you fall under its spell. Which is what I think the book is really all about - the "magical", but not entirely honest, capacity of words to charm. It is Thomas Mann's literary confession of the unspoken secret that writers are confidence tricksters and words covers for the truth.
Mann died before he was able to finish the novel, but it is difficult to see how he could have ended it without breaking the spell. A happy ending for Krull would be morally untenable; for him to get his come-uppance insufferably moralistic. What we are left with is the ambivalence which is implicit in the hero's name. The reader is directly confronted with a dilemma. Are we not willing moral dupes, drawn as we are to Felix, the happy wordsmith, while conspiring to ignore the cruel (Krull) deception in which he is engaged? The whole duplicitous exercise is pregnant with questions. Do writers make the world a happier place? If they do, is it a good thing, if words are ultimately lies? The frivolity of "Felix Krull" becomes its deeper message. One could almost describe it as serious play.
- Sven Möller Kristensen, "Digtning og Livsyn"
Poking around the second-hand bookshops of Copenhagen during our week there in the summer, I succumbed to temptation and emerged from the dusty shelves with a handfull of books which included this one. I'd used it as a reference (well, a crib really) in writing essays in my final year at university. At the time, I gave a silent undertaking to return to Digtning og Livsyn* with less exploitative intent. So, here I am, 34 years later, engaged in an act of ritual atonement. [* The easy, but rather anaemic translation would be "Poetry and Philosophy". Perhaps "Literature and Life-View", though awkward, has more red corpuscles.]
Digtning og Livsyn is a example of how, at its best, literary criticism is an art form in its own right. Sven Möller Kristensen takes seven works of Danish literature of the 19th and 20th centuries and subjects them to his creative scrutiny. "Criticism" is somehow the wrong word. There is nothing negative about his approach. Everything is intelligence and light. Elucidation in the full sense. I turned first of all to his essay on Johannes V. Jensen's Kongens Fald [The Fall of the King]. It was only right. It was after all the chapter I had made most use of in my undergraduate days. He starts the piece with a bang:
Det er ikke for meget sagt at Johs. V. Jensens roman "Kongens Fald" er den mest brogede, mest sammensatte bog i dansk litteratur.
[It is not too much to say that J.V.J.'s novel "The Fall of the King" is the most richly diverse and intricately complex book in Danish literature.]
Jensen's work, he maintains, is about the constant interplay of Eros and Death. Inexhaustible life and inevitable death. He illustrates this with some lines from his poem Interferens:
Naar Forestillingen om Verdens topmaalte Under mödes med Overbevisningen om alle Tings Endelighed, da lever jeg.
[When the conception of the utter wonder of the world meets with the conviction that all things must pass, then I am alive.]
Kristensen then goes on:
Den fölelse, den tone ligger som et orgelpunkt under romanens mangestemmige kor.
[That feeling, that note sounds like an organ pedal point beneath the novel's polyphonic choir.]
I'd liked "The Fall of the King" before reading Sven Möller Kristensen. What he did was explain to me why I liked it and inspired me to return to the original with new insight. There can be no higher praise for a literary critic. Still, he's left me with a lot of reading and/or re-reading to do!
- Om Hamsun, edited by Poul Knudsen
Danes take great pride in the fact that it was they who "discovered" Knut Hamsun. Ignored in his own Norway, a haggard Hamsun came to Copenhagen clutching a manuscript copy of his now famous novel Sult (Hunger). He presented it to newspaper editor Edvard Brandes, brother of the celebrated critic, Georg Brandes. Intrigued by Hamsun's dilapidated appearance, he agreed to read it. He was so gripped by it, that he promptly published the first chapter in his newspaper.
Om Hamsun (About Hamsun) is an elegant little volume which groups together a number of letters, articles and extracts by or about Hamsun. There is an interesting introduction by the editor, Poul Knudsen, which, apart from telling the story of Hamsun's discovery, also explores his post-war fall from grace as a Nazi sympathiser. A member of the "Quisling" Norwegian Nazi Party, he even met and admired Hitler. It seems that his leanings towards Nazism were dictated by his distaste for the vulgar commercialism of the English-speaking world in general and Britain in particular. He was also an ardent anti-Soviet. He looked to "Blut und Erde" as an antidote to the spreading virus of (dare one say it?) the consumer society, a bulwark of the individual spirit against undifferentiated mass man and a defence against the tyranny of communism. The wrong conclusions for the right reasons? He certainly paid a heavy price for his dotty views - not only in terms of his reputation, but also in cash - he was required to pay a ruinous fine.
In the literary world, however, the reputation of his early work - Hunger, Pan, Mysteries - remains intact. Isaac Bashevis Singer said of him: "The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun." Introspection, inner monologue, pantheism, the artist as outsider are some of the concepts and techniques which he pioneered. On the subject of his approach to character, he writes:
Fra jeg begyndte tror jeg ikke det findes i hele min Produksjon en Person med en slik hel, retlinjet herskende Evne. De er alle uten saakaldt "Karakter", de er splittet og opstykket, ikke gode og ikke onde, men begge Deler, nuanserte, skiftende i sit Sind og i sine Handlinger.
[From when I started I do not think there is a single person in the whole of my production who possesses one of those complete, clearly delineated dominant qualities. They are all without so-called "Character", they are divided and split, not good and not evil, but both, nuanced and changeable in their psyche and in their actions.]
I am convinced that any impartial self-observation will bear out Hamsun's remarks.
- Hermann Hesse, "Politische Betrachtungen"
Hermann Hesse enjoyed a strange vogue in the late sixties and early seventies. The best clue as to why is probably "Steppenwolf", the band that is, which took their name from Hesse's novel. The book is a confusing, kaleidoscopic investigation into the essential multiplicity of personality (cf. Knut Hamsun!), the suffering which this situation brings with it and the possibility of redemption through the transcending of the personality. The "hero", Harry Haller, is also the Steppenwolf. He is tortured by his conflicting natures. Half man, half beast, half conformist bourgeois, half selfish animal. This untamed nature is the slave of its carnal appetites, but free of social convention. It is doubtless this last part which appealed to the alternative hippie culture. "Born to be Wild" etc. But Hesse really isn't a "let it all hang out" kind of guy. In the final analysis his message is a Buddhist one: in the sincere and impartial contemplation of the impermanence of what we call our "selves" lies the way of universal compassion and freedom from the ego.
To be honest, I have always found Hesse's novels hard going. They have a strange atmosphere. An odd combination of a faux ingénu narrative tone, with bewildering moral conflicts and baffling abstract concepts. But I like him. One has a clear sense of his being on the side of the angels. The message which comes across strongly in his "Politische Betrachtungen", a collection of letters and essays from 1914 to 1961, is as profound as it is simple: if our leaders had the courage to subject their motives and prejudices to that special inner scrutiny, political "problems"would solve themselves. A few examples then:
Wenn ich meine Aufsätze "politisch" nenne, so tue ich dies stets in Anführungszeichen, denn politisch an ihnen ist nichts als die Atmosphäre, in der sie jeweils entstanden. Im übrigen sind sie das Gegenteil von politisch, denn jede dieser Betrachtungen sucht den Leser nicht vor das Welttheater und seine politischen Probleme zu führen, sondern in sein eigenes Inneres, vor sein ganz persönliches Gewissen. Hierin bin ich mit den Politikern aller Richtungen durchaus nicht einig und werde darin stets unbelehrbar bleiben, das ich im Menschen, im einzelnen Menschen und seiner Seele Bezirke anerkenne, wohin politische Antriebe und Prägungen nicht reichen.
Dass Liebe höher sei als Hass, Verständnis höher als Zorn, Friede edler als Krieg, das muss ja eben dieser unselige Weltkrieg uns tiefer einbrennen, als wir es je gefühlt. Wo wäre sonst sein Nutzen?
Der Hass gegen die Juden ist ein verkleidetes Minderwertigkeitsgefühl: dem sehr alten und sehr intelligenten Volk der Juden gegenüber empfinden die weniger klugen Schichten einer andern Rasse Konkurrenzneid und beschämende Unterlegenheit, und je lauter und heftiger dies üble Gefühl sich als Herrentum aufspielt, desto gewisser steckt Furcht und Schwäche dahinter.
In a way, Hesse embodies what for me has gradually become a self-evident truth. Our world will not be saved by commited activism, universal peace will not be achieved through political imposition, however well-intentioned. If, however, a critical mass of people were able to attain what one can only call inner peace, everything could be different. I seem to remember Toynbee saying that contemplation was the ultimate altruistic act.
-Sören Mörch, "Den sidste Danmarkshistorie"
I was flicking through the pages of this in the bookshop, when it received the unsollicited recommendation of a fellow browser. So, after a dignified minute or two, I emerged blinking into the daylight with "The Latest History of Denmark" under my arm. Why the latest? Because, since the notion of the unitary state no longer stands up, the idea of a received national history is outmoded and irrelevant. In our modern, compartmentalised society, relativism is the order of the day. No one ideological party line then, but a series of thoughts and reflections on Danish history from the point of view of the author. 57 Tales of the Fatherland's History is the subtitle. 57 essays taking their point of departure in an aspect of Danish history. I am a fan of the essay. It is a convenient length which allows for poised reflection, without making unreasonable demands on the reader. A sort of ideal conversation in a way. Sören Mörch takes full advantage of the genre with a natural but vigorous prose style. If I have a criticism, it is that it is a bit too "now". History is viewed from the slightly smug vantage point of the present, without that sense of emotional empathy with how people must have felt and thought which alone gives a true sense of the past. Also, it is very Danish. An unfair criticism of a book of Danish history? Possibly, but their could be more made of the broader global or European context, given that he is deliberately seeking to escape the tradition of the national chronicle.
I was particularly interested in a chapter where the author interprets his own personal experience from an historical perspective. As a young man, he trained as a silversmith, spending long hours at the workbench learning how to tap out silver plate with a hammer. But he was at the tail-end of a craft tradition, which, by the time he had finished his apprenticeship, was no longer economically viable. With the development of mass production, the price of skilled labour made the whole sector uncompetitive. However, Mörch had few regrets at the passing of the all-too-fixed and hierarchical values of the old regime. Jumping on the sixties' educational bandwaggon, he was able to retrain as a professional historian. He has no doubts about the progress of society over his lifetime. Only, I can't help a sense of regret at the disappearance the skilled workman/working-class intellectual - a type to which so many of my Danish grandparents' generation conformed. That combination of hard-won humanity and unpretentious curiosity about the world is all too rarely found today: the price of meritocracy, I suppose.
posted by asbo at 9:00 AM
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