Bibliography, May 2013

BOTM: M. Gellhorn, The Weather in Africa

L. Beukes, Zoo City
A. Christie, Taken at the flood
J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man
F.S. Fitzgerald, The Basil and Josephine stories
G. Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold
D. Lodge, Paradise News
G. Orwell, The road to Wigan Pier*
P. Theroux, Sailing through China
P.G. Wodehouse, A Pelican at Blandings

Some reputations suffered this month. The Ginger Man is a classic, but by God it's dated; I love Fitzgerald, but these stories were ropey. And though Orwell's reportage is excellent, his prescription lamentable, and though not the only criterion on which it should be judged, manages to be wrong on just about every prediction of what would happen to Britain.

That still left me a decent selection, of which Garcia Marquez was was outstanding and well worth the (very short) read, but Gellhorn's triptych the best. I generally find Africa boring, but this was a compelling sequence of stories, only notionally linked, which vividly brought it into focus. There's a nice little introduction where her writing style was discussed, and in particular her approach to fiction, which largely seems to have been writing, cutting and cutting some more. And I think that shone through - there's no spare fat on them; it makes them extraordinarily compelling reading.

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Dead, Dead, Dead! (II) Historiography

I meant to do this a fortnight ago, just after my reflection on the Thatcher legacy. But even more interesting  is the context in which that debate happened. To me, the unnoticed story of the coverage was that this was really a debate about the 1970s. Because what you think of Thatcher is really about what you think about the decade before her. If you think that we were on our knees in 1979, Go Maggie; if you think we would have sorted it out given time, Go Foot (or something like that). It’s no surprise that this debate would have been made better by context. Sadly, it was done stunningly badly.

In particular, no-one knows any figures. I've lost count of the times someone appeared and lamented that she destroyed manufacturing. Helpfully, the Guardian did some nice data which tells us that industry was 34% of output in 1990. Incidentally, we also still had 4.5m council houses (20% down on 1979, but hardly a wholesale sell-off). There are plenty of figures to show Thatcherite failure (both those may be seen to be failures depending on your position), but saying untrue things makes you look stupid.

On reflection, it's not true that no-one knows any figures. A number of people know one figure. If you're smart, like Ken Livingstone has been, you bang on about it - conveniently forgetting everything else. Every time the erstwhile mayor has been on anywhere, he's talked about the fall in levels of investment. He's right, it's fallen too low, but there was other stuff going on you know. I'm reminded of when I went to Baltimore and the Americans discussed how they 'won' the War of 1812 or at least got away with a good draw, neglecting to mention that a) we burnt the White House to the ground and b) we were a bit busy with this French chap (just in case) nearer to home. Focusing on one thing to the exclusion of the rest is irrelevant really. It's like a referendum - i.e., bad, and stupid.

But although this lack of figures isn't helpful, it's not the biggest problem. That was both sides going overboard on the polemic, because they can't do counterfactuals properly. On the right, we started talking about her saving the country. The left simply ignored the state of the political and economic landscape in 1979. Neither will do. She didn't save the country. This is a nonsense which does no-one any favours. North Sea oil would still have come in; the ability of, for example, France to come through 1980s, without major market reform suggests that, even in decline, we’d have been alright. I’m pretty convinced we would have been worse off, but Callaghan wasn't a Bennite. On the other hand, it's no good saying that Britain in 1979 wasn't in real trouble; or that Labour would have fixed the unions in a nice way, or indeed at all. Industrial strife had been a characteristic of the entire preceding decade. It's preposterous to suggest that it could have been addressed easily. Similarly, privatisation: no-one really thinks the state should own BA, BT and BP, yet Labour's 1987 manifesto still advocated bringing them back into state hands. And I think would have done regardless of 1979.

I find this lack of contextual sensitivity a bit depressing. It's ahistorical. It polarises opinion around abstract positions that aren't rooted in reality. It judges people against ideal standards which no-one will ever fulfil. And it doesn't help assess the record. In this case, it means Thatcher isn't judged by the reality of the situation in 1979, but rather some kind of theoretical face-off between left and right. And that's pointless. History judges records, and since the late nineteenth century, we've tried not to judge things outside the context of their time. With Thatcher, despite it being a few decades ago, we've failed that basic test.

Bibliography, April 2013

BOTM: J. Crace, The Devil's larder

B. Chatwin, Utz
A. Christie, Elephants can remember
A. Christie, After the Funeral
P. Druckerman, French children don't throw food
W. Faulkner, The Unvanquished
G. Orwell, A clergyman's daughter
G. Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra flying
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The crack-up, with other pieces and stories
A. Tyler, The tin can tree

I almost gave this to a number of 

these, particularly The Unvanquished, not least because the blurb on the back rather coyly refers to it as 'Faulkner's least difficult novel', which would come as a surprise to anyone who started with it. I'm not even sure that Crace was the best of the lot. However, it was different: lyrical,  sinuous, with a waspish sense of fun. It wasn't difficult either. It makes for an very enjoyable evening. I've had him on my list for a while; this chance purchase in a discount bookshop confirmed I was right to. I'm off to buy some more of his.