Bibliography, August 2016

BOTM: P. Frankopan, The Silk Roads

K. Amis, The Riverside Villas murder
J. Littell, The Kindly Ones
M. Wickstead, Aid and Development

It took me two months to read Jonathan Littell's work on the Holocaust. Last month, I said it was brilliant, but harrowing. Having finally finished it, I'd qualify that. The end (and especially the bit before the end) is very weak. However, the book as whole is also deeply flawed. In some ways it is brilliant,  and it's one of the best treatments of the bureaucratic workings of the Nazi state and the Holocaust I've read. It really drives home the nature of how the task sucked in so many otherwise decent enough people; and in the first section, which is the best, it outlines what it did to them. But in the end, the book is hamstrung by the main character. He is sympathetic - given he is a murderer and a mass murderer, this is impressive - but he's also psychologically damaged before the action even begins. This means not only does the book fail to address the question that Littell posed himself - what would someone like me have done in Nazi Germany - but it also bloats the book with a fantastical subplot that adds little. A better book would have excised that entire element, which would have made it better and happily shorter.

So I've given, not without reservations, book of the month to Frankopan's on Central Asia and the Near East. I've issues with this too. It's a worthwhile book and is jam-packed with gems, but it suffers from two major issues. Firstly, I don't think it holds focus well enough in the middle, where we flit too rapidly from the ostensible subject of the book to the West. In a work seeking to correct western centric views of history, there's just too much on the European age of discovery rather than its impact on the aforementioned Silk Roads and this leads to real compression; Timur gets a single page. Secondly, and surprisingly given Peter's background (he taught me middle Byzantine history briefly), it has what might be termed 'Ferguson syndrome' where the lure of modern politics gets in the way of the historical analysis. That means that it's got too much modern in - we get to 1900 with 40% of the book to go. And some of it is too obviously the author's political view without enough backup: for example, he's keen to emphasise the Taleban's insistence in the 1990s that they wouldn't shelter Bin Laden if he committed terrorist acts, but no comment on their volte-face in the aftermath of 2001 two pages later. This is a shame ass the historical perspective he brings to the twentieth century is actually fascinating, just a) overlong and b) too partisan. 

I'd read both of these, but with caution.

Roots

I listened this to promising, but actually pretty bad, summary of women in Country music last week. It was poor for a number of reasons, not least because the presenter couldn't bring herself to call it Country, but instead referred to roots and Americana (I hate it when they do that), but it was mostly disappointing because it couldn't do its history properly. I find this is often the case when niche genres are discussed in music (though pop and rock bands tend to receive absurdly detailed excavations of their backgrounds and influences). This may be a small problem in genres I don't listen to, but it's a disaster for Country. There are few more self-referential and historically orientated genres of popular music. In this case, there were a few minor infelicities - there's no need to labour a plot precis of Ode to Billie Joe - and one big one: the airbrushing of the roots of Country music from a programme notionally about roots. 

Specifically, when introducing with one of Loretta Lynn's many great songs for women, the presenter made the big claim that she is 'arguably the cornerstone for all women of roots and Americana.' This is nonsense (and I love Loretta Lynn) and ignores the pre-1960 Country tradition. Where are Sara and Maybelle Carter? Where, most pertinently, is Kitty Wells? Her It wasn't God who made Honky Tonk angels was the first song by a solo woman to top the charts, in 1952. Here she is:

That song is a riposte to Hank Thompson's The wild side of life. By pure coincidence, in the same week, Bob Harris played them both. I've not listened to them together before and it's extraordinary, making a very good song into a powerful cultural statement. Bob Harris knows his history, most people don't. They should, and until they do, we definitely shouldn't give them a radio show about roots. Anathema.

The Alteration (a historical prosopography)

I reread The Alteration a couple of months ago (I love The Alteration). A friend who read it at the same time noted the sheer wealth of historical allusion. I thought there would be a list somewhere, but couldn't find it, though wikipedia is a decent crib for some of it. So I made my own. For those who have not read the Alteration, 1) read The Alteration, 2) it's an alternative history where the divergence from ours comes in the Reformation: Luther, Calvin and Thomas More are successively Pope ('The three Northern Popes') and Arthur, Henry VIII's (here, Henry the Abominable) elder brother has a son (Stephen II) who is restored to the throne by Catholic forces. Britain is therefore catholic and the church is triumphant. As a result, almost every historical figure (unless they are American) has been pressed into the service of the church, usually in painting one of them or composing for it. Amis spends much of his time amusing himself by having real figures pop up in unlikely places.

So here goes. Page references from the Vintage Classics edition and refer to their first appearance only.

Contemporary figures - it's set in 1976 (*denotes a any reference that's less than obvious):

• A.J. Ayer, Professor of dogmatic theology (119)
• Tony Benn, as 'Lord Stansgate', head of the Holy Office in England (122)
• Beria, Monsignor (8) 
• Enrico Berlinguer, Cardinal and chief of staff to Pope John XXIV (109) 
• Anthony Burgess, still a novelist, but who has met an unspecified bad end by the 70s (194) 
• Francis Crick, a disastrous scientist (194)
• Philip K. Dick, who Amis has great fun with, making him an alternative history writer, whose Man in the high castle outlines 'our'  history  - or something close to it (25)
• Ian Fleming*, as author of the Father Bond novels - with a nod to Chesterton (78)
• [Paul] Foot, a policeman for the church, not a crusading journalist (126) 
• Harry Harrison*, I think this is who is meant as the engineer who builds the channel tunnel, as an homage to his SF story on the issue (105)
• Himmler, Monsignor (8)
• Ernest Lough, singer, presented as the case for castration - his career faltered once his voice broke (50)
• Paulo Maserati*, the Papal 'inventor general' [There's no useful contemporary Maserati, but the link is clear] (194)
• [Corin] Redgrave, a policeman for the church (126)
• Keith Roberts, as another alternative history author - I'm told there's complicated reference about dancing, Galliard here doing duty for the real life Pavane. (132)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Monsignor and Jesuit (though I've not actually found the reference)
• Tolkien*, or at least an author of Lord of the Chalices, (78)
• Harold Wilson*, reinvented as Pope John XXIV (109)
• John Wyndham*, as J.B. Harris - Wyndham's real name - author of The orc awakes (100)
• Fritz Wunderlich*, the castrato Federicus Mirabilis (9)
• Wolfgang Windgassen*,the castrato Lupigradus Viaventosa (9)

Historical references:

• Benedict Arnold, American leader. So significant, he gets the capital named after him (164)
• John Bacon, sculptor (16)
• William Bartholomew*, called Bartley here, but the writer of Hear my prayer (50)
• Beethoven, here dying young (28)
• Blake, though only as a painter of frescoes (8)
• Brunel, who Amis credits with designing the highest cathedral spires of the world (10)
• George Butterworth (201)
• Jefferson Davis, ambassador to England (63)
• Rudolf Diesel, whose eponymous invention is ubiquitous as electrical ignition is discouraged (13)
• Epstein, Anglicised to Epstone here, but still a sculptor (8)
• Gainsborough (7)
• Richard Grenville, knight and sailor, who fights at Lepanto, with not against the Spanish (109)
• Kenneth Grahame*, assuming that's what's meant by The Wind in the Cloisters (77).
• Hockney, referred to, maliciously, as 'excessively traditionalist, almost archaizing' painter (8)
• Holman Hunt, painter (8)
• Willem de Kooning, painter (78)
• Rudyard Kipling, the First citizen of 'New England' 1914-18 (56)
• Thomas Kyd, whose version of Hamlet is famous (14)  
• Labelye, bridge builder, who builds here the London bridge he never did in reality (173)
• Michelangelo*, here 'Boonarotty', ie.Buonarroti, who kills himself when Luther, as pope, stops the construction of St Peter's (111)
• William Morris (8)
• Mozart, given both extra years and more compositions (8)
• Nelson, here famous for defeating the Turks at Lipari (200)
• Purcell, seemingly unaffected: there's a Dido and Aeneas here too (12)
• Edgar Allen Poe, a New England General (177)
• Satie*, though a piano maker rather than pianist (61)
• Schumann composer (30)
• Shakespeare, famous only in America, banned in England (152)
• Percy Shelley, who survived longer and led an expedition that burnt down the Vatican in 1853, but dismissed as a 'minor versifier' (199)
• Sopwith, engineer, but a builder of a channel bridge rather than aeroplanes (105)
• Jonathan Swift*, only a book Saint Lemuel's Travels (77)
• Zachary Taylor, one imagines still American President, certainly important enough to get a major New York bridge named after him (164)
• Tintoretto, the painter of the victory at Lepanto in Amis' and the real world (109)
• Turner, who paints a ceiling devoted to the restoration of Catholicism in England (7)
• Velluti, the most famous castrato in this version of history, as in ours (34)
• Weber, composer  (30)
• Wagner, composer (201)
• James McNeill Whistler, though we only know he had airship named for him  (177)
• Wren, architect (7)
• Yamamoto* (maybe), in Amis' world he's an architect. He's most likely the same as the real commander in chief of the Japanese navy (155)

There are a few others who may be specific individuals (e.g., Joshua Pellow, the 'archpresbyter'), but I think they are pure inventions. There are also references to places which suggest different roles for the individuals concerned, all in the US - Cranmeria, Hussville and Wyclif city - but not enough to go on. 

What have I missed?

Bibliography, July 2016

BOTM: P.K. Dick, Flow my tears, the policeman said*

E.M. Brent - Dyer, Eustacia goes to the Chalet School*
G. Burrows, Men can do it

It's been a bad month. I'm still reading the book I started the month on, and I'm not even half way through. It's brilliant, just harrowing (and very long). In between, I read a couple of lighter things. They were fine - Dick was the best.

Early retirement?

While Theresa May is being awesome today (and I am definitely developing a little political crush on her), let's spare a thought for David Cameron - in fact, let's spare Ken Clarke's thought, who in the final question to the now ex-PM, called for him to stay in the Commons. I hope he listens, because the haste with which our recent Prime Ministers have left the Commons has been unseemly. Here are all the post-war holders of the office, with ages (Cameron is 49) and their stints in the Commons post premiership.

Brown, 59 at end of premiership, stayed in the Commons 2010-15 (aged 64)

Blair, aged 53, resigned his Commons seat immediately (so still 53)

Major, 54, stayed 1997-01 (59)

Thatcher, 65, stayed 1990-92 (67)

Callaghan, 67, stayed 1980-87, staying as Labour leader for a year after the election defeat (75)

Wilson, 60, stayed 1977-83 (66)

Heath, 58, stayed 1974-2001 (85)

Home, 61, stayed 1964-74 (71)

SuperMac, 69, stayed 1963-4 (70)*

Eden, 59, left almost immediately (59)

Churchill, 79, stayed 1955-64 (89)

Atlee, 68, stayed 1951-55 (72)

Before Major, nobody left the Commons before 65 save for Eden, and he a) regretted it and b) had had a traumatic end. Since Major, it seems like they couldn't wait to get out. Of course, in part this is due to the age of leader - Theresa May is the oldest new PM since Callaghan. However, the differences aren't that great. Heath, Wilson and Home were all c.60, the same age as Brown, and only just over five years older than Blair and Major, yet they stayed on.

Worse, the priority for our recent premiers has not just been to exit the Commons, but to flee the domestic political arena altogether, eschewing the Lords as well. No-one since Thatcher has taken a peerage. As a result, and I think for the first time in modern* Parliamentary history, our past leaders are absent from the deliberations of the day. Nor is this trend limited to Prime Ministers - David Milliband is in New York; and the glorious Clarke-Rifkind conversation was notable because though Clarke admirably remains in the Commons, Rifkind has left, and not taken a peerage either. He has in fact no formal political role Ironically, it is now the second-raters and the placemen to who continue to hang around, not the grandees and especially not the grandest of them.

This makes me sad, and it should make us all sad. One of the strengths of our constitution is that is does not cut off expertise and provides for multiple ways in which elder statesmen can remain part of the process without distorting it. Both the Lords and the Commons have a role to play, but together they stop the guillotine of term limits and ex-Presidencies more concerned with their libraries and their legacy than the reality of the world as it is. In an age of Party, the Commons could do with more people of great experience beyond the reach of the whips and heedless of promotion (even if, like Heath, they spend a lot of time sulking). I don't consider Cameron a particularly good PM, but his would be a welcome voice from the Backbenches or even the red benches (though as he's less than 50, he should hang on to the green for some time yet).

Without the ex-premiers, not only is political life weaker, but it also frays the constitution. There's been a lot of hysteria about the need for an election for Theresa May May, but it's all nonsense - because we have a Parliamentary system. People vote for MPs and the Prime Minister is he who can command the confidence of majority of those MPs. Resigning from public life as soon as that confidence is lost undermines that principle and drags us closer to the presidential model.

Cameron's reputation has been strengthened by the manner of his going. To me, he has an opportunity to strengthen it still further. He should, perhaps aptly, Remain.

*As an aside, Wikipedia's Macmillan summary has this immense line: Macmillan was the last British prime minister born in the reign of Queen Victoria, the last to have served in the First World War, the last to wear a moustache when in office (all prime ministers since have been clean shaven), and the last to receive an hereditary peerage.

** Post Walpole

Bibliography, June 2016

BOTM: E.David, An omelette and a glass of wine

J. Crace, All that follows
M. Holland, The edible atlas: Around the world in thirty-nine cuisines
R. Murphy, The Joy of Tax
N. Mitford (ed.), Noblesse Oblige
J. Roth, What I saw: Berlin 1920-23

That Elizabeth David is marvellous is not in doubt; that her journalism would be rewarding was. I need not have worried. This, a collection of her best pieces, is excellent: elegant, interesting and often funny. It beat out Roth's also excellent journalism on a more sombre subject.

Reflections on a referendum (III): how's that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?

I forget where it was, but one of the obituaries of Margaret Thatcher opined that while she intended her reforms to make Britain more like her father, it ended up making it more like her son - namely that while she intended to create a a nation of robust, self-reliant individuals, she in fact encouraged recklessness and shifting of responsibility.  Whether or not that's true (and I don't think it is), it came to mind at various points in this campaign, and not just when looking at her splendid 1975 jumper. This campaign has been marked by a lack of concern about consequences, and an irritating vagueness about 'Hope.' To outline risks and impacts has been characterised as fearmongering. 

That's unfair. Fear has been a bad name in  this debate. Because fear is a respectable response to unknowns or potential risks. It's legitimate to be afraid about economic turmoil, about our reputation in the world, about pressure on services and about impacts on national identity. It's right to respond to those fears, either to allay them or to mitigate them. Actions have consequences, and people, especially those about to vote, should understand them. What's wrong isn't the fear, it's all the lying. Leave are right to criticise Donald Tusk for his absurd claim that Brexit would destroy western civilisation; Remain are right to attack Leave's tactics on Turkey and about refugees. But the issue with all of these isn't the fear, it's the lies. 

Because to be concerned based on reality is responsible. To dismiss it is not. Blithely asserting that we don't need to worry about economic impact because Brexit will unleash hope isn't a positive campaign, it's a no consequences campaign. This reaches its apogee in the assertion that we could have EU free trade without free movement. More generally, because the collective leadership of Leave aren't a potential government, they won't be held to account for any failure. They can promise what they like; it will be someone else's fault if it never happens. This is one of my main objections to referenda generally, it's certainly one of my major objections to this one.

For the record, here are I think the consequences are clear. Remain vote does mean more integration within the Eurozone and continuing EU harmonisation around other areas. I don't think they will be major, but they will be real. I'm relaxed about that: common tax IDs feel fine to me. Far more significantly, Leave will hammer the economy in the short term. The currency response to the polls tells you everything here. This feels much less fine to me.

But more than this, the wider consequences are also clear. This started personally, and it will end personally, and messily. There is some unwarranted discussion about how every international negotiation after Brexit will be rational (hence we will get a nice trade deal). Personally, I don't think it's that rational for the EU to give us a better deal than its own members, but even if it were, it is unlikely to happen. Does no one remember Charles de Gaulle? Do we think logicians make policy? Having raised alarm over Romanians, will they give their assent to favourable terms for exit? This is fantasy. What is reality is the damage it will do to British politics as well. Whatever happens now, the Tory party has ripped itself apart and the Labour party is guilty of passive acquiescence to irrelevance (if Remain lose, it will be Jeremy Corbyn's fault). And when the hope doesn't materialise, voters will have new reasons to distrust their leaders. All of these are both entirely predictable and a direct result of calling this referendum.