“Things Fall Apart”, by Chinua Achebe

 

209 pages, Penguin, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0385474542

I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe many moons ago as part of an anthropology class at Macomb Community College, only to find out later that it was the first book of a trilogy. Which I haven’t read. Anyway…Things Fall Apart was written back in 1958 and depicts precolonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the colonization by Europeans during the late 19^th Century. The protagonist is a man named Okonkwo who, by the lights of his society, is at the top of the heap as a warrior, wrestler, father and husband. He also unflinchingly exercises his prerogatives in brutal fashion, throwing his weight around, so to speak, with an unthinking single-mindedness. But into this insular and self-satisfied world comes the Europeans and their alien teachings, teachings that many in the tribe find hard – if not impossible – to resist. One who can is Okonkwo but, being one of only a few, finds that things fall apart and he has nowhere to turn.

Things Fall Apart tells two concurrent stories that overlap and counterbalance each other throughout the novel: the protagonist Okonkwo, who represents traditional African culture and its attempt to resist the White Man and his Teachings; and Okonkwo’s tribe, the Umuofia, as it undergoes a drastic change in all areas of life once European missionaries enter the fray. The stark divide in ideologies between Okonkwo and the Umuofia becomes the focal point of the story and leads to some very contentious moments in the book – and to its final tragedy. While focusing on one man and his people, Achebe uses this tale to discuss the wider story of European colonization and exploitation of Africa; in a sense, by making his story smaller, he is better able to show how this disruption brought change and displacement to countless millions of people all across the continent, to better humanize and detail just what the White Man wrought.

And it is Okonkwo who drives the tale forward, this well-developed, flawed and, therefore, fascinating character through whom the reader witnesses just what is going on, to him and to his people. He is a tragic hero whose actions are in the best interests of his family and tribe, though not always; he is no saint, and one bemoans many of the things he does, but this only serves to humanize him and make one root for him all the more. But, seeing what he is up against – the relentless march of European civilization and Progress, as understood by them – it is hard to fault too many of his actions and not to sympathize with much of what he does. The brilliance of Things Fall Apart is how objective it manages to be while also establishing an intimate feel throughout; Achebe was able to shine a light on the culture of the missionaries as well as the Umuofia and point out their strengths and weaknesses while engaging the readers in a very personal tale of one tribesman’s struggle to come to terms with this newly imposed way of life.

“Gods, Graves & Scholars: A Story of Archaeology”, by C.W. Ceram

 

576 pages, Vintage, ISBN-13: 978-0394743196

Hey, ya ever hear of a guy named Kurt Wilhelm Marek? No? Can’t say as I blame you, considering he was a propagandist for the Third Reich who wrote such illuminating and groundbreaking pieces like Wir hielten Narvik, Rote Spiegel überall am Feind and the ever-popular Von den Kanonieren des Reichsmarschalls. Riveting stuff, I’m sure. You may, however, have heard of someone named C.W. Ceram (“Ceram” being “Marek” spelled backwards with a latinized “C” in place of the Germanic “K”) who wrote the brilliant Gods, Graves & Scholars: A Story of Archaeology, a book – hell, THE book – that introduced the general reading public to the origin and development of archaeology. Yours truly, included.

And it remains in print today. GG&S tries to be all-inclusive in that it covers Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek archaeology, along with Mexican, Central American and South American finds while also giving thumbnail sketches of pioneering archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann, Jean-François Champollion, Paul-Émile Botta and Howard Carter, along with many others. Although originally published in 1949 and in spite of the vast accumulation of information in the decades since (particularly in the Americas), GG&S remains an excellent starting point for anyone with even the remotest interest in archaeology, giving as it does a concise but inclusive account of most of the ancient cultures known today.

Being a popular history, many details of cultures and peoples are rather glossed over; however, this in no way detracts from the quality of the writing (or the translation, for that matter) or the depth of the research involved. This book is an appetizer for the intellectual gourmand, a wetting of the appetite that hopefully induces the reader to gorge themselves on the history of this subject. There are, no doubt, other, more detailed and all-encompassing books have come out in the 70+ years since GG&S was first published – especially those that are dedicated specifically to one culture or another – but you could do worse than by starting with GG&S and expanding your search henceforth to include other works.

Between Gods, Graves & Scholars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, I have no doubt that many a young man (and young woman, I suppose) leapt at the chance to become an archaeologist and to explore the world and uncover artifacts and fight Nazis…and while they may have been disappointed at the lack of action and gunplay, I trust they found fulfillment in exploration and discovery.

“The Remains of the Day”, by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

245 pages, Vintage Books, ISBN13: 978-0679731726

It’s rare that a movie is better than the book it was based upon; often, the book is always better, or nearly so. But sometimes, we have a case in which a book and its movie adaptation are equal in terms of merit and quality, and so we have it here with The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. “The Remains of the Day” is one of my favorite all-time movies ever; I have literally watched it maybe a hundred times and it still affects me in ways that few movies have. And so when I saw the novel that the movie was based on at 2^nd & Charles I snatched it up, fully expecting that the movie would suffer in my eyes. But no: both book and movie are brilliant character studies that make the era they are placed in come alive, and I am delighted to say that one may read, or view, either adaptation and still come away moved…and not a little depressed.

The Remains of the Day is told entirely in the first person by Stevens, an English butler who has spent almost the whole of his career (indeed, the whole of his life) in service to Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall. In July 1956, Stevens decides to take a six-day road trip to the West Country of England – his first-ever vacation – at the behest of Mr. Farraday, an American gentleman and the new owner of Darlington Hall and, hence, Stevens’ new employer. While Stevens respects and gets on with Mr. Farraday, he fails to interact well with him on a social level (Stevens has several introspective and self-revelatory speculations as to the use of “Banter” and his inability to master the concept). And so Stevens embarks on his journey west to relax and rusticate, but we soon learn that there is an ulterior motive to this trip.

Stevens determines to visit Miss Kenton (or rather, Mrs. Benn), the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall who left twenty years earlier to get married. After receiving a letter from Mrs. Benn (hereafter Miss Kenton, as Stevens, perhaps absentmindedly, continues to call her), he  determines that as her marriage appears to be failing that she might like to return to her post as housekeeper of Darlington Hall. Since the end of The War, large manor houses have had difficulty staffing their many open positions; indeed, many of these manor houses cannot stay in the hands of the families that have occupied them for generations, seeing how death duties often makes it impossible to do so. That there also appears to be a more personal reason for wanting Miss Kenton back at the house, Stevens never says (although the movie hints at this).

The narrative is thus a road trip by Stevens set in 1956 with numerous recollections of his time serving Lord Darlington before and during The War; along the way, Stevens briefly comes into contact with several other characters, each of whom mirrors Stevens and show the reader different facets of his character (two in particular, Dr. Carlisle and Harry Smith, highlight themes in the book). He also recounts stories of his contemporaries, especially fellow butlers in other great houses who served other great men (ahem) with whom he struck up friendships. During these reminisces, Stevens also begins an inner debate about the definition of “Dignity” and how one cannot be a good butler, much less a great one, without it, again unknowingly giving the reader an insight into this most introspective yet utterly clueless man.

But Stevens’ most notable relationship by far is his long-term working relationship with Miss Kenton, for whom he appears to harbor repressed and never talked about romantic feelings (while this is much clearer in the movie, it is less so in the book). I have to say that one cannot be certain just when Miss Kenton fell for Stevens or vise-versa, or even why. Certainly, the two have frequent disagreements over various household affairs when they work together, but the disagreements are childish in nature and mainly serve to illustrate the fact that the two care for each other on some level. I guess. For I think that Miss Kenton is just as repressed as Stevens and as unable to tell him what she feels, the same as Stevens for Miss Kenton. And so they are both equally to blame for their wasted lives and pointless lovelessness.

At the end of the novel, Miss Kenton – Mrs. Benn – admits that her life may have turned out better if she had married Stevens; after hearing these words, Stevens is extremely upset, although he cannot quite figure out why that is so. He does not, however, tell Miss Kenton how he feels, and so finds himself right back in emotional square one. Oh, there is one brief appearance at the pier when Stevens encounters another butler, since retired, and confesses in a somewhat roundabout way that his was a wasted life in service to man he thought was of superior intellectual and moral character who turned to be anything but, while his own wants and desires were quashed. But Stevens soon recovers and returns to Darlington Hall, his only new resolve being to perfect the art of bantering to please his new employer.

This leads us to another theme of the novel, the all-important class-system of the UK. We learn through Stevens’ interactions with other characters that Lord Darlington was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, due mostly to his mistaken impression of their agenda prior to The War rather than to their anti-Semitic propaganda or other beliefs, going so far as to arrange and host dinner parties between the German and British heads of state to help both sides come to a peaceful understanding. Throughout the book Stevens steadfastly maintains that Lord Darlington was a perfect gentleman and that it is a shame his reputation has been soiled simply because he misunderstood the Nazis’ true aims; but upon learning how this gentleman of the highest order was fooled so easily shatters Stevens’ faith in the class system and his, and Darlington’s, place in it.

So then, what to make of The Remains of the Day? Salman Rushdie described the book as “a story both beautiful and cruel” as we witness “a man destroyed by the ideas upon which he has built his life”. For while Lord Darlington – and, indeed, all of the upper class – was able to choose the path his life took, Stevens – and, indeed, all of the lower classes – cannot say the same: “You see, I trusted…I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really, one has to ask oneself, what dignity is there in that? [returning to one of the themes of the book]”. It is a story primarily about regret: throughout his life, Stevens puts his absolute trust and devotion in a man who makes drastic mistakes while failing to pursue the one woman with whom he could have had a fulfilling and loving relationship. His prim mask of formality – his “Dignity” – cuts him off from intimacy, companionship and understanding. I say, Stevens, bit of a wasted life, wot?

“The Hobbit”, by J. R. R. Tolkien

 

256 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN-13: 978-0395071229

The first time I ever heard of hobbits, Tolkien, Middle Earth and the lot was through the 1977 Rankin/Bass interpretation…and brother, was I hooked. While it would take several more years before I got into Dungeons & Dragons, it was from this time that I became aware of fantasy fiction, magic, dragons, wizards, warriors, elves and so forth. So, when in grade school I was perusing the library and came across The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien – imagine, turning a cartoon into a book! – I pitched right in and read it cover-to-cover in a day or two (I know, the book came first, but I didn’t know that at the time). For those of you who have lived under a rock for the last several decades, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (to give the complete title) is a fantasy children’s story by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, first published in – get this – 1937, where it became much-beloved by both pointy-heads (it won the Carnegie Medal and a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction) and common-folk (it has been a consistent bestseller since publication). A rare feat, indeed.

The tale told by Tolkien as to how The Hobbit came to be was related in a letter he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955 in which, one day while marking School Certificate papers early in the 1930s, he found a blank page and, suddenly inspired, wrote the immortal words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”.  By late 1932, Tolkien had finished the story and lent it to several friends (including C. S. Lewis) and a student of Tolkien’s named Elaine Griffiths. This last bit is important for, in 1936, Griffiths was visited in Oxford by Susan Dagnall, a staff member of the publisher George Allen & Unwin, whence she either lent Dagnall the book or suggested she borrow it from Tolkien. Whatever. What’s important is that Dagnall was so impressed by The Hobbit that she showed it to Stanley Unwin. He then asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it and he, to his everlasting glory, gave the book glowing raves, which was all that Allen & Unwin needed to publish and transform this Oxford Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and fellow at Pembroke College into a modern-day skald.

So, what is it about The Hobbit that makes it so transcendent and popular? Why is it liked by so many people of different generations, social strata, nationalities and all that? There are any number of reasons, but perhaps the simplest and, therefore, best reason is that it is a well-written book: characters are developed, their motivations are clear, the tale moves along at a brisk pace (important when reading to children), the main character is challenged and, by being so, grows and develops, there is action and adventure, wonderful places and sweeping vistas, fantastic creatures and horrible monsters, heroic feats and terrible consequences – in short (heh), The Hobbit is Old School Storytelling at its best, something we get precious little of anymore, especially in children’s fiction. And that’s another important point: this book was meant for children, filled with timeless themes that transcend so much: courage, loyalty, duty, sticktoitiveness – its all there, especially the bit wherein Bilbo Baggins is drawn out of his comfortable (not to say, stagnant) life and made to go adventuring and, in so doing, becomes a better hobbit for it.

It hooked me when I was child and has stayed with me ever since, which is what great literature is supposed to do. Yeah, I said it: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is great literature, for it inspires as it entertains and enlightens as it informs generations of children – and adults – in years past, in the present and for years to come.

“The Eternal Champion”, by Michael Moorcock

 

484 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041912

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. The Eternal Champion was the first in this series featuring the character Erekosë and includes the tales The Eternal Champion, The Sundered Worlds and Phoenix in Obsidian. The main character at the heart of the Eternal Champion stories is John Daker, a mortal man who is taken from our world into another and incarnated in the form of Erekosë, a long-dead hero. He finds that he has been summoned in order to lead the human race in their struggle against the Eldren, an alien race that Erekosë defeated in the past. Throughout, Daker/Erekosë must balance his mortal life with his present incarnation, while also learning to distinguish between truth and fiction, as the rules of this new world he finds himself in are quite different from those of Earth, and he cannot decide if magic is real or some other phenomena.

While Erekosë is not as well-known as Elric, Corum, or many of the other aspects of the Eternal Champion, he is perhaps the most important as it is this character that kicks off Moorcock’s Multiverse and is one of the most frequently mentioned aspects of the hero. In one story, told from different viewpoints in The Vanishing Tower and The King of the Swords, Elric and Corum meet a third aspect of the hero who joins with them to form “The Three Who Are One”. When they ask his name, he tells them to call him Erekosë, because it was in that form that he came closest to knowing true peace. In other works, however, it is hinted that Erekosë himself committed a crime of betrayal, and that the Eternal Champion is somehow punished for it; The Eternal Champion is the story of that betrayal.

The first book in this cycle is The Eternal Champion, which Moorcock wrote in less than a week when he was – get this – 17-years-old. Unusual for him, it is written in the first person and chronicles the story of how John Daker is transported to an alien world and resurrected as Erekosë in order to fight an evil race called the Eldren, only to find that all may not appear as it should be (no spoilers here). The tale is told in bright colors and melodramatic language, just as one would expect from a kid. It is also uneven – sometimes strong, sometimes weak – but then, what would you expect from a first-time effort? But what is of true interest is watching a young mind tackle deep subjects and, better yet, defy expectations as he delivers a shot to the solar plexus. This is what I guess one would call high-caliber Sci-Fi, as the world Moorcock crafts comes to life and is a descriptive as a travelogue. Though sparsely written, with only that which is needed to bring the tale along and not much else, even at this tender age Moorcock had learned that what isn’t said is as important as what is.

The Sundered Worlds is where Moorcock’s concept of the Multiverse first saw print. In a nutshell, it is “a multitude of alternative universes intersecting sometimes with our own and to which, of course, our own belongs – in infinite number of slightly different versions of reality in which one is likely to come across a slightly different version of oneself” (from the author, BTW). Renark von Bek undertakes to save various sections of this Multiverse from Armageddon, a suitable quest for an Eternal Champion, one should think. But just when you think this is just a typical fireballs-in-space extravaganza, one finds that there is a deeper story of a man inexorably and inevitable drawn to a hidden Destiny that he can neither avoid nor alter, in spite of his (admittedly) super-human efforts. Renark von Bek (you’ll see that name again in Moorcock’s works) goes about his mission with a cavalier attitude one recognizes from any number of Space Operas, and it is this very attitude of heroic, yet resigned, resolve that earns him the respect of his many friends and the grudging admiration of his enemies. Amazing technologies are on display as well, many of which became real: virtual reality, computer tablets, digital displays and advanced quantum physics. For great, dazzling yet classically-spirited science fiction adventure, The Sundered Worlds is a winner.

Phoenix in Obsidian (or The Silver Warriors, if you prefer) picks up right where The Eternal Champion ended; Erekosë finds himself plucked from his new home and bride to once again put the Cosmic Balance right, this time as Urlik Skarsol of the South Ice, a frozen world with a dying sun and a moon that has crashed into the Earth. This world is populated by a truly degenerate humanity hunkered down in a mountain fastness called the Obsidian City and is subject an alien invasion. One of the book’s first mysteries is just who has summoned Erekosë and for what purpose, or even if anyone here really worthy of saving. Erekosë (or Urlik Skarsol) soon discovers that there is no faith in this world, just people seeking pleasure while awaiting their inevitable doom. Moorcock again plays the contrarian and presents his protagonists with one ethical quandary after another. Fantasy and science fiction are blurred, while the many pseudo-Arthurian tropes to be found throughout the story are intriguing without being pedantic.

“The Forest”, by Edward Rutherfurd

 

624 pages, Crown, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0609603826

The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd takes place over nine centuries in the New Forest that covers southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire – over 71,000 acres in its present form. When it was first created by William the Conqueror, the New Forest ran from the river Avon from the west to the port of Southampton to the east, with some 100,000 acres of forest and heath that swept down to the Solent water and the Isle of Wight, all set aside for the Kings of England – and nobody else. From the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day, the New Forest has remained a mysterious, powerful, almost mythical place where first Saxon, and later Norman, kings rode forth with their hunting parties (and where William the Conqueror’s son, William II “Rufus”, was mysteriously killed); still later, the fishermen who lived in Christchurch and Lymington helped Sir Francis Drake fight off the Spanish Armada while the mighty oaks of the forest were used to build the ships of the Royal Navy. Although located in the very south of England, one could argue that the Heart of this this sceptred isle can be found in the New Forest.

Beginning in 1099, The Forest is divided into seven chapters: The Hunt, Beaulieu, Lymington, The Armada Tree, Alice, Albion Park and Pride of the Forest; intermingling both real and fictional characters, the narrative traces the lineage of several families over nine centuries. There is Lady Adela, the cousin of Walter Tyrrell who is blamed for the death of the King (as well as Puckle, a gnarled old man who darkly personifies the Forest). Then there is Brother Adam of Beaulieu Abbey who is content to serve God until a poaching incident puts him in contact with an intriguing young woman named Mary Furzey. We have the Totton family of the harbor town of Lymington along with the Penruddocks and Lisles of Moyles Court, all making their ways in their world. The defeat of the Spanish Armada is dealt with, as is the fate of Alice Lisle for her role in the 1685 Monmouth uprising and even a reference to Leonard Hoar, an infamous early president of Harvard. A crime in Bath during the Regency shatters the decorous society of the same before we at last come to the year 2000 and what the world holds in store for The Forest.

I see what Rutherfurd is attempting to do with The Forest, tracing the families who make it their home as they rise, fall and struggle to survive, all while the New Forest rises, falls and struggles right along with them, as if it, too, were a living thing with desires and aspirations, as well. In one sense, the forest is a character in its own right: mysterious, ever-present and with designs of its own. It is also subject to the whims of time and of chance…as are we all.

“The Memoirs of Cleopatra”, by Margaret George

 

964 pages, St. Martin’s Press, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0312154301

The Memoirs of Cleopatra is the fourth historic novelization I have read by Margaret George, the others being The Autobiography of Henry VIII, With Notes By His Fool, Will Somers (reviewed on March 7^th, 2012), Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles (reviewed on April 10^th, 2012) and Elizabeth I (reviewed on May 8^th, 2020); all but the last were excellent, and so here I go again with The Memoirs of Cleopatra, which follows in the footsteps of George’s first book as purporting to having been written by the Father-Loving Goddess herself (I actually read this after having read Henry VIII and Mary, the order in which they were written; don’t know why it took me so long to review it). As with her prior books, Cleopatra is written with novelesque descriptions of a long-dead world in which life was short and death could come at a moment’s notice (or less); in which the status of the high and mighty did not protect them from the consequences of their actions; and in which beauty existed side-by-side with ugliness. In short: this is some Good Stuff, man.

It’s no wonder that Cleopatra has engrossed people over the many centuries after her death, being a powerful woman in the ancient world who ruled a rich and (sometimes) powerful nation surrounded by so many (male) jackals. Some said she was beautiful, although the consensus anymore seems to be that she was rather more exotic and fascinating; all agreed that she was intelligent, crafty and ruthless when she had to be – in other words, a ruler. With her novel, George also shows Cleopatra to be a woman: seductive, manipulative, fragile and not a little needy – y’know, human. As with her other books, her heroine is taken at face value and not given to many instances of self-recriminations or lack of inspired motivations; as Memoirs is written from the first-person, that person being Cleopatra, this is hardly surprising, but if you want a history of this most enigmatic and fascinating of queens, best find yourself a proper biography, instead (say, like Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, reviewed on March 18^th, 2013, or Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt by Joyce A. Tyldesley, reviewed on January 23^rd, 2014).

What we DO get with The Memoirs of Cleopatra are the usual suspects: Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Octavian, enigmatic Egyptians, brash Romans, royal barges, sacred asps, scheming eunuchs, chariot races, eye-watering riches and stultifying poverty…George, as usual, describes this dead world with the vim and vigor of one who seemingly walked its dusty streets and actually smelled the Alexandrian harbor, tasted the pomegranates, beheld the pyramids and heard the clash of swords. As with most tales in which I already know the ending, it was a fascinating read when it came to all of the details I knew little or nothing about; the Big Picture things I was familiar with – Caesar’s North African campaign, the Alexandrian War or the ill-fated struggle between Antony and Octavian for control of the world – were rather more difficult to get through, seeing as I had already seen the movie but, for all that, George does an admirable job keeping one abreast of the whys and the hows of the Roman conquest of the Med and the consequences thereof. Not a proper history, by no stretch, but still well-researched and described.

As with most historical figures who have lived extraordinary lives, if Cleopatra VII Philopator had never existed and an enterprising screenwriter invented her story out of whole-cloth and presented it to some producer or whatever the script would have been tossed into the trash without a second thought as being hopelessly fantastic and unrealistic. But live she did – and love and rule and conquer and fall. While a novelization of her life (and incredibly forgiving of its subject), The Memoirs of Cleopatra succeeds in bringing this most immortal of women back to life.