B i b l i o f i l e

 (Published: SCRIBNER 2009. 193 pages)

No Tea Party: Love and Bigotry in a North American City

Map of Ireland opens with a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “geography is fate.” Although it is indeed true that the fate of the protagonist of this novel would have been different had she not lived in South Boston, her age and the epoch in which she lives are equally important factors. For she was a teenage secondary school pupil in 1974, the year in which violent protests erupted on the streets of her native city in response to the introduction of bussing.

Although the system of legally mandated segregation that blighted the lives of Black Americans in the Southern United States had been abolished by the end of the 1960s, thanks to the efforts the civil rights movement, the informal residential segregation that afflicted Northern US cities remained in place. Integrated neighbourhoods were a rarity (a situation that apparently still pertains) and therefore the pupil intake of neighbourhood schools tended to be preponderantly Black or preponderantly White. A number of attempts were made to integrate and improve urban education by transporting children by bus from Black neighbourhoods to schools in White neighbourhoods and vice versa, a practice known as bussing.

The decision to implement bussing in the Massachusetts city of Boston was more than a little unpopular in South Boston, a White working class urban area inhabited predominantly by people of Irish Catholic descent. There were mass anti-bussing protests. There was violence.

Buses carrying Black children were stoned. A Black lawyer died after being attacked by a group of White teenagers as he left Boston City Hall. The next day Black teenagers retaliated by attacking a White motorist, who also died.

The Boston bussing crisis forms the background to Map of Ireland. The authorities begin bussing Black pupils to the “White school” attended by Ann Ahern (the White narrator of the novel) the same year that a new French language teacher, for whom Ann develops a crush, begins teaching there. Mademoiselle Eugénie, who has come from France on a teacher exchange scheme, happens to be Black. Ann has never known a Black person before. She was already coming to terms with negative attitudes towards her sexuality; now she will be forced to cope with the racism of the community in which she lives.

Thus is set in train a series of events that will present Ann with a moral dilemma - a choice between two different kinds of betrayal - and end in her downfall. She is a victim, not of her desires, but of the social matrix within which her desires are embedded. Her pathological behaviour is a response to a pathological society.

Literature at its best can help us understand the lives of others and Map of Ireland certainly succeeds in this regard. Employing a matter-of-fact, not overly dramatic style of narration, which makes ordinary that which some observers would see as extraordinary, it gives the reader a flavour of what it might have been like to have been a White working class teenage lesbian in love with a Black female in the Boston of 1974. Many teenagers and ex-teenagers in Britain and elsewhere will feel, or remember feeling, some of the same things that Ann feels and will identify with her whatever their own sexuality or ethnicity. By entering into the life of an individual we gain insight into the roles played in society in general by gender, sexual orientation, class and “race”.

“Race” is, of course, a cultural product - hence the claim by some Black Americans in the 1990s that Bill Clinton was the first Black President - and there are a number of allusions to the social construction of “racial” identity in the novel. Ann’s radical re-interpretation of A Streetcar Named Desire is noteworthy in this respect.

The fact that the conflict over bussing primarily affected poor working class neighbourhoods is significant. Perhaps the anxieties of some South Bostonians were partly a product of the insecurities generated by their socio-economic position, of which this novel draws a creditable sketch. Those weaned on television portrayals of US affluence may be surprised at the poverty experienced by many of the inhabitants of South Boston.

Map of Ireland is a praiseworthy evocation of an important episode in the history of the United States. It is a well-written, enjoyable, realistic and serious novel, with credible characters and a believable plot. The narrative flows easily, drawing the reader in from the first line. It is a joy to read.

(Publisher: Little, Brown 2009. 404 pages).

However, those who are not lovers of the science fiction of Iain M Banks would be unwise to let the knowledge that this novel is “science fiction” deter them from reading it. They will find this very different from his self-proclaimed SF. Unlike much of the latter, this is a Banks SF novel that is readable. Banks clearly wishes to class this as a mainstream novel, and it should appeal to his non-SF readership.

Transition deals with a well-established SF theme: parallel worlds. This is an idea that hails from the more tendentious end of the metaphysical speculations of quantum physicists. In Transition there are an infinite number of Earths, and the extent to which they vary from one another is dependent upon when and by how much their histories diverged from the home world of the hero.

The hero is not based on the version of the Earth on which this review is being written, a device that enables Banks, through the medium of the hero’s viewpoint, to say of our world:

I would guess I am in a fairly standard late-twentieth or early twenty-first-century Degenerate Christian High-Capitalist reality (a Greedist world, to use the colloquial).

Another character amusingly characterises Libertarianism (the doctrine that the capitalist market should be free of any state regulation) as:

“A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own sociopathic self-regard.”

The parallel worlds device also enables Banks to make a sharply satirical riposte to the claim that there is something particular to Islam that predisposes some of its adherents to engage in terrorist attacks on unarmed civilians. In one of the parallel Earths to which the hero travels there are terrorists inspired by Christianity, which is described as a

…bizarre, perverted and cruel religion with its emphasis on martyrdom, cannibalism and the alleged ability of their holy men to forgive all sins no matter how horrendous and barbaric…

Christianity is

“The religion of zealotry… The religion that loves its martyrs, the religion of the doctrine of Original Sin, so that blowing even babies to smithereens is justifiable because they too are sinners.”

Those who would excuse the use of torture against suspected terrorists would do well to heed the words of the character, guilty of once torturing a suspected Christian terrorist, who runs foul of the torturers himself:

“Don’t you see? You can’t have a state where torture is legal, not for anything. You start saying it’s only for the most serious cases, but that never lasts. It should always be illegal, for everybody, for everything. You might not stop it. Laws against murder don’t stop all murders, do they? But you make sure that people don’t even think about it unless it’s a desperate situation, something immediate. And you have to make the torturer pay. In full. There has to be that disincentive, or they’ll all be at it.”

* * *

The only real truth that torture produced was that people would admit anything to get the torture to stop, even if they knew the admissions they were being called upon to make would eventually prove fatal for them, or others. The whole process was pointless and cruel and a waste, he claimed. A state that allowed or condoned torture lost part of its soul, he said.

Transition is an enjoyable light-hearted adventure (the pace of which seemed to flag for a stretch in the middle) that makes some pertinent points about contemporary British/Euro-American society.

As in most novels of adventure, the hero of Transition overcomes the obstacles too easily and the resolution is pat. Such failings might be forgivable were the plot as a whole not literally incredible. This lack of credibility stems not from its science fictional premises (that there exists a powerful secret organisation attempting to manipulate the histories of parallel Earths) it stems from the unrealistic, rather juvenile quality of the storyline.

Transition does not work as a serious novel (that is, a novel that one can take seriously – it is possible for a light-hearted adventure to be taken seriously) nor does it quite work as a piece of pure escapism and one cannot help but feel short-changed and wondering whether there is any point to it.

—–

Paul T Kegan 29/05/10.

(Publisher: Europa Editions, 2009. 162 pages)

OF TERRORISM, WRITING AND AGING

Set in Italy and originally written in Italian, this novel initially appears to be about someone accused of terrorism (of the Red Brigades variety). Then it also becomes an account of an author trying to write a novel about said topic.

The characters, of which the author is apparently one, make a number of noteworthy points.

There are critiques of the capitalist system in Italy and internationally:

… that billions of human beings in the Third World, to the south, should be exterminated in order to allow others in the First World, to the north, to live longer and longer, and that their age should weigh eve more lightly upon them.

* * *

We use handsome words to record ugly things, we agree on plans of attack, ambushes, mockeries, genocide, destruction-reconstruction-destruction. We speak violence and call it the quest for food, hunting, caste, class, competition, market forces, liberation, and new world order.

There are observations about aging:

Aging is the slow process of becoming accustomed to the end of real life. One must slowly abandon one’s image, one’s role, and resign oneself to fading in the memories of others, and in our own… How long had it been since he stopped learning the names of novelists, essayists, directors, singers, artists, and notable people in general? When had he begun to cling to his customary books without trying to read new ones, to his old movie stars without curiosity about the rising new ones?

Terrorists and their justifications are examined:

Both urban guerrillas and suicide bombers, moreover, in cases where they did not strike with violence, but instead wrote documents to explain what they aspired to achieve with the political, religious, and military actions, demonstrated clearly that they - precisely like many politicians ensconced firmly in public institutions - were the product of the exceedingly mediocre mass education that he himself had helped to perpetuate over the past fifty years: crude minds ready to set up gulags and execute by firing squad, and torture.

* * *

I couldn’t understand the rage of the well-to-do, it disgusted me… Their treacherous murders struck me as yet another exercise of power, I thought that their bold willingness to shed the blood of others was simply a natural extension of their class arrogance.

* * *

Human beings of all ages were devastated by ferocious exploitation, bombs, torture. Before the indifference of the well-to-do, men, women, and children, driven by the despair of poverty and hunger, hurried by the thousands to drown in the sea just off our coasts, our homes. Everyone, eventually, would be forced to decide not whether or not to shed blood, but which blood to shed: the blood of the oppressed or the blood of the oppressors.

* * *

“Peace cannot be separated from the defeat of those who buy and sell everything, poisoning the planet, filling arsenals with bombs, and who are willing to blow the whole world sky-high rather than give up their personal privileges, sit down around a table, and give the world a just, free and peaceful order.”

Although such thought-provoking statements make this enjoyable book worth reading, it has to be said that as a novel it is a little unfulfilling. It seems incomplete. One is left with the impression that author did not have enough material for a fully-rounded novel.

Paul T Kegan 26/05/10.

 (Published: Serpent’s Tail 2005)

THE WORST OF TIMES: A TALE OF ONE CITY

 Set in the capital of Algeria in the early 1990s, this short novel is the story of a singer who is on the verge of stardom, for whom a number of things go wrong, resulting in a radical change in his attitudes and his way of life.

Not only does he have to cope with overcrowding (sharing a three-room flat with 13 other family members!) insanitary conditions (piles of rubbish and pools of urine in the stairwells) and a chaotic street life – but he also has to contend with the threat to his way of life posed by the growth of support for Islamism, in the form of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front).

The army took action in 1992 to cancel the elections in which it was predicted the FIS would gain to gain a majority in the national assembly. A bloody civil war between the state and religious extremists ensued, in which the protagonist is caught up. Something like 120,000 people died between 1992 and 1997.

This book provides a vivid evocation of everyday life in early 1990s Algiers, a world that struck me as bearing more than a passing resemblance to the societies evoked in many a contemporary dystopian science fiction novel. It gives important insights into the culture, politics, and religion of Algeria, and into ostensibly religiously-based political movements in general. Well worth reading if you want to understand more about the underlying tensions and conflicts that loom large in many parts of the world today.

 —–

Paul T Kegan 27/05/10 

ET, Phone God

This readable but poorly imagined genre novel is notable for presenting natural theological arguments within the context of an account of First Contact with extraterrestrials.

“Natural theology” is the label applied to attempts to demonstrate the existence of an omnipotent creator by an examination of the characteristics of the natural world.

Contemporary science is agreed that both the structure and the development of the cosmos are dependent upon certain parameters, the value of each of which must lie within narrow limits in order for intelligent life to develop on Earth or any other planet.

For example, if the strength of gravity was very slighter greater, then the average star would be smaller, stellar nuclear fusion would proceed at a much greater rate, and the Sun would have a life of thousands, rather than billions, of years. Life could not possibly evolve on such a short time scale.

Advocates of natural theology have claimed that this “fine-tuning” of the constants of nature is so unlikely that it can only be explained by the existence of a creator god. Those unfamiliar with this kind of reasoning may be impressed by its exposition in this book, even though there are faults with its presentation.

It has been suggested by reputable scientific thinkers that there are many universes, each with a different set of constants. This idea has been extended to argue that there is a kind of “natural selection” at work, as a result of which universes that are favourable to the development life tend to be more numerous than those hostile to life. The concept of the natural selection of universes is dependent upon the notion that when a large supernova remnant collapses to form a black hole, a new universe is formed.

Thus, the existence of a universe “fine-tuned” for the development of life is not such a mystery when we take into account that there are an infinite number of other universes, each with its own peculiar set of constants. Rather than being unlikely, the existence of at least one universe with a set of constants necessary for the development of life is a certainty.

Unfortunately, Calculating God presents the above explanation as being the only alternative to what might be called “the argument for god from cosmic fine-tuning.” This straw man is then easily, though unsatisfactorily, demolished in the novel. (One of the extraterrestrial visitors informs the protagonist that its planet’s scientists have demonstrated conclusively that there are not and cannot be other universes).
It is indeed true to say that the suggestion that other universes exist is highly speculative and that there is no solid evidence for it. However, the “argument from fine-tuning” can be rebuffed without recourse to the “multiple universes” speculation.

Puzzling over why the constants have values that allow the development of intelligent life is a bit like a puddle wondering why it exactly fits the depression in which it lies. The fact is, if the universe was not here, we would be able to talk about it.

The author does present a good counter-argument to the argument from design in the field of biology. There are 64 possible “words” in the genetic code, which means that there could be three synonyms for each amino acid that DNA utilises. However, in reality some “words” have no synonyms, and one has as many as six. This would suggest that if DNA was designed, then the designer was incompetent, if not malicious. For transcription errors can cause cancer, and the more synonyms there are, the lass the chance of a transcription error.

The final part of the novel is more than a little ridiculous, with the deity manifesting itself to stop a supernova destroying life on planets in this part of the Galaxy, and then giving birth! The author should be ashamed.

On a more positive note, there are some pertinent remarks on how public institutions in Canada such as museums are suffering cutbacks in state funding, becoming commercialised and “dumbed down.” It is clear that Canada has been infected by the neo-liberal ethos espoused by Thatcher, Blair and Brown. The author’s stance on this issue, at least, cannot be faulted. If I am ever in Ontario, I will be sure to visit the Royal Ontario Museum.

The long dark night of the Edinburgh soul?

If you have ever wondered what kind of world will emerge from the current “War on Terror”, then you may enjoy reading the new novel by Ken MacLeod.

It is set some decades from now, in the aftermath of a series of conflicts known in the formerly US-allied countries as the “Faith Wars”. The rest of the world refers to them as the “Oil Wars”, and indeed wounded British ex-combatants receive pensions from the united secular democratic Arab states under the “Oil for Blood” programme.

One of the effects of the end of the Faith Wars was a mass reaction against faith-based politics. This sparked a civil war in the USA (which the religious fundamentalists lost) and in the Republic of Scotland police God squads suppressed all political involvement on the part of preachers of all creeds.

The original Enlightenment led to the separation of church and state; the Second Enlightenment has led to the separation of religion and politics. The murder of a priest in Edinburgh causes unease in official circles. Has politicised religion re-emerged as a social force?

This is not only an enjoyable “who done it” crime novel, categorised as science fiction because it is set in “the future”, it is also a mind-tickling political satire.

MacLeod’s Edinburgh owes something to the novels of Ian Rankin, in my opinion, but this is a strength: the fiction is more believable for being rooted in a not-unfamiliar setting. The plot does not bear too close an examination in retrospect, but this is true of many crime novels.

The Night Sessions will be of interest not only to crime novel aficionados, science fiction fans and politicos, but also to general readers (if there be such a thing).

If you have always been dying to know what was really going on behind the scenes during Tony Blair’s years in Downing Street, then you might do well to order a copy of television journalist Adam Boulton’s new book, “Tony’s Ten Years”. Released next month, the book provides a number of revelations, ranging from the some of the Royal Family’s reactions to Downing Street’s management of Diana’s funeral, to some of John Prescott’s off-the-cuff remarks.

Adam Boulton was certainly in a position to have a bit of insider knowledge of what was going on at Number 10 during the Blair years, being not only a news anchor, but also, luckily, husband of Blair aide Anji Hunter.

If you can’t wait for the book to come out, you need go no further than The Guardian, where you will find a serialisation which has just started. Here you can read about Blair and Brown’s friendship, and conjecture for yourself if it was really true that a deal was done whereby Brown would let Blair go for the leadership of the Labour Party, and subsequent premiership, on the understanding that Blair would subsequently step aside in favour of Brown. Boulton contends that this “deal” in fact never existed.

Adam Boulton is now the political editor of Sky News, and, if the first part of the serialisation is anything to go by, the book will be good reading for those who like to follow UK politics.

“Tony’s Ten Years”, by Adam Boulton. Simon & Schuster, October 2008.

Edward Larson takes us from the first stirrings of interest in the idea of transmutation, that is, the idea that species change over time, to how Darwin, from his contemplations on the voyage of the Beagle, and later from his readings of Malthus, finally arrived at his theory of evolution by natural selection, which took the world by storm.

It is often portrayed that Darwin, as a young man, had a eureka moment on the Galapagos Islands, and in a flash of insight came up with his theory, but in fact it took a lot longer than that. And the credit for the theory doesn’t just lie with Darwin, but also with Wallace, the two finally deciding to publish at the same time.

Darwin delibarately avoided mentioning human evolution in Origin, knowing the effect that this would have, but he pulled no punches in the Descent of Man, which clearly addressed the issues of human evolution.

It is often suggested that Darwin’s theory clearly lay down the gauntlet to a religious view of the world, but it appears that in fact even Darwin himself argued that acceptance of his theory was not incompatible with a religious world view. It seems that Darwin became agnostic more due to sadness at the deaths of two of his beloved children than because of the theory.

However some religious lobbies, especially in America, were less than happy with the idea of religion being taught in schools, and this controversy rages even today.

The theory of evolution by natural selection played a role in the rise of the eugenics movement, and social Darwinism, both of which are explained very well by Larson.

If you want to understand more about the theory of evolution, what its antecedents were, and what it led to – then you would do well to read this book.

“Evolution - The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory”, Edward J. Larson, The Modern Library, New York, 2004.