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Sunday, November 19, 2023

Stephen King - Fairy Tale

Written during Covid-19 Stephen King's Fairy Tale bears all the markings of a literal escapist fantasy, and that's why I found it perfect to read when I did. It beings with the troubled early life of Charlie Reade who is 17 when the novel is set, though the first 100 pages concern his childhood - the death of his mother and the consequent alcoholism of Charlie's father. Charlie's dad eventually escapes the cycle of alcoholism, and puts himself back on the straight and narrow, but the fear of a relapse haunts Charlie, whose efforts in the schoolroom and on the athletic field seem to be attempts to atone for his father's behaviour and some unsavoury childhood rebellion by himself.

But it is when Charlie meets Howard Bowditch, and elderly, reclusive and very rude neighbour that things enter the fantastical. It turns out that Bowditch, who becomes Charlie's friend and mentor, is the guardian of a gateway to a fairy tale world, but its a world attacked by evil, while has begun to disintegrate. As it's a fairy tale land the former royal family are actually rather nice people, rather than those at the top of a system of oppression and exploitation. Charlie sets out to restore the throne, and save the life of Bowditch's beloved dog.

It is actually a fairly classic fairy tale, though Charlie spends a lot of it in prison, forced to compete in violent gladiatorial combat with other prisoners. There is a satisfactory ending, and reconciliation with his father, and the dog lives.

As with much of King's writings, Fairy Tale is at its best when describing the mundane parts of his character's lives. The first third, focusing on Charlie and the relationship with the two adults - his father and Bowditch is the best. The reader is carried along on a sort of soap opera. By the time we get to the fairy tale, it feels a little like King has spent his imagination a little and the the rest of the story is cobbled together. It feels more like a computer game brought to the page, than a fully rounded novel. That said, there's plenty of vintage King here, some blood and guts, lots of excitement and a host of weird and wonderful fantasy characters.

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Beverley McCombs - The Ascott Martyrs

The 1870s saw an explosion of trade unionism across rural England as workers', sick of low pay, appalling conditions and the cost of living, joined new trade unions in their thousands. Many of them quickly went on strike and often one excellent pay rises from the farmers. The epicentre of this trade unionism were the Midland counties of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, partly because of their proximity to the Warwickshire village of Barford where one of the leading figures of the new unionism, Joseph Arch, lived.

At a recent event in Barford to celebrate the life and struggles of Arch, I was reminded of a often forgotten episode of this struggle that took place nearby in the village of Ascott, near Chipping Norton. I had written about this in my own account of rural struggles, Kill all the Gentlemen, highlighting its importance because it is one of the few occasions where the workers' strikes explicitly involved a group of women. Despite the agricultural unions limiting membership to men, women were actually often agricultural labourers, or workers' in allied trades and certainly were workers. The Ascott Martyrs, as they became known, were a group of sixteen women who were sent to prison for trying to prevent scab labour breaking a strike. Beverley McCombs book on their lives and struggle is a fitting and important tribute to events.

Today the area near Ascott is a relatively affluent part of the Cotswolds, near to the wealthy market town of Chipping Norton. In the early 1870s, while there were pockets of great wealth concentrated in the hands of the landowners and farmers, workers experienced a hard life. Seven of the women who were imprisoned were farm workers, eight gloveresses and one a servant. Assembling gloves was a hard, repetative task often done in the family home or by groups of women visiting each other. As McCombs explains, they "sewed the pieces together by hand, earning between fourpence and fivepence a pair. A good gloveress could make up to three pairs in a day".

This pay did not allow luxury. As one contemporary report quoted by McCombs describes, some of the housing conditiond were appalling:

Imagine a narrow place, like a coal cellar, down which you go two or three steps, no flooring except broken stones, no celiing, no grate, rough walls, a bare ladder leading to the one narrow bedroom about six feet wide, containing two double bedsteads for a man his wife and three young children.

It is no surprise that within a couple of months of forming a union, local workers went on strike. By May 1873, the men had been on strike for four months and the strike was causing significant problems for the landowner. This led to him trying to employ two scab workers. The women decided to act and a newspaper reported:

On Sunday 11th of May [the women] were informed that two strange boys were working on Hambridge's farm, from which the Union men had retired. They discussed the matter and consulted together (the greater part of them being related to a family named Moss), and determined to wait upon the boys to represent to them the manner in which they were injuring their own order.

What happened next depends on which side you were on. As McCombs explains:

The two youths... made statements under oath to prove that they were threatened, molested and obscrtucted from entering their work place. The women, also under aoth, denied these claims, though they did say they had spoken to the youths and asked them not to go to work.

Whatever actually took place, and it seems likely that the scabs were encouraged to exagerate events by the landowner, the women were tried and seven women considered leaders were give ten days with hard labour, the remainder seven days with hard labour. Considering that two of the women had babies in arms, this was vicious and cruel sentancing by the two clergy acting as magistrates. They were ignorant of the law and in fact the outrage at the sentences and the riot that took place afterwards caused a brief national scandal, and McCombs suggests, an eventual reform of the law.

The riot was significant and demonstrated the outrage, some 1000 people protested outside the Chipping Norton police station were the women were awaiting transfer to prison. As McCombs says, "The crowd shouted, 'Fetch the women!', 'Stick to the union!', 'Cheers for the women!' and 'Cheers for the union!', along with further threats that they would pull down the police station unless the women were freed." Sadly this latter did not take place and the women were hauled off to hard labour.

McCombs details conditions - which were awful - and the longer time impact of the sentences on the women. Their release, by contrast, was marked by two celebratory events, parades and rallies as the two groups of women came home. In his autobiography Joseph Arch says that the women were given a silk dress in union colours, and £5 each. He also notes that £80 was raised for their support, £5 of which came in pennies - indicating that many poor people gave. McCombs discusses a long standing belief that Queen Victoria herself gave a dress to the women, though it seems unlikely to be true.

McCombs book has its roots in her own investigations of family history, and the book finishes with detailed individual accounts of each women, their family relations (many were related to each other as the newspaper suggested) and what happened to them. Many of the women, like many other agricultural workers in the union movement, emigrated to North America or New Zealand. Some of them had lives cut short by the conditions they had experienced, including in prison. Others seemed to live long and happier lives. Some of them lived into relatively modern times being young when the strike took place. Reading McCombs summary of their subsequent lives, I was struck again by how the experience of struggle is often transformative and life changing. Fanny Honeybone, who was sixteen when she tried to stop the scabs breaking the strike, and was sent to prison for 10 days with hard labour, lived until 1939. She had fourteen children, five of whom died very young and lived her whole life in the local area. In 1928 she remembered the strike very fondly, and her quote stands testament to the struggle and the role of women in these strikes, which is all too often ignored and forgotten:

During the strike... the farmer, had sent for two men to finish his pea hoeing, and the women, including myself, went up the Ascott-under-Wychwood road to stop them. There was something of the idea of fun in what we did - certainly no intention to harm them. I got ten days, second division, in Oxford Gaol. I remember the coaches which met us and the demonstration afterwards in the Town Hall at Chipping Noron. Those were stirring times and it gives me a thrill of pleasure to remember them.

Beverley McCombs short book is a fitting and detailed tribute to these women. It also raises the question about whether there were other such events involving women workers, that have been neglected by the union movement. As she points out, Arch himself believed "Wives must be at home" and there ought to be a family wage paid to their husbands. His union thought that women workers' would drive down men's wages. Luckily this attitude is long gone from the British labour movement, but it was a significant issue in the 1870s and likely undermined the strength of the strikes. Did other women agricultural labourers come out with their men?

The book will be an important source for family historians (I myself found at least one family connection!) and those interested in the history of women's struggle and radicalism in the countryside. You can order it from the Ascott Martyrs' website.

Monday, November 06, 2023

Eleanor Parker - Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon year

This, remarkably original, book is a fascinating study of how Anglo-Saxon people understood and talked about the seasons. Readers will find a very different understanding of the years, the seasons themselves were different, and the language and expectations of the different times of the year reflected a very different society. The nearerst equivalent to autumn was not known for falling leaves and misty mornings, rather it was called "harvest". As Eleanor Parker remarks, this reflected the different nature of an agricultural society, where

a good harvest was essential for sustaining life through the winter months, and bringing in the heavest required a huge amount of hard work, communal labour necessary for everyone's survival... August wasn't holiday time, but the season when many people were doing their harest work of the year.

Thus around harvest/autumn there were a series of important festivals and religious events that were tied to the hope for a good harvest and prayers for bountiful fruits. This was also a special, perhaps magical, time and as Parker says, "poests writing about this season often reflect on what might be the ultimate source of nature's bounty, the invisible power that makes the crops grow."

The reference to poets highlights another important aspect to this book - its focus on literature and poetry, two key sets of sources that give us an understanding of how the Anglo-Saxon people understood their world and its nature. It was as time of transition, when Christianity was replacing older, traditional beliefs, festivals and practices. The Christians understood the importance of tying in their festivals to older activities, few of which we know in detail. But the songs and poetry often retain their links to the earlier beliefs. Here is an old rune poem that Parker quotes, where Gear (which became our "year") refers actually to the "season of growth and harvest".

Gear is a joy to men, when God,
holy King of heaven, causes the earth
to give bright fruits for nobles and the needy.

It is not difficult to read in this Christian poem, allusion and patterns that are much older.

Eleanor Parker's exploration of the Anglo-Sazon era is far more than a series of accounts of how they understood the changing year. It is a discussion of how people understood time and their place in a world that constantly changed, but also cycled. It is rather a lovely book.

Related Reviews

Pryor - Britain AD: A Quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons
Lacey & Danziger - The Year 1000
Duby - The Age of the Cathedrals: Art & Society 980-1420
Faith - The Moral Economy of the Countryside: Anglo-Saxon to Anglo-Norman England

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Ilan Pappe - Ten Myths About Israel

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's work has been some of the most consistent in explaining the origins of the Israeli state and its war on the Palestinians. The recent military assault on Gaza by Israel, following the October 7th attacks by Hamas, prompted me to read Ten Myths About Israel. This is one of Pappe's most well known and popular works and one that is currently available for free download from publisher Verso's website. It is a very readable and accessible book that offers a straightforward explanation of Israel's history and the debates around Palestinian resistance to occupation.

Pappe begins with some historical myths. He explains that Palestine was not an "empty land", rather it was a "rich and fertile eastern Mediterranean world that in the nineteenth century underwent processes of modernization and nationalisation. It was not a desert waiting to come into bloom; it was a pastoral country on the verge of enterting the twentieth century as a modern society... Its colonization by the Zionist movement turned this process into a disaster for the majority of the native people living there."

The argument that Palestine was empty before colonisation is one that is remarkably similar to the descriptions of North America, Australia and New Zealand as empty spaces, and the legal concept of "Terra nullius" to argue that there were no claims on land in Australia by the indigneous people. It is one reason why Pappe argues that Israel is a Settler Colonial state.

The question of "what Zionism is" is a key theme of the book. Pappe makes it very clear that Zionism is not the same as Judaism, rather Zionism began in a particular historical context: "only one, inessential, expression of Jewish cultural life" at its birth. Pappe's history of Zionism is essential reading - he shows how it arose out of the "Jewish enlightenment movement" but was frequently critiqued by Jewish people themselves, particularly on the left. "Socialists and Orthodox Jews began to voice their criticisms of Zionism only in the 1890s, when Zionism became a more recognised political force very late in the decade." It was the "diligent" work of Theodore Herzl who repeatedly put the argument for a "modern Jewish state in Palestine" which began to get traction among Western political leaders, who saw in it a way of strengthening their own imperalist power in the Middle East.

A great strength of the book is that Pappe explores the historical and political context, but he does not ignore religious debate, particularly about whether the Bible contains a case for a Jewish state in Palstine. He writes:

The final reason offered for the ZIonist reclamation of the HOly Land as determined by the Bible, was the need of Jews around the world to find a safe haven, especially after the Holocaust. However, even if this as true, it might have bee possible to find a solution that was not restricted to the biblical map and that did not dispossess the Palestinians. This position was voiced by quite a few well-known personalitiies, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. These commentators tried to asuggest that the Palestinians should be asked to provide a safe haven for persecuted Jews alongside the native population, not in place of it. But the Zionist movement regarded such proposals as heresy.

The importance of Pappe's work is the place contemporary events in a historical context. As Pappe himself writes, and apologies for another extended quote, but hearing his arguments is important:

As long as the full implications of Israel's past and present ethnic cleansing policies are not recognised and tackled by the international community, there will be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ignoring the issue of the Palestinian refugees will repeatedly undermine any attempt to reconcile the two conflicting parties. This is why it is so important to recognise the 1948 events as an ethnic cleansing operation, so as to ensure that a political solution will not evade the root of the conflict; namely, the expulsion of the Palestinians. Such evasions in the past are the main reason for the collapse of all previous peace accords.

The conclusion of Pappe's book, which argues that Israel is a Settler Colonial state is important. He makes no easy promises about how conflict can be avoided. But he does offer hope:

This barbarization of human relations in the Middle East can only be stopped by the poeple of the region themselves. However, they should be aided by the outside world. Together the region should return to its not so distant past, when th eguiding principle was "live and let live." No serious discussion about ending human rights abuses in the region as a whole can bypass a conversation abotu the 100 years of human rights abuses in Palestine.... Any discussion of the abuse of the Palestinians' human rights needs to include an understanding of the inevitable outcome of settler colonial projects such as Zionism. The Jewish settlers are now an organic and integral part of the land. They cannot, and will not, be removed. They should be part of the future, but not on the basis of the constant oppression and dispossession of the local Palestinians.

How we get to this future is not explored by Pappe in this work, but his reference to the "people of the region" offers us a glimpse. I would argue that it is the power of the working class, particularly the mass working class of Egypt that offers the strength to overturn social relations in the region and break the power of Imperialism. I don't know whether Pappe would agree with that specific argument. However his Ten Myths About Israel is an important, and very accessible contribution to understanding the history of Palestine and Israel. Readers will learn a great deal that puts current tragic events in context.

Related Reviews

Masalha - Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History
Alexander - 'Revolution is the Choice of the People': Crisis & Revolt in the Middle East & North Africa
Levi - If Not Now, When?
Rostami-Povey - Iran's Influence
El-Mahdi & Marfleet - Egypt: The Moment of Change

Monday, October 30, 2023

John Gardner - Licence Renewed

I will be honest. The only reason I picked up Licence Renewed was that I was ill and needed something easy. John Gardner was the author picked by Ian Fleming's estate and tasked with continuing the adventures of James Bond after Fleming's death. Gardner explains in the introduction that he wanted to bring Bond into the 1980s, and adds later that "everything provided by Q branch in this story is genuine". Readers might think this claim is rather laughable, particularly given Bond's reference to the "advanced Detectorscope" in the novel. A J-200 no less.

This comedy aside, the real reason for mentioning this is that the gadgets Bond uses, are constantly referenced by Gardner. Every few lines there's some clunky mention of a brand name, a model or some contemporary designer. One of Fleming's talents was that he could put Bond in an exotic environment and make him stylish, with oblique references and comments. Gardner lays it on with a trowel and it reads like an advertisment in the colour supplements.

Of course, this is the 1980s. And this, Gardner's first of the new Bonds, was on a mission in the shadow of Chernobyl, so his enemy is a nuclear scientist gone rogue. The fear of nuclear accident hangs heavy over this book, though the plot and the outcome is paper thin. Bond's love interest, the laughably named Lavendar Peacock is a stand in for every other Bond "girl". She's described as a young looking Lauren Bacall, which gives you some idea of Gardner's talents.

This Bond, greying at the temples, gadget rich and with a laughable enemy and ridiculously wooden henchmen is perhaps ideal for the 1980s. It was, however lapped up. Gardner's sequels were very popular - I know, I first read this as a teenager borrowed from Dad's shelf and loved it at the age of 12. Though oddly they have dated more than the originals. In this, Bond drives a Saab 900 Turbo - just Google a picture. The novels don't stand the test of time at all. Don't bother.

Friday, October 27, 2023

Robert Holdstock - Mythago Wood

Mythago Wood ought to have been a standout fantasy novel for me. It steers clear of the standard fantasy tropes of elves, wizards and quests and instead redefines the genre, taking as its starting point a strange forest outside Stephen Huxley's family home. This forest has obsessed his father, and in turn his elder brother, and eventually Stephen, returning home from World War Two and years in Europe, is also pulled in to its strangeness trying to understand his father's obession and his brother's disappearance.

The woods are far larger than the actual perimeter on the Huxley's land suggests and a series of strange events leads Stephen to believe there's something very odd about them. Unusually he employs modern technology to try and work it out, getting himself on board an aircraft to photograph them. This heighten's his curisoty further.

But what really gets him going is the appearance of a strange woman (though Holdstock insists on calling her a girl). This woman is some sort of warrior royalty, from Anglo-Saxon times, and turns out to have been the creation of the interaction of the Huxley's minds with the magic of the wood. When Stephen is nearly killed by an attack from the wood he decides to enter, and try to work out whats happening.

Its an interesting take on a genre were woods are normally places for mysterious elves to offer quests to travellers. Instead it becomes a story about mental health and obsession. But it turns out to be surprisingly thin, and sadly the novel fails to break from the other usual problem of fantasy, which is that female characters are paper thin, rare and sex objects.

All in all this was interesting, but I'm not sure I'll get drawn into the rest of the books.

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Tom Scott - Thomas Müntzer: Theology and Revolution in the German Reformation

Tom Scott is a distinguished historian of the German Peasant War and Reformation, and this, his biography of the radical Christian theologist and social revolutionary Thomas Müntzer is an excellent introduction to this fascinating figure.

Rather than the crude revolutionary and antithesis of Martin Luther beloved of many people who write about the period, Scott very much argues that Müntzer was an individual who evolved his ideas in the context of changing circumstances and the tactical needs of the moment. Pushing radical reformation ideas forward, going beyond those of Luther and those grouped around him in Wittenberg was very much Müntzer's ambition, but how he did this definitely evolved. This require Müntzer to evolve his own ideas, as this quote from Scott shows:

Müntzer's definition of the godless changed over the years. From the Prage Manifesto onwards, where he had identified the damned with the Catholic church and clergy, Müntzer gradually widened the category of those he called, from the German Church Service onwards, the godless, to include secular rulers who oppressed the Gospel, and, once the Saxon princes had ignored his exhjortations, latterly all rulers by virtue of their daily oppression of the common people, whose misery prevented them from achieving true faith. It was at that point that Müntzer's theology finally spilled over into secullar rebellion.

Thus Scott's Müntzer is not the fully formed revolutionary who set out on a life dedicated to overthrowing society and introducing a christian utopia. Rather he is a man whose ideas developed in counter-position to the ruling ideas - both Luther's Reformation and the social hierarchy dominant in Germany at the time. When these two forces came together to block his own radicalism, his closeness to the oppressed and exploited masses allowed him to develop far more revolutionary conclusions. But Scott also argues that Müntzer was never the spokesperson for the whole of the masses. Far from it.

the links between Müntzer's theological revolution and the mass of the peasants' aspirations and deamds were fitful, fragile and foruitoous. In the end the rebels saw well enough that Müntzer's religious ideology was inadequate to their cause: it suplied the framework for organised rebellion threough the Christian leagues, but it could not offer any detailed programme for those leagues to adopt. Only the lesser townsfolk, those whose grievances least reflectged entrenched social and economic relations of production, can be said to have embraced Müntzer's essentially amorphous vision in full measure. The peasantry, bu contrast, remained an uneasy ally in both its mentality and aspirations .The mass support with which Müntzer rekoned never materialised.

It is, perhaps, a fair conclusion of where Müntzer was in relation to the masses. Does it invalidate the position of those, like Friedrich Engels, who saw Müntzer as a revolutionary ahead of his time, unable to deliver the vision of the future because of the limited development of society? I don't think so. It perhaps is more realistic an appraisal of Müntzer's actual base which is often overestimated by those on the left. Nontheless Müntzer's programme was revolutionary, and also impossible at the time. Scott's work helps us understand why.