Something of a disappointment - Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Something of a disappointment

It is not often that a novel comes to hand that has been prized, praised and pre-inflated. Half of a Yellow Sun was in that category when I opened it and began to read. And I was captivated immediately. I read the first hundred pages at a pace, delighting in the ease with which the Chimanada Ngozi Adichie used language to draw me into the middle-class clique centred on the University of Nsukka which provides the core characters of her book. Their infidelities, their inconsistencies, their desire, despite the servants, for equality and freedom are symptomatic of their time. The dissimilar twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, one imagines will provide a vehicle for parallel and different lives, providing contrast and metaphor, and I eagerly awaited their stories to unfold.

The book’s sections alternate between the early and late 1960s, the latter period in Nigeria, of course, being the Biafran War. And, yes, the characters live through the war, and their lives and their natures, and along with them their country, are transformed by it. Perhaps even their own identity is redrawn, especially once the promise of a recognised nationality is promised and then denied. Eventually there are vivid scenes of the war’s brutality, its double standards, its compromises, its cynicism, its racism and its starvation. The images are graphic and vivid, unforgettable even, and the ability of war to undermine utterly and profoundly any assumption that an individual might harbour about an imagined future is movingly portrayed.

So why then was I so disappointed with the book? All I can offer, I’m afraid, is that eventually I found it shallow. Its apparent concentration on the domestic lives of the characters undermined their credibility as members of an intellectual elite and rendered them two (or perhaps even one) dimensional. Chimanada Ngozi Adichie carefully tells us that Odenigbo is a mathematician and in love with his subject. He covets his personal library, which he loses in the war and then has replaced by a benefactor. But in my experience, mathematicians are passionate people – and are usually passionate about mathematics. No mathematician I have ever met avoids all mention of personal academic interests in social settings as scrupulously as Odenigbo. I didn’t want the novel to become a textbook, but if characters were ballet dancers, surely we would expect to hear of the roles they had danced and the music that had moved them. Of Odenigbo’s academic character we hear nothing. Why is he therefore endowed with knowledge and interest that is never explored? Perhaps he only exists as a character to interact with the twin sisters. 

And the problem is repeated with Richard Churchill who, we are told is an Igbo-speaking English radical. I knew a lot of sixties radicals and they were never slow to offer an opinion or, indeed, place themselves squarely in a space on the ideological chessboard. In Half of a Yellow Sun, we never learn if Richard is a Marxist, Maoist, Leninist or Trot. He never mentions Castro or Ho Chi Minh. He doesn’t appear to have any position on capitalism, society, business, the Third World, South Africa, Central America or even Viet Nam. I found myself wondering which sixties decade saw his radicalisation. When Chimanada Ngozi Adichie tells us that he travels to Lagos to attend a function in honour of the state funeral of Winston Churchill (perhaps no relation), I began to wonder if he was an early- (or indeed late) born radical Tory. I have been an expatriate myself, so I can forgive him his attendance of the function, but not his total silence on the issues of the day.

This becomes especially problematic when both Britain and the Soviet Union are mentioned as assisting the Federal Forces in the destruction of secessionist Biafra. What sixties radical, given the inevitability of his assumption of a Cold War bifurcated paradigm to underpin his ideological position, would not have pondered and discussed this at length, even in bed?

Eventually we also have to read along with continued adulation of Ojukwu. [book:His Excellency|6462] might even be the Great Helmsman, himself, given that his free-thinking minions seem unable to mention a criticism of an historical character who eventually fled to Ivory Coast to save his skin and live his life in relative comfort after leaving millions of his own people dead. Perhaps he had to be preserved to fight another day, as he eventually did, if in a different way, but surely no sixties radical would have left his role unquestioned. It doesn’t ring true, and an opportunity to develop a character like Richard through his own and inevitable disillusion was ignored.

And then we are presented with a pair of American journalists that the radical Richard has to greet and service in his role as a promoter of the Biafran cause. They are both called Charles and apparently have the same nickname, Chuck – which surely should have been Charlie of the “right” variety to enhance the farce. They are simply not credible. We can probably accept as deadly accurate that the majority of Americans neither knew where Biafra was nor cared a jot about its plight, since the attentions of the politicised were focused elsewhere at the time. But the presentation of a pair of foreign correspondents as crass as these is surely incredible, as is, equally, Richard’s apparent patience in dealing with them.

I did also become mildly annoyed at what became quite extensive use of Igbo words when they seemed to offer no extra flavour, meaning or understanding. I have no problem with the use of local terms to enhance a feeling of place and sound, but their over use tends to obfuscate. We really wanted to know what these people thought, but we were never told.

So what are we left with? Half of a Yellow Sun is a beautifully written, beautifully composed domestic tale of fidelity, infidelity, loyalty and opportunism. The contrast between the characters’ and therefore the nation’s lives at the start and the end of the decade is engaging. But because their psyches are never really explored, we never understand any motives or, therefore, any consequences. Reading Half of a Yellow Sun was a thoroughly enjoyable experience which, with hindsight, I would have foregone.

Advice to aspiring writers. A speech at the awards ceremony for the Libros International Children’s Writing Competition. 20 July 2007

Like the students who entered this competition, I started writing when I was quite young. I wrote a lot of poetry in my early teens. I wrote a novel when I was 18 and another when I was 20. Thankfully all of that was long ago put in the bin. Actually I lent the second novel to a friend – it was hand written and, of course, the only copy. I lost contact with the friend and I never saw the novel again. Perhaps his aesthetic judgment was better than mine. 

One thing I have done since August 1973 is keep a journal. I am told that writers like to call them “commonplace books”. They aren’t diaries.. They’re a cross between a scrapbook and a notebook, like an artist’s sketchbook. You come across something you think is worth recording and you write it down. Sometimes it might be a review of a book or a concert. You might be doing research on some topic and need a place to keep notes. And there might be just stupid things that crop up. 

Here’s some examples: A restaurant menu in Greece offers “stuffed corsettes”. And how about this for the importance of proof reading? What a difference one letter can make! A restaurant menu in Chinatown, London, offered – Braised crap with ginger and spring onions and Chicken in spit. More seriously, a proverb in Kikamba that I noted when I lived in Kenya reads: “Nyamu inynugaa kitheka ki ikomie – An animal smells of the forest in which it slept.” The man who taught me the proverb said that it would always apply to me and my memories of Kenya. And then there’s a section where I describe an old madman who used to hang around in the market place in the town where I lived. One day he cursed me so that I would change into a snake. Ten years later he became chapter five of my book, Mission.

When I lived in Brunei, I was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth when she made a visit there. I have saved all the documents telling me how I should address her, how to bow and how we should not worry because she was good at putting people at ease. Sir Ivan Callan introduced the woman to my right as Jan, saying, “This is Jan. She’s about to set off on the Chay Blythe Round The World Yacht Race”. Mrs Queen immediately said, “You must be mad!”. Sir Ivan smiled and moved on to me. “This is Phil, who organises all the concerts for Brunei Music Society”. “Yuk”, said Mrs Queen and moved on. It’s all recorded in the commonplace book. 

The real use of the journal is to support you when you get an idea that needs fleshing out. OK, you have the idea, but then with luck you have hundreds of snippets of information, observations and background that can be woven together to make it more interesting – and it’s all real! It takes time and it’s hard work, but the results are wonderful. I have read all of the winning and commended entries and I do want to say a very big “Well done” to all of you. I thought the stories were exciting and very well written. 

Those of you who have a real interest in writing should try to develop it because you are all talented. I do, however, want to offer some advice on how you might develop that talent, and I think that this advice applies to just about all of the entries. Imagine yourself in a place you don’t know too well, such as someone else’s house, a shop or a restaurant, for instance. You walk past a door that says “PRIVATE” in big letters. Would you go in? I don’t think so. Now I can understand that most of you have been reading Harry Potter and watching Lord of the Rings and other fantasies. I read Lord of the Rings as a teenager when it was a cult book, like Harry Potter is now. So I can understand when most of you start to write you think in terms of fantasy worlds, elves, goblins, ghosts, gryphons, gorgons, gargoyles and giants. 

But it’s also worth remembering that you are inventing a private world. A reader comes to your work and finds a door marked PRIVATE. Sometimes, obviously, it works, but a lot of the time readers will not go through that door. It’s private, after all. I think that the way a really good writer works is to meet you in your own world, your own experience or your own knowledge, and then by suggestion gently takes you somewhere new, introduce you to different ideas and different ways of seeing the world. This doesn’t mean that all writing has to be set in the here and now. No. for instance, from our history lessons we all know something about the First World War, though it is unlikely that any of us in the room experienced it. But as a writer you can set your work in that period because it is common knowledge. Your reader will be with you from the start. 

A very great English writer, for instance, called Pat Baker has set several of her novels in that period. So if I have any advice to offer budding young writers it’s this. Try to find your own roots as a writer, as a person and as a creator. Try to relate your ideas to a time and place you know or know something about. And draw the reader into your world by starting on common ground, not in a private world. 

And how do you do that? You ROT. R – O – T. Read, Observe, Think. R is for read. Read, read, read – and when you read something, review it. And say more than just what happens in the book. A student of mine once offered me a review of a book called Ali Goes to Market. His review was, “It’s a book about Ali. He goes to market”. I rejected his review. So read and review and write your thoughts into your journal. O is for observe. There’s a world out there. We inhabit it. Look at it, describe it. If you come across something of interest, make a note of it and how you felt or how it affected you. In our world, giants don’t change into mice and lizards with red eyes don’t fire laser guns. But millions of other things even more surprising, more interesting and less predictable do happen. And T is for Think. Take time to think, to reflect on what you experience and, if you think it’s interesting, write it down. So to conclude, make public worlds and not private ones and ROT in your commonplace book, read, observe and think, and then make your notes. 

As writers it is our aim to communicate and to do that in a public, not a private place.

An orchestral concert 14 July 2007, Festival – Nits de la Mediterrania, La Nucia - Twentieth Century Ballets

The final concert of the inaugural La Nucia arts festival took place last night. Starting at 10:30pm, it was staged in the town’s recently completed open air auditorium and featured the World Youth Orchestra directed, again masterfully, by Josep Vicent. 

Given the setting, it would have been so easy to present a procession of pop classics that would have the punters humming along happily. I attended, for once not having even tried to research the programme, a task that is usually rendered essential here in Spain since the detailed list of works is rarely printed on the publicity material. Having mentioned the setting, it has to be described.

The town of La Nucia, just 5 kilometres inland, up the hill behind Benidorm, has been transformed in recent years. I have lived in the town for over four years and have seen an almost complete transformation in that time. It was a beautiful, if quiet place in 2002, when I first visited. Since then a major project of refurbishment and reinvention has been undertaken. Besides a new road, the town now has several shopping complexes, new health centres, libraries, community centres, playgrounds and parks. The most important additions, if, like me, you have a keen interest in the arts, have been the beautiful 600 seat concert hall and, across the road, an outside auditorium that can seat up to 3000. 

Back at the start of the year the World Youth Orchestra under Josep Vicent inaugurated the Concert hall, l’Auditori de la Mediterrànea, with a concert in which a 110 piece orchestra performed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It’s a piece that can be its own parody, if played badly. Now I would claim to know just about every note of the piece and in my humble opinion Josep Vicent’s reading of the score, frankly, was perfect. 

And so to the setting. La Nucia is perched on the side of a valley that runs down to the sea from the Sierra Aitana and the mountain, Puig Campaña. On the other side of the valley is Polop, a pretty, floodlit, tumbling Costa Blanca town of pastel shades beneath a hilltop citadel. Beyond, the large town of Callosa d’en Sarrià, the centre of the unique nispero trade, lies illuminated at the base of the Sierra Guadalest. Turning a little to the right, there is the jagged junction between rock and sky that is the summit line of the Sierra Bernia and then, over the now well-known town of Altea, the Mediterranean. Behind the outdoor auditorium’s stage, a row of houses and shops become a backdrop for lighting effects. I hope the residents don’t mind. 

Frankly, it would be hard to imagine a more beautiful place to listen to music, except for the reservation, of course, that the outdoor setting needs amplification, which makes the sound flat. That, I believe, need not be too much of a handicap if the programme is well thought out. And last nights concert triumphed in that respect. 

So, initially not expecting much, I took my seat and looked (as best I could in the dark) at the works on offer. Sandwiched between two of Alberto Ginastera’s dances for the Estancia Dances Op8 (1941), we were to be offered Stravinsky’s Firebird, Tres movimientos tanguisticos porteños by Astor Piazzolla and a complete Al Amor Brujo of Manuel de Falla. If the prospect on reading the list of works watered the mouth, the reality simply stunned. Ginastera’s Danza del Trigo (Dance of the Wheat) rushed and raced to evoke effects of wind gusts on a wheat field. Rhythms and keys are crossed and the music speeds along without actually being fast! I recall an article by Colin Matthews some years ago about how to write music that sounds very fast while in fact changing very slowly. The Stravinsky, of course, is utterly well known, and like the other two ballets in what most of us regard as his early romantic trilogy, it can become a cliché. But not in the hands of Josep Vicent, who has a complete understanding of the composer’s music. It was superbly played, never rushed, but never allowed to rest. 

What followed was a different universe. Astor Piazzolla is known as a composer of tangos, which, for some reason tend to be associated with the lightweight. Josep Vincent, in his introduction to the piece, Tres movimientos tanguisticos porteños, was at pains to tell us that Piazzolla was a “classical” composer who studied with Nadia Boulanger. Yes, true, and he also studied with Ginastera and others, declaring, himself, that he had developed a profound love of Bach. The reference is apposite, since the last of these three tangos turned out to be a complex fugue! I know a number of the composer’s works very well, having heard Joachim Palomares’s ensemble on several occasions and having played the Barenboim disc regularly. But these pieces were as hard as nails. Rhythmically they were tangos, but if you think that Stravinsky’s music might be associated with toughness (which I don’t) you should try these three orchestral pieces by Astor Piazzolla. As ever, Piazzolla uses minor keys, sometimes rather confused minor keys as well. The gloom would be unremitting were it not for his utterly inventive use of form. Throughout, however, there was that little trilling turn that is his musical signature. Surely he was one of the twentieth century’s most original musical voices. 

The only work on the programme by a Spanish composer was next, a full account of El Amor Brujo of Manuel de Falla. Written in 1915, the score blends elements of Flamenco from the composer’s native Andalusia with “classical” forms. Scored for medium-sized orchestra and voice, it was performed last night by Mayte Martin, who specialises in flamenco-style singing and she was quite excellent. Necessarily under-stated because of the nature of the piece, her singing added a sonority to the overall sound that transformed the whole piece into something unique. The extremely famous Ritual Fire Dance at the core of the work raised its own round of applause, despite being offered in an intriguingly controlled way in Josep Vicent’s reading. It worked, since the restraint prevented the section dominating the work and thereby held our attention more for the vocal sections. 

And then to finish the evening was a real bit of summer night out. Malambo, another of the Ginastera Opus 8 dances, closed the show. Now I will freely admit that when I am in a concert of any type an invitation that we might “put our hands together” and clap along with the music usually leaves me feeling empty and, often, not a little resentful, because it usually indicates a concert that is so poorly presented by the performers that they have to do something cheap to drum up support. But when the conductor turned to the audience, a few phrases into Malambo and indicated participation, frankly, it was impossible not to comply. The piece is utterly infectious. The whole audience joined in – AND the whole audience was utterly attentive, able to react immediately when the conductor turned to quell the clapping with a wave of the hand to allow a detailed variation in the music to come through, and then start again as requested as the main rhythm returned. 

Five works in the concert, three of which I had not heard before, faultless playing by the World Youth Orchestra and, as ever, the highest possible standards of interpretation under the direction of Josep Vicent …. Quite beautiful.

A review of Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

George Edalji (that’s Ay-dal-ji, by the way, since Parsee names are always stressed on the first syllable) is the son of a Staffordshire vicar of Indian origin and his Scottish wife. George is thus a half-caste, to use the language of his late-Victorian and Edwardian age. He’s a diligent, if not too distinguished a scholar. He is uninterested in sport, is of small stature and doesn’t see too well. He sleeps with his father behind a locked door, is in bed by 9:30, becomes a small town solicitor who develops an interest in train timetables and, by way of outlandish diversion, publishes a traveller’s guide to railway law.

Arthur Conan Doyle (later Sir Arthur) is born in Edinburgh, completes medical school and generally accomplishes whatever task he sets himself, including becoming a world famous writer. Despite the fact that he kills off his creation, the detective Sherlock Holmes, ostensibly to devote time to tasks of greater gravity, popular demand insists that he raise the character from the dead. He does this and proceeds to generate even greater success than before. He marries happily twice and pursues and interest in spiritualism, amongst other good causes.

Perhaps because of who they are, the Edalji family become the butt of the campaign of poison pen letters. When they complain, all they accomplish is the focusing of further unwanted attentions on themselves. When a series of ripping attacks on animals remains unsolved, George, somehow, becomes the prime suspect. Convinced of his villainy, police, judicial system, expert witnesses, jury and press see him convicted of the crime and sent down for seven years. Good conduct sees him released after three.

Sir Arthur wishes to do good and takes up George Edalji’s case. He researches the facts, analyses the possibilities, tracks down neighbours and officials who have been involved. He creates an alternative explanation of events and presents it to officialdom, seeking a pardon and compensation for George, who by this time has transferred to London to start a new life. The two men meet and the incongruity of their assumed expectations of life are as irreconcilable as they are irrelevant to their joint focus on George’s case. After official review, however, the Home Office Committee eventually concludes in an ambiguous manner. Edalji was convicted of the crime and the conviction is declared unsound; but crucially he is not declared innocent. He is therefore found not guilty but then not innocent either and so not worthy of compensation. When, years later, Sir Arthur dies and his associates stage a spiritualist gathering in his honour in the Royal Albert Hall, George is invited and attends, complete with binoculars lest he miss a detail of the proceedings. The illusion of the event draws him in and at one stage he feels himself to be the centre of attention, only to find that it is a near miss. Most of the detail refers to himself and his father, but the reality then points to another who is immediately identified.

But, paradoxically, the quiet George Edalji and his Parsee (not Hindoo) father, Shapurji, were always the centre of attention simply by being who they were. Even Sir Arthur, the son’s eventual champion, states this in one of his letters when he writes that it was perhaps inevitable that a dark-skinned clergyman taking a station in central England would attracts other’s attention of a kind that would seek to undermine him, vilify him and attempt to oust him. The message is clear, that to be different from an assumed norm is to invite hatred, envy, discrimination and eventually ignominy. It is presented as a universal assumption, an unwritten element of universal common sense. Thus, as an intruder, the usual rules of justice will never pertain, a reality alluded to late in the book when George, scanning the Albert Memorial with his binoculars, discovers a statuesque embodiment of the concept of justice that is not wearing a blindfold.

What is eventually so disturbing about Arthur and George, however, is the realisation that both characters are outsiders. George is set apart from his Staffordshire peers by his skin colour and perceived race. Arthur, however, lives no humdrum life. He attends private schools, qualifies as a doctor and then becomes an international celebrity by virtue of his writing. He takes up minority causes and identifies with them but, despite his obvious separateness from mainstream society, in his case his position is never interpreted as a threat or a handicap, obviously because the separateness of privilege has a different currency from the separateness of even relative poverty.

Now an enduring memory of my own school history lessons was a textbook reproduction of a mid-Victorian cartoon of the universal pyramid of creation. It had God at the apex, immediately in touch via the saints with the Empress of India and then, layered beneath in widening courses were the gentry and aristocracy, the members of government and civil service, the professional classes and merchants. The working classes could perhaps temporarily ignore their poverty in the solace offered by knowing that they are a cut above members of all other races who, themselves, were just one up from the apes. It was not many more layers down to the low animals, most of which slithered or crawled. Arthur and George ostensibly tells us much about racism and racial discrimination in a society that was portrayed as the apex of a worldwide empire, a heavenly focus for aspiration. It also tells us about the power of presumption and has much to say very quietly and by suggestion about social class and its ability, especially in Britain, to legitimise difference as originality or eccentricity in some areas, differences which elsewhere would be threats.

Mission - a review by David Holiday

It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. The writer Phillip Spires is a master at his craft and after buying the book I visited his website searching for more titles but alas found none. The book is a compelling, beautiful read, set in Africa detailing a story from the eyes of different characters. The description of Africa gives "a beam me up Scotty" effect and at times you feel you are almost walking the dusty roads with a searing sun on your back. The characters are no less impressive, I particularly warmed to several of them. A long read, not your average 'beach holiday read' but certainly worthwhile and rewarding. View the book on amazon Mission

Mission - a review by Timothy Harman

This is a beautifully crafted book, rich in sensuous language evoking a flavour of Africa. The structure of the book is most unusual, with events, past and present, revolving around one particular episode. It is a story that holds you, envelops you, until the very last page. The characterisation is truly masterful. The plot intriguing. This is not a light, something and nothing, beach read, it has a depth and atmosphere that only a truly talented author can create. It is a classic and it is certainly one of my all time favourite books. I shall be most disappointed if this book doesn't win one of the prizes for literature. View the book on amazon Mission

Mission by Philip Spires - a review by Cao Duc Thac

Budget airlines have made travelling far easier in recent years and many of us have enjoyed holidays in exotic places: on safaris in East Africa, trekking through Nepal, cruising the Amazon. However, after putting away the souvenirs and sorting out the snap shots, we often feel that there is something amiss. Yes, the animals are great, the local markets colourful and some of the foods quite exquisite. But do we get to know anything of the local people? We exchange a few words with them, engage in bargaining over prices, and laugh over misunderstandings, but we know nothing of their hopes and aspirations. Sometimes, we may have serious conversations in bars or restaurants with some locals that are fluent in our language or with some expatriates working in the country. Unfortunately, even these conversations may be just stereo-types: the country is utterly corrupted, the government is hopelessly incompetent; the people have not moved from the Middle Ages, etc. Mission, by Philip Spires, offers an armchair exploration of the locals and foreign workers in a poor village in Kenya. Through their stories, we get to know their hopes and aspirations, their dilemmas, the circumstances that force them to act the way they do and, ultimately, their humanity. The book begins with a car accident in which the village drunk, a character nobody liked much, got killed. However, the day of the accident proves to be fateful for the major characters of the book. Like Kurosawa’s movie Rashomon, each of the major characters – a Catholic priest who cares more about the welfare of the people in this life than for their souls in the next life, an earnest young Kenyan who wants to become a Catholic priest, a couple of local entrepreneurs who cleverly exploit the business and political opportunities in Kenya just after it gained independence etc – tells their hopes and ambitions, their circumstances and their dilemmas. The car accident at the beginning of the book turns out to be the denouement for the major characters. The book is only published recently but has been incubated by Philip over many years while he spent time in Kenya, London, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. While his portrayal of Kenya and London is quite vivid, we also recognise the basic humanity of the characters in the book. It is comforting to know that while we face different circumstances, we are basically the same round the world. This is a message we need to remind ourselves constantly as tribal and sectarian conflicts exploded in recent years. Review by Cao Thac, Australia View this book on amazon Mission

Puss in Boots (El Gato con Botas), an opera by Xavier Montsalvatge

Just occasionally – in fact pretty rarely these days – something utterly surprising emerges from an evening in a concert hall. Almost forty years into an interest in music which has focused on every style of western music from Gothic to minimalism (perhaps not such a great leap!), real surprises are now quite rare and often come about on hearing a work by a young composer, someone just starting to seek a voice. But Xavier Montsalvatge died aged ninety in 2002 after a lifetime longer than most as an active composer, but few outside his native Catalunya were then familiar with his music. Since moving to Spain I have actively sought programmes that featured his increasingly popular output and have been impressed with the eclecticism of his style, usually neo-classical, but often laced with popular tunes, folk song and jazz, and sometimes even giving more than a hint of Bartokian toughness. But nothing from the piano works and pieces for strings I have heard up to now could have prepared me for the experience that was Montsalvatge’s opera, El Gato con Botas, Puss in Boots.

Obviously an opera for children and with a text by Charles Perrault which faithfully follows the familiar pantomime version of the tale, we know from the first rhythmic string figures, with their shifting harmonies and ambiguous keys, that we are to experience a work which exists simultaneously on different levels, similar in some ways to Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen, but lighter in its touch, a Miro to Janacek’s Dadd.

The work lasts just an hour and has five scenes. In the first our Puss is lazing on a cushion in front of the television, occasionally offering her skin-tight costume with its hanging baubles in languorous lines to the audience. The children were captivated from first to last, mesmerised by this wonderful engaging character, elegantly and excitingly portrayed and sung by Marisa Martins. Older members of the audience might have had other things in mind, such is the nature of pantomime. It is in this first scene that her new sequinned, high heeled and pointed boots are presented, along with a cloak to emphasise her pinkness. The king and princess lament the state of the kingdom. Apparently it’s a boring life when there are no wars or civil strife. Neither are there husbands, it seems. Puss with boots appears and is hired. The miller, a suitor for the king’s daughter, strips to his shorts and takes a swim in the river and immediately gets into difficulty. Puss summons her trusty white rabbits who, until now have balletically moved props and rearranged the kindergarten’s alphabetic furniture. They don snorkels and goggles and rescue the lad. The king is overjoyed and the princess’s eyes are seen to bulge a little. And then the ogre appears to rough things up a bit. In his lair, he laments the fact that the high life might have rendered his nose the colour of an aubergine. Puss sorts everything out, of course, whimsically avoiding the lion into which he transforms himself, then wooing the canary which is his next trick and finally, of course, dealing (offstage) with the radio-controlled orange mouse which was the form she requested him to take. Are all ogres that stupid? Anyway there’s a wedding and clearly all live happily ever after, including Puss who gets her television back.

So that’s the story. It’s pantomime, but it is superbly done and it’s filled with wonderful imagery. Marisa Martins as the Puss is quite outstanding in the role. She has a dancer’s use of the body alongside coquettish expressions and interpretive gestures which seem to draw the music rather than follow it. And she also has that unmistakable talent to sing beautifully and act apparently effortlessly at the same time. Enric Martinez-Castignani as the king gives an excellent portrayal of a bumbling idiot whose deafness perhaps hides his wisdom. Miguel Zapater as the ogre is outstanding. He becomes a real pantomime character who admits he has had a few too many glasses of wine. Maria Luz Matrinez as the princess carries off the apparent naiveté of the character with aplomb and her voice shines in a role that has to bear the sledgehammer imagery of a wedding dress of pure white hung with bright red balls. How’s that for subtlety! And if David Menendez had stripped down to his swimming trunks to take his dip in the river in an older-style opera house, no doubt a section of the audience would have called for a diversion of the glasses otherwise permanently trained on Pussy’s pinkness. His playing of the role was a superb blend of clown and suitor and his singing was excellent.

But underpinning all of this was the music, which was brilliantly expressive, a deceptively simple yet eclectic mix of recitative, full orchestra and inventive ensembles. The trombone and tuba figures that accompanied the ogre were a touch of genius. The recitatives were superbly cast as not quite Mozartian, whilst the neo-classicism was always delving into interesting harmonic shifts. And there was always the hint of a cat’s paw flick in the strings to allow Puss to draw us all in with that playful flick of the hand and wrist. In the pit the World Youth Orchestra played flawlessly and Josep Vincent, who is surely one of the brightest and most accomplished of young conductors, is surely destined for global recognition.

This was music and performance of the very highest standard – and all happening in this increasingly sophisticated little town of La Nucia, just outside Benidorm. What a wonderful place to live!

UK reports lack of social mobility despite greater access to education

I have researched education in the Philippines, a nation where participation in all levels of education has been high for generations. Despite this high enrolment in education, the Philippines has been characterised by low economic development associated with low levels of social change, especially in the area of social mobility. One aspect of my research was to identify whether there were aspects of the education system, itself, that led to these results. I focussed on the private nature of most Philippine education, an aspect which became more important during the last quarter of the twentieth century when, as a result of structural adjustment programmes, there was a shortage of public investment in education. In the Philippines, therefore, there is effectively a market in education. What I concluded was that the Philippine elite competes from within its own ranks for access to the high value end of this market, thus excluding poorer Filipinos from participation in that part of the sector which appears to offer educational quality. The intra-elite competition has effectively become the education system’s function and focus, so access to quality education is denied to the vast majority of the population. My findings also suggested that the continued use of market forces in education accentuates and exacerbates this effect, thus further precluding social mobility. The Philippines is thus a country where it matters where you were educated, where there is an identifiable queue of graduates of education, with the elite associated with particular institutions and geographical areas. The British appear to be proud of the “high standards” set by the elite sector of their education system, hence we can still have a debate about the potential of grammar schools to promote social mobility, despite the fact that if implemented they would exclude three quarters of the population. In addition, it is clear that access to quality education at all levels in Britain is determined by a market in house prices, a market in which where the elite sector competes within its own ranks for access to quality, thus driving the market. It is not exactly the same as the privatised Philippine education system, but it would appear to work the same way. Today’s finding on social mobility cannot therefore be surprising.

Reflections on a pair of novels and a couple of trips to Chester

This is not a review of Losing Nelson or England, England, or a record of visits to Chester. As the title claims, it’s a reflection, a few observations on culture and identity seen through Englishness. The trips to Chester are offered by the way, as a start and a finish.

I don’t recall the year when my dad’s Electricity Board Sports Club decided on Chester as its destination for the kids’ outing. I do remember many of those annual events vividly, however, perhaps because of the unearthly hour at which we had to set off. Britain had no motorways then and dual carriageways were rare. Roads went through town centres, the concept of the by-pass having just reached the drawing board – at least in the north – and adults could still smoke on the bus, despite the fact that potted meat sandwiches were probably being consumed in the next seat. The sandwich filling has a bearing on the tale, since the price of the trip included a packed lunch, usually passed around in bulk, the sandwiches cut in triangles, not the rectangles of home, and set in Toblerone ranges on a teacloth-draped tray. There was an apple or an orange, perhaps, to finish. I don’t know why I didn’t like potted meat, but I can remember persuading my mother to do me a round of bacon sandwiches as an adjunct to the standard fare. Perhaps I was just being greedy, but they did come in handy, if in a rather unexpected way. I can remember visiting Chester’s historic town centre, all those half-timbered buildings provoking discussions about the Tudors, who they were, how they fit into history, who came before and who followed. The predecessors interested all of us on the trip, because we were from Yorkshire and we could never accept that the Lancastrians had won the war. At least we were in Cheshire! And then there were the city’s Roman origins to consider, leading to my learning my first Latin word when we were told that Chester was but a corruption of “castra”, Latin for camp (the military variety).

And so to the zoo. Yes, there were real zoos in those days. I was a fan of Zoo Time on TV, where Dr Desmond Morris, before his higher primate fame, did live experiments with chimpanzees and rewards, all encased in a Prokofiev theme tune. At Chester I remember I liked the sea lions, found the camels oppressively smelly and learnt that elephants really like cold bacon sandwiches.

When an infant, I used to wiggle the ridges off my candlewick bedspread. I don’t know whether it was a search for solace in the tactile, but it used to exasperate my mother, because I used to pick things into holes. Charles Cleasby, the Horatio Nelson worshipping main character of Barry Unsworth’s Losing Nelson, often sleeps under a holed and worn blanket of his mother’s whenever he needs reassurance. It’s a covering of peace for him, a way of shutting out the complications of the world and operates physically in the same way that his need to wrap himself in the myth of Nelson protects him mentally. Thus he is perhaps more a worshipper than a scholar. But the myth has become part of his psyche, part of his identity. Nelson’s greatness, Nelson’s genius, are parts of the nation’s greatness and genius and thus, by association, part of Cleasby’s own moral and personal identity. But, wanting to find out more, Cleasby researches Nelson’s history, expecting to confirm greatness and therefore bolster myth. To his increasing dismay and reluctantly admitted disbelief, what he uncovers are the complications of history, the messy realities of war and the personal limitations of the historical figure, who is often revealed as less than competent, certainly less than diplomatic, but also, and more importantly, as a self-seeking, ruthless individual, certainly not a team player. The myth dissolves little by little and so does Charles Cleasby’s hold on reality. As Nelson loses his mythical status, Cleasby’s world simply falls apart. He is no longer able to interpret experience nor relate to his surroundings. The blanket cocoon offered by myth generates an intellectual and mental solace that can both justify and reinforce identity and, once the protecting wrap has been holed for Charles, at least and perhaps for a nation, it is identity itself that is challenged. Losing Nelson is a serious and moving study of the essential role of myth in defining identity and creating psyche, citing its power and its limitations, these derived from its essence of simply being myth.

In England, England, Julian Barnes inhabits similar territory, but humorously. One character lists quintessences (there are more than five) of Englishness and many, perhaps most, are myth, by nature or association. And the purpose of identifying these icons of Englishness is to facilitate the construction, by Sir Jack Pitman on an eventually independent Isle of Wight, of an England Theme Park, packed with imitation and reproduction experience, collected together to take the strain out of tourism. Theme Park England becomes, itself, the quintessence (just one) of corporate identity and presence, with the products on offer being seen and marketed as “better” than the originals. It’s all a great success until, that is, the imitations begin to adopt their assigned identities. Smugglers become a problem when they start smuggling. Dr. Samuel Johnson changes his name to – guess what? – Dr. Samuel Johnson and begins emulating the behaviour of the historical figure, along with a few of his own improvisations for added effect. The King thinks he’s a king and Robin Hood and his Merrie Men yearn to be real outlaws. They are all in breach of contract. Through humour, the book asks questions about what is essential in national personal identity. The project identifies myths and reproduces them as second order experience which themselves become as capable of fulfilling the role of identity creation, definition and perpetuation as the real thing. So, by extension, the book questions how we create, assume and sustain cultures and their associated values.

The existence of myth and its potential to influence identity and culture are highly relevant to my second day out in Chester. This time as an adult I revisited the half timbering and Roman roots, the zoo having been transformed by changed notions of the animal. And a new reality asserted itself, redrafting the assumed permanence of my childhood memories. Unbeknown to the child, the half-timbering is largely nineteenth century reproduction and imitation. If it prompts discussion on Tudor England, it does so only by assumed association learned elsewhere. And the extant Roman elements of Chester are miniscule, reduced to a few piles of stone. The town’s official guide book, which I bought to help interpret the visit, pictured a Roman Centurion on its cover. He carried a shield with the words “Tetley Bitterman” emblazoned where one might have expected “SPQR”. At the end of the visit a myth I hade grown up with had been largely exploded. The history, itself, is not the myth. It’s the evidence that’s claimed on its behalf that is the problem. No wonder Sir Jack’s Theme Park attractions were as good as the real thing when the original was originally a theme park. The myth may survive the reality, I suppose, if the individual still wants to believe it. And, by the way, I have never managed to ask elephants if they really do like cold bacon sandwiches.

View this book on amazon Losing Nelson England, England

Jogging with salad

For about 34 years I have kept a commonplace book. It’s not a diary, not a place to record mundane reactions to the prosaic, but a kind of mental scrapbook where raw snippets of interest are jotted to be, perhaps, reworked later. When I was asked to contribute to the school’s history, I thought I would have a rich vein to mine.

I spent 11 years in the school, starting in 1976. I taught maths and computer studies, as it was then called. I was the rogue who drilled through the walls of the school one summer holiday to install a kilometre of coaxial cable to network the whole building at a time when IT teachers coveted their empires. Jack Cates, the school keeper, turned a blind eye or two as each day I arrived brandishing an 18-inch drill bit. And so we had a computer network based in the library, but linked to several other classrooms. My efforts were undermined by a talented student who wrote a BASIC program that mimicked the 480Z start-up screen and then issued witty but bogus error messages when you tried to log on. It fooled all of us for weeks.

But back to my archive. What was amazing was to realise that over the 11 years I worked there, the school appeared in my notes only half a dozen times. A student asked what Ethiopia had to do with Hitler because he had heard people say, “Heill Isolase!” I was reading Bertrand Russell one day when a student asked me what it was. I read him a short passage and his answer was, “Is that in English, sir?” The fire, which removed the roof of the old building and sent the maths department into a wandering exile for a year, happened during a half term holiday late in 1982. And then there was the whole school re-discovery week-end with Rod Usher and Douglas Hamblin. I’m sure it did some good.

But it’s not the events that count; it’s the people. I have not lived in Britain for 15 years and not worked in Balham for 20. And yet, on a recent visit, I met one of my personal tutees in a building society queue. One of my A level maths students was sitting in an Indian take-away when I went for my chana aloo and chapati. And another tutee was on the tills in the supermarket. The last of these was still as small and slight as she was at thirteen, but she reminded me that she is in her forties now.

But two characters in particular stir memories, Richard Simmons and Kathleen Collyer. The latter, always known as Mrs. Collyer, was the lady who did the staff refreshments. She used to line up the rolls – soft or hard, ham or cheese – on ranks of pale green plates on the staffroom bar. The hot water urn had to be filled and turned on at precisely 9:30 each morning. Failure to do so would receive Mrs. Collyer’s continued recrimination for about a month after her arrival at 10. So important was this “switching on” task that a member of the staff association committee was assigned each term with the job of checking that it had been done. Woe betide a slacker! A levels to invigilate? Half a mo, I have to dash and switch on the urn first.

Mrs. Collyer’s hard rolls were inedible unless you flattened them, an act which would cause most of the upper crust to disintegrate into a pale brown snowstorm of flakes, with an associated, if dull crunch. Fred Morley’s dog, which always accompanied him wherever he went, including into class, used to lick them off the carpet whilst his master waited for his tea. And Mrs. Collyer also greeted everyone by name, often wrongly, as they ordered, so we had staff members called Tingly, Hildebrick, Car, Candy and one day, I swear it, we had a Mr. Gonad.

And then came the frightful day of “the decision”. I can still remember the sense of trepidation that suffused through the members of the staff association when the words, “Action: Ask Mrs. Collyer if we can have salad in the rolls” were written into the minutes. Who would undertake such a mission? And would they survive? Well, we got the salad, but it took Mrs. Collyer years to get used to the idea. Her words, “Oh, so they want salad in their rolls now” became a catch phrase amongst the staff and was employed to refer to any obviously impossible task, of which in our school there were always many, or so it seemed. But she was always there and she always delivered.

And so to Richard Simmons, the Media Resources Officer whose centrally-located den was very much the hub of the school. He was a “guaranteed-to-break-the-ice-at-parties” “can-do” scuba-diving jazz musician who kept spirits up with his manner and wit. But one day his enthusiasm got the better of him and he accepted a bet that he could and would jump off the back of the Thames pleasure boat that the staff association had rented for the end of term do. Yes, he did it. The police were called. The pleasure boat did boring circles for an hour looking for him. The police launch ran aground off Barnes Reach and had to be towed off the bank. Frank Thorn, marooned on board, was embarrassed beyond recall and didn’t speak to any of the staff association committee for months.

But what happened to Richard? Well, he swam ashore and, resplendent in only socks and underpants, padded up the mud to a landfall in Hammersmith. It was a fair way back to Balham, where he had left the car and where, if lucky, he might be reunited with his clothes. In such a predicament, in socks and underpants, wet though and covered in mud, what might one do in Hammersmith, or Putney, for that matter, to avoid unwanted attention or even arrest? Answer – jog. Naked, wet and dirty? Just jog and the world will ignore you. Again Richard was ever present and gave his all to the school.

And I have hardly mentioned the students, the thousands of them that passed by in those eleven years. But I remember many of them clearly and when I meet them along Balham High Road I can still put a name to a face. I hope, as I do so, that I have contributed just a little, as an educator, to their well being, their memories, their jogging, their salad. 

 Philip Spires Author of “Mission” http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Mission - Some extracts from the novel

The title of Mission's first chapter is Michael. Here is how it starts

 ... Enter Michael, dishevelled and panting. His movements are hurried, agitated and anxious. The kitchen door creaks on its hinges after his disinterested push. It does not close and it swings ajar behind him. In an instant, Michael has crossed the room as if out of a desire to distance himself from some pursuer, but now he is cornered. He stops, thinks for a moment and, realising the futility of trying to run away, returns to the door. He pauses there and, with his head cocked on one side, listens intently, trying to discern the frantic sounds of a shouted argument taking place outside. The sounds are dulled and muffled by echoes, but he stays where he is, afraid to approach them. There are several voices: at least five are shouting in apparent opposition without any one gaining the ascendancy. Thus all blend to form a single, incoherent and meaningless noise. Trying to listen is pointless and so, with a rueful shake of the head, he advances into the room again, but this time he moves more slowly, with greater resignation, beneath some weight. He decides to sit but cannot relax. Perched on the very edge of the settee, he leans forward with his head bowed and his hands resting on his knees. He seems poised to act but is powerless. He can do nothing, now. It is too late. Still without success he tries again to make.........

The second chapter, entitled Mulonzya, deals primarily with the local member of parliament, James Mulonzya. But his father, Abel, and son, Charles play significant roles, as does an idealistic administrator, John Mwangangi, recently returned from a successful legal career in London. James and Charles are having dinner with John ... 

"So the idea is this,” John continued. “The Father has been told he can use the school bus from Mutune once a week for nothing. All he will do is provide the petrol. The nuns have been very generous to us. Without the vehicle we could do nothing. Near Nairobi there is a group of Europeans who are researching into agricultural techniques for some agricultural research agency. Their farm is very productive but is subsidised, so it does not need to make a profit. Michael has persuaded them to sell us their maize and beans at a cheap rate. We will then bring it to Migwani, Mwingi, Mutonguni or wherever in the lorry and then sell off some of it to people who can afford it until we have covered costs and raised enough money for the next trip and then we will distribute the rest free to people who have nothing.” “That is illegal,” said Charles curtly. “You need a licence to trade grain.” “Ah, but we are not trading, Charles...” “You are selling some of it so surely the law would rule that you are trading.” “But that's only to get us started. If we can get enough reasonably well-off people to give a hundred shillings each - and regularly - we will be able to carry on without having to sell any of the food. It could then never be argued that we were affecting the traders' business because we would be supplying only those people who had absolutely no money to buy food for themselves.” “And how would you identify such people? On whose word do you judge whether a particular family can or cannot afford to feed itself?” “Priests, Chiefs, District Officers, Members of Parliament....” The argument had suddenly become very serious. “This food... It will only go to Catholics, then?” asked Mulonzya, as usual firmly grasping quite the wrong end of the other's meaning. “Oh no. To anyone who is in need of it.” Charles spoke again. His voice spoke the words of a mind already made up. “What you propose is illegal. You need a licence to trade grain. Your school bus is licensed to carry children, not merchandise. Mutune is a government-funded school. I am sure that the Ministry of Education would not like to think that their property is being misused in this way. It is definitely illegal.” “You forget that I am trained in law. I would certainly be prepared to test what you say in the courts. Anyway, the whole project would be done in the name of the Church. Would you like to be seen to bring about a case against the Roman Catholic Church?” “If it is illegal we would oppose it,” said Charles. “It would certainly be against our interests. We would have to consult with our legal advisers, of course, but I have no doubt in my mind when I say that, whoever started such a scheme, we would seek to stop it through the courts.” James Mulonzya almost interrupted his son. “Would you, Mr Mwangangi, a magistrate and civil servant openly break the law?” There was some sincere as well as calculated shock in his voice. “If the law were to stand in the way of a simple, non-profit-making humanitarian scheme such as this, especially in an area racked with famine, then the law must be changed.” There was a hint of the beginning of anger in John's voice. “If there must be a test case then so be it. Meanwhile people who would have gone hungry will be fed.” Charles and James Mulonzya began to laugh as he spoke. There was no disrespect, however, only familiarity. Both father and son knew that they had trod this ground far more regularly and successfully than their potential adversary. “Ah John, but now you are talking politics.”

The third chapter, called Janet, is set mainly in London, thirty years on from the other four. When she left college, Janet worked in Migwani's school and was Father Michael's neighbour for two years. For two years after she returned from Africa, she corresponded with Michael, during a period of personal crisis, but she had not met him until unannounced he reappeared in her life.

Turning back into the hall, the pause having done no more than shortened her next step, she looked down to see the long Kashmiri runner reveal herringboned terracotta tiles at its edges abutting the now stripped skirts and Janet Smythe, née Rowlandson, felt a sudden and unexpected twinge of nerves, a slight tightening of the breath alongside the slightest tingle of the spine, the kind of shiver she thought she used to feel when her first boyfriend arrived at the family home to pick her up. Now more than thirty years beyond such nonsense, the unexpected nervous trill forced a pause, a mere shortening of the rhythm of her step, just as she passed the second door on her left, which looked into the front room, beyond the closed folding doors. There, presenting the back of his large head above the back of a voluminous easy chair that faced into the room, was David, her husband, precisely where she expected to find him, holding the double spread of his broadsheet high up to catch the brighter light of the hallway behind him, absorbed in a minor piece at the foot of page seven, his head gently nodding to the regularity of the Bach fugues that Janet could just hear scratching from within foam pads of his headphones. “I’ll get it,” she said ritualistically, as she passed the open door, knowing full well he couldn’t hear. Thus she did not even check for a response which even at best would be a minor noise, not quite a grunt and definitely not a word, if, indeed, such a reference to the obvious might merit any recognition. And so Janet reached the door, a large, wide and heavy hardwood structure, white within and black to the street, hinged on the right, solid panelled in the lower half, but admitting two decorative stained glass panels above, their uneven frosting not allowing any view of those waiting outside, who invariably presented only fuzzed silhouettes against the scattered back-light of the streetlamps. As she turned the latch, Janet’s memory momentarily recreated childhood, prompted by the beautiful symmetry of the diffused street lights and thus reminding her of those same shapes her infancy called ‘angels’ in the frosted glass door of her parents’ suburban semi. Swinging the door open, she smiled at the two priests waiting in the cold and dark of a November evening.

Boniface, the fourth chapter, describes the difficult life of a young teacher in a town near to Migwani. He is chosen by Father Michael to manage one of the Church's projects, but his chapter is primarily concerned with his family relations.

A violent crash shook Boniface out of his dream. He had seen it coming for almost a minute, but had not prepared himself for the shock. The car had laboured to the summit of a shallow rise to reveal a view of the road ahead. In a broad curve it swept across a wide valley, at the bottom of which a grey and narrow concrete bridge contrasted with the brown unedged earth of the rest of their route. On the down slope, Michael pressed his foot to the floor and the car quickly picked up speed. Boniface knew that at the bottom of the valley, where the road crossed a river bed, the junction between the murram of the road and the concrete of the bridge had worn badly, leaving a vertical step between the two surfaces, several inches high in parts. Everyone who travelled the main road knew the spot. Even the more irresponsible bus drivers would slow to a crawl here to negotiate the bump, but could still not prevent the flow of abuse from the rear seats when their vehicles lurched as they crossed onto the bridge and threw the most vulnerable passengers momentarily into the air. There was simply no way of avoiding it. By the time Michael's car hit the ramp, it was doing fifty miles per hour, but of those inside the car only Josephine, Boniface's wife, seemed concerned by the looming danger. Not until the wheels hit the step and lifted the entire car into the air did either of the men in front of her show any reaction. A split second before impact, she tried to utter a warning shout, but it was already too late. The car hit the ridge, flew into the air and came down with what seemed like a gigantic crash, flinging her from her seat and transforming her intended shout into a long high-pitched scream. Boniface simply held on. Michael's previously vacant expression disappeared, transformed by the widening of his eyes to one of undiluted shock and surprise. After only a short skid, which the priest quickly and easily controlled, the car sped on without either a word or glance shared. Some moments later, Boniface did turn to face his wife who was bent low over the child in her lap and holding the top of her head which had bumped hard against the roof. He offered a short comforting smile to ease her discomfort and said, “Don't worry, Josephine. Father always drives like this.”

The final chapter introduces Munyasya, an ex-army officer who, late in life, has become destitute. It is his mission, however, which endures, despite being revealed as misguided. He is apparently possessed by the spirit of his long-dead step-father.

In the bottle is my madness, the spirit which haunts me, exhausts me, taunts me, entraps me. I, the hunter, the warrior, am caged like a monkey. Let me free! Let me free to live my own life and die my own death. You hold the key, not I. I would break the lock but I can't find the door. Another drink. Another drink to bring me closer to you, to hold you near until you let me go. Do you hear? You? Nzoka? Do you hear? He had been ignored until then. Hundreds of people had passed him by, but even those whom he had befriended in the past offered neither greeting nor any sign of recognition. People had met and stood in conversation less than spitting distance from where he lay without even acknowledging his presence. It was as if he had become a part of the tree beneath which he sat, merely an exposed root to be stepped over and avoided lest one should trip. His constant, almost silent murmuring remained always inaudible amongst the daily bustle of the market place, especially on market day, itself, when this flat triangle of hardened, bare, red earth rang with the noise and commotion of trade and humanity. These last words which he said, however, this oft-repeated question, habitually delivered with the air of a command, these words were never a whisper. Every muscle in him strained and shook to throw out the sound. His entire skeleton of a body stiffened and convulsed, the words grumbling forth from deep within his squelching chest. Thrown out as if spewed in rejection, the sound bellowed like thunder, chased by its own echo. It demanded attention, and received it, albeit begrudgingly and obliquely. It forced people to react, to look his way and thus acknowledge his presence. At such moments, all conversation, all business stopped for a moment as heads turned towards Munyasya's tree. Those with no direct view craned their necks to see, would jostle for position for just a glimpse, but no-one would want to go too close. No-one would ever answer. No-one would ever intervene. View the book on amazon Mission

Restless by William Boyd - A review by Philip Spires

In offering a review of a novel by William Boyd I could certainly be accused of bias. I would proudly plead guilty, since I regard him as one of just four or five British writers who are capable of constructing supreme works of fiction, written in a framework that is both informative and thought-provoking and all this set within a continuum of contemporary or historical events which themselves become re-interpreted by the fiction. 

In Restless, Boyd’s latest novel, he has re-stated this ability and, if anything, written it larger via a smaller form. The historical element in Restless is supplied by the activities of an offshoot of World War Two intelligence. Ostensibly a private, dis-ownable initiative of a particular group, Boyd suggests that it formed an integral part of the British strategy, during the early part of the war, to force the United States to join the Allied effort. The fact, therefore, that it was undermined and subverted so that it perhaps aimed to achieve the opposite of its brief was probably par for the course when espionage meets its freelance counter, but the denouement is surprising and wholly credible. 

 In front of this backdrop of fact meeting fiction, we have a landscape of human relationships. Ruth is a single mother in Oxford. She, herself, has had certain German connections, nay relations, hence the motherhood. She makes a living teaching English to foreign tutees, has several dubious visitors, dreams about completing an aging PhD and generally spends much of her time looking after a precocious five-year-old. And then her mother becomes someone quite unknown to her. The widow in the Oxfordshire retreat suddenly becomes part Russian, part English, with a French step-mother. She possessed several different identities before she became Mrs Gilmartin and most of these were fiction to provide cover for the others. How many of us, after all, can claim to have known our parents before they were parents?

So, as Mrs Gilmartin the mother reveals to her daughter via instalments of an autobiography that she is really Eva Delectorskaya, recruited in Paris to conduct a campaign of wartime disinformation in the United States, the complications of life gradually attain the status of the mundane. Recruited, perhaps, because she was rootless and thus expendable, Eva proved herself intellectually and operationally superior to her manipulative managers and survived the posting that was supposed to achieve their subverted ends and, at the same time, erase her potential to supply evidence. 

Many years later, Eva, now Mrs Gilmartin, feels the need to get even, to expose the double or triple-cross for what it was and deliver at least a prod to the comfortable, self-congratulatory but traitorous British establishment that ran her. Daughter Ruth becomes the means. So one messy life tries to tie up its soggy ends via the actions of another who is apparently yet to attain the same depths of complication. And she succeeds. The fright is delivered. The memory that Eva, the mother, was fundamentally brighter than the upper class Brits who were trying to manipulate her is rekindled. Her training was perfect, but she went beyond it and the plan backfired, irrelevantly as it turned out because greater events intervened. 

But years later, Eva, Mrs Gilmartin, is still brighter than her boss and, through her daughter’s efforts, she brings a special kind of justice to bear on the double-dealer who ruined, but also perhaps made her life. In characteristically humble terms, William Boyd reminds us at the end that we are all watched, all awaiting the cupboard to reveal its skeleton, but in our more mundane lives, it is unlikely to be as colourful an event as that which Eva Delectorskaya, Mrs Gilmartin, and her daughter Ruth uncover. View this book on amazon Restless