Crown of Blood, The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey by Nicola Tallis

When they advance, pawns become queens. But to advance, they usually need support from a bishop or a knight from behind the walls of a castle, assuming, of course, that the king, as usual, remains capable of relatively little, but also assuming that he, himself, survives. Without that living male, promotion to queen cannot happen. But by what rules and in which game does a pawn become advanced by such castles, knights and bishops to find herself still a pawn, a queen in name only, and only for long enough to arrange her own decapitation? The King, of course, had not survived, and a queen without a King breaks the rules. Young women called Jane Grey seem to have been particularly vulnerable to this fate.

Crown of Blood by Nicola Tallis is, effectively, a political biography of Queen Jane, the first woman to be named as the occupant of the English throne and the only occupant never to have been crowned. Born of the Tudor line, Jane's claim to the English throne was significant. Her grandmother had been Mary Tudor, youngest daughter of Henry VII and she was thus a full cousin to the King, Edward VI.

In the mid-16th century, England was riven by political difference driven by religious and ideological conflict and was further plunged into confusion by the untimely death of Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII. But Henry's two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, had by some, including at one stage their own father, been branded as illegitimate, and therefore ineligible to inherit the throne. Confusion still surrounds exactly what Henry VIII, himself, thought of their individual succession rights. After the birth of a son, Edward, the matter was irrelevant, in any case.

Edward, a staunch Protestant, above all else wanted his own version of the Christian faith to prevail. He was a teenager when he started to ail, and his thoughts were turned reluctantly towards his succession and the continuance of the religious revolution he had furthered was uppermost in his prioritied. Thus he nominated Jane Grey as his successor, the move calculated both to promote his Protestantism and to discredit his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, one because she was a Catholic and the other because her mother had, it was alleged, humiliated his father through acts of infidelity. In his eyes neither was worthy of the crown. Lady Jane Grey, on the other hand, was a pious Protestant, from a good family, of Royal Blood and of serious, even learned disposition. Ostensibly, she even had the support of several nights and even a bishop, plus that of her ambitious family in their castle. These could have been the perfect circumstances to promote her advancement to queen. Amongst her backers, however, it was ambition and self-interest that unfortunately underpinned support for the teenage Lady Jane and, as a woman, she was powerless either to influence or counteract that scheming.

Thus, she was married to one Guildford to make a friendly alliance between powerful families, declared queen and admitted to the tower of London for her own safety. Mary, however, had popular support by virtue of her having been King Henry's first daughter and a military skirmish confirmed her greater and now pragmatic claim to the throne. Jane Grey’s protection in the tower thus became imprisonment under the influence of a victorious Mary. Jane’s supporters largely disowned her, while those who didn't lost their heads and their innards. Jane herself was tried, found guilty of treason and beheaded. Mary showed clemency in deciding not to burn her cousin.

What is so upsetting about this story is its apparent inevitability. Jane's major problem, it seemed, was that she was a woman. She had no rights. She was a mere pawn, moved at will by others and advanced for their own gain. Her story is this is not a tragedy, but a conspiracy. She was party to that conspiracy, but she was also trapped and probably could not have extricated herself from its vice, even if she had tried harder to do so. Like women of her age, she was chattel, so much meat to be haggled over by a bunch of property-owning, self-promoting barrow-boys looking for a profit.

The raw and calculated callousness exhibited by anyone in the position of power or influence over the life or status of Lady Jane Grey is more than merely shocking. Its consequences are genuinely upsetting. Here was a young woman used and then discarded when her attributes did not profit those who backed her. The example this presents reminds us that there were many others, who were not royal, who suffered similar but unrecorded fates.

Crown of Blood by Nicola Tallis examines this history in fine and accurate detail. This is a serious study of the political and legal dimensions of the case. But is also a biography, and the delves as deeply as sources allow into the background, development and character of Lady Jane Grey. The author offers a truly historical account, researching sources and judging their veracity or otherwise. Even in history, it is always easier to make it up, to deliver what current values assume. But that is fiction, not history, and Nicola Tallis’s book always inhabits what can be justified.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves that Lady Jane Grey was also known as Jane Dudley, because that would remind us of the family’s status just a few years later when Robert Dudley became the favourite of Elizabeth I. Indeed, part of the case that was eventually levelled against Robert Dudley referred back to the treasonous activities of the family in relation to Lady Jane’s advancement to queen.

As is often the case in history, the rich and powerful can bathe their hands in blood, knowing that the consequences will never come their way. Reading details of the callous intrigue, the self-promotion and sheer selfishness that surrounded the elevation and then decapitation of this young woman reminds us of how much, or indeed how little, has changed since the sixteenth century.

Milkman by Anna Burns

Milkman is a novel by Anna Burns. It won the Booker. It is a book. It's a book about a place, a place which is not named, but we know where it is because its divisions, borders, red lines, call them what you may, are currency in its social divide and international renown. It's a place that's part of somewhere else, or isn't, depending on your view of history, even though it's the present, its present that is the only relevant place to inhabit. There is another place over the border, and, yes, another one over the water, but in the past those from over there have often been this side of the ditch to leave their marks and then go home again, or not, which is at the root of the problems of this place with its border, its division, its divides, this side of the water. Like anywhere, there are people throughout to this place, but, unlike almost everywhere, they very rarely have names, or if they have them, they don’t want to use them, believing, clearly, that the name would incriminate, accuse, label, even identify in this situation where to be known always carries risks. If you are Milkman, or even a milkman, you can live with the label, possibly because it strikes fear into those who hear it, fear of association, or of reprisal, or of identification, or even of not getting your pinta. That's what the capital letter can do, or undo, if you don't have one, just one, at the start, making one a name and the other, well, a name, but not a name to identify, only a name to label. But then there are lots of labels this side of the water. There are labels above all others, which might determine where you live, might reveal what you believe, might dictate where you might walk, and where you might not, where you might drink, or buy chips, where the rest of the shop snubs you and you might even forget to pay, for your chips, of course, for you are always likely to pay, eventually, in other ways. It's these labels that make you walk faster through the ten-minute zone that divides the divisions, the road where you are being watched, counted, logged, photographed, recorded, identified as identifiable, in the future as well as in the present, which itself will become a permanent past if your name, still unspoken, receives the celebrity of appearing on someone’s file. Unless, of course, you are that Somebody McSomebody who is already known, already logged, already identified, probably already filed, in which case that Somebody McSomebody would probably not want to be seen, not want to venture into that ten-minute no-somebody's land, not anybody's land, that works like the border between over there and over here or the ditch between over here and over the water, keeping apart, keeping division. Unless, of course you are family, in which case you are known as brother or sister and by number, first, second, third etc., or you are known intergenerationally, like mama or papa or granddad, who might even still have a name, like one of your brothers, which is better not said in any case, being that it would be recognized, labelled, identified or merely chiseled into a headstone. That's always the risk, especially when your family is known to be sympathetic to causes unspoken in private but inevitably adopted in public, because the photographs, the records, the files prove you still live over there, on that side of the ten-minute zone that marks the division. And, when you have decided who you are or who you might become, should you agree to continue to see a milkman or other for the purpose of something other than acquiring milk, then you need to watch your back to make sure your maybe-boyfriend is not watching you while you are at your deception, which is not deception, because you're not trying to deceive. And then, in the end, you are at the end of the book, which is not really a book, but a train of thoughts, events, thoughts about events, and analyses, rationalizations of the irrational, all inside the head of an eighteen-year-old woman, who happens to come from one side or other of the divide, in the divided land, that's one side of the border and another side of the water ditch that separates it from over there. You have travelled the roads, lived the short lives, felt the threats, been taken to all the places the eighteen-year-old has deemed you will see, felt the confusion life has brought to her life, and experienced the lack of ending that inevitably applies to things that have no end. The only certainty, and this at least is certain, that this book, that actually might not be a book, but thought, experience and imagination, is a worthy Booker and arguably one of the greatest achievements in the history of things that generally are called books.

A Northern Ireland Childhood - Patrick Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

Patrick Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle is an unusual, highly original account of life in a Northern Ireland Catholic household. Written from the point of view of Paddy, the eldest son, aged ten, of the Clarke family, it draws the reader through a particular experience of childhood. There is a child’s wonder at the new. There are strange facts about the world to be unearthed and challenges to face like a man.

But when you are ten, there is also always the rock of parents, ma and pa, ma and da, mum and dad on which to rely. Their love for you and their constancy will always offer support and never let you down. Like God, they are not subject to question. So when you do something that was not quite advisable, and as a consequence a window gets broken, or a plant uprooted or an ornament broken, there’s recrimination to expect, of course, perhaps punishment to endure, but it will be fine in the end, because ma and da always make things happen that way. You can trust them, assume their interest, take them for granted.

And that applies even when you beat up your mate, and hit him just a bit too hard. You might say he fell, or stumbled and hit himself hard in an unfortunate place, let blood that spotted his shirt or came home crying in fright, but it would all be fine in the end. When you give your younger brother a dead leg just to keep him in his place, or declare war under the covers after bed time, or even when he messes his pants provoking the others to giggle and mock, there is always home waiting, where there will be safety behind the parental screen. And when you pick a fight because someone says that George Best is not the best footballer in the world, that a teacher you like is a whore or a defenceless sibling ought to get punched, ma and da always step in, mediate, soothe.

Until, that is, you realise your da might not be telling the truth, until you realise that he is just another grown up, perhaps as inconstant and unreliable as all the others. And what about when your ma and da start to fight? The noises percolate through the wall from the other room. They can’t be hidden. Well that’s just called growing up, which is already happening, even – perhaps especially – to a ten year old. And then, of course, there will be adulthood, when everything will be different in a world where people don’t fight, where there will be no conflict.

This is Northern Ireland, after all. Roddy Doyle’s book is a delight. It takes a while to suspend the disbelief associated with becoming a ten year old, even longer to get used to the idea that little Paddy might have written it all down. But the mood and his character soon take over and draw us into a world as fascinating and as threatening as any experienced by an adult.

A Northern Ireland family - Reading In The Dark by Seamus Deane

Reading In The Dark is a first person account of an extraordinary childhood. On the surface, the family seems to be stable enough. They are Catholics and the novel’s narrator is about half way along his parents´ progeny. Nothing special there... They are not rich, and apparently not poor. They get by.

The lad explores the neighbourhood, makes friends, starts school. Eventually he proves to be quite academic and he clearly goes from personal success to further personal success. But all the time there’s something in the past that labels him. There are people who call him strange names, accuse him of things he hasn’t done. He does not understand, but feels the consequences.

Life can be complicated when you’re born to a Catholic family in Northern Ireland. The boy grows up in the 1950s and 1960s. Via short, dated chapters, arranged chronologically and starting in February 1945, we able to build and perhaps experience the lad’s world. We share the boy’s new experience, feel the changes in his life and body as he does. But there is always something unsaid, intangible, but undoubtedly real and of consequence. Everyone seems to know something, but he has little idea what it all means. Mother and father remain reticent. Relatives and acquaintances allude to Eddie, the boy’s uncle, who is not around any more. Clearly Eddie died in strange circumstances. But in the Northern Ireland of the 1950s, you have to be careful what you say, when you speak and whom you mix with.

Just being seen talking to Sergeant Burke, the policeman, can result in your being labelled a traitor, a collaborator, or worse. The boy’s relationship with the Church and its clergy is both fascinating and surreal. There are moments of humour, times of fear, often juxtaposed. There’s a maths teacher whose class rules are so complex that any response seems punishable. Serves them right… It seems that whatever contribution an individual might make has the potential to render that person in need of strokes, but the ground rules demand that no-one may opt out. It’s the same in the wider society. When you’re a Catholic in Northern Ireland – and perhaps if you are not! – there are no fences you can sit on. Whatever you do it will be wrong.

There are enemies on both sides of every fence, so wherever you climb down, beware. Tread carefully, know your place, stay on your guard. But what if, like our young lad, you don’t know what to beware of? Slowly, however, the real truth behind Uncle Eddie’s fate emerges. It’s only then that the growing boy, and indeed the reader, realises just how complicated – and vindictive – life can be. Reading In The Dark is a highly poetic novel. The scenes are vivid, beautifully portrayed. They are short, but each adds its own new detail to the bigger story of how a family has learned to cope with its own chequered past. 

Those who don’t know the mistakes of history are perhaps doomed to repeat them. Those misled by untruth are not necessarily liars when they restate it. But complicating the past probably confuses the present and disturbs the future. Seamus Deane’s novel, Reading In The Dark, is a vivid and moving portrait of a family troubled by a past it dare not admit.

Saint Augustine by Garry Wills – a biography of the early Christian saint.

A young African man with a taste for sex and a highly developed sense of both religion and mission travels across the Mediterranean. He decides to sail. Once in Italy, he communes with the rich and powerful and then, some years later, makes the return journey via the same means of transport, and thereby completes the sum total of his life’s travels.

We know a lot about the man, not only from his own writings which are both extensive and preserved, but also from the accounts of many of those contemporaries who met him, engaged in intellectual and theological debates with him, or merely reported. The Roman Empire had only recently espoused Christianity. It was an era when the young faith was divided by schism. A strength of this biography of Augustine is that it brings home the passion that characterised these differences. A weakness, however, is that the different variants of fourth century Christianity are not clearly delineated. This would, perhaps, be too much to ask in a short account of a life, but there are times when understanding of the text is compromised because of this omission. What does come alive, however, is how recent were the memories of persecution under Diocletian. It was a difference in attitude to some of those who succumbed to denial of their faith under that persecution that created one major schism.

Donatists refused to re-admit those who had renounced their faith under threat and were the main expression of Christianity in North Africa. Our young African man chose to ally himself with the Roman church, thus placing himself in a local minority. Pelagius who was around at the time denied the concept of original sin. Quite often it seems that he didn’t, then he did, and then he didn’t again. It was a heresy, needless to say. But, and I feel it might be an attractive concept even today, the idea that the Church was not full of sinners had its adherents. Arians stressed the humanity, not the divinity of Jesus Christ. This allowed them to avoid at least some of the problematic concept of three deities in one, a holy trinity. The concept has been a confusion and for many outside of Christianity it appears to be a wholly unnecessary complication. Arian thought, however, Gary Mills points out, is only reported by those who opposed them, so an accurate representation of their philosophy is difficult to establish. Manicheans, unlike Christians, saw the universe in black and white, a competition between good and evil. There were aspects of light and dark in everything and everyone, but it was the interplay between the two that determined where an individual might be placed in the overall scheme of things. Manichaeism has largely disappeared from world religion, its only remaining bastion being Hollywood, where it provides the basis of most films aimed at the popular audience.

All of these ideas, heresies and religions were themselves in competition in the homeland of Augustine of Hippo. And through Gary Wells’ book we gain an insight into how an individual thinker and philosopher grappled with the contradictions and tried to make sense of what he regarded as the correct line. The book is a window on Augustine’s thoughts , thoughts that often deal with the base as well as the obviously spiritual. Gary Wills provides real insights into Augustine’s charm, the magnetism of his rhetoric and the logical processes of his thought. And he manages to this in just 150 pages, pages that also include significant and poignant quotes from Augustine’s work. The stained glass analogy on religion applies. If you look at windows from outside, they are merely sold grey. On the inside, they reveal full and splendid colour. There might be many a modern reader who would be confused as to why it matters that a concept is associated with this or that belief. But for a Christian and certainly for someone who sees the windows in full colour it clearly does matter.

Gary Wills’s book brings the debates and issues alive even for the general reader, though it has to be said that sometimes the detail of the theological debate is less than penetrable. This is a book of many surprises. View the book on amazon Saint Augustine (Lives)

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

In The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry tells a story set in Ireland. As is often the case, this story set in Ireland is very much a story of Ireland, as much describing a nation and a setting as a personal history. But it seems that at least one aspect of the country’s painful relationship with its competing churches has changed in Sacred Scriptures. Gone is the assumption of grace applied unthinkingly by Catholics to their side of the divide. And reason for its removal is the church’s attitude towards women, marriage and motherhood.

In Secret Scriptures these axes of divide intersect to create a story that is effectively a modern virgin birth. It thus creates and presents a Madonna who, in her own way, must be kept above and apart from other women, other people. Late in the book Dr Grene, whose journal forms a large part of the narrative, asks this question: “Is not most history written in a sort of wayward sincerity?” Recollection thus remains sincere, but its waywardness perhaps lies in its selectivity, its particularity. History, after all, is an interpretation of events, not merely a listing, and interpretation always has a point of view. When, however, one’s knowledge of the past is at best patchy and at worst inaccurate, it becomes a new world to be discovered, revealed perhaps by chance, perhaps by design. Dr Grene also writes, “The one thing that is fatal in the reading of an impromptu history is wrongful desire for accuracy.” In the end, it is Dr Grene’s pursuit of such an impromptu history that reveals a stunning truth, a truth that can only be uncovered precisely because of the accuracy, the diligence that others invested in one person’s history. The impromptu history that Dr Grene reads is that of Secret Scripture’s central character, Roseanne McNulty, née Clear.

She is a hundred years old and has, for most of her adult life, been confined within the walls of a mental hospital. Her place of repose is to close and be demolished. Dr Grene is to oversee its demise. Roseanne has decided to write her life story. If Te Secret Scripture has a weakness, then it has a double weakness. Overall, the plot might come too close to the sentimental for some readers. For others, it will be the book’s saving grace. Secondly, Roseanne Clear, frail at a hundred years of age, might be an unlikely figure to write such a succinct, coherent and vivid account of events that happened almost eighty years before. Again we must suspend some belief here, but that is easily done because her recollections are both engaging and credible. They would have been more so if, as impromptu history, they were less concerned with improbable detail. It’s not the events that might be questionable, merely the accuracy of their recollection. But after all, that detail might just be illusory. There was a history in the family, we are told, a history of illness and instability and, perhaps, a history of another, less mentionable, affliction of women.

But in the end none of these are rare. It’s their public acknowledgement or admission that’s unusual. Life and its institutions treat Roseanne Clear badly, but no differently from others identified as afflicted with her condition. She is effectively branded insane by a socially-constructed righteousness that now seems to have lost all of its previously unquestioned authority. She seems to have few regrets, however, except, of course, for a life that may not have been lived. The life in question did, in fact, live, and it became something that reinterpreted Roseanne’s entire existence. Sacred Scripture is a beautiful book. It has its flaws, but the immediacy of its subject and the poignancy of its dénouement make it both enthralling and surprising.

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The Heart Of The Matter by Graham Greene

Over forty years ago a new English teacher at my school answered a question asked by an eager student. The question was, “What do you think is the greatest novel written in English?” He didn’t think for very long before replying, “The Heart Of The Matter.”

We academically-inclined youths borrowed Graham Greene’s novel from the library and eventually conferred. There were shrugs, some indifference, appreciation without enthusiasm. We were all about sixteen years old.

I last re-read The Heart Of The Matter about twenty-five years ago. When I began it again for the fourth time last week, I could still remember vividly the basics of its characters and plot. Henry Scobie is an Assistant Chief of Police in a British West African colony. It is wartime and he has been passed over for promotion. He is fifty-ish, wordly-wise, apparently pragmatic, a sheen that hides a deeply analytical conscience. Louise, his wife is somewhat unfocusedly unhappy with her lot. She is a devout Catholic and this provides her support, but the climate is getting to everyone. She leaves for a break that Scobie cannot really afford. He accepts debt.

The colony’s businesses are run by Syrians. Divisions within their community have roots deeper than commercial competition. There is “trade” of many sorts. There are accusations, investigations, rumours and counter-claims. Special people arrive to look into things. There’s a suicide, more than one, in fact, at least one murder, an extra-marital affair, blackmail, family and wartime tragedy.

But above all there is the character of Henry Scobie. He is a man of principle who thinks he is a recalcitrant slob. He is a man of conscience who presents a pragmatic face. He makes decisions fully aware of their consequences, but remains apparently unable to influence the circumstance that repeatedly seems to dictate events. He remains utterly honest in his deceit, consistent in his unpredictability. His life becomes a beautiful, uncontrolled mess. His wife’s simple orthodox Catholicism contrasts with his never really adopted faith. He tries to keep face, but cannot reconcile the facts of his life with the demands of his conscience. His ideals seem to have no place in a world where interests overrule principle. He sees a solution, a way out, but perhaps it is a dead end.

For twenty-first century sensibilities, the colonial era attitudes towards local people appear patronising at best. Perhaps that is how things were. But The Heart Of The Matter is not really a descriptive work. It is not about place and time. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the events and their setting provide only a backdrop and context for a deeply moving examination of motive and conscience. And also like a Shakespearean tragedy, the novel transcends any limitations of its setting to say something unquestionably universal about the human condition. Forty years on, I now realise, that my new English teacher was probably right.

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The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene

Anyone who has lived in London could place the Common that forms a geographical centrepiece in The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene. It doesn’t really matter if it’s the particular place one thinks it is, because it’s what happens in the houses at or near its periphery that is central to the book. And the relationships between man and woman, between classes, between interests could be anywhere.

Maurice Bendrix is a resident of the suburban, unfashionable, southern extremity of the open space. He has rented rooms in which he labours over his writing. He is a novelist with several books and some critical acclaim to his name. He is a passionate man, a sceptic, perhaps in every sense, and he is nothing less than scheming in the way that he manipulates friends, acquaintances and probably anyone in order to conduct his research, and perhaps to secure his other interests as well.

It was during one such foray into the mind of a fictional civil servant he was trying to invent that he began to see Sarah Miles. She was the wife of a real civil servant and the affair was constructed to enter her husband’s mind, though it took a more conventional initial route. Sarah and Henry, her ministry mandarin husband, live in a large freehold on the fashionable north side of the Common.

One feels that, left entirely to his own devices, Maurice would not have a great deal in common with the lifestyle of the Miles household. But when he meets Sarah, he finds a passionate woman whose devotion to the institution of her marriage is not matched by the satisfaction she derives from it. Sarah’s frustrations are great, her needs are obvious, and the affair with Maurice ignites. Their passionate, highly physical affair lasts some years. One day in 1944, however, a robot bomb lands outside Maurice’s house and he is injured in the blast. Initially Sarah thinks he is dead. Then, somehow, their relationship ends, maybe because she seems almost disappointed that he has survived.

They see nothing of one another for two years. Maurice, of course, assumes she has moved on to richer pastures, to another more novel lover, who can satisfy her demands in new, less committed ways. He hires a private detective to check on her. He talks to her husband and others with whom she has been acquainted. What he discovers is a surprising change of direction in her life and her priorities, a change that neither he nor Sarah’s husband can either explain or accept.

Ultimately The End Of The Affair is about the space between people. Relationships are always limited, no matter how intimately they are shared. The Common, the geographical space between Maurice and Sarah, becomes a symbol of the no man’s land that must be crossed when people interact. We enter into this territory when it is our intention to go part-way to meet the psyche of another, but perhaps we never really leave home. The territory can only be entered, but probably not crossed, when there is mutuality, at least a partially shared desire to meet in the unsafe space. But it remains a position that can be retracted, a space that can be abandoned at will.

But what emerges in The End Of the Affair is that this space is specific to particular relationships. Scratch the surface of a different association of that same person, and it will reveal a different territory, perhaps not even sharing recognisable landmarks with the first. Perhaps, therefore, we project onto others what we want them to be. Perhaps relationships are never really shared, and remain at best pragmatic and, more likely, ultimately selfish. In the end, The End Of The Affair suggests that they are not, but it is only a suggestion.

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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 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

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