Review of A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

This is a novel, based on real events and some of the characters, including the poet Pablo Neruda and the dictators Franco and Pincochet are, of course, real historical figures. This sort of book is less common in Anglo-Saxon literary circles than elsewhere, but in the classical Roman era pretty well all “histories” were like this, because Roman scholars and gentlemen, such as Tacitus, had a contempt for “mere facts” and expected something that would tell them what historical characters thought and felt and why they did the things which made history.

What Pablo Neruda did to make history was charter a ship, the Winnipeg, to take a couple of thousand refugees of the Spanish Civil War, many Catalans and Basques, from France, where they had been neglected as maliciously as only the French authorities knew how, to Chile, where it seemed as if they might face an uncertain future. While the refugees’ arrival was still anticipated, the various factions of Chile’s divided society projected their own prejudices and expectations on the refugees, but when they arrived they were welcomed and seen for what they were, after which most of them made themselves part of Chile. Neruda’s genius contributed to this integration in a subtle but effective way: he may have selected the refugees more widely than the Chilean president had instructed him to do, but each one was told that they were being allowed into Chile for whatever skill it was that they had, so they all arrived with the idea of making a fresh start with that skill and making a life for themselves. They fled from Spain into France to get away from Franco and probable murder, were treated astonishingly badly in their country of first refuge, but Neruda transformed what started as a second desperate flight into something more positive.

This book shows you this through the eyes of many well-drawn fictional characters, which gives a fair impression of the Spanish Civil war -the author doesn’t allow the reader to think that only Franco’s forces committed atrocities and it is clear that no democracy could really have supported the nun-killing Republicans. The international figures who did intervene in the Spanish Civil War were Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, none of whom held the slightest concern for any Spanish person on either side or the future of Spain. It was all a courtship dance, sacrificing Spanish lives so that Hitler and Stalin could come to terms and form the unholy alliance of dictators which conquered Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway (and almost Finland), Holland, Belgium, France and Greece before it all broke down and Hitler tried to conquer Russia.

That isn’t part of the story, though, because when the refugees reached Chile, they left Europe and its agonies behind them and the dramas become those of families rather than nations, until Pinochet comes to power in Chile and the refugees have to flee Chile and make a new life for themselves elsewhere in South America until it is safe to return, first to Spain on Franco’s death, and then to Chile, their true home.

Why I requested and read this book:

I have always been interested in the Spanish Civil War, because as a schoolboy my father saw six slightly older boys from his school off on a train from London to France, where they would cross the border into Spain and volunteer to fight for the Republican militias. He would see just one of them again. He did not go with them, because of his step-father, a rare survivor from what the Kaiser called, in 1914 “a contemptible little army” who made a stand against a German advance that was rolling up Belgium and France, at a place called Mons. My step-grandfather, a trained and experienced professional soldier with medals going back to 1911, properly equipped and with the might of the British Empire behind him, found stopping the Imperial German Army in its tracks to be somewhat problematic. He knew that the untrained boys going to Spain, with no equipment beyond the walking boots they had been told to purchase and no support from the majority of the British public, had scant chance of survival, let alone success. Having no time whatsoever for symbolic acts of suicide, he convinced my father not to go to Spain, but to wait until Hitler did something to unite the British public against him (something he had very skillfully avoided doing at that point in time) and then something EFFECTIVE might be done. My step-grandfather held effectiveness in greater esteem than heroism and my father was sternly directed on a trajectory towards doing the most effective thing he possibly could, even if it held no opportunity for fame and glory.

A Long Petal of the Sea is published by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Available from:

Waterstones

Amazon.co.uk

Emilie Dubois

Copyright Emilie Dubois

This is a young woman who has completed a doctorate in biology at a university in Quebec, but has been refused permission to settle there because she wrote part of her thesis in English, so that she could publish it in a scientific journal.

She was born and bred in France, so this exclusion has nothing to do with any inability to speak or write in French, the language of Bureaucratic Heaven. What disqualifies her is her demonstrable ability to convey complex scientific concepts in English, rather than any discernible inability to do so in French. This is racism over the most tenuous of associations. By doing what is customary in scientific circles and writing her paper in English, Dr Dubois exploded a fondly-held belief of the anglophobes that English is a barbarian tongue, unsuited to the communication of any intellectual or civilised concept.

If the authorities in Quebec have a crumb of rationality behind their prohibition, it may be that they are trying to save Quebec from any repeat of the settlement there of the celebrated firearms designer, Sir Charles Ross, who was a bit of a rough diamond by all accounts. Being a proud, even a touch arrogant, Scotsman, Sir Charles did not have an English bone in his body, but that's not the sort of detail that haters actually care about. No, Dr Dubois used a barbarian tongue and she must be cast out, for the linguistic purity of Quebec.

In the outside world, it is important that scientists be able to convey their ideas to other scientists, and English is now the preferred medium for doing this. Yes, centuries ago it was done in French, if not Latin, but centuries ago isn't now. My English teacher* and lifelong friend, the late Alan G. Myers, once told me that he had been asked to translate a long, complicated and important-looking physics paper into English, by a female Russian scientist who was much impressed by his translations of Avante Garde poetry and classic Russian literature. Alan's knowledge of physics extended as far as being able to connect the bare ends of the power cable for the school's video recorder to a British Standard electrical outlet using matchsticks, and knowing that in cold countries you kept your rifle bolt inside your clothing so that you'd be able to shoot polar bears when the need arose. 

Willing to do anything to please a lady, he decided to have a stab at the important-looking paper and his translation was gratefully received by the female Russian scientist, but he was deeply worried because although he'd rendered the document into English, he barely understood a word of his own translation. The paper duly won a major international physics prize, leaving Alan secretly worried that his ignorance of physics might have somehow created an impressive but bogus new scientific concept which was winning prizes because nobody on the prize committee was able to understand it. I persuaded him that this was a bit of a long shot and he should stop worrying. So, although an inability to author a scientific paper in English can be rectified by a distinguished translator, it saves a lot of needless worry if you can write the thing in English yourself and be understood to say what you actually mean.

Dr Dubois might actually find it easier and more agreeable to settle in Britain than in Quebec, Brexit or no, because the belief that Brexit means that all British people are bigoted racist barbarians is simply a symptom of the widely-held creed amongst the European elite, that there can never be anything wrong with bureaucracy, so no rational person would want to leave a multi-national community dedicated to the celebration of bureaucracy in all its forms. If anything illustrates the dangers and limitations of bureaucracy, it is the treatment of Dr Dubois by the Quebec government.

A presentable young woman with a research degree, let alone a doctorate, in Biology or almost any other scientific discipline, would have to try very hard indeed to get thrown out of the United Kingdom, and if she settled here instead of where she clearly isn't wanted by those in power, would be an ideal role model for a young female relative of mine who wants to study molecular biology. 

* When I told Alan that I was writing novels with a view to publication, he assumed a worried frown and henceforth informed his peers that he had taught me English as a foreign language from the native Swahili. This was an understandable precaution, but I do not speak Swahili in fact, although I have relatives who do. 

Book Review of: The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd

At first when you read this book, it seems as if Sam Lloyd has started off in the same place as John Fowles did with “The Collector”. But he goes in a different direction and through a different set of dangers to arrive in a different nightmare. This makes for a gripping read, if a disturbing one.

Fowles was inspired to write “The Collector” when he connected his literary studies, which revealed that a “girl being held captive in a cellar” was a common folk tale all over Europe, with a real case post WW2, where a boy had kept a girl captive in an air-raid shelter. He realised that this was not a myth, “urban” or otherwise, but something that really happened, quite widely and perhaps quite often. Since The Collector was published in 1963, there has been a steady stream of real-life cases bearing out Fowles’ observation, but not all of them have involved a psychotic individual culprit. Some, from Australia and latterly the Netherlands, seem to involve sub-cultures; some family-based or family-sized, others somewhat larger; cults if you like. You get a long way into The Memory Wood before you realise that it is about a sub-culture which in turn revolves around an individual and by the time you know which of the characters this actually is, you’ve almost reached the end. This book grips you, not just to thrill and entertain, but to teach you that sub-cultures can be at least as dangerous as the “lone psycho” that our popular culture leads us to fear more.

Along the way you also learn that lost souls will go where they are led, until something or someone intervenes and they go towards the light, sometimes with the very last of their strength.

Matthew K. Spencer 2^nd of November 2019.

The Memory Wood is published by Random House. 

Available from:

Waterstones

Amazon.co.uk