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I didn't know Simenon wrote in English. How to you think it affected his style? Was he influenced by American crime writers? As for La Patience de Mai
I didn't know Simenon wrote in English. How to you think it affected his style? Was he influenced by American crime writers? As for La Patience de Maigret, my Penguin edition says ©1965, but nothing would surprise me in such a prolific author than some confusion over copyrights.
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Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives
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A unique author, succeeding in so many different genres that he makes it look effortless. Yet so much detail in A Suitable Boy, I think the best intro
A unique author, succeeding in so many different genres that he makes it look effortless. Yet so much detail in A Suitable Boy, I think the best introduction to the sub continent ever written (and so much more than that).
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Phillip Kay
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I've just finished reading an enormous work over 1,000 pages, Lives of the Novelists: a history of fiction in 294 lives, short biographies of novelists writing in English by John Sutherland (Profile Books London 2011). It presents a novel idea (excus
I've just finished reading an enormous work over 1,000 pages, Lives of the Novelists: a history of fiction in 294 lives, short biographies of novelists writing in English by John Sutherland (Profile Books London 2011). It presents a novel idea (excuse the pun), embodying both literary and social history in English from John Bunyan in 1660 to Rana Dasgupta in 2010. It charts literary fashions, examines the best sellers and the classics of past and present years and gives an idea of how the novel has changed over the years while its function has remained, after all, very much the same. It's clearly not an encyclopaedia (not comprehensive enough) nor a history of fiction, even fiction in English (for the same reason) but a snapshot or series of snapshots (of many possible ones) of the way fiction has developed over the years. My personal response to the novelists selected for inclusion in the book may be typical of many readers. The great bulk of them I had heard of and was indifferent to, about 130 of the entries. These included celebrated names, and others obviously important to Sutherland himself. A whopping 100 names I had never heard off, and I consider myself well read. This is mainly, I think, because Sutherland seems to be a specialist in 19th century best selling novelists. Nothing has such a short shelf life as a best seller, or tells as much about the times it was one. Of the 294 novelists Sutherland writes about, there were only 40 writers I liked, and 20 I strongly disliked. Despite this, I found the book fascinating. It helped get through so many pages that Sutherland concentrates on life and times material, seldom stopping for literary criticism. He delights to pass on details about subjects' sexual preferences, and the number of writers he mentions who are homosexual is surely higher than average. Here you can find out the names of the many famous women that Daphne du Maurier had sex with for example. It was this mix of personal anecdotes about writers, and social history, that made the book so readable for me. Sutherland apologises for his selection in his preface, and calls it 'idiosyncratic'. He has no need to do so. I read somewhere recently that every year in Britain about 5,000 novels are published. Even though 4,999 probably fall still born from the press, the numbers mount up over time, and no-one writing on the novel can now be comprehensive. If the spread of internet enabled epublishing continues, there could soon be 500,000 novelists a year, and eventually as many writers as readers, a fact that might lead to the decline, not enhancement, of reading as an activity. Who knows? So diversion of this stream to genre publishing and reading is bound to increase. This means much of the output will be directed at audiences only interested in specific genres or even sub-genres, and who will ignore the rest. One such genre, though the literary mandarins and the educators don't like to admit it, is literary fiction, once called 'good' literature, produced in conformity to dictates of taste and forming, hopefully, part of a tradition and a canon. Literary historians, and I am supposing Sutherland is one, straddle an uncomfortable position, taking note of worthwhile fiction in the tradition but also acknowledging the existence of best sellers totally oblivious of such traditions. Genre readers, in the meantime, can tell you all about Robert Howard and his Conan stories, and argue endlessly about the merits of his 'continuators', and are often oblivious of the existence of books such as Ulysses. We are slowly realising that nobody need be ashamed or dismissive of this. So I understand that Sutherland has left out Joseph Heller and Catch 22, John Gardner and Nickel Mountain, Vikram Seth and A Suitable Boy, Vikram Chandra and Funeral Games, the work of Angela Carter, and underplays the significance of George Orwell. These would be part of my own 'idiosyncratic' selection. But after all, no-one's perfect. Sutherland quotes Jacques Bonnet in his prologue: "Authors are just fictional people [of whom we know] never enough to make them truly real". I think this is significant. Entering the world of fiction should confront us with the fact that the novelist is just as much a creation, by himself and his critics and readers, as his fiction. So is a history of fiction (fiction is a lie that strives to tell the truth). Sutherland closes his preface with this admission: "It will be easy to see why most of those writers who did get in got in [the book]. What they have in common is that they are all novelists who have meant something to me, or who have come my way over a long reading career and stayed with me, for whatever reason". The next step to comprehensiveness would be an encyclopaedia, and they are usually not as readable as this book. The bulk of the book concerns modern literature of the 20th and 21st centuries, over 170 authors: 19th century writers have 100 entries, and those working earlier a mere 25. So there are no revelations here about the history of the novel. The vast number of women writers of the time of Henry Fielding (including his sister Sarah) are mentioned as exhaustively as Ian Watt does in his 1957 book The Rise of the Novel (though that was a study of Defoe, Fielding and Richardson). I mean not at all. It is no surprise to see entries for Defoe, Richardson, Fielding and Sterne, but good to see an entry for the fascinating Aphra Behn and her confusing mix of autobiography and fiction (Aphra is of course also famous as a founder of the 18th century British drama). One can only shake one's head over the entry of John Cleland, a sub de Sade writer writing to escape debt and with no serious social purpose as de Sade had (but he is entertaining to hear of). And pornography, or at least written pornography, is as hard to write without being ludicrous, in the 18th century as it has been ever since. It is at the end of the 18th century entries that Sutherland starts to surprise. There is an entry for Robert Bage. Who is Robert Bage? An industrialist who came upon hard times, influenced by ideas that resulted in the French Revolution, and, like Walter Scott, wrote himself out of financial difficulties. His novels, though he began with little literary skill, reflected the progressive ideas of the time and were very popular. Around 1800 anybody you mentioned Robert Bage to in England would have known whom you were talking about. Another once famous name was Mrs Catherine Gore, the mother of 10 children who survived more than one period of abject poverty, was defrauded of her fortune, lost her husband, went blind, yet was very wealthy indeed when she died. Her secret? Her ability to write as many as two novels a week, her speciality being lurid accounts of the 'lower upper classes' (the British class system is complex - the group Mrs Gore wrote about were not aristocrats but tolerated by them as acquaintances). All very shades of Mills and Boon and similar production houses, yet admirable in a horrible kind of way. I try not to think of all those lower middle class wives devouring Mrs Gore's books, satisfied to think the better off were no better than they should be. Other female writers follow such as "‘Fanny Fern’ ... a bestselling novelist, serial wife and newspaper columnist (some accounts say the first columnist in the country [USA], others merely the highest paid)". The enormous contribution 19th century female novelists made to feminism by, first of all, existing, often precariously; highlighting the fact there was a huge female audience for novels; and expressing the wants and concerns of females, in a time when males were oblivious to all these situations, should always be recognised. They are usually left out of literary histories on the grounds they aren't very good. Yet histories of the novel always leave in Harold Robbins and Mickey Spillane, who weren't very good either, possibly to a greater extent than female novelists usually ignored, though grossing as highly in their day. Sutherland covers about 80 female authors in his book. Something I liked was the exploration Sutherland gives to end of the century novelists, a period with a feverish kind of dated progressiveness, a kind of fussy permissiveness (a bit like the 1960s in a way). I learned about Ouida, Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, Mrs Humphrey Ward, Marie Corelli, and favourite authors Arthur Conan Doyle and Kenneth Grahame. The best seller greats are mentioned, HG Wells, Somerset Maugham and Theodore Dreiser, and the best sellers (but not so great) like Edgar Wallace, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Zane Grey. And the scandalous life of Norman Douglas and the inspiring one of Erskine Childers. My love of detective stories made the entries on Grant Allen, Agatha Christie, Sax Rohmer, Raymond Chandler, Earle Stanley Gardner and Dashiell Hammett enjoyable to read. Sutherland's book errs on the side of comprehensiveness when it comes to the (unstated) 'English' criteria. Novelists from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, North America and Australia, even New Zealand, are included, but also novelists who wrote in English at some stage. Naturally, Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad, but also Olaudah Equiano from Nigeria, Pearl S Buck from China, Cabrera Infante from Cuba, VS Naipaul from Trinidad, Chinua Achebe from Nigeria and Rana Dasgupta, born in England to Indian parents, living now in India, first published in Australia, a symbol of the indefiniteness national and cultural boundaries can have (do I have to add, in the modern world?). As an Australian I was glad to see two Australian authors included, sad that they were the brilliant, unreadable genius Patrick White and the stogy, unreadable Peter Carey, an advertising man who always reserves the film rights. Could have been Henry Handel Richardson, George Johnston, Christina Stead or David Malouf. And if Edgar Allen Poe and Katherine Mansfield were included, why not Henry Lawson or Charmian Clift? Guess you really can't fit everyone in. Probably the most valuable section of the book is the largest, on 20th and 21st century writers. Writers of the past are well documented. Best sellers of the past not so well, but Sutherland's book remedies this lack quite well too. Modern writers, however, are rarely seen in context, as authors. They are usually seen as product, and you are urged to buy their book, the greatest story ever told, with dozens of unknowns telling you so on the book jacket. Sutherland juxtaposes Salman Rushdie and Patricia Cornwell, Ian McEwen and Michael Crichton, Julian Barnes and Jeffrey Archer, and slowly you get an idea these are all engaged in the one process, and that all of this diverse material is read, by a enormous public with a voracious appetite for reading matter. Perhaps we all read for different reasons, but we all exercise our minds the same way, decoding symbols at a greater than light speed and recreating the words through our imaginations. Quite strenuous really, and unique among human occupations. One is left with thoughts on the very different readers authors write for, and the very different writers the public read for. The psychopaths who read Mickey Spillane's zestful descriptions of someone hammering a human skull to fragments with a pistol while dodging the spurting blood and brains (lots of these as he's still the best selling crime author). The history posing as fiction of George MacDonald Fraser or the fiction posing as history of Georgette Heyer. The way some writers can explore their times while writing genre stories, like Chester Himes, while others resolutely exploit those genres, like Stephen King. The marketers and hustlers who always negotiate the movie rights like Jacqueline Susann and the painstaking slow writers who write what they must like John Kennedy Toole. People who seem accidentally to become best sellers like William Golding or John Fowles, others who mine genres, creatively like Raymond Chandler, or exhaustively and ultimately in a sterile way like Chandler's friend Earle Stanley Gardner. For those who want more, Sutherland includes a reference to a full length biography when there is one, and suggests a key work for each author. Only the obsessive will want more of most of the writers Sutherland mentions, and the worthwhile ones will already have their fans, but his book is a useful look outside genres for most readers. Through it we can explore what the snobs are reading, the crass taste of the plebs, the sometimes strange story of the superannuated best seller. It's a good way to see the novel in English. And I bet Sutherland hasn't reserved the movie rights (make a nice little maxi series on TV). Myself, I'm looking forward to Lives of the Novelists II, in which Sutherland will include the lives of the 294 novelists inexplicably left out of the first volume. Bound to be more entertaining than reading the authors themselves. ...more |
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So much has been said about Genji Monogatari: some say it is the world's first novel; others, the greatest novel ever written; others again an incomparable source of information on Heian Japan. For some it is a satire, for others a great love story.
So much has been said about Genji Monogatari: some say it is the world's first novel; others, the greatest novel ever written; others again an incomparable source of information on Heian Japan. For some it is a satire, for others a great love story. All these are probably true, but it depends on your point of view, culture and even your sex as to how true. My reading showed me that it is one of the greatest of autobiographies. For me, Murasaki, whose own name we do not even know, is the true hero of the story. Genji himself is a cypher: yet for sure Murasaki loved him, or someone like him. In her book Murasaki stands revealed; it is one of the great acts of intimacy in world literature. She is tangible, present in every adjective, real, alive. She was a strong living personality, a passionate nature, possessing great sensitivity to nature (so much more than the conventional Heian pose) and one who loved deeply and was not able to express her love. Of Murasaki, the scholars tell us, we know nothing. But her book tells us as much as one person can tell another, and with such power that we can never forget her. This is a book from a distant era. Its survival, composition, culture and conventions, even its authorship, have inspired scholarly debate. There is even a 'Murasaki question' to parallel the 'Homeric question', concerning who wrote the book. Homer is in fact a useful analogue, but we don't need to know any of this. Murasaki tells us all we need to know. Over 1,000 pages, 400 characters and many, many tankas, yet we never lose the way. I like to think that Murasaki never finished her book, and that somewhere she is still writing some later chapters, that someone who loved so deeply in 11th century Japan could be granted some special dispensation by those in charge. ...more |
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Richard wrote: "I started this a long time ago but found it hard to get into. This review makes me want to give it another try."
Seidensticker is less Richard wrote: "I started this a long time ago but found it hard to get into. This review makes me want to give it another try." Seidensticker is less literal than Tyler yet less an adaptation than Waley. I think it the best translation. If too difficult I recommend the Waley, a work of literature in its own right. So many unfamiliar things, especially the names, make it hard to get into. Then things fall into place. And you'll never forget it. ...more " |
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Phillip Kay
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It's a magic list Nancy. The more you vote for non fiction titles the higher up the list they show. Right now there are several NF titles near the 6,0
It's a magic list Nancy. The more you vote for non fiction titles the higher up the list they show. Right now there are several NF titles near the 6,000 mark. Needs a lot of votes. Near the top are a lot of fantasy fiction titles. This doesn't mean these are really 'the best books', but that fantasy fans have responded more enthusiastically than others. The list reflects the tastes of those who respond. Not an objective, measured assessment of what the best books are. Maybe Goodreads staff could make that one!
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Phillip Kay
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The Inner Eye by Andrew Robinson, (I.B.Tauris 2004) is an attempt to deal with an unusual problem: a writer, composer, artist and film maker, of world stature, who created in a relatively obscure language and whose works risk misrepresentation and ob
The Inner Eye by Andrew Robinson, (I.B.Tauris 2004) is an attempt to deal with an unusual problem: a writer, composer, artist and film maker, of world stature, who created in a relatively obscure language and whose works risk misrepresentation and oblivion without some sort of interpreter, both of the works and the culture which gave them birth. Before looking at the book we have to look a little at the problem. Satyajit Ray is a name to mention when compiling lists of great film directors, but when you ask around, not that many people have actually seen his films. The early Apu trilogy of films are well known, but Ray made 37 films and most of these are unknown, in India and in the West. The reasons are not far to seek. Ray was a Bengali, a Calcutta man to his core, and he preferred to, needed to, make his films in Bengal, spoken in Bengali. He thus missed out on the millions to be earned in the Bollywood film industry: Bengali is a minority language, and few Indians understand it. On the other hand Ray's films were influenced by Western cinema, and his films have been shown there, but nuances, allusions and references obvious to Bengalis pass unnoticed or puzzle the Western viewer and cannot be conveyed in subtitles. Another way to consider this situation is to look at Ray as a Bengali might. This is not my viewpoint: both Western and Bengali cultures are alien ones to me. I am merely using my imagination. In Calcutta, one finds, there is not one Satyajit Ray but many. Ray is a best selling and enormously popular author who excelled at detective, science fiction and children's literature, and made his living by writing it. His stories and characters are not just popular, but are known, in a way only possible where an oral culture lingers on. Western influence was strong on Ray, who admired the great British writer Arthur Conan Doyle enormously. It is said one can find fans of the stories who don't even know Ray made films. Ray was also a critic, whose writings on cinema, including his own cinema, is as perceptive as his films. Ray had an earlier career as a graphic designer. His typefaces are still used, his book jackets are famous. As well, many of his stories are accompanied by his own illustrations, which are loved in their own right. He was an excellent calligrapher and many viewers are familiar with his work through the titles of Ray's films. Each one of his films was first created in a storyboard format with each scene sketched in: each book a work of art. Ray is a prominent composer fluent in both Western and Indian modes and self taught. He composed the scores of most of his films and is one of the major artists in that genre. Ray was also a song writer of genius, something he could have turned into a fortune by writing for the Bollywood market, but didn't. Song is something hard to classify: the place of song, filmi song, in Indian culture is quite unique. Ray's songs are sung in the streets by those not swamped by Western rock music. Ray was a man of two cultures and his art is the product of their meeting and at times their conflict. Like the Anglo-Indian of Kipling's time he fell between two cultures, not Indian enough for the Indians, too Indian for the Westerner. To the isolation of genius was added the breadth of cultural interests that few could share with him. To the lovers of the all singing, all dancing Indian film and the Western action film alike, Ray's films are too slow: not enough songs or fantasy for one, not enough car chases or exploding buildings for the other. Robinson's book tackles the job of interpretation as well, and as badly, as one might expect. It is a very difficult job he has set himself. It has the advantage of including many personal interviews with Ray and his actors, and includes the usual scholarly appendages: notes, bibliography, glossary and filmography. The bulk of the book is devoted to the Ray most Westerners know, the film maker. Robinson looks at all 37 films chronologically, though some are grouped thematically: comedies, musicals, detective and documentaries. We also learn about some unmade films, including the film that became E.T., the script of which was stolen from Ray and ended up, several years later, on Spielberg's table (Spielberg didn't feel the guilt that Lucas felt for appropriating Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress and denied any connection between his and Ray's film: not cultural imperialism but agressive business practice). Half a dozen pages outlining each film's action, while hardly redundant, seemed unsatisfactory to me. The impact of Ray's films is not primarily made by the events that are depicted but by delineation of character and the exploration of each character's reaction to events and other people. Of course these precis are not intended to substitute for viewing the film but they'll be forgotten long before you see it. What they try to do is give a verbal picture of each film's ambiance and provenance, something that viewing a single frame could do more powerfully and evocatively. Other facts, such as the novel or story from which Ray's script evolved, how the actors were cast, who financed each film, how certain scenes were shot, all this is fascinating for the films you've seen and loved, not so much for ones you haven't seen. My overall feeling about this section of the book is that reading about films is a poor substitute for seeing them. I found most valuable those comments that explain cultural contexts that aren't familiar in the West, such as the expected relationship between wife and husband's 'brother' or close male relative who becomes something like the wife's own brother, overcoming conventions of purdah where appropriate. This adds a dimension to what happens between Charu and Amal in Charulata for example. I would have liked to read more of this kind of thing. But I realise summing up an entire culture in an aside in a chapter of a book is not possible. Best go there and live there for a while: you'd learn a lot more a lot more quickly. I began to realise a lot of my dissatisfaction was inherent in the actual written form. There was nothing more Robinson could do having decided to write a book (rather than, say, film a documentary). One thing that did emerge was the extraordinary stature Ray had in the culture. Despite his achievements he was very much the junior member of a very highly esteemed family; his father and grandfather are still household names in Bengal. The second thing emerging from the details Robinson gave was that Ray's was an uncommercial cinema, meaning there was rarely a big budget. When Ray wanted a big star, like Uttam Kumar in Nayak, he got one (Kumar apparently accepted 10% of his usual fee for the chance to work with Ray) but usually he didn't want a big star. Stars became big by working with Ray. Ray's films in certain respects (including production) can be compared to Bergman's or Woody Allen's. Because of his stature Ray was given autonomy over how the films were made, but at the same time he wasn't risking millions of dollars either. The third point to emerge was Ray's amazing range of talents. He had autonomy because he could script, compose, design sets and publicity material (including titles), cast, direct, photograph, edit footage and act ' and do all of these as well or better than anyone else on the project. It made sense to give him autonomy. And lastly one can see that Ray needed autonomy because the films were personal. They expressed his views, philosophy, culture and knowledge of human nature. Not many artists have explored human nature so deeply (a fact totally irrelevant to the folk who go to the cinema to see what it's like when a machine gun bullet goes through someone's eyeball and out the back of their head: the depiction of which Ray would consider a time wasting non-event. But there you go; different strokes for different folks). The remaining third of Robinson's book is partly biographical, partly a critical summing up. His early life, relationship to his mother, early career, relationship to Tagore, personal hobbies (collecting books and Western classical records, reading scores). There is a chapter on Ray as writer (some of his books are now available in English translation). And one on Ray as film maker. Overall the book is as comprehensive as it needs to be. I would have liked more detail of Bengali cultural mores and more on Ray's books and less on Ray's films, which really need to be seen to be appreciated. But I realise you have to start somewhere. Perhaps Robinson's book will alert readers that Ray made more than the Apu films (though leaving them with the frustration of finding copies in good condition with readable subtitles). Summing up a genius offers poor rewards. Robinson's book is a starting point, an observation I have a feeling would please him, but Ray needs to be seen and read through his own works. He can himself teach you most of what you need to know to appreciate his achievement. Personal cinema is not unusual (though always unlikely given the form). Bergman's psychodramas, Fellini's trips to the subconscious, Ozu's vignettes of social interactions that offer unbelievable subtleties of nuances of behaviour ' and Ray's films, with the most complete depiction of human emotions ever attempted in cinema: not the yelling and screaming that others see as profound, but emotions like dismay, trust, indecision, veiled contempt, the stuff that drives our day. Most of us are interested in the rest of us; people watching is fun. And Ray's films are entertaining, once you realise that they're about real people, not cardboard cutouts (which are entertaining too of course). They say that when Ray died, Calcutta almost came to a standstill. That's a big thing, this is Calcutta we're talking about. Let's hope the rest of the world realises what a good thing it's lost. ...more |
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How equipped are our governments to deal with emergencies? Supposing a worldwide epidemic, which many scientists forecast, or even a tornado, were to strike, would there be an effective support system with adequate funds to spring immediately into ac
How equipped are our governments to deal with emergencies? Supposing a worldwide epidemic, which many scientists forecast, or even a tornado, were to strike, would there be an effective support system with adequate funds to spring immediately into action? Do we want this to happen? Have we learnt anything from the past? Cecil Woodham-Smith wrote a book in 1962 called The Great Hunger which implicitly asks these question. She had shown how slow the British Government was to learn from the mistakes made in the Irish famine in her book The Reason Why (1953), which details how administrative failure and ignorant leadership were able to destroy the British Army in the Crimea in the 1850s without the Russians having much to do with it. In The Great Hunger Woodham-Smith shows how doctrinaire adherence to laissez faire economic theory, ignorance of conditions in Ireland, hatred of the Irish and unchecked colonialism applied to what was officially part of Britain led to the deaths of more than four million men, women and children in Ireland, and the emigration of two or three million more, many of whom died on their journey, in the period 1845-49. (A note about figures: everything is ambiguous, none more so than statistics. A census of Ireland in the nineteenth century was impossible. Many districts could not be reached because of inadequate roads. The poor were often not counted. During the famine records could not be kept because of administrative breakdown. It is not known accurately what the population of Ireland was at the time of the famine, nor is it known how many died. Stick to official estimates if you want to downplay the tragedy, double those figures if you want to exaggerate it). It started with bad weather, unseasonably damp and humid, the perfect conditions for the newly arrived potato blight to spread. A simple crop to grow, in Ireland the potato had become the staple food of the nation and was at the mercy of the weather: there had been regular ‘shortages’ for many years, during which the people went without. Now in 1846 the fungus phytophthora infestans, hitherto unknown in Europe, completely destroyed the Irish potato crop. The bulk of Ireland’s conservatively estimated 8 million people (possibly as high as 12-14 million as the western counties were never adumbrated effectively) had no food of any kind. This was just the beginning. The whole of Europe was affected by an economic recess; food supplies were short across the continent and none available to help Ireland in her hour of need. Following starvation came fever, typhus and others. There was no effective way of dealing with widespread sickness in Ireland, and thousands and then millions died untreated and in some cases unburied. The humid summer was followed by one of the coldest winters on record, and people who had had to sell their clothes to feed their children died of exposure. Complete poverty meant that the Irish had no funds to buy seed for the following spring, widespread lack of education meant they had no knowledge of other crops or efficient cropping methods. In 1847 the weather was good and the crop of potatoes healthy, but only a tiny fraction of what it needed to be to feed the people. Then in 1848 the blight returned, destroying the entire crop for that year. Ironically, Ireland is a fertile country. During the famine, farm produce which might have fed most of the starving was leaving Ireland for England in a steady stream. As Woodham-Smith explains, this anomaly had its roots in the system of land tenure, which goes back to Elizabethan times. Elizabeth I, Cromwell and many other British leaders followed a policy of dispossessing Irish nobility and awarding their lands to their own followers. Ireland was a plundered country, with no thought taken to integrate it with the rest of the nation or build its economy. Over the centuries the estates were broken down to smaller lots, but the revenues from them were spent in England by absentee landlords. Many of these became impoverished but remained improvident. Soon the only way to attract investment for produce was to sell competitively in foreign markets, hoping to squeeze income for establishments in Britain from the proceeds. Nobody worried about the Irish. They grew the food and sold it to pay their rents. They ate potatoes and lived in hovels. Nobody asked about crop failure. The key figure in the way the Irish famine was dealt with in Britain was Charles Trevelyan, permanent head of Treasury. Others were Charles Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord John Russell, Prime Minister. These men could be said to be responsible for what has been described emotively as genocide in Ireland. Of course they did not create the problem, which had existed for centuries and was a condition of England’s conquest of Ireland: it was a powder keg awaiting someone to throw a match. Trevelyan’s contribution was to ignore the problem. Though there was a food shortage throughout Europe in the mid 40s, no planning or forecasts were made for the fragile economy of Ireland. Though the system of poor relief had been shown over many years to be underresourced and impossible to operate, reliance was made on it in the crisis. Throughout the famine Trevelyan was reluctant to send aid to Ireland because that would prohibit market forces from operating and be destructive for the economy (a doctrine of laissez faire Trevelyan rigidly adhered to, as did the government of which he was a part). The fact there was no market, and no economy after 1846, was ignored, along with the stream of reports which detailed the breakdowns in every system of administration in the country. If there was a problem in Ireland, Trevelyan thought, it was the fault of the Irish people, and it was up to them to fix it. The fact that Britain governed Ireland was effectively ignored in the process. Trevelyan was a true bureaucrat, and dealt with many problems merely by calling for further reports on them. Through convoluted reasoning Trevelyan thought the people responsible for the mass of starving Irish were the landlords, who refused to fund relief funds. He caused rates to be levied, which the bankrupt landlords couldn’t pay, and their response was to clear the land, evicting tenants by police and military aid and demolishing their dwellings. The starving were thus forced on the parish and the poorhouses, which were also bankrupt and unable to cope with millions of new applicants for assistance. The British government did provide some slight assistance for poor relief, but as they thought that too was the responsibility of the landlords, they eventually withdrew it. The problem passed from hand to hand, and people died. Perhaps this is one way tragedies happen. People who don’t know what to do do nothing, and ask, What problem? There’s no problem! One of the saddest stories in Woodham-Smith’s book is that of the nationalists, the Repeal Association, the Young Ireland party and the revolutionary group lead by Fintan Lalor. With the passing of the great Daniel O’Connell the nationalist movement in Ireland was in the hands of leaders who knew less about the condition of the Irish than the British did. Breathing fiery rhetoric about driving the despoiling English from the land, they strove to organise forces of rebellion from starving men who only gathered in dozens, and mainly for food. But the British, which meant effectively Trevelyan, used this so-called rebellion as a further reason for withholding aid. Woodham-Smith’s book has been criticised as simplifying the problem, and as anti-British. The same complaints have been made against her masterpiece The Reason Why. The Great Hunger tries to be objective. Woodham-Smith uses statistics a lot, refrains from judgmental remarks, quotes from a wide range of existing sources. But she does have a prejudice, against the entropy in large organisations and the tragedies they inflict. She says emigration to Australia was negligible (over one million came to Australia from Ireland), that this was because of the expense of the passage (there were several systems of assisted passage) and that there was no network of Irish to welcome them if they did arrive (there were many earlier Irish migrants, not to mention the convicts) so her information on Australia is deficient. Otherwise her uses of source material is impressive. Inappropriate administrative procedures, rigid adherence to beliefs inapplicable to the situation encountered, racial prejudice, refusal to see problems arising or deal with them when they arrive – these methods kill as effectively as the gas chamber. Malthusian economists even forecast the deaths of millions of Irish people and saw it as a reasonable solution to the problem of overpopulation. Today the world’s population is approaching seven billion. Crises involving millions of people are more likely to happen now than they were in 1845 in Ireland. Have the responses we are likely to make learnt from the past? ...more |
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Phillip Kay
rated a book 4 of 5 stars
25 Lessons I've Learned about Photography...Life
by Lorenzo Dominguez (Goodreads Author)
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April, 2008
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Where you are makes a difference to what you see. New York photographer Lorenzo Dominguez found himself in a difficult position when his marriage failed. He, like many others, had painted himself into a corner by accepting the values of others: the u
Where you are makes a difference to what you see. New York photographer Lorenzo Dominguez found himself in a difficult position when his marriage failed. He, like many others, had painted himself into a corner by accepting the values of others: the usual, wife, children, house in suburbia, mortgage, corporate job, respectability, doing the right thing. Everything was right. Everything was false. Lorenzo needed to thank his wife. She had broken up his family, leaving him desperate and grieving. Somehow he broke free of self obsession. He sensed that many others shared his plight, if not his position. Armed only with a camera, Lorenzo took to the streets. The photographs he took were focused with the love he could not express to his wife and family. A twirl of the f-stop, a step to one side that moves the frame: the picture in the lens changes. Lorenzo went on a search for the beauty he had seen in his wife and children. He found there was not just a focus and a f-stop. There was an angle of beauty. Because his photography was part of his healing process, Lorenzo learnt to see photography as a metaphor. If what you see causes you pain, you can move, adopt another viewpoint, another perspective. Happiness is mobility, flexibility. There is a perspective for everyone where what they see brings contentment and fulfillment. They just have to keep moving until they find it. There is a point of view we can all seek out. From it we can view the beauty inherent in all things. No need to resent the ugliness and sterility we see around us. Move! Juxtaposition brings enlightenment Citing Cartier-Bresson as an exemplar, Lorenzo strove to do more than just record. He sought to tell stories. Everyone and everything has a story, and if we are too busy to hear it we have lost a great deal of joy, and delayed the getting of wisdom that living can bring us. An image can be isolated, and enable us to see its shape and form, texture and colour, like a fruit you can smell and taste. But juxtaposed with another, in context, the movement, the drama inherent in all life can be discerned. The present tense of still life becomes amplified with the past and future, being and becoming. Movement in context brings us potentiality, imagined history. A two dimensional static image becomes imbued with a third and fourth dimension. Look and see Devastated by the loss of his family, Lorenzo learned to look outward, to see himself in perspective. As a photographer operates a camera, Lorenzo bought the same skills to his life. He saw, he focused. How many people walk without seeing, head down, preoccupied. How few see the sky, or even the gargoyles on tops of buildings. Lorenzo had two children, and they taught him how to look. Lorenzo formulated 25 lessons. Based on his adventures roaming the city taking photographs, they are techniques and tips about taking better photographs. They are also techniques and tips for leading a better life. The book is a compendium of what Lorenzo has learned. His book is not perfect. Occasionally verbose, intermittently the insight can be commonplace. The book succeeds though because it is uniformly genuine. Based firmly on his life experience, Lorenzo is personal and unaffected throughout. He avoids playing the sage, though his book is generous with quotations and references from writers and sages he admires. A photographer deals in light. Like a river, light is always changing. Like a river, a person is always changing. Just like a river, when we cease to change, we start to stagnate. Lorenzo’s book is an autobiography. It begins with the drama of his marriage breakup, continues with his ‘therapy’ of photography and the wisdom he derived from this practice, and ends with the story of his early life. Unavoidably, the first section is more engaging, because tragedy is more involving. What Lorenzo calls lessons are wisdom he has distilled from his own life, and the reception this part is given by readers depends very much on their willingness to learn, and their willingness to match experience with Lorenzo. The book I read ended with a selection of 37 photographs (though the text referred to photos in context eg “to the right” etc.) These are predominantly of people waiting in the streets of New York. Each picture tells a story, and the viewer can have a lot of fun decoding and telling each story. There are stories about illusions, fantasies, loneliness, poverty, celebration. The comparison with Cartier-Bresson is apt, however extraordinary that claim may seem. The book goes a long way towards explaining why two people can photograph the same scene and end up with two very different photographs. ...more |
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