Saturday, 21 February 2009

The Dream of Scipio - Iain Pears

My God, this is one of those books that is just too bloody clever for its own good! One quote on the cover said it was “Illumined by a fizzing passion for the recondite”. What does that even mean?

My first disappointment was that the book is not about Scipio at all, nor is it even about the original “Dream of Scipio” written by Cicero. It interweaves 3 different stories of men from different periods in history. Each of them lives near Avignon at a time when it seems that civilisation itself is under threat and faces difficult moral dilemmas.

Manlius is a Roman of patrician class, living in Gaul at the time when it is falling to the Goths (insert your own joke about black nail varnish here). The empire can't protect its territories, the slaves needed to work in the fields keep running off to join the enemy and the Christian Church has started taking over a lot of the functions of the old state. Manlius's philosophy teacher Sophia persuades him to leave his estate, bribe his way to a Bishop's job and start using his expensive education in strategy and diplomacy to do what good he can, rather than sitting in his villa reading poetry as his world falls apart.

Olivier is a medieval poet whose patron is a cardinal at the court of Pope Clement. In between delivering the cardinals letters, he tracks down ancient manuscripts makes copies and tries to preserve them. He finds a piece called “The Dream of Scipio” written by Manlius. This interests him because he can scarcely understand it and those bits he can understand seem heretical, yet it was written by a bishop. He asks advice from a Jewish scholar and falls in love with his beautiful assistant – at a time when the black death comes to Avignon and the Jews are being used as scapegoats.

Julien Barneuve is a scholar who served in the trenches of the first world war. It was this experience which led him to his belief that civilisation is to be preserved at all costs. It also leads him to retreat from the world and channel his energies into academic studies. Both Manlius and Olivier are known to him. He puts years of work into attempting to unravel the meaning of Manlius's “Dream of Scipio” and he knows Olivier as a medieval poet famous for murdering his lover and having his hands and tongue removed as punishment. Julien's lover is a Jewish artist, and yet when France falls to the Germans he takes a job with the Vichy regime in order to prevent the country descending into chaos and barbarism.

One of my major complaints about the book is that it switches between stories far too frequently. I feel like I've barely found my feet in one time, when I'm whisked off to another. This makes reading hard work. The ending was very strong (though pretty depressing), but I would have edited out most of the middle of the book, were it up to me!

I enjoyed the reversals in the final act: Manlius is corrupted by power, betrays his friend and signs tracts of land over to the barbarians, allegedly to keep the peace. Olivier, whom the reader is led to despise as murderer and ignorant medieval clod, comes good. We finally see that he sacrificed his reputation as well as his life to save his girlfriend and tutor. Julien the Vichy official immolates himself, his house and his life's work and his funeral pyre serves as a beacon to warn his friend in the resistance. Julien goes a bit crazed in the end and starts to believe that while throughout his life he has striven to preserve “civilization” through academic studies and through collaborating, he was utterly wrong. He comes to think of the Holocaust as the end product of thousands of years of progress; it required administrators, industrialists, government, police and international co-operation to make it happen. It required philosophers and theologists to prepare the ground and set up justifications. Julien's last act is therefore to destroy as much knowledge and learning as he can.

The book gives us a sort of potted history of European anti-semitism, as well as telling the reader far more than he or she ever wanted to know about Neoplatonism. The central question of the book, however, is whether it is ever right to side with evil men, in order to ameliorate their actions. By the end, Iain Pears seems pretty clear that it isn't.

The argument which dupes Julien into working for the Vichy government is that someone else will do it if he doesn't, and they'd be harsher. For my money, this argument is completely fallacious and you've my permission to punch anyone who tries to use it on you. It is no more than the trick of rhetoric known as the false dichotomy. Consider: the only thing in the whole world you can really control is your own actions therefore you have a straightforward choice between agreeing to do evil and not. The consequences of not agreeing cannot be known in advance – maybe the next candidate will refuse too. My view also passes the simple ethical test passed down to me by my mum: “What if everybody behaved like that?”. If everybody behaved my way in these circumstances, evil jobs could only be done by completely amoral people, and though some exist, they are pretty rare. “The evil done by men of good will is worst of all”. If you don't believe me, go and see Watchmen when it comes out.

To my mind civilisation is not about arcane knowledge or a classical education. It's not necessarily even about the rule of law. The word literally means the habit of living in cities, and all we really need to carry on doing that is the ability to rub along with each other without violence. Politeness, consideration and cooperation are what makes us civilised not cultivated tastes for the high arts or spending our time in contemplation. The nice thing about my way of seeing this is that each and every one of us can either do our bit to keep civilisation going or hasten its demise through our own behaviour. It's up to you. Now go out there and save the world!

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

The Complete DR and Quinch by Alan Moore and Alan Davis


D.R. and Quinch are a pair of alien delinquents from the future whose anarchic exploits featured in 2000AD. In the course of this compilation they destroy the Earth, start a war, send DR's new girlfriend bonkers and make a blockbuster movie. A very great number of things are blown up along the way. I think my favourite part was when they are locked in a miitary stockade with a deranged war veteran and come up with an intricate escape plan involving a bar of soap carved into a gun shape and a lump of plastic explosive made to look like soap.

The book was borrowed from my friend G.P. who gave the impression of being a bit disappointed with it because it wasn't as clever as the other Alan Moore comics in his collection. I feel much more forgiving towards it. Firstly it is early work, and secondly you have to bear in mind the readership of 2000AD: boys between 10 and 14. Also, I think I just like seeing two dumb kids stick it to authority. This is definitely a book to watch out for if you have children - you don't want the little buggers reading this, they'll be beyond taming!

By the end, I could, like, totally hear DR's distinctive speech patterns in my head, man. It was, like, totally amazing.

Favourite line: "A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but tactical thermonuclear weaponry is a guy's best friend."

Wednesday, 4 February 2009

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

Since New Year, I have mostly been reading this book, which I found in a second hand bookshop during the holidays.


I had 2 major reservations about starting it. The first was that since Germaine herself is ferociously clever, I might not understand it. My second worry was that I might become enraged at the injustices meted out to my gender, and take them out on my husband – a man who spends a LOT more time picking up after me than oppressing me. I needn't have worried about a lack of comprehension – book is very readable, full of humour and swearing. I like swearing; it is both big and clever.

The thrust of her argument is that women have been denied their sexuality: expected to say no, act coy and prefer Romance. The oppressed woman only has sex for the benefit of her man; as a reward for putting the bins out or something. This is no way to live!

Germaine is damning of “feminine wiles”, dishonest and manipulative behaviour. She exhorts us women not to live vicariously – nagging partners and children to achieve on our behalf – but to work out what we want to put our energy into doing it. ( This advice does come with a warning that this is likely to involve other people's disapproval and/or leaving a trail of destruction in your wake.) She rejects the idea of fighting against men: fighting is never a solution (it's a male perversion, apparently) and men are not the enemy. They are trapped by stereotyped gender roles just like we are. I'd say that's fair.

From my point of view it feels as if at lot has changed and the book has rather been overtaken by events – but how typical is my own experience? For example, I have been able to resist conforming to someone else's ideas of beauty pretty easily, but in hundreds of cheapo “documentaries” my fellow females are paying someone to cut into their tits, inject toxins to paralyse their faces, hoover the fat out of their ass or break and reset their noses in order to make themselves acceptable to men. Are they statistical anomalies or am I?

Then there is the world of work. I never felt that I suffered from prejudice, despite working in a male-dominated profession (I'm a software engineer). If anything being the only woman around made me stand out and has helped slightly. Rather than being paranoid that they will all be put out of work, men seem to be rather pleased by the idea that there are women out there somewhere who are amused by geek humour. At the bottom end of the market, the casualisation of labour and the invention of the McJob has meant that dead end roles can now be inflicted on men as well as women. Despite all this there is still a 17% pay gap (according to this month's BCS magazine). Companies have a legal duty not to pay men more than women, but when most companies – including my own employer – encourage a culture of secrecy around paychecks, it is impossible to tell whether they are playing by the rules.

I find myself disagreeing with Germaine over sex and marriage. She advocates not marrying and claims it is a prison. She argues that women chain themselves through marriage to unsuitable men in return for security then spend their lives acting as unpaid housekeeper. In my own marriage, my husband does not provide me with either physical of financial security (I have Kung Fu and an education for those) and I don't give him babies or housework. I hope and believe that we just live together 'cos we like one another. Marriage is also one of the areas where the book seems especially dated – Germaine claims that divorce is just too costly to allow women to break free from miserable situations. I've never tried getting divorced, but plenty of people seem to be managing it.

Just when I'd nearly convinced myself that gender equality was one of last century's debates, the following suddenly occurred to me: If there was another war that required conscription, can you imagine women being drafted? I can't. And yet, if we have the same rights as men, shouldn't we have the same duties? Why would it be unthinkable to send a child's mother off to war, but it's OK to deprive them of a father? Even though I've no desire to kill anyone or be shot at, I can't help thinking that the current state of affairs is terribly unfair on men and should therefore be changed.

And then there's still the Cult of Motherhood. Annoyingly enough, it is possible to carve out a life for yourself enjoying the same freedoms as men, but if you should give birth, it's all over and you are expected to sacrifice yourself for the good of your children. Suddenly a woman is expected to let her career languish, and to give up any hobbies she enjoys. Once you have children, any shreds of personality you might want to retain are just selfishness which must be purged from your soul. It is this attitude which has caused me to choose not to ever have children. Consider this: if raising children were really so chuffing fulfilling, why aren't men clamouring to do it?

One of my attitudes has changed as result of this book. I'm pretty much convinced by the argument that if you don't have a puritanical view of sex and see it as intrinsically evil, why would there be such a thing as having too many partners? What other consenting adults are getting up to is absolutely none of my business and I resolve to not to think of anyone as slutty. I should never joked to one friend that she was at risk of being added to the list of well-known ports.

My copy of the book comes with a mystery attached: One of the pages is missing having been ripped out. Why? In anger? But there’s plenty of swearing and polemic spread throughout the book. I like to image that somewhere, long ago a poor excuse for a husband came home one day to find that all trace of his wife had gone with no explanation other than a single page from “The Female Eunuch” stuck to the fridge door. That definitely makes the most satisfying story.