Author: Antenna

We have a Pope – Holy Smoke and Mirrors

This is my review of We Have A Pope [DVD].

During the film the audience around me laughed continually, the opening scenes of red-robed cardinals filing in to vote on the next pope are very striking, and the end of the film is well-judged and moving. The basic plot idea is good: an unassuming old prelate, sensitively played by the octogenarian Michel Piccoli, prays not to be elected pope, which seems unlikely in view of the odds. When his worst fear is realised, he suffers a panic attack on the famous balcony, seconds before his announcement to a vast, eager crowd. A celebrated psychoanalyst, who happens to be an atheist, is called in to cure him, but the reluctant pontiff succeeds in escaping into the Rome crowds.

At this point, the plot loses its way. Despite the many amusing incidents and some expressive acting, it is unclear whether the film is meant to be pure comedy and farce – as in the overlong and therefore tedious scene where the psychoanalyst organises a volleyball championship to keep the cardinals occupied while held in seclusion pending the pope’s reappearance – or an attempt to explore deeper issues beneath a light-hearted veneer. It therefore misses the mark on both counts. What is the director’s intended message? He portrays a church steeped in magnificent but archaic and empty ritual, bedevilled with cynical politicking and obscene wealth, not to mention the self-indulgent, elderly male cardinals, yet I don’t think the film is meant to be anti-Catholic.

The film is certainly about a simple man’s sense of unworthiness but fails to develop this. The unwilling pope demonstrates himself time and time again not to be up to the job, which makes for a thin drama. I expected that he would show himself to be a truly good man, assisting the ordinary people he encounters with his wisdom. Instead, he appears self-absorbed, petulant under pressure and clinically depressed. Far from experiencing the lives of ordinary, real people, he gets mixed up in a theatrical troupe spouting Chekhov and it turns out he would really like to have been an actor but was rejected for drama school – another jibe at the catholic priesthood, it seems.

I do not object to the prominent role the director has given himself as the flamboyant psychiatrist, but it might have been better if he had remained in the wings to take stock of the film’s intended and actual impact.

The Present echoes the Past

This is my review of The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D Spence.

This is an excellent history of modern China, very readable despite the small print and thin pages. Admittedly, it requires a good deal of time and dedication, but repays the effort. Clearly very knowledgeable but modest with it, Spence knows what points to select from a mass of detail to convey a clear understanding of how and why China evolved from a vast empire, which had turned its face inward against western-style development, to the world's largest communist state, now rapidly embracing economic growth.

He starts with the decline of the late Ming dynasty in the late C17, enough to capture the flavour of a highly centralised, bureaucratic, top-down society which has been the nature of China since the first unified Qin dynasty of 221BC, but he doesn't make the mistake of getting bogged down in detail that far back.

In the subsequent Qing dynasty, we see the first painful enforced contacts with the west, including the shameful role of the British, in flogging opium to save having to spend silver on purchasing Chinese goods. In addition to the usual problems of natural disasters and the difficulty of collecting taxes in such a vast area, the Qing had to contend with major rebellions but managed to survive for a surprisingly long time up to 1912, partly owing to the effectiveness of some impressive campaigns under remarkable Confucian-trained leaders, motivated by their loyalty to traditional Chinese values. Despite this, and a belated willingness to reform, the Qing eventually fell, leading to a prolonged period of chaotic civil war between a succession of warlords.

It is clear that the impetus for radical change came from men who, from the C19, had the opportunity to travel abroad where they could gain access to western political ideas of both liberal representative democracy – an alien concept in China – and Marxist-Leninism. Spence provides a clear analytical account of the rise to power of the Guomindang movement, inspired by Sun Yat-sen and led by Chiang Kai-shek until his exile to Taiwan. He traces the development of the communist People's Republic of China, by no means a foregone conclusion. The machinations of leaders like Mao Zedong as they tighten their grip on power, the Orwellian twists in accepted views make fascinating reading, even to those familiar with the basic facts. To quote Spence on the abrupt fall from favour of Lin Biao under Mao Zedong's regime: "The credulity of the Chinese people had been stretched beyond all possible boundaries as leader after leader had been first praised to the skies and then vilified."

Deng Xiaoping is an intriguing character, as he steers his vast nation towards economic development with periodic crackdowns on free speech, the most shocking and tragic being the killing or wounding of thousands in Tiananmen Square – worse violence perhaps than any single incident in the recent "Arab Spring".

Every section starts with a useful summary, and there is a full glossary at the end in the likely event of your finding it hard to retain the confusingly similar names of many people and places. Although there are many maps to describe the numerous military campaigns, I would have liked a brief section at the outset to highlight key aspects of the geography.

I am most interested in present-day China, but this book provides an essential foundation to understanding this country's complex mix of sophistication and barbarity – developing beautiful artefacts hundreds of years before say the UK, only to smash them wantonly in the misnamed Cultural Revolution of the 1970s. The historical approach enables us to appreciate how the protests of the Chinese who spoke out against repression in the 1970s and 1980s echo those of the past, not just the anti-Guomindang and the anti-Qing of the late C19, but even the Ming loyalists of the C17.

Last updated in 1999, this seminal work is now due for a brief update to cover recent developments as China invests in Africa and copes with the effects of global recession.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Search for Modern China

Dated Wit

This is my review of Saki, The Complete Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) by Saki.

It is easy to understand why H.H.Munro, pen name Saki, is still regarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. His elegant, ironic prose reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse with a sharp sting in the tale.

Although Saki mocked the snobbery and hypocrisy of upper class Edwardian England, he himself seems to have been limited by unexamined prejudice against the lower classes, women in general, and new social movements of his day like female suffrage and socialism.

Organised by date of collection, the tales show a clear progression. The early "Reginald" stories are remarkably short, often barely a page, very dated and a bit too precious in style for my taste. As the years pass, the stories gain in length and depth, culminating in works like "The Square Egg". This captures the muddiness of trench life in World War 1 – the streaming mud walls, the inches of soup-like mud at the entrance to the dug-out, the muddy biscuits eaten with mud-caked fingers. This story also shows Saki's talent for going off at an imaginative tangent, in this case based on a wily Frenchman's novel idea for using the idea of "square eggs" from specially bred hens to try to get some money out of the narrator.

I particularly enjoyed the stories which focus on real emotions and psychology which could be relevant to any age and society: "Peace Toys" in which an uncle tries to give his nephews toys which will discourage them from violent play; "Tobermory" which speculates on the practical disadvantages of having a cat which has learned to speak about all the compromising goings-on it has witnessed as it creeps around unnoticed; "The Lumber Room" in which a small boy takes advantage of a rare chance to have his revenge on a pious, bullying aunt – the many stories about children getting their own back on control-freak adults may stem from painful experiences in Saki's own motherless childhood. Then there is "The Story-teller" where a bachelor distracted by noisy children on a train ride subverts the normal rules about telling children only improving stories.

I have mixed feelings about Clovis, a favourite recurring character of Saki's, who acts as a mocking observer of the class to which he has been born, while sponging off it, and snobbishly maintaining many of its prejudices. Yet "Clovis on Parental Responsibilities" is amusing where, in a Pinterish talking at cross purposes with a Mrs Eggelby, bored by her endless prattle about her children's accomplishments, Clovis undermines all the accepted views on bringing up children.

I would have liked a brief introduction on Saki's life. It seems important to know that, enrolling as an ordinary private soldier when in his forties, he was killed by a sniper's bullet after vainly asking a colleague to put out the cigarette which was emitting a tell-tale trail of smoke.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Saki, The Complete Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

Dark Wit for Dipping Into

This is my review of The Complete Short Stories of Saki (H. H. Munro) by Saki,H. H. Munro.

It is easy to understand why H.H.Munro, pen name Saki, is still regarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. His elegant, ironic prose reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse with a sharp sting in the tale.

Although Saki mocked the snobbery and hypocrisy of upper class Edwardian England, he himself seems to have been limited by unexamined prejudice against the lower classes, women in general, and new social movements of his day like female suffrage and socialism.

Organised by date of collection, the tales show a clear progression. The early "Reginald" stories are remarkably short, often barely a page, very dated and a bit too precious in style for my taste. As the years pass, the stories gain in length and depth, culminating in works like "The Square Egg". This captures the muddiness of trench life in World War 1 – the streaming mud walls, the inches of soup-like mud at the entrance to the dug-out, the muddy biscuits eaten with mud-caked fingers. This story also shows Saki's talent for going off at an imaginative tangent, in this case based on a wily Frenchman's novel idea for using the idea of "square eggs" from specially bred hens to try to get some money out of the narrator.

I particularly enjoyed the stories which focus on real emotions and psychology which could be relevant to any age and society: "Peace Toys" in which an uncle tries to give his nephews toys which will discourage them from violent play; "Tobermory" which speculates on the practical disadvantages of having a cat which has learned to speak about all the compromising goings-on it has witnessed as it creeps around unnoticed; "The Lumber Room" in which a small boy takes advantage of a rare chance to have his revenge on a pious, bullying aunt – the many stories about children getting their own back on control-freak adults may stem from painful experiences in Saki's own motherless childhood. Then there is "The Story-teller" where a bachelor distracted by noisy children on a train ride subverts the normal rules about telling children only improving stories.

I have mixed feelings about Clovis, a favourite recurring character of Saki's, who acts as a mocking observer of the class to which he has been born, while sponging off it, and snobbishly maintaining many of its prejudices. Yet "Clovis on Parental Responsibilities" is amusing where, in a Pinterish talking at cross purposes with a Mrs Eggelby, bored by her endless prattle about her children's accomplishments, Clovis undermines all the accepted views on bringing up children.

I would have liked a brief introduction on Saki's life. It seems important to know that, enrolling as an ordinary private soldier when in his forties, he was killed by a sniper's bullet after vainly asking a colleague to put out the cigarette which was emitting a tell-tale trail of smoke.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Complete Short Stories of Saki (H. H. Munro)

Serendipitous Overload

This is my review of Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris.

I was troubled by the dilettantish nature of this book which seems to lack a clear aim. For the most part, the text flits about like a butterfly, drawn randomly from one alluring flower to the next.

The best aspect is the full colour photographs of 1930s paintings, in particular John Piper’s striking collages of British landscapes. I enjoyed Chapter 1 on artists like John Piper’s flirtation with abstract art, until his fascination with landscape won out . As his French contemporary Hélion observed, abstract art was proving to be a system “cracking at the seams….life budding mysteriously though it”. This would have made an informative chapter in, say, an analysis of abstract art in British painting, but the next chapter changes tack to the early use of concrete in apartment blocks. It soon sets the book’s pattern of being too superficial and lacking in context, for instance, there is no reference to important influences like Le Corbusier, nor to the future wave of brutalist concrete architecture of the 1960s-80s. Instead, Chapter 2 degenerates into scrappy sections on completely different topics, like Victorian pubs, so they are hard to read since they lack a coherent theme.

Thereafter, each chapter stands alone, covering some aspect of English life , mainly from the viewpoint of artists and writers in the 1930s. The wide-ranging topics include views on Victoriana, food, the state of English art in the broadest sense, the weather, village life, landscapes, or the influence of houses on artists, but all covered in a very rambling and disjointed fashion. If you are largely unfamiliar with the references, you are likely to feel overloaded and rather bored. If you have some prior knowledge you may well feel you would like to concentrate more on fewer topics. There is little regard to the social and economic context of this period of dramatic change. The focus is very much on the middle and upper classes living in the countryside or prosperous urban areas.

The chapters cannot even be called essays because they are often broken into shorter sections, further obviating the need for the author to develop a theme properly . For instance, Chapter 10 could have been an intriguing study of the landscape of 1930s Britain as captured by artists for the Shell-Mex advertisements intended to encourage new car-owners to use more petrol. In fact, this aspect is lost in a mass of verbiage with some kind of oblique connection to writing about, sculpting with regard to or drawing landscapes.

I found this book was only readable if I dipped into the odd section of interest. I was left enjoying the illustrations, but very irritated by the unfocused text. I agree with other reviewers who have regretted the lack of an objective and clear-sighted editor.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars


Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper

Modern Orwellian Nightmare

This is my review of Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick.

The title is an ironic take on the brainwashing of North Koreans to think that there is "nothing to envy" in other countries. Based on lengthy conversations with a handful of those who managed to escape to South Korea via China before the border was tightened up, this book provides a very convincing picture of life in the world's "last undiluted bastion of communism". It has defied expectation in surviving into the C21 even though the inefficient systems leave many people malnourished, forced to forage for weeds as food, and reduced to squatting blankly, staring straight ahead "as if they are waiting..for something to change". Behind the artificial showcase of the parts of Pyongyang that foreigners are allowed to see, life seems bleak indeed.

The book begins with the striking observation that viewed from a satellite by night, North Korea is "curiously lacking in light" owing to the inability to pay for electricity.

Making a mockery of communism, we learn how people have been classified as members of the "hostile class" and denied education and work opportunities if they have "tainted blood", which could simply be the result of having a father unlucky enough to have been brought from south of the border as a POW after the Korean War. Again contrary to pure Marxism, the head of state is regarded as an infallible god-like figure: people weep extravagantly at his death out of fear of failure to conform to the expected tide of grief, and perhaps some still believe the idea that he might return to life if they cry hard enough.

We sense the continual risk of being denounced and sent to a prison for some minor offence, which could include failing to keep sufficiently clean the obligatory pictures of Kim Il-Sung or Kim Jong-il, or daring to listen to South Korean television – inspectors come to check you have not removed the paper tape over the tuning buttons, but a long thin sewing needle may serve to twiddle them, such is human ingenuity when persecuted. Then there is the lunacy of a state being unable to provide its people with basic food, but still trying to prevent them from setting up their own private enterprise which will save them from starving. Hopefully things are beginning to change, marked by a recent protest, "Give us food or let us trade!"

The author is good on people's dawning realisation of the extent to which they have been misled, and also on exactly how some people managed to escape to South Korea and the problems of adjustment they have faced there – not least the guilt over punishment of relatives left behind.

The only aspect of the book which troubled me was the embroidery of memories to create dialogues and inner thoughts which must be in part fictionalised. The basic details are too fascinating for this to be necessary. The American journalese also grates at times, and an index would have been useful but overall this is a very readable book on an important theme.

It left me ashamed of my comfortable life, and much more sympathetic towards economic migrants, with respect for their resilience.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

“The Quality of Mercy” by Barry Unsworth – Quality not strained

This is my review of The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth.

Although it can stand alone, this excellent historical novel is a sequel to the Booker Prize Winner, “Sacred Hunger” which it is advisable to read first.

Set mainly in the London of 1767 and a Durham coastal mining village, there are four main plot strands which gradually interweave. The intense and somewhat humourless banker Erasmus Kemp is bent on bringing to trial in London the mutineers who made off with his father’s ship, thus reducing him to financial ruin and suicide. Frederick Ashton, a wealthy man who finds the cause of anti-slavery gives meaning to his life, is equally determined to get the sailors acquitted on the grounds that they were driven to violence by revulsion over the practice of throwing sick slaves overboard to maximise insurance claims. Sullivan, an Irish fiddler press-ganged onto the ill-fated ship has managed to escape from gaol before the trial, and resolves to travel north to Durham to fulfil a pledge to explain to the family of a dead friend how he came to die after the mutiny. This family are the Bordens, headed by James who can barely repress his frustration over being forced to work underground, scarcely seeing the sunlight, and who dreams of buying a sheltered plot in the dene, a beautiful wooded ravine near the village. These main characters together with Frederick’s spirited sister Jane, and James’s son Michael are all developed very fully: Unsworth’s striking observations on human nature are what make the book exceptional.

This well-paced and skilfully plotted novel with close attention to period detail provides a vivid insight into life during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, when coalmines tended to have long galleries rather than deep shafts. Men swung down the shaft on ropes, with children on the their knees. Boys as young as seven worked for hours opening trapdoors to ventilate the mines, progressing to pulling heavy wooden containers loaded with coal. Partly through some lively discussions and absorbing court scenes, the importance of another form of exploitation, black slavery linked to the sugar trade, in the growth of prosperity of England at the time is also made very clear. Then there is the acceptance of the class structure in which rich and poor were breeds apart, although there were signs of change as the merchant class began to narrow the gap with the aristocrats, who took their wealth too much for granted, and a few workers could advance through ability and good fortune. It is hard to avoid uncomfortable parallels between the casual acceptance of injustice then and now, when we assume that we are more democratic and enlightened.

The story is also realistic in being a blend of good and harsh fortune. This is demonstrated most clearly in the alternating luck of Sullivan, who comes by money one minute (perhaps dishonestly) only to be robbed the next, or is locked up in the workhouse but then transported free to the next county which is his final destination. Overall, often through chance or fate, some characters come to a sad end while others flourish. Unsworth does not deal in sentimental happy endings for all those for whom he has aroused your sympathy, but neither is he ever bleak or depressing, just moving and thought-provoking.

As a writer in his eighties, Unsworth’s wisdom shines through – the results of a lifetime of reflection. The no doubt deliberately slightly oldfashioned, flowing and literary style, fits well with the period covered, although the dialect of the Durham miners also rings true, perhaps because Unsworth was born there.

To leave the last word to the illiterate Sullivan,

“It is the power of imaginin’ that makes a man stand out, an’ it is rarer than you might think, it is similar to the power of music.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars


The Quality of Mercy
 

Riveting 30 Hours

This is my review of The Killing – Series 1 and 2 [DVD].

These thirty hours of riveting film cover two exciting, pacy thrillers, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger which lures you straight on the next one.

It is easy to grasp the appeal of detective Sarah Lund, obsessively focused on solving the puzzle of brutal murders at the cost of her personal life, and wonderfully liberated in true Scandinavian style from any concerns about her appearance, or need to use any feminine wiles to achieve her ends. In typical small touches of humour, she knocks cartons of coffee over her colleague's desk, or misinterprets her mother's horror as she thoughtlessly waves around graphic photos of murder victims during one of the phone calls that always seem too urgent to be left to a more suitable time.

What sets the series apart is the gradual revelation of the main characters' personalities, and the development of their relationships. The best example of this for me was grieving of the couple who lose their teenage daughter in Series 1, as they move very convincingly through the various stages of stunned disbelief, anger and desire for revenge, sometimes blaming each other to the point of estrangement.

In both series, the murders soon develop a political angle. The political shenanigans are hugely entertaining in their own right. If Danish politics can be portrayed as so corrupt and devious, what hope for the rest of us?

My main reservations, which do not seem widely shared, are that Series 2, with "only" ten episodes is too condensed, which can make it hard to keep track of all the plot twists and leaves too little time for the in depth emotional development we see in Series 1. Perhaps the producers needed to take more account of the needs of viewers trying to read subtitles alongside observing every fine detail.

Although I admire the level of depth that leaves everyone damaged in some way by events and some questions unanswered, I think there are too many flaws – such as why a trained assassin would shoot someone several times in the torso, rather than once in the head? (Need to avoid spoilers precludes other better examples).

The nagging loose ends may be the "downside" of the author writing one step ahead of the filming, the plus side being the vitality and spontaneity of many scenes. Also, of course, the slight sense of "let down" at the end of Series 2 may be withdrawal symptoms after all that excitement. At least there is Series 3 to anticipate!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Killing – Series 1 and 2 [DVD]

And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out

This is my review of Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi.

This novel demonstrates why my previous policy of avoiding novels translated into English is a mistake. In the same way, to assume that such a short, very readable novel must be lightweight is another error.

Impeccably translated from Italian, this subtly humorous story with a growing underlying sense of menace captures Lisbon in the summer heat of 1938, as Portugal slides into fascist dictatorship on the coattails of its aggressive neighbour, Spain, under the influence of Franco.

Punctuated with the refrain, "Pereira maintains", this is the testimony of a journalist employed in a sinecure to produce the new weekly cultural page for a small newspaper, "The Lisboa". Sunk into a dull routine, overweight and unhealthy, Pereira's life revolves around eating "omelettes aux fines herbes", drinking sugary lemonade at the Cafe Orchidea, and communing with a photograph of his dead wife.

Since he is a humane man with principles, he is gradually forced out of his ostrichlike state by the examples of repression which become increasingly hard to ignore. A carter is murdered by the police for being a socialist, but staff on "The Lisboa" are too scared to report the story in the boss's absence: information on the real state of affairs has to be gleaned from listening to the BBC or obtaining a foreign newspaper. An attractive woman whom Pereira meets on a train confides that she is planning emigration to the US, because she is Jewish. The office telephone system is altered without warning so that all calls come through the nosy female caretaker, clearly a police spy. Yet the main trigger for what a sympathetic doctor calls the "rise of a new ruling ego" in Pereira is the youthful political idealism of a young couple he meets by chance and drifts into helping, with fateful consequences.

Tightly plotted, despite its misleadingly gentle rhythm, the book builds up to a dramatic and effective climax. Perhaps the "last straw" that drives Pereira to take a stand is the extension of censorship and bigotry even to his little page, where he finds himself no longer free to publish his translations of foreign authors, after a piece by Alphonse Daudet is seen by the philistines in power as anti the Germans who are propping up the corrupt Portuguese regime.

This is one of the few novels I would like to retain and reread again, to enjoy all the allusions and observations which you may miss on a first reading in the pressing need to know what happens.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Pereira Maintains

Condensed Cream

This is my review of The Killing: The Complete Season 2 [DVD] [2009].

A latecomer to this series, I soon grasped the appeal of Sarah Lund, obsessively bent on solving the puzzle of brutal murders at the cost of her personal life, and wonderfully liberated in true Scandinavian style from any concerns about her appearance, or need to use feminine wiles to get her way. In typical small touches of humour, she knocks cartons of coffee over her colleague's desk, or misinterprets her mother's horror as she thoughtlessly waves around graphic photos of murder victims during one of the phone calls that always seem too urgent to be left to a more suitable time.

The series continues to stand apart by working on several levels and being more than just an exciting, tense, and pacy thriller. This is partly through the importance attached to developing the complex personalities and realistic, shifting relationships. Here we have the focus on the disturbed soldier Raben, who may have been incarcerated in a mental asylum to prevent his revealing the politically inconvenient facts of an atrocity against civilians in Afghanistan. His attempts to keep in contact with his wife and child, the strains on her in trying to remain true to him and the ambiguous role of her father, also in the military, all make for moving drama.

We have the usual political shenanigans, at times now bordering on farce. If Denmark has so much corruption and duplicity in high places, what hope for the rest of us? There is huge entertainment value in the continually grazing, "I've had enough sweets so I'll eat a pear", ball-bouncing, new Minister Buch, who is cleverer than he looks, but may not be a match for more ruthless operators.

If Series 2 suffers in comparison with its forerunner, it is because, being half the length but if anything more complicated, it is too condensed. This makes it hard to follow some of the labrynthine plot twists delivered very fast in short, rapidly changing scenes. Some of the emotional intensity also gets lost in this quickfire approach. Perhaps the producers needed to take more account of the needs of viewers trying to read subtitles alongside observing every fine detail.

A story in which everyone is damaged in some way by events and some points are left unresolved may be marks of a great drama. But this does not excuse flaws in the plot – such as why a trained assassin would shoot someone several times in the torso, rather than once in the head? (Need to avoid spoilers precludes other better examples).

Perhaps it is too much to expect even "The Killing" to avoid the pitfalls of such a complicated plot with so many red herrings that the viewer is left with too many frustrated, "But why and what about?" questions at the end. This may be the "downside" of the author writing one step ahead of the filming, the plus side being the vitality and spontaneity of many scenes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Killing: The Complete Season 2 [DVD] [2009]