This is my review of Twelve Years a Slave – [ Stolen into Slavery: The True Story of Solomon Northup ] [Annotated & illustrated] [Free Audio Links] by Solomon Northup.

Although it is unclear to what extent this story was "ghosted" at the time, it is a vivid first-hand account of the experiences of Solomon Northup, born to a freed man in the New York area but tricked and kidnapped into slavery in the Louisiana of the early 1840s.

Having seen the film already, I knew what to expect plot-wise, and assumed that, since McQueen's drama is so powerful, I would gain little from reading the book, the reverse of what is normally the case i.e. books usually out-class the films on which they are based. In fact, I was impressed by the immediacy with which Northup's thoughts come through the language which, apart from occasional wording that seem quaint to us now, is for the most part a very articulate and engaging flow. I was also surprised and pleased how closely the director had kept to the book. There is a particularly powerful scene in the film where Northup is forced to beat Patsy, a young slave woman who is guilty only of going to obtain from a kindly neighbour soap denied her by a jealous mistress. I thought that McQueen must have exaggerated this incident for dramatic effect but found that it tallies with Northup's description. The latter's account of how Patsy is caught between a sexually abusive master and vengeful mistress makes almost unbearably moving reading even when one has seen the film.

I respected Northup's honesty, for instance, in regarding himself as superior to those born to slavery and reduced to a bestial state by their treatment, although at the same time he clearly respected and felt sympathy for those left in bondage after his release. He also conveys well the “catch-22” situation in which to reveal his past experience of freedom, and his ability to read and write, put him at greater risk of violence, since the slave-owners felt threatened by workers who did not conform to the stereotypes which seemed to justify their inhuman treatment.

The academic Sarah Churchwell wrote recently of the theory that Northup may have been a bit of a rogue in real life, colluding in his kidnapping in a money-making scam which backfired on him, but there is no evidence of this in the autobiography. Some of the interesting notes at the end of the book suggest that Northup may have fallen into drunkenness after his release, and been recaptured, but this cannot be proven. It could be that Northup became embittered, in view of the irony that, as a black man, he was not entitled, once free, to give evidence in court against those who had wrongfully sold him into slavery.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald.

At first, “Offshore” seems like a farcical soap opera involving an eccentric little community of barge-dwellers on the Thames near Blackheath Bridge in the early 1960s. Penelope Fitzgerald’s own experience of living on a houseboat which sank gives her vivid descriptions of changing tides, varying qualities of mud, and parts of boats an authentic air. When “amiable young” Maurice realises that self-appointed leader Richard calls all residents by the names of their boats, he quickly gives “Dondeschiepolschuygen IV” his own name. This quirky bit of humour along with some much more subtle, wry examples soon had me hooked along with the author’s gift for conveying implicitly a great deal about her characters’ situations and personalities. I also enjoyed her launches into unexpected little scenes, as when the child Tilly leaps between abandoned objects precariously stranded in the river mud at low tide to prise out examples of beautiful antique tiles which she and her sister can sell to buy Cliff Richards records at the local Woolworths.

From the outset, the author distances herself a little from the barge-dwellers to observe them as “creatures neither of firm land nor water” who “would have liked to be more respectable than they were… but a certain failure to be like other people caused them to sink back with so much else that drifted or was washed up into the mud moorings”. This approach reduces our own sense of involvement with the characters, so we tend to regard them as mere sources of entertainment. By the middle, I started to get a little bored with them and to think, wrongly, that having established her cast, the author was drifting on the ebb tide with little plot in mind. Some details feel a bit false, like the reference to two “family planning shops” close together in the same high street (doesn’t sound right for 1961-2). At six, Tilly, seems far too articulate and knowing, but I later concluded that, with her own highly educated and perhaps somewhat unorthodox and rarified background, Penelope Fitzgerald may indeed have known or even produced children as precocious as this.

As the book worked up to an ending which shocks you with its abruptness, but on reflection seems the most appropriate one possible, I began to see how the threads of the story all prove to have a purpose, link and mesh tightly together. In the process, my sympathy for the characters grew. Like other readers, and unaware from my kindle of the brevity of the book, I made the mistake of reading too fast, rather than savour the striking prose and non sequiturs which hit home if you spend a little time on them.

This book is an acquired taste, but, although it might now seem too dated to do so, I can well understand why it won the Booker Prize in 1979.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

Idealistic American Robert Jordan has joined an International Brigade fighting the fascists in 1930s Spain, although this means accepting orders from Russian Communists. He is ordered to destroy a bridge in the mountains, despite the lack of resources and an effective communication system. Can he trust Pablo, the brutal, now disillusioned leader of the republican guerrilla group on whom he must rely?

Although Hemingway was clearly excited by the risk-taking and violence of battle and bullfighting, and there are many tense moments in this novel, you may be disappointed if a pure action thriller is what you have in mind. The density of the prose, with the constant switches of thought, new ideas and unusual modes of expression slow the reader down, even at the moments when the suspense drives you to keep turning the pages.

Drawing on his first-hand experience as a journalist covering the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway was keen to explore it from many angles, such as the incompetence of officers at all levels, or the fact that committing atrocities was not confined to the fascists. The female guerrilla Pilar (who, despite being tough, takes on the cooking), describes in vivid detail how all the men of property in a captured town were assumed to be fascist and forced across the square over a precipice: it is a shock to learn that this was based on real events in the now picturesque tourist centre of Ronda. Hemingway attributes Spanish violence to the fact `this was the only country the reformation never reached…Forgiveness is a Christian idea and Spain has never been a Christian country'.

Hemingway also takes Robert into repetitious stream-of-consciousness reveries over the meaning of life, and how best to spend what may be one's last three days. My idea of Hemingway as the master of the minimalist, pared-down style was shattered by the wearisome detail of many descriptions, from eating a sandwich with onions to constructing a makeshift bed or loading a gun. I grew tired of Robert running his hand through the `wheatfield' of his lover Maria's cropped hair. The frequent references to drinking wine, whisky and absinthe are also a bit repetitive, perhaps reflecting Hemingway's own reputation as a heavy drinker. Sometimes, the great outpouring of words, in particular hyphenated adjectives like `empty-calm' reminds me of Dylan Thomas and is perhaps the product of a creativity loosened by alcohol.

In a dialogue that is often amusing, the speech of the guerrillas is very odd, a stilted style of remarkable sophistication, peppered with `thees' and `thous'. Can you imagine a gypsy saying, `Thou art a veritable phenomenon'? Then there is the exaggerated blasphemy, `I obscenity in the milk of my shame', oaths at times shortened to `Thy mother!'

This is a masterpiece, if a little dated, as in the submissive character of Maria, and despite passages of violence which are hard to stomach. Most poignant of all is the knowledge that all this courage and sacrifice were in vain since the republicans lost.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars