Category: Literary reviews

Life after Life, by Kate Atkinson

This 2013 work is a strange novel, a marvelous novel, a puzzling novel. As the title suggests, it is about its heroine Ursula Todd dying and then not dying. It is also about premonitions she has, as a child, about others dying, and her efforts to prevent that from happening. Her parents send her to a psychiatrist at age ten, a man who introduces the idea of reincarnation, which Ursula and the reader rejects, for reincarnation does not apply precisely to her situation. But the psychiatrist also introduces the idea of the circularity of time, and while this does not fit Ursula’s life, it does fit the construction of this novel.

Ursula is the daughter of Sylvie and Hugh Todd, he a doting father, she a snobbish mother. Ursula has an older brother Maurice, aloof and supercilious; an older sister Pamela who is bossy as a child but becomes Ursula best friend as an adult; and younger brothers Teddy, who is her favorite brother and will join the air force, and Jimmy, less significant, who will leave England after the war. They represent the strong base of this novel, an upper middleclass family that represents the heart of English society.

But the reality of this family shifts from the moment Ursula is born. Because Ursula dies, strangled by her own umbilical cord, but then does not. She falls off a roof and dies, but then does not. Influenza kills her and a faithful servant, but then does not. A neighborhood girl is raped and killed, but then, with Ursula’s help, is not. Ursala herself is killed in the World War II, but then is not. What is going on here? It is not easy to determine, for the author jumps back and forth in time as she blends Ursula’s disruptive life and modern British history.

Then come three dramatic moments that do not seem to belong, that even seem a misjudgment by the author. First, Ursula is raped at age sixteen, by an American who seems to exist only to be a tool of the author. And she becomes pregnant. But that life is replaced by another, in which Ursula marries an abusive schoolteacher. She flees, but he tracks her down and attacks both her and her brother Teddy. Darkness falls, which is the repeated sign of her dying, but we never read the consequences of that attack, not on Teddy and not on the schoolteacher. The event fades into non-existence.

Then, in an alternate life, Ursula meets a boy on a visit to Germany, falls in love, and remains in Germany throughout World War II. Here, Atkinson suggests, through Ursula and her alternate self, parallels between how one experiences the bombing of Berlin and how one experiences the bombing of London. Indeed, the London blitz scenes are the most memorable in the book—and not simply because Ursula dies once in a cellar, then dies while trying to save people in that cellar, and finally lives on when a dog’s presence, which led to her second death, now leads to her survival.

And at this point, this reader realized two things. Atkinson was through this one family trying to convey mid-twentieth century English history; and, even more important, she was dramatizing how a single event, a single decision in one’s life, can change that life dramatically. (Do I subscribe to this because my marriage, my own life, was so changed?) There is at the end even an explanation for a mysterious opening scene, in which Ursula seems poised in 1930 to kill Adolf Hitler—with speculation about how that could have changed modern European history.

At the end of her novel, the author attempts to tidy up her many divergent stories. Just as “Darkness fell” heralds the frequent deaths of Ursula, “Practice makes perfect” heralds some of these reversals of death. A near-death experience of Ursula at the beach had followed her actual death, and now this event is tidied up by becoming the drowning of the handicapped and illegitimate child of her Aunt Izzy. Or is this an example of a past drama altering one’s memory? In fact, which event is real? Then Ursula tells a lie to save the family servant Bridget from going to London to catch influenza and die with her lover Clarence. (Ursula, in one instance, had failed to achieve this when she pushed the girl down some stairs.) This recapitulation is also when the psychiatrist asks ten-year-old Ursula to draw something, and she draws a snake swallowing its tail—representing, he says, “the circularity of the universe.” Aha!

This section is also when we learn Ursula is a good shooter, which hearkens back to her confrontation with Hitler (although not how she got in that situation). We also learn why a neighbor Nancy died on one level, due to Ursula’s actions, as earlier we learned why she did not die, also due to Ursula’s actions. Finally, the novel has a happy ending in its next-to-last chapter, an ending that seems unnecessary. A character everyone thinks has died in the war has not died, and is reunited with a lover. Yes, it illustrates the uncertainty of life, as well as of war, but it seems unnecessary—mainly, I think, because we never see the consequences of that return to life.

Speaking of circularity, there are also the dogs in the life of Ursula and her family. They keep dying and then being replaced. Not always, but many are also given the name of Lucky. Their dying and “rebirth” as another dog surely is intended as a parallel to both Ursula’s shifting life and the novel’s construction.

A major plus of this novel, which helps the reader accept this English version of magic realism is Atkinson’s style. It is reminiscent of Muriel Spark, and early Waugh, in its clear, aloof, arbitrary, witty, godlike treatment of the lives and the fates of these characters. Not to be overlooked, either, are the relationships established among the many characters, whether within Ursula’s family, including with her naughty Aunt Izzy, with the family servants, or with Ursula’s various lovers, air wardens, and German friends, even Eva Braun.

This is one of those rare novels in which I did not mind trying to puzzle out Ursula’s life, the reality of its events, or the meaning of this novel. Nor was I frustrated that the novel offered no clear answers. Not why her power to foresee calamity faded after childhood. Not why she has the power to die and return. And not what the power of recreating history means.

This was for Atkinson, I believe, an exercise in the imagination. What if one could die and come back? What if one could affect the lives of others? What might a novelist do with that? Atkinson has seemed interested in her other novels with the idea of connections. Here, the connection is with destiny. Not, what happens to us after death, but what if our destiny in life changes, or what if we could affect that change.

As Francine Prose sums up in her excellent Times review: “Atkinson sharpens our awareness of the apparently limitless choices and decisions that a novelist must make on every page, and of what is gained and lost when the consequences of these choices are, like life, singular and final.”

Atkinson herself has written: “People always ask you what a book is ‘about’ and I generally make something up as I have no idea what a book is about (it’s ‘about’ itself) but if pressed I think I would say Life After Life is about being English (on reflection, perhaps that’s what all my books are about). Not just the reality of being English but also what we are in our own imaginations.”

Atkinson has explained that she was born after World War II, and her family rarely discussed that era; but that she intended here to write a novel about that war. And that the “dark, bleeding heart” of that novel would be the blitz. In this she certainly succeeded, because the lengthy treatment of Ursula’s work as an air warden is the most memorable section of this work. But Atkinson also realized that in order to write about someone in the war she had to give her a back story—which in this case turned out to be the heart of the novel. And its theme of worldly life after worldly death certainly reflects the wishful thinking that takes place after any war—as one recalls its senseless and horrible death toll.

One should also note that Atkinson’s next novel, A God in Ruins, is to be about Ursula’s brother Teddy, who is shot down during World War II. He was Ursula’s favorite brother, and apparently of the author as well. One awaits learning whether Atkinson will explore that war further, or whether she has something else in mind—even, again, the theme of endless death. Indeed, one wonders if a final, incongruous appearance of Teddy in this novel was written in order to set up this next 2015 work. One also wonders if the word God in the title has any significance. It would seem doubtful, based on the spiritual beliefs held in this novel. But…

To sum up, this is a novel about life, not about death. And a novel about this world, not the next. It works because of its solid family portrait and its vivid capture of the historic context, including but not limited to World War II. It certainly entices me to read more of Atkinson’s work. For the degree of control she has over her characters, which turned me off in Case Histories, here she uses to her advantage, as she integrates it into the structure of this excellent work. (February, 2015)

Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes

This 2010 work is a magnificent novel, the best war novel I have read in decades. It is equal to the best of Mailer and Jones. It is the novel of Vietnam. It reportedly took the author 30 years to write this novel—far longer, that is, than it took Hemingway to write his about World War I. This was undoubtedly because of the scope of this novel; and the result, for me, surpasses even A Farewell to Arms, since that novel was more concerned with the experience of one soldier. In fact, this novel surpasses, for me, even Mailer and Jones, because of its emphasis on man’s humanity,

Matterhorn tells here the experience of a Marine company, Bravo Company, and a second lieutenant and platoon leader Waino Mellas. Indeed, it comprises in the adventures of this one company a capsule of the entire Vietnamese war. Even while author Marlantes reduced his manuscript from 1,600 pages to about 600, he narrowed in on representative exploits. And so, we first meet Bravo Company out on patrol, not knowing where the enemy is or when and how it might attack. We immediately grasp the uncertainty, the fear, the silence, the darkness, and the moral and physical discomfort of fighting in a strange land.

This is also the story of many men in Bravo Company. Of First Lieutenant Fitch, in charge of the company; of Second Lieutenant Ted Hawke, all of 22, second in command; of second lieutenants Mellas, Goodwin and Kendall, in charge of its three platoons; of its squad leaders, corporals Connolly, Fisher, Jacobs, Jancowitz, and Jackson; of Corporal Mallory who has mysterious headaches that no one can diagnose; of Sergeant Cassidy, the artillery gunner, who antagonizes the blacks; of Private Vancouver who always wants to be on point, the most dangerous assignment; of Private Arran and his scout dog Pat; of privates China and Henry, black Marines who duel to become the leader of mutinous blacks; and finally of the devious and ambitious battalion officers, Lt. Colonel Simpson and Major Blakely, whose mission is to kill NVAs, North Vietnamese Army regulars, rather than to occupy Vietnamese territory.

Bringing strategic perspective to the extensive field action are Simpson and Blakely, back at headquarters, who push Bravo in order to earn promotions for themselves, and who realize the way to do so is to probe for and kill those enemy troops. But then comes an irrational decision from Saigon that is symptomatic of the military bungling to come. After Bravo has established defensive positions atop Matterhorn Mountain, it is ordered to abandon them, because headquarters generals want to impress visiting politicians by shifting troops to a distant attack at Cam Lo.

Bravo’s new mission is to trek through the jungle in the novel’s first dramatic sequence. It is a powerful one, as men we have met begin to die, sometimes horribly, such as from a malarial disease or a mauling by a tiger at night. The new orders prompt Bravo to probe bamboo forests and elephant grass, then plow through river canyons and climb high cliffs, all the time being told to exaggerate body counts as its soldiers search for an NVA ammunition dump whose position is a vague point on a map. And, after they succeed, their gung-ho commanders send these exhausted men on another forced march, this time to establish an artillery outpost on a distant hill.

Thus, Bravo confronts a two-week hike, the first half on short rations and the second half with both no food and no sleep, all the while headquarters demanding that they move faster. And their horror is compounded by carrying the decaying body killed by that tiger, plus black soldiers planning to revolt against the discrimination they feel.

This is where this novel begins to dig deeper than mere warfare. Because we grow to understand the field officers’ loyalty to the men of their company, and the enlisted men’s loyalty to each other and to their mission. We realize that this novel is about more than war, about more than the trauma of Vietnam. It is about the impact on these human beings of fighting in a strange world in which the enemy lurks behind every leaf, or is hidden in the night. It is about the politics of getting along with one’s superiors, which Fitch and Mellas learn to do but not Hawke—and which the black Marines also fail to do. And, for all of them, it is about the dream of home.

The humanizing of Mellas continues as he volunteers for a dangerous patrol before leaving the artillery outpost. He wounds an NVA, only to feel guilt because he cannot kill the enemy soldier, instead leaving him to suffer. Complexity increases when they return to headquarters, and the black soldiers force the transfer of a belligerent Cassidy for his own safety, then nearly riot in a movie theatre. Also, Mallory, the black private, is back with his headaches; and he attacks, in frustration, a doctor who cannot cure him.

Mellas’ reaction to headquarters life includes getting drunk with his fellow officers, all trying to forget that new orders will again send them into the bush. And when it comes, they are ordered to helicopter out to save a reconnaissance team outnumbered by the NVA. The initial mission succeeds, but Simpson and Blakely need more NVA dead, and so order Bravo to attack Helicopter Hill and Matterhorn. And the irony, of course, is that the US had earlier abandoned these hills after building strong defenses there.

Despite a lack of surprise, of superior numbers, of artillery support, the lieutenant colonel orders the attack, thinking that if Bravo gets into trouble, it will be re-enforced and the NVA body count will rise. The result is the major and climactic two-part battle of the novel, a battle in which many of the Marines are killed, Marines whom both Mellas and we the readers have come to know. It is a painful reading experience, but perhaps not truly moving because it is described so precisely, so clinically.

In the first phase, Mellas betrays mixed motivations, as he first charges out of a safe position to join Bravo in its attack on Helicopter Hill, and then bargains for a bronze star recommendation if he can save Pollini, a wounded private. But in trying to save him, he fires his rifle over Pollini’s head and later thinks he might have killed this man by accident. The sense of guilt hangs over him a long while after the hill is taken.

But with 13 US troops dead and 40 wounded, and only 10 NVA killed, the colonel needs more NVA bodies. So he orders an attack on Matterhorn itself, not knowing how many enemy troops are there, and knowing fog prevents US supplies coming in or the wounded being evacuated. After the attack fails, supplies do arrive and some are evacuated, but the fog returns, and only 97 men are left to continue the fight.

That night, the Marines are surrounded, and Mellas thinks he is going to die. This prompts him to think of God and death and fate, and the irony of fate. “He was the butt of a cruel joke. God had given him life and must have laughed as Mellas used it to kill Pollini, to get a piece of ribbon to show proof of his worth. And it was his worth that was the joke.” Later: “He cursed God directly for the savage joke that had been played on him. And in that cursing Mellas for the first time really talked with his God.”

Overall, the NVA is moving three regiments up three valleys from Laos into South Vietnam. A weakened Bravo Company, low on water and ammunition, is the only US force in its way. Fog continues to prevent supplies and re-enforcements, and relief companies are a two-day hike away. A discussion of racism at this point seems meant to mirror race relations back home, to underline the sacrifices of blacks in Vietnam, to remind the reader of the enemy being of another race, and finally to stress the humanity of everyone that is fighting in Vietnam. These intervals give texture to the Vietnam war but also humanity to the novel’s characters. Even Simpson and Blakely, in fact, are given their moments of self-knowledge, of humanity.

At this point, the puppet strings of author Marlantes are faintly visible. For Hawke, Bravo’s former executive officer now back at headquarters, organizes supplies, pleads for pilots, and joins a helicopter relief of his old company, bringing in 40 men and new ammo. Yet his effort is presented so naturally, and he is so sincere, that it works.

Bravo is ordered to attack Matterhorn with these re-enforcements in order to, in the colonel’s eyes, restore company pride. But things still go wrong. The fog clears, but US planes miss their target. Nevertheless, Mellas stands, shaking, and walks up hill toward enemy lines. Others follow, surprising him with their respect of his leadership. But as he is pinned down and then wounded twice, Mellas decides that the NVA are never going to quit fighting, and he sees no sense in their attacking and killing each other. It is the novel’s one direct anti-Vietnam statement.

As Mellas, blind in one eye, awaits medical evacuation, he decides that by killing the enemy, who have people back home who care for them, he has participated in evil, and that without such caring there would be no evil. “The jungle wasn’t evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man has added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares.” It is such thoughts that add richness to this novel, that stretch it beyond the level of other works of warfare.

Mellas is evacuated to a hospital ship, where he encounters regimental discipline but also a sympathetic nurse, a nurse who recognizes the humanity in him. For me, this connection between two human beings, my soft spot, results in the most moving chapter in this novel.

Back in headquarters, Lieutenant Fitch, the company commander, is transferred, and Lieutenant Hawke is given a bronze star and made company commander. But then a dummy grenade is tossed by black Marines, and Bravo troops are ordered to give up all their arms. The dramatic repercussions of this act create the novel’s final impact, but Mellas keeps silent about the perpetrators because of his loyalty to the company as a whole, and his desire to keep it as an effective unit.

The violent deaths that follow help to round off this novel, but they seem originated by the author as much as by the rebellious black troops who have been a presence throughout the novel. Marlantes then lends substance to his novel by concluding with a three-page chapter in which Mellas muses: “He knew there could be no meaning to someone who was dead. Meaning came out of living, Meaning could come only from his choices and actions. Meaning was made, not discovered. He saw that he alone could make [a friend’s] death meaningful by choosing what [that friend] had chosen, the company. Things he’d want before—power, prestige—now seemed empty, and their pursuit endless….he would not look for answers in the past or future. Painful events would always be painful. The dead are dead, forever.”

This is one message of this novel, a message that takes it beyond a novel about war. But there are two other messages in the final chapter. When the soldiers chant that if each one’s death is good enough for that person, it is also good enough for them, they are cohering as one unit. (And the races as well?) Meanwhile, Mellas recognizes that both he and they have been like shadows passing across a landscape of mountains and valleys, changing the pattern of things but leaving nothing itself changed.

Karl Marlantes is a highly decorated veteran of the war in Vietnam. One senses that his experience in Vietnam filled the rest of his life, as he put all of himself into this work. His thoughts about life and death, about God and fate, about caring and meaning certainly suggest this. As a result, this would appear to be the only novel that he will ever write, which probably satisfied him at the moment of its publication. On the other hand, there might well be an editor who one day will persuade him—or his heirs—that another novel (or novelette) might be found in those 1,000 manuscript pages that were deleted from this work. If such a work is found that will stand on its own, I will not begrudge its publication. I think may be quite good. (February, 2015)

Four Letters of Love, by Niall Williams

This is a beautifully written 1998 novel that troubled me during the reading, but then was spellbinding toward the end, except a conclusion that seemed to be just but also arbitrary. Overall, this is a love story between Isabel and Nicholas, who never meet until the final forty pages—forty pages that are the highlight of the novel. They do not meet because Nicholas lives in a Dublin suburb with his father William Coughlin, a civil servant whom God told to become an artist, and his mother Bette; while Isabel lives on an island off the west coast of Ireland with her father Muiris Gore, the local schoolmaster, her mother Margaret, and her brother Sean.

I was troubled first because the lovers take so long to meet, but also because Isabel’s life is told in the third person and Nicholas’ in the first person. In an afterward, the author explains that Nicholas is really telling Isabel’s story; and that the lovers do not meet until late in the story because what interests him most here is the pattern or design in life that brings people together, not what happens afterward. Which I can certainly testify to in my own life, where the pattern of losing my parents and encountering my one love is far more interesting, to anyone outside my family, than the life that followed.

Another element that bothered me was the arbitrariness of the ending. Which the author also explains. I noted the significance of his line that “the plots of love and God are one and the same thing.” Meaning, I felt, that God is love, and that the love between humans is a metaphor for the relationship between God and all humans. But Williams also means that, despite all the obstacles, this love story was inevitable, “that loving Isabel Gore was what Nicholas Coughlin was born to do.”

Another aspect of the ending was also bothersome. There is almost unbearable tension in waiting for the outcome of the last four love letters that Nicholas writes—that is, learning the final destiny of these lovers, whether they will be together or apart—but that destiny reverses itself too many times. Indeed, the final answer seems almost arbitrary—until one realizes it fits the author’s theme. But I do question the need for so many reversals.

There is a spiritual magic that fits seamlessly into this novel, both because of its mystical Irish setting and because of the link it makes between the living and the dead. That is, Nicholas’ dead father, the creator of a painting that brings Nicholas to Isabel’s world, is very alive in the first part of the book, as Nicholas tries to connect with him; and then his father’s spirit does connect, appearing at crucial moments to aid his son’s pursuit of Isabel.

Another mysterious element is the stroke that early in the novel paralyzes Sean, Isabel’s brother. There is no explanation, but Isabel blames herself. And then Nicholas arrives on the island, to buy back his father’s painting as his own means of connecting with him. Whereupon, he takes Sean to the same site where Sean suffered the stroke, and the boy is cured—which is long before Nicholas meets and falls in love with Isabel.

Nicholas has no explanation for the cure, indeed denies he has done anything, but it as if he has brought a mysterious goodness to the family on this island, a goodness that will later impress Isabel. One can only suggest that this goodness comes from God, and is part of the destiny that moves all our lives.

While organized religion plays no role in this novel, the work is deeply spiritual, and God is present everywhere in the lives of these characters—in their loves, their dreams, their inspiration, and their fate. Indeed, early on, the narrator Nicholas writes about his boyhood. “It seemed to me, God came to live in our house. He was not often spoken of, and was never addressed. And yet we knew he was there. Not exactly holy, not exactly prayerful, but a kind of presence.” It is this presence, one senses, that follows Nicholas to the island and perhaps results in the cure of Sean.

Another mysterious element are the flies that inundate the island as the love of Isabel and Nicholas is challenged by Isabel’s mother. Except, they do not invade the cottage where the good Nicholas is staying—as if the evil of their separation exists elsewhere. And these flies vanish when the human obstacle to the couple’s love no longer exists.

As I approached the ending, this novel seemed to be leading toward tragedy, toward a death of one of these characters that so engaged me. But Williams’ interest is not in creating a literary impact; it is in portraying human fulfillment, in destinies he sees infused by love, and by the loving hand of God. And who am I to dispute the appropriateness of that approach in a work of literature?

When Williams writes, “the plots of love and God are the same thing,” he is writing about more than Nicholas and Isabel. For there are other love stories here, that of William Coughlin and his wife and how they met, that of Muiris Gore and his wife, both how they met and how Margaret sustains their love (whereas Nicholas’ mother Bette could not), that of Isabel and her brother Sean, that of Peader O’Luing’s pursuit of and appeal to Isabel, and that of Nicholas and his father William.

Williams also captures the many permutations of love in the thoughts of Isabel’s mother: ”If Margaret Gore had spoken to her daughter she could have told her. In love everything changes, and continues changing all the time. There is no stillness, no stopped clock of the heart in which the moment of happiness holds forever, but only the constant whirring forward motion of desire and need, rising and falling, falling and rising, full of doubts then certainties that moment by moment change and become doubts again.”

Despite my many criticisms of this novel, it confirms my interest in reading more of Williams. First, because of his beautiful, evocative style, and then because of the presence of many varieties of love, but mainly because the spirit of God impacts the lives of these characters. As Kathleen Weber wrote perceptively in the Times, this novel gives us “ a place devoted to the belief in miracles and the obsessive power of love.” (January, 2015)

The Quality of Mercy, by Barry Unsworth

This fascinating novel is a powerful sequel to Sacred Hunger, which had earlier won the Booker Prize. It is not necessary to have read that earlier novel to appreciate this 2011 novel, but it does help one to understand the depths of this work if one has done so.

And by that I mean the depths of the main character, Erasmus Kemp, who was the single-minded villain of that first novel, as he pursued and saw killed his first cousin, Matthew Paris, for what he considered acts of piracy and mutiny, but which his cousin and the reader saw as acts of mercy. Namely, taking over a slave ship owned by Kemp’s father, a ship whose captain had ordered sick slaves to be thrown overboard to their death.

I had objected to the portrayal of Kemp at the end of Sacred Hunger, for it evoked a note of self-awareness in this cruel villain that I felt the author had not prepared me for. But now I believe this self-awareness was always there, because Unsworth has made Kemp not only the main character of this novel but also even more aware of what he, Kemp, might term as shortcomings but which the reader sees as a reluctant identification with these men he considers his inferiors.

This sensitivity arises when he confronts Michael Sullivan, one of the crewmen from Sacred Hunger, who was involved in what Kemp called mutiny and piracy; and again, when a poor youth, the miner Michael Borden, sees through what Kemp calls a generous offer for a piece of land the youth owns. Indeed, even the woman Kemp loves, Jane Ashton, detects a latent compassion in him that she believes she can develop if she marries him.

Kemp thus develops into a complex figure. He wants to play a major role in developing British industry—to his own advantage, of course, but also, he claims, to that of the workers and his country. And his single-mindedness remains, meaning he will do this by fair means or foul. Even love-fixed Jane is transfixed by this determination, while less fixed on the means he will use.

It would seem that the author wishes his title, The Quality of Mercy, to apply to Kemp. For it is mercy he shows to both Sullivan and Borden, when he unexpectedly acknowledges their needs. And this response, I suggest, shows that Unsworth wants his reader to extend such mercy to Kemp as well. In fact, he also may be suggesting that this kind of determined but compassionate industrial leader is what this small island relied on to reach its greatness.

On the other hand, and I nearly missed this, the greatest quality of mercy Unsworth seems to show here is toward the slaves themselves. But to me that is less interesting. Because it is so obious. Whereas to apply it to Kemp adds a complexity to his character that enriches this work as literature. I would note that John Vernon in his New York Times review preferred that the author had kept Kemp’s character more simple. He writes, “Kemp was perfect—a tortured monster of obsessiveness.” I obviously disagree.

There are really four stories here at the start of the novel, each one so interesting that we move quite willingly from one to the other. Indeed, I was so confident in the author’s professionalism that I knew eventually these four stories would come together. The first story is that of Sullivan, the crew member who joined in the mutiny, was caught and transported back to England in chains, and then fortuitously escapes from prison and becomes determined to travel north into Durham coal country in order to inform the family of a shipboard colleague that their son has died.

The second story is that of the Borden family in Durham. John the father and his three sons, especially Michael, are fated to work in the mines but dream of escaping that harsh world. The third story is that of Frederick Ashton and his sister Jane, the brother being an active abolitionist determined to abolish slavery in all of England. And the final story, of course, is that of Erasmus Kemp, who brings these stories together, first by suing to receive compensation for the drowned slaves on his father’s lost ship, and then by both his pursuit of Jane and his effort to purchase and modernize the coal mine up north in which the Borden family works.

The reader easily identifies with Sullivan, Michael Borden, and Frederick and Jane Ashton. These are all good people. And Kemp’s interaction with each of them earns him the reader’s respect for a certain integrity, even if not their full sympathy. Indeed, one can detect both sympathy and fascination on the part of the author for this character he has created, so much so that one can foresee still another sequel, this one based on the tension that has been set up between Kemp and Jane Ashton, as she tries to instill in him a greater awareness of the needs of the working poor.

Despite it’s title, the underlying theme of this novel is the rights of property. First, are slaves property? That is what Sacred Hunger was about, and that is what Frederick Ashton is all about. That they are not. And it is also about the workers in the Durham mines. Are they, in effect, the property of the mine owners, since they have no say in the terms of their duties, their wages, their working conditions, or their future lives.

On the other hand, one critic says this is a novel about justice. And this is valid, for the administration of justice revolves around two key trials that are depicted toward the end. But these trials do depend on property rights, and this is the immediate theme that drives Unsworth’ novel, under the overall literary theme of justice.

Unsworth manages to resolve these property issues to a large degree, enough to bring a legitimate resolution to this novel, even if some of its ramifications are left open-ended. Which, as I said, does leave the door open to another sequel. Not that I would require one, but I would certainly read it, for Unsworh has the enviable talent of being able to explore moral and social issues from a richly created past. In the meantime, I will happily search out his other highly praised novels. (January, 2015)

The Army of the Potomac, by Bruce Catton

Mr. Lincoln’s Army (1951)

The subject of this series of three volumes is the Army of the Potomac, the Northern army that would directly confront Robert E. Lee’s Rebel troops in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The first volume covers the leadership of General McClellan through the battles of Bull Run, the Peninsula, and particularly Antietam.

This first volume begins with moments of confusion, internecine rivalry among the officers, and a lack of discipline. This is in August of 1862, when a lack of leadership characterized the Union forces to the south of Washington.

Then follows the second defeat near Bull Run, as Catton exposes how the Union officers’ failures led to the confusion of a retreat by weary and desperate enlisted men. In these initial chapters, the reader learns how incompetence at the tactical level led to the horror on the ground, based on journals letters, and diaries that capture the broad spectrum of war.

McClellan himself understood discipline, and re-organized the divisions under him. But, quoting his orders and his letters, Catton suggests a personal insecurity that inhibited his ability to attack the successful armies of the Confederacy. This was compounded after the Union defeat of another general, at Leesburg, near Washington, because a disillusioned U.S. Congress began overseeing how the war was being conducted in the field.

For example McClellan had a valid plan, called the Peninsula campaign, to sail his troops down the coast, land them, and attack Richmond, the Confederate capital, from the rear. But the civilians took away some of his troops to protect Washington, torrential rain made maneuvering impassible, and the intelligence man he hired, Allan Pinkerton, wrongly reported that Lee had twice as many troops defending Richmond as McClellan had to attack it. Moreover, just as McClellan was ready to attack, Lee himself attacked the Union troops where they were weakest, causing the withdrawal of all those troops back to the coast.

With a lull in the action, and with Lee advancing into Maryland, there is a pause as the Union army reorganizes. Then, suddenly, a break. Two enlisted men discover, wrapped around cigars, papers revealing the Rebel‘s troop movements in Maryland. Catton calls it “the greatest security leak in American military history.” For it reveals Lee’s army to be scattered, and vulnerable if the Union quickly attacks. First, however, comes a brilliantly described battle scene near Harper’s Ferry that might have resulted in the destruction of Lee’s army, but does not because McClellan, in command of his Army of the Potomac, moved too slowly.

This is followed by the Battle of Antietam (named after a local creek), near Sharpsburg, in which McClellan still has the large army, about 87,000, but builds his position slowly because he thinks Lee has 100,000, when Lee has only about 25,000. He does not know it will be the last time he will have such an advantage in numbers.

The battle is in three parts. The opening battle in the cornfield between two woods, Catton says: “might well have been the most savage and consuming fighting American soldiers ever engaged in.” Because it initially involves bloody charges into that cornfield, counterattacks by the Rebels, and another charge back across—in all, during four hours, from 5:30 to 9:30, more than 12,000 on both sides died or were wounded in this first phase, a battle in which artillery played a major role, since soldiers, with muzzle-loaders, could fire, at most, two rounds per minute.

A second phase, at the “sunken road,” pushed the Rebels back, and with 10,000 fresh troops, the Union could have routed the Rebels. But the fresh troops were never used, because one general saw the possibility of a bloody counterattack, and McClellan supported him.

The third phase, crossing Antietam Creek, was supposed to support the other two phases, but was delayed as it focused on crossing a defended bridge rather than fording that stream. Catton says the stupidity of the generals was saved by the heroism of the soldiers, for, with 10,000 troops available, only 2,500 were used in this phase, because the generals kept them in reserve, fearing a major counterattack. And yet these Union soldiers routed the enemy. But the Rebels checked this phase three advance when A.P. Hill’s experienced regulars rushed up from Harper’s Ferry and confronted the Union soldiers while wearing the blue uniforms they had found there.

The casualties for that day, of the killed, wounded, and missing on both sides, totalled, according to official estimates, almost 22,700—with 13,900 casualties at the cornfield, 5.500 at the sunken road, and 3,700 at the bridge. According to Catton, there were more soldiers killed or wounded at Antietam that in any other one-day battle of that war. And that, overall, there was no winner, even though the Rebels withdrew to the south, and that is why the Union leaders claimed victory. But their army could have destroyed Lee’s forces, and did not. And a major reason they did not is that McClellan gave each of the commanders of the three phases their own orders, but did not give them the overall plan that showed how their simultaneous actions were the key to defeating Lee.

So both sides learned that the war would continue until one side won, that the moaning of the wounded soldiers that night in the field would be repeated over and over, that the war would last two and one-half more years, and that there would be no compromise, no South holding on to its slaves and no North without a complete union of all the states.

One other result was that McClellan lost his command. He had not defeated Lee, and was considered a spokesman of a limited war that no longer existed. As one veteran wrote: “It always seemed to me that McClellan, though no commander ever had the love of his soldiers more, or tried more to spare their lives, never realized the metal that was in his grand Army of the Potomac….”

 

Comment. Catton is offering in this work a unique presentation of Civil War strategy and suffering. He evaluates both the generals and their strategy as fairly as possible, which includes McClellan. And he flavors his account with dramatic re-enactments of both skirmishes and full battles, based on the diaries, journals, and memoirs of all who participated, from generals to privates.

It is a refreshing view, and is presented in a strong narrative style, some have said a novelistic style. This is what makes this volume, and presumably those to follow, so dramatic. That he can embellish a scene with the weather, the sounds, the sense of geography and landscape, and, finally, the mental reaction and physical sensations of the soldiers—until the reader experiences either the confusion of the battlefront almost as if he is there.

All told, this is a remarkable portrait of the beginning of the Civil War, climaxing in its bloodiest one-day battle, a battle which, Catton says, was inconclusive, which could have ended the war, but which resulted in a war to be fought until one side won conclusively—and either the South preserved its slave economy as a separate nation, or the North reunited the county and freed all slaves. Indeed, I had heard of Antietam but knew little about the battle itself, much less about its importance in the war. So one, in fact, does learn about history from this book.

There is a sadness here, between the lines, regarding McClellan’s fate. Indeed, this volume centers on McClellan; and Catton was obviously interested in him—in why he acted as he did. For McClellan wanted desperately to lead his men to victory, he had certain military skills and he had the enthusiastic support of his troops; but he did not understand politics, either of the army or of Washington. And so his fatal flaw, of hedging his strategy, of delaying his assaults until he was sure, resulted in the loss of trust by the leaders in Washington and his resulting downfall.

Catton concludes this volume by writing that the romance of war, as imagined by the troops before going into battle, was over. That now they faced “ugliness and dirt and pain and death.” (December, 2014)

Glory Road (1952)

In the fall of 1862, a new stage of the war began. Its goal was now less to preserve the union and more to free the slaves. This second volume centers on the battles at Fredericksburg, Virginia, with the Union forces now under General Ambrose Burnside, the Rebels under Lee, and then climaxes with the more significant Battle of Gettysburg.

At Fredericksburg, the Union army was disorganized, a delay which allowed Lee to build up his force. So when the Union forces finally moved across the river and then through the bombarded Fredericksburg, they found the Rebels entrenched on high ground. Despite charge after heroic charge, the Union forces could not break through. The result: tremendous losses.

The story of this battle is difficult to read, it was so one-sided, as the Union generals demanded a new charge, and sent soldier after soldier to their death. In all, the Union lost 12,500 killed and wounded, and the Rebels 4,500. Burnside wanted to attack again, but was dissuaded by his generals. The battle’s repercussions: the Union soldiers pillaged a ruined Fredericksburg, the Rebels stripped dead Union soldiers naked for their clothing and boots, and the two armies swapped tobacco, coffee, and even visits.

As a result, Burnside is replace by General Joseph Hooker, who still wanted to defeat Lee at Fredericksburg, but by circling from north and attacking Lee from the rear. Thus, the battles of Chancellorsville and the Wilderness. But the latter’s forests and streams hindered maneuvering; and Hooker decided not to attack, although he had superior numbers, but to let Lee attack him. It was terrible strategy. The first battle was confusing in the dark of night, with burning trees, smoke, fog, flashes of guns, and noise. Plus, Hooker didn’t believe news that an attack was coming from the rear against his newest troops. Note that Stonewall Jackson was killed at this point, accidentally, by his own Rebel troops.

In the morning, Hooker could have attacked, since Lee’s troops were divided, but he didn’t. He thought he could win by defeating the charging Rebels, but did not because their artillery decimated his troops. Finally, he retreated across the river, having lost 17,000 soldiers killed, wounded, and missing, and having used only half of his available force.

Lee next headed north with 70,000 troops, and Hooker followed with 75,000. But he objected to government restrictions, and Meade replaced him. At Gettysburg, Lee had more troops early on, and encircled the town on its western side. On the first day, he charged successfully into Gettysburg, inflicting heavy losses on Union forces, which had 5,000 left to fight as they held on at Cemetery Ridge.

On second day, more Union forces arrived, and Meade decided to fight here, setting his troops on high round from Cemetery Ridge to Big Round Top to the south. Rebels charged on both flanks, but Union stopped them, and then Rebels attacked again, with heavy losses on both sides.

The North lost 20,000 dead and wounded those first two days, so Meade decided to wait for Lee’s attack on the third day, since he held higher ground. A few skirmishes occurred in the morning, then quiet—until a tremendous Southern barrage of 130 guns pounded the North. But most shots were high, did not strike front lines of North. So when Pickett charged the center of the line with more men, Northern artillery, flank attacks, and a timely counter-attack stopped the Rebels.

The Rebels had lost 25,000 men, and Lee retreated from Gettysburg with a wagon train 17 miles long. The North had 23,000 total casualties, with another 15,000 unwounded but missing. Plus there were 5,000 dead left in field that had to be buried over the net few weeks, after both armies left.

To commemorate the battle, Northern states with soldiers who participated created a memorial cemetery of 17 acres. It was dedicated on November 19, at which the orator Edward Everett spoke at length, followed by Abraham Lincoln. (His address of about 270 words used only 130 separate words.)

Comment. The value of this work again comes from Catton’s comments, from the perspective of history on one level—interpreting both the military strategy at the front and the political maneuvering in Washington—and on another level employing the words of the generals and the enlisted men to show what this war was like, both on the front lines and from the officers’ tents overlooking the battlefield. We witness the rain, the mud, and the cold experienced by the soldiers, as well as their frustration at the confusion and disorganization of their leaders. And we see the infighting among the generals, their personal disagreements as they maneuver for promotion.

This work is history dramatized. But it is also a personal evaluation, as Catton discusses the impact of the battle on both civilian and military strategy, as well as on the soldiers’ commitment to and belief in their cause. Catton also pauses to portray Northern society behind the lines and Washington politics. But more significant are those quotations that capture the mood, the physical burden, and the frustration of both officers and enlisted men.

At the half-way point of this book, one wonders how the North ever won this civil War. And even after the Battle of Gettysburg, it is not clear how Lee’s army will be defeated. Of course, there were other fronts, but there is barely a one-sentence reference to the war won in the West, and there is no suggestion of Sherman’s March to the Sea. This is strictly about the Army of the Potomac. And given it was the most significant army going against its most significant foe, Robert E. Lee, Catton’s perspective is justified. It was a choice, of course, but a legitimate one. We shall now see how he concludes the series. (December, 2014)

A Stillness at Appomattox (1953)

By 1864, the war had lost all its romanticism. Despite a failed cavalry attack on Richmond, the Northern army was more professional. But it was also filled with bounty men—who joined for the bonus money, then deserted and joined again. Plus, many had signed up for three years, and now this term was ending and they had seen enough of war.

But on the highest level, things had changed, for Ulysses S. Grant was now in charge of the total army of 533,000, and he set up his headquarters near the Army of the Potomac, presumably to have better control over it. He brought from the West his reputation as a tough, smart general. But, in fact, he did not like the military, and would have preferred to become a professor of mathematics. Grant also brought in General Phil Sheridan to head his cavalry, expanded the fighting force by pulling troops away from protecting Washington, and reorganized the army into three corps instead of five, with new leaders.

In May, 1864, the Army of Potomac, 116,000 men, moved out, with Meade in charge and Grant alongside overseeing it. The objective was no longer to capture Richmond but to defeat Lee’s army. The route south led again to the Wilderness, where thick woodland still hindered visibility and maneuverability and where small arms produced fires and dense smoke. Confusion resulted as neither side could see its own troops or the enemy, and impromptu hand-fighting became the severest of the war.

After a pause at night, the main battle developed at Plank Road, with the generals in the rear having no idea how the battle was going. The South advanced this time, until the North built a defense line, and then counter-attacked. The North had more soldiers, Catton says, but that didn’t matter in the rough terrain. In all, the North lost 15,000 men. But, instead of withdrawing after what was a stalemate, that night the North continued south under Grant—an advance that revived the men’s spirits.

At Spotsylvania, a new cavalry strategy was developed by Colonel Emory Upton, who devised a way to breach the Rebel lines—not yelling or firing until on top of the trenches—and this was later implemented on a larger scale by Sheridan. But initial successes in both cases were eventually stalemated. Not least because having too many Union troops inhibited maneuverability

The worst fighting of the war, Catton says, was here at the Bloody Angle (a bending trench), and was complicated by rain and mud. Bodies eventually were piled four or five deep in the trenches. The North lost 7,000 men and the South more, but the Union generals agreed the advance was not worth the price. In all, the fighting in the area lasted more than two weeks, and the North lost 33,000 men.

And yet, under Grant, the Army of the Potomac continued south.

As the Union army crossed a series of rivers to approach Richmond, a major battle occurred at Cold Harbor. Again, the North lost an initial advantage, and the South held, not least because new rifles could now kill at longer distances, and a new strategy of digging trenches protected the shooters. Also, the Union forces of 40,000 had not surveyed the topography and the Rebel defenses. In a half hour, the North lost 7,000 men.

Grant dug in and realized he needed a new strategy. He decided to attack Petersburg, on the Appomattox River south of Richmond, because it was the key to supplying Richmond. Finding that city had strong defenses but few soldiers, General William Smith gained early success. But then he delayed attacking Petersburg, allowing the South to re-enforce its lines. The North also didn’t coordinate its military units, and as a result the attack failed, Lee’s army was not defeated, Richmond was not captured, and the war continued for another eight months.

In insufferable heat and dust, the Union had lost in four days what had lost in 12 days at Cold Harbor, including its bravest officers. Of 100,000 combat troops it had started with in May, it has lost 60,000, but with inexperienced replacements the roster was up to 86,000.

In a breakthrough strategy, the Union decided to use miners to dig a mine shaft into the hill under a Rebel fortress. Catton spends many pages on this unique idea. The main troops were tired, so the strategy called for fresh troops to charge, and these happened to be colored troops. But prejudice changed the decision at the last minute, and the charge that followed the tremendous explosion was late and disorganized. This gave the Rebels time to re-enforce their broken defenses and slaughter the Union troops. The latter lost 3,800 men, and Grant called this moment “his saddest affair.”

In July, 2014, the Union troops of an incompetent General Hunter withdrew from the Shenandoah Valley, and Jubal Early used the opening to threaten Washington, but seasoned Union troops arrived before the capital just in time. Meanwhile Stanton and the War Department overruled a Grant appointment in the field that Catton calls a “crisis of the war.” Grant reacted by appointing Gen. Phil Sheridan to lead his troops south and destroy Lee’s army. Catton calls this “the beginning of the end.”

In August, 1864, the war was still at a stalemate, and with a presidential election coming up, many thought Lincoln should not run. But then Sherman took Atlanta, Sheridan defeated Early in the Shenandoah Valley, and Grant ordered Sheridan to deprive the Rebel army of its breadbasket by burning or destroying barns, fences, and crops, and driving away all animals in that Valley. Lincoln again became a viable candidate, and took the election, even winning the soldier vote. A brief setback occurred when Sheridan was away and Early attacked up the Valley and threatened Washington again. But Sheridan arrived back just in time and almost single-handedly reorganized his troops, pursued Early, and destroyed his effectiveness.

Meanwhile, Union troops had built 35 miles of strong trenches south of Richmond and east of Petersburg, with the Rebels having equal defenses. As Grant began stretching the Rebel’s southern flank, thinning their forces overall, Southern morale was dropping. The Rebels even sent a peace mission north that was rejected, while, in Washington, Lincoln suggested offering reparations for the South’s loss of property (slaves?), which his cabinet rejected.

In March, 1865, Rebels made their last major attack, east of Petersburg, and were quickly stopped. At this point, Lincoln met with Grant and Sherman to decide the offer of surrender they might make. They decided not to be vindictive, and troops on both sides were in a similar mood. They were not bitter, but respected each other.

Grant wanted a flank attack of cavalry under Sheridan to cut the South’s supply lines, but rain hindered his plan; and the South, desperate, attacked first. But before Sheridan could trap the Southern forces out in front, Lee withdrew them. Grant then ordered a new attack all along the 35-mile line, and the Southern troops were too thin in the trenches to resist. Catton says this heralded the end of the war, as Grant pursued Lee westward, seeking to at long last destroy the Army of Virginia. Lee fled west on the north side of the Appomattox River, while Sheridan kept south of him to prevent his escape.

Sheridan soon announced he was facing a strong Rebel infantry force at Appomattox Court House and needed re-enforcement. Hungry, tired Union soldiers made a forced march to join Sheridan and to flank the Rebel army on three sides.

On Palm Sunday, 1965, two tired and hungry armies faced each other in silence, waiting, when out came a Southern rider with a white flag. Soon Grant and Lee were meeting at the Court House, while the troops waited. Still silent.

The cheering, Catton says, would come later.

Bruce Catton closes his book with a Union soldier’s quote. “I remember how we sat there and pitied and sympathized with these courageous Southern men who had fought for four long and dreary years all so stubbornly, so bravely and so well, and now, whipped, beaten, completely used up, were fully at our mercy—it was pitiful, sad, hard, and seemed to us altogether too bad.”

Comment. The overall impression one gets from this volume is that Grant made all the difference. Despite the tremendous loss of life, and the casualties sent to the rear—one hospital wagon train carried 7,000 wounded—he kept his army moving south. And this revived the soldiers’ spirit. Because they knew their leaders were not acknowledging either stalemate or defeat. Instead, they were part of the effort to outmuscle Lee, to keep him reacting instead of allowing him to plot his own strategy, such as his earlier incursion into Pennsylvania.

Catton also points out how often the North had an opportunity to crush Lee’s army. And failed, mainly because it did not coordinate its various units to act in concert, but also because of poor weather, poor judgment by senior officers, and the low morale of frequently tired troops.

What is remarkable throughout these three volume is the details given for every battle, details regarding weather, topography, the individual units involved, the personal reactions of the enlisted men, and the individual strategies for the companies brigades, divisions, corps, etc.—all of it based on the tremendous research cited in the notes, and based on original reports, narratives, and journals kept by the men involved in each battle. If there is a negative to the entire series, it is the effort needed to track the number of each unit as it reappears in the narrative, and so understand its relative place in the overall picture.

This has been a marvelous series of three volumes that not only describes the tactics and strategy of the Army of the Potomac but also helps the reader become a witness to the heartless horror of that 19th century war as experienced by its courageous soldiers and the, at times, incompetent officers. This is not a story of the entire war, but this was where the two major armies confronted each other and decided the outcome of that war.

The wealthy and industrial North could have won this war more quickly if at the start a stalwart Lincoln had found generals like Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman. When he did, the formerly confused and even rebellious Northern troops became proud and effective soldiers. These volumes give the reader a far greater understanding of life at the various bloody battlefronts of the American Civil War, the most bloody war of its era. And an understanding, too, of what it took to win that war.

I recommend these three volumes for all readers who want to enrich their knowledge of the American Civil War. And also to those who want to read a strong narrative of the second major event in this country’s history. But this is more than history. It is also about the price of our national heritage. It is about sacrifice and stupidity, about courage and confusion. It is about the blood that dyed those familiar names of Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. It is about the humanity that persevered, and the enmity that turned into respect. And while it is from the North’s point of view, it is fair, I think, to the South. It is the horror of total war that we read about, not horrors committed by either side. (January, 2015)

The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry

This is a quiet, heartfelt novel from 2008. It tells two stories, one by Roseanne Clear McNulty, who is one hundred years old and confined to a mental hospital, and the other by Dr. Grene, who is a psychiatrist at that hospital. Roseanne is the main character, and she is writing a secret memoir to help herself understand the unhappy past that led to her confinement. Dr. Grene is writing his own journal about his search to learn whether or not Roseanne needs to be under his care in the new hospital being built for his patients.

And their mutual search for the truth keeps the reader involved, with Roseanne’s search seeming to be more emotional, and Dr. Grene’s more intellectual. Indeed, an underlying theme of the novel is the tension in their revolutionary Irish society among one person’s idea of the truth, another person’s idea, and the actual truth.

Roeseanne sums up her search for the truth about her past in this way, which mirrors the author’s theme: “For history as far as I can see is not the arrangement of what happens, in sequence and in truth, but a fabulous arrangement of surmises and guesses held up as a banner against the assault of withering truth.”

This search for truth among many versions applies most particularly to Roseanne’s memory versus that of the local priest Father Gaunt, regarding what happened to her father when he died, as well as to her baby, whose death she may or may not have been the cause.

It is no small achievement that, except for hospital visits that the doctor makes to Roseanne, all the events here take place in the past, and yet we read on eagerly to learn the elusive truth of that past. What did happen in Roseanne’s youth? How did her farther die? How did her marriage dissolve? How did she become confined? And yet when we do learn the major truth about Roseanne and her baby, I was not entirely convinced. For me, it is too much a surprise for its own sake. It undoubtedly must have seemed to the author to be an intellectually perfect conclusion to tie his loose ends together. But I resisted accepting it. It was not for me emotionally satisfying. And it seemed to belong to another novel, given its tenor.

Roseanne, however, is a richly conceived character who has lived an interesting life. She grows up during the Irish troubles, with one faction of Irishmen fighting another in their search for independence. At the age of 12, she is confronted by the murder of an Irregular; and when her father dies, she denies reports that he was killed because he was a policeman. She grows up in a world of denial, in an atmosphere of family trust and political betrayal, as well as a world of masculine cruelty in the name of patriotism.

Religious tension also plays a role in this novel. And the Catholic Church, in the guise of Father Gaunt, comes closest to being the villain in the novel. For Roseanne is a Presbyterian, and a beautiful one whose father is dead and mother confined. So, to avoid her being a temptation to Sligo boys, Father Gaunt says, he matches her to a Catholic, Tom McNulty—despite Tom’s mother opposing her son’s marriage to a Protestant. And then, when the priest spots Roseanne in the company of another man, an Irregular (rebels the Church opposes), he interprets the worst, tells the McNulty family, and arranges an annulment—on the false basis of nymphomania. Which leaves Roseanne alone in a decrepit cottage at the edge of the sea.

Until she becomes pregnant. Which raises another question. When the child is born, it suddenly disappears. How? Why? The explanation, a throw-away line near the end, is not convincing.

In the continuous unfolding of Roseanne’s tragic life, author Barry not only deepens our sympathy for Roseanne but also writes with a beautiful but simple style, appropriate for her painful search among elusive memories. Which began with her innocence and her inability to understand what truly happened back then. And our sympathy is furthered by the doctor’s effort to understand her past, as well as his own responsibility for the present.

The novel works so well because these are two very sympathetic characters, and the reader easily identifies with them, including with a doctor who wants to learn the truth about Roseanne as much as she does herself. For he feels guilty that he has not paid sufficient to her and to why she is in his institution. And senses that his research into her world of rebellion and contradiction will lead to a final truth.

What makes this work so convincing and so moving is that Roseanne believes what she remembers is true, even as her memories change, even as she contradicts herself and does not realize her contradictions. And even as the doctor relates to us different conclusions, both by the priest and by the McNulty family, among others—with some of those conclusions being true, but others presented as facts to achieve a purpose, such as her confinement. It is a distortion of reality that mirrors the distortion on another plane in Irish society, as the political struggle grows more complex.

That the reader learns the true reality but that only one of the characters does so is a disappointment. Especially since the one who does not is Roseanne, the main character, the one we identify with, the one we are most concerned about. This is perhaps why the judges, in offering the Costa Book Award, said that the novel won despite the ending. That the beauty of its style and the richness of its human understanding were sufficient.

This novel inspires me to read more of Barry’s works, especially the one about Eneas McNulty, who plays a minor role here. Yes, minor, despite a significant encounter with Roseanne. One might ask, in fact, if their relationship has more significance in that other work, for it seems here more a matter of convenience for the author. Just as another convenience regards the explanation of why Dr. Grene is at the same institution as Roseanne.

Barry almost won the Man Booker with another novel on a similar theme. I can understand why, and will pursue more of this author so concerned about truth and innocence, reality and memory, and transgression and conscience. (December, 2014)

Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel

The reader is immediately eased into this 2013 successor to Mantel’s earlier novel, Wolf Hall, this world of Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, and the new queen Anne Boleyn. As they discuss the complicated era in which they live, we enter a world of politics, personal rivalries, religious issues, and international relations. And it involves up to 70 historical figures, which are, fortunately, listed in five pages at the beginning of the novel—to which one must refer constantly.

First, we meet the King and Thomas Cromwell on a visit to Wolf Hall, the family home of the Seymour family. They toy with and debate each other over the ordinary issues confronting both themselves and the kingdom, and we listen like a fly on the wall. Then we get closer to Cromwell on a trip into the heart of England that gives us another feel of the era. During all of this, we observe Henry’s concern for succession and the future of his reign. This involves Lady Katherine, the king’s ex-wife who is dying, her daughter Mary (Queen of Scots), Anne’s daughter Elizabeth, almost a baby, and Henry’s desire to have a son as a successor.

We also witness the waning influence of Anne, her denial of it, the King’s early interest in Jane Seymour, and Cromwell’s trying to balance his own interests with those of the King. Should the possible future queen, Mary, be allowed to visit her ill mother? Should Katherine be comforted by visits from friendly emissaries from Europe? Can Cromwell display human sympathy for her and also be loyal to his King’s political needs? And how can he serve the king while acknowledging Queen Anne’s determined use of her waning power—a queen Cromwell himself detests.

But after this absorbing beginning, the book slows down, and is filled with maneuvering. This is when Cromwell agrees to help Henry replace Anne with Jane Seymour. Anne is determine to hang onto her power, and particularly warns Cromwell not to oppose her. Meanwhile, the Seymour family, aware of Henry’s fascination with Jane, joins forces with a former regime, which includes Catholics, to regain power. Henry himself is concerned mainly with having a son, which he determines Anne cannot give him. And Cromwell, who depends on Henry for his power and who despises Anne, must maneuver carefully if he is to betray Anne but not betray Henry.

As a result, there is considerable talk, as the various plotters seek out each other’s positions, each other’s goals, and plan their own strategy. But there is little forward movement, little action that prompts a reaction. The talk itself is interesting, and the revelations about each character are interesting, but it is mainly Cromwell trying to out maneuver others, and meeting little resistance. In the end, there is only occasional drama.

There is a moment of drama when Anne is arrested—her denials, her acceptance of her fate—and taken to the Tower of London. There is another when Henry is frustrated that the case has not been made about Anne’s adultery, and he rails against Cromwell, threatening him if he fails to make the case. There are also brief references to Cromwell working too much with those of the former regime in order to please Henry and take down Anne—and the suggestion that they will betray him when they no longer need him.

But the main concern of Cromwell as the book moves toward the end is to make the case against Anne, that she committed adultery with various men, and that this is treason—for which she can be executed. And so Cromwell conducts a series of interviews with her suspected lovers. One interview with an innocent musician, Mark, has a moment of drama, as Cromwell browbeats him psychologically until he breaks down. (One review says the scene recalls the McCarthy era and its red-hunting.) The other interviews are fascinating in themselves, as Cromwell tries to get each man (McCarthy-like?) to confess to adultery with Anne. But conversation is conversation; it is not action, as intellectually interesting as it may be. So while Cromwell believes he is successfully building his case, there are no substantial confrontations between equals that cause a new effect. It is more intellectual dueling.

One might note, in passing, that Mantel in this novel has recognized one criticism of her earlier novel. And so here she identifies her hero, when it is not clear that the “he” she is referring to is Cromwell. Another stylistic note is that again she writes this novel in the present tense. And, again, it does not concern me, even helping to achieve an immediacy for a content that, as I said, is often more an intellectual debate than a dramatic confrontation. Note, in fact, that the word “bodies” in the title refers to the prisoners, for, as they are about to be brought before the authorities, they are already being considered as guilty and executed.

If I am less taken by this novel than by Wolf Hall, I think it may be because that novel was about Henry separating himself from the Catholic Church, whereas this novel is about him separating himself from Anne, his wife. The former has far broader political, philosophical, and religious implications, while this separation is purely a personal one. Henry was once fascinated by, but now cannot stand, Anne. And his new emotional whim for a non-descript Jane Seymour has for me far less impact than duels with cardinals, popes, and a future saint. Whereas with Wolf Hall, I was interested in Henry, in his supposedly desperate motivation, why he was doing what he was doing, he has now turned into a typical shallow husband, claiming he wants to have a son but perhaps simply seeking a fresh woman for his bed. And the interest here moves primarily to Thomas Cromwell.

For her ending, Mantel makes the interesting decision of omitting any account of the trial of the four condemned men or of Anne herself. Perhaps because she sensed that after Cromwell’s individual confrontations with these men, nothing new remained about their situation or their denials that could be introduced at their trial. For her dramatic ending, she chose, instead, to describe in detail the execution of Anne, and it is, indeed, a powerful scene. And what she leaves us with, on the final pages, is a public suspicion of Cromwell in some quarters—that “if this is what Cromwell does to the cardinal’s lesser enemies, what will he do by and by to the king himself?” Presumably, it is a foreshadowing of the novel to come.

The major creation of this novel is, of course, Cromwell. It is Cromwell, not Henry, who drives this book, who creates guilt for men who may or may not be guilty. But who overpowers them with his wit and his intelligence. Just as he understands and anticipates Henry’s every wish, so does he the reactions of these possibly innocent men, an innocence of history’s merely rumored trysts with Anne. James Wood in the New Yorker sums up Cromwell concisely: “brutal, worldly, reticent, practical, unsentimental but not without tenderness of a kind, Biblically literate but theologically uncommitted, freakishly self-confident but perilously low on friends.”

And Mantel, who is in full command of this novel, has herself chosen to draw a remarkable portrait of a man whom historians have often presented as a cruel, heartless, and selfish villain. Whereas, she sums up one description of him almost poetically; indeed, as one would an interesting hero: “His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop’s palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed.”

From now on, Henry’s story will likely become repetitive, as he seeks out new queens. Nor will his monumental ego any longer shake the world. It is Cromwell who will interest us now. We know from history that he will meet his fate in 1640, but we do not know how he will lose the power he has here. There are foreshadowings, yes; but how will it happen, since he is so intelligent, so clever, and so loyal to Henry? The third volume that Mantel has promised us reportedly will be called The Mirror and the Light. May its era be as richly presented as here, but may this new novel also probe the interior of a Cromwell now so sure of himself. May it probe his weaknesses, his second-guessing, and his doubts. And may it probe, above all, his conscience. (November, 2014)

The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht

This 2010 work is a remarkable novel. And a highly imaginative one. Written by a young woman wise far beyond her years. Wise, especially, in being able to recreate what one speculates was the experience of her family and their suffering in a violent era of two world wars. It is also a complicated novel, shifting back and forth between the woman narrator Natalia’s present life, as a doctor dealing with the ills of society as well as the death of her beloved grandfather, and the life of that grandfather when he is nine years old. a major war is on the horizon, and his innocent life is complicated by the presence of a legendary tiger.

The reader moves back and forth between these two eras of time as well as from a world of reality to a more primitive world of superstition and legend. That is, to the world of the tiger and that of a deaf mute woman who has fled a violent marriage—arranged much like that of the Biblical Jacob—and found solace in the company of that tiger, who has fled the domesticated life of the local zoo after the city was bombed.

The physical descriptions of the war-torn landscape, of ruined cities, distraught citizens, and a fertile countryside, is brilliant, and yet the exact location of these events is never indicated, although it is clearly Eastern Europe and suggests the tumultuous history of Yugoslavia, where the author was born. The explanation appears to be that Obreht is aware that if the legendary aspects of her novel are to be credible she needs to remove that legendary portion from the world of specific reality.

But if the geography is elusive, what is not is the presence of death. In an era of warfare, death is everywhere, of course. And here it is given its reality through “the deathless man,” whom the grandfather continually encounters in his life, a man who is constantly being killed but never dies. He is, in fact, the author’s messenger of death, as he serves coffee to those he meets and then reads the coffee ground to determine if they are about to die. And, yet, like other “villains” of this novel, the author makes him human. She does so by her tale of why he was condemned not to die— because he once relieved a girl he loved from the death that she was fated to suffer. Note also that a subsidiary theme of this novel is how doctors, both the grandfather and the girl, deal with the constant presence of death.

What is amazing is that Obreht, who left Yugoslavia at seven, is now an American and wrote this work while studying for her MFA at Cornell. The novel was published when she was only 25. Her talent was immediately recognized by The New Yorker, when it ran an excerpt, and one can see many chapters that could have been extracted from the final manuscript. For she has written here a number of set pieces and a number of character studies that can easily stand alone. Not that they do not belong, for the character studies, in particular, humanize and help the reader to understand characters whose actions would otherwise seem abhorrent. For even as they portray the violence in these particular human beings, such as Luka, the abusive husband of the tiger’s wife, they also demonstrate how such villains came to commit their violent acts.

The structure of the novel revolves around Natalia’s attempt to discover the circumstance of the mysterious death of her grandfather. How well did he know he was going to die? Why did he leave home and his wife in order to die? Why did he go to the small town he went to? Why did he say he went there to visit Natalia, when that was not the case? In her own attempt to answer those questions while she is away on a mission to help the unfortunate, Natalia recalls her life with her grandfather, beginning with how he took her regularly to the zoo, where he passed on to her his fascination with tigers. As she searches for her answers, she discovers—from her memories and from those who knew her grandfather—about the deathless man, the tiger, and the tiger’s “wife.”

The major problem I had with this novel was being unable to remember where the story was each day when I returned to it. As vivid as the writing was, as interesting as the various tales were, the events themselves did not stick with me from one day to the next. Which perhaps goes to the point of some critics, who have said that there is not enough substance behind the beautiful, evocative writing. Nor enough connection among Natalia’s story, her grandfather’s story, the war story, and the legends of the deathless man and of the tiger and his wife. Another explanation for the abrupt moving back and forth in time is technical. For it helps to create suspense when we leave one era at a climactic moment, and return to the drama of the other era.

Yet, to balance that, I was fascinated each day by the content I was reading, and in my final analysis, I do believe the pieces fit together. And if the final fates of the characters is not clear—that of the tiger, of the tiger’s wife, of the tiger’s wife’s husband, of the grandfather, and even of others I have not mentioned, such as the Darisa, a great bear of a hunter and the tiger’s enemy—is that not often the case in real life? And is it especially not the case in the legends we recall, where the otherworld mysteriousness is the point, not the actual conclusion of the tale?

I believe Obreht wanted to pour into this work everything she felt about life and its meaning. That such meaning, for example, goes far beyond the reality we live, that it also includes a reality we don’t live but do imagine. Often, what we wish had happened. Which can turn into legend. But the author also shows that the meaning of life can be found in death, in whether we accept its arrival and in how we react to that knowledge. Thus, the presence of the deathless man.

I often disagree with Michiko Kakutani, but her New York Times review offers a summary of Obreht’s approach that is quite interesting: “It’s not so much magical realism in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Gunter Grass,” she writes, “as it is an extraordinary limber exploration of allegory and myth making and the ways in which narratives (be they superstitions, cultural beliefs or supernatural legends) reveal—and reflect back— the identities of individuals and communities: their dreams, fears, sympathies and hatreds.”

What Obreht accomplishes so effectively here is to mine the specific to reveal the universal. Time and again, her characters extract great truths from their daily life, their daily suffering. That war and its violence, in current parlance, is a game-changer, that our lives are never the same again, that we see life far differently, that out of daily experience comes a long view of history, of both man’s significance in that history and the value of each man’s life.

A story built around the relationship between a grandfather and a granddaughter is quite rare, and Obreht discusses this in an interview. She says that grandchildren often cannot relate to their parents’ lives but do want to know about their grandparents’ lives, lives that belong to an earlier era they cannot identify with but that they are curious about. She also says her own father was not in her life, but that she had a close relationship with her grandfather, who often did take her to the zoo. But beyond that, she says, this novel is not autobiographical. Of course, emotionally, it is quite autobiographical, and her relationship with her grandfather is why it is so successful. It is the starting point, and gives the novel its heart.

In the same interview, Obreht says she is not sure what she will write next, but does acknowledge her continuing interest in the Balkans. And I myself would not mind visiting that world again. But this raises the same question I had on finishing her novel. What will come next? She has put into this work so much of her knowledge of life, so much of her own family relationships, so much of her own awareness of legend and the imagination, what is left to inspire her? One might find it difficult to move from this to her view of American life. Perhaps there is something in her relationship with her mother, with whom she moved to Cyprus, to Egypt, and then to America. There may also be a germ in the fact that her grandfather was Catholic and that her grandmother was Moslem, and how they got along in a society that often did not.

In any event, both the literary world and I will be deeply interested in what comes next. It will have to be truly marvelous to top this work. Which often second novels are not. Perhaps the key will be how much more she discovers about life. How much more she is able to penetrate into the heart and into the soul of the people she writes about. This novel, as profound as it is, is more about surfaces. About the legends that we build to explain our lives. I might be more interested in the changes that occur within her characters, perhaps as a result of the same violence that inspires these legends. (November, 2014)

The Keepers of the House, by Shirley Ann Grau

This is another novel that has sat on my shelves for a while. Grau was recognized a half century ago as an important writer, but has lately been forgotten. After a recent note revived my interest in this 1964 novel, I opened its covers. And was immediately enthralled.

It brought back memories of Faulkner. The style was different, much smoother, but it was concerned with family, with generations and ancestors, and with the culture of the South.

This is the story of the Howland family. We learn early on that their history is being recalled by Abigail, and she says that it is about her grandfather, about Margaret, and about herself. (It is also about their life in the changing farmhouse of the title.)

The work begins as a series of portraits, complete in themselves. We read, first, of grandfather William’s courtship, marriage, and widowhood, then of the beautifully portrayed family celebration of the marriage of his daughter Abigail, and then of his sojourn into the swamp to win a bet that he can find an illegal still. He journeys in a boat, and it is a particularly evocative portrayal of man confronting nature, reminiscent of Faulkner.

On this journey, William encounters Margaret, a poor black woman, and we then read of her lonely upbringing before and after her own grandmother dies. Again, there is a moving portrait, this time of her family’s encounter with death. This is followed by additional sensitive writing, as Margaret encounters the plant life around her, as well as the insect and animal life. Finally, she meets Howland and goes to work for him. She is seventeen, and we are unprepared for what happens next. But are we unprepared because Grau was reluctant to write about the sex that soon looms between them, or because writers wrote about this less often in the sixties?

Grau then skips a generation, and the longest narrative is given to Abigail, the granddaughter of Howland, a Howland who has already impregnated Margaret five times. Three generations are joined, and we are up to the present. But the next 30 to 40 pages are disappointing. Abigail has no internal life and develops no relationships. Not with her grandfather, not with Margaret, not with Margaret’s children, not with Nature. Her mother, a shadowy figure, abruptly dies off stage. Abigail has a crush on a high school boy, but he never appears. There is no story, only anecdote, no connections, no interest, until Abigail reaches college and both loses her virginity and meets her future husband. (Is it irony, or just planned coincidence, that her own marriage will encounter the same fate as that of her mother?)

However, as the anecdotal approach continues, we sense, between the lines, that her new husband John’s political ambition and his attitude toward Negroes may lead to marital tension. One speculates that the novel’s earlier coverage of family events had interest because they featured only the highlights of those events, and, as related by Abigail, were given a certain perspective. Whereas, the routine of Abigail bearing children, supporting her husband, and running a home, are simply sequential events, and lack any perspective, much less any tension.

Emotion and perspective finally do enter, however, with two deaths. First, that of Grandfather Howland, and then of Margaret. In each case, it is how the family reacts rather than any description of the death or the service to follow. This is particularly true in the case of Margaret, as we anticipate that the South’s attitude toward Negroes may at last become significant.

And finally, the chickens do come home to roost—with two bits of melodrama that really do not fit the tone of the novel. The first concerns the town’s revenge on the dead Howland for having married a Negro woman. And the second is his daughter Abigail’s revenge on the town. Both scenes are well drawn, but one senses the author wanting to conclude her novel with an emotional punch. I even wondered if she had planned those scenes, especially the first, from the beginning. But I decided not, or hoped not, for it would make the rest too calculated.

To sum up, this begins as a beautifully written novel, a beautifully felt novel whose perspective fades when Howland’s daughter, Abigail, takes over as narrator of her own story. Then it becomes a routinely plotted young woman’s life, until the past catches up with the present—a catching up that I think is too arbitrary. And which ends up betraying the hand of the author, who uses an election “scandal” to instigate this tale of retribution.

As I recall, I became aware of Grau following reviews of her previous novel, The House on Coliseum Street, which is about a New Orleans family. I purchased this book as a remainder, but cannot recall whether I did so because it had won the Pulitzer Prize. (I have to believe it won, in part, because of its racial theme. For that committee likes novels that capture a bit of the American scene.)

So reading this work has been a rewarding literary experience, and acquainted me with a truly literate American author. But, like many, I would also label her as a Southern writer, even though she derides that label. One has to, I believe, because she captures so well the Southern culture.

Which was her mission here as a novelist. To portray through one Southern family the complications that arise from whites and Negroes being so tied together, and yet so separate. It is a social contradiction that easily disrupts, as here, the family life of both races. But for me, the author’s mission interferes with her novel’s literary value. Which ends up being driven more by plot, the election scandal and the barn-burning scene, than by character.

Yes, Abigail is a strong character at the end, but in the final scene, with her laughter and her crying, the author seems to lose control over her. Or has Abigail been undone by her own actions? Has she become as vengeful, as corrupted, as the prejudiced townspeople around her?

Reading more Grau would be interesting, but her work is not at the top of my list. (November, 2014)

The Casual Vacancy, by J. K. Rowling

This is a good novel. No one should say surprisingly, for Rowling is a born storyteller and a solid technician in this 2012 work. What I admired from the beginning was her creation of life in a small British town, Pagford, from the political confrontations to the family jealousies to the juvenile insecurities. And from the class warfare to the social ills to the generational conflicts.

The novel begins when a pillar of the town, Barry Fairbrother suddenly dies. This calls for a vote to replace him on the parish council—which introduces political conflict, since the dead man wanted to keep the town together rather than exile a poor community to another jurisdiction. To explore this conflict, we meet the families on both sides. There are Howard and Shirley Mollison, who run the council and want to rid the town of the poor, including a local clinic; their son Miles, a candidate following his father’s wishes; and Miles’ wife, Samantha. There are the Prices, whose son Andrew resents his father Simon and his decision to run for the council to take advantage of potential graft. And there is Andrew’s pal Stuart (Fats), whose father, Colby, is running to preserve the policies of the dead man.

Beyond the political intrigue, there is social conflict, centered on the poor Weeden family. Daughter Krystal is a teenager whose mother Terri is a self-centered prostitute and a heroin addict. Krystal adores her three-year-old brother, Robbie, whom her mother neglects. The daughter is the novel’s most fully developed character, and Rowling seems to identify with her insecurities, her contradictions, and yet her sound family sense. The Weedon’s friendly social worker is Kay Bawden, who has a beautiful daughter Gaia. Kay has come to Pagford hoping to find security with Gavin Hughes, a local lawyer. Finally, there is Parminda Jawanda, a doctor with a conscience, a handsome husband, and a plain, insecure daughter. Sukhvinder.

This is a complicated roster of characters, actually eight families, to follow during the town’s political and social intrigue. And it is complicated further by the five children. Andrew is buddies with Fats, and is in love with Gaia, who is best buddies with Sukhvinder. Meanwwhile, Fats has a continuing affair with Krystal, who wants to have a child in order to escape her family. And the still further complication is that each of these five children has a major problem with his or her parents.

In sum, I was impressed and absorbed by this portrait of a town and its families in conflict. But then “The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother” enters, leaving scandalous messages about the parish council and its candidates on the council’s website. Now, the more significant plotting of the novel truly begins, for these messages are being left, we know, by the three children, Andrew, Fats, and Sukhvinder, to revenge themselves on their parents. It is a unique plot device that is credible and certainly is in keeping with modern technology, yet it also reflects, in its way, the hand of the author—an author who has just written a classic series of novels about teenagers, the Harry Potter series.

And, indeed, the rest of this novel revolves around the actions of these five teenagers. The political conflict and election now recedes into the background, except for one argumentative but anti-climactic parish council meeting. The novel’s pace also quickens, as the children’s actions replace the verbal altercations of the adults. The final action centers on the desperate actions of Krystal and their impact on her family and on her fellow teenagers.

As I began reading this novel, it seemed that Rowling was determined to convince critics that she could write a true novel for adults. This came across from her portrait of this town, its political situation, and its various families. I sensed she was now writing from a life she knew, as serious writers do, rather than from a life she imagined. Toward the end, however, while I still considered it a valid, serious novel, it seemed to me that a commercial aspect, an emphasis on plot more than on relationships, was seeping in. Finally, the emphasis on the children at the end seemed to reflect the type of characters, the record has shown, she is most comfortable with.

It is this emphasis on the children at the end that most concerns me. The novel began as a portrait of a town, of its hypocrisies and its prejudices. This legitimately included the frustrations of its teenagers with their parents. But these frustratione began to drive the plot, and the reader gradually isn’t sure where the emphasis is meant to lie. Finally, the action of one teenager to take all the blame for the website messages and the death of another seems insufficiently prepared for, seems insufficiently motivated.

Perhaps the one aspect that I agree with in Kakutani’s very negative Times review is that there are no good characters here that the reader can identify with, as there would naturally be in an average small town. All are intended to come alive through their weaknesses. The social worker Kay is a good person at heart, but she is ineffective, and emerges as inconsequential. And Krystal’s goodness is outweighed by her anti-social rebellion. The result is an expose of this town more than a recreation of it. And a novel that leaves us depressed more than exhilarated, having introduced us to characters we would not really want as friends or neighbors.

On the other hand, the teenagers are more interesting as individuals than the adults. The prejudices of the adults could be considered more stereotypical, whereas the teenagers have their own individual problems and react to one another, and talk to one another, in their own individual way. As a result, we get to know them better, understand them better, and so sympathize with them better, even if we are disturbed by much of their conduct and remain unconvinced by their final actions and final fate.

To sum up, this is an admirable, old-fashioned novel about small-town English life, but it is peopled by unsympathetic characters and somewhat manipulated by the author to convey a message of social injustice and personal hypocrisy. It is dominated in the end by children, with whom she seems more comfortable, and who perhaps reflect the experience and emotions of her own past. (November, 2014)