Books read this week: Ancient Iraq 8/10 (Georges Roux), Fairy Folklore 7/10 (Anna Franklin and Paul Mason), Changeless 5/10 (Gail Carriger)
Time is a strange thing; it's been a very long time since there's been a Sargon in Akkad - in fact, it's been a long time since there's been an Akkad full stop - and yet somehow Roux's Ancient Iraq manages to make the Babylonians, Sumerians and Assyrians seem very contemporary. Which is a stunning achievement considering the gigantic scope of the book; it covers over 5000 years of history, most of it urban, all of it very complex. I found it a brilliant introduction to a little studied period.
It is strange that I find it far easier to relate to ancient and classical figures than to medieval ones; I can imagine holding a conversation with Octavian or Socrates, and I can understand how Hammurabi or Odysseus thought, in a way I really can't with someone like Martin Luther, or Bernard of Clairvaux. I think partly this is a product of the shape of society. The Romans, the Greeks, and especially the Sumerians lived in what was fundamentally an urban society, and moreover, an urban society with a highly developed system of government; pretty much no one in the middle ages (apart, perhaps, from the Venetians - who I do understand) di.
In Mesopotamia (and Egypt), this was totally unavoidable - as a peasant, if your neighbour doesn't clear out his irrigation ditches properly, your fields salt up and you starve: some form of government is essential. That said, I found the degree of central planning used by the Sumerians quite surprising: a phenomenal degree of organisation must have been required. Of course, one of the great benefits the student of Mesopotamian history has is the amount of material that has been preserved - as everything was written on clay tablets, and clay tablets, when baked, last essentially forever, there is a huge wealth of material on the every day life of ordinary people available, in a way there really isn't for the middle ages, the Romans or even the Greeks. So we can read personal letters, see markbooks from schools and even look at doctor's textbooks (although this last is a little repetitive "If the patient turns yellow, the patient has jaundice and will die. If you see a black cat, the patient will die. If you see a white cat, the patient will die. If you see a red cat, the patient may recover - but will probably die in great pain." They were apparently very good at determining what was wrong with you - less good at fixing it). This also lets us see the personal side of historical figures, again something that we tend to lack, except in the last century or two - so we have, for example, a king sending letters berating his ne'er-do-well son for spending his time with fast chariots and loose women when his brother has been out conquering Babylon, and the Hittite king being told that the omens are not favourable - and then insisting that the priests take the omens again, and again, and again, until they come out right (a very pragmatic approach to augury).
Fairy Folklore does exactly what it says on the tin: a collection of popular beliefs about the Fair Folk, some harmless ("jam must be stirred with a rowan twig, else the Fairies will steal it"), some less so: in particular, the section on changelings is quite hair-raising. If you believed that your child might be at risk from Fairies, you were advised to suspend a pair of scissors over the unfortunate child's cradle, and feed it digitalis. In the (unlikely) event the baby survived these ministrations, it would presumably be safe from abduction. The treatment suggested when the child has actually been replaced with a changeling is even more unpleasant - and the child was even less likely to survive. If the stories are actually true (and there's always a risk that country folk have made them up to screw with the folklorists), it's quite disturbing. I was struck however by the similarities between the symptoms of autism and those associated with a changeling child: a previously normal child (apparently) undergoes a dramatic change in personality, and becomes withdrawn, appearing to lose their language skills. I almost wonder if the changeling myth was a socially acceptable explanation for the infanticide of children with developmental disorders.
Changeless is the next book in the Parasol Protectorate series. It's OK, but not as funny or as interesting as the first book.
Monday, 26 September 2011
Monday, 19 September 2011
Of Men and Monsters
Books read this week: Beowulf 7/10, The Poem of the Cid 7/10, Soulless 7/10 (Gail Carriger), In the House of the Worm 7/10 (George R R Martin)
Beowulf is, of course, the Old English Epic, just about the only survivor of the (mostly) pre-Christian English oral tradition and a cracking good story in it's own right. It is interesting to compare it with the Iliad and the Gilgamesh Epic; Beowulf is shorter than either, and, with all the various digressions (fascinating as they are), spends much less time with the main characters and so we get a much fuzzier picture of the protagonist and his companions. Achilles, Odysseus and Agamemnon are developed, distinct characters with their own strengths and foibles, as are Gilgamesh and Enkidu; I didn't really get that sense with Beowulf. There just seemed to be a succession of blokes with axes hitting each other. This is unfortunate, as it robs the story of some of it's pathos: Enkidu's death in the Gilgamesh epic is genuinely moving in a way that Beowulf's just isn't. This is not just a product of length - some of the ballads are capable of building sympathy and pathos in just a dozen lines (see Twa Corbies or the Cruel Mother). The other thing missing from Beowulf is a clear overarching theme; this isn't to say that there are no themes, just that both the Iliad and Gilgamesh have a strong, single overarching idea: in the Iliad it is rage and jealousy (as Homer tells us right at the start: "Sing O Muse of the Rage of Achilles") and in Gilgamesh the inevitability of death. The closest thing to an overarching theme in Beowulf is "if you're a king and your warriors won't fight for you, you're in trouble".
The Poem of the Cid is one of the Spanish stories about Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid. It has the feel of one of the Robin Hood stories, if Robin Hood had reacted to his exile by travelling to Scotland and stealing Aberdeen. You can tell from the repeated epithets ("the Campeador", "the Cid of the flowing beard") that the poem was originally transmitted orally, and there is (much as in Robin Hood) an interesting undercurrent of social conflict; we're reminded several times that El Cid comes from relatively humble origins, and the villains of the piece are the two (very aristocractic) Infantes of Carrion, who marry and then abandon the daughters of the Cid, rather than the Moors. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that a more accurate translation of the title of the work ("El Poema de mio Cid") would be "The Poem of My Cid", Cid being a word of Arabic origin meaning "Lord". The most entertaining passage of the poem by far is the incident where a lion gets loose in the palace, the commotion wakes El Cid, who then proceeds to stare down the lion, which then creeps back to it's cage and closes the door. Comedy gold. Both the Poem of the Cid and Beowulf I read in Penguin Classics translation.
Soulless is a fairly light and frothy supernatural comedy/romance, set in Victorian London. It's nice to see the werewolves get some love (both figuratively and literally, in this case), and even nicer to see a heroine who responds to being leapt upon by a vampire by finding the nearest heavy object and smacking it in the nuts. I was again struck by the way in which American books on the supernatural tend to assume that it will be handled by the free market; the government is at best indifferent, and at worst actively malicious. British books, on the other hand, tend to assume that supernatural occurrences will be investigated by Her Majesty's Constabulary, and that if Queen Victoria finds out people are being murdered with magic she Will Not Be Amused. I think it's an interesting commentary on our assumptions about the role and limits of government on either side of the Atlantic.
Finally, In The House of the Worm is a fairly short post-apocalyptic piece by George RR Martin, he of A Song of Ice and Fire fame; it's entertaining enough, and probably best described as a morlock's-eye view of the end of the world.
Beowulf is, of course, the Old English Epic, just about the only survivor of the (mostly) pre-Christian English oral tradition and a cracking good story in it's own right. It is interesting to compare it with the Iliad and the Gilgamesh Epic; Beowulf is shorter than either, and, with all the various digressions (fascinating as they are), spends much less time with the main characters and so we get a much fuzzier picture of the protagonist and his companions. Achilles, Odysseus and Agamemnon are developed, distinct characters with their own strengths and foibles, as are Gilgamesh and Enkidu; I didn't really get that sense with Beowulf. There just seemed to be a succession of blokes with axes hitting each other. This is unfortunate, as it robs the story of some of it's pathos: Enkidu's death in the Gilgamesh epic is genuinely moving in a way that Beowulf's just isn't. This is not just a product of length - some of the ballads are capable of building sympathy and pathos in just a dozen lines (see Twa Corbies or the Cruel Mother). The other thing missing from Beowulf is a clear overarching theme; this isn't to say that there are no themes, just that both the Iliad and Gilgamesh have a strong, single overarching idea: in the Iliad it is rage and jealousy (as Homer tells us right at the start: "Sing O Muse of the Rage of Achilles") and in Gilgamesh the inevitability of death. The closest thing to an overarching theme in Beowulf is "if you're a king and your warriors won't fight for you, you're in trouble".
The Poem of the Cid is one of the Spanish stories about Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid. It has the feel of one of the Robin Hood stories, if Robin Hood had reacted to his exile by travelling to Scotland and stealing Aberdeen. You can tell from the repeated epithets ("the Campeador", "the Cid of the flowing beard") that the poem was originally transmitted orally, and there is (much as in Robin Hood) an interesting undercurrent of social conflict; we're reminded several times that El Cid comes from relatively humble origins, and the villains of the piece are the two (very aristocractic) Infantes of Carrion, who marry and then abandon the daughters of the Cid, rather than the Moors. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that a more accurate translation of the title of the work ("El Poema de mio Cid") would be "The Poem of My Cid", Cid being a word of Arabic origin meaning "Lord". The most entertaining passage of the poem by far is the incident where a lion gets loose in the palace, the commotion wakes El Cid, who then proceeds to stare down the lion, which then creeps back to it's cage and closes the door. Comedy gold. Both the Poem of the Cid and Beowulf I read in Penguin Classics translation.
Soulless is a fairly light and frothy supernatural comedy/romance, set in Victorian London. It's nice to see the werewolves get some love (both figuratively and literally, in this case), and even nicer to see a heroine who responds to being leapt upon by a vampire by finding the nearest heavy object and smacking it in the nuts. I was again struck by the way in which American books on the supernatural tend to assume that it will be handled by the free market; the government is at best indifferent, and at worst actively malicious. British books, on the other hand, tend to assume that supernatural occurrences will be investigated by Her Majesty's Constabulary, and that if Queen Victoria finds out people are being murdered with magic she Will Not Be Amused. I think it's an interesting commentary on our assumptions about the role and limits of government on either side of the Atlantic.
Finally, In The House of the Worm is a fairly short post-apocalyptic piece by George RR Martin, he of A Song of Ice and Fire fame; it's entertaining enough, and probably best described as a morlock's-eye view of the end of the world.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Turbulent Priests
Books read this week: A History of Christianity 6/10 (Diarmaid MacCulloch)
I've been reading it off and on since Christmas, and this week I finally got round to finishing MacCulloch's History of Christianity. It would be, I imagine, something of a doorstopper if I weren't reading it on the Kindle. It covers something like 3000 years of history (as it follows both the Jewish and Greek roots of Christianity) in a surprising amount of detail. There's plenty here: martyrs, saints, sinners and a whole lot of hypocrisy. MacCulloch is (understandably) very careful not to tread on anyone's toes, especially when it comes to terminology, and naming the various denominations. I understand why he does it, but it did take me a while to adjust. I've spent fifteen years reading about the monophysites, and so calling them miaphysites took a little getting used to. And the odd reference to "The Church of Rome" does creep through (a phrase I hear in my mind in the voice of an angry Ian Paisley). MacCulloch is also, in my opinion (and quite understandably for a religious historian) unreasonably unsympathetic to the French and Russian revolutionaries. He fails to take account of the close relationship between the Ancien Regime and the Church in both cases: if the Church maintains (as the Russian Orthodox Church did) that the old ruler was "Equal of the Arch-Angels and God's Vice-Gerent on Earth" then they're not going to get a very sympathetic hearing from the people who've just been compelled to bump off that ruler. Also, the characterisation of Nicholas II as "well-meaning and amiable" is one I have to take exception to: when discussing that monarch phrases like "bloody handed butcher", "criminally incompetent" and "evil little bastard" are rather more accurate. I think this tendency was most grating in the discussion of the suppression of the Greek Catholic Church in the Ukraine in the late 1940s. There's a lot of condemnation of Stalin's suppression of the Church, which is all well and good (after all, Stalin was a very unpleasant man who did some very unpleasant things), except that only two pages earlier MacCulloch was telling us how the Greek Catholic Church spent the early part of the 1940s murdering tens of thousands of Polish (Roman) Catholics as part of a program of ethnic cleansing: something which, in my opinion, should really get your church suppressed.
Which leads quite neatly into one of the other things I took from the book: the phenomenal ability of Christians and Christian Churches throughout the ages to persecute each other (and other faiths), even when they have recent experiences of persecution themselves: the funniest passage in the book is one which reads (more or less) "24th March 323 CE: Christianity recognised as the official religion of the Roman Empire. 25th March 323 CE: First official persecution of heretics by the Roman Empire." We also have the Bishop who said "You know back when Christians were a persecuted minority and we were made to wear coloured strips of cloth so we could be identified?" "Yes?" "I was just thinking, that was a really good idea!". I actually read a blog post the other day which suggested The Song of Ice and Fire wasn't really like Medieval Europe because there's religious persecution in the books. I would suggest telling that to the Albigensians, except you can't because they're all fucking dead.
I think the final thing I took from the book was a renewed dislike of Augustine of Hippo (do you have a picture of a hippopotamus in a dog collar? Because I do.). He wasn't top of my list of favourite theologians to begin with, but according to MacCulloch, basically everything I don't like about Christianity comes directly from his work: hang ups about sex, forcible conversion, even predestination. I single out predestination because I consider it a particularly odious piece of theology, and moreover, absolutely impossible to reconcile with the concept of a benevolent God. Not that it matters to me, being an atheist, but nevertheless the point stands. MacCulloch casts the Reformation as a battle between Augustine's doctrine of the Church (on the Catholic side) and Augustine's doctrine of Faith (on the Protestant side): as far as I can tell, Augustine is in the unenviable position of being responsible for the worst ideas on both sides of one of the larger and more bloody conflicts in human history.
I've been reading it off and on since Christmas, and this week I finally got round to finishing MacCulloch's History of Christianity. It would be, I imagine, something of a doorstopper if I weren't reading it on the Kindle. It covers something like 3000 years of history (as it follows both the Jewish and Greek roots of Christianity) in a surprising amount of detail. There's plenty here: martyrs, saints, sinners and a whole lot of hypocrisy. MacCulloch is (understandably) very careful not to tread on anyone's toes, especially when it comes to terminology, and naming the various denominations. I understand why he does it, but it did take me a while to adjust. I've spent fifteen years reading about the monophysites, and so calling them miaphysites took a little getting used to. And the odd reference to "The Church of Rome" does creep through (a phrase I hear in my mind in the voice of an angry Ian Paisley). MacCulloch is also, in my opinion (and quite understandably for a religious historian) unreasonably unsympathetic to the French and Russian revolutionaries. He fails to take account of the close relationship between the Ancien Regime and the Church in both cases: if the Church maintains (as the Russian Orthodox Church did) that the old ruler was "Equal of the Arch-Angels and God's Vice-Gerent on Earth" then they're not going to get a very sympathetic hearing from the people who've just been compelled to bump off that ruler. Also, the characterisation of Nicholas II as "well-meaning and amiable" is one I have to take exception to: when discussing that monarch phrases like "bloody handed butcher", "criminally incompetent" and "evil little bastard" are rather more accurate. I think this tendency was most grating in the discussion of the suppression of the Greek Catholic Church in the Ukraine in the late 1940s. There's a lot of condemnation of Stalin's suppression of the Church, which is all well and good (after all, Stalin was a very unpleasant man who did some very unpleasant things), except that only two pages earlier MacCulloch was telling us how the Greek Catholic Church spent the early part of the 1940s murdering tens of thousands of Polish (Roman) Catholics as part of a program of ethnic cleansing: something which, in my opinion, should really get your church suppressed.
Which leads quite neatly into one of the other things I took from the book: the phenomenal ability of Christians and Christian Churches throughout the ages to persecute each other (and other faiths), even when they have recent experiences of persecution themselves: the funniest passage in the book is one which reads (more or less) "24th March 323 CE: Christianity recognised as the official religion of the Roman Empire. 25th March 323 CE: First official persecution of heretics by the Roman Empire." We also have the Bishop who said "You know back when Christians were a persecuted minority and we were made to wear coloured strips of cloth so we could be identified?" "Yes?" "I was just thinking, that was a really good idea!". I actually read a blog post the other day which suggested The Song of Ice and Fire wasn't really like Medieval Europe because there's religious persecution in the books. I would suggest telling that to the Albigensians, except you can't because they're all fucking dead.
I think the final thing I took from the book was a renewed dislike of Augustine of Hippo (do you have a picture of a hippopotamus in a dog collar? Because I do.). He wasn't top of my list of favourite theologians to begin with, but according to MacCulloch, basically everything I don't like about Christianity comes directly from his work: hang ups about sex, forcible conversion, even predestination. I single out predestination because I consider it a particularly odious piece of theology, and moreover, absolutely impossible to reconcile with the concept of a benevolent God. Not that it matters to me, being an atheist, but nevertheless the point stands. MacCulloch casts the Reformation as a battle between Augustine's doctrine of the Church (on the Catholic side) and Augustine's doctrine of Faith (on the Protestant side): as far as I can tell, Augustine is in the unenviable position of being responsible for the worst ideas on both sides of one of the larger and more bloody conflicts in human history.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
My Kingdom for a Horse!
Books read this week: Shakespeare's Kings 8/10 (John Julius Norwich)
The first Shakespeare play I can remember seeing is Olivier's Richard III. It's a very 1950s performance, extremely static and nothing like as good as McKellan's version, but I still remember it fondly; Richard III is still one of my favourite (if not my favourite) plays. Norwich's Shakespeare's Kings is a brilliant combination of literary criticism and history, following English history from about 1300 up until 1485 viewed through the lens of Shakespeare's two tetralogies (Richard II, Henry IV Parts I & II, Henry V, Henry VI Parts I, II and III and Richard III) as well as a very early play, Edward III, which has only recently been attributed to the Bard.
I often think it is strange that we spend so much time at school on Shakespeare's comedies; the underlying themes are far more complex, and the social structures they critique and parody are quite alien to us. Also, to properly appreciate them one needs an understanding of sixteenth century dirty jokes, a knowledge which is sadly lacking in today's youth. By contrast, the themes of the tragedies and the history plays are more universal; ambition, jealousy, revenge. Also, you don't have to get the jokes to enjoy the play (but it helps!). The lessons learnt from the tragedies in particular have general applications: Mark Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral is one of the best pieces of political manipulation ever written, and (on a more prosaic note) I guessed the twist in the Usual Suspects because I have a deep affection for Richard III (which lead to a knowledge of the figure of Vice in the medieval morality plays, which lead to Keyser Sose).
More generally, reading this book also led me to reflect on the abysmally low standard of king- (and queen-) ship this country has endured since the Norman conquest; of the 40 odd monarchs we've had since 1066, only 10 have really been halfway competent and most of those had distinctly shaky claims to the throne (Henry VII, I'm looking at you....). Mostly, Shakespeare's Kings, much like the Song of Ice and Fire (which draws a huge amount of inspiration from both the real Wars of the Roses and Shakespeare's version of them), is a gigantic argument against the concept of hereditary monarchy. Which is, incidentally, why I tend to support the Yorkists (their argument being that of the two candidates for the throne, the more competent one should be king; it's not quite accepting democracy, but it's edging closer than the pseudo divine right of kings endorsed by the Lancastrians). So, in conclusion: Shakespeare's Kings is a good book for anyone interested in Shakespeare or kings (or both). It's also recommended reading for anyone who's started the Song of Ice and Fire, and is having trouble understanding why it is people don't act like characters out of the Lord of the Rings, and why it turns out the living in the middle ages was shite, even if you were the king.
The first Shakespeare play I can remember seeing is Olivier's Richard III. It's a very 1950s performance, extremely static and nothing like as good as McKellan's version, but I still remember it fondly; Richard III is still one of my favourite (if not my favourite) plays. Norwich's Shakespeare's Kings is a brilliant combination of literary criticism and history, following English history from about 1300 up until 1485 viewed through the lens of Shakespeare's two tetralogies (Richard II, Henry IV Parts I & II, Henry V, Henry VI Parts I, II and III and Richard III) as well as a very early play, Edward III, which has only recently been attributed to the Bard.
I often think it is strange that we spend so much time at school on Shakespeare's comedies; the underlying themes are far more complex, and the social structures they critique and parody are quite alien to us. Also, to properly appreciate them one needs an understanding of sixteenth century dirty jokes, a knowledge which is sadly lacking in today's youth. By contrast, the themes of the tragedies and the history plays are more universal; ambition, jealousy, revenge. Also, you don't have to get the jokes to enjoy the play (but it helps!). The lessons learnt from the tragedies in particular have general applications: Mark Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral is one of the best pieces of political manipulation ever written, and (on a more prosaic note) I guessed the twist in the Usual Suspects because I have a deep affection for Richard III (which lead to a knowledge of the figure of Vice in the medieval morality plays, which lead to Keyser Sose).
More generally, reading this book also led me to reflect on the abysmally low standard of king- (and queen-) ship this country has endured since the Norman conquest; of the 40 odd monarchs we've had since 1066, only 10 have really been halfway competent and most of those had distinctly shaky claims to the throne (Henry VII, I'm looking at you....). Mostly, Shakespeare's Kings, much like the Song of Ice and Fire (which draws a huge amount of inspiration from both the real Wars of the Roses and Shakespeare's version of them), is a gigantic argument against the concept of hereditary monarchy. Which is, incidentally, why I tend to support the Yorkists (their argument being that of the two candidates for the throne, the more competent one should be king; it's not quite accepting democracy, but it's edging closer than the pseudo divine right of kings endorsed by the Lancastrians). So, in conclusion: Shakespeare's Kings is a good book for anyone interested in Shakespeare or kings (or both). It's also recommended reading for anyone who's started the Song of Ice and Fire, and is having trouble understanding why it is people don't act like characters out of the Lord of the Rings, and why it turns out the living in the middle ages was shite, even if you were the king.
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