“The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1918" by Mark Thompson

I have just finished reading “The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919" by Mark Thompson which is a study of a 1st World War front that is often forgotten but where Italy lost 689, 000 solders( Britain lost 662,000 + 140, 000 reported as missing). That we tend to associate the infantry war with the plains of Flanders and Russia reveals the common myth as this part of the struggle was mountain warfare albeit also with trenches.

The conduct of the war exposed the weak hold of liberal structures and politics on the Italian population and the defeat of victory quickly let in 20 years of fascist government. The collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and take over the successor national states by the communists has made it difficult to get a sense of what really went on: Italians and other non Germanic nationals did fight for the Emperor, many of the feature of Fascism (a puppet parliament, a muzzled press, a romantic nationalism, a militarised state) had their roots on the political conduct of the war.

What made the book an interesting read is that Mark Thomas does more then hold to the historical arc of the events from the turmoil in Italy leading to its ripping up of a long standing agreement to be allied with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary ( It took on a secret 30 pieces of silver territorial deal with the Allies). And ending with the desperate mad dash to occupy land vacated by the collapsing Hapsburg armies-it made the most of the cock-up where as the armistice agreement ended the war one day earlier for Austria-Hungary. What he does is switch the narrative in cinematographic terms from wide/long shots, medium to close-ups as the narrative unfolds. So we take the long view at the ideas affecting Italian practice in politics, art and military such as Romantic Vitalism or the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. Or the impact of how Italian unification actually unfolded. We then have medium shot accounts of how individual battles unfolded from both of the combatant’s perspectives or the power struggles and conduct at military and political levels. And finally the close-up accounts of artists, reporters, and survivors that expose the official accounts or help to explain the mindset of the elites.

It was this rounded and varied explanation that held my attention, as I tended to wander in the step by step of accounts of the battles(my attention span rather then the quality of the writing, although these are necessary to understand the appalling and arrogant way that the soldiers were used. For example, Military discipline justified the ancient Roman practice of randomly killing 1 in 10 solders if the platoon had infringed any rules which could be just turning up late from leave. The fact, with no interest shown in the reason was enough for summary execution. This is because the Italian army leadership took the most extreme view of all the armed forces in the 1st world war that the solders were only cannon fodder to do the will of the supreme commander. An attitude they paid for when Austria-Hungarian forces with direct support of Germany developed a forerunner of Blitzkrieg and took back all the territory fought over in the past three years and swept down to the pre 1866 national boundaries.

The resource imbalance between the foes and the deteriorating political realties for the Central Powers meant that this could not be turned into a knock-out blow. But with Russia out and embroiled in Revolution and no significant Allied victories, the collapse of the Central Powers as Germany struggled to avoid the fate of Austria- Hungary created the German Nazis myth of a stab in the back. It also confirmed the lack of democratic populist support for liberalism.

So why should you read this book? Well it gives you a clear account of one part of the wider First World War front that is only now becoming clear and even possible to study. (Attempts to clear the names of those summarily executed is still politically sensitive in Italy.) But a more important reason is that it offers insights into the conduct of events now. If History has anything to teach, its that we the ordinary people wont get a true picture what our masters have been doing in our name until we are pushing up the daisies.. In knowing what was going on behind closed doors then, we can question what the media, cultural elites, military strategists, politicians are doing now. But of course if you think we have the straight line on the War on Terror, or the credit crunch then give it a miss.

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge) by John O’Farrell

You have a spare summer and fancy writing a book but can’t be bothered with all that creative muse malarky. It’s a bit too soon for the autobiography( still working on doing the X-factor and the Big Brother application and frankly not so hot on the sports front) so what do you do? Well you pop along to the local reference library and sort out a stack of What the Roman’s did for us, Great Kings and Queens of England, Prime Minsters I have known, and write a comic History of Britain for History refusniks. This is what John O’Farrell attempts to do in An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge). As you failed English know ( for Americans and other ex colonial types, local joke so ignore) when we mention Britain we really mean England except if one of you win an Olympic medal so you still have time to fit in one for Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

The question is, does it work as comedy, history or even comedic history? The gold standard is 1066 and All That and frankly, the book struggles in comparison. Both draw on popular memories of what is history and make it the raw material for humour. The historical factoids of the O’Farrell book do make it ideal for a bathroom read as you can dip in and out as nature calls. But the John O’Farrell humour of Blackadderish quips and asides* can grate unlike1066 and All That.**

Well does it work as History? Er…not really. If you had more interesting things to do at school, it does give you a simple overview of English History. If you paid attention then the lack of accuracy (Read the Terry Deary Horrid History series to see how its done properly) or the one-dimensional nature of the account soon irritates. One particular annoying clanger is the myth that the Anglo-Saxons wiped out the Romano-Celtic language and culture. The 0rigins of the British by Stephen Oppenheimer based on genetic evidence show that the SW and Wales, Southern England and the North had separate and long-standing separate waves of settlement. Meaning that the natives that the Romans met in the south were of Germanic origin and hence why so little Celtic influence in place names and English. I could go about his slighting reference to the King James Bible (an attempt to head off the radical puritans translations), his failure to address the social-religious movements of the English Civil War and their impact and don’t get me started on his nonsense of the first World War. Yes, I did pay attention in History and so what if you were more popular in school.

So any redeeming features? It does have several serious asides about the lack of social justice; we the working people rarely get a look in on political and social power until perhaps the English Civil war and then struggled to get universal franchise until 1948(when students having two votes was abolished). But, this was done much better by the classic Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson.

If you do get hold of a copy, pass it on to your teenagers who might at last get a sense what Sir was droning on about. As for you, its raining so get down and write the history that John O’Farrell didn’t write. As for you few Americans still here, read about your own forgotten past in A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn.

Remembering that humour is subjective here are other viewpoints:

* Well researched, very funny book, which was a joy as holiday reading. Frequently laugh-out-loud. Highly enjoyable.

** a book full of silly upper-class-twit jokes. (Haw-haw! What will Master think!) .Anyway, for us who are more prosaically born and raised, this book offers no reward other than insight into the childhood of a frivolous (if Oxonian) class of recently and soon to be dead English aristocracy.

The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis

Have you stopped worrying about the Cold War and the threat for the end of Humanity? The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis explains why you have and why you were right to worry. It gives an historical overview of the different phrases of the Cold War from its on set in the late 1940’S to its demise in 1989. It develops important ideas such as in an era of total war and destruction then a major war ceases to have any political relevance.

Access to the contemporary records shows time and time again that the political classes in the USA, UK, USSR and China came to similar conclusions when faced with the cultural conflicts of the 60’s , having to be in bed with unnatural allies, etc It also sets out that in the 20-50s it was not clear whose ideas of the state, politics, human rights etc would win. What saved us from the authoritarian states that 1984 fears is that liberal capitalism was able to deliver greater living standards then the controlled economies. Its food for thought what would have happen if the USSR had been able to become the economic powerhouse that communist china is now.

In the 70’s political activities focused on freezing the superpower relationship and the post war settlement as fact of life but in giving a legitimacy to human rights it quicken the demise of communist legitimacy that its economic failures compounded. In the 80’s the smoke and mirrors that kept up the illusion of the USSR superpower finally imploded.

The approach reminds me of the story from china in the 1960's when a senior leader of the communist party was asked what he thought of the success and failures of the French revolution. He replied its too early to say!

The origin of the book was a student's plea that he could update his massive history of the Cold War of the 50s and 60's so it covered the whole period but with fewer words. He succeeds with a well written, informative and at times jaw dropping account of the incompetence of our rulers!

Guns, germs and steel : a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years by Jared M. Diamond

Clear counter argument to assumptions that Western ascendancy is down to genetic advantage. At its simplest the historical decision of who turned right or left when the African Diaspora happen sealed the fate of many peoples. But this is being flippant about a serious issue.

The essential argument is that the availability of domesticatable plants and animals (and the level of benefit for switching from hunting-gathering)affected how early and successfully could food production kick off. A key to the availability and speed of transmission is the axis of the continents. Hence Euroasia with its west-east axis as the longest belt of similar temperature zones so skills and technology can move up and down with relative issue. This is not the case in say the Americas and Africa where the cultural hot-spots where both isolated from each other and lacked access to many of the key plants and animals.

Once food production took off then population increased which if with large scale animal production created a germ base that over time created a level of immunity not created for those societies less dense or with limited animal production. Again if limited transmission then limited immunity is built up. A lot of western conquests were down to having wiping the population out with germs and then importing the crops and animals that would allow for population expansion.
As population increases then the opportunity for technology and idea specialists develops and if ease of transmission then competition between communities/ states drives development. Lack of competition or isolation limited the drive to develop or use the technology. Japanese in the 16th century encountered and then improved the guns of the time but for 200 years withdraw and abandoned the technology that could have had serious consequences for the region. Or the central African tribes that independently discovered Iron and then Steel some 2000 years before the West.

Once he has established his thesis by examining each of the key continents, he explores a range of case studies to test if it can explain the different historical journeys of say China, Africa, and other major non western areas.

I think this is where some of the criticism comes from that the book is repetitive. He tends to do the lecture thing of telling you what he is going to say, say it and the summarizing what he has said. I found it useful as I read it over a number of days on trains, lunch breaks etc to keep the key points clear as they were "tested" with case studies.

The main criticism I would make of the whole argument which makes a lot of sense is that it tends to underplay the importance of social struggle within the constraints of the geographical base. He does mention that the social structure of Japan was a key factor in the isolation but misses that it was the struggle to create a central state and reject the rising Christian mission that drove the policy. Its geographical position enabled this to be a success. Likewise China kept frustrating possible technological or imperial leaps but less down to the whim of the Emperor but because those changes would have challenged the social order. But again I accept this as a policy was only possible because of the successful previous agricultural revolution that created a unified China.

For "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

Thoughts on reading The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

You are resting in the bath, lavender bath salts wafting away, candles flickering and as you doze your mind wanders to the big question of the day…how do you judge if a book is literature or not? Is Judy Astley’s Pleasant Vices or The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger on the same level? You enjoy one and not the other and that’s that some of you may say. But why do you enjoy the one rather then the other? Why is one on all the “best of” lists and in print for over 50 years whilst the other is forgotten once sold and read? Reading The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, which was published in 2000 and featured in Britain's Good Book Guide "Fiction Book of the Month”, got me thinking of ways to answer this.

Bahiyyih Nakhjavani is a Persian writer living and educated in the West and a follower of the Baha’i faith. This is important as a founder of Baha’i plays a momentous but hidden role in the story set in the mid 19th century. We follow nine characters over a 24 hour period as a caravan bound for Mecca and Medina is raided by bandits. The events prior and post the raid are told from the perspectives of each character so the meaning of events and behaviour alters as we visit and revisit. A connecting thread to all the stories is a saddlebag and its contents passing around each of the characters so driving some to death and ruin and others to salivation and joy.

So how do I start to judge or interpret this highly individual first novel? Once upon a time you read a book and its literary standing was its relationship to the great books that impacted on or shaped western thinking. Liberal Humanism argued these were your Vigil, Homer. T.S.Elliot, Shakespeare etc. In an affect a good book was what a group of elite academics said was good based on the authors intent and writing in relationship to western values and concerns.

In reaction was New Criticism with one of its roots in Russian formalism that ignored the authority of author or the cultural context but saw the words, syntax grammar, imagery, metaphor, rhythm, meter, etc of more importance in understanding a book then its subject matter. So yet another bunch of experts telling you what literature was.

So Liberal Humanism would judge The Saddlebag on what it said about what the big moral or political issues. Whereas approaches such as New Criticism would judge it on how it used language and literary techniques. So what you may say? But think cooking here: the first looks at how good say an Italian dish is as part of the rules and principles of good western cooking whilst the second examines how good the chopping, use of herbs, balance of colour was in preparing the meal irrespective of what the final dish is.
But what is missing is that a meal has a final act of judgement- I eat it! This is linked to a third way of looking at the problem in that books are a form of performance that needs an audience to make it complete. This gave rise to Reader-response criticism which seeks to understand literature by emphasising the reader's role in creating meaning and experience. So it would judge The Saddle for what it means to me the reader and what I bring to its interpretation. So I as reader become equal with the writer as both are necessary for the transaction to have social meaning.

Many other ways of “reading” a book exists so for example what does The Saddle say or not say about class, gender, sexuality? Or from the perspective of Eco-criticism how does it view and treat the environment and nature? Yet a book and reading are also material cultural events -think about all the factors behind reading a Dickens book printed on paper in the 19th century and reading the latest e-novel published on the internet and read via a portable electronic screen. And don’t get me started on Freud or Jung!

To put my cards on the table, I am always dubious of anything that says you understand from one perspective only. I prefer asking what this reading adds to the meaning of the novel so you build fresh and ever changing experiences. Judging becomes a journey of open ended discussions with peers defending the perspective(s) they prefer generating insights and ever deeper overlapping meanings. In affect a book is literature the more it is capable of sustaining this interaction.

To start the discussion on The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani let me ask three questions drawn from the perspectives discussed. These are as follows.

• How do its ideas connect or resonate with the intellectual concerns of both the West and the East?

• What does its use of language and literary devices suggest over and above the cultural ideas it plays with?

• What do I bring to the book and what does it bring to me to make the experience whole and complete?

How do its ideas connect or resonate with the intellectual concerns of both the West and the East?

Bahiyyih Nakhjavani takes the core incident of the plot from a Bahá'í historical narrative titled "The Dawn-breakers" which mentions briefly that a saddlebag belonging to the Báb - the prophet-herald of the Bahá'í Faith - was stolen during His pilgrimage to Mecca. She then used the language, metaphors, symbols and traditions of the major world religions to create her archetypal characters. They the Bedouin thief (a pagan), the Arab chieftain (an atheist), the Zoroastrian bride, the Indian moneychanger (who switches from Hindu to Moslem to whatever else the occasion demands), the Felasha(Jewish Ethiopian) slave woman, the pilgrim who has amalgamated Confucian, Buddhist and Moslem beliefs, the Persian Shi`ah Moslem priest, the English spy (a lukewarm Anglican Christian), and the corpse of a rich Persian merchant. Their fates reflect the impact of Bahá'í and it inner meanings: the pagan dies at last free, the chieftain abandons power, the Shi`ah Moslem priest torn between stamping out heresy and falling the driving force of Bahá'í love.

Another strand of the story is less explicit in that we are in the time period that western modernity starts to challenge and undermine the traditional elites in the Middle East. Copying the West and modernising became a central intellectual strain which was to lead to the modern Turkish State. But with the English spy and some of the other stories we see the political interference in the Middle East that lead to the carve up countries for western interests and so supporting the puritanical anti modernising practice of Islam that continues to be fuelled by the West’s attitudes and practices. It suggests indirectly that if each of the main religious traditions went back to their roots of ethical practices and love in action then the 21st century nightmare would end.

What does its use of language and literary devices suggest over and above the cultural ideas it plays with?

It has a lyrical prose style, and is a fable that skilfully weaves together nine tales by ensuring that the surroundings and characters are given a physical and sensual depiction. The Thief's story is perhaps best of the collection, in terms of the lyrical quality of the prose as well as the evocation of character but each story has a back story so we build up a richer understanding of each characters circumstance.

We have a glimpse of the next character in a story and echoes of previous characters so for example we hear a lot of the actions of the fanatic priest but then discover why he is so hard on himself. Each story is told from the inner dialogue and view point of the main character but the voice of the author is felt as she comments on the fates of individuals.

As in any fable the characters serve to illustrate the moral point of the storey so don’t expect naturalist dialogue or larger then life characters. But they are more then coat hangers for ideas/arguments so it reads well.

What do I bring to the book and what does it bring to me to make the experience whole and complete?

I have read and studied many of the key religious and political ideas of the different faiths and remain very interested in the West’s role in the political and historical roots of the region’s instability. I am also a keen story-teller so respond well to the ideas and structures of the story. I could see it working as an emotional and powerful play.

It’s clear from this review format what it has brought me. If you like the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho you have feel of the approach taken and if you can’t stand his books, fear not as this is much better. The author suggests that she wanted to write a book to show

how it was possible to weave the different threads so that the paths of a group of people from different races, cultures and backgrounds could cross and re-cross by perfect accident while making perfect sense. It seemed that if one could achieve this in a narrative form there was no reason why it could not be recognized as a valid metaphor at other levels: political, religious, economic.

I think she succeeds brilliantly and clearly demonstrates that it is literature in the way that I have argued. So get out of the bath, smother the candles, dry yourself, put on a warm cotton wrap and type a response. Become part of the democratic process of defining of what is literature. Even better lets hear what she says and build a more ethical and loving world. Highly recommended.

The return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis

Hands up who has seen Gerard Depardieu in Le Retour de Martin Guerre which was released in 1982. It might have even been on TV tucked away in a late night art-film nook and cranny. Well this is the book of the history that the film ignored. It was written by the consultant to the film who is a very famous feminist leading proponent of cross-disciplinary history, which consists of combining history with disciplines as anthropology, art history, ethnography and literacy theory.(ohh, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!- meaningless if you are not from the north of England !)Now don’t stop reading because youse ‘ate’ history, the story and the film is a definite 3 handkerchief fable that has been popular for nearly 500 years

Let’s start at the beginning, Martin Guerre, is a Basque peasant in France who marries as a young teenager but for seven years no or poor sex with his wife, Bertrande. So becomes the laughing stock of the village until eventually a bit of love potion gets the machinery working. A baby is born within 9 months so family thinks that all is well with inheritance and the future. However, he is bored with work and married life so ups and deserts Bertrande and joins the Spanish army then attacking France. Bertrande is not distraught to see him go as she gains the independence and status of being a married woman without the hassle of a man with no lead in his pencil. Nor are the family as more land for them!

In the meanwhile, Arnaud du Tilh is whoring and thieving his way through life having too much intelligence to fit into farming and liking the ladies too much for the Church. He has a very good memory and can charm his way into anything. Some seven years after Martin Guerre has disappeared, Arnaud meets some villagers in a Tavern and hears of the pretty wealthy woman and so hatches a plot to impersonate Martin Guerre.

This is where the plot thickens, because he does fool most of the family and villagers. But Bertrande clearly knows what is what yet they fall in love. Ahead in the story is how this love becomes doomed, how Bertrande has to pretend betrayal to save her child and the family estate, and how a figure from her past stomps in at her moment of triumph. And this is just the story of these three, you also learn about why the Father-law sets in motion the tragedy and why the Judge was not all he appeared.

See told you it was 3 handkerchief fable. Sadly, the story is more interesting then the style of its writing which at times can steer towards a cut-down academic of…on the one hand but on the other But it does give a rounded historical context of why main characters made the choices they did. And the real tragedy is the blighted lives of the many in a feudal society undergoing the changes that would lead to the revolution and the historic root of the individual freedoms that Martin, Bertrand, and Arnaud were struggling towards.

Would I recommend it? Yes for its insight to a story that has never lost its power to fascinate since the 1560’s. But see the film as well.