Monthly Archives: July 2020

The Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses; The Crossing; Cities of the Plain), by Cormac McCarthy

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Summary: Cowboy Homer, Homeric cowboys

The last line of the Iliad is, “Thus they busied themselves with the burial of Hector, tamer of horses.” John Grady Cole is a tamer of horses too. A gifted trainer in love with the cowboying life, something as doomed as Troy by drought and modernity.

We first meet him just after the Second World War when he and his friend Lacey Rawlins leave their homes in the US and cross into Mexico looking for work as cowboys. Their adventures and misadventures on that trip are recounted in All the Pretty Horses. That odyssey echoes another journey undertaken by Billy Parham and his brother before the war, the subject of The Crossing. 

At the beginning of Cities of the Plain Billy and John Grady are friends, working together on a ranch in New Mexico. One night in a whorehouse across the border in Mexico John Grady sees a young girl, sold into slavery there to pay someone else’s gambling debt. Her long black hair reminds the reader, as perhaps it does John Grady, of Alejandra, the girl he fell in love with in All the Pretty Horses. 

Each novel of the Border Trilogy is a self-contained work, but collectively they chronicle the lives of John Grady and Billy and their dying lifestyles. They are exquisitely rich with the intricacies of ranching life while shot through with the tension and violence of the most accomplished thriller. 

Love, whether for a woman or for a brother, in these books tends to be a source of trouble. Alongside it, honour, courage and integrity are no more a guarantor of justice for Billy and John Grady than they were for Hector before the gates of Troy.

Perhaps the United States is too large and diverse to have a single National Epic like the Iliad for Greece or the Táin for Ireland. But with the Border Trilogy maybe the American South-West has a work of literature that captures the lost essence and ideals of that mythic cowboying community that John Grady and Billy represent.

East West Street: on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity, by Philippe Sands

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Summary: an lucid and important exploration of the personal consequences of atrocity, and the origins of international human rights law.

East West Street is something of a hybrid of a book. It is part family memoir: Sands’ maternal grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust, but never spoke about their experiences. And while loving people, they never smiled much, something that becomes more understandable as their biographies are painstakingly revealed.

In part the book is a history of the philosophy of international law. The book is also a joint biography of the originators of key concepts of human rights: Rafael Lemkin postulated the idea of “genocide” – the destruction of groups of people based on their identity; Hersch Lauterpacht formulated the idea of “crimes against humanity” – atrocities against individual civilians, often by their own governments.

What binds all this into a remarkable whole is the strange coincidence that, like Sands’ grandfather, Lemkin and Lauterpacht had deep ties with the city of Lviv, currently in Ukraine, previously known as Lemberg when it was in the Hapsburg empire. It was there that Lemkin and Lauterpacht originally studied law, and may well have come to know each other, though they do not seem ever to have become friends. Lemkin was a solitary and spiky soul. Lauterpacht had deep concerns that the concept of genocide would drive human beings deeper into their group identities and hence perpetuate the roots of genocide, if not its actual manifestation.

Nevertheless, both “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” are now important concepts in international human rights law. However, it was a struggle to get them accepted at Nuremberg. The US and the UK did not like the idea of genocide having been formidable practitioners of it themselves in the past. The Soviets, whose own campaign in the East had been marked with atrocity, including mass rape during the conquest of Berlin, did not like the concept of “crimes against humanity.” Nevertheless, Lemkin and Lauterpacht’s advocacy, and the interventions of Robert Jackson the chief US prosecutor, and Hartley Shawcross, the British Attorney General, eventually got them included.

The book builds considerable momentum towards its climax at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. Here the personal, political and legal strands of the book are drawn together into what must be the most important courtroom drama in history. Sands focusses particularly on the case of Hans Frank in this trial. Himself a lawyer, as Governor General of Nazi occupied territories in Poland, Frank was ultimately responsible for the murders of many of Lemkin’s and Lauterpacht’s families, as well as members of Sands’ own family. 

In the course of writing this lucid and important book Sands became friends with Frank’s son, Niklas. Together in the courtroom where his father was sentenced to death, Niklas described it as a “happy place.” Later Niklas explained further that he was against the death penalty, but not for his own father. 

East West Street is a mighty book.

On the one road? Thoughts on achieving Irish reunification

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Summary: Irish reunification will require difficult compromises for nationalists if there is to be any hope of accommodating unionism

The Good Friday Agreement was built on the foundations of the common memberships of Ireland and the UK in the European Union. Given Brexit the foundations of that agreement have been dealt a grievous blow. Hence it is necessary to contemplate whether new constitutional arrangements can be forged to secure peace in an agreed Ireland. This must include contemplation of the possibility of Irish unity.

In the North of Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party have already delivered two of the greatest contributions towards a United Ireland of any political organisation since the Good Friday Agreement. First their sweaty, fevered dreams of Brexit backfired spectacularly when, in significant part as result of their ham-fisted triumphalism, Boris Johnson, as should have been expected, betrayed every promise he ever made to them. So instead of the renewed Protestant Supremacy of their dreams the DUP have got a customs border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Britain.

Second, and more fundamentally, the DUP’s botched Brexit shenanigans have demonstrated to their electoral base the depth of English contempt for them, their culture and the sacrifices that they have made for the Crown over the past decades and centuries. 

Paradoxically, this may not have been a total surprise. Culturally, both the unionist and nationalist communities in the North of Ireland have more in common with Scotland than with the English or Welsh. So, after Scotland’s departure from the UK, Northern Ireland will be in even greater cultural isolation than it currently is, perpetually subject to the disdain of a patronising Little Englander elite.

The greatest barrier to Irish reunification remains the factions of extreme Irish nationalism. These ultras have, since the 20th Century, hijacked the Irish flag as a partisan symbol all the while undermining its national meaning with their fratricidal campaigns. 

The Irish tricolour asserts that the nation is composed of two traditions: the Irish nationalist green, and the British loyalist orange, and that the nation is only complete when these traditions are united together by the white of peace. 

Nevertheless, some of the most vehement flag wavers of the past decades have not been prepared to follow the logic of what Irish nationhood must mean given the different cultures and heritages of the peoples of the island. Rather they want all vestiges of the unionist tradition expunged from the island of Ireland and all to accept their uncompromising visions of their utopian ideals. 

Of course, it is the very nature of utopian ideals that no one can ever live up to them. But this does not stop a few self-appointed guardians of the flame from deciding that that any shortfalls in their ideals of perfection should be dealt with by abuse, and sometimes violence. 

But there can be no single Irish cultural identity. By the first half of the 21st Century there are not just the Orange and Green traditions in Irish society. There are also important mainland European ones, most notably perhaps the Polish-Irish, and there have long been important African-Irish and Asian-Irish communities, enriching every county of the country with their presence. 

But perhaps the most urgent priority in Irish reunification must be in better accommodating the unionist tradition. And there are some obvious and immediate steps that Ireland could take towards this end. 

For a start Ireland could re-join the Commonwealth. This is a proposal that will certainly bring forth frothing fury from many of the flag wavers as a betrayal of the most fundamental ideals of their particular and personal notions of Irish nationhood. Indeed, when the unimpeachably Republican Fianna Fail TD Eamon O’Cuiv suggested this in 1994 that is exactly the sort of response he received. 

However, building a nation requires more than fundamentalist worship of an imagined past. We have seen the Brexity chaos and destruction that such idiocy brings.

Instead the Irish nation as a whole needs to recognise that if we are ever to be truly united then the unionist tradition must feel respected and at home within the New Ireland. That is not something that will ever be achieved by singing “Up the ‘Ra”, and by implication celebrating the wounds inflicted on that community by IRA violence. But it might be brought a small step closer by measures that demonstrate the respect for the symbols and traditions of the unionist community. It is also notable that states as varied as India, Tanzania and South Africa see no compromise in their national ideals by membership of the Commonwealth. Neither will an independent Scotland. Surely Ireland can show similar self-confidence.

Second Ireland could establish a mechanism for proper representation of the North in the Seanad. Over the past decades Taoisigh have on occasion appointed individual Northerners to the Senate. But it has hardly been a consistent practice. It must surely be within the bounds of possibility to do better than this. For example, it should be a straightforward matter to empower individual councils or all the collective councillors in the North of Ireland to elect a panel of representatives to the Seanad. Put simply, a united Ireland means some sort of elected representation of the North in the Oireachtas. Steps can be taken to move in that direction immediately.

Of course, before there is a united Ireland there will need to be much more talking and agreement on constitutional structures with which people can live. Consequently, the SDLP’s idea of a forum for discussion of this is a positive initiative. One must hope that the Irish government will also lead on this, perhaps through the establishment of a citizens’ assembly on the subject composed of people from all 32 counties. 

Perhaps a new Ireland will need a new flag to represent all traditions of the nation, old and new. Perhaps not. But one thing is certain. It is tough decisions and compromise which will bring about a United Ireland if it happens, not flag waving. 

A Thousand Ships, by Natalie Haynes

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Summary: a gripping, exquisitely written retelling of the tales of Troy and the aftermaths of war

Conceptually A Thousand Ships is similar to Pat Barker’s stunning retelling of the Iliad, The Silence of the Girls. Both focus on the Trojan war from female points of view and consequently give radical new perspectives on these ancient tales and on the pity of war itself. But whereas Barker focuses on one woman, Briseis, Natalie Haynes ranges much more widely across time and dramatis personae.

Parts of the book are very funny – notably Penelope’s letters to the absent Odysseus, and the shenanigans of the gods for whom, like contemporary geo-political strategists, humans are mere playthings. Parts of the book, such as the stories of Iphigenia and Polyxena, are particularly bleak. But in giving voice to Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra, and the others Haynes reminds the readers of how war reverberates across geographies and generations, and that its casualties are not confined to the battlefields.

Haynes describes the book as a novel and it certainly has the unity of purpose and vision that one would expect of a novel. But the shifting focus and tone as it moves between the various narrators and protagonists also put me in mind of Tim O’Brien’s superb collection of inter-related short stories of the war in Vietnam, The Things They Carried. 

However one wishes to classify the book’s structure, the result is extraordinary. It may not carry the same ultimate emotional punch as The Silence of the Girls, which comes from spending so long with one person, but the tragedies of Polyxena, Cassandra, Andromache, Iphigenia and the rest are still hauntingly portrayed. And at the bottom of the carnage some hope glimmers still.

Lincoln on the Verge, by Ted Widmer

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Summary: One for the specialists… particularly if you like trains

If you like Great Railway Journeys of the World, you will probably like this account of the 13-day journey Abraham Lincoln took as President Elect from his home in Springfield Illinois to Washington DC. Indeed Michael “Choo-choo” Portillo is probably already in the process of pitching it to the BBC as a new series idea.

It has much interesting material, including a social portrait of the United States, or at least those states that Lincoln visited on this journey, on the eve of Civil War, and details of the “Baltimore Plot” to assassinate Lincoln as he passed through Maryland before he even took up the burden of the presidency. 

Lincoln was one of the greatest public speakers of the 19th Century, indeed of world history, So I find it reassuring that even he could occasionally deliver a poor speech, as he did on this journey. But then he had to deliver hundreds of speeches during these 13 days. In these he strove to articulate his vision for a country where all are equal before the law just as the racists of the Confederacy were seeking to create a new country founded on the “principle” of inequality to allow them to continue inflicting dehumanising violence on millions of human beings through the system of slavery.

It’s an elegantly written and illustrated book, but I am not sure I would describe it as compelling. It is probably one for more specialist readers rather than for someone looking for a general introduction to Lincoln or to the Civil War… but it would make a great Great Railway journey.

Shadow State, by Luke Harding

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Summary: Treason doth never prosper. What’s the reason? When it prosper none dare call it treason.

Since 2010, Russia under Vladimir Putin has launched a stunningly successful and sustained assault on liberal democracy. Timothy Synder’s book The Road to Unfreedom chartered the roots of this offensive including its initial forays into Ukraine, up to 2016. In Shadow State Luke Harding continues the story into 2020, detailing the depth of Russia’s penetration into the ruling cliques of both the UK and the US, identifying those involved and explaining how Russian espionage helped deliver both Trump’s election and Brexit.

Harding recounts that on returning home, Alexander Yakovenko, Russia’s ambassador to the UK from 2011 to 2019 was made a member of the Order of Alexander Nevsky and president of the Diplomatic Academy by Putin as a reward for “smashing the Brits to the ground. ‘It will be a long time before they rise again.’” 

The depth of contempt that Russia now holds for the UK was shown in 2018 when Putin launched a lethal chemical weapons attack in Salisbury in an attempt to kill the former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal. In doing this Putin aimed not only to deter other Russian intelligence officers from defecting, but he wanted to say to the UK, ”Fuck you”, as Harding notes. With his boy Trump in Washington and with the UK, at Moscow’s behest, isolating itself from its European allies with Brexit, Putin knew that there was little that the UK could do to hurt him in retaliation. Indeed, he could have killed half a dozen more British citizens in Salisbury and Boris Johnson would still think nothing of going hobnobbing with Russian intelligence officers and assets.

Johnson and Trump can afford to be sanguine about Russian assaults on their national democracies: they have been the beneficiaries of it. And even if they are in knowing collusion with the Russians, as opposed to mere useful idiots, their respective parties appear much too pusillanimous to do anything about it. Both know that they can count on future Russia support for any electoral contests and, particularly in the case of the US, considerable hacking and corruption of the electoral system. It is indeed a golden time to be a Quisling.

Shadow State is a fine, elegantly written work of investigative journalism. While it may be in the traditions of All the President’s Men, there is, at least at the moment, no justice in sight.