Love Is Blind, William Boyd

While more restricted in its scale than usual, Love Is Blind sits on the fictional biography shelf of Boyd's canon, taking in much of a single character's life, rather than a more focused, eventful interlude.

This time, it's the life of professional piano tuner, Brodie Moncur, who we first encounter in late 19th century Edinburgh. Charged with helping expand a piano selling business, he's sent to Paris, setting in motion a lifetime on the move, and entwining his path with that of opera singer, Lydia Blum. But Lydia's life is already bound to that of a brilliant, flawed Irish musician, John Kilbarron, forcing Brodie into years of compromise and subterfuge.

An outline of this novel does no justice to the detail Boyd that invests into Brodie's life and times. Whether it's the careful description of how he plies his trade, efficient travelogue on the countries and cities he lives in, or observations on societal change as the pace of life accelerates into the 20th century, Boyd's writing absorbs you into Brodie's world. For one, early on I doubted how interested I could be in the art of piano tuning, but it wasn't long before it became fascinating. I was reminded in this of a similar transformation in Roth's American Pastoral, where glove manufacture is similarly compellingly described.

If it lacks at all, it's only because the focus on characters is narrower, and it's shorter in historical scope than his other biographical works, where wars and larger mass movements come into view. But, as Boyd always is, it's still a very enjoyable and easy read. That's not a criticism, it's testament to his skill at so deftly writing an inviting other world.

Summary: it's been too long Mr Boyd - write faster!

Slavery 2.0

Underground Airlines, Ben H. Winters

What if, instead of eliminating slavery, America came to an uncomfortable accommodation with it? One where northern state African Americans are free citizens but their Deep South brothers and sisters are held in Apartheid-like bondage as part of an otherwise modern capitalist economy. That's the premise of this rather impressive alternative history / detective novel mash-up.

Intriguingly, it’s told from the perspective of Victor, an African American forced to work as an undercover agent for the US Marshall service to track down escaped southern slaves. Intriguing both because of the conflict that this role understandably creates within him, and because of the resulting slow tease-out of the bureaucratic banality of the monstrous system he serves. In the absence of the Civil War, the Deep South has retained its slaves to become a commercial success, albeit one hemmed-in by the wider world’s ineffectual jitters about slavery.

Victor’s latest case has him seeking a slave called Jackdaw, and quickly brings him into contact with the "Underground Airlines", an organisation that helps escaped slaves disappear into the North. But the case proves much more complicated that usual, with Jackdaw first turning out to be more than a Southern slave on the run, and then winding up dead. But Victor sees an opportunity to leverage Jackdaw into freedom, and with the help from a young white mother, Martha, seeks to finish Jackdaw’s mission - not for the cause, but for himself. But his discoveries in the South change things much further than Victor ever imagined.

After a start which can be a little confusing as you work out what’s what in Victor’s world, this settles down nicely. That said, it misses a few tricks by being a little too thin about this alternative America, and its late introduction of a game-changing MacGuffin is both too out-of-the-blue and far too unexplored to take seriously. But it’s still entertaining and thoughtful, although it’s not in anything like the same league as fellow alternative history novels like Roth’s The Plot Against America or Chabon’s similarly detective-themed The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

Merivel

Merivel, Rose Tremain

Rose Tremain's 1989 novel, Restoration, was an unexpectedly - to me! - enjoyable work of historical fiction set within King Charles II's extended court, but taking in the Plague, the Great Fire of London and the early flowering of modern science. It was particularly memorable for its central narrator, Robert Merivel, whose journey into - and then out of - the King’s favour it told. Medically-trained but lacking - at least initially - the drive to do good, Merivel was an enjoyable character to spend with, and his rise, then fall, and then rise again made for an engaging tale.

Flash forward more than 20 years, and Tremain’s sequel, the eponymous Merivel, picks up his story in the latter stretches of the King’s reign. While back within the King’s favour, and doted upon by his daughter, he is listless, and looking for some new goal in his life. Taking a trip to the court of King Louis in France, he encounters new challenges, but finds a new amour, as well as renewed purpose in studying animals and promoting their rights. But life is never plain-sailing for Merivel, and his adventures are soon disrupted by a jealous husband, the serious illness of his daughter, and, in the background, King Charles’ own faltering health.

While enjoyable to a point, the pleasures this time are solely from meeting up again with Merivel. The events of his world are largely much less historic in nature, and Tremain really struggles to make them feel as significant as, say, the Great Fire. The novel is also rather excessively haunted by the spectre of illness, age and death. The preceding volume also had its share of death and strife, but its story gave this context and meaning, whereas here, everything it just feels hopeless. Which was maybe what Tremain was trying to achieve, but it makes for a much less satisfying read.

SPOILER WARNING

Finally, I can’t let Tremain’s closing coda to the novel pass without comment. Even for a novel already on a bit of a downer, its closing pages really are a kick in the teeth, and something of a betrayal of everything that’s gone before. This postscript serves no narrative purpose beyond, I interpret, Tremain burning her bridges.

Referendum 2014, #indyref

Or: A southern Northerner looks north

In just a week's time, my home for the first half of my life will be voting on whether it should secede from my home for the second half of my life. Before the result is known, I thought that it might be a useful exercise for me to record my views on such a momentous subject. In no small part so that I can't rewrite my personal history in the future to suit the outcome of the referendum vote. But also because it's a subject that's probably exercised most Scots across most of their lives to some degree. As such, opinionated I most certainly am.

So, where to start? I suppose the obvious place is "which way would I vote?". Which is perhaps not-so-obvious since, as a long-time resident of England, I don't actually have a vote [*1]. But glossing over this mere technical detail, what's my overall take on the question at the heart of the rapidly-approaching referendum: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" I'd like to be able to say that I'm somewhat ambiguous on the subject, that I can see and appreciate that it's not a simple question, but, quibbles asides, I'm firmly in the "No, thanks" camp.

A big part of this for me is that my gut reaction to expressions of nationalism of any stripe is to suspect (and usually find) bigoted small-mindedness. Or, worse, malevolent insularity and racism. This is exactly how I feel about English nationalism - that has always struck me as a veil shielding underlying National Front-esque racism. I don't see Scottish nationalism in anywhere near the same way [*2], but I do still find that this is often cloaked (credit where credit's due: it's not hidden) in transparently ridiculous anti-English sentiments. Either way, nationalism for me is always to be treated suspiciously.

A larger part can simply be bracketed under the heading "Identity". When I was young, Scotland's relative insularity and resulting homogeneity meant that it was actually difficult for me to identify what being Scottish actually meant - I was simply constantly awash in it. By the time I was old enough to see further afield, all I could see of Scottish identity was an anti-English, chip-on-its-shoulder attitude that was pretty far from progressive (though some of this was understandable under the evil Iron Lady). Going first to university in Scotland, and then to England itself (by way of a formative stint in Los Angeles), exposed me to much more diversity and gave me more perspective, as well as the realisation (rightly or wrongly) that my values were more broad British than provincial Scots [*3]. And down the years this has stuck - quite possibly in no small measure because I've been south of Hadrian's Wall for so long.

By "identity" here, I'm thinking of the whole gamut, rather than the minutiae. So cultural touchstones like literature, cinema and art, in which I discern variability but certain common threads across the United Kingdom. The BBC, as a specific example, looms large on this front (melodramatically, I might even say I'd die for this National Treasure were it not for the likes of Strictly). But I'd also include the gloomy, sarcastic, ironic sense of humour of the UK - again, it varies, but it also unifies (even if the Scottish variety can be a bit more sweary). There's simply something reassuring to me that two people from opposite ends of Britain can agreeably moan on about the Tories, the trains or how the former is running the latter (not to mention the NHS) into the ground [*4].

A deeper part of this - again, for me, your mileage may vary - is what we think of when we think of "history". More or less everything that I think of under this is the modern history of the UK as a whole. And I'm not just thinking of the "admirable" bits like WW2 - to me, Britain's malign history as an imperial power is at least as an important part of things too [*5]. All of it binds the whole of the United Kingdom together, and it's not possible (for me, at least) to credibly think of separate pasts for England and Scotland. True, there's what I call "Braveheart history", over-emphasised in high school [*6], but it relates to a past that's simply too remote and too alien relative to the present-day to have any real meaning for it. In short, when I think of national history, I think of British history, for better and for worse.

A more minor part of my "Better Together" [*7] sentiments stems from the fact that I simply abhor secessionism. In a world blithely walking into a climatically-compromised Anthropocene age, few organisational things strike me as more stupid than having to put more chairs around the table when things are getting sorted out. As such, the proposed secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom seems unlikely to facilitate any efforts in global governance. Not, of course, fatally (splitting the UK isn't like splitting the US would be), but a complication that the world would arguably be better off without [*8]. This is, of course, allied to my unfashionable One World State views, so can be discounted as such.

A related reductio ad absurdum I'd make is why not continue seceding all the way down to the region, town, family, individual? Take Thatcher at her word, decry "Society", and continue devolving further. Of which, I can't help but raise an eyebrow at the stifling - by no less than the Scottish Parliament itself - of an attempt (admittedly by some cranks) for a further referendum aimed at separating (oil-rich) Orkney and Shetland from the Scottish mainland. What's good enough for the goose ...

Leaving aside these mere feelings about the place of Scotland within the United Kingdom, I'm sure most of us with a dog in this race have also considered practicalities. As reports on the news (the BBC, naturally) have been constantly been reporting, it is, however, difficult to work out how these stack up. There are simply too many if ... then ... else loops in the wider economy for anyone to be sure. Chances are, Scotland can almost certainly make a good fist of it - plenty of other similarly-sized countries do. But, equally, it's difficult not to see dark clouds such as demography, currency confusion [*9], stranded assets and nervous investors as being at least on the horizon. And just because there are already successful countries of the same size, it doesn't follow that Scotland can immediately transition into one of them. What if it takes decades? Anyway, where people fall on the hope-fear axis is liable to steer their decisions on this score. And I do think it would be wrong to focus too much on the fear side - always leaning this way would stop one getting out of bed in the morning.

Anyway, this is rambling on far too long (no change there then ...). I've other, lesser grumbles, not to mention some bitterness at the thought of my fellow Scots cutting and running and leaving us stuck with harder-to-dislodge Tories (on which particular point, I think Irvine Welsh's excellent essay puts me in my place), but it's hardly helpful discussion or constructive criticism. In a week the truth will out. If "no", then I'll be a little bit relieved, and will be hoping that the nationalists take defeat gracefully and wait a generation before revisiting secession again. If "yes", well, things will be interesting. But it's not for nothing that the saying "May you live in interesting times" is viewed as a curse.

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[*1]: Which I'm totally OK about - I haven't lived in Scotland for more than 20 years now (though have probably racked up more than 6 months there in that time). But there's a little bit of me niggled at the possibility of having my nationality changed underneath me.

[*2]: In part, I suspect that the key difference here is that Scottish nationalism is not a minority pursuit. As such, its racists (and there are some) are completely diluted out. Meanwhile, English nationalism has been associated with racists for so long (decades?) that it's at the point that racism is basically assumed (English Defence League anyone?), and it thankfully languishes as a niche pursuit.

[*3]: Which is not to say that England doesn't have its own provincialism to deal with, or that Britain is necessarily always broad in its outlook. There are plenty of recent and not-so-recent examples to the contrary.

[*4]: The NHS itself is highly symbolic of unity across Britain. For most people, much more so than the BBC. And the attitude that accompanies the NHS, namely that only nations of savages would do without such a shining beacon (that, to be fair, occasionally requires polishing), is also - for me - a hallmark of national unity.

[*5]: Skeletons in our national closet, while embarrassing to say the least, are useful reminders of the limits and follies of national pride. There's something dislikeable about cultures that gloss over their shortcomings, that prize a muscular patriotism over the harbouring of occasional self-doubts. Scotland, if it does become independent, needs to be wary of this. The campaign has, at times, brought out a lot of alpha-male posturing on the assumed magnificence and exceptionalism of Scotland.

[*6]: Of Braveheart itself, well, I can't let this pass by unremarked. Less so, because of its ghastly (and intermittently inaccurate) hagiography of the life and times of William Wallace, but more because the film has become a grubby touchstone for a particularly unthinking form of nationalism. Without wishing to be rude about Scotland's heroes, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't recognise the modern nations of Scotland or England, or empathise with the disgruntlement of contemporary nationalists. They'd probably mostly be wondering about where their servants were. Much as England is about the Magna Carta, there's a lot of weight put on history that has only a tangential bearing on our world today.

[*7]: Who came up with this? Admittedly, selling the status quo is difficult at the best of times (hope beats fear), but this just sounds crass.

[*8]: I will, of course, draw a veil over Scotland's role in future climate change measures when its balance book appears to be relying on oil money to keep on an even tiller, and when its nationalist demagogues decry nuclear power.

[*9]: This seems a tricky one to me. Sure, Scotland can keep the pound, but what's the point of being independent if your economy is at the mercy of decisions made elsewhere? Admittedly, this is arguably not dissimilar to the situation Scotland's in now anyway, but there'd be little incentive in the future for said decisions-made-elsewhere to factor it in at all after independence. Plus, how wise is it to use the same currency as your much larger neighbour that you've possibly just pissed off?

When I died for the 1000th time

Among my friends, I have a justifiable reputation for playing a lot of videogames. But while it’s certainly true that I play games a lot, I don’t actually play a lot of different games. In fact, most years I only get through 4 or 5 titles, and some years a single title can suck up almost all of my gaming hours (yes, I’m looking right at you Fallout 3).

So it’s perhaps not too surprising that the whole warfare genre typified by the likes of the Call of Duty and Medal of Honour series has almost completely passed me by. Particularly so given my penchant for sci-fi-esque titles that broadly eschew the gritty realism that such titles purport to represent in order to favour high-power lasers or gravity guns.

However, my innocence is all over now. As just one of a succession of (fabulous) birthday presents from C, I received Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the latest in that game series, and apparently one of the headline titles for the games industry for Christmas 2012 (and, by coincidence, the same game that I bought my brother for his Christmas). Clearly she knows me far too well.

So, what’s it all about, and how did I get on?

To answer the first, the setup is an interesting mash-up of infamous CIA interventions from the 1980s, with near-future cyber-terrorism from 2025. The common thread is Raul Menendez, leader of a family drug cartel during the Cold War, and professional kill-the-rich rabble-rouser in a future world that pits China et al. against the US in a new cold war.

In the past, you (generally) play as Alex Mason on a series of missions, the black ops of the title, in Africa, Afghanistan and Central America. In the future, you play as his orphaned son, David Mason, through a series of high-tech assaults in exotic, usually Asian locales. But in both time zones, Menendez is the accomplished antagonist against whom the Masons, both father and son, are pitted. Along the way, periodic cut scenes involving Alex Mason’s comrade, Frank Woods, shed a flickering light for David on Menendez’s history and what his ostensibly nefarious plans are.

To begin to answer the second, I would direct the reader to the title of this post. The thing that sticks most prominently in my mind about Black Ops II is how often I died. Initially, this was just down to me having to get used to new controls, and developing a new “situational awareness”. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that, for me at least, the game was pretty fiendishly difficult. Of course, because of my long history and vast experience of shooting the heads off of virtual enemies, I did choose to play on one of the harder skill levels, but I suspect I’d have still gotten seriously nailed regardless of the skill level.

In large part, my repeated deaths and reincarnations were just down to Black Ops II simply being so much more frenetic than what I'm used to. No sooner has one arrived in a new combat zone than you’re being shot at from every direction by a veritable army of people with a much better grip on the situation than you do, and it just doesn’t let up. Normally, I play titles where I've either got a more limited set of foes to deal with, or stealthily taking bad guys out one-by-one is more of an option. Not so here.

Instead, the game is a roller-coaster of running and gunning from one hidey-hole to another (at least as I played it!), all the time trying one’s hardest not to miss shooting all of the many assailants put in place to stop you. You do get a lot of help from friendlies (including some semi-immortal close colleagues), but in the heat of battle I frequently found myself gunning these red shirts down because I was so paranoid about getting wasted by an errant enemy that I’d somehow missed blowing away.

But is it any good?

The short answer is that I'm probably not the best person to ask. As this type of game is a whole new world for me, overall it was a pretty fresh experience. Sure, I've run around and shot NPCs for years (actually, as of now, they've probably shot me more on balance), but I can now appreciate that warfare games are (or can be) more than just doing the same as usual but in combat fatigues carrying realistically-modelled weapons.

On the plus side, it's a solid piece of enjoyable action. It looks and sounds great, has a pretty engaging (if short) story, and has enough variety in setting and combat to never become boring. And I particularly liked the way that the game shoved actual historical figures (or references to them - the U.S.S. Obama!) into the storyline. The worryingly-plausible robot weapons were pretty fun too.

On the down side, getting killed so often can get a tad frustrating - especially when respawning puts you immediately back in harms way. The game's health system is also a little bit ludicrous - you can basically replace half your body weight with enemy bullets so long as you take the precaution of letting this happen gradually. And for all of the interesting places that you visit, the relentless pace pretty much kills careful exploration dead. Finally, the much vaunted system of "choices" and "multiple endings" is really quite lame compared to other titles I've played - until I consulted Wikipedia after finishing, I hadn't realised that I'd actually made choices.

That said, and stepping back a bit, I'd also have to add that - for me at least - the game really captures something of the whole "fog of war" experience. While I eventually found my nerve, I did spend a large fraction of my time effectively panicking on the battlefield and making all kinds of misjudgements. More than in any other game I've played, Black Ops II makes it easy to see how quickly confusion can set in, and why mistakes get made on battlefields. I was responsible for more than my fair share of friendly fire incidents.

Another aspect that pleasantly surprised me a little was that, though it's all rather gung-ho, the game is unexpectedly ambiguous about the black hat / white hat distinction. "Unexpectedly" for a game that is - that the CIA doesn't wear a white hat is hardly news. But Black Ops II is really (again - for a game) quite nuanced in its treatment of Menendez. He does bad things, but he has both personal and social reasons for doing them. As I got more and more of his backstory, I even began to wonder if the game might offer a side-switching choice for David Mason.

So, overall, I really enjoyed myself, despite the game's short length and my low battlefield half-life. I won't be switching over to games like this, but it was definitely fun. How it stacks up against its rivals is, however, something I can't answer. Yet, anyway.

When not to pardon

In the news today there's an item about a group of worthies (and they are genuinely worthy) trying to get the government to posthumously pardon the computing pioneer Alan Turing. Infamously, and in spite of his sterling war record, he was prosecuted for "gross indecency" in 1952 (basically, he was gay), and that this - possibly via the "medical" treatment he received for his "condition" - led to his suicide a few years later, when he was only 41. Anyway, this isn't the first time that a call has been made to have his conviction quashed, but it got me thinking about it again.

While his conviction is both outrageous and bizarre to me, and while I can understand the motivation to have this ridiculous mark against his name removed, I can also see that it - arguably - serves a purpose. Namely, by needlessly slurring the name of one of our brightest and best, it provides us with a helpful reminder of our nation's less than civilised past (and recent past at that). Our history, particularly that in close proximity to WW2, is frequently lauded as some sort of Golden Age, usually to service particular political ends. Details, such as this conviction, that reveal it to be little of the sort are a helpful corrective that lets us (and future generations) gauge history more accurately and less self-aggrandisingly.

Admittedly, there's a sense in which none of this actually matters. Turing is long dead, and no sensible person would view his conviction as anything other than homophobic folly. And revoking it would not likely expunge from the history books the fact that, regardless of his brilliance, he was persecuted to suicide by a bigoted state apparatus. But I'd still argue that, for us to correctly perceive history and our antecedents - both for good and for ill - we should be careful about retrospectively imposing the values of our age, however well-intentioned.

A history lesson

Netley Hospital Chapel, a photo by Dr Yool on Flickr.

Something of an education on the history of Southampton, specifically Netley, this afternoon courtesy of Royal Victoria Country Park and local author, Philip Hoare. The location is important since it was once the site of the world's largest hospital, Netley Hospital, in fact the world's largest building when it was completed back in 1863. All that remains now is the hospital's chapel, pictured above - and in many other photographs I've taken over years of visiting the park.

Anyway, Hoare's lecture took in the history of the hospital, and that of its site, from when it was originally commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1856, through its part in two World Wars, to its eventual demolition after more than a century of use (and, potentially, misuse) in 1966. It being somewhere that I've visited many times over the years, not least because it has a great war cemetery, I've picked up some basic history but, as Hoare uncovered, only the slimmest of slim fractions.

Some of the most interesting parts of Hoare's account were how familiar certain tales about the hospital are to the modern audience. So, we started with the NIMBYs who protested its construction, and who, apparently, even claimed the risk of malaria to patients as a reason for building elsewhere. Then there were were the complaints that the resulting hospital wouldn't be fit for purpose from, of all people, Florence Nightingale. And on top of all that, the massive cost overruns that construction incurred, with the hospital ultimately costing more than twice its original budget. The lecture certainly made the 19th century seem strangely resonant to ostensibly 21st century concerns about big government projects.

It was particularly striking to hear how ill-planned and poorly executed quite important aspects of the hospital and its rationale were. Few, if any, of the painfully-gained lessons that Nightingale learned during the Crimean War were adopted into its design, and poor decisions often came back to haunt the hospital. For instance, Nightingale noted that, should the hospital need expanding, its linear design (an impressive 1/4 mile in length) would mean that expansion would be very difficult. Which was subsequently borne out during WWI, when injured troops were housed, albeit with improved treatment, in a "shanty town" of tents behind in the main building. Victorian Britain certainly felt more a part of the continuum of history rather than the exceptional Golden Age that it's sometimes presented as.

Also alarming, though more from the standpoint of 21st century medicine, were some of the practices employed at the hospital. Hoare recounted one tale involving leeches, spoke of the level of training afforded to nurses (let's just say it wasn't degree-level), and showed contemporary video footage of some rather unconvincing physical therapies. He also spoke about Netley Hospital's military asylum which served, effectively, as a holding facility for victims of "shell shock", as well as a source of dark, if unconfirmed, tales of drug experiments (interestingly, it's now used by the Hampshire Constabulary for training). Much of this is understandable in terms of the evolution of medicine as a discipline, but at the same time it was clear that patients were also viewed as, and treated as, guinea pigs by the doctors.

Overall, it was excellent. Talking without notes, and using only 30 or so vintage photographs for illustration, Hoare did a great job tracing out the biography of the hospital, from construction to destruction. He's clearly done a lot of formal research on the subject, but has also spoken to quite a number of people who either worked at the hospital while it was still open, or who somehow have a family connection - including the grand-daughter of the builder, who revealed some details about the costings. And he also presented quite a few of the loose ends of his digging, hints of stories that he'd come across but been unable to finally resolve. Being a "local boy", one who actually used to break into the hospital's derelict asylum, he was well aware of the familiarity of the location to his listeners, and the resonance the old hospital still has for some of the more senior ones. As a way of dramatising this, he spoke of how, during dry summers, the foundations of the hospital can appear as a ghostly shadow on the lawns that now overlie them.

Definitely recommended should he talk on the subject again.

Southampton archaeology

Out tonight at a seminar given by a member of Southampton City Council's archaeology department. The topic was deaths, mysterious and otherwise, at a friary site that they've been excavating. They basically only get to excavate whenever some building work is planned (even minor items like paths or ramps), so have been gradually piecing together evidence from the site for quite a few years. And while they've also been studying the history of the site itself, tonight was mainly about several bodies from the 15th century that they've uncovered, and it gave a bit of an insight into the sleuthing they do to work out the who's and whys.

The main find that was discussed was a communal grave in which five bodies were found. They were unusual in that they'd been buried fully clothed (normally clothing was too valuable to be ditched this way), they were all men at least 25 years or older, they appear to have been buried rather haphazardly, but there was no sign of them having been executed. While the speaker had come across a similar sort of burial on one of his very first excavations in (I think) Guildford, none of the evidence he'd uncovered gave any definitive answers. So it made for a good mystery, and spawned quite a few questions at the end.

Aside from it being a nice change for an evening, and genuinely interesting, the thing that most struck me again was how brutal and short life was in the past. While the mysterious bodies had evidence of various minor injuries, the talk included discussion of some other skeletons, including that of a child, with much more serious problems. So while the the aim of the evening was to interest the audience in the past, it largely just reminded me that I should be pretty bloody grateful to be alive now.