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The Royal Literary Fund
Financial assistance for writers The Royal Literary F und (est.1790) helps published authors in financial difficulties. L ast year it awarded grants and pensions to over 200 writers. Applica tions are welcome throughout the year.
For more information contact: E ileen Gunn General Secretary The Royal L iterary Fund 3 Johnson’s Court, London E C4 A 3 EA E mail: eileen.gunn@rlf.org.uk or go to www.rlf.org.uk
Registered Charity no 219952
the hostages were held) in just a few days, speed being essential because the terrorists had proclaimed a tight deadline for either an exchange of prisoners for hostages or some ghastly alternative. The planners worked with no certainty of receiving the go-ahead from Rabin, which did not come until after the planes had taken off.
The events at Entebbe, where the plans instantly and predictably unravelled, are related in minute detail. ‘The assault teams were “bunched up, instead of heading to the assigned entrances”. It was a “complete contradiction of the battle plan”, caused no doubt by the loss of the surprise and the threat of incoming fire.’ Back in Israel the cabinet listened agog to minute-by-minute live reports from the scene. I wasn’t there, of course, but for the first time in my reading life I felt physically thrilled by a book.
The effect in Israel was understandably euphoric, though this was mixed with sadness for the death, in the operation’s first minutes, of Yoni Netanyahu, Thunderbolt’s commander – and the brother of Benjamin, whose subsequent political success,
including four terms as prime minister of Israel, depended, David suggests, on his being the brother of the dead hero. Amin unleashed a storm of murder on those who had failed to defeat the Israelis, but before long, partly because of Thunderbolt, his own position collapsed and he had to flee to Saudi Arabia, where he spent the rest of his days. The Russians, Chinese, most African states and the UN’s Kurt Waldheim condemned the operation. But much of the anti-Zionist movement, especially in Germany, melted away.
Indeed, the Israeli triumph was sensational. Puzzlingly, on the last page of this wonderful narrative, Saul David accurately notes Israeli ‘hubris’ after Thunderbolt and then adds that such hubris often attends military success. He gives as examples the performances of ‘the US Army in Vietnam and Iraq’, both of which any reasonable person would describe as disasters. It is his only false note. Never mind. Stop on the previous page. To order this book through our partner bookshop, Heywood Hill, see page 46
philip hoare
The Original Queequeg The Captain and ‘the Cannibal’: An Epic Story of Exploration,
Kidnapping, and the Broadway Stage
By James Fairhead (Yale University Press 392pp £25)
In 1830, Captain Benjamin Morrell, sailing in the uncharted waters of the Pacific far from his New England home, found himself drawn into history. Western contact with the South Seas was limited to whalers and missionaries. This was a virgin world of islands and waters newly opened to exploitation – fragile places, on the brink of ravishment.
From one of those islands, a warrior named Dako looked out and saw strange creatures covered in ‘weird flapping skin’ with no visible penises or anuses. How could they possibly be human? He was about to find out. In the aftermath of a deadly attack from Morrell’s ship, the Antarctic, Dako was captured. He felt he had been taken into the land of the dead.
As far as he was concerned, the Antarctic might have been bottomless, and its bilges a devilish portal to the underworld. In fact, he was being shipped back to the United States, where those who would pay to see him as a curiosity would in turn witness something they found hard to comprehend.
It is this vast distance that James Fairhead bridges in the extraordinary story of Dako and Morrell – symbolic figures linked in a series of events that would transform both their lives. The joy of Fairhead’s excellent book lies in its wonderful detail, such as his compelling description of 1830s New York as a multicultural, cosmopolitan port – a teeming interface that traded in people as well as goods. (Fair-
Literary Review | july 2015 8
