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BOOKS & ARTS Call of Valhalla Lewis Jones Rognarök: The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt Canongate, £14.99, pp. 177, ISBN 9781847670649 In an appendix to this powerfully poetic and beautifully produced little book, A.S. Byatt explains that when Canongate invited her to write a myth, she knew immediately which one to choose: the myth of the Icelandic sagas and Wagner’s operas — ‘Ragnarök: the myth to end all myths, the myth in which the gods themselves were all destroyed.’ When she began, she realised that she was writing for her childhood self, and the way she thought about the world when she first encountered the myth in her mother’s old copy of Asgard and the Gods, acquired as a crib for exams in Old Icelandic and Ancient Norse: ‘a solid volume, bound in green, with an intriguing, rushing image on the cover, of Odin’s Wild Hunt’. So she introduced to her story about ‘the old Germanic world’ the figure of the ‘thin child in wartime’ — herself, aged three when the war began — growing up in the north of England, Viking country, while modern Germany dropped bombs from the sky. Byatt thus does lots of things at once in Ragnarök. Mainly she retells the stories of the savage and implacable Nordic gods, Odin, Thor and Loki, of giants, dwarves and monsters, of Valhalla and the hairy tree Yggdrasil, in a crunchy alliterative style reminiscent of Ted Hughes: ‘Beetles were busy in the bark, gnashing and piercing, 48 breeding and feeding, shining like metals, brown like dead wood.’ Though undeniably, unavoidably appropriate, it is a rather exhausting style at first, heavy with dolorous whimsy, but one soon grows used to it, and as the stories gather momentum it becomes increasingly vivid and thrilling. She a l so recalls and recreates the ‘intense, uncanny pleasure’ of childhood reading, and meditates on the nature of reading, and writing, and on the differences between myth, fairytale and religion. She remembers Bunyan, and Hans Christian Andersen, and the stone church where she learnt about gentle Jesus and ‘a grandfatherly figure who resented presumption’, and ‘felt rude not to believe’. She preferred the stories of Asgard, which seemed to her far more alive, and appropriate to the times. And she still does. The Norse gods strike her as peculiarly human, in their cleverness, stupidity, greed and cruelty, and her imagining of their world and its end is ‘haunted by the imagining of a different end of things’, of the way in which we are now ‘bringing about the end of the world we were born into’. The death-ship Nagflar, for example, which is made of dead men’s nails, has become for her an image of ‘what is now known as the trash vortex, the wheeling collection of indestructible plastic in the Pacific, larger than Texas’. Ragnarök brilliantly combines a retelling of ancient stories — which I recall as repellently alien, but are here magically mysterious — with fascinating fragments of literary autobiography and an urgently suggestive parable. And as an additional treat it includes a number of the marvellous steel engravings that illustrated Asgard and the Gods. Memories in a world of forgetting John de Falbe All That I Am by Anna Funder Viking, £18.99, pp. 315, ISBN 9780670920396 It i s several years s ince Anna Funder published Stasiland, her acclaimed book about East Germany. Her new book is a novel concerning a group of German political activists surrounding the writer Ernst Toller, who is now almost forgotten but once was well known and was president of the short-lived Bavarian Republ ic in 1919 for about a week. Funder’s point of entry i s Ruth, who, some 60 years later as a very old lady in Australia, receives in the post a copy of Toller’s autobiography, I Was A German, with some manuscript amendments made by him in the week before he died, in 1939. Despite the gap in time and place, they are united by their passionate attachment to Ruth’s cousin, Dora Fabian, who was Toller’s amanuensis and the love of his life. Dora was tireless in her resistance to Hitler both in Germany and, after her exile, in London in the early 1930s, where the group attempted to alert the British, and the world, to Hitler’s danger. Impoverished, isolated, caught between fear of Nazi agents operating in London and the disingenuous British requirement that refugees should not engage in political activities, their efforts apparently came to nothing. Although history justified their fears and actions, it has forgotten them. The novel is structured as a counterpoint between Ruth and Toller in what proves, for each of them, the last week of their life. Intercut with Ruth’s reflections on the events of long ago is her wry, shrewd commentary on her present condition and surroundings. Toller’s part is anchored to a New York hotel room in 1939, where he dictates to another young émigrée the amendments that eventually find their way to Ruth. Perceiving the failure of his political and literary achievements, he is anxious to write Dora into the central position that his published autobiography denied her. Suspended between these two poles is a brilliant narrative showing how Toller, Dora, Ruth, her husband Hans and various others responded to the aftermath of the first world war, and the terrible difficulties confronting their continued endeavours in London. It is an ambitious structure but it works perfectly. Every part is beautifully rendered and balanced. Although intricately connected, the numerous threads are never confusing: as place, time and point of the spectator | 17 September 2011 | www.spectator.co.uk
page 49
view shift back and forth, the reader knows where he is and is glad to be there. It would spoil the book to say too much about plot and character because it works as a gripping spy novel, which is a function of its successful structure. Funder’s prose, however, raises the book to a different level. Here is Ruth watching a minor character walk away: ‘She leaves, square-bottomed and tidy as a tug, dangling a box of cakes This is a superb novel about confronting grievous loss and the horror of realising that you will never be understood in a stork’s triangle from the plastic bag on her arm.’ Observing Ruth after Dora’s death, Toller writes that she is ‘a picture of lopsided grief, a bull in the ring trying to outrun its pain.’ And, near the end, ‘Will the world forget we tried so hard to save it?’ The language is assured and precise, the syntax richly expressive. Funder has not merely told the story of these forgotten people. By writing with such sensitivity of their loves and the ways in which they l ived, as well as of their dramas and politics, she has written a superb novel that transcends its setting. It is not just a book about German political exiles in London. It is a novel about confronting grievous loss, and the horror of realising, as history closes over you, that you will never be understood. It is a magnificent irony that, by rescuing those brave people with such consummate artistry, Funder has enabled them to reach into the future after all. This book is a wonder. Do, please, read it. Slightly strained Anthony Cummins The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth Hutchinson, £18.99, pp. 294, ISBN 9780091937126 An escaped convict who took part in a slave-ship mutiny and a Liverpudlian banker hungry for land in a northeastern pit village are the main characters of this novel set in 1767, which is a sequel to Sacred Hunger, Barry Unsworth’s excellent, Booker-sharing yarn about the slave trade (it and The English Patient won in 1992). The convict, Sullivan, is an Irish fiddler who slips out of Newgate and makes for Durham, where he hopes to find the family of Billy Blair, a dead shipmate and fellow mutineer. In the earlier book, Sullivan and Blair rose up against their captain as, en route to the Caribbean, he prepared to toss overboard sick slaves who would fetch more in insur- ance than on sale. The rebels and their African captives wound up in the Florida jungle, where they lived for 12 years as equals (ish), to the chagrin of Kemp — the banker whose suicidally debt-ridden father funded the voyage. Kemp, in the belief that Sullivan et al stole his father’s cargo, crossed the Atlantic to bring the ship’s crew before the law. The new book begins with him eager to see them hanged, while Sullivan suffers various pratfalls on the road to Durham, as apparent well-wishers con him out of what few pennies he has. Two other plot strands concern characters not present in Sacred Hunger: a miner named Bordon, who longs to own a plot of land; and a London-based abolitionist, Ashton, who seeks a landmark ruling in an abduction trial that could kill the slave trade. The novel makes no bones about the coincidences required to bring together these storylines, which cluster around Kemp: he takes a fancy to both Bordon’s mine (its struggling owner needs a loan) and Ashton’s sister, Jane. Crisp dialogue and pastiche-free diction were among Sacred Hunger’s virtues. Vocabulary continues to receive care here (one chapter begins, ‘Kemp issued from his house and engaged a sedan’), but, for the most part, Unsworth’s 17th book since 1966 feels sketchy. Some of its 39 short chapters are bulletin-brisk, and one or two are bulked out with redundant chat, as when Ashton tells Jane what someone else just told him (and us). Unless I’m being dense, the novel simply abandons a subplot in which one ex-shipmate seeks revenge on another. Characters often talk as if they suspect someone might be eavesdropping, and, with the exception of Bordon’s beefy son Michael, who squares up to a pit bully and triumphs in an inter-village handball contest, there’s little sense that the new cast has much of a life beyond their plot function: Ashton is a sock puppet for his cause, his sister a limp love interest. These flaws of craft weaken the publishers’ claim that The Quality of Mercy is a ‘stand-alone sequel’. If the characters we meet for the first time are thin, the ones we meet again must be engaged with via dully précised backstory. As such, the climax, an inevitable Kemp/Sullivan face-off, risks falling flat with those who haven’t read the first book; likewise, the fiddler’s vow to visit Billy’s relatives is poignant if you saw their relationship develop over the 630 pages of Sacred Hunger, but less so (I bet) if you didn’t. A fleet of clichés doesn’t help, the most brazen — in the contrast between the Durham miners and their boss — being the notion that wealth connotes lovelessness, while poverty equals fulfilment. The best thing about The Quality of Mercy is that it prompts you to revisit its predecessor, probably one of the finest historical novels there is. the spectator | 17 September 2011 | www.spectator.co.uk icturelibrary evansp mary No rules to waive Douglas Hurd Ghosts of Empire by Kwasi Kwarteng Bloomsbury, £25, pp. 480, ISBN 978074799418 Kwasi Kwarteng is a young Tory MP and it is right and proper that he should begin his analysis of the British Empire with a quotation from Disraeli. The fact that he is of Ghanaian origin shows merely that we live in an unpredictable world: In the European nations there is confidence in this country …. While they know we can enforce our policy at the same time they know that our Empire is an Empire of liberty, truth and justice. Kwarteng finds it remarkable that Disraeli said nothing about democracy or economics. This would indeed be strange if he There was no underlying philosophy to the British Empire; it consisted simply of a series of opportunistic moves had been either a democrat or a believer in free trade; in fact he was neither. Indeed the paradox of the British Empire stretches back and includes the mystery of the man who is widely regarded and almost always quoted as one of its principal founders. Disraeli remained an enigma, not least to himself. Kwarteng is frank about the scope of his book. There must be something bizarre about an account of the British Empire which contains nothing about Australia, Canada or New Zealand, nothing about the Caribbean, and nothing about India except 49

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view shift back and forth, the reader knows where he is and is glad to be there.

It would spoil the book to say too much about plot and character because it works as a gripping spy novel, which is a function of its successful structure. Funder’s prose, however, raises the book to a different level. Here is Ruth watching a minor character walk away: ‘She leaves, square-bottomed and tidy as a tug, dangling a box of cakes

This is a superb novel about confronting grievous loss and the horror of realising that you will never be understood in a stork’s triangle from the plastic bag on her arm.’ Observing Ruth after Dora’s death, Toller writes that she is ‘a picture of lopsided grief, a bull in the ring trying to outrun its pain.’ And, near the end, ‘Will the world forget we tried so hard to save it?’ The language is assured and precise, the syntax richly expressive.

Funder has not merely told the story of these forgotten people. By writing with such sensitivity of their loves and the ways in which they l ived, as well as of their dramas and politics, she has written a superb novel that transcends its setting. It is not just a book about German political exiles in London. It is a novel about confronting grievous loss, and the horror of realising, as history closes over you, that you will never be understood.

It is a magnificent irony that, by rescuing those brave people with such consummate artistry, Funder has enabled them to reach into the future after all. This book is a wonder. Do, please, read it.

Slightly strained Anthony Cummins

The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth Hutchinson, £18.99, pp. 294, ISBN 9780091937126

An escaped convict who took part in a slave-ship mutiny and a Liverpudlian banker hungry for land in a northeastern pit village are the main characters of this novel set in 1767, which is a sequel to Sacred Hunger, Barry Unsworth’s excellent, Booker-sharing yarn about the slave trade (it and The English Patient won in 1992). The convict, Sullivan, is an Irish fiddler who slips out of Newgate and makes for Durham, where he hopes to find the family of Billy Blair, a dead shipmate and fellow mutineer. In the earlier book, Sullivan and Blair rose up against their captain as, en route to the Caribbean, he prepared to toss overboard sick slaves who would fetch more in insur-

ance than on sale. The rebels and their African captives wound up in the Florida jungle, where they lived for 12 years as equals (ish), to the chagrin of Kemp — the banker whose suicidally debt-ridden father funded the voyage.

Kemp, in the belief that Sullivan et al stole his father’s cargo, crossed the Atlantic to bring the ship’s crew before the law. The new book begins with him eager to see them hanged, while Sullivan suffers various pratfalls on the road to Durham, as apparent well-wishers con him out of what few pennies he has.

Two other plot strands concern characters not present in Sacred Hunger: a miner named Bordon, who longs to own a plot of land; and a London-based abolitionist, Ashton, who seeks a landmark ruling in an abduction trial that could kill the slave trade. The novel makes no bones about the coincidences required to bring together these storylines, which cluster around Kemp: he takes a fancy to both Bordon’s mine (its struggling owner needs a loan) and Ashton’s sister, Jane.

Crisp dialogue and pastiche-free diction were among Sacred Hunger’s virtues. Vocabulary continues to receive care here (one chapter begins, ‘Kemp issued from his house and engaged a sedan’), but, for the most part, Unsworth’s 17th book since 1966 feels sketchy. Some of its 39 short chapters are bulletin-brisk, and one or two are bulked out with redundant chat, as when Ashton tells Jane what someone else just told him (and us).

Unless I’m being dense, the novel simply abandons a subplot in which one ex-shipmate seeks revenge on another. Characters often talk as if they suspect someone might be eavesdropping, and, with the exception of Bordon’s beefy son Michael, who squares up to a pit bully and triumphs in an inter-village handball contest, there’s little sense that the new cast has much of a life beyond their plot function: Ashton is a sock puppet for his cause, his sister a limp love interest.

These flaws of craft weaken the publishers’ claim that The Quality of Mercy is a ‘stand-alone sequel’. If the characters we meet for the first time are thin, the ones we meet again must be engaged with via dully précised backstory. As such, the climax, an inevitable Kemp/Sullivan face-off, risks falling flat with those who haven’t read the first book; likewise, the fiddler’s vow to visit Billy’s relatives is poignant if you saw their relationship develop over the 630 pages of Sacred Hunger, but less so (I bet) if you didn’t. A fleet of clichés doesn’t help, the most brazen — in the contrast between the Durham miners and their boss — being the notion that wealth connotes lovelessness, while poverty equals fulfilment.

The best thing about The Quality of Mercy is that it prompts you to revisit its predecessor, probably one of the finest historical novels there is.

the spectator | 17 September 2011 | www.spectator.co.uk icturelibrary evansp mary

No rules to waive Douglas Hurd Ghosts of Empire by Kwasi Kwarteng Bloomsbury, £25, pp. 480, ISBN 978074799418

Kwasi Kwarteng is a young Tory MP and it is right and proper that he should begin his analysis of the British Empire with a quotation from Disraeli. The fact that he is of Ghanaian origin shows merely that we live in an unpredictable world:

In the European nations there is confidence in this country …. While they know we can enforce our policy at the same time they know that our Empire is an Empire of liberty, truth and justice.

Kwarteng finds it remarkable that Disraeli said nothing about democracy or economics. This would indeed be strange if he

There was no underlying philosophy to the British Empire;

it consisted simply of a series of opportunistic moves had been either a democrat or a believer in free trade; in fact he was neither. Indeed the paradox of the British Empire stretches back and includes the mystery of the man who is widely regarded and almost always quoted as one of its principal founders. Disraeli remained an enigma, not least to himself.

Kwarteng is frank about the scope of his book. There must be something bizarre about an account of the British Empire which contains nothing about Australia, Canada or New Zealand, nothing about the Caribbean, and nothing about India except

49

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