As readers of this blog will know I turned 40 in 2007 and have really been feeling my age. It seems to be getting far worse. I accept that I had had many health problems in my life, but it is the difficulty of getting through an ordinary day. Today was no exception and I am not (I was about to say 'I am lucky not to even be back at work yet' but given how mad I am going sitting at home, maybe 'lucky' is the wrong word), even back at work yet. I found it almost impossible to drag myself out of bed today and walked around the supermarket as if I was a zombie. I have slept the bulk of the afternoon away and feel no better; just incredibly lethargic. I tried playing a computer game with a 6-year old who was keen to have a human partner and was utterly humiliated, I could not get any of my forces even in range of his and many of them died even without me having fired a shot. He did not even have to attack me in order to win and even started shooting his own men in an attempt to try and balance the game for me. It was not that I lost badly or even lost, it was that I could not even engage in the game sufficiently to even give him an easy challenge. I know children assume adults can do anything they can do but better when in fact, especially with anything computer-based they are far better and this proved the case. However, it did seem to emphasise to me how irrelevant I am in the world of the late 2000s. My memory is deteriorating quickly, I now meet people I have no memory of though they reveal I have spoken with them at length just days before; I forget names and faces and even worse tell people things they have actually told me in the first place. If I feel this bad when I have no obvious symptoms - I am not suffering a cold or flu, I have had no accidents or anything else that signals a problem, I am simply lacking in energy and my body is still in various places (my knees in particular ache, but I have heard that becomes common for most men beyond the age of 30). I am not overweight, in fact I lost a lot of weight before Christmas due to the fortnight of moving heavy boxes and furniture up and downstairs. So, I can only think it must be down to old age. If I was a caveman I would be elderly by now; even in 1900 the average life expectancy of a worker was only 45, so maybe we just keep ourselves alive artificially long periods these days. I feel like the Struldbruggs in 'Gulliver's Travels' the people of Luggnagg who are immortal, but their faculties deteriorate over time so the bulk of them are blind and deaf and all are entirely bored, desperate for something new in their lives. I also suffer that and find no interest in books and television, let alone the computer.
What worries me is, if I feel this bad now at 40, what is it going to be like if I live to 60? Do I face two decades of dragging my increasingly debilitated body around; bored out of my mind and unable to interact with the increasingly complex computer-focused world of the 2010s and 2020s, let alone to make a worthwhile contribution to it? What if the young people I meet only use systems that I cannot even press the correct buttons to access? Will I be cut out of forms of communication. Clearly one fear, with my work contract expiring in 2009, is that I will find it difficult to get a job now and that I face another 25 years on unemployment and other benefits, being pressured to retrain myself so that I can get a 'McJob' though of course unless I am behind the scenes all these problems of communication will continue and in any post the lethargy which seems to be taking me will still hamper my work. So it is likely that I face 25 years at lower wages than at present before sliding into poverty when I retire. In the UK many people fall one or two or more social classes on retirement. This is as measured by the census which has 8 social categories with '8' being the 'underclass' of homeless people; on retirement people in categories 3 or 4 will commonly drop from category to 5, 6 or even 7 because of the fall in income and status; something exacerbated by chief executives of companies running off with pension funds. People in categories 1 and 2 are in that bracket where they are sufficiently wealthy that they can ignore the normal rules of society. The end of so many company pension schemes in the UK and the poor performance and mis-selling of so many private schemes means lots of working and middle class UK people will be in poverty in old age.
I had intended to end my life in August 2007 ahead of my 40th birthday in October and was dissuaded by my housemates. However, increasingly it seems to have been a mistake and it is something I need to rethink as I have no desire to face another two decades of feeling as bad as this and being slowly day-by-day being demonstrated that I am of no use to society and in fact lack the abilities to properly engage with what it requires. I am no rich now but falling into even tighter financial straits is not an attractive proposition and is something which is liable to start from 2009 onwards. I did say that I was going to avoid making this blog a journal of my deterioration, but being a 40-year old in the UK today it seems impossible to avoid it. Hopefully there will not be many months left in which I can experience the humiliation and discomfort of being a middle aged British person alive in 2008.
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Books I Read in 2007
This is a feature that I cannot claim any credit for as it appears on numerous blogs. I was a little concerned that it was a touch arrogant to outline the books I have read. However, given that things I have read often prompt blog postings and people might be interested in reading these books, combined with me being able to recommend things or, possibly more importantly, warn people away from wasting their time on poor books, I think it is a valid element of my blog. Of course, I only started this blog in May 2007. However, I have been keeping a diary since 1978 and so have a lot of paper-based records to draw upon. Of course, some time has passed since I have read some of these books and so my reviews will not be as accurate as if done at the time. I find I forget plots very quickly, but hopefully have sufficient memory of the overall gist of the books to be able to make worthwhile comments on them.
I read to a very fixed pattern: 1 detective/murder mystery novel, 1 science fiction or fantasy novel; 1 novel not fitting those previous categories; 1 non-fiction book then back around that four-book cycle. I started this some years ago to ensure that I do not simply stick to reading one sort of book. I think I was in part prompted to do this by an acquaintance who was re-reading 'Gorky Park' by Martin Cruz Smith for the third time because he had no idea what to read next. It is a good novel (the plotting of the movie is even better, certainly with a more feasible final act) but he had no idea what to turn to next. In my youth I would go through a string of crime novels or fantasy novels. While I still like to read the entirety of a series written by a particular novelist, I think it is better to mix this in with a wider range of genres so that I do not become weary of the particular writing or characters.
I rarely by books new, so my choices tend to be driven by what is available in charity shops. When I was a teenager every charity shop I went in had a copy of 'Jaws' (1974) by Peter Benchley and later things like 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (1993) by Louis de Bernières and most recently 'The Da Vinci Code' (2003) by Dan Brown. In any given set of charity shops (and I have now lived in two towns with 7-8 charity shops grouped within a five-minute walk of each other) you will find each holding a copy of that book. Of course, other more random stuff turns up and the low prices mean I am willing to take a gamble on it than if I was buying it new. It does mean that I sometimes make terrible mistakes and end up reading books that are terrible. However, at least I have not wasted £8.99 on them. After me the books go to my father who consumes books in vast quantities and then back to another charity shop, presumably cycling round until they wear out.
Anyway, rather than list the books in strict chronological order in which I read them, I have grouped them into fiction and non-fiction and furthermore have clustered books featuring the same characters or by the same author or focusing on the same topic to allow me to make general comments about them.
Fiction
'Reigning Cats and Dogs' by Tanith Lee.
A strange, almost steampunk novel set in a Victorian London in which there is a lot of debauchery and secret societies releasing ancient forces, notably connected to the Egyptian god Anubis. It seems an interesting idea but somehow lacked punch, perhaps it was trying too hard.
'The 47 Rōnin Story' by John Allyn.
This story, of course, is not actually by John Allyn as it is drawn from real events in the 18th century Japan in which 47 samurai left masterless, i.e. rōnin, took revenge on their master's persecutors. It is a renowned story in Japanese culture and is reasonably well known in the West. I enjoyed this rendering of it which combined the cunning of the 47 trying to mislead those anticipating an attack by them and the action. If you have any interest in a good action story with a range of interesting characters then I recommend this.
'Roman Blood'; 'Arms of Nemesis'; 'A Murder on the Appian Way'; 'A Mist of Prophecies' all by Steven Saylor
These are the 1st, 3rd, 7th and 10th books in Steven Saylor's series featuring Roman investigator Gordianus. The random nature of the ones I read stemmed from what I turned up in charity shops. The 12 novels in the series cover the period 80 BCE - 46 BCE; the first was published in 1991 and the latest in 2008. They are very engaging stories which because they stretch over such a long period are able to mesh with numerous major events in the period when the Roman Republic came to an end and the empire began. Though there is a political background, the stories are basically police procedural novels, featuring well drawn fictional and historical characters. Saylor certainly has an ability to conjure up the city of Rome and other locations across the Roman world without drowning you in historical detail.
'Blade Runner": The Edge of Human' by K.W. Jeter.
This is a sequel to the original 'Blade Runner' (1982) movie rather than the novel it was based on, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (1968) by Philip K. Dick or the director's cut version of the movie which came out in 1992 nor the 'final cut' version of 2007. I found the book weak. It really had nowhere to go. Without the imperative of hunting down replicants a lot of the edge was missing, you did not really feel any genuine threat to Rick Deckard nor really any advance in the question about whether he too was a replicant. This was a disappointment to me.
'The Last English King'; 'Knights of Albion' and 'A Very English Agent' all by Julian Rathbone.
The first features the adventures of one of King Harold II's (the king who was killed at the Battle of Hastings thus deemed the last 'English' king) housecarls wandering Europe and the Near East bemoaning his failure to die for his king. The settings from southern England as far as Byzantine Anatolia and details of this early medieval period are well portrayed, but the story rather runs out of steam. The hero eventually gives up, not reaching Jerusalem and simply returns to Norman-occupied England.
This tapering off is a similar complaint you can lay at the door of 'Knights of Albion'. This is set in the fifteenth century and features travellers from the advanced Indian state of Vijayanagara, a real place, travelling to France and England in search of ambassadors sent to enlist help from the Europeans for Vijayanagara's own difficulties. They find Europe uncivilised. There is some humour in seeing medieval Europe through the eyes of outsiders but this is rather laboured and again, the story lacks strong direction and tapers off at the end rather than having a clear conclusion. Perhaps I am missing the point of Rathbone's stories. I love the portrayal of the periods he is writing about but yearn for more narrative drive.
In this respect 'A Very English Agent' is better. It features the adventures of Charles Bosham an agent provocateur for the repressive British governments of the post-Napoleonic Wars era as they faced social unrest such as Peterloo and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. People have likened Bosham to Flashman in the novels of George MacDonald Fraser. Bosham seems to be at every major event in the political history of the 1810s and 1820s, though he is a highly unreliable narrator. Rathbone handles the humour better and because the story is necessarily episodic there is less trouble with him not being able to come to a strong conclusion. A sequel, 'Birth of a Nation' (2005) featured Bosham in the Americas in the 1840s. Readers often dislike the intentional anachronistic references in Rathbone's historical novels. However, I am just seeking a bit more clarity in where they are going.
'Dinotopia Lost' by Alan Dean Foster.
I had read the original picture book 'Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time' (1992) by James Gurney when it came out. It is set in the 1860s about a fictional island where humans and dinosaurs live in harmony. It has spawned numerous books for children and a mini-series on television. Part of the delight of the original was the Orientalist style paintings that fitted the era portrayed, but instead of showing Turkey or Egypt, featuring dinosaurs and humans on the island. This un-illustrated full length novel had classic themes of pirates washed up in Dinotopia seeking to exploit it. I was probably too old for this book, it was alright but nothing special.
'Queen Victoria's Bomb' by Ronald Clark
I have mentioned this before as being a steampunk classic. It owes a lot to the concerns of the time when it was published (1967) regarding the risk of nuclear war, but it is also fascinating in moving the atomic bomb back a century and finding out the potential impact. It is a bit episodic in that the story builds up to climaxes each time the bomb is to be used. However, it manages to make you entirely accept that a bomb of that kind was possible and then present early Victorians rather than mid-20th century people with the moral dilemmas. It also contains a chilling warning of the hazards of nuclear weapons testing. By showing Imperial Britons to be callous to the concerns of those they ruled over especially in India, it challenges the contemporary reader to see if they are any more caring. This is a classic book, well executed and should be on the reading list of anyone interested in steampunk and/or 'what if?' stories and I know you are out there.
'The Shores of Death' by Michael Moorcock.
This novel is also known as 'The Twilight Man'. I read it in a single day. It was very much a story in the style of 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus' (1604) by Christopher Marlowe in that people seeking escape from death have their wishes fulfilled but in unpleasant ways by a powerful being whose malevolence stems from people's ignorance of what they are truly wishing for. It is set on an alien world. I did not like it. I guess it made me uneasy in the way 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' (1962; movie 1983 with screenplay by Bradbury) by Ray Bradbury. I think people have a hard enough time dealing with life, death and loss without them being punished through tricks just for wishing for something better.
'The Junkers' by Piers Paul Read
This was a pretty decent book, perhaps showing its age a little (it was published in 1968) but weaving an interesting story jumping between Nazi Germany and 1960s West Germany to look at the dynamics of a prosperous German family working to cover up their secrets while continuing to prosper through changes of regime. The characters are engaging and probably in the late 1960s it would have seemed more distinctive than today, but reading it was certainly not a wasted experience. Whilst it could have fallen into the same trap as Rathbone's novels discussed above, it had a satisfying conclusion rather than tapering off.
'The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria'; 'The Dragon King's Palace'; 'The Perfumed Sleeve' all by Laura Joh Rowland
These are the 7th, 8th and 9th books in Rowland's Sano Ichiro series of detective novels set in Japan of the 17th century. Sano Ichiro is a civil servant working for the 4th Tokugawa Shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. The first book in the series came out in 1991 and the 12th, last year. Part of the problem with many police series is that when the detective is successful and rises he becomes distanced from the operational aspects of investigations and to some degree as the Ichiro books have progressed, while the hero does investigate crimes, the political aspects of the Shōgun's court take on as much importance. In this the rivalry of other powerful officials is as important as the criminals Ichiro encounters. I enjoy these stories, they show a lot about life in Japan of the time, again without you feeling drowned in the detail. The key problem is that beside the devious officials and criminals that Ichiro encounters, he seems rather bland. He is hung up around his duties to the code of Bushido when they conflict with investigations but his traits seem a little pale and you end up becoming more involved with his opponents who display an interesting if unappealing set of characteristics. The 'Dragon King' a bandit leader is a classic example.
'The War Book' by James Sallis.
This is an anthology of science fiction stories from the late 1960s. However, none of them have stuck out in my mind and I have forgotten this book incredibly quickly. James Sallis is rated as a writer, much in Michael Moorcock's generation; the two have collaborated. I should have made notes about this book before I despatched it to my father.
'A Rough Shoot' by Geoffrey Household.
This was one of the 'Classic Thrillers' reprints of action and adventure stories from the early and mid-20th century. This one was a 1950s about a reasonably well off middle class man hiring some land in Dorset to do some shooting to supplement his family's groceries with meat. He stumbles across a plot to bring neo-Fascists into Britain. He works to thwart this and towards the end is aided by the authorities. The story has the feel of something written in the 1920s or 1930s and it is nice to see a thriller from this era not focused on the Soviet 'threat'. It is a fast moving, enjoyable adventure. What marks it out is the sense of place in southern England and the characters are credible and well drawn, better than in many stories of this ilk. This book is less well known than similar stories by John Buchan and Eric Ambler, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that kind of story.
'John McNab' by John Buchan.
This is a lighter story than 'A Rough Shoot' or the bulk of Buchan's stories. There is no dastardly political threat afoot, rather three bored, well-off gentlemen aim to trespass on their neighbours' lands, having forewarned them, and yet seek to carry off game or fish from each. It is rather about an upper class game, set in the Scottish scenery that Buchan loved. It sums up a time and a class, though Buchan does not stick entirely to the expectations and the women are pretty feisty. This is a relaxing novel without much challenge, but pretty well crafted for its kind.
Non-Fiction
'The Devil's Horsemen' by James Chambers.
This is a concise (190 pages) but chilling account of the Mongol invasions of Europe in the 13th century. It moves along briskly and manages to detail the successful tactics and the utterly terrifying methods of the invaders. You can really understand the fear of those facing these attacks. The accounts are so unpleasant that I dislike recalling them. Finishing the book I had a complete loathing for the people that inflicted these atrocities and had to rein in my distaste for contemporary Mongolia's lauding of its murderous ancestors. This is a quick and effective way of learning about the Mongol invasions and whilst dispassionate in itself, may, as in me, stir up strong feelings.
'The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century' by Will Hutton.
This is really two books and I think Hutton would have done better to separate them out. The coverage of contemporary China and how it has got to where it is today in terms of politics, economics and society is well handled. However, the second half of the book is really a repeat of Hutton's earlier works in advocating the kind of society and economy he feels the West needs. This is him repeating his old song, just using the 'threat' of China to try to drive it on. Read the first half.
'The Chinese' by Jasper Becker.
This book is an excellent antidote to all of those books out there lauding how successful the Chinese economy is and what wonders the country is doing. Becker is a clear critic of Communist China but he shows up its totalitarian state and what it has done in an effective and dispassionate way. He has excellent attention to detail and yet is able to make the stories of those millions of people who have been part of different aspects of China's turbulent history come to you in a personal way. I certainly recommend this as a book to show you the reality of China beneath the glitz and warn you of the dangers of dealing with such a dictatorship.
'China: A New History' by John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman.
In fact by the time I got around to reading this book, it was pretty much an old history as it was published at the end of the 1980s and did not cover the latest developments in China. Goldman updated Fairbank's earlier edition of this book and it is interesting that Goldman has a real belief that China will have to move to democracy. This is a common flaw among Americans who seem to cling to the Hayekian view that free economies mean democracy and planned economies mean dictatorship. You only have to compare France and China to see this is not true. Fairbank had a much more realistic perception of China and I feel his view has been borne out by what we see in China now. This book is solid if you want a decent coverage of China in the past couple of hundred years, but you would need something newer for the latter decades that we have witnessed.
'The Lion and the Dragon: British Voices from the China Coast' by Christopher Cook.
I think this book was produced in conjunction with a 1980s television series. It is a highly illustrated (with photograph) oral history of life among those Britons who worked in China in the 1920s-40s. It would be a great source book for novels in that setting. Despite the title it does also feature stories from Britons working in the interior. Notable are accounts of incidents of kidnapping and of the raucous social life that the expatriates lived in the coastal cities, notably Shanghai. An interesting slice of a lost experience.
'The Templars' by Piers Paul Read.
Given that the Knights Templar turn up in so much fiction these days and are attributed with having been involved with a whole range of fantastical activities, notably guarding the Holy Grail, whatever that might be, it is interesting to read a lucid, sober account of them. Read's conclusion is that they were a lot less exciting than anyone thinks and were pretty mundane warrior monks who got mixed up in politics and the greed/need of monarchs for their money. This was a straight forward history.
'A Brief History of the Crusades' by Geoffrey Hindley.
I really rate this book. Whilst others will give you more blow-by-blow detail of the medieval crusades to the Levant, this really deepens your understanding about what was going on. I particularly enjoyed the details on society in the Crusader States and aspects such as the different position of women there compared to back in Europe. This book gives you a real flavour of the life of the crusaders and those who worked with and who opposed them. A very engaging book that I would read again.
'The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon' by Ivan Morris.
A 'pillow book' is less lascivious than it sounds, it was simply a book a woman in medieval Japan would keep in the drawer in the side of her wooden pillow. Usually it was something like a diary or scrapbook. It was written by a courtier Sei Shōnagon at the court of the Empress Consort in the 990s CE up to 1002. It has small scraps of stories and observations about life at court and so is ideal for dipping into or reading right through. I have likened it to a modern day blog. It is certainly a lot less tiresome than reading either 'The Tale of Genji' a novel by another Japanese female courtier, Murasaki Shikibu, written some years after Sei Shōnagon's pillow book or Cao Xueqin's 18th century novel about the Chinese court, 'A Dream of Red Mansions' both of which I read in the late 1980s and have none of the wit of this book.
'What If ...?' Explorations in Social Science Fiction' edited by Nelson W. Polsby.
Strictly this is not non-fiction as it speculates on history that did not happen. However, it seeks to do this in an academic way. Unfortunately as with the worst counter-factual writing too many of the authors have been permitted to use their counter-factuals to whine about things they see wrong with their own society (USA of the early 1980s). The best is probably about a confederal as opposed to federal USA being established, which came very close to happening. There is a good chapter on Napoleon's global plans too. Otherwise I was disappointed by this book and I guess all I will take from it is a few ideas for 'what if?'s to analyse myself.
'Invasion. The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940' by Kenneth Macksey.
This is obviously another counter-factual book. It is pretty workerlike in its rendering of a history of a successful German invasion of England, going into immense detail about the various units on both sides and their engagement. I suppose this would be useful if you wanted to wargame such an invasion, but I felt myself wanting more on the impact on Britain and so after a while found it rather sterile. I read histories of warfare, but guess that in this case I wanted more speculation beyond simply what occurred on the battelfield.
'Invasion 1940' by Walter Schellenberg.
This is a translation of the documents produced by SS Brigadeführer (Major-General) Walter Schellenberg regarding Britain ahead of the German invasion planned for 1940. Schellenberg worked in Office VI of the SD, the German counter-intelligence body, with resposibility for such work outside Germany. He survived the war and was released from prison in 1951, dying the following year at the age of 42. The book gives background from a Nazi perspective of British society and how it was seen to function. It also includes lists of those who would have been arrested on the occupation of Britain. These are interesting aspects, though after a while the long lists get tedious.
I read to a very fixed pattern: 1 detective/murder mystery novel, 1 science fiction or fantasy novel; 1 novel not fitting those previous categories; 1 non-fiction book then back around that four-book cycle. I started this some years ago to ensure that I do not simply stick to reading one sort of book. I think I was in part prompted to do this by an acquaintance who was re-reading 'Gorky Park' by Martin Cruz Smith for the third time because he had no idea what to read next. It is a good novel (the plotting of the movie is even better, certainly with a more feasible final act) but he had no idea what to turn to next. In my youth I would go through a string of crime novels or fantasy novels. While I still like to read the entirety of a series written by a particular novelist, I think it is better to mix this in with a wider range of genres so that I do not become weary of the particular writing or characters.
I rarely by books new, so my choices tend to be driven by what is available in charity shops. When I was a teenager every charity shop I went in had a copy of 'Jaws' (1974) by Peter Benchley and later things like 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (1993) by Louis de Bernières and most recently 'The Da Vinci Code' (2003) by Dan Brown. In any given set of charity shops (and I have now lived in two towns with 7-8 charity shops grouped within a five-minute walk of each other) you will find each holding a copy of that book. Of course, other more random stuff turns up and the low prices mean I am willing to take a gamble on it than if I was buying it new. It does mean that I sometimes make terrible mistakes and end up reading books that are terrible. However, at least I have not wasted £8.99 on them. After me the books go to my father who consumes books in vast quantities and then back to another charity shop, presumably cycling round until they wear out.
Anyway, rather than list the books in strict chronological order in which I read them, I have grouped them into fiction and non-fiction and furthermore have clustered books featuring the same characters or by the same author or focusing on the same topic to allow me to make general comments about them.
Fiction
'Reigning Cats and Dogs' by Tanith Lee.
A strange, almost steampunk novel set in a Victorian London in which there is a lot of debauchery and secret societies releasing ancient forces, notably connected to the Egyptian god Anubis. It seems an interesting idea but somehow lacked punch, perhaps it was trying too hard.
'The 47 Rōnin Story' by John Allyn.
This story, of course, is not actually by John Allyn as it is drawn from real events in the 18th century Japan in which 47 samurai left masterless, i.e. rōnin, took revenge on their master's persecutors. It is a renowned story in Japanese culture and is reasonably well known in the West. I enjoyed this rendering of it which combined the cunning of the 47 trying to mislead those anticipating an attack by them and the action. If you have any interest in a good action story with a range of interesting characters then I recommend this.
'Roman Blood'; 'Arms of Nemesis'; 'A Murder on the Appian Way'; 'A Mist of Prophecies' all by Steven Saylor
These are the 1st, 3rd, 7th and 10th books in Steven Saylor's series featuring Roman investigator Gordianus. The random nature of the ones I read stemmed from what I turned up in charity shops. The 12 novels in the series cover the period 80 BCE - 46 BCE; the first was published in 1991 and the latest in 2008. They are very engaging stories which because they stretch over such a long period are able to mesh with numerous major events in the period when the Roman Republic came to an end and the empire began. Though there is a political background, the stories are basically police procedural novels, featuring well drawn fictional and historical characters. Saylor certainly has an ability to conjure up the city of Rome and other locations across the Roman world without drowning you in historical detail.
'Blade Runner": The Edge of Human' by K.W. Jeter.
This is a sequel to the original 'Blade Runner' (1982) movie rather than the novel it was based on, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (1968) by Philip K. Dick or the director's cut version of the movie which came out in 1992 nor the 'final cut' version of 2007. I found the book weak. It really had nowhere to go. Without the imperative of hunting down replicants a lot of the edge was missing, you did not really feel any genuine threat to Rick Deckard nor really any advance in the question about whether he too was a replicant. This was a disappointment to me.
'The Last English King'; 'Knights of Albion' and 'A Very English Agent' all by Julian Rathbone.
The first features the adventures of one of King Harold II's (the king who was killed at the Battle of Hastings thus deemed the last 'English' king) housecarls wandering Europe and the Near East bemoaning his failure to die for his king. The settings from southern England as far as Byzantine Anatolia and details of this early medieval period are well portrayed, but the story rather runs out of steam. The hero eventually gives up, not reaching Jerusalem and simply returns to Norman-occupied England.
This tapering off is a similar complaint you can lay at the door of 'Knights of Albion'. This is set in the fifteenth century and features travellers from the advanced Indian state of Vijayanagara, a real place, travelling to France and England in search of ambassadors sent to enlist help from the Europeans for Vijayanagara's own difficulties. They find Europe uncivilised. There is some humour in seeing medieval Europe through the eyes of outsiders but this is rather laboured and again, the story lacks strong direction and tapers off at the end rather than having a clear conclusion. Perhaps I am missing the point of Rathbone's stories. I love the portrayal of the periods he is writing about but yearn for more narrative drive.
In this respect 'A Very English Agent' is better. It features the adventures of Charles Bosham an agent provocateur for the repressive British governments of the post-Napoleonic Wars era as they faced social unrest such as Peterloo and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. People have likened Bosham to Flashman in the novels of George MacDonald Fraser. Bosham seems to be at every major event in the political history of the 1810s and 1820s, though he is a highly unreliable narrator. Rathbone handles the humour better and because the story is necessarily episodic there is less trouble with him not being able to come to a strong conclusion. A sequel, 'Birth of a Nation' (2005) featured Bosham in the Americas in the 1840s. Readers often dislike the intentional anachronistic references in Rathbone's historical novels. However, I am just seeking a bit more clarity in where they are going.
'Dinotopia Lost' by Alan Dean Foster.
I had read the original picture book 'Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time' (1992) by James Gurney when it came out. It is set in the 1860s about a fictional island where humans and dinosaurs live in harmony. It has spawned numerous books for children and a mini-series on television. Part of the delight of the original was the Orientalist style paintings that fitted the era portrayed, but instead of showing Turkey or Egypt, featuring dinosaurs and humans on the island. This un-illustrated full length novel had classic themes of pirates washed up in Dinotopia seeking to exploit it. I was probably too old for this book, it was alright but nothing special.
'Queen Victoria's Bomb' by Ronald Clark
I have mentioned this before as being a steampunk classic. It owes a lot to the concerns of the time when it was published (1967) regarding the risk of nuclear war, but it is also fascinating in moving the atomic bomb back a century and finding out the potential impact. It is a bit episodic in that the story builds up to climaxes each time the bomb is to be used. However, it manages to make you entirely accept that a bomb of that kind was possible and then present early Victorians rather than mid-20th century people with the moral dilemmas. It also contains a chilling warning of the hazards of nuclear weapons testing. By showing Imperial Britons to be callous to the concerns of those they ruled over especially in India, it challenges the contemporary reader to see if they are any more caring. This is a classic book, well executed and should be on the reading list of anyone interested in steampunk and/or 'what if?' stories and I know you are out there.
'The Shores of Death' by Michael Moorcock.
This novel is also known as 'The Twilight Man'. I read it in a single day. It was very much a story in the style of 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus' (1604) by Christopher Marlowe in that people seeking escape from death have their wishes fulfilled but in unpleasant ways by a powerful being whose malevolence stems from people's ignorance of what they are truly wishing for. It is set on an alien world. I did not like it. I guess it made me uneasy in the way 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' (1962; movie 1983 with screenplay by Bradbury) by Ray Bradbury. I think people have a hard enough time dealing with life, death and loss without them being punished through tricks just for wishing for something better.
'The Junkers' by Piers Paul Read
This was a pretty decent book, perhaps showing its age a little (it was published in 1968) but weaving an interesting story jumping between Nazi Germany and 1960s West Germany to look at the dynamics of a prosperous German family working to cover up their secrets while continuing to prosper through changes of regime. The characters are engaging and probably in the late 1960s it would have seemed more distinctive than today, but reading it was certainly not a wasted experience. Whilst it could have fallen into the same trap as Rathbone's novels discussed above, it had a satisfying conclusion rather than tapering off.
'The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria'; 'The Dragon King's Palace'; 'The Perfumed Sleeve' all by Laura Joh Rowland
These are the 7th, 8th and 9th books in Rowland's Sano Ichiro series of detective novels set in Japan of the 17th century. Sano Ichiro is a civil servant working for the 4th Tokugawa Shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. The first book in the series came out in 1991 and the 12th, last year. Part of the problem with many police series is that when the detective is successful and rises he becomes distanced from the operational aspects of investigations and to some degree as the Ichiro books have progressed, while the hero does investigate crimes, the political aspects of the Shōgun's court take on as much importance. In this the rivalry of other powerful officials is as important as the criminals Ichiro encounters. I enjoy these stories, they show a lot about life in Japan of the time, again without you feeling drowned in the detail. The key problem is that beside the devious officials and criminals that Ichiro encounters, he seems rather bland. He is hung up around his duties to the code of Bushido when they conflict with investigations but his traits seem a little pale and you end up becoming more involved with his opponents who display an interesting if unappealing set of characteristics. The 'Dragon King' a bandit leader is a classic example.
'The War Book' by James Sallis.
This is an anthology of science fiction stories from the late 1960s. However, none of them have stuck out in my mind and I have forgotten this book incredibly quickly. James Sallis is rated as a writer, much in Michael Moorcock's generation; the two have collaborated. I should have made notes about this book before I despatched it to my father.
'A Rough Shoot' by Geoffrey Household.
This was one of the 'Classic Thrillers' reprints of action and adventure stories from the early and mid-20th century. This one was a 1950s about a reasonably well off middle class man hiring some land in Dorset to do some shooting to supplement his family's groceries with meat. He stumbles across a plot to bring neo-Fascists into Britain. He works to thwart this and towards the end is aided by the authorities. The story has the feel of something written in the 1920s or 1930s and it is nice to see a thriller from this era not focused on the Soviet 'threat'. It is a fast moving, enjoyable adventure. What marks it out is the sense of place in southern England and the characters are credible and well drawn, better than in many stories of this ilk. This book is less well known than similar stories by John Buchan and Eric Ambler, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that kind of story.
'John McNab' by John Buchan.
This is a lighter story than 'A Rough Shoot' or the bulk of Buchan's stories. There is no dastardly political threat afoot, rather three bored, well-off gentlemen aim to trespass on their neighbours' lands, having forewarned them, and yet seek to carry off game or fish from each. It is rather about an upper class game, set in the Scottish scenery that Buchan loved. It sums up a time and a class, though Buchan does not stick entirely to the expectations and the women are pretty feisty. This is a relaxing novel without much challenge, but pretty well crafted for its kind.
Non-Fiction
'The Devil's Horsemen' by James Chambers.
This is a concise (190 pages) but chilling account of the Mongol invasions of Europe in the 13th century. It moves along briskly and manages to detail the successful tactics and the utterly terrifying methods of the invaders. You can really understand the fear of those facing these attacks. The accounts are so unpleasant that I dislike recalling them. Finishing the book I had a complete loathing for the people that inflicted these atrocities and had to rein in my distaste for contemporary Mongolia's lauding of its murderous ancestors. This is a quick and effective way of learning about the Mongol invasions and whilst dispassionate in itself, may, as in me, stir up strong feelings.
'The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century' by Will Hutton.
This is really two books and I think Hutton would have done better to separate them out. The coverage of contemporary China and how it has got to where it is today in terms of politics, economics and society is well handled. However, the second half of the book is really a repeat of Hutton's earlier works in advocating the kind of society and economy he feels the West needs. This is him repeating his old song, just using the 'threat' of China to try to drive it on. Read the first half.
'The Chinese' by Jasper Becker.
This book is an excellent antidote to all of those books out there lauding how successful the Chinese economy is and what wonders the country is doing. Becker is a clear critic of Communist China but he shows up its totalitarian state and what it has done in an effective and dispassionate way. He has excellent attention to detail and yet is able to make the stories of those millions of people who have been part of different aspects of China's turbulent history come to you in a personal way. I certainly recommend this as a book to show you the reality of China beneath the glitz and warn you of the dangers of dealing with such a dictatorship.
'China: A New History' by John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman.
In fact by the time I got around to reading this book, it was pretty much an old history as it was published at the end of the 1980s and did not cover the latest developments in China. Goldman updated Fairbank's earlier edition of this book and it is interesting that Goldman has a real belief that China will have to move to democracy. This is a common flaw among Americans who seem to cling to the Hayekian view that free economies mean democracy and planned economies mean dictatorship. You only have to compare France and China to see this is not true. Fairbank had a much more realistic perception of China and I feel his view has been borne out by what we see in China now. This book is solid if you want a decent coverage of China in the past couple of hundred years, but you would need something newer for the latter decades that we have witnessed.
'The Lion and the Dragon: British Voices from the China Coast' by Christopher Cook.
I think this book was produced in conjunction with a 1980s television series. It is a highly illustrated (with photograph) oral history of life among those Britons who worked in China in the 1920s-40s. It would be a great source book for novels in that setting. Despite the title it does also feature stories from Britons working in the interior. Notable are accounts of incidents of kidnapping and of the raucous social life that the expatriates lived in the coastal cities, notably Shanghai. An interesting slice of a lost experience.
'The Templars' by Piers Paul Read.
Given that the Knights Templar turn up in so much fiction these days and are attributed with having been involved with a whole range of fantastical activities, notably guarding the Holy Grail, whatever that might be, it is interesting to read a lucid, sober account of them. Read's conclusion is that they were a lot less exciting than anyone thinks and were pretty mundane warrior monks who got mixed up in politics and the greed/need of monarchs for their money. This was a straight forward history.
'A Brief History of the Crusades' by Geoffrey Hindley.
I really rate this book. Whilst others will give you more blow-by-blow detail of the medieval crusades to the Levant, this really deepens your understanding about what was going on. I particularly enjoyed the details on society in the Crusader States and aspects such as the different position of women there compared to back in Europe. This book gives you a real flavour of the life of the crusaders and those who worked with and who opposed them. A very engaging book that I would read again.
'The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon' by Ivan Morris.
A 'pillow book' is less lascivious than it sounds, it was simply a book a woman in medieval Japan would keep in the drawer in the side of her wooden pillow. Usually it was something like a diary or scrapbook. It was written by a courtier Sei Shōnagon at the court of the Empress Consort in the 990s CE up to 1002. It has small scraps of stories and observations about life at court and so is ideal for dipping into or reading right through. I have likened it to a modern day blog. It is certainly a lot less tiresome than reading either 'The Tale of Genji' a novel by another Japanese female courtier, Murasaki Shikibu, written some years after Sei Shōnagon's pillow book or Cao Xueqin's 18th century novel about the Chinese court, 'A Dream of Red Mansions' both of which I read in the late 1980s and have none of the wit of this book.
'What If ...?' Explorations in Social Science Fiction' edited by Nelson W. Polsby.
Strictly this is not non-fiction as it speculates on history that did not happen. However, it seeks to do this in an academic way. Unfortunately as with the worst counter-factual writing too many of the authors have been permitted to use their counter-factuals to whine about things they see wrong with their own society (USA of the early 1980s). The best is probably about a confederal as opposed to federal USA being established, which came very close to happening. There is a good chapter on Napoleon's global plans too. Otherwise I was disappointed by this book and I guess all I will take from it is a few ideas for 'what if?'s to analyse myself.
'Invasion. The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940' by Kenneth Macksey.
This is obviously another counter-factual book. It is pretty workerlike in its rendering of a history of a successful German invasion of England, going into immense detail about the various units on both sides and their engagement. I suppose this would be useful if you wanted to wargame such an invasion, but I felt myself wanting more on the impact on Britain and so after a while found it rather sterile. I read histories of warfare, but guess that in this case I wanted more speculation beyond simply what occurred on the battelfield.
'Invasion 1940' by Walter Schellenberg.
This is a translation of the documents produced by SS Brigadeführer (Major-General) Walter Schellenberg regarding Britain ahead of the German invasion planned for 1940. Schellenberg worked in Office VI of the SD, the German counter-intelligence body, with resposibility for such work outside Germany. He survived the war and was released from prison in 1951, dying the following year at the age of 42. The book gives background from a Nazi perspective of British society and how it was seen to function. It also includes lists of those who would have been arrested on the occupation of Britain. These are interesting aspects, though after a while the long lists get tedious.
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
The Hazards Of Post-Feminism Going Awry
Well, I hope 2008 is going well for you. Having paid a visit to the local accident and emergency department of my local hospital this morning (my flatmate had headaches and limb paralysis which seemed like getting worse; fortunately the diagnosis was stress rather than concussion after to a bang on the head earlier this week - cooker hoods are a nightmare if you are over 5'8" (1.70m)) I have found many of the town's residents with food injuries and gashes from tripping over on the way home from celebrations, they were still processing the 02.00 intake at 08.00 and the security guards were rushed off their feet dealing with violent patients, one of the guards is starting 2008 with a broken arm courtesy of one of the patients. So, in terms of Britain's binge-drinking culture and its consequences, the local report is 'no change'. I do hope for improvement in life in the UK and across the World. There are loads of things that could be done simply in the UK to make life better. We could start with just taking a more relaxed attitude. Anger at the moment causes so many problems: car crashes, injuries, stress (especially for retail sector workers), if everyone just slowed down a bit and did not feel they had to keep on asserting themselves at every occasion, especially when driving, then the life of the UK would improve immediately (and the hospitals could deal with real illness not the self-inflicted kind) and traffic would flow better if you were not having to slow up every 10 minutes to get past another 'shunt' caused by impatience and anger. Sorry, I am beginning to sound like the Archbishop of Canterbury and his new year message.
My posting today might seem an odd one to start off with. I find the break from work gives me lots of time to think and finally seeming to have shaken off the writing block I have been suffering I have been working on fiction and hopefully sometime by the Spring will be able to post my latest steampunk story. Having just watched 'The Rocketeer' (1991) which is kind of post-steampunk but similar anachronistic invention story (and 'The Shadow in the North' a TV dramatisation of a Philip Pullman novel set in the 1880s and featuring a train-mounted, steam-powered [literally the steam pushing out the bullets] machine gun for policing Russia), I suppose you could term it 'bakelitepunk' (after the brown early plastic of the 1930s used for radios and other high-tech items of the era), I feel quite inspired. However, the break also leaves me time to think about other issues that interest me, such as UK society. It was also partly inspired by the hospital visit and the fact that the A&E (Accident & Emergency; formerly Casualty) department was filled with people who seem to embody many of the problems I see with the gender balance in the UK today.
I have written before about how men feel ourselves to be pretty obsolete in the present day, with an ever greater emphasis on communication, group work and language skills that women excel in rather than more assertive, active skills of the past that men tend to be stronger at (whilst acknowledging many individuals go against any supposed tendencies of their gender). I have also commented on the over-feminisation of girls and in turn of women, with the 'princess obsession' so prevalent in the UK, pushed hard by the retail sector. Today I am going to look at what I see, and I emphasise this is a personal view, as at the heart of many of some current social problems. One is increased aggressiveness predominantly by men and the sense that you cannot be a 'real man' unless you drive a big car very fast, and swear and punch anyone else (whether male or female) who dares slur (or you feel slurs) your reputation. The other is the converse increased submissiveness of women, the emphasis on feminine styles but also what is perceived as feminine behaviour drawing on attitudes of the past (the irony here is people point back to the 1950s and also to the Jane Austen era of the 1820s and of course in both times, despite the possibly more feminine garb, in fact at the time a lot of women worked hard, in tough circumstances and would perceive many of their counterparts of the 2000s as failing womankind).
As is commonly known feminism grew out of the late 1960s movements for greater equality such as in terms of race. It increased in influence in the 1970s, leading in the UK, and other industrialised countries to gender equality legislation aimed at evening out the pay discrepancy and the restriction on opportunities for women. A lot has been achieved in the UK but we are still not fully there yet: women still are likely to earn less than their male counterparts and are often under-represented in many professions (though we now produce 12% more female law graduates than male ones each year, there are still very few female judges and women are heavily under-represented among members of parliament). Feminism is less visible as a movement now, though women's groups remain, there has been a tendency to move to 'post-feminism'. To some extent post-feminism grew from women who found much of the feminist movement to be a little too 'raw' even ironically too masculine for them and they wished to recapture some of the aspects of femininity; the stereotype was wearing a dress rather than a pair of dungarees. Many also, wrongly felt that feminism predicated against heterosexual relationships. It is true than in the 1970s and even today some strong feminists felt that fraternising with men was fraternising with the 'enemy'. Of course parallel to the feminist movement was the movement for gay rights (and of course 'homosexual' does not come from 'love of men' in that form of 'homo' as in homo sapiens, it comes from the same root as homogenous, in other words it means 'love of the same', and so is contrasted with heterosexual in the way homogenous and heterogenous are contrasted - sorry, a grammar point that irritates me when people get it wrong, I am being very pedantic at present) and lesbians have straddled the two strands confusing the perceptions of the two movements in the minds of many people.
I first encountered post-feminism in the late 1980s when on a college course. Women were in the large majority in English literature courses at the institution and the bulk of them came from well-off middle class homes in the South of England. Their tutors were of the woman's movement generation and so their take on literature was informed by that. They thought such an approach would excite their students and had a rude awakening when the students went on strike demanding an end to the 'Marxist feminist' attitudes that they felt were being peddled to them and wanted a return to 'the proper study of literature'. (Of course being the 1980s with Thatcherism very strong anything which was more liberal than Margaret Thatcher's New Right attitudes was seen as 'Marxist'). This was women bringing the attitudes back to what they saw as proper position and outlook for women. A couple of years later I was startled when on a holiday with friends that I had to fight with the two women present to be allowed along with a male friend to cook for the group. The two women who were in their 20s and self-employed seemed to feel it was improper for a man to cook when women were present. I felt as if I had gone into some time warp, but in fact I was arriving in post-feminist Britain. It did not need men to undermine feminism, women were happy to do it for themselves. The mistake being made is that to put on a dress, wear make-up, enjoy weepy movies, or whatever does not mean having to give up your rights to be treated equally. Somehow many ordinary women seem to feel that to have one it is compulsory to have both. I can accept the feminist line that dresses and make-up can be seen as the trappings of submissiveness anyway (and I accept that some women, like some men enjoy being submissive in a sexual way, but that typically is based on consent with someone who will dominate, with get out clauses and there are equally very dominant women in that context), but then surely it is up to the woman wearing the dress and make-up not to let herself be perceived as automatically subscribing to a servile role.
Part of the problem was that this rather twisted post-feminism was twisted further by the British political scene. All regimes face a challenge, many like the Nazis and Italian Fascists, seek to put women into a subservient, in particular baby-producing role; infamously the Nazis referred to the 'three Ks' for German women: Kinder, Kirche, Kuche (i.e. children, church, kitchen) and yet these regimes always really needed female workers. As we know women increasingly provide more of the workforce than men, especially in an information-focused, service-sector and unskilled workplace. Both the Thatcher and the Blair regimes suffered the same dichotomy. As I have noted before, Blair's outlook was terribly wrapped up in the views of the authoritarian Vichy regime of France and its emphasis on 'family, work, nation'. Like Thatcher he wanted mothers to get out and work (at low wages predominantly) yet he also wanted (partly due to the Catholic influence on his policies) them to have more children. Thus the emphasis was on fewer single-parent families and more two-parent families, which it was somehow assumed would permit child care (which is often too expensive to be in the reach of the average mother) and so allow the mothers to work rather than be dependent on the state (which was a standard assumption from the Thatcher years that all single mothers were on state benefits whereas despite the high teenage birthrate in the UK the majority were divorced middle class women). More maternity and paternity leave was granted (and I am not saying that is at all a bad thing) but with all this came the assumption that women should be tied up with men and by implication put up with any bad behaviour from the men (who, as I will outline below, are actually failing far more than ever to grow up to be decent husbands and fathers). I remember a single-mother journalist writing that when she had been unemployed in the 1990s almost being told this explicitly by the job centre staff she spoke to.
The 1990s did see the burgeoning of 'chick lit' which did seem to straddle being feminine without giving up equality and the ability to assert oneself. If you look at 'Bridget Jones's Diary' by Helen Fielding (1996; based on a newspaper column from 1995), probably the bestselling example in the UK, you do see a woman looking for romance, but not at any cost. She dumps the men who mistreat her and even her 'hero' she remains sceptical of. She has her own circle of friends not dependent on a man and she has a career and ambitions to advance it. She strives for a mature relationship with her parents. None of this stops her liking romantic things and being vulnerable at times, to be that is not to give up all the strong points of her life. All of us are weak and vulnerable at times, it is not a monopoly of women, and if we try to pretend that we are not those things periodically then we are denying our humanity. Of course what makes this interesting is that 'Bridget Jones's Diary' was an unashamed 'remake' of 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen (1813) who is the goddess of the post-feminist movement, even though many of her heroines would kick the average post-feminist in 2008 up the bum and tell them to be stronger and go out there and get what they want, however constrained by society they might feel.
So, where has this twisted form of post-feminism left us? Increasingly women feel they need to be passive, even submissive to men, to be perceived properly in society. They lap up the consumer products which simply reinforce this, hence the shift to everything in pink which is the one female colour par excellence (too little purple which was the feminist colour). Fashions that sexualise women have been common but these days they are combined with logos which push the woman wearing them in the role of almost being perceived as a prostitute. A female friend of mine says she shudders when she sees women wearing the local 'Criminal' (a UK designer brand, I believe) across the backs of their jeans. Hair is long, earrings are huge, jeans are tight, skirts very short (this brings me back to the women in A&E this morning). The attempt to combine female sexualisation with some female emancipation came in the short-lived form of 'girl power' especially fostered by The Spice Girls in the 1990s; look at the current counterparts, The Sugarbabes (though they manage a little female empowerment at times), The Pussycat Dolls (just look at the name) and despite their name, Girls Aloud (of course, they are actually women). It might seem bizarre but The Spice Girls reuniting might actually be good for young women in Britain, at least each member had an identity (however manufactured) and they were not simply replicas of each other, all offering themselves up sexually. So the twisted post-feminism has put women back in a position of effectively sexual servants. I know this is occurring all across the Western world, but in Britain, where it is unrestrained by the religion of the USA and the common sense and maturity of the Netherlands, it is having the most severe effect. Girls rush to dress like their mothers and elder sisters with no time to explore different aspects of being female only that of a sexual 'product' (note all the adverts for 'make-over' kits of girls which are terribly unnerving). I know that teenage pregnancies in the UK are slowly falling, but we still have the highest level in Europe and I imagine the fall will bottom out or reverse if society continues to emphasise that a woman is only to be (I was going to say 'respected' but in fact it is really the reverse) seen as legitimate if she is sexually appealing (within the mainstream definition which is incredibly narrow) and making babies. Of course there is nothing wrong with being sexually appealing when you are an adult, or in having babies, it is just when society makes that the only seemingly acceptable option or excludes you.
So, the twisting of post-feminism has done a lot of damage to the status of (young) women in UK society and provides an excuse for those who still wish to discriminate against them in the workplace and use sexual politics to manipulate them (rape convictions and successful sexual harassment cases still remain the exception rather than commonplace). I will argue it has also damaged the role of men in society. It is easy to blame rap culture for a lot of this, but for the average teenage boy this is one of the two prime sources of his information about aspirations and also, importantly, how to behave in society (for pre-pubescent boys there is WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) full of over-muscled men simulating violence (which to many of the boys looks real), shouting, being aggressive and surrounded by nubile women who often they fight over; this is barbarism made entertainment and packaged for 11 year olds). The second place is the internet. My mother who grew up in the 1940s said that the way young men and women found out what to do in a relationship was by watching movies. They saw how couples kissed and held each other and would often replicate it, literally right there in the cinema or otherwise later. Of course the limited portrayals of the era meant that there were a lot of unanswered questions especially once you have got beyond the kissing and cuddling. However, importantly it also showed 'sexual' manners, how to treat a woman properly. Men who were violent to women in movies always came off badly and did not 'get the girl' ultimately.
When I was a teenager in the 1980s access to pornography was pretty difficult and usually amounted to stuff found round the back of the newsagents or filched from fathers or older brothers. Nowadays not only every time you log on to your email account are you being offered up the stuff it is so easy to find free pornographic videos in seconds. I am staggered by how much stuff is out there. In addition, its spread is immense. When I was a teenager, you saw generally soft porn of a woman posing naked, occasionally playing with herself. However, on the internet you can see women of all kinds performing the widest range of acts available and things like sado-masochism seem normal. It is interesting to note that recently 'The Guardian' reported that many young women dislike the fact that their boyfriends ejaculate in their faces without asking permission yet they feel they are not in a position to protest as it is seen as 'normal'. That is because online pornography shows pornographic sex which is not about the participants as sex should be, it is about the audience. I imagine very few women like being ejaculated on their faces, but of course someone watching a pornographic video wants to see the so-called 'money shot' to prove the sex is 'real'. It is as if I sit down and watch 'Die Hard 4.0' or 'Bullitt' or 'The French Connection' and then go out and drive that way because I think that driving full speed through a city crashing into cars is the 'normal' way to drive. Crucially, due to the post-feminism, these young women are doing nothing to contest their boyfriends' behaviour or seemingly even discuss sex in a mature way. They have been given a submissive role by society and feel obliged to stick to it, however much they might protest about the consequences to other women.
So sexual knowledge for men (less so for young women who tend to read more and so probably get a wider experience from novels) comes from apeing a performance rather than actuality or any authentic portrayal (no movie I know shows the farts, burps, itchy skin, sudden cramp, need to urinate, difficulty getting on condom, etc. that normal sex involves). They are given the green light to use this performance sex on women by, in particular, music videos which generally show women in a half-dressed state shaking their bodies around provocatively whilst the man strides around boasting how he is better than everyone else, is so rich, has a big car and so on. The women fall into his lap, never contest his right to use their bodies and so on. Now, female artists do often portray a stronger role for women in their videos even if dressed in stunning outfits that make them look incredibly sexy; notably Beyonce and Christine Aguillera among others have done songs contesting violence towards women and Jennifer Lopez has appeared in a movie on the theme. Interestingly, though they do not contest sexual submissiveness, (I am hoping that Pink will release 'Don't Cum In My Face Without Asking' in 2008; 'U + Ur Hand' came close in 2007). For some reason these individual songs do not penetrate so strongly as the 'lifestyle' videos of male performers.
The twisted post-feminism, however, does not only cause problems in the sexual intercourse sphere but also in other aspects of men's lives. To complement submissive women, men increasingly feel that they have to be aggressive. This is no way going back to the Jane Austen era, when at a time when life could be lost easily, manners and respect reined in male aggression, but to some far more primitive time and even then I doubt the average caveman sought out someone to beat up in a car park on Friday night as he knew he had to be in a fit state to get up and hunt the next morning and an injury could kill him; plus alcohol had not been invented. I see fathers with sons at primary school (pre-11 years old) actively encouraging them to be aggressive in their toys even in their play. I accept that boys need to be tough, we all do in the modern world, but we now have aggression for aggression's sake, not to defend your family or your land or your life, but because somehow if you are not angry and aggressive you are somehow not male. Just as for girls, to be seen these days as not feminine, even not a princess (with all the traits of demanding things and service not simply being feminine) is the worst accusation for boys it is even worse to be seen as not being a man. Hence we have rising numbers of boys carrying knives and stabbing people. I live in a suburban area and we have a stabbing every fortnight and someone being kicked to death or into hospital once per month; other parts of the UK have many more and have shootings too, increasingly of school-aged boys. Fatherhood in itself is becoming perverted into ensuring that your son can kick to pieces anyone he fancies taking on and that your daughter will be standing on the sidelines applauding ready to offer herself sexually to the victor. The battle is everywhere, fighting to get at the front of the queue and in particular driving to push everyone off the road to assert your identity as a man.
This is not masculinity, this is barbarism. Look at less developed societies. You do not see tribespeople in the Amazon basin kicking each other to death or stabbing each other just because one has run in front of the other. They know what life costs and that violence and aggression have their place and that we have to draw limits or otherwise their society collapses. Back in the 1990s I heard Eric Hobsbawm speak on 'Barbarism: A Users' Guide' and he spoke about the problems of Yugoslavia breaking up. It was a developed country which had firearms around but also a framework of norms about how one behaved with them and how you treated your neighbours and how men treated women too. Then the war began and rather than adhering to common decency all the brakes came off and the situation was far more dangerous than in less developed societies. You ended up with the mass raping, the death camps, the snipers firing at market queues. This is where a society which has fallen back to the survival of the fittest; male strong-female submissive culture. Unless in the UK we can address this unhealthy imbalance between men and women which is triggering off so many other unpleasant consequences, and see that men and women are different, but neither side should be forced, cajoled, bribed, bullied, bought off into filling that assigned role to the utmost, then there is nothing to stop even worse things happening.
My posting today might seem an odd one to start off with. I find the break from work gives me lots of time to think and finally seeming to have shaken off the writing block I have been suffering I have been working on fiction and hopefully sometime by the Spring will be able to post my latest steampunk story. Having just watched 'The Rocketeer' (1991) which is kind of post-steampunk but similar anachronistic invention story (and 'The Shadow in the North' a TV dramatisation of a Philip Pullman novel set in the 1880s and featuring a train-mounted, steam-powered [literally the steam pushing out the bullets] machine gun for policing Russia), I suppose you could term it 'bakelitepunk' (after the brown early plastic of the 1930s used for radios and other high-tech items of the era), I feel quite inspired. However, the break also leaves me time to think about other issues that interest me, such as UK society. It was also partly inspired by the hospital visit and the fact that the A&E (Accident & Emergency; formerly Casualty) department was filled with people who seem to embody many of the problems I see with the gender balance in the UK today.
I have written before about how men feel ourselves to be pretty obsolete in the present day, with an ever greater emphasis on communication, group work and language skills that women excel in rather than more assertive, active skills of the past that men tend to be stronger at (whilst acknowledging many individuals go against any supposed tendencies of their gender). I have also commented on the over-feminisation of girls and in turn of women, with the 'princess obsession' so prevalent in the UK, pushed hard by the retail sector. Today I am going to look at what I see, and I emphasise this is a personal view, as at the heart of many of some current social problems. One is increased aggressiveness predominantly by men and the sense that you cannot be a 'real man' unless you drive a big car very fast, and swear and punch anyone else (whether male or female) who dares slur (or you feel slurs) your reputation. The other is the converse increased submissiveness of women, the emphasis on feminine styles but also what is perceived as feminine behaviour drawing on attitudes of the past (the irony here is people point back to the 1950s and also to the Jane Austen era of the 1820s and of course in both times, despite the possibly more feminine garb, in fact at the time a lot of women worked hard, in tough circumstances and would perceive many of their counterparts of the 2000s as failing womankind).
As is commonly known feminism grew out of the late 1960s movements for greater equality such as in terms of race. It increased in influence in the 1970s, leading in the UK, and other industrialised countries to gender equality legislation aimed at evening out the pay discrepancy and the restriction on opportunities for women. A lot has been achieved in the UK but we are still not fully there yet: women still are likely to earn less than their male counterparts and are often under-represented in many professions (though we now produce 12% more female law graduates than male ones each year, there are still very few female judges and women are heavily under-represented among members of parliament). Feminism is less visible as a movement now, though women's groups remain, there has been a tendency to move to 'post-feminism'. To some extent post-feminism grew from women who found much of the feminist movement to be a little too 'raw' even ironically too masculine for them and they wished to recapture some of the aspects of femininity; the stereotype was wearing a dress rather than a pair of dungarees. Many also, wrongly felt that feminism predicated against heterosexual relationships. It is true than in the 1970s and even today some strong feminists felt that fraternising with men was fraternising with the 'enemy'. Of course parallel to the feminist movement was the movement for gay rights (and of course 'homosexual' does not come from 'love of men' in that form of 'homo' as in homo sapiens, it comes from the same root as homogenous, in other words it means 'love of the same', and so is contrasted with heterosexual in the way homogenous and heterogenous are contrasted - sorry, a grammar point that irritates me when people get it wrong, I am being very pedantic at present) and lesbians have straddled the two strands confusing the perceptions of the two movements in the minds of many people.
I first encountered post-feminism in the late 1980s when on a college course. Women were in the large majority in English literature courses at the institution and the bulk of them came from well-off middle class homes in the South of England. Their tutors were of the woman's movement generation and so their take on literature was informed by that. They thought such an approach would excite their students and had a rude awakening when the students went on strike demanding an end to the 'Marxist feminist' attitudes that they felt were being peddled to them and wanted a return to 'the proper study of literature'. (Of course being the 1980s with Thatcherism very strong anything which was more liberal than Margaret Thatcher's New Right attitudes was seen as 'Marxist'). This was women bringing the attitudes back to what they saw as proper position and outlook for women. A couple of years later I was startled when on a holiday with friends that I had to fight with the two women present to be allowed along with a male friend to cook for the group. The two women who were in their 20s and self-employed seemed to feel it was improper for a man to cook when women were present. I felt as if I had gone into some time warp, but in fact I was arriving in post-feminist Britain. It did not need men to undermine feminism, women were happy to do it for themselves. The mistake being made is that to put on a dress, wear make-up, enjoy weepy movies, or whatever does not mean having to give up your rights to be treated equally. Somehow many ordinary women seem to feel that to have one it is compulsory to have both. I can accept the feminist line that dresses and make-up can be seen as the trappings of submissiveness anyway (and I accept that some women, like some men enjoy being submissive in a sexual way, but that typically is based on consent with someone who will dominate, with get out clauses and there are equally very dominant women in that context), but then surely it is up to the woman wearing the dress and make-up not to let herself be perceived as automatically subscribing to a servile role.
Part of the problem was that this rather twisted post-feminism was twisted further by the British political scene. All regimes face a challenge, many like the Nazis and Italian Fascists, seek to put women into a subservient, in particular baby-producing role; infamously the Nazis referred to the 'three Ks' for German women: Kinder, Kirche, Kuche (i.e. children, church, kitchen) and yet these regimes always really needed female workers. As we know women increasingly provide more of the workforce than men, especially in an information-focused, service-sector and unskilled workplace. Both the Thatcher and the Blair regimes suffered the same dichotomy. As I have noted before, Blair's outlook was terribly wrapped up in the views of the authoritarian Vichy regime of France and its emphasis on 'family, work, nation'. Like Thatcher he wanted mothers to get out and work (at low wages predominantly) yet he also wanted (partly due to the Catholic influence on his policies) them to have more children. Thus the emphasis was on fewer single-parent families and more two-parent families, which it was somehow assumed would permit child care (which is often too expensive to be in the reach of the average mother) and so allow the mothers to work rather than be dependent on the state (which was a standard assumption from the Thatcher years that all single mothers were on state benefits whereas despite the high teenage birthrate in the UK the majority were divorced middle class women). More maternity and paternity leave was granted (and I am not saying that is at all a bad thing) but with all this came the assumption that women should be tied up with men and by implication put up with any bad behaviour from the men (who, as I will outline below, are actually failing far more than ever to grow up to be decent husbands and fathers). I remember a single-mother journalist writing that when she had been unemployed in the 1990s almost being told this explicitly by the job centre staff she spoke to.
The 1990s did see the burgeoning of 'chick lit' which did seem to straddle being feminine without giving up equality and the ability to assert oneself. If you look at 'Bridget Jones's Diary' by Helen Fielding (1996; based on a newspaper column from 1995), probably the bestselling example in the UK, you do see a woman looking for romance, but not at any cost. She dumps the men who mistreat her and even her 'hero' she remains sceptical of. She has her own circle of friends not dependent on a man and she has a career and ambitions to advance it. She strives for a mature relationship with her parents. None of this stops her liking romantic things and being vulnerable at times, to be that is not to give up all the strong points of her life. All of us are weak and vulnerable at times, it is not a monopoly of women, and if we try to pretend that we are not those things periodically then we are denying our humanity. Of course what makes this interesting is that 'Bridget Jones's Diary' was an unashamed 'remake' of 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen (1813) who is the goddess of the post-feminist movement, even though many of her heroines would kick the average post-feminist in 2008 up the bum and tell them to be stronger and go out there and get what they want, however constrained by society they might feel.
So, where has this twisted form of post-feminism left us? Increasingly women feel they need to be passive, even submissive to men, to be perceived properly in society. They lap up the consumer products which simply reinforce this, hence the shift to everything in pink which is the one female colour par excellence (too little purple which was the feminist colour). Fashions that sexualise women have been common but these days they are combined with logos which push the woman wearing them in the role of almost being perceived as a prostitute. A female friend of mine says she shudders when she sees women wearing the local 'Criminal' (a UK designer brand, I believe) across the backs of their jeans. Hair is long, earrings are huge, jeans are tight, skirts very short (this brings me back to the women in A&E this morning). The attempt to combine female sexualisation with some female emancipation came in the short-lived form of 'girl power' especially fostered by The Spice Girls in the 1990s; look at the current counterparts, The Sugarbabes (though they manage a little female empowerment at times), The Pussycat Dolls (just look at the name) and despite their name, Girls Aloud (of course, they are actually women). It might seem bizarre but The Spice Girls reuniting might actually be good for young women in Britain, at least each member had an identity (however manufactured) and they were not simply replicas of each other, all offering themselves up sexually. So the twisted post-feminism has put women back in a position of effectively sexual servants. I know this is occurring all across the Western world, but in Britain, where it is unrestrained by the religion of the USA and the common sense and maturity of the Netherlands, it is having the most severe effect. Girls rush to dress like their mothers and elder sisters with no time to explore different aspects of being female only that of a sexual 'product' (note all the adverts for 'make-over' kits of girls which are terribly unnerving). I know that teenage pregnancies in the UK are slowly falling, but we still have the highest level in Europe and I imagine the fall will bottom out or reverse if society continues to emphasise that a woman is only to be (I was going to say 'respected' but in fact it is really the reverse) seen as legitimate if she is sexually appealing (within the mainstream definition which is incredibly narrow) and making babies. Of course there is nothing wrong with being sexually appealing when you are an adult, or in having babies, it is just when society makes that the only seemingly acceptable option or excludes you.
So, the twisting of post-feminism has done a lot of damage to the status of (young) women in UK society and provides an excuse for those who still wish to discriminate against them in the workplace and use sexual politics to manipulate them (rape convictions and successful sexual harassment cases still remain the exception rather than commonplace). I will argue it has also damaged the role of men in society. It is easy to blame rap culture for a lot of this, but for the average teenage boy this is one of the two prime sources of his information about aspirations and also, importantly, how to behave in society (for pre-pubescent boys there is WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) full of over-muscled men simulating violence (which to many of the boys looks real), shouting, being aggressive and surrounded by nubile women who often they fight over; this is barbarism made entertainment and packaged for 11 year olds). The second place is the internet. My mother who grew up in the 1940s said that the way young men and women found out what to do in a relationship was by watching movies. They saw how couples kissed and held each other and would often replicate it, literally right there in the cinema or otherwise later. Of course the limited portrayals of the era meant that there were a lot of unanswered questions especially once you have got beyond the kissing and cuddling. However, importantly it also showed 'sexual' manners, how to treat a woman properly. Men who were violent to women in movies always came off badly and did not 'get the girl' ultimately.
When I was a teenager in the 1980s access to pornography was pretty difficult and usually amounted to stuff found round the back of the newsagents or filched from fathers or older brothers. Nowadays not only every time you log on to your email account are you being offered up the stuff it is so easy to find free pornographic videos in seconds. I am staggered by how much stuff is out there. In addition, its spread is immense. When I was a teenager, you saw generally soft porn of a woman posing naked, occasionally playing with herself. However, on the internet you can see women of all kinds performing the widest range of acts available and things like sado-masochism seem normal. It is interesting to note that recently 'The Guardian' reported that many young women dislike the fact that their boyfriends ejaculate in their faces without asking permission yet they feel they are not in a position to protest as it is seen as 'normal'. That is because online pornography shows pornographic sex which is not about the participants as sex should be, it is about the audience. I imagine very few women like being ejaculated on their faces, but of course someone watching a pornographic video wants to see the so-called 'money shot' to prove the sex is 'real'. It is as if I sit down and watch 'Die Hard 4.0' or 'Bullitt' or 'The French Connection' and then go out and drive that way because I think that driving full speed through a city crashing into cars is the 'normal' way to drive. Crucially, due to the post-feminism, these young women are doing nothing to contest their boyfriends' behaviour or seemingly even discuss sex in a mature way. They have been given a submissive role by society and feel obliged to stick to it, however much they might protest about the consequences to other women.
So sexual knowledge for men (less so for young women who tend to read more and so probably get a wider experience from novels) comes from apeing a performance rather than actuality or any authentic portrayal (no movie I know shows the farts, burps, itchy skin, sudden cramp, need to urinate, difficulty getting on condom, etc. that normal sex involves). They are given the green light to use this performance sex on women by, in particular, music videos which generally show women in a half-dressed state shaking their bodies around provocatively whilst the man strides around boasting how he is better than everyone else, is so rich, has a big car and so on. The women fall into his lap, never contest his right to use their bodies and so on. Now, female artists do often portray a stronger role for women in their videos even if dressed in stunning outfits that make them look incredibly sexy; notably Beyonce and Christine Aguillera among others have done songs contesting violence towards women and Jennifer Lopez has appeared in a movie on the theme. Interestingly, though they do not contest sexual submissiveness, (I am hoping that Pink will release 'Don't Cum In My Face Without Asking' in 2008; 'U + Ur Hand' came close in 2007). For some reason these individual songs do not penetrate so strongly as the 'lifestyle' videos of male performers.
The twisted post-feminism, however, does not only cause problems in the sexual intercourse sphere but also in other aspects of men's lives. To complement submissive women, men increasingly feel that they have to be aggressive. This is no way going back to the Jane Austen era, when at a time when life could be lost easily, manners and respect reined in male aggression, but to some far more primitive time and even then I doubt the average caveman sought out someone to beat up in a car park on Friday night as he knew he had to be in a fit state to get up and hunt the next morning and an injury could kill him; plus alcohol had not been invented. I see fathers with sons at primary school (pre-11 years old) actively encouraging them to be aggressive in their toys even in their play. I accept that boys need to be tough, we all do in the modern world, but we now have aggression for aggression's sake, not to defend your family or your land or your life, but because somehow if you are not angry and aggressive you are somehow not male. Just as for girls, to be seen these days as not feminine, even not a princess (with all the traits of demanding things and service not simply being feminine) is the worst accusation for boys it is even worse to be seen as not being a man. Hence we have rising numbers of boys carrying knives and stabbing people. I live in a suburban area and we have a stabbing every fortnight and someone being kicked to death or into hospital once per month; other parts of the UK have many more and have shootings too, increasingly of school-aged boys. Fatherhood in itself is becoming perverted into ensuring that your son can kick to pieces anyone he fancies taking on and that your daughter will be standing on the sidelines applauding ready to offer herself sexually to the victor. The battle is everywhere, fighting to get at the front of the queue and in particular driving to push everyone off the road to assert your identity as a man.
This is not masculinity, this is barbarism. Look at less developed societies. You do not see tribespeople in the Amazon basin kicking each other to death or stabbing each other just because one has run in front of the other. They know what life costs and that violence and aggression have their place and that we have to draw limits or otherwise their society collapses. Back in the 1990s I heard Eric Hobsbawm speak on 'Barbarism: A Users' Guide' and he spoke about the problems of Yugoslavia breaking up. It was a developed country which had firearms around but also a framework of norms about how one behaved with them and how you treated your neighbours and how men treated women too. Then the war began and rather than adhering to common decency all the brakes came off and the situation was far more dangerous than in less developed societies. You ended up with the mass raping, the death camps, the snipers firing at market queues. This is where a society which has fallen back to the survival of the fittest; male strong-female submissive culture. Unless in the UK we can address this unhealthy imbalance between men and women which is triggering off so many other unpleasant consequences, and see that men and women are different, but neither side should be forced, cajoled, bribed, bullied, bought off into filling that assigned role to the utmost, then there is nothing to stop even worse things happening.
Sunday, 30 December 2007
What Is Wrong With 'The Golden Compass'?
As well as watching DVDs: 'Buongiorno, notte' (2003) and 'Zwartboek' (2007), I actually strayed out to the cinema to see 'The Golden Compass' (2007) which is based on 'The Northern Lights' by Philip Pullman (1995) the first in his His Dark Materials trilogy. I also saw Mark Kermode comment on it in his round-up of movies of 2007 and give it a rather lacklustre review. He prefers 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy (2001-2003) for their darkness and 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (2005) for being more warm-hearted. In fact I think that the Lord of the Rings movies have a similar chumminess about them, the hobbits in particular are there to stand in for the perspective of children and you know they are going to win through despite the odds. Conversely, the first Narnia film has real moments of nastiness such as when the faun is frozen and also when the boy is told that he has betrayed his friends for sweets (something particularly cutting at the time the film is set, the middle of the Second World War). Kermode feels that 'The Golden Compass' lacks the positive elements of these other fantasy films, over-simplifying the novel. This can be said for all of these films, plus the Harry Potter series too. Basically you can make a decent movie out of a novella or a short story. Much of the Philip K. Dick stories turned into movies are not his full length work. In contrast Pullman's work like that of Tolkien and Rowling runs to hundreds of pages; Lewis's work is easier to adapt as his books are the length of the old-fashioned length novel (i.e. say 150 pages) not the doorstops of today. Whole sections of the Lord of the Rings novels are left out from the movies and in the Harry Potter movies there is similar cutting and simplification. That is why movies are adaptations. To come close to a novel you need to do a series.
'The Golden Compass' does make one mistake for younger viewers especially in our illiterate age in that there are a number of instances of foreign languages being used which need sub-titles which it was clear many younger members of the audience around me needed to have read out to them. In the UK the film is rated 'PG' - Parental Guidance which means generally even pre-school children can get in if with a parent; typically children attend movies that are the next rating up from their age, so 12 year olds go to '15' movies and 15-year olds to '18' movies and so on, something few people seem to take into considerationg when making a movie. Sensibly in 'Babe' (1995) the mice read out all the text on screen for the pre-literate members of the audience but I have not seen a similar approach used in other movies.
'The Golden Compass' has done poorly in the USA and there are possibly two reasons for this. I disagree with Kermode that it is because it lacks the passion of these other fantasy blockbusters.I think it is because the agnostic view the movie takes (and it is not atheist despite what people might say as it has angels and a heaven, it is just the structure of these is different to the model set out by Christian churches notably the Roman Catholic Church and this is why the Catholic League in the USA pushed for a boycott of the movie). The USA is a far more religious country than the UK. On a Sunday more people go to DIY stores than churches in the UK. Despite the increased popularity of faith schools this has not increased actual church attendance very much and religion actually remains irrelevant to the bulk of the UK population. The picture is very different in the USA, something the country is well aware of. The second thing is that 'The Golden Compass' is a very British movie. It does not move into an alien fantasy realm like The Lord of the Rings or the Narnia stories which sometimes have parallels with the USA or people can at least draw parallels to the USA. American citizens are generally disinterested and unknowledgeable about things which happen even a short way outside their borders so a movie set in Britain is not going to interest them, especially when there is really only one US character: Lee Scoresby played by Sam Elliott. Neither is it the twee world of Britain as portrayed in the Harry Potter movies. We know US audiences have difficulties with 'alternate worlds', the 'Sliders' (1995-2000) series notwithstanding, just look at the problems they had with 'Fatherland' (novel 1992; movie 1994). 'The Golden Compass' does very well at showing a different UK where not only do people have their souls (yes and they have souls so it is not atheistic) outside them in the form of 'daemons' (maybe this word and the fact that the animals look like familiars also caused problems for Catholic USA), but history has run a different course.
Anyone who knows Oxford and/or London will recognise many buildings shown in the movie but between them are many others that are alien. The style of the country is 1930s fashions mixed with a combination of steampunk and magic as the characters travel in airships and yet there are magical devices too. This is not as easily accessible as a world of orcs, hobbits, dwarfs and wizards which has become so well established in our psyche. In addition, what does come across from Pullman's work is challenging for the average audience member. In Narnia there is a simple message: an allegory of Christianity - sacrifice of the chosen one (i.e. Aslan/Christ) and his rebirth leads to redemption for all who follow him. In the Middle Earth of The Lord of the Rings, there is a similar good vs. evil, with temptations (especially in terms of power) along the way even for the good at heart, but fellowship and faith will win through and allow the restoration of the correct hierarchy, i.e. the return of the King and there is analogies for the time that it was written in with Mordor representing the Nazis/Soviet Communism, the hobbits as the brave British and the elves as the Americans sailing to a new world. [
In 'The Golden Compass' things are intentionally not so clear. There is a young girl, Lyra (played very capably by Dakota Blue Richards who despite the name seems to be British or certainly can do an excellent British accent. Interestingly Christopher Lee (aged 85) continues his dominance of evil nobles in recent blockbusters, appearing as First High Councillor of the Magisterium (he was Saruman in The Lord of the Rings movies; Count Dooku in Star Wars II and III)), getting involved in adventures just like Lucy in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and similarly learning new strengths and skills. There is Lord of the Rings/Narnia style redemption for the deposed polar bear king, brought back from alcoholism to overthrow the usurper. However, there is more ambiguity even in the simpler form shown in the movie. Lyra finds out who her parents are and one clearly is devious if not outright evil. Unlike in traditional stories, including Harry Potter which in many ways is not of contemporary Britain but of an earlier age remembered, where being an orphan is seen as legitimate, Lyra turns out to be illegitimate and also the result of what turned into a bitter encounter between her parents; possibly more relevant to many children in the audience today than being orphaned, but again far more challenging and ambiguous than the other routes these epics offer. Above all there is the sense that authority should not tell us all the answers; as one of the witches says (and again this may upset some viewers that witches are heroines, very reminiscent of wartime resistance fighters - Eva Green an actress I admire plays the lead one so I accept I am biased) it is about free will, the ability to choose the wrong as well as the right path, in fact the opportunity to choose at all. 'The Golden Compass' has many of the trappings of other fantasy epics such as full-scale battles and a child heroine but it and its sequels (if they are ever made given the poor reception in the USA) will always challenge the audience's assumptions far more than these others and thus I doubt it will ever do well in the USA where the audience wants easy stories and demands a happy ending not a complex one and consequently without the US box office dollars it will not thrive in the way the more Christian-orientated fantasy epics will. In some ways, in our world, the battle Lyra is fighting in hers, is already lost.
'The Golden Compass' does make one mistake for younger viewers especially in our illiterate age in that there are a number of instances of foreign languages being used which need sub-titles which it was clear many younger members of the audience around me needed to have read out to them. In the UK the film is rated 'PG' - Parental Guidance which means generally even pre-school children can get in if with a parent; typically children attend movies that are the next rating up from their age, so 12 year olds go to '15' movies and 15-year olds to '18' movies and so on, something few people seem to take into considerationg when making a movie. Sensibly in 'Babe' (1995) the mice read out all the text on screen for the pre-literate members of the audience but I have not seen a similar approach used in other movies.
'The Golden Compass' has done poorly in the USA and there are possibly two reasons for this. I disagree with Kermode that it is because it lacks the passion of these other fantasy blockbusters.I think it is because the agnostic view the movie takes (and it is not atheist despite what people might say as it has angels and a heaven, it is just the structure of these is different to the model set out by Christian churches notably the Roman Catholic Church and this is why the Catholic League in the USA pushed for a boycott of the movie). The USA is a far more religious country than the UK. On a Sunday more people go to DIY stores than churches in the UK. Despite the increased popularity of faith schools this has not increased actual church attendance very much and religion actually remains irrelevant to the bulk of the UK population. The picture is very different in the USA, something the country is well aware of. The second thing is that 'The Golden Compass' is a very British movie. It does not move into an alien fantasy realm like The Lord of the Rings or the Narnia stories which sometimes have parallels with the USA or people can at least draw parallels to the USA. American citizens are generally disinterested and unknowledgeable about things which happen even a short way outside their borders so a movie set in Britain is not going to interest them, especially when there is really only one US character: Lee Scoresby played by Sam Elliott. Neither is it the twee world of Britain as portrayed in the Harry Potter movies. We know US audiences have difficulties with 'alternate worlds', the 'Sliders' (1995-2000) series notwithstanding, just look at the problems they had with 'Fatherland' (novel 1992; movie 1994). 'The Golden Compass' does very well at showing a different UK where not only do people have their souls (yes and they have souls so it is not atheistic) outside them in the form of 'daemons' (maybe this word and the fact that the animals look like familiars also caused problems for Catholic USA), but history has run a different course.
Anyone who knows Oxford and/or London will recognise many buildings shown in the movie but between them are many others that are alien. The style of the country is 1930s fashions mixed with a combination of steampunk and magic as the characters travel in airships and yet there are magical devices too. This is not as easily accessible as a world of orcs, hobbits, dwarfs and wizards which has become so well established in our psyche. In addition, what does come across from Pullman's work is challenging for the average audience member. In Narnia there is a simple message: an allegory of Christianity - sacrifice of the chosen one (i.e. Aslan/Christ) and his rebirth leads to redemption for all who follow him. In the Middle Earth of The Lord of the Rings, there is a similar good vs. evil, with temptations (especially in terms of power) along the way even for the good at heart, but fellowship and faith will win through and allow the restoration of the correct hierarchy, i.e. the return of the King and there is analogies for the time that it was written in with Mordor representing the Nazis/Soviet Communism, the hobbits as the brave British and the elves as the Americans sailing to a new world. [
In 'The Golden Compass' things are intentionally not so clear. There is a young girl, Lyra (played very capably by Dakota Blue Richards who despite the name seems to be British or certainly can do an excellent British accent. Interestingly Christopher Lee (aged 85) continues his dominance of evil nobles in recent blockbusters, appearing as First High Councillor of the Magisterium (he was Saruman in The Lord of the Rings movies; Count Dooku in Star Wars II and III)), getting involved in adventures just like Lucy in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and similarly learning new strengths and skills. There is Lord of the Rings/Narnia style redemption for the deposed polar bear king, brought back from alcoholism to overthrow the usurper. However, there is more ambiguity even in the simpler form shown in the movie. Lyra finds out who her parents are and one clearly is devious if not outright evil. Unlike in traditional stories, including Harry Potter which in many ways is not of contemporary Britain but of an earlier age remembered, where being an orphan is seen as legitimate, Lyra turns out to be illegitimate and also the result of what turned into a bitter encounter between her parents; possibly more relevant to many children in the audience today than being orphaned, but again far more challenging and ambiguous than the other routes these epics offer. Above all there is the sense that authority should not tell us all the answers; as one of the witches says (and again this may upset some viewers that witches are heroines, very reminiscent of wartime resistance fighters - Eva Green an actress I admire plays the lead one so I accept I am biased) it is about free will, the ability to choose the wrong as well as the right path, in fact the opportunity to choose at all. 'The Golden Compass' has many of the trappings of other fantasy epics such as full-scale battles and a child heroine but it and its sequels (if they are ever made given the poor reception in the USA) will always challenge the audience's assumptions far more than these others and thus I doubt it will ever do well in the USA where the audience wants easy stories and demands a happy ending not a complex one and consequently without the US box office dollars it will not thrive in the way the more Christian-orientated fantasy epics will. In some ways, in our world, the battle Lyra is fighting in hers, is already lost.
Friday, 28 December 2007
What Do 'Director's Cut' Versions Add?
Being off work for an extended period for the Christmas/New Year break is allowing me to catch up on DVD watching and return to some old favourites too. Today I watched 'The Good German' (2007) a reasonable attempt to make a version of those black and white thrillers set in Berlin and Vienna at the end of the Second World War such as 'Berlin Express' (1948) and 'The Third Man' (1949) and even 'Popiół i Diament' ('Ashes and Diamonds' - 1958) though that is set in Poland and has no US characters; a similar recent project was 'Europa' (also known as 'Zentropa' - 1991) which is pretty surreal at times but like 'The Good German' features an American getting mixed up with a German woman with secrets. Anyway, 'The Good German' is not bad, but it needs a bit more verve as it seems to drag at times. The real reason for referencing was not to discuss its own merits but because seeing it reminded me of a poorly informed review of the movie 'The Innocent' (1993) which had poor reviews. It is set in Berlin in 1955 when the Americans were trying to tap Soviet phone lines. Anyway, whatever the flaws of the movie (which I have never seen but I read the book) the most ill-informed criticism was that Isabella Rossellini who plays Maria Eckdorf was too old for the part (she was 40 when the film was released; Maria Eckdorf is 36 in the book, not 30 as some essays say) as clearly the reviewer assumed the innocent of the title had to be the female character when in fact it is the 25-year old Leonard Marnham. You cannot effectively criticise a movie, especially one taken from a book if you do not know what it is aspiring too. The most humourous example of this came in one critic's review of 'Cyrano de Bergerac' (1990) in which he admired the film but said he could not understand why they had relocated the action to 17th century France as opposed to 20th century Jersey. He had mixed it up with the long-running UK television series 'Bergerac' (1981-1991; 87 episodes) which featured a contemporary detective working on the island of Jersey.
Anyway, sorry for that aside, some comments that I have wanted to introduce but did not seem worthy of their own posting. It brings me to the focus on this posting which is about 'director's cut' versions of movies. Though some of these pre-date the advent of DVDs it is the increased capacity of the DVD format which has meant a desire to fill them with hours of 'extras' ironically stretching sometimes on to a second, third or fourth disk. The usefulness or interestingness of these can vary considerably. The section of deleted scenes for 'Blade II' (2002) has very cynical commentary about the director grabbing any discarded piece of footage to fill up the disks, though one clip does reveal a deeper relationship between Blade and the vampire Nyssa. The deleted scenes for 'Spy Game' (2001) I found really fascinating as it showed a lot more about the characters and especially the love triangle which does not feature in the main version of the movie. In addition, it is interesting to check out the locations, none of them are where they are supposed to be in the film and Oxford prison (at the time a closed British prison but which is now a restaurant complex) stands in for a prison in China very well.
I recently watched the so-called 'Extended Editions' of 'The Bourne Identity' (2002) and 'The Bourne Supremacy' (2004) and I do not know why they did not count as directors' cuts, maybe because the initiative came from the company rather than the director. I do not know how much time they add but they certainly flesh out certain aspects especially the part of Nicky played by Julia Stiles and it stops her seemingly popping up out of nowhere. I know it is bad for movies to drag but in ones of this kind in which there is a lot of background to unravel, a little more footage filling in characters, especially the ones who are going to appear in the sequels, really helps the viewer.
Directors' cuts effectively put some or a lot of the deleted scenes back into the main movie. The length of film people can tolerate seems to fluctuate. It did seem that around 90 minutes was the top limit for a multiplex successful film then someone released 'Titanic' (1997) at 194 minutes, i.e. 3 hours 14 minutes which is beginning to approach the length of a Bollywood movie. Its popularity showed that people are willing to watch longer versions of films. In addition, there was the thing that the 'director's cut' as opposed to the 'exploitative, movie company cut' is closer to what the director intended. The most famous was probably 'Blade Runner: The Director's Cut' (1992) for which the director Ridley Scott put back in deleted scenes from 'Blade Runner' (1982) which suggest that Rick Deckard, the hero of the movie, is actually a replicant (i.e. android) like those he is hunting down. It also removed the 'happy' ending of Rick and Rachel flying away from the grime of Los Angeles to a green wilderness using footage shot for another film. I agree with including these changes, but I did dislike the removal of the voice over by Harrison Ford who plays Deckard. The reason for this is his explanations filled out the details of the dystopian world that is shown in the film (a heavily polluted, derelict Los Angeles of 2019 - only 12 years away now) and also link back to the classic 'hard boiled' detective novels of 1930s-50s and American film noir movies of the 1940s-50s which often include soliloquies (i.e. the hero(ine) effectively addressing the audience directly) and so gave it a futuristic spin on an established genre helping to make it a classic. Anyway, this year, a second director's cut of 'Blade Runner' called 'Blade Runner: The Final Cut' has been released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the original release.
I accept that editing for commercial reasons or so the average audience does not get lost in the director's or the scriptwriter's complex story, does take the movie away from what was intended. However, saying that it does not mean it creates an unsuccessful product. I had a friend who termed the released version of 'Dune' (1984) 'a torso' in his view because so much had been cut from. The movie ran to 137 minutes anyway and a 189-minute version was produced though not approved of by the director David Lynch (partly because it pads out the movie by repeating some scenes rather adding back in many deleted scenes). The trouble is that the book is hundreds of pages long with innumerable characters and sub-plots. It is complex enough to watch as a mini-series and would have lost the audience in your average cinema. Thus, for purists and those knowledgeable of the 'Dune' arc it may have been been butchered but for the average cinemagoer it is an imaginative, exciting and visually impressive film.
Finally this brings me to the director's cut I have just watched, which is another from Ridley Scott. His 'Kingdom of Heaven' (2003) was reasonably successful. It is about a blacksmith, Bailian, in 1184/5 (between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades) travelling from France to Palestine to inherit his father's barony and being caught up in the battle for Jerusalem around the period of the death of the Crusader King Baldwin IV. It was criticised at the time for playing around a little with history. The Templars are shown as being more blood thirsty than they were but the behaviour of many of the people featured such as Reynald de Chatillon, Guy de Lusignan, Almaric de Lusignan - Constable of Jerusalem (called Tiberias in the movie after one of his other titles presumably so there is no confusion with Guy or with Almaric who is the hero's sidekick), Queen Sibylla, King Baldwin IV are portrayed pretty accurately as we can tell. The movie was unpopular in the USA as at the time of the war in Iraq it seemed to be too sympathetic to the Muslim side, though Salah-al-Din was renowned for his chivalrous behaviour. The original version of the movie had drama with both battles and political scandals, a romance between Sibylla and Bailian and spectacular scenery.
In 2005 a 4-disk director's cut version was released. There are obviously loads of extras but it is the 45 minutes which have been restored to the main film which have made a huge difference and change the whole dynamic of the film. It shows throughout how removing even a few minutes can alter a film greatly. In the new version you see far more about Balian's background and realise that the priest is actually his brother who betrayed the suicide of Balian's wife (following the death of her child) and that Balian's father was brother of the lord of the manor. You also see what changes Balian brings to his barony; King Baldwin's part which was restricted to a few interchanges with Balian in the original is deepened too and you realise that beneath the make-up (Baldwin was a leper) that it is Edward Norton playing him. The relationship between Sibylla and Balian is made far more convincing by the extended portrayal of its development and this makes more logic in terms of the choices the characters make. Sibylla's son, also Baldwin was missing from the original cut but his reappearance just in a few scenes make Sibylla's motivations and actions clearer. In many ways it is the same film, but it is also a different film and it is quite astounding that for 45 extra minutes you get a much deeper story. Ridley Scott is always good on visuals, but there is not much additional material in the battle scenes, it is the small scale stuff of people talking to each other, showing their connections to others and behaving in certain ways that make this director's cut a worthwhile one to watch even if you have seen the original version.
I know that other director's cut versions may not be so successful, but I am certainly going to keep my mind open to viewing them if they can add something as successfully as Scott has done in returning to 'Kingdom of Heaven'.
Anyway, sorry for that aside, some comments that I have wanted to introduce but did not seem worthy of their own posting. It brings me to the focus on this posting which is about 'director's cut' versions of movies. Though some of these pre-date the advent of DVDs it is the increased capacity of the DVD format which has meant a desire to fill them with hours of 'extras' ironically stretching sometimes on to a second, third or fourth disk. The usefulness or interestingness of these can vary considerably. The section of deleted scenes for 'Blade II' (2002) has very cynical commentary about the director grabbing any discarded piece of footage to fill up the disks, though one clip does reveal a deeper relationship between Blade and the vampire Nyssa. The deleted scenes for 'Spy Game' (2001) I found really fascinating as it showed a lot more about the characters and especially the love triangle which does not feature in the main version of the movie. In addition, it is interesting to check out the locations, none of them are where they are supposed to be in the film and Oxford prison (at the time a closed British prison but which is now a restaurant complex) stands in for a prison in China very well.
I recently watched the so-called 'Extended Editions' of 'The Bourne Identity' (2002) and 'The Bourne Supremacy' (2004) and I do not know why they did not count as directors' cuts, maybe because the initiative came from the company rather than the director. I do not know how much time they add but they certainly flesh out certain aspects especially the part of Nicky played by Julia Stiles and it stops her seemingly popping up out of nowhere. I know it is bad for movies to drag but in ones of this kind in which there is a lot of background to unravel, a little more footage filling in characters, especially the ones who are going to appear in the sequels, really helps the viewer.
Directors' cuts effectively put some or a lot of the deleted scenes back into the main movie. The length of film people can tolerate seems to fluctuate. It did seem that around 90 minutes was the top limit for a multiplex successful film then someone released 'Titanic' (1997) at 194 minutes, i.e. 3 hours 14 minutes which is beginning to approach the length of a Bollywood movie. Its popularity showed that people are willing to watch longer versions of films. In addition, there was the thing that the 'director's cut' as opposed to the 'exploitative, movie company cut' is closer to what the director intended. The most famous was probably 'Blade Runner: The Director's Cut' (1992) for which the director Ridley Scott put back in deleted scenes from 'Blade Runner' (1982) which suggest that Rick Deckard, the hero of the movie, is actually a replicant (i.e. android) like those he is hunting down. It also removed the 'happy' ending of Rick and Rachel flying away from the grime of Los Angeles to a green wilderness using footage shot for another film. I agree with including these changes, but I did dislike the removal of the voice over by Harrison Ford who plays Deckard. The reason for this is his explanations filled out the details of the dystopian world that is shown in the film (a heavily polluted, derelict Los Angeles of 2019 - only 12 years away now) and also link back to the classic 'hard boiled' detective novels of 1930s-50s and American film noir movies of the 1940s-50s which often include soliloquies (i.e. the hero(ine) effectively addressing the audience directly) and so gave it a futuristic spin on an established genre helping to make it a classic. Anyway, this year, a second director's cut of 'Blade Runner' called 'Blade Runner: The Final Cut' has been released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the original release.
I accept that editing for commercial reasons or so the average audience does not get lost in the director's or the scriptwriter's complex story, does take the movie away from what was intended. However, saying that it does not mean it creates an unsuccessful product. I had a friend who termed the released version of 'Dune' (1984) 'a torso' in his view because so much had been cut from. The movie ran to 137 minutes anyway and a 189-minute version was produced though not approved of by the director David Lynch (partly because it pads out the movie by repeating some scenes rather adding back in many deleted scenes). The trouble is that the book is hundreds of pages long with innumerable characters and sub-plots. It is complex enough to watch as a mini-series and would have lost the audience in your average cinema. Thus, for purists and those knowledgeable of the 'Dune' arc it may have been been butchered but for the average cinemagoer it is an imaginative, exciting and visually impressive film.
Finally this brings me to the director's cut I have just watched, which is another from Ridley Scott. His 'Kingdom of Heaven' (2003) was reasonably successful. It is about a blacksmith, Bailian, in 1184/5 (between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades) travelling from France to Palestine to inherit his father's barony and being caught up in the battle for Jerusalem around the period of the death of the Crusader King Baldwin IV. It was criticised at the time for playing around a little with history. The Templars are shown as being more blood thirsty than they were but the behaviour of many of the people featured such as Reynald de Chatillon, Guy de Lusignan, Almaric de Lusignan - Constable of Jerusalem (called Tiberias in the movie after one of his other titles presumably so there is no confusion with Guy or with Almaric who is the hero's sidekick), Queen Sibylla, King Baldwin IV are portrayed pretty accurately as we can tell. The movie was unpopular in the USA as at the time of the war in Iraq it seemed to be too sympathetic to the Muslim side, though Salah-al-Din was renowned for his chivalrous behaviour. The original version of the movie had drama with both battles and political scandals, a romance between Sibylla and Bailian and spectacular scenery.
In 2005 a 4-disk director's cut version was released. There are obviously loads of extras but it is the 45 minutes which have been restored to the main film which have made a huge difference and change the whole dynamic of the film. It shows throughout how removing even a few minutes can alter a film greatly. In the new version you see far more about Balian's background and realise that the priest is actually his brother who betrayed the suicide of Balian's wife (following the death of her child) and that Balian's father was brother of the lord of the manor. You also see what changes Balian brings to his barony; King Baldwin's part which was restricted to a few interchanges with Balian in the original is deepened too and you realise that beneath the make-up (Baldwin was a leper) that it is Edward Norton playing him. The relationship between Sibylla and Balian is made far more convincing by the extended portrayal of its development and this makes more logic in terms of the choices the characters make. Sibylla's son, also Baldwin was missing from the original cut but his reappearance just in a few scenes make Sibylla's motivations and actions clearer. In many ways it is the same film, but it is also a different film and it is quite astounding that for 45 extra minutes you get a much deeper story. Ridley Scott is always good on visuals, but there is not much additional material in the battle scenes, it is the small scale stuff of people talking to each other, showing their connections to others and behaving in certain ways that make this director's cut a worthwhile one to watch even if you have seen the original version.
I know that other director's cut versions may not be so successful, but I am certainly going to keep my mind open to viewing them if they can add something as successfully as Scott has done in returning to 'Kingdom of Heaven'.
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
What Annoys Me About ... Dustbin Bags Today
Well, I have finally moved house and was actually online within two days of getting into the new house compared to 6 weeks last time. The issue was then finding the various cables to connect to the system which was achieved yesterday. This is the third time I have 'downsized' so it is always an issue of having boxes of things that you cannot unpack in the new house. This is despite all the local charity shops having another two carloads of my belongings and another load going to the dump.
My biggest gripe in all this moving, and I did most of it myself as removal companies are: a) expensive, b) often unreliable, c) often fully booked up, is the problem with black dustbin bags. Traditionally the British used to move their possessions in old tea chests which were large wooden cubes that could be stacked. However, for most people sometime in the mid-1970s black dustbin bags became the norm. I imagine the rich have special boxes and so on, but for most of us it is a question of putting things into black plastic bags, lugging them to our car and then unloading them at the other end. Up until about two years ago these bags were made of thick black plastic and even when they had been used to carry clothes or ornaments or kitchen utensils they were still generally sound enough to use as dustbin bags. However, people have realised that they are a nightmare when thrown away as they do not biodegrade for centuries. In their place we now have less shiny, biodegradable bags which are great for the environment but totally unfit for purpose. In the past I have never had a dustbin bag split on me while moving house (something you know I do pretty often, I am now in the third house I have lived in 2007) but with these new feeble bags I shed one load on the doorstep of a charity shop, I had actual rubbish pour out a dustbin bag and blow across the street taking me ages to retrieve if I was to avoid upsetting my new neighbours, I had a bag of bedding split dropping it all on to the dirty street. I bought dustbin bags from three different supermarket chains but none was any better than any other. The only solution was to buy what are called DIY bags (from 'Do-It-Yourself') which are as thick as the old dustbin bags but much smaller so needing more of them, and, of course, they are more expensive.
I am all for recycling and reducing the impact on the environment (I have replaced almost every bulb in the new house with the low wattage 'eco' bulbs already), but I also believe in being able to buy things which do the job they are supposed to do and in the UK I can certainly not say that about dustbin bags, even when using them in dustbins, let alone for removals for which they have been in common usage in the UK for the past three decades.
My biggest gripe in all this moving, and I did most of it myself as removal companies are: a) expensive, b) often unreliable, c) often fully booked up, is the problem with black dustbin bags. Traditionally the British used to move their possessions in old tea chests which were large wooden cubes that could be stacked. However, for most people sometime in the mid-1970s black dustbin bags became the norm. I imagine the rich have special boxes and so on, but for most of us it is a question of putting things into black plastic bags, lugging them to our car and then unloading them at the other end. Up until about two years ago these bags were made of thick black plastic and even when they had been used to carry clothes or ornaments or kitchen utensils they were still generally sound enough to use as dustbin bags. However, people have realised that they are a nightmare when thrown away as they do not biodegrade for centuries. In their place we now have less shiny, biodegradable bags which are great for the environment but totally unfit for purpose. In the past I have never had a dustbin bag split on me while moving house (something you know I do pretty often, I am now in the third house I have lived in 2007) but with these new feeble bags I shed one load on the doorstep of a charity shop, I had actual rubbish pour out a dustbin bag and blow across the street taking me ages to retrieve if I was to avoid upsetting my new neighbours, I had a bag of bedding split dropping it all on to the dirty street. I bought dustbin bags from three different supermarket chains but none was any better than any other. The only solution was to buy what are called DIY bags (from 'Do-It-Yourself') which are as thick as the old dustbin bags but much smaller so needing more of them, and, of course, they are more expensive.
I am all for recycling and reducing the impact on the environment (I have replaced almost every bulb in the new house with the low wattage 'eco' bulbs already), but I also believe in being able to buy things which do the job they are supposed to do and in the UK I can certainly not say that about dustbin bags, even when using them in dustbins, let alone for removals for which they have been in common usage in the UK for the past three decades.
Saturday, 15 December 2007
UK Society: Divided and Lacking Social Mobility
Regular readers of this blog will know I am acutely aware of the difficulties of British society and how a lot of these are driven by corrosive attitudes and obsessions, notably over property and the very self-centred, consumerist attitudes so prevalent in the UK today. To some extent, people in Britain have been lulled into a false belief that the social divisions of the past have begun to be eroded. Apparently in the 1970s (a time when sociology was really developing as a research area) the UK was one of the most socially divided industrialised countries in the world. This was despite having had free education for a century and a welfare state since the 1940s.
One key difference between the UK and neighbouring states in Europe was that the UK had neither had a revolution nor had it had suffered the upheaval of either being occupied by a foreign power or being under a dictatorship. All of these factors disrupted the societies across Europe. Ironically people from ordinary backgrounds stood more chance of advancement under a Fascist, Nazi or Communist dictatorship than they did in British democracy. Partly, as I have mentioned before, this is because the UK is not a true democracy, half of its parliament is unelected and the prime positions in the Civil Service, Government, Military and its established Church, go to people (still predominantly men) who have attended a small number of select fee-paying schools called 'Public Schools' (ironically very exclusive and certainly not public). The next layers beneath the highest in each branch of British public life are held by people who attended less exclusive and a bit cheaper private schools. The highest that a person who has gone to a free state school can rise is to something like a senior doctor in a hospital or a chief constable (i.e. in charge of all the police of one county) or a brigadier in the Army or possibly their Naval equivalent (the airforce, the RAF, is more exclusive). Given that you have to be put on the lists of these schools the moment you are born and the annual fees are far higher than the average annual salary of people living in the UK, unless you have very wealthy parents you stand no chance of getting in and thus no chance of moving into the higher levels of British society.
Now, I accept that other European states have nobility and very wealthy families, the UK is not unique in this, it also applies to countries elsewhere in the world. However, if one looks at comparator industrialised countries, there are exclusive schools, but, say for example the Grandes Ecoles in France, even the poorest, intelligent pupil can get into them. In countries without a monarch, an ordinary person can rise to be president. In addition, middle ranking people who in the UK may never rise above being a low-level lawyer or civil servant or doctor or bank worker, similarly can reach higher positions. This means there is something to aspire to and you are not ruled out of so many areas the moment you are born. The USA has also suffered from social division. It has wealthy families who are politically powerful, but again it has structures that allow people to advance, no matter what their backgrounds. Show me the black people in the UK who have attained the level of power that Colin Powell or Condaleeza Rice have obtained; this is despite black people coming to Britain for at least the last 2000 years. In public service, the military and so on, as an ordinary person you can rise in a way that you could never do in the UK.
What the UK resembles is the post-Communist states like Russia, Poland, China (which is now really only Communist in name) where influence in political circles and so access to money from the break-up of the state machinery can give you an unfair advantage. To some extent social mobility in these states for those coming up in enterprise is currently greater than such small business people struggling in the UK. Many successful British entrepreneurs come from outside the UK especially from Eastern Europe and the Indian sub-continent, rather than from within Britian. That is because they can draw on resources unfettered by British constraints. In addition they have often had access to the best education that their British equivalents are denied. This is one explanation for the growing percentage of people from an Asian background working as doctors in the UK. Ordinary white and black British people simply do not have access to sufficiently high level schooling to even aspire to be doctors and the wealthy whites in Britain lack the altruistic attitudes of their Asian-background counterparts to do something as beneficial as care for people.
The sharp divisions in Britain were exacerbated in the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister 1979-90) infamously said there was no society, just families and individuals. However, her policies reinforced the social divisions in the UK. She was the daughter of a grocer and had only attended grammar school (i.e. a free school, though in the upper educational category) in her youth and yet made it to be prime minister, something I doubt will be repeated in the UK in coming decades. Her obsession with property-ownership wrecked the state housing sector (which in Scotland had housed 60% of the population) and pushed people to own property or to be seen as irrelevant. The rise in house prices increased homelessness, rising the numbers of people living on the streets or temporary accommodation and also removed from many working class people affordable housing permitting them the money to spend on improvement for themselves and their children, especially in terms of education. In addition, Thatcher scrapped grants for students to attend university substituting loans instead. Working class people have less access to credit and a greater aversion to debt than people in other classes so again it closed down what had been becoming at least one way for working class people to get on through education. This was worsened anyway by budget cuts on education and pressure on local authorities who ran schools at the time to cut their expenditure too. Certain schools were encouraged to leave the local authority system and it was these elite 'grant-maintained' schools which received direct, generous government money whilst the so-called 'bog standard' schools that most children attend could only survive by not repairing buildings, by selling off playing fields and fund-raising events.
Whilst the UK, like the rest of the industrialised world was facing shifts in industrial patterns, the economic policies of Thatcher led to a very abrupt closure of manufacturing industries leading to unemployment of over 4 million people (about 16% of the working population of the time). Whilst work in manufacturing and related industries, such as fuel resources, was varied there were many skilled jobs that had paid well in the 1960s and 1970s. In their place came low-skilled, low-paid service jobs, so cutting household incomes among working class people and also destroying the ladder for improvement through skill development and hard work. In a call centre you come and leave without having gained new skills and there is little chance for promotion. Similarly the casualisation of labour has increased with large numbers of even office workers being on short-term contracts. If they lack the skills needed when a company changes methods they are simply laid off and other workers employed. Businesses constantly whine that they want schools and universities to train workers to exactly match the skills they need; yet seem entirely unwilling to see a role for themselves in that process, again another difference from comparator countries, notably France and Germany.
Thus, through the 1980s the few opportunities for a solid base for the working class (the majority of the population) and their chances to rise up the societal ladder were pretty quickly smashed. John Major (Prime Minister 1990-7) who worked as an ordinary bank manager and rose to the highest position in the UK liked to talk of the UK's 'classless society' (for those unfamiliar with UK terminology 'class' in UK usually refers to socio-economic groupings, commonly working, middle and upper classes and sub-divisions in these; since the 1980s we have also had the 'underclass', people who are deemed to have dropped out the bottom of society and are usually homeless). In the early days of his regime Blair also spoke in the same terms, though it is notable that it did not survive his first time of office (1997-2001). It is clear that any reference to classlessness was a fantasy. Unemployment has fallen in the UK since the end of the 1980s, but the restructured economy is still very rigid in preventing people rising socially.
Why am I going on about all of this now? Well, it is because some people have been shocked by evidence that has appeared this week that brings how the reality of it. At the age of 5 the most intelligent children from poor backgrounds score far higher than the least intelligent children from rich backgrounds in terms of communication skills and other scholarly measures. By the age of 7 however, the least intelligent children from rich backgrounds exceed even the most intelligent children from poor backgrounds and from then on the poor children never catch up ever again and throughout the rest of their schooling never match less intelligent rich children. Partly this stems from the way British schooling works with the emphasis on projects and getting internet resources; the heavy encouragement to take additional classes outside of school hours and increasingly that children need to have home tutors too, all of these things are beyond my budget (and as I keep saying I earn 50% more than the average annual salary so am far from 'poor') let alone the average working class family's resources. With secondary schools being increasingly selective, when they reach 11, the poor children lose out in entrance tests to rich children who on an objective basis are less intelligent than them. Again partly this is because the tests are focused on knowledge common in the middle and upper social classes rather than the experience of the working class. It is not surprising then that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (reckoned to be the best universities in the UK) still take over 47% of their students from private schools (there are about 2000 private schools in the UK out of a total of around 30,000 schools of all kinds; primary schools tend to be much smaller so there are 22,300 of these whether state or private alone). More politicians for example have gone to either Oxford or Cambridge than any other university, so being blocked from them means you are often effectively blocked from parliament and alternative routes of the past such as coming through a trade union to being a member of parliament have been weakened as trade unions were hammered under Thatcher and have haemorraged members in an era when people are on short-term contracts and fearful of not being re-employed if they are politically active.
What has alarmed the government (and it is good to see that they are alarmed rather complacent) is that despite all the policies of the last decade under a Labour government (which coming from a Socialist background is supposed to be equality of opportunities for all) and an awareness of the need to challenge social division at least going back to the Labour governments of 1964-70, as a UK citizen it is as unlikely that your standing in society will improve during your life as it would have been 33 years ago. You could walk into a maternity ward at a hospital today and accurately predict the kind of work all the babies there will be doing in 2025 just by looking at their parents. (In fact whether you chose a state-run hospital or a private one would give you a good clue for a start). None of those babies will be able to improve on the level of income or education that their parents have.
Recently there was commentary on the novel by Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World' (1932) which tends to get overlooked when referring to dystopian novels in favour of '1984' by George Orwell (1948). However, the novel shows a society driven by consumerism and in which happiness comes in the form of a pill. For this posting, though, is the fact that all children born in the UK of the novel (they are all test-tube babies) are categorised from birth into a range from Alpha to Epsilon depending on their mental abilities. That is effectively what we have in the UK today, except that an Alpha-intelligence baby from a poor family will be beaten in life by a rich Epsilon-intelligence baby. Our current dystopia is not even based on how beneficial a child can be to our society in terms of aptitude the way Huxley's was, it is far more arbitrary than that, it is simply based on who your parents are, nothing more.
If birth is the only qualification for success in the UK no wonder we are lagging behind rival countries. We effectively exclude millions of talented people from ever getting into a position to use their talents. How many people working in call centres in the UK, could instead be running successful businesses or government departments, if they had simply been born to richer parents? The UK would rather adhere to almost feudal mentalities than shake these up to benefit itself. I recognise that other industrialised countries do not have all the solutions, but if I was going to have a child I would want them to be born in one of those countries and at least feel that they could get as far as they have the ability to do so rather than being held back by the unbreakable caste system which denies them so many opportunities simply because of who I am rather than who the child is.
One key difference between the UK and neighbouring states in Europe was that the UK had neither had a revolution nor had it had suffered the upheaval of either being occupied by a foreign power or being under a dictatorship. All of these factors disrupted the societies across Europe. Ironically people from ordinary backgrounds stood more chance of advancement under a Fascist, Nazi or Communist dictatorship than they did in British democracy. Partly, as I have mentioned before, this is because the UK is not a true democracy, half of its parliament is unelected and the prime positions in the Civil Service, Government, Military and its established Church, go to people (still predominantly men) who have attended a small number of select fee-paying schools called 'Public Schools' (ironically very exclusive and certainly not public). The next layers beneath the highest in each branch of British public life are held by people who attended less exclusive and a bit cheaper private schools. The highest that a person who has gone to a free state school can rise is to something like a senior doctor in a hospital or a chief constable (i.e. in charge of all the police of one county) or a brigadier in the Army or possibly their Naval equivalent (the airforce, the RAF, is more exclusive). Given that you have to be put on the lists of these schools the moment you are born and the annual fees are far higher than the average annual salary of people living in the UK, unless you have very wealthy parents you stand no chance of getting in and thus no chance of moving into the higher levels of British society.
Now, I accept that other European states have nobility and very wealthy families, the UK is not unique in this, it also applies to countries elsewhere in the world. However, if one looks at comparator industrialised countries, there are exclusive schools, but, say for example the Grandes Ecoles in France, even the poorest, intelligent pupil can get into them. In countries without a monarch, an ordinary person can rise to be president. In addition, middle ranking people who in the UK may never rise above being a low-level lawyer or civil servant or doctor or bank worker, similarly can reach higher positions. This means there is something to aspire to and you are not ruled out of so many areas the moment you are born. The USA has also suffered from social division. It has wealthy families who are politically powerful, but again it has structures that allow people to advance, no matter what their backgrounds. Show me the black people in the UK who have attained the level of power that Colin Powell or Condaleeza Rice have obtained; this is despite black people coming to Britain for at least the last 2000 years. In public service, the military and so on, as an ordinary person you can rise in a way that you could never do in the UK.
What the UK resembles is the post-Communist states like Russia, Poland, China (which is now really only Communist in name) where influence in political circles and so access to money from the break-up of the state machinery can give you an unfair advantage. To some extent social mobility in these states for those coming up in enterprise is currently greater than such small business people struggling in the UK. Many successful British entrepreneurs come from outside the UK especially from Eastern Europe and the Indian sub-continent, rather than from within Britian. That is because they can draw on resources unfettered by British constraints. In addition they have often had access to the best education that their British equivalents are denied. This is one explanation for the growing percentage of people from an Asian background working as doctors in the UK. Ordinary white and black British people simply do not have access to sufficiently high level schooling to even aspire to be doctors and the wealthy whites in Britain lack the altruistic attitudes of their Asian-background counterparts to do something as beneficial as care for people.
The sharp divisions in Britain were exacerbated in the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister 1979-90) infamously said there was no society, just families and individuals. However, her policies reinforced the social divisions in the UK. She was the daughter of a grocer and had only attended grammar school (i.e. a free school, though in the upper educational category) in her youth and yet made it to be prime minister, something I doubt will be repeated in the UK in coming decades. Her obsession with property-ownership wrecked the state housing sector (which in Scotland had housed 60% of the population) and pushed people to own property or to be seen as irrelevant. The rise in house prices increased homelessness, rising the numbers of people living on the streets or temporary accommodation and also removed from many working class people affordable housing permitting them the money to spend on improvement for themselves and their children, especially in terms of education. In addition, Thatcher scrapped grants for students to attend university substituting loans instead. Working class people have less access to credit and a greater aversion to debt than people in other classes so again it closed down what had been becoming at least one way for working class people to get on through education. This was worsened anyway by budget cuts on education and pressure on local authorities who ran schools at the time to cut their expenditure too. Certain schools were encouraged to leave the local authority system and it was these elite 'grant-maintained' schools which received direct, generous government money whilst the so-called 'bog standard' schools that most children attend could only survive by not repairing buildings, by selling off playing fields and fund-raising events.
Whilst the UK, like the rest of the industrialised world was facing shifts in industrial patterns, the economic policies of Thatcher led to a very abrupt closure of manufacturing industries leading to unemployment of over 4 million people (about 16% of the working population of the time). Whilst work in manufacturing and related industries, such as fuel resources, was varied there were many skilled jobs that had paid well in the 1960s and 1970s. In their place came low-skilled, low-paid service jobs, so cutting household incomes among working class people and also destroying the ladder for improvement through skill development and hard work. In a call centre you come and leave without having gained new skills and there is little chance for promotion. Similarly the casualisation of labour has increased with large numbers of even office workers being on short-term contracts. If they lack the skills needed when a company changes methods they are simply laid off and other workers employed. Businesses constantly whine that they want schools and universities to train workers to exactly match the skills they need; yet seem entirely unwilling to see a role for themselves in that process, again another difference from comparator countries, notably France and Germany.
Thus, through the 1980s the few opportunities for a solid base for the working class (the majority of the population) and their chances to rise up the societal ladder were pretty quickly smashed. John Major (Prime Minister 1990-7) who worked as an ordinary bank manager and rose to the highest position in the UK liked to talk of the UK's 'classless society' (for those unfamiliar with UK terminology 'class' in UK usually refers to socio-economic groupings, commonly working, middle and upper classes and sub-divisions in these; since the 1980s we have also had the 'underclass', people who are deemed to have dropped out the bottom of society and are usually homeless). In the early days of his regime Blair also spoke in the same terms, though it is notable that it did not survive his first time of office (1997-2001). It is clear that any reference to classlessness was a fantasy. Unemployment has fallen in the UK since the end of the 1980s, but the restructured economy is still very rigid in preventing people rising socially.
Why am I going on about all of this now? Well, it is because some people have been shocked by evidence that has appeared this week that brings how the reality of it. At the age of 5 the most intelligent children from poor backgrounds score far higher than the least intelligent children from rich backgrounds in terms of communication skills and other scholarly measures. By the age of 7 however, the least intelligent children from rich backgrounds exceed even the most intelligent children from poor backgrounds and from then on the poor children never catch up ever again and throughout the rest of their schooling never match less intelligent rich children. Partly this stems from the way British schooling works with the emphasis on projects and getting internet resources; the heavy encouragement to take additional classes outside of school hours and increasingly that children need to have home tutors too, all of these things are beyond my budget (and as I keep saying I earn 50% more than the average annual salary so am far from 'poor') let alone the average working class family's resources. With secondary schools being increasingly selective, when they reach 11, the poor children lose out in entrance tests to rich children who on an objective basis are less intelligent than them. Again partly this is because the tests are focused on knowledge common in the middle and upper social classes rather than the experience of the working class. It is not surprising then that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (reckoned to be the best universities in the UK) still take over 47% of their students from private schools (there are about 2000 private schools in the UK out of a total of around 30,000 schools of all kinds; primary schools tend to be much smaller so there are 22,300 of these whether state or private alone). More politicians for example have gone to either Oxford or Cambridge than any other university, so being blocked from them means you are often effectively blocked from parliament and alternative routes of the past such as coming through a trade union to being a member of parliament have been weakened as trade unions were hammered under Thatcher and have haemorraged members in an era when people are on short-term contracts and fearful of not being re-employed if they are politically active.
What has alarmed the government (and it is good to see that they are alarmed rather complacent) is that despite all the policies of the last decade under a Labour government (which coming from a Socialist background is supposed to be equality of opportunities for all) and an awareness of the need to challenge social division at least going back to the Labour governments of 1964-70, as a UK citizen it is as unlikely that your standing in society will improve during your life as it would have been 33 years ago. You could walk into a maternity ward at a hospital today and accurately predict the kind of work all the babies there will be doing in 2025 just by looking at their parents. (In fact whether you chose a state-run hospital or a private one would give you a good clue for a start). None of those babies will be able to improve on the level of income or education that their parents have.
Recently there was commentary on the novel by Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World' (1932) which tends to get overlooked when referring to dystopian novels in favour of '1984' by George Orwell (1948). However, the novel shows a society driven by consumerism and in which happiness comes in the form of a pill. For this posting, though, is the fact that all children born in the UK of the novel (they are all test-tube babies) are categorised from birth into a range from Alpha to Epsilon depending on their mental abilities. That is effectively what we have in the UK today, except that an Alpha-intelligence baby from a poor family will be beaten in life by a rich Epsilon-intelligence baby. Our current dystopia is not even based on how beneficial a child can be to our society in terms of aptitude the way Huxley's was, it is far more arbitrary than that, it is simply based on who your parents are, nothing more.
Finally I have come to understand why in my teenage years my father encouraged me so strongly to emigrate. By then it was too late I was infected with the British fear of the unknown and instead shackled myself to a society in which I can never have any better standing than my father did. In fact in terms of income, adjusting for inflation, I earn much less than he did when he was my age.
If birth is the only qualification for success in the UK no wonder we are lagging behind rival countries. We effectively exclude millions of talented people from ever getting into a position to use their talents. How many people working in call centres in the UK, could instead be running successful businesses or government departments, if they had simply been born to richer parents? The UK would rather adhere to almost feudal mentalities than shake these up to benefit itself. I recognise that other industrialised countries do not have all the solutions, but if I was going to have a child I would want them to be born in one of those countries and at least feel that they could get as far as they have the ability to do so rather than being held back by the unbreakable caste system which denies them so many opportunities simply because of who I am rather than who the child is.
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