The publication of my new book of interviews “Rennie & River” has stimulated some new interest in my previous publication, my memoir “Roger And (Not) Out”. A Facebook contact – whom I’ve never met – has posted a review of the memoir to Amazon as follows:
‘Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s, I found much to recognise and relate to in the early chapters of this very readable memoir. Just a few examples are a street party for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, having tonsils removed, free school milk, sitting the Eleven Plus, Saturday cinema club, Beatlemania, the Anti-Apartheid Movement and much more besides!
The attitudes, values, feelings and aspirations acquired by the author during these formative years are then played out in an interesting, well lived and very full life, the telling of which is elevated by the ability to structure a wealth of detail into an accessible and readable narrative. This is also an account of personal development and there are thoughtful and respectful reflections regarding relationships and emotional upheavals that have been generously and openly shared. I recommend this memoir to the general reader.’
By the time that I read this work published in 1925, it had long been a candidate for ‘the Great American Novel’ and had been filmed no less than four times (I’ve seen the 1974 and 2013 versions).
Ostensibly, it is an American Jazz Era story of the obsessive love exhibited by the enigmatic, new-rich Jay Gatsby for lost love Daisy Buchanan, but the eponymous character does not appear until a quarter of the way into the book and disappears before the end, while the whole account is offered by Nick Carraway who is Gatsby’s neighbour and Daisy’s cousin and Nick’s narrative is clearly a self-interested version of events.
It is a short novel of just 170 pages, exquisitely written, a joy to read, and no doubt a rich source for students, since it has so many themes, notably disillusionment with the American Dream, and issues of class, gender, race and sexuality. A measure of the complexity of the work is that my Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction (which I read after the story) which itself runs to 50 pages.
As the writer of the analysis (Tony Tanner) explains “there is a special kind of sadness to the book” and “to the extent that Gatsby is excessive, foolish and foredoomed, so, the whole book suggests, is America“. He opines: “‘The Great Gatsby’ is, I believe, the most perfectly crafted work of fiction to have come out of America”. However, he did write that in 1990 and today I would suggest that several works by Barbara Kingsolver would be contenders for such an accolade.
I’m fascinated by the sudden debate about the desirability or otherwise of having a branch of Gail’s in your neighbourhood.
Since the end of the first Covid lockdown, we’ve had a Gail’s at the corner of my street in London’s South Bank, so close that I can see it from my flat window. I use it all the time to buy lunch or have coffee with friends. I know and like Walthamstow Village where there is opposition to a new branch of Gail’s.
So I’ll follow the debate. Meanwhile today’s “Guardian” article tells me something I didn’t know – the origin of the chain’s name: “Gail’s was founded by an Israeli baker, Gail Mejia, in the 1990s, initially as a wholesale bakery in Hendon, supplying London’s restaurants. The site still exists and is described as its ‘mother’ bakery.”
I’ve just returned from my eighth visit to Germany – a short break in Bonn, Aachen and Cologne. This set me thinking again about the idea of different Germanys.
At the end of the Thirty Years’ War in the mid 17th century, there were some 2,000 German statelets. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, there was a German Confederation of 39 sovereign states. A single Germany was only created by Otto von Bismarck in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War. It was not to last.
From 1945-1949, Germany as such did not exist since there were four zones of occupation in the country as a whole and in the city of Berlin. Germany was then divided into two states, West and East, between 1949 and 1990 before the collapse of communism enabled rapid reunification. Germany today comprises 16 constituent states – called Lander – with its own constitution and considerable autonomy. This story is well told in the Museum of Contemporary History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn where I spent a day of my recent visit to the country.
Yet, there is an interesting history of Germany in which the author James Hawes suggests that culturally there have long been two Germanys. A theme of the book is how, in spite of many, many territorial changes, the geographical idea of Germany has remained broadly constant over two millennia with the West Germany of 1949-1990 being extraordinarily similar to the Germani planned by Augustus Caesar around 1 AD. The east has been another story.
Dawes highlights the continuing cleavage today between the largely Catholic and industrious west and south on the one hand and the predominately Protestant and poorer north and the east on the other. He maps onto this division the voting for Adolf Hitler in the early 1930s and the voting for the extreme left and right in today’s united Germany.
I’ve been catching up with the pacing on my website of accounts of my recent ravels overseas. Last year, I had a fascinating trip to the Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.
These three nations have a common 20th century history as parts of the former Soviet Union and are all modestly-sized countries with small populations in a minor and compact region of the world. Yet they are so different politically, culturally, religiously, linguistically.
Azerbaijan is the most modern and confident, aided by plentiful oil and authoritarian leadership. It has the powerful support of Turkey in its territorial conflicts with Armenia.
Georgia has no problems with Azerbaijan or Armenia, but has lost control over a fifth of its territory as a result of intervention by Russia. It is the most western-orientated, very much hoping for entry to the European Union and NATO.
Armenia suffers from a lonely, victim complex, having lost a major part of its original land to Turkey and losing out in its recent and then still active conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Franco-Prussian War took place between 19 July 1870 and 28 January 1871. At the beginning, it was a conflict between the Second French Empire led by Emperor Napoleon III and the North German Confederation led by the King of Bavaria. However, following early defeat of French forces at Sedan, Napoleon resigned and the Second Republic was created and then, as the war eventually ended, the four southern German states joined the Confederation to create the German Empire.
German territory was barely touched, but nearly a third of French territory was occupied and the capital Paris was under brutal siege for over four months. Altogether some two million soldiers took part and more than 180,000 died. Chrastil, professor of history at Xavier University in Cincinnati, highlights that “it was the largest war in Europe between Waterloo and the Great War” and calls it “one of the most dramatic and one-sided defeats of any modern European army”.
In over 400 pages of smallish text, she provides a meticulous account of the military engagements and civilian hardships of that horrific six months, drawing upon many sources, including contemporary letters and diaries. Yet, this otherwise impressive work of historical scholarship is seriously lacking in both context and politics.
There is no history to the conflict (the account opens with the French declaration of war); there is minimal explanation of the cause of the war (the French objected to attempted German influence over the succession to the Spanish throne); there is only very brief reference to the Paris Commune (for socialists, this is an iconic event); there is too little material on developments after the war (yet the subtitle of the book refers to “the making of modern Europe”); and there is inadequate explanation for the book’s title (was it really Bismarck’s war?).
Last year, I had a fascinating trip to spectacular Namibia, but I’ve only just got around to pulling all my blog postings on the journey into a single narrative. You can access my story here.
It is reported that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has convened a meeting of Cobra in order to plan a response to the far Right rioting around the country that has followed the terrible stabbings in Southport.
Cobra sounds really exciting. It evokes images of a venomous snake or – if you’re a movie fan like me – the 1986 Sylvester Stallone action film of that name.
In fact, the truth is much more prosaic. Cobra is simply an acronym.
It stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Cobra meetings are held in Downing Street, within Cabinet Office buildings. In most cases, Cobra is convened as part of the Civil Contingencies Committee which plans government responses in times of emergency.
“Roger is a superb storyteller and his warm, empathic voice shines through each story, as indeed does his thorough attention to getting the facts, and setting the context for each story.
The concept behind this book is inspiring – so many anonymous blocks of flats in London, so much disconnection and, possibly, loneliness. What this book does is bring the whole two blocks of flats to life, vibrant with stories of suffering, hopes, losses and triumphs, courage and endurance, each unique, ordinary or extraordinary, each exquisite in its own unique way.
Can you imagine, if each block of flats in a city had a story teller who took the care to bring the flats to life, to uncover the richness that lies behind the concrete, connecting the lives. One story brought me to tears, another to smiles, each story valuable.
I hope this book finds a big publisher to give it the wide readership it deserves. Roger has created something very original and special in Rennie and River. It’s a joy to read.”
The idea of a multiverse has dominated superhero movies of late and, in storytelling terms, it does allow for considerable flexibility and fun. In this film, the home universe – ours, if you accept that it’s full of Avengers, X-Men and the like – is Earth-10005.
Apparently, the multiverse and The Sacred Timeline (you’ve never heard of it?) are managed by the Time Variance Authority (who knew?) where a renegade called Mr Paradox (English actor Matthew Macfadyen) plans to eliminate our universe and, when Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, back for a third titular role as this foul-mouthed, campy character) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackson, back as a older and grumpier version of the laconic, retractable-clawed fighter) attempt to thwart this dastardly plan, they are cast into The Void, which is presided over by the bald, multi-powered Cassandra Nova (non-binary and also English Emma Corrin). Are you still with me?
Well, it has to be said that coherent narrative and meaningful characterisation are sorely lacking in this 34th element in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), not helped by no less than seven writers being involved, but this is often the case in superhero movies.
Instead, we have an absolute blast of frenetic action, gory violence and rude dialogue which will delight MCU fans – that includes me – who will thrill to the succession of returning characters from previous “Deadpool” outings and other MCU movies (no spoilers here) and laugh at the multitude of iterations of “Deadpool” himself.
The work is replete with visual and verbal gags – what aficionados (aka obsessives) call Easter eggs. The more MCU films you’ve seen and the better you remember them, the greater will be your enjoyment of this ridiculously, but joyfully, over-the top spectacle.
