It Can’t Happen Here, a novel by Upton Sinclair

It was perhaps 40 years since I read a novel by this prolific American writer. The topic seemed extremely relevant: a hypothetical description of the takeover of American politics by a right-wing dictatorship as a direct consequence of carelessly managed elections. The novel was written in 1935 with the appearance of fascism in Germany being a model feared by Sinclair, a lifelong socialist. Inevitably, one now makes the comparison with the rise of Trump and his current threat to bypass the democratic electoral system.

Sinclair’s writing is infused with a kind of old-fashioned unsophisticated satire that is more reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse than any current writer who chooses to comment on society. So there is an uncomfortable conflict between the seriousness of the subject matter and the style of presentation. We see the rise of a Berzelius Windrip, the dictator, through the eyes of a left-wing newspaper journalist Doremus Jessup, who ends up being imprisoned for the publication of articles opposing Windrip’s election. The plot is made plausible by the growth and gradual strength of an army of young, enthusiastic and readily murderous volunteers who gradually supplant the police force and conventional US military to sustain Windrip’s rise to power, forming a clear analogy with Trump’s Proud Boys (or a yet-to-be-created equivalent). Similarities exist too in the way that Windrip is supported by the establishment with little regard for the consequences of his election; once elected, he suppresses all opposition and completely re-organises the geopolitical structure of the US in a way that is presented as being irreversible.

Ultimately, after a lengthy storyline, the main character escapes to Canada but manages to return to the US to become a spy determined to cause the downthrow of the Windrip regime in what seems like a very rushed ending to the novel.

Overall, an interesting book that was probably prescient of what might have happened in the US before the Second World War had Roosevelt not been elected, although the background to the plot is now not quite topical enough (for example, newspapers being the main means of distributing information) to apply it to today’s politics. 2*

Study for Obedience, a novel by Sarah Bernstein

This novel received critical acclaim and was on the Booker prize shortlist in 2023. The entire novel is the continuous train of thought of a female narrator who lives in an ill-defined location where she is the object of blame by members of her local community for reasons that are not fully revealed.  What we do know is that she is persuaded to go and live with her adult older brother to look after him in a way that just stops short of being incestuous, but there are insufficient details to determine this.  The narrator lives a very isolated existence and describes her daily life in a very detailed way.  Yet her precise circumstances remain enigmatic. 

I was compelled to continue with the book by anticipation that some of the mysteries of the plot would be explained: that the reader would find out what crime had been committed, what control her brother had over her, how her odd existence was to be resolved.  Towards the end, the narrative becomes more and more strange and the reader starts to realise that, even if there are any factual revelations, the narrator’s sate of mind is such that there is no longer any credibility in the text. 

My overall impression is that I had wasted a lot of time reading this book. 1*

This Other Eden, a novel by Paul Harding

This novel was on the Booker shortlist in 2023.  It relates to a true incident of ethnic cleansing and eugenics in the early 20th century. The setting is an island close to the mainland of Maine in the US, where released former slaves have set up a colony in the late 18th century and are joined there by a miscellaneous group of people of different races. For over a hundred years they remained settled there, inter-breeding often incestuously and living permanently in poverty and with limited education. One white missionary teacher, Matthew Diamond, took it upon himself to try to teach and convert the population and was successful with some of the children, who showed individual talents.  However, the authorities in Maine were unable to overlook what was seen as a repulsive and degenerate form of society and were determined to evict them and disperse them to institutions clearly inappropriate to their needs. We are led to believe momentarily that there is one ray of light in this sad story as one of the children, Ethan Honey, a talented artist, is found work and support on the mainland but reality kicks in and we lose track of him with the assumption that his talent could not overcome the prejudices of society at that time. 

The author attempts to draw a compelling picture of the relationships within this very small group of isolated individuals.  However, of necessity, not a lot happens to them and so it is difficult to find incidents to demonstrate any depth in the characters. Apart from the eviction and the sub-plot of Ethan Honey, I found that the descriptions of the daily lives of the island’s inhabitants lacked sufficient interest.  3*

The Infinite City: Utopian Dreams on the Streets of London by Niall Kishtainy

This book takes the premise that the history of London as a city is punctuated by people who have had a vision of a better future, a future that has largely not been forthcoming. The concept is dealt with chronologically, starting with Thomas More and The Charterhouse through Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, who attempted to maintain land in common ownership.  It covers the more extreme examples of London eccentrics like Thomas Spence, who manufactured and distributed coins calling for social justice, and housing pioneers like Henrietta Barnett and Ebenezer Howard, who had distinct visions of how Londoners could be ideally housed in still-desirable estates like Hampstead Garden Suburb and Letchworth Garden City. It also picks up on campaigns like the Reclaim the Streets protests against inner city road-building right up to recent protests by Extinction Rebellion.  

This is a very well researched piece of work with extensive notes and bibliography that also manages to provide interesting and entertaining anecdotes about the various pioneers. While some of these movements were clearly influential, one is left wondering how any of these influencers of social and architectural progress would view the London that exists today. 5*

The Masterpiece, a novel by Émile Zola

Probably 30 years since I read anything by Zola; so good reason to pick him up again.  Written in 1885, it charts the attempted rise to fame and ultimate downfall of a Parisian artist and is thought to be autobiographical, although the artist is a painter rather than a writer.  Some of the characters are thinly disguised friends of Zola, e.g. Cézanne or other figures from the art world at the time such as Bonnard and Manet.  We see the struggle that a young artist has to be accepted in the established Academy system in Paris and the ridicule that an artist was exposed to when it work was not found to be acceptable to the establishment. A novel very much of its time, but Zola was worth re-visiting. 4*

Ingenious Pain, a  novel by Andrew Miller

This is Miller’s first published novel and a literary prize winner from 1997.  It is a historical novel like all his books to date.  This is an extraordinary tale of an Englishman, James Dyer, born in a small Somerset village at the start of the 18th century and who is orphaned when all his family, save his sister, are killed by smallpox. As an infant he was always silent and apparently mute until, around the age of 5, it became apparent that he was able to speak. He also showed little emotion and appeared to be immune to pain inflicted on him, with any wounds healing within hours. 

After he lost his family, he was kidnapped and exploited as a travelling show, where he was subject to physical tortures that he was remarkably able to tolerate. He was temporarily rescued from this situation by a wealthy gentleman, who specialised in rescuing such exploited children but escaped from there to be hijacked as a sailor.  He rose from there to some degree of wealth and the reader starts to realise that not only is he immune to physical pain but also to any emotional empathy with others. His obsession with the human body led him to become a surgeon and, along with his original kidnapper as an amanuensis, make a reputation as one of London’s top surgeons.  He is asked to perform a surgical procedure on the Empress of Russia and travels to St. Petersburg, where he is seriously injured. Finally he returns to England to his original village where he dies (we know that at the start; as most of the book is a flashback). 

This sounds like a totally implausible plot, but the amount of detail in the book, as in the other book of his that I have read — Pure — gives the plot a historical authenticity that makes it read like a biography.  Like Gillespie (see below) James Dyer is not a likeable character.  He is emotionally challenged, perhaps, as we would define it now, on the autistic spectrum and, although he ends up with a loving female partner towards the end, he is generally not liked by the various other characters that he comes across during his relatively short life.  

Well written and an enjoyable read. 4*

Gillespie, a novel by John McDougall Hay

I was tempted to find this book as a result of reading a poem by the same author.  It was his only completed novel, written in 1914.  As a Kindle reader, I was unaware of the length of the novel before I started (492 pages).  The setting is an imaginary fishing town, probably based on Tarbert, where the author was a Presbyterian minister. The main character, Gillespie, is an anti-hero, despised by his local community, but the most successful man in the town as a result of his business skill, combined with a complete lack of empathy with everyone in his life, including, to a scandalous degree, his own wife and their two sons. This is not a character one can like or identify with in any way.  There is a lot of detail about early twentieth century Scottish fishing practices (always good to learn something new) and sometimes the dialect is a bit difficult to understand, but there is something very compelling about looking out for what must surely be Gillespie’s downfall and waiting for it to happen.

The novel has been described as a landmark in Scottish literature and deserves to be considered as such. 5* 

Erasure, a novel by Percival Everett

Another book about the life of a novelist — inevitable that they are so common, I guess.  But this is one with a bit of a difference. Firstly, the main character (told in the first person) is black and able to comment perceptively on the difficulties faced by black writers in having their work published unless it is specifically dealing with Black issues. He compares his own admittedly very esoteric academic writing that never gets published with that of a fictitious black writer who writes in a contrived Black street-colloquial style and sells millions of copies, even although the author has only lived in Harlem for two days.  

So, in need of money — he has undergone a relationship breakdown, his mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and his obstetrician sister sister has been murdered by a crazy anti-abortionist — he decides to write a similar novel, My Pafology under a pen name.  The black character in this spoof book is a chaotic drugged lawless street fighter with no morals, father of five children from different mothers, none of whom he gives any support to.  The text of most of this spoof novel is reproduced in the book. Of course the novel is a huge success, particularly with the white middle classes, all of whom want to be seen to have read it and therefore to understand Black culture.  As a protest he insists that the publisher renames the novel Fuck, but that doesn’t at all detract from its popularity.  He manages to keep his true identity secret, despite several media interviews, but he is suddenly faced with a huge problem.  As an English Literature academic he is asked to be a member of a judging panel for a major literary prize. Of course, predictably from the point of view of the plot, he ends up reviewing his own spoof book, which turns out to be the winner.  

I won’t reveal how this is resolved.  Superficially, this is a comic novel but the humour is subtle and well targeted and there are serious insights into racial tensions in today’s America. 4*

Georgian London: Into the Streets by Lucy Inglis

A very interesting account of what life was like in London between 1714 and 1830.  It is sensibly divided into London districts and some of these areas are illustrated with contemporary maps. In each area we find examples of the activities not just of the rich and famous but, more entertainingly, of people whose lives have been recorded in archives because of some extraordinary event in which they have been involved.  

London expanded enormously during this period and It is clear from the accounts that, despite the construction of some of London’s most famous and beautiful buildings, that it was also a dangerous and chaotic place to live.  Initially, banks were rudimentary and little used; travel outside your area involved taking all your money with you and so was likely to subject you to highway robbery and assault. 

The period saw the introduction of workhouses, where you were sent if you were destitute to ‘earn’ your financial support from the parish. To start with, workhouses were relatively human establishments and were not seen as places of punishment but as places where largely women and children were able to stay until they got back ‘on their feet’.

Each area of London had its own character and specialisms.  As now, Covent Garden, along with the Strand, was famous for its fruit and vegetables, which were brought up the Thames by boat each morning from market gardens.  The range of produce was huge and included exotic fruits like pineapples, apricots and melons, which were grown in sheltered pits.  The authors also relates that the same area was famous for its sales of ‘preservatives’ or condoms, made out of up to 8 inches of sheep intestine; Casanova was a regular customer .

The index to the books is fairly slight but there is an extremely full bibliography for further reference.  If you know and admire London at all, this book really helps to bring its history to life. 5*

Siblings, a novel by Brigitte Reimann

The author was born in 1933 and died in 1972.  She lived all of her adult life in East Germany. She wrote several books and film scripts and won literary prizes. 

A recent TLS review of this book that appeared, coincidentally, the week I finished reading it points out that East German literature, while dealing with the same themes as other European literature of the time, has superimposed on it the additional theme of a sense of being locked into one’s country and knowing that one’s writing is subjected to detailed political scrutiny. 

In fact, those are the principal themes of this novel. The main character, Elisabeth, is an artist working within a heavy engineering company; industrial organisations in the DDR included artists and writers among their employees.  She is a Party member but, as a young person, is not uncritical of the regime and is certainly critical of East German-approved social realist art. Her older brother Konrad has left East Germany for Hamburg, where he now has a shipbuilding job inferior to the job he had in the DDR. Elisabeth and her mother are able to meet him occasionally by travelling into West Berlin (this is before the Berlin War was built). The reader is led to believe that Konrad is unhappy in the West. Elisabeth’s younger brother, Ulrich, however, is the one whom she has a particularly close relationship with — a relationship almost like that of twins. He has higher qualifications but is unable to find a job because he has been blacklisted by the Party on the basis of some spurious previous family incident.  He too wants to migrate to the West and so much of the novel is taken up with his decision to do so and how he and his sister express their differences of opinion on the subject.  

While at that time one could leave East Germany, it was not possible to emigrate permanently and impossible to return. Also, one would be persecuted if any attempts to organise an emigration were detected. Elisabeth has two motives for wishing to retain her brother in the DDR: her political views and her very close relationship with him. So she has a dilemma as to whether to prevent him from leaving, which she could easily do by revealing his intentions to the hierarchy at work or, as an additional theme in the novel, to her boyfriend who is also a friend of Ulrich, but a loyal Party member. To disclose the outcome of the dilemma would be a spoiler.

Unlike most novels, there are very useful references to issues that one might not fully understand without knowing more about East German politics.  So, while the story line is weak and heavily repetitive of the main issue — the political arguments between the siblings — the novel is interesting as an insight into literature of that country and at that time. 3*

Trust, a novel by Hernan Diaz

This is a strange book.  The previous one I read by this author had considerable merit but suffered from long repetitive episodes around the middle of the story.  This second novel by the same author has the opposite problem: the book is split into four very different sections that require the reader to piece together to make a composite story. 

The four sections are presented as if told by four different narrators but involving the same, or related, characters.  This is reminiscent coincidentally of the technique used by the previous book I most recently read, Case Study; it’s referred to, I believe, as the Rashomon effect, based on a Japanese concept of ‘dispute’. So the different parts of the novel tell the same story but with very different interpretations of the facts. 

The story is that of a New York banker and entrepreneur who has become very rich through fortunate or skilful manipulation of the stock market in the 1920s. We hear about him initially through a short story or novella that details his family history, his marriage and the mental illness of his wife, who dies in a clinic in Switzerland. 

The subject of this novella, Harold Vanner, is supposedly based on the life of a real NY tycoon Andrew Bevel.  The second part of the book is presented as an autobiography of Bevel that differs significantly from the life portrayed in the first section, as he attempts to refute the picture that has been portrayed of him and his wife.

Finally, in the last, longest and most interesting section, we come across a young woman, Ida, of Italian descent who is employed by Bevel to assist him in writing the autobiography referred to in the second part. The story then centres around her relationship with the widowed Bevel and the difficulties she faces in finding out the real truth of what happened to his wife. Along the way it is clear that the story of Bevel alluded to in the novella by Vanner is very far from reality, but then so is the story told by Bevel of his own life, particularly with regard to his wife and the extent to which she played a part in his financial success. This is amplified by the ‘discovery’ of pages from Mildred’s diary that again contradict much of the ghost-written autobiography. 

On top of that, Ida’s story is itself a flashback, as she is seen re-visiting Bevel’s New York mansion in the 1970s and reminiscing on the work she did there in trying to create a book that ultimately was never published. 

I feel I ought to have been able to deal with the complexity of this novel without becoming as confused as I became.  The author keeps the reader guessing as to whether or not the characters in the first section are meant to be the same as in the second  — perhaps a lack of attention on my part — and so I had to re-read a bit to be sure. The other fault was the enormous amount of detail provided about the NY stock market of the 1920s, necessary to convey the level of obsession that the main character had in how to manipulate it, but a bit uninteresting. So, while the structure of the book was original and it received very good reviews, I felt that it would have been improved if it had been written from scratch as the story of the ghost writer Ida and how she resolved the differences in interpretations, fictional or supposedly factual, of the characters’ lives. 3*

Case Study, a novel by Graeme MacRae Burnet

This is a complex story.  The narrator is a fictitious writer named GMB (the author?), who is interested in the biography of a Scottish psychotherapist Collins Braithwaite, who practised in the 1960s, at a time when Laingian theories of psychiatry were in dispute and gaining hold for political as well as medical reasons.  Braithwaite is also a fictitious character, although the way he is presented, e.g. interacting with real people in historically accurate settings, makes it seem as if the biography is factual. The writer has supposedly gained further information about his subject as a result of being given six notebooks written by a woman named Rebecca with a mental health problem whose sister has been a patient of Braithwaite and has committed suicide.  Rebecca — one of the two identities of this character — presents herself as a patient of Braithwaite and so we learn from her notes how Braithwaite’s professional practice operates.  Other aspects of Rebecca’s troubled life are also portrayed in the notebooks. 

I enjoyed this book even although I found it hard to switch from what seemed like a simple biography of a very unlikeable character to a series of confessions from another equally unsympathetic individual. 

Towards the end we learn about how their sad lives proceed independently.  Any more information than that would be a spoiler.  4*