Monthly Archives: December 2015

The Gourmet Pirate: Cinnamon and Gunpowder

28 Monday Dec 2015

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Review: Cinnamon and Gunpowder, by Eli Brown
Farrar, Straus, 2013. 318 pp. $26

It’s hard to beat this premise: A pirate captain kidnaps a renowned chef and tells him that his life hangs on whether he can produce a private dinner every Sunday worthy of his talents. Throw in that the pirate is a woman who earns her sailors’ adoration by her fairness, strategic gifts, and success at pillage, and you’ve got a delicious literary confection in the making.

"View on the Pearl River, Macao," by Eduard Hildebrandt, 1850 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

View on the Pearl River, Macao, by Eduard Hildebrandt, 1850 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

The year is 1819, and Owen Wedgwood serves Lord Ramsey, director of the Pendleton Trading Company, as personal chef. His lordship has brought Wedgwood to cater a weekend party of company officials at the seaside town of Eastbourne. But Mad Hannah Mabbot crashes the dinner, kills Ramsey and others, and brings the cook back to her ship, Flying Rose. Shocked by the wanton bloodshed and outraged at having to feed a murdering villain to save his life, Wedgwood plots his escape, even as he bends his skills to play culinary Scheherazade.

For the story to work, Mabbot must succumb to Wedgwood’s galley magic, which makes her a woman of taste and refinement, of a higher sensibility than your garden-variety buccaneer. Conversely, Wedgwood has to be charmed despite her crimes, her constant insults, and her most un-Christian behavior, scandalous to a man raised as a foundling child by Jesuits. To wit:

Of course, she was a tyrant and a criminal, but when she ate, I saw in her a radiant life, a deep hunger, and an almost pious reflection on each moment. When she swallowed, her nostrils flared like those of a running horse, yet her hunger was sophisticated. The ladies I had served in the past knew how to hold salad forks and discuss the latest fashions, yet their palates were blind. Mabbot claimed each dish as Moses’s men claimed the land of milk and honey.

This dynamic, which Brown handles deftly (down to the biblical allusion), makes perfect sense. But otherwise, I think the narrative gets away from him. Rather than unfurl all his canvas and run before the wind, pushing the improbable and eccentric to the limit (as with, say, George McDonald Fraser’s Flashman series), Brown has unfortunately trimmed his sails. It’s as if he decided that his novel must be About Something.

Consequently, Wedgwood has to learn, gradually but surely, that Hannah Mabbot defies the moral certainties he’s held throughout his life, and that there’s more to her murderous escapades than meets the eye. He discovers that the Pendleton Trading Company (read: The East India Company) has beggared entire populations through the production and sale of opium, forced labor, and violent suppression of protest or competition. No argument, there, and hardly a surprise, but this theme belongs more to a serious novel like M. J. Carter’s Strangler Vine (reviewed December 14). Here, it requires a bulky backstory, as does why Mabbot hates opium trading–and the more I read, the less I believe it. Even more convoluted, Brown introduces a French antagonist to Mabbot named Laroche, whose futuristic ships seem like something out of Jules Verne.

If Cinnamon and Gunpowder’s a hodgepodge, its redeeming, dead-center feature is the food. Chef Wedgwood’s recipes are absolutely inspired, as are his adaptations to working in an ill-equipped, understocked pirate galley, not least of which is how he crushes nuts and spices with a cannonball. To me, a passionate cook, those parts of the novel are the most memorable, and it’s no wonder that Hannah Mabbot enjoys what her captive dishes out.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Nobody Escapes: I Lived in Modern Times

19 Saturday Dec 2015

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Review: I Lived in Modern Times, by Linda Grant
Penguin, 2000. 260 pp. $24

In this disturbing, insightful novel, Linda Grant portrays the Jews who worked to create the state of Israel in 1946-47 as anything but heroes. They’re gangsters and lowlifes who somehow managed to survive the Holocaust; longtime German and Austrian residents who look down on their Eastern European brethren; arrogant revolutionaries; terrorists; and displaced people who think the world owes them a favor.

British paratroopers enforce a curfew in Tel Aviv, 1946-47 (Courtesy United Kingdom Government, via Wikimedia Commons)

British paratroopers enforce a curfew in Tel Aviv, 1946-47 (Courtesy United Kingdom Government, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mind you, the British trying to enforce their mandate over Palestine are vicious anti-Semites, and worse. They believe that they had it tough during the world war, can’t decide whom they despise more, Arab or Jew, and express choleric amazement that their inferiors could dare rebel against them, the world’s most practiced colonialists. The only participants in this novel who get a free pass–or almost do–are the Arabs, aside from a rare bombing or sniping, referred to but never shown.

No doubt, the mainstream, heroic narrative about the founding of Israel (or anywhere else) needs correction. Nevertheless, this novel goes too far the other way, so much so that it offends me, though I share some of the author’s political views. Like her, I’m ashamed that my Israeli coreligionists oppress Palestinians today (of which I’ve seen glimpses, first-hand). Yet I reject her blanket portrayal of Israel’s founders as either misguided hoodlums or blind idealists, or of Jews as fractious and arrogant, or that any nation born in war is doomed to fight perpetually. War has always made nations, whether we’re talking about the United States, Serbia, or the Netherlands. How and when those nations make war afterward is another story, but in I Lived in Modern Times, Israel’s path seems predetermined and entirely of Jewish making, which is more than a little neat.

That said, Grant has written a provocative, illuminating story about identity. Her heroine, Evelyn Sert, is a young woman born in England of Eastern European Jewish parents. Through her British passport, she takes ship for Palestine in 1946, pretending to be Christian so as to evade the rules against Jewish immigration. She’s heard of the wonderful experiment that will build a new nation according to modern principles, in which a Jew may find a life without fear and ideals to live by.

But reality doesn’t measure up. First, she tries a kibbutz, whose socialist roots and practices (including free love) appeal to her, only to find that the heat and the hard labor wear her down, and the men treat her like a slab of meat. She settles in Tel Aviv, resuming her former occupation as a hairdresser, but her best customers are British women whose husbands are the police, one of whom believes she recognizes Evelyn from the boat.

So Evelyn splits herself. She dyes her hair blond, calls herself Priscilla Jones, and goes to the beach with these women and their husbands, listening to their diatribes. Her Jewish boyfriend, a mysterious chap who speaks fluent Hebrew, gives her the passion she’s always wanted but insists that she know her place as a woman. This poses a struggle for Evelyn, who has other ambitions and is more literate, smarter, and deeper than he is. Yet Johnny, the name she knows him by, also protects her, giving her a false passport that keeps her safe from the police as Priscilla Jones–for a while. It’s his other underground activities she’s nervous about.

As her openly Jewish self, however, the German and Austrian emigrés, though they open up a cultural world she’s missed since leaving England, also condescend to her as an ignorant bumpkin from Eastern Europe. That wears on her, but even worse, Evelyn tires of what she calls “the so-what people.”

So-what you are cold and hungry? You want to know about cold and hunger? Let me tell you where I have been. I know cold and hunger. So-what you miss your mother? My mother was gassed. And my father and my grandparents and my sisters and brothers. So-what you want your boyfriend? My boyfriend was murdered by British soldiers.

Like the contortions of self that Evelyn submits to as an immigrant to a bewildering, divided land, these passages about the social pecking order based on birth or suffering hit the mark. However, after a while, you begin to wonder why Evelyn is so passive, why she doesn’t stand up to her lecturers or simply walk away. It’s particularly jarring toward the end, when she allows someone to bully her into an action I don’t believe she’d ever take. Unlike the case in some historical novels, which rewrite history to achieve the desired result, I Lived in Modern Times takes the opposite route, putting the heroine in a false position to evade an inconvenient historical event. It doesn’t work.

As with its protagonist, this novel’s contortions come to a peculiar end.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

The Restless Hero: The Bull from the Sea

17 Thursday Dec 2015

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Review: The Bull from the Sea, by Mary Renault
Vintage/Random, 1990. 343 pp. $16

Toward the end of his life, the hero warrior-king Theseus tries to come to terms with the destruction of what he loves most. At first, he asks a string of what-ifs, only to dismiss them: “Fate and will, will and fate, like earth and sky bringing forth the grain together; and which the bread tastes of, no man knows.”

What a striking metaphor, elegant in its simplicity, much like this novel itself. And what a brave, resigned outlook, one to which many might aspire when their turn comes, but which it takes a special character to embrace. To me, this is what makes Theseus a hero, not the storied deeds or countless adventures. Rather than blame the gods or other men for what has happened, he grasps the essence of himself and accepts the responsibility for it. Would that we had leaders who could do the same.

Theseus slaying the Minotaur (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, public domain in the U.S.)

Theseus slaying the Minotaur (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, public domain in the U.S.)

The story picks up from The King Must Die, Renault’s prior tale of Theseus’ adventures on Crete, where he led his cohort of Athenian youth to survive the bull ring of King Minos–an unheard-of achievement–and help topple the bloody king from the throne. Tragedy marks the young prince’s triumphant return to Athens, however, for his father has thrown himself from a cliff, believing the son to have died. The ensuing narrative follows King Theseus as he attempts to unite Attica through war and diplomacy, goes a-roving for plunder, brings back an Amazon bride, Hippolyta, and sets in motion a string of consequences that fulfill his destiny.

Readers who know the myths will find a familiar plot, but it’s how Renault tells the story that matters. Theseus is the most renowned warrior of his time, and he receives his due in these pages, but the author chooses to focus on the reasons he goes to war so often, all of which have to do with his character. The king has made a deep study of power, sensing when to ignore or deflect an insult, when to meet a threat head-on, and when to thwart it indirectly by massaging egos and building alliances. His life becomes a political manifesto on the virtues of forbearance and of faith in the rule of law (part of his legacy is that he supports the weak against unjust, excessive burdens, which arouses anger among the aristocracy).

But he’s also a man of his time, and violence is the means to adventure and pursuit of wealth. Theseus is one of those who believes that the great never sit still when they could be out chasing something, and therein lies his trouble and his glory. As he says after befriending King Pirithoos of the Lapiths, whose lust for piracy leads Theseus to take risks for good and ill,

I knew, as one sometimes may, that I had met a daimon of my fate. Whether he came for good or ill to me, I could not tell; nor, it may be, could a god have told me plainly. But good in himself he was, as a lion is good for beauty and for valor though he eats one’s herds. He roars at the spears upon the dike-top, while the torchlight strikes forth fire from his golden eyes; and one’s heart must love him, whether one will or no.

It’s that acceptance of the dual nature of humankind, in himself and others, that makes Theseus so compelling for me. As a king with priestly functions, he seldom forgets that despite his power, he’s a mote in the universe, and when he does, he quickly realizes that the gods rebuke such hubris with a vengeance. Even a legendary ruler and warrior may strive for humility.

There are other authors who write engaging fiction about the ancient world. But Mary Renault is still my favorite, arguably a writer who put historical fiction on the literary map fifty years ago.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from an independent bookstore.

Killing the Bogeyman: The Strangler Vine

14 Monday Dec 2015

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Review: The Strangler Vine, by M. J. Carter
Putnam, 2014. 369 pp. $28

William Avery believes in the East India Company, which rules most of that immense land in 1837, but he knows the company doesn’t believe in him. A lowly ensign in Calcutta, Avery has little chance of promotion, but maybe that’s just as well, since he can’t stand India, which he considers savage. He would as soon resign his position and return to England, but he has no prospects there, either, and no money to pay the fare.

General Post Office, Calcutta, 1833 (Courtesy Wikiwand).

General Post Office, Calcutta, 1833 (Courtesy Wikiwand).

His last chance to make a name for himself comes in poisonous form, to second James Blake on a secret mission deep up-country. Avery rightly suspects that he’s unlikely to survive, which may be his superiors’ intention. Moreover, he can’t stand Blake, an extremely unpleasant, older man who threw away a promising career with the company and adopted indigenous ways. But all that takes second place when Avery’s only friend is murdered and his name slandered as a drunken, lecherous, debt-ridden schemer. With barely time to grieve, Avery must take his journey to what he thinks will be oblivion.

This is where The Strangler Vine excels, as a story of adventure and political intrigue. Blake refuses to take Avery into his confidence, or, often, even to talk to him; whenever possible, Blake scouts on his own, which leaves Avery feeling wounded in pride, frustrated, and, reasonably, wondering what purpose he serves. It also creates tension, because the reader, kept in the dark like Avery, has no idea whom or what to trust. Gradually, though, the younger man observes more of the land and people, and you sense his mind stretching to accommodate the new:

The road was not yet as busy as it would become once the rains stopped for good, but it was already a full day’s entertainment in itself. There were frenzied ash-smeared fakirs who gamboled grotesquely and stuck their palms out for money; women wrapped in layers of cottons–saffron, pink, blue–with babes on their hips and dull brass bracelets tinkling; small insolent boys chewing sugarcane. There were jugglers with families of monkeys in their turbans; wealthy Sikhs in yellow silk waistcoats with enormous beards and huge dastars [headgear], leading columns of camels and carts; wedding parties in red and silver, with painted elephants, encircled by the scent of jasmine; and carts of dull-eyed, ragged indentured servants.

More profoundly, Avery realizes that Blake, though stubbornly difficult, has put his keen observational and linguistic skills to serve a moral code, and that the older man has much to teach. Avery struggles mightily with the challenges to his certainty. Even so, he comes to similar conclusions: that the company has betrayed English ideals in pursuit of profit, and that whatever benefits it has brought have dearly cost the populace. Most particularly, the company has perpetuated myths about violent bandits to excuse military operations that expand the area under its control. Consequently, the company has created a monster that only it can slay, a corruption that will doom it in the long run (as would, in fact, happen twenty years later).

What an absorbing, provocative tale this is, remarkably well told for a first novel, and vivid in attitudes and scenery. I like Carter’s characterizations of Avery and Blake–the callow traditionalist versus the jaded radical–and many people they meet have their own complexities. I question, though, how quickly Avery loses any thought of his late friend, much maligned, only to have the death wrapped up just as quickly at the end. Further, Blake’s absolute silence about every conceivable detail seems too convenient. True, he doesn’t trust Avery’s judgment, but Blake carries this so far as to make me think it’s an authorial ploy to keep the reader guessing, a drawback of using a first-person narrative. Finally, since Avery is a crack shot, his sole visible talent, you can be sure that will come into play, which occasionally tips off where the narrative will go.

That said, The Strangler Vine has much going for it, not least its resonance with current issues. The East India Company, as Carter shows, provides an early example of corporate governance and the abuses that entails. Substitute terrorist for bandit, and the novel also offers a nineteenth-century take on an up-to-the-minute controversy. Did bandits exist in India? Yes. Were they as widespread and dangerous as the company claimed, and did their presence justify its policies? Those are the questions, then and now.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Eighteenth-Century Iconoclast: Ross Poldark

07 Monday Dec 2015

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Review: Ross Poldark, a Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787, by Winston Graham
Sourcebooks, 2009 [1945]. 314 pp. $17

Captain Ross Poldark returns to Cornwall from the American war to find that everything has gone to pieces. His father has died, leaving behind debts. The two servants tasked with keeping up the modest ancestral home and surrounding farmlands have let them go to ruin and sold off the livestock to keep themselves soused. Worst of all, though, Ross’s sweetheart, the beautiful Elizabeth, is shortly to marry his friend and cousin, Francis.

Beach in Cornwall (Courtesy Mike Coates, publicdomainpictures.net)

Beach in Cornwall (Courtesy Mike Coates, publicdomainpictures.net)

To say that this novel is about a man who overcomes pain and disappointment to put his life back together is like saying that Huckleberry Finn is about a boy on a raft. Ross indeed has plenty of reconstruction to do and ways of submerging (but not drowning) his sorrows. However, it’s how and why he goes about rebuilding his life, who helps or hinders him, and how everyone else feels about it that make Ross Poldark a marvelously entertaining story. Further, the novel also offers a finely detailed picture of eighteenth-century England, warts and all.

That’s because Ross, though a man of his time, has no use for conventions, institutions, or prejudices that unjustly protect his social class at others’ expense. Whether his years among American revolutionaries influenced his views, or his youthful, independent cast of mind has flowered in adulthood, Ross repeatedly dares gossip and ostracism to do what he thinks is right. He has his limits, of course, believing in social distinctions. And to avoid making enemies, he sometimes takes the middle road, only to learn that he can’t please anybody.

Nevertheless, seemingly with every action he takes, problems occur, and he rises to meet them, revealing conflicts within himself and with the society in which he lives. Even so simple an exercise as dancing with a young girl to let her feel that she’s not a wallflower has far-reaching complications because of the way girls are treated like marriageable chattel. Defending a cottager from poaching charges sets Ross against the local magistracy while putting class and social inequities on hideous display. Restarting an old copper mine touches on ills of the Industrial Revolution and the constant struggle for a living wage.

But nothing arouses as much gossip or spite from the community, or ambivalence within Ross himself, as his rescue of Demelza Carne. Ross first sees the twelve-year-old Demelza at a fair, where she tries to rescue her dog from being tortured by a pack of boys, only to be set upon herself. Ross wonders why she’d go to that length for a mere animal–another common eighteenth-century English attitude–but when he sees the welts and bruises that her father has inflicted on her, he resolves to hire her as a live-in maid. He knows what people will say, but the more they say it, the less he’s willing to listen.

Wise choice. Once Demelza emerges from beneath her miserable childhood and realizes she can be a real person, she seizes the chance with both hands, changing the Poldark residence in the process. Over time, her vivacity, directness, and ability to see to the heart of things make her formidable indeed, and her way of putting things can only be described as delicious. She’s no prodigy–in this, Graham has wielded a lighter hand than many novelists I could name–but she has considerable resources that not even she’s aware of. In brief, she’s a firecracker, if a subservient one–for now.

Ross Poldark is the first of eleven volumes, which, I’m told, became a British television series, aired on PBS. I consider myself lucky that I never saw it, because I can appreciate this wonderful novel with fresh eyes.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.