Slenderfire-blog - A Slender Fire

looking up gay bars and I found one with a giant John Lennon picture painted on the wall

"You must take up your well-shaped oar and go on a journey until you come where there are men living who know nothing of the sea, and who eat food that is not mixed with salt, who never have known ships whose cheeks are painted purple, who never have known-well-shaped oars, which act for ships as wings do. And I will tell you a very clear proof, and you cannot miss it. When, as you walk, some other wayfarer happens to meet you, and says you carry a winnow-fan on your bright shoulder, then you must plant your well-shaped oar in the ground, and render ceremonious sacrifice to the lord Poseidon, one ram and one bull, and a mounter of sows, a boar pig, and make your way home again and render holy hecatombs to the immortal gods who hold the wide heaven, all of them in order. Death will come to you from the sea, in some altogether unwarlike way, and it will end you in the ebbing time of a sleek old age. Your people about you will be prosperous. All this is true that I tell you.” The Odyssey

Conspiracies and arson - St Patrick's Day in 1741

The Bowery Boys are two guys with a blog and podcast who serve up regular helpings of truly fascinating New York history. With erudition and infectious enthusiasm, they present the histories of countless New York landmarks, from the famous (Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge) to the obscure (the African Burial Ground and Famous Dogs of New York). Today on the blog they remember a shameful episode of the city's history from 1741, where the authorities became convinced, seemingly on no conclusive evidence, that the local slave and freed black community of the city were planning its destruction, and executed over 30 almost certainly innocent people. The Patrick's Day link reveals how the soldiers patrolling Fort George outside the city were so hungover this very morning in 1741 that they didn't catch a mystery arsonist who burned down the camp and almost let the flames spread to the city. In the febrile atmosphere of the time, when the authorities were whipping the white populace into a panicked frenzy about supposed plots, it didn't take long for blame for the fire to be put on the black population.Whoever the arsonist was, if the soldiers had been on the ball that morning the arson could have been stopped and the fire of paranoia dampened. There really are some jobs you can't turn up hungover for! 

Read the full article here. And subscribe to the podcast, it's brilliant!

Literature and 'authenticity'

Reading Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, I was struck by this passage:

"Bob conceived it his duty to get wildly drunk and do mad things. He had no authentic craving to do so: he merely objectivised himself as an abused and terrible character, and surrendered to the explicit demands of drama... In deciding to get wildly drunk and do mad things, Bob believed he was achieving something of vague magnificence and import, redeeming and magnifying himself - cutting a figure before himself and the world."

So funny and true! And considering this was written in the 20s, film and TV has had a thousand times more influence over what we often suppose to be spontaneous expression of joy or anguish since then. Something to think about....

Twenty Thousand Streets... is full of astute observations like this, and is an unnerringly true and compassionate look at the lives of early 20th-century working-class people. A good review of The Midnight Bell, the first volume of the trilogy, can be found here. 

Stories from the city

In Our Time recently had a great two-part episode on the history of the city, charting the economic and political rise of cities from Ur to Bogota. Some of the information was familiar, and some quite unexpected. For example, after the fall of Rome heavily populated cities became a minority, and London didn’t reach first-century Roman population levels until the beginning of the 19th century. The political architecture of 18th century cities was illuminative – Hausmann’s wide boulevards were designed as much to prevent rebellious working classes from erecting barricades as they were for aesthetic reasons. The earliest ‘gated communities’ were the Georgian townhouses of 18th-century London and Dublin, where the mews at the back gave access to carriages, so that their inhabitants need never step on to the main street outside and encounter any of the ordinary inhabitants of the city. But cities were often reclaimed by the very people who they were designed to control – New Delhi was designed with Hausmann-esque boulevards after the Indian Rebellion of the 1850s in a concentrated effort to consolidate imperial power, however after independence in 1947 Lutyens’ architecture was celebrated and the city accepted as a key part of India’s history. Similar accomodations with the symbols of past conquest have occured in Dublin and Kingston. And there’s no doubt that a dense concentration of people, while often leading to poverty and disease, is a significant factor in the development of revolutionary ideals and a vision of a fairer society for all – Engels’ Manchester and early 20th century Paris and Moscow being key examples. Part of the second programme focused on the astonishing effect the development of the railways had on British cities, particularly London. One commentator referred to the light-speed adoption of railway travel as the equivalent of an ‘atomic age’ and the analogy is not exxagerated – within 30 years London and Paris had evolved from cities which relied on horse-drawn carriages to ones with mass under- and overground transit systems. This had the effect of finally bringing the rich into almost direct contact with the poor masses, as the engraving above by Dore reveals. Bridges ran directly over slum tenements, leaving the passengers in no doubt as to the conditions the inhabitants lived in. Many poor people were evicted from their homes without compensation in the early days of the railways, yet ironically it was the social mixture and opportunities for mobility brought about by those same railways that later helped increase employment opportunities, and subesequently, aspiration. Modern cities were analysed too, with a fascinating parallel drawn between the development of Los Angeles as a car city in the 1930s and its imitation by South American new cities like Mexico and Bogota. One contributor broke past the usual cliches about the relentless ugliness of modern cities – an argument that has been pitched against all new building since probably the days of Ur – and described how run-down slums in Bogota have evolved into respectable neighbourhoods after the introduction of good public transport. He seemed to be siding with the unfashionable but hopeful view that regeneration is always possible where people are concentrated together, even in desperate slums, and it is good planning, support and an understanding that millions in the developing world would rather live in cities than in the country that are needed to improve cities, not hand-wringing over their lack of beauty. Human life is messy and complex, therefore our cities are too, but that’s no excuse for neglect and doom-mongering. I would have liked more analysis of the cultural life of cities, and the greatest city of all, New York, was barely touched upon, but overall the series was extraordinarily comprehensive and informative. Above all, the history of cities is the history of humanity, a story in equal parts unequal, cruel, thrilling and wonderful. As Velutus says in Shakespeare’s Corialunus: ‘What is the city but the people?’ Listen to In Our Time: Cities here.

Beatlemania was fun but now it's time for beatledepression

Beatsploitation

Here's my unreasonably long Goodreads review of Beatsploitation, a recent Irish novel - unreasonably long in that I didn't even like it all that much. But there was interesting stuff there.

It's good to read a novel about contemporary Ireland as it actually is, and it's a shame that that's still relatively rare. Beatsploitation is the story of Rob, a young secondary school teacher in Balbriggan and member of struggling band The Terrors, and his Angolan immigrant student, John/Kembo (the boy uses an English name alongside his given name in the belief that it'll ease his transition into Irish society). 

go read the first chapter of my dumb mclennon britpop au hooray

Hello to Berlin

On Saturday night BBC 2 broadcast a one-off feature length film based on Christopher Isherwood's biography of his early life in Berlin, the period that inspired Goodbye to Berlin. 'Christopher and his Kind, starring Dr Who's Matt Smith, followed the young Isherwood's sexual and political self-discovery in 1930s Berlin, against the backdrop of rising Nazi influence and power. It was an ambitious production, taking in Isherwood's exciting new gay relationships, his friendship with a drama-queen cabaret singer, his befriending of a prominent Jewish family and the continuing intrusion of politics into his life, despite his attempts to ignore the coming disaster.Smith's performance took a while to warm to - his no-doubt accurate rendition of Isherwood's camp voice was grating at the beginning, not helped by an opening scene involving a petulant row with his chilly mother (Rome's Lindsey Duncan), but once the action moved to Berlin, things picked up. In the company of friend and occasional lover WH Auden, Christopher throws himself into Berlin's gay scene, benefiting from the Weimar Republic's catastrophic inflation rate which lets him have his pick of handsome young men desperate for British money. The exploits of Isherwood and Auden with various German boys seem less like mutual self-discovery and more like sex tourism, especially, as Auden notes drily 'They're all rampant hetters, they only use our money to pay for cunt'. I've explored this theme of straight men from poorer countries performing gay sex acts on rich foreigners for money before, and it certainly casts a different, more economically driven light on Berlin's reputation as the gay capital of the world in the 30s. But that is literally another post.

Christopher falls quickly for Caspar, a young Polish man with limited English, and befriends the collection of eccentrics that occupy his boarding house. These include Jean Ross, a hyperactive young English cabaret singer who talks, smokes and drinks incessantly, and with whom Isherwood forms a friendship despite her tendency to tap him for money. Jean is somewhat over-played by Imogen Poots, but some little details ring true – her slightly-less-than cut glass accent indicates her middle-class origins, and her decidedly off-key but heartfelt singing captures the do-it-yourself appeal of cabaret. Christopher starts out amused by her but believes her to be vapid, only to be given an unexpected lesson on political awareness when he glibly announces he has been commissioned to write for Oswald Mosely’s magazine. Jean is just one example of a character who Christopher initially underestimates, only be to humbled by them. As Jean says 'I may wear green nail varnish, but I'm not completely vacuous'.

Christopher also gets to know Wilfrid Landauer, head of the German-Jewish department store range. Played to remote, mysterious perfection by Iddo Goldberg, Landauer is a man completely in control of his life at the beginning of the story, but by 1933 his stores are closed and ransacked and he is missing. Goldberg was underused in this role - in Goodbye to Berlin for example Landauer has a much more prominent role and provides much-needed political context. However he only appears for a handful of scenes in 'Christopher and his Kind' and his fate is left unresolved.

The key love story of the drama is between Christopher and Heinz, a young working-class boy who Christopher pursues after Caspar returns to his 'hetter' ways. Unlike the other boys, Heinz is not selling his body and seem genuinely to be in love with Christopher, but their relationship is complicated by Heinz's brother's antipathy to Christopher and to the nature of their relationship. This leads to a showdown when Gerhardt joins the Nazi party and demands Christopher leave. As the Nazis gain power, the British characters leave one by one, until finally Christopher persuades Heinz to join him in England. The attempt to keep Heinz out of Germany fails thanks to the obtuseness of the Home Office, but Heinz ends up surviving the war and marrying a woman who, as he puts it 'doesn't ask questions'. A postwar encounter with Heinz shows Christopher to have become hardened by his experiences - no longer is he willing to help his former love escape, leading his old friend Auden to damningly tell him "The only cause you really care about, Christopher, is yourself", ameliorating the sting with "But you've turned it into an art form."

But the character of Isherwood is less selfish in those early days in Berlin. True, he is not particularly politically engaged - but then how many people really are, even in times of upheaval? Like many people, he wants to be able to pursue his own literary and romantic interests uninterrupted, but despite himself he cannot but become caught up in the events of the day. The rise of Nazism in Germany is somewhat simplified for the purposes of the film, with some characters engaging in clunky 'background' dialogue describing the Treaty of Versailles and the Weimar Republic. Urban working-class support for the Nazis (as personified by Gerhardt) is emphasised at the expense of the more politically powerful middle-class and clerical (both Protestant and Catholic) support the party enjoyed, giving the impression that the Nazis rose to power chiefly as a party representing the urban working classes when in fact it was often the opposite that was the case, particularly in Berlin.

Perhaps the nature of political change in the period is best summed up by Christopher’s philosophical landlady who said ‘The Kaiser, Herr von Baden, Herr Hitler… the names they change, life goes on’. This could well have been the viewpoint of many ordinary Germans who just wanted some kind of stability, and who, without necessarily supporting Hitler, just saw him as another name in a long list of leaders.

The production values were beautifully done, though an understandable reliance of interior shots didn’t give much of a feel for the city. But considering a set for 1930s Berlin would literally have to be built from scratch the interiors that were used seemed perfect for the period.

The necessity for Christopher to get out of Berlin due to the Nazi stance on homosexuality is made more urgent with Gerhardt’s threat ‘We don’t want your kind here’, the word 'kind' echoing the title. But the title perhaps refers less to homosexuality than to the type of people who inhabit the boarding-house – oddbods, eccentrics, people who could not find a home anywhere else but in the freewheeling, wild world of pre-war Berlin.

Aside from some clunky dialogue, over-acting and historical simplification, 'Christopher and His Kind' is a moving, affecting and intelligent drama. 

All aboard

A review of Thomas Keneally’s latest novel, The People’s Train. This review has also been published on Politico.ie.

Since the days of Margaret ‘There Is No Alternative’ Thatcher, many (if not most) people have accepted as natural that economic prosperity can only be achieved through a free-market economy that flourishes as speculators make it big on the international markets. Few governments in the West, despite their political allegiances, have made any serious effort to embrace a different system over the last two decades. Even in the midst of the current collapse, official response has been to attempt to return things to the previous status quo, and public response, while angry, remains largely inchoate.

In the current atmosphere, the sheer audacity of what the Russians attempted to achieve from 1917 onwards can look naïve at best, and malevolent at worst, especially with the knowledge of the later atrocities and failures of the Soviet regime. Drummed as we are today with the message of ‘there is no alternative’, it’s hard not to look at the Soviet experiment cynically, yet its core message – that not only is there an alternative, but that it can be achieved – was taken utterly seriously by many men and women whose standards of integrity still stand up today.

Evoking the sincerity of this belief and its potential to change the world is tricky business for any writer looking back through the miasma of 20th-century opinion, but Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s Ark, is more than qualified to take on the challenge. In his latest novel, The People’s Train (recently out in paperback), a Russian emigrant to Australia in the early years of the 20th century tells his story of organising strikes and fighting for workers’ rights in Brisbane, before the action moves to Russia and the heady countdown to the October Revolution. The Australian part of the book is presented as a memoir by Keneally’s hero, Artem (Tom) Samsurov, who gradually reveals the details of his journey down under; the perilous escape from a tsarist prison camp, treks across Siberia and journeys by boat through Japan and China. Artem is a committed revolutionary who believes nothing less than a complete overthrow of the capitalist system will be sufficient to bring equality to the world.

Keneally does a wonderful job of bringing this character to life; too often revolutionaries in fiction come across as either hysterical or dully obsessed with political theory, but Artem is portrayed as a thoughtful, self-aware man who nevertheless cannot and will not compromise on his ideals. He is utterly believable as a man of his time and milieu, and the conflicts he faces with his fellow emigrant Russians and with the radical female lawyer he finds himself in a complicated attachment with are entirely believable.

Australia’s labour history is not a well-known topic, but the Brisbane of The People’s Train is full of agitation, strikes, union meetings and corrupt police, and the feel of a country still trying to establish a conclusive identity is powerfully evoked. Indeed, the titular train is an idea for a worker-owned monorail serving Brisbane, conceived by one of Samsurov’s friends. It remains unbuilt, serving as a symbol for the ever-retreating dreams of the young radicals. Australia is represented in the Russia-set section of the book by Paddy Dykes, a young journalist with the Australian Worker, who asks many of the book’s crucial questions about the nature of revolution and what happens when theory meets reality.

The Australian story is more engaging than the Russian; the familiarity of the story of the Russian Revolution leads to a slightly rushed narrative in the second part of the book that isn’t helped by various brief, cameo-like appearances by historical figures. However the pace recovers at the end; the momentous events of history are mirrored by equally turbulent upheavals in the minds of the central characters, with a last line that will take its place among the great endings of fiction.

Keneally leaves the question open as to whether the failure of the Soviet project was due to corruption of the original ideal, or whether the seeds of tyranny lay within it from the beginning. His characters are telling their story as they see it, nothing more. In an age where this period tends to be either glamourised or subject to revisionism, Keneally has succeeded in conveying what it was actually like to live during this unforgettable time.

One of the best historical novels of the year.

The People’s Train by Thomas Keneally

Sceptre, August 2010 (paperback)

£7.99