Robert Harris – Conclave

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Book Review, Conclave, Robert Harris

‘No sane man could possibly want the papacy’ : Listening for the still, small voice

Robert Harris’ prior existence as a political journalist always informs his writing, bringing specific skills to his novels: being concise, not overwriting, clearly giving information and opening out moral arguments in ways which are far from dry and academic; he is an excellent communicator. He is also a creative and imaginative writer, able to imagine into character and create living breathing individuals, with flesh on their bones, not merely ciphers standing for particular viewpoints. He understands the dramatic drive for narrative, and necessity for the unexpected, without sacrificing everything else for narrative drama.

This particular book, based as it is around the election of a new Pope, might seem irrelevant, peculiar, or dull, depending on the reader’s sense of what drama is, and what their view of religious organisations might be. After all, 118 elderly men, the second tier of seniority in the Catholic church, gathered, from all over the world, to elect one of their number as the Supreme Head of their worldwide organisation, where is the drama in that? Where (some might argue) is its importance or relevance?

Cardinals processing towards voting in the Sistine Chapel

For the however-long-it-takes for one of them to get the requisite two-thirds majority winning Pope vote, the cardinals have to remain sequestered from the world, without either communicating with it, or receiving communications from it. And what makes it different from any other elite gathering where an election to a position of power is being sought, is that (in theory at least) the cloistered, reflective series of arcane rituals, the periods of silence, the absence of computers, phones, reading material other than sacred texts, are all designed to help each of them listen for the still, small voice of God to help them make the best choice for their Church itself, their flock, their faith, and the needs of the world.

This is highly dramatic stuff – and it plays right into Harris’ strengths and interests as a writer – many of his books have examined institutions and individuals in positions of power, and the kinds of conflicts and corruptions the powerful may experience, and also, how power might be used responsibly.

The election of a Pope ought, in theory, to come about through the cardinals seeking to know the will of God, and to lay aside ego – but cardinals are human, and like all of us, prone to the variety of human weaknesses and flaws. Harris neither hagiographises nor demonises. Amongst the 118 are those who are consciously striving for virtue – as expected – but there are also those who are rather more consciously surrendered to the worst failings of the power-corrupts mindset. The bulk of his cast of characters though are curate’s (or in this case, cardinal’s) eggs – good in parts, and wanting to be better than they are. Harris acknowledges the seriousness of abuses which some of the clergy indulged in, and others covered up, but he does not make the mistake of pinning vice or collusion on one and all.

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Papam (I announce to you a great joy: We have a Pope!)

Conclave explores the schisms and conflicts in the Church – traditionalists versus modernisers, liberalism, thinking around all the issues arising from sexuality, the role of women in the church, and how the Church positions itself in terms of politics of the left or of the right, in the world at large. Always a consummate political thriller novelist he resides issues within rounded individual psychology. Character is the driver and container for everything, and the individuals who will carry and express particular ideological positions are never just mouthpieces for the expressing of ‘isms’.

The central character in Conclave is a very reliable (third-person) narrator, extremely sympathetically drawn. Cardinal Lomeli is the Dean of the College of Cardinals, the one who must oversee and organise the election. He is a wonderful, ‘doubting Thomas’ character, seriously wrestling at times with his faith and with his human flaws, rigorously self-examining. He is also, by virtue of his role in this election, and his particular character, the one who must investigate the various things-which-are-not-quite-right events. A holy detective and a holy therapist-from-within-the-confessional!

This was shaping up, for two-thirds of the twisty, thrillery, fascinatingly informative journey to be a magnificently 5 star read, with tensions mounting as the various front-runners for the Papacy gained or slipped back from their positions in that race. Around the 200 page mark, Harris released a little clue to indicate a possible further twist. And I must confess this had me catching my breath and muttering ‘ Oh no…….I really hope this doesn’t mean……..’

And unfortunately it did. And that big twist felt a contrivance and I’m sorry Harris did it. There were actually a couple of ‘let’s clash some major issues of the day into this book’ which did not really seem seamless and organic to me, so my overall assessment is 4 star,

A fabulous ride for nearly 200 pages, coming down from the sunlit reading horizons to something a bit less inspired. But still recommended

I received this as a review copy from the publisher, Hutchinson

And thanks to blogbud FictionFan, who encouraged me in the penning of an appealing begging letter to Hutchinson. Read her excellent review here

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Robert Harris – Enigma

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Book Review, Enigma, Espionage, Robert Harris, Second World War

Breaking the code in cracking fashion

Robert Harris’ Enigma succeeds on all the counts I had for it – an absorbing, immersive, thriller; one which though a fiction had enough basis in reality for it to appear an authentic possibility; to be educative, informative and clear about the technology without either sending this reader to sleep, refusing to grapple with the nuts and bolts, or employing the implausible devices bad writers use to educate their readers. And, more than this, I wanted the combination of frantic need to turn pages with a wonderfully structured narrative, interesting characters and, above all admirable writing!

Harris delivers all – not to mention twists I didn’t see coming but, once they occurred I rather hit my forehead wondering how I could have NOT suspected and predicted them. Those are the very best twists – not ones which are just rather crude writerly devices, but twists which make complete sense AND are missed by the reader – particularly in a book which in the end is about a top secret mission, so every character in the book is rather in the dark on the whole picture, and those that aren’t in the dark are doing their level best to cover their own tracks! Twisty, turny puzzles and a mounting sense of urgency are the background of the real story and setting – Bletchley Park and the cracking of the Enigma code in World War Two – which Harris constructs his wonderful fiction around

Enigma machine (not decoding machine) Alessandro Nassiri – Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci” source -Wiki.

It is 1943. Alan Turing is not, at this point, in Bletchley Park, but is in America (he assisted in the construction of the famous ‘bombes’ used to crack the codes, for Bell Labs in the States from November 42 to March 43) This ‘absence’ of the known, real figure gives Harris the novelist freedom to keep known and major history in place but have a different cast of characters, without the problems involved in creating untruthful fictions out of real lives.

His central character, Tom Jericho, is a young Cambridge mathematician, one of those recruited as one of the Bletchley code-breakers. Jericho is presently back in Cambridge, having suffered some kind of break-down through overwork during an earlier, intense time at Bletchley. He has been sent back to recuperate.

Jericho, one of Turing’s students, has been instrumental in a major decoding operation. It’s not only the stress of working against deadlines to crack the codes used by German U Boats as they targeted Allied shipping which caused Jericho’s breakdown, but a love affair gone wrong.

                                    German U Boat

Inexplicably to those at Bletchley, the Germans suddenly and dramatically change their known patterns of coding. With America about to send fleets of ships, containing supplies to Britain, and U Boats patrolling the sea lanes, it is essential that the codes are re-broken, and Jericho is summoned back to Bletchley, where he half longs to be and half dreads to be, not least because of the pain of the ending of his love affair.

Harris absolutely winds up, tighter and ever tighter, a feverish atmosphere, – working against a dreadfully ticking clock as the likelihood of U Boats finding the American fleet increases, hour by hour. Britain in blackout, edible food increasingly rationed, and dreadful moral calls always lurking – if codes are cracked, how far and how quickly can the Allies save immediate lives in danger, against the fact that such actions will alert Germany to the fact codes have been cracked and lead to radical changes again. And what caused the sudden previous change anyway? Something is not quite right at Bletchley Park…..

This is a brilliant thriller, and Harris looks at wider considerations than just the urgency of code-cracking during the war. It also has much to reveal about class politics, gender politics and the sometimes uneasy relationship between Britain and America, linked to Britain’s class-conscious society. Many of the people who came to Bletchley or were recruited into the Secret Services were old-guard, boys-club, those who had come from the ‘best’ public school backgrounds, into the ‘best Universities, and were ‘people like us’ But the war also needed people ‘not like us’ who had the requisite skills in cryptanalysis, the kind of mathematical ability and conceptional thinking which this needed, who might have gone to the ‘best’ Universities on those merits. And there might be others, ‘not like us’ at all in fact, alien to the whole old boy network – women – who might also have the kinds of minds for the work.

Hut 6, Bletchley Park, War Years

Bletchley Park recruited many women, and certainly some of them must have been hugely frustrated by being utilised well below their intellectual abilities, confined to less demanding, more lowly (but necessary) clerical tasks, simply due to gender. Some of the women would have had sharper, more astute minds for the work than some of their male section heads. And equally undoubtedly the power differentials between men-in-charge and women in lowlier positions would also have been used and abused.

Harris creates two wonderful leading characters, who come into conflict and into a working accord with each other – Tom Jericho himself and the understandably resentful, bitter, highly intelligent Hester Wallace, the house-mate of his lost love, the impeccably upper-class Claire Romilly. It is quite refreshing to see a complex, layered relationship of trust, distrust, dislike, respect and understanding between a male and female, which has nothing to do with a sexual relationship between them, explored.

By all accounts the less than satisfying sounding film-of-the-book did an unnecessary sex-up. The film maker, or possibly eyes-on-the-bucksters of raising finances, took the decision to create a love-interest between Jericho and Hester, thus negating the more interesting dynamic which understands that not every male/female relationship needs sex as its glue.

A highly recommended, immersive, well-written and intellectually stimulating page-turner. It had me reading far too late into the night, and waking far too early before dawn to pick up again and read further

And, an edit – better late than never, I posted before finding the pingback links to Fiction Fan’s review of the book which made me determined to get and read it, and quickly, and also of the film of the book, which made me equally determined to AVOID viewing! Hopefully I have got my pings in before she notices the missing credits!

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Robert Harris – Imperium

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Ancient Rome, Book Review, Cicero trilogy, Imperium, Robert Harris

Prodigious research; prodigious narrative; full of grim echoing down the centuries

Imperium is the first volume of a trilogy by Robert Harris which tells the story of Cicero, politician, orator, philosopher, and lawyer, who lived from 106 B.C.E. to 43 B.C.E. Much is known directly about Cicero from his published letters, speeches and treatises. Cicero’s writings were rediscovered by the fourteenth century scholar and humanist Petrarch, so Harris would have had a great amount of direct source material to give direction to these novels, plus of course any number of works by later scholars referencing Cicero.

Cicero

Imperium is far from a dry scholarly read though. Harris is a novelist, and knows how to shape and tell a tale as well as how to flesh out real people with real histories.

Rather than third person narration, or even a narration by Cicero-in-the-first-person, he makes his narrator another historically real individual, Tiro, Cicero’s slave and scribe,later made a freedman after his master retired from public office. Tiro, who died in 4 B.C E. aged 99, published Cicero’s speeches after his death and was a writer himself. It is also believed that he invented an early version of shorthand.

Tiro is presented as both highly intelligent, but, because of his status he has a certain naïvity – he is not always the recipient of Cicero’s thinking, or the receiver of personal confidences, though he is always present in Cicero’s public outings, to scribe him. His lowly status also casts him as observer and interpreter of the great events. He is a kind of intelligent everyman, without a defined ego and agenda of his own to prosecute. He’s fluent, engaging and with understated humour as part of his nature : a good companion for the reader. Tiro is writing his life of Cicero long after these events have happened, a good half century later.

Cicero denounces Catiline, Cesare Maccari 1888

This has been a particularly apposite read in these troubling, corrupt times. It is a book about the politics of Rome, in the first half of the last century B.C.E, but of course, there being nothing new under the sun, the corruption which underpins so much of the life of power, money, and the division between classes, not to mention the particular workings of states, nations and empires, stalks Ancient Rome as heavily as it does our own times and places.

Cicero is a man not of the aristocracy, therefore despised by them, as his intelligence and skills, and his championing of the ‘public’ brings him closer to taking the reins of power himself. However, the closer he comes to that, the more he will have to, and will, dirty his hands and play the system to achieve the ends desired

Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom among them

Initially rather soft-hearted, hating to see cruelty and violence done, Cicero will have to steel himself and harden himself, fostering steely resolve

If you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity

Tiro will be the recorder of Cicero’s journey towards a kind of cynical pragmatism

the journey to the top in politics often confines a man with some uncongenial fellow passengers and shows him strange scenery

Whatever the venality, cupidity and self-serving arrogance of some of those currently attempting to achieve the greatest political stages in our own time, they had their moulds in ancient Rome. Indeed, I found myself visioning some of our present politicians in the guise of the worst characters stalking Imperium’s pages, Crassus (well named) and Verres. Unfortunately, learning from history’s mistakes isn’t something we seem to do well, even if Cicero himself, over two thousand years ago, was urging the study of history. Tiro quotes this from Cicero :

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

A terrific read, and I shall for sure want to read the next two volumes, but I may let the fallout from the recent referendum, not to mention the upcoming election in the States this autumn, settle first. Reading how easily the populace can be manipulated by brash and power hungry demagogues, and how serious the consequences of such manipulations may be is a little too close for comfort, even if this account has as its real setting the Rome of over 2000 years ago.

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Robert Harris – An Officer and A Spy

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An Officer and A Spy, Book Review, Dreyfus Affair, Political Novel, Robert Harris

Events so bizarre and unbelievable could only be fact

I overheard Harris being interviewed on Radio 4, talking about this ‘novel’ – except to call it a novel implies that it must be fiction. As Harris and the interviewer concurred, if someone invented the Dreyfus affair as a fiction, the writer would be castigated for having stretched credulity too far.

In fact, as Harris points out, all this is documented, and researched, and is a deeply shameful part of France’s history. Except that what is even more worrying and shameful is that large scale cover-ups, the concept of obeying orders without question, systems protecting their own despite betraying principles of justice, and inherent racism are not endemic flaws peculiar to late nineteenth and early twentieth century France

The infamous Dreyfus affair involved a Jewish army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who was convicted of spying for Germany, in 1895. There was certainly a spy within the French army, a man who was violent, untrustworthy, and with gambling debts and a mistress as well as a wife to support. But that man was not Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a loyal and conscientious, if not particularly likeable, officer. The question which must be asked is – was Dreyfus not particularly likeable, or was he not particularly likeable because he was Jewish – anti-Semitism was deeply entrenched in society. A culture of what we have learned to define as Institutional Racism was certainly present – but not just within Institutions

Dreyfus was convicted because as a Jew he was the automatic one to suspect, even though, right from the start, the evidence was circumstantial, and largely turning on evidence from a graphologist. However, as the expert graphologists disagreed as to whether writing was Dreyfus’s or not, investigations into Dreyfus being the spy quickly became slewed to create and falsify the evidence with the sole aim to prove the Jew’s guilt, rather than continue to investigate who the spy really was. Jewish, therefore guilty.

Dreyfus was sent to Devil’s Island, and was the only prisoner there, kept in appalling conditions of barbaric inhumanity.

An army officer, who had in part been involved in the initial capture and prosecution of Dreyfus, Georges Picquart, had been promoted to head of the army intelligence unit. Originally believing in Dreyfus’ guilt, he ended up uncovering the truth, and that the conviction of Dreyfus had been a sham. However, this is only the beginning of the bizarre events which transpired. On laying his suspicions and discoveries about the real spy, in front of superiors, ranks closed against Picquart. An extremely loyal Frenchman and army officer, who also had absorbed the anti-Semitism of his society, Picquart still felt justice was the most important factor, above loyalty to the organisation or the country. In fact, how could loyalty to injustice serve anyone’s interest?

In a truth is much stranger than fiction development, the inability of the army, the judiciary and the politicians to admit they had made a huge mistake in convicting Dreyfus, led to a bizarre investigation whereby anyone involved in trying to uncover the truth of the affair, – including Picquart himself, became the subject of allegations of treason. In refusing at an early stage to admit a wrong conviction, the cover-up of the cover-up got deeper, weirder and more criminally psychotic.

Harris presents the whole history of this shocking event, and his novelist’s sense fleshes out what might otherwise be incredibly complicated transcipts.

Although I did know about the Dreyfus affair, mainly because of the involvement of the French realist novelist Emile Zola in publicising the infamy of the State machinery, with his famous J’Accuse letter in L’Aurore on the 13th January 1898, I did not appreciate the full depth and complexity of this most infamous, deliberately constructed miscarriage of justice.

I sacrificed a night’s sleep to this book, truly unable to put it down.

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