Plumbing the Depths.

On November 18th 1865, a New York based publication called The Saturday Press published “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” . This was a story written by a relatively unknown writer called Mark Twain.

Mark Twain was the pseudonym of Samuel Clemens. Clemens was born in 1835 in Florida, Missouri. He was largely self educated as his father died when he was just eleven years old. He read voraciously in public libraries and was a keen observer of society. As a consequence he became renowned for his light, humorous fiction and played a pivotal role in the development of American letters. He drew on the memories of his childhood, the rugged nature of the landscape and the bluff characters who lived in such surroundings.

When he left school he acquired an apprenticeship on a steamboat. He later took the pen name “mark twain” as an homage to his boating days. This was a term used to denote the safe navigational depth of the river, which was two fathoms. His career as a steamboat pilot ended when the American Civil War broke out. Twain briefly enlisted for the Confederacy but he was not suited to military life and left after two weeks. At the same time he attempted to break into journalism.

He led a peripatetic life, travelling across most of the American West and supplemented his journalistic career with various odd jobs. This included a stint as a miner in Nevada. Although this was short lived he was fascinated by the people who worked alongside him. The harsh existence that these men endured was tempered by a shared sense of ribald humour and a genuine feeling of camaraderie, both necessary tools for survival.

The experience of living and working amongst the Nevada miners inspired the story of the “celebrated jumping frog”. The story is based on an anecdote told to a visitor about a compulsive gambler. The gambler was willing to bet on a pair of jumping frogs, unaware that the rival frog had been fed lead shot to make it sluggish. The scam is revealed when the frog supposedly regurgitates before the contest. The visitor does not believe the story and is about to leave, but the storyteller persuades him to stay as he has another story about a one eyed cow.

The story became wildly popular across America, as the characters seemed so real and familiar. This warm and affectionate tale made Twain a household name and also a literary phenomenon. Twain published further works of fiction in his lifetime including “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” . Twain`s gift was his ability to capture the raw essence of the American sensibility but in a way that was never condescending or insulting.

1967- A Year Of Hate

The legendary summer of 1967 was for a select few, a time of love and peace. However the majority of the world’s population continued to suffer from the afflictions that have blighted human societies for centuries.

Poverty, mental illness, addiction and racial exclusion remained painful realities for many people throughout this mythical year. Many self appointed political prophets attempted to find solutions to these longstanding problems. Some took a utopian approach, establishing political collectives and were pacifist in their outlook.

These collectives were engaged in a protracted campaign of civil disobedience, “dropping out” of conventional employment and adopting non-traditional family networks. Other movements were deliberately confrontational and violent.

The Black Panthers in America were an armed resistance movement created by African-Americans in Oakland, California. Oakland was a poor district and black people endured years of police brutality. The Panthers were committed to violent revolution to achieve their aims, to them the police were the ultimate enemy.

In the summer of 1967 Bobby Hutton joined the Black Panther party. He was just 16 years old. He immediately came under the radar of Oakland police and was subject to a campaign of surveillance. He was shot by police in disputed circumstances a year later.

In Britain there were pockets of violent radicalism. In spite of the historical differences, the sentiments of racial injustice were felt to be the same. While most British people of African or Caribbean heritage were law abiding, there was a minority who vociferously maintained that they had no faith in the political system.

This minority found themselves susceptible to American ideas about revolution and black power. In London a young man from Trinidad called Michael X established his own “Black Power” commune. He was militantly opposed to any notion of equality between black and white people and he was the first black person to be prosecuted under the Race Relations Act. In spite of this obvious hostility he accepted financial donations from people like John Lennon. Michael X attracted numerous acolytes, including a troubled African American called Hakim Jamal.

Jamal was born Allen Donaldson in 1931. His early life was characterised by abuse and neglect, and he abused drugs and alcohol throughout his teenage years. In his adulthood he spent time in prison and state mental hospitals. In one period of incarceration he believed that Islam and the Black Nationalist cause provided the answers to his intolerable state of existence.

Jamal`s fractious mental state bedevilled him despite his enthusiasm for this new religious and political direction. Under the wing of Michael X he moved to a collective in Trinidad, where he believed that he would be helping to educate local black children. However he became increasingly paranoid and violent. He reportedly ordered Michael X to murder a fellow collective member Gale Benson.

Michael X, real name Michael de Freitas was convicted of Benson`s murder and was sentenced to death. John Lennon paid for a legal appeal but the Trinidad authorities were unmoved by the pleas for clemency and he was hanged. Jamal denied any involvement with the murder and returned to his childhood home in Boston. He died from gunshot wounds in a suspected feud in 1973.

The fallout from dangerous radicalism is rarely discussed, but it is harrowing to remember that a seventeen year old boy and a mentally ill man aged only 42 were the real human victims of this brand of politics.

Messengers of the Might

European imperialism was from its very inception in the fifteenth century, ostensibly a quest for enterprising but often humble young men to search for new adventures and the possible rewards of riches. The first wave of merchant ships came from Portugal. Portuguese sailors were lured to the West Coast of Africa as it was an area of the world renowned for its gold. The original rulers of present day Ghana were gold traders who later expanded their business with other Europeans, including the Dutch, French, German and British.

Colonial outposts were established along the coastal areas of the continent but the interior remained unexplored. This was due to the inhospitable conditions, these were areas of thick jungle and diseases like malaria were rife. However there were individuals who were possessed with a mixture of arrogance and foolhardiness and were willing to conquer these lands.

The countries that surrounded the Congo river represented another frontier of conquest for these European adventurers. The first serious expedition began in the nineteenth century, this challenge was dubbed “the scramble for Africa”. The Congo was primarily the centre of the ivory trade, initially instigated by the old Arab Empires who were not afraid to use exploitation and slavery in their pursuit for wealth.

However it was also a land with resources ripe for plunder, there were hidden bounties of precious minerals and lucrative goods like rubber. When the Belgians forcibly supplanted the Arab dominance in the area the indigenous people became enslaved yet again to extract the natural resources.

The Belgian King, Leopold II was a monomaniacal ruler who only cared for his own enrichment and later became notorious for his inhumanity. His administration was responsible for numerous atrocities, many Congolese slaves were punished with limb amputations if their work was deemed to be inefficient. Millions were also murdered, or succumbed to disease.

Leopold’s dictatorial regime ended in 1908 after widespread international condemnation. His greed and avarice was a possible inspiration for the character of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel “Heart of Darkness”.

However Kurtz is a grotesque caricature of a nineteenth century imperialist. His arrogance is so extreme that he is afflicted with delusions of grandeur, assuming that he is revered by the people he subjugates. His pride literally leads to his untimely death.

Whenever history is examined very few contemporary commentators reflect upon the larger than life characters that have shaped our modern world. The dictators and imperialists of the past had distinctive personalities. They also displayed alarming traits that we would now recognise as sociopathic psychology. Conrad`s novel captures a time and a place, but also an eternal truth about the most terrifying people that continue to dwell among us.

The Silencing of Mortal Men

Martin Luther was the founding father of the Protestant Reformation and the primary person responsible for the theological schism from the Roman Catholic Church. He served as a Catholic priest in 1507 in what is now Germany but at the time was just another Northern European outpost of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Roman Catholic Church was a powerful force in society. Luther knew the importance of his position as priest, but objected to the often other worldly status that was awarded to his fellow clergymen. His belief was that the supreme power rested ultimately in the Word of God rather than the mortal men who preached it.

His attempt to even question this was met with outright hostility, yet in spite of the numerous threats issued by Pope Leo X he refused to renounce his new theology. He proclaimed, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right against conscience”. Nonetheless the threats against him were real. In 1521 an edict was issued for his arrest under the charge of heresy.

However Luther managed to escape under a disguise. Rumours surrounded his sudden disappearance, including a tall story about an abduction by a gang of highwaymen. The truth was that his friend and ally Friedrich of Saxony hired horsemen to capture him and take him to safety. He found sanctuary at Wartburg Castle.

At Wartburg he transcribed the definitive German translation of The Bible. The Word of God had been denied to the people aside from the few educated elites who understood Latin. It took him eleven weeks. When he began his translation he suffered extreme abdominal pain but by the end it miraculously disappeared.

Luther`s extended exile at the Castle was met with a great deal of sympathetic attention, particularly from the inhabitants of the German town of Wittenburg. It was here where Luther planned to return and preach his new creed after being unceremoniously excommunicated by Rome.

At Wittenburg Luther declared the simple truths of Biblical teaching, the importance of patience, charity and love. However, he knew that humans were fallen beings and liable to submitting to sinful emotions like anger. His radical ideas provoked many traditionalists in this way, but the Protestant movement was always about faith in God rather than the fragile and flawed men who were entrusted with the power to promote it. In his time as a Catholic priest he witnessed how much power and influence corrupted once good and holy men. His determination to put the power back into the faithful should always be remembered.

Old Possum’s Prophecy

Old Possum’s Prophecy.

T.S Eliot published “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” in the first week of October 1939, a portentous moment in history. The timing of the publication could not have been any more fortuitous, as this nation steeled itself for War a light hearted book about cats was necessary for morale.

However Eliot was not traditionally known for his levity, most of his oeuvre focused upon themes of death and despair as evinced in his lengthy poem “The Waste Land”. This poem was published in 1922 but only after his friend Ezra Pound, a fellow American poet heavily edited his original manuscript.

Pound called Eliot “Old Possum” as a fond nickname which acknowledged his wise but lugubrious character. Modern audiences are perhaps more familiar with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical interpretation “Cats” which brought Eliot`s verse to a wider readership.

The “Cats” musical is entertaining but belies the true meaning behind the original book, which contrary to popular opinion is not merely about cats as animals but are in fact archetypes. Each cat is a representation of a familiar behavioural or character trait that is almost unique to the species.

These include the sagacious father figure of Old Deutoronomy with his endless brood of kittens and the gluttonous Bustopher Jones, a corpulent feline with a taste for the finer things in life. Eliot had a reputation as a misanthrope but he adored cats and admired how they lived distinctly from humans. Humans are uniquely doomed as they are self absorbed and self important, often to the detriment of wider society. This became painfully apparent to him as the War raged across the world, seemingly at the behest of an egomaniac called Adolf Hitler.

By 1940 Eliot`s health was deteriorating and he feared that civilisation was close to destruction. In the midst of destruction he composed “Four Quartets”, meditations on the elements of life, but also profound eulogies to his English heritage. He was deeply afraid that England’s culture would be destroyed and sought valiantly to preserve it in verse.

Each poem is a kind of lamentation for England’s past. “Burnt Norton” is a manor house in the Cotswolds complete with its own rose garden. “East Coker” is a village in Somerset and the ancestral home of the Eliot family. “The Dry Salvages” is a metaphor for London under siege and the final poem “Little Gidding” refers to the Anglican community in Huntingdonshire.

Eliot was part of the modernist movement in literature by virtue of subverting poetic conventions. However he had a traditionalist outlook on life that often conflicted with the radical notions expressed by his peers. He clarified his position as “a Classicist in literature, a Royalist in politics and an Anglo-Catholic in religion”. He was a prophetic voice, speaking the truth about a vanishing way of life.

Brute Beauty and Valour

Literature is regarded as elitist, and a minority interest reserved for those with the time and luxury to indulge in it. I believe that this is an unfair accusation that undermines the efforts of the writers who work tirelessly and conscientiously, often for little financial reward to present their artistic vision.

Writers are often derided while scientists and mathematicians are lauded, despite the fact that all endeavours require perseverance and imagination. The poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins used the metaphor of a hawk to explain God and His omniscience. The bird embodies the “brute beauty and valour” of the Creator and His world.

Many of us aspire to become writers due to a combination of confusion and curiosity about the world and our place in it. The Salford born playwright Shelagh Delaney wrote her first play when she was just 19. “A Taste of Honey” was later adapted for the stage, and was then made into a successful film.

However Delaney was a much more complicated person than the stereotype. Her background as the daughter of an Irish bus driver meant that the critics caricatured her and her work. Critics rarely perceive things beneath the surface, it is a familiar element that is perpetuated even today, the writer is always perceived by his or her gender, social background or race rather than the ideas or the characters that he or she creates.

Delaney grew up during the fifties and all kinds of social expectations were impressed upon her as a teenager. Her ambition to be a writer and to make a career out of it was never expected or even promoted. When she left school she worked in a clothes shop but was often found “resting” by the rails reading books. She was inspired to write plays while working as an usherette at the Theatre. She was particularly unimpressed by the fare of drawing room comedies and believed that she could write better material.

However she was acutely aware that girls, even those who were bright and ambitious were limited in their choices in those days and most of the time they were presumed to get married eventually.

Still Delaney confounded all expectations and became a successful dramatist. She wrote “Charlie Bubbles” in 1967 which was made into a film starring Albert Finney as the lead role. Throughout the seventies she wrote scripts for television and radio. Soon she had enough money to live comfortably and enjoyed all of the trappings of success. She loved attending cocktail parties and the fact that she could buy the clothes that she always dreamed of wearing. Her talent and success was both inspirational and exceptional, as literature is still perceived as an exclusive club. This perception is illusory and needs to disappear.

Sing to Me of the Man and Muse.

Leonard Cohen was born on September the 21st 1934. In the popular imagination he was a dark, lugubrious singer-songwriter, the King of gloomy ballads. However there was so much more to his artistic legacy than the caricature. Cohen was a poet before he ventured into music. His family were observant Orthodox Jews, and conscious of their heritage as Kohens, the High Priests of ancient Israel.

Cohen developed his interest in poetry as an English literature student at McGill University in Canada. The poet who had the most profound influence on him was Federico Garcia Lorca, the rebel poet of civil war era Spain with a special affinity for the Gypsy minority. Cohen taught himself to play Spanish guitar and attempted to imitate Lorca`s style in his lyrics. After he graduated he then spent three desultory years at Law school. His real passion was writing. He published his first book of poems in 1961 called “The Spice Box of Earth”. It only had modest success at the time.

However the real change in his fortunes lay in the almost precipitous decision to spend his grandmother`s inheritance on a property on the Greek island of Hydra. During the sixties Hydra was known for its international artistic colony.

Cohen`s sojourn on Hydra meant that he forged connections with numerous musicians and writers, but his most important connection was with a Norwegian writer called Marianne Ihlen. They later fell in love and their romance became a source of inspiration. Ihlen`s beauty and intelligence had beguiled him.

She became a Muse to him. He wrote his famous song “So Long, Marianne” as a tribute to her. Their romantic relationship did not last but he would always remember her throughout his life as an important influence. Truthfully Cohen felt almost bewitched by beautiful and intelligent women and he wrote songs principally to woo them. All of his songs put the various women in his life upon a pedestal, each Muse seems an artwork in her own right. Unlike other rock and pop stars he wasn`t superficial or crude, instead his songs articulated a deep and enduring love for feminine beauty.

Marianne Ihlen was diagnosed with leukaemia in July 2016. When Cohen was given the devastating news he sent a note to her which read,

“Dearest Marianne,

I`m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, just as yours has too. I`ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that. I don`t have to say any more. Safe travels old friend. See you down the road. Endless love and gratitude.

your Leonard.”

Marianne died aged 81 later that month, and less than four months later Leonard succumbed to the same illness and passed away. He was 82.

Leonard Cohen was a great poet and songwriter who had a unique insight into subjects like religion, love and the nature of human existence. However we cannot forget that his songs owe an immense debt to his Muse Marianne.

A Kind of Horrible Poetry.

On the 10th September 1988 “Our Country`s Good” opened at the Royal Court Theatre. The play was set in a penal colony in Australia and featured the first wave of British convicts. Many of these criminals were convicted of minor or petty crimes, and were just considered a nuisance by the British state and shipped precisely for “our country`s good”.

Wertenbaker was intrigued by the notion that theatre, and creative expression in general can help to rehabilitate and to improve those who are otherwise considered irredeemable and of malign character. Her play focuses upon an amateur dramatic society where the stage is the penal colony and the acting roles are played by the convicts. It is a slow and agonising process but the drama helps to humanise and redeem the incarcerated and institutionalised. The belief that exposure to literature can be beneficial was revived in a recent court case.

The outcry that followed the Judge`s decision in the Ben John case seemed to me excessive as literary education is the best route to enlightenment. It is particularly helpful in illuminating different human experiences and it allows the reader to empathise. John is a young man of just 21, an age when many of us can develop very peculiar ideas.

John`s only crime appears to be his rather limited collection of reading materials, with very little refinement or delicacy. Nazism is an ideology that is immune to critical thought, it maintains a rather rigid view of humanity and its progress. In contrast literature helps to open hearts and minds and therefore improve human societies.

Theatre is still the greatest forum for exploring the darkest elements to human society, a concept that was clear to the dramatist Antonin Artaud. Artaud was the chief proponent and founder of the “ Theatre of Cruelty” movement. Artaud`s philosophy was that theatre should reflect all kinds of human physical experience, even in its rawest manifestations.

In 1938 he published a series of essays called “The Theatre and its Double”. He was reportedly inspired by Balinese street performance and was moved by the truths that were contained in the art that he witnessed. Most of us are not expert Theatre Practitioners but nonetheless understand instinctively the power that drama can have over us, it is almost like being put under a magic spell.

Drama when performed correctly and intuitively can lead to revelation. It is indeed a strange trick to create solid meaning from artifice. This is the concept of the “Double” that is at the centre of Artaud`s book. However he conceded that modern societies have been divested of meaning due to the decline in spiritual belief.

The situation has worsened in our contemporary world, hastened by the advent of technology which has largely replaced the wisdom of scribes. Traditional writers like Austen and Dickens may lack the political sophistication of today but they compensate with a genuine insight into human character. Both of these authors were motivated by an authentic belief in human decency, albeit in different ways. Good art can civilise us, but the remote nature of the internet can only degrade us further. We should always remember the morally transformative effects of literature.

Exiles in Grey Shadows.

The British Empire ceased to exist in any meaningful or significant sense by the 1980s. Nonetheless it has remained an obsession for commentators on the Left who continue to propagate a skewed version of its history. It is shameful that the same tedious cliches, untruths and oversimplifications of a vast and complicated enterprise are still trotted out and believed.

However it is noticeable who these commentators are, they are the same wealthy and privileged people that George Orwell warned us about at the height of the Second World War. Fortunately no-one took any notice of the sniggering left wing intellectuals and the British nation was saved from tyranny.

Orwell had a unique insight into the psyche of a nation and also its place in the wider world. He knew his own people instinctively but he also acquired an immense amount of wisdom as a child of the British Empire. He was born in Motihari, India in 1903 where his British father worked as a civil servant. His ancestors were believed to have been landlords of Jamaican plantations. When he left school he joined the Imperial Police and was sent to Burma. His novel “Burmese Days” was a fictionalised account of the experience.

His experience as a servant of the British Empire informed his later views. He empathised with those who were oppressed and subjugated. In 1936 he spent time with working class communities in the North of England and detailed the bleak realities of their lives in his celebrated 1937 book “The Road to Wigan Pier”. However by this time he was unwell and when the War broke out two years later he was deemed too unfit to serve in the Forces.

He continued to champion the British working classes who traditionally bore the brunt of every conflict in history. It is a source of great ignominy that in 1940 there were sections of the British Left who desired a German victory in order to sneer at ordinary British patriots. In the September of that year the Luftwaffe began a campaign of aerial bombardment, now known as the “Blitz”. In nine months 54,420 tons of bombs were dropped over England. 40,000 civilians died, 86,000 people were seriously injured and two million homes were destroyed or damaged.

Britain retaliated with the bombings of Dresden and other German cities, but a revenge attack came in 1944 with the arrival of the V2 rocket. Most of London was already traumatised and the ear splitting noise of these rockets was terrifying. Between June 1944 and May 1945 8,398 Londoners were killed by the V2 attacks.

When the War ended Britain entered a period of austerity. The civilian population had already endured privation and had lived virtually under siege from a foreign force for six years. The experience caused incalculable psychological damage.

Britain as an island nation has always felt vulnerable. Consequently the suspicion of outsiders is an understandable sentiment, but in the aftermath of a major War this suspicion was heightened. The increase in immigration from the British Commonwealth was welcomed by many, but not everyone in this country.

A damaged and fragile nation will always find it difficult to accept change. Post war Britain was captured so brilliantly by J.G Ballard. Ballard was another son of Empire, born in Shanghai in 1930 to British parents. Ballard pictures a landscape which is vaguely futuristic, but redolent of a country in the shadow of Empire. This was the Britain he returned to aged fifteen after spending most of the War in a Japanese internment camp.

He noted in a BBC interview that he would not have had the imagination to write if he had been born in a Manchester suburb, because Britain would just appear familiar and ordinary. Ballard also acknowledged the debt he owed to the vision of George Orwell. Orwell saw Britain from the outside as like entering a place where you breathe a different air.

Orwell knew how dangerous the Left-wing intelligentsia could be in destroying history and the methods that they were willing to use to demoralise a nation and its civilisation. He has been proven correct in recent times. The Left like to convince themselves that they are morally superior, but the opposite is true. It is impossible to convince an entire nation to hate itself, as he points out in his damning prose,

“It is YOUR civilisation, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side of the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.”

Fear Nothing.

On the 12th August 1988 the film adaptation of “The Last Temptation Of Christ” was released. It was based on the novel by the Cretan born author Nikos Kazantzakis. Kazantzakis was born in 1883. At the time of his birth Crete remained a part of the Ottoman Empire. His parents were observant followers of the Greek Orthodox Church.

However as a young man he struggled with reconciling his faith with his growing interest in political ideologies, particularly the notions that surrounded Greek national and cultural identity in a time of global tumult. The novel reveals the inner struggle of Jesus Christ as a mortal being. The Christian story is subverted in the narrative to emphasise the paradox of Christ`s life.

Kazantzakis shows the human side of a Jewish man living under Roman occupation but called by a vague divine destiny to save His people. In Kazantzakis version of the story Christ is forced to collaborate with His oppressors. He is working as a carpenter constructing crosses for the crucifixions. Judas Iscariot is His closest friend but seeks to destroy Him for his role in the torture of Jewish rebels.

However Iscariot soon suspects that Jesus is the Messiah sent by God to release the Jewish people from the yoke of the Romans. He tries to persuade Jesus to lead an armed struggle against the occupiers, but Jesus is reluctant as His life is motivated by love for all of mankind. Jesus Himself is conscious of his calling, but is consumed by mortal desires. He acquires disciples and admirers, including Mary Magdalene. He fears the consequences of succumbing to earthly temptation and ventures out into the desert to pray.

While fasting and abstaining from all human contact He experiences visions. He encounters the figure of Satan for the first time, but is unaware that this is a shape shifting being. When He emerges out of his prolonged absence He is conscious that His life on Earth is uncertain. Judas betrays Him and He is crucified but in Kazantzakis story Jesus has a vision on the cross that He is saved by an angel, is allowed to live and marry Mary Magdalene.

The twist emerges in the closing scenes when Jesus realises that the “angel” that visits Him on the cross is in fact Satan. He prays to God to release Him from this final temptation and pleads for His mortal self to return. He dies and accomplishes His Father`s wishes.

This version of the story resonates and shocks for good reason. If Jesus had succumbed to His desires as a Man He would have become just another Jewish philosopher, but instead He fulfilled His divine purpose to be resurrected as the Son of God.

Kazantzakis was misunderstood by both the Greek Orthodox and Catholic Church authorities, who considered his novel to be a work of blasphemy. His response to the criticism was thoughtful and considered, as he wrote,

“You have given me a curse, Holy Fathers, I respond to you with a wish: I wish you that your conscience is as pure as mine and you to be as moral and religious as I am.”

However the controversy and notoriety persisted throughout his lifetime.

Kazantzakis died in 1957. He was 74 years old. He died with a pure conscience and the knowledge that it was only God that had chosen his ultimate path through life, and that God would guide him in the life that awaited him. The inscription on his gravestone reveals the wisdom that he acquired in life, it says,

“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”

Four years after his death the Greek Orthodox authorities rehabilitated his reputation as a great theological thinker and the “curse” was lifted. He is now considered one of the greatest Greek writers and his ideas are now a central part of Christian theology.