A Mass for Arras

This book, the most widely known work of Polish author Andrzej Szczypiorski, is both depressing and disquieting. The medieval tale of faith versus reason, perception as reality and runaway mass hysteria, a story of corruption and damnation, is far too close to our current situation with the intolerant right-wing "Christians" for comfort.

There are no heroes in this novel. The narrator, Jan, is temporizing and profoundly corrupt. His mentor, Father Albert, who imposes a reign of terror on Arras, is mad with zeal -- but a cynical, knowing zeal -- and much too reminiscent of some of the ultra-right-wing Catholic governors like Scott Walker and Chris Christie, who now are imposing their crazy ideology on a captive citizenry. Bishop David, the bastard son of the Duke of Burgundy and a benefactor of the narrator, is cynical, agnostic and capricious.

Szczypiorski first portrayed Arras in the grip of the plague, a frightening descent into cannibalism and licentiousness. But worse was to come. The plague, in fact, unhinged the populace and led to a new frenzy of anti-Semitism and witch hunting, which resulted the executions of an dozens of citizens in an escalation of terror (ironically, even the executioner was executed after he accepted a bribe from one of his victims to kill him cleanly and quickly).

It culminates with Father Albert dying a slow and ugly death of dropsy, and David arriving in time to stay the execution of the narrator and then consign Arras to oblivion by forgiving the perpetrators and telling them "this never happened."

It is in part a philosophical novel with long and passionate arguments about faith and reason and integrity that probably bear more careful reading than I gave them as I barreled along in dismay following the terrible course of the narrative. But that is part of what makes the novel depressing, because Jan's lofty sentiments are undermined by his own lack of integrity.

Arras is a town in what is today northern France and historically is part of Flanders. It is near Cambrai, where my grandfather was born, and it is the origin of my brother Darras's name -- Darras is a common surname in this region, indicating people from Arras. I originally bought this book in German but never got around to reading it, and the other day, as I was writing about Darras's name in my BAKpedal blog, I ordered the English translation. It seems to me I passed through both Arras and Cambrai at one point. Both were badly damaged during the world wars but preserve some nice Flemish architecture.

The Duchy of Burgundy beckons across the centuries as a civilization almost as lost as Atlantis. Originating in Burgundy, the French region that gives its name to the wine, it extended as a patchwork of fiefdoms in an arc through the Low Countries, incorporating much of what is today Belgium. At its zenith in the 15th century, which is when the action of this novel takes place, it was a prosperous region with a reputation for high living. To this day, a Belgian who enjoys his food and wine is called a "true Burgundian."

It is the very prosperity and success of these rich areas -- Arras was a prime center for tapestries -- that makes the city's descent into a faith-driven savagery so frightening. The wealth and sophistication of the city did not prevent its enslavement to ignorance and fanaticism. Once the fanatics seized the levers of power, not even the urbane Count de Saxe with all his wealth was safe from the town's fury. But he at least showed the integrity of a genuine secular humanism and went courageously to his death, unlike the craven narrator, who understood his own cowardice and was able to live with it.

Since I learned that the name Delamaide is derived from La Hamaide castle outside of Brussels -- and this is why the Delamaides were found around Cambrai and Arras -- I have felt an affinity for this old Duchy of Burgundy. Their reputation as bon vivants doesn't hurt, either. The narrator of this novel speaks of Ghent and Utrecht; he relates his tale after settling in Bruges, that Flemish gem of city. It is a corner of Europe that should have been safe from the horrors described in this book. But it wasn't, and that's the message Szczypiorski, who took part in the Warsaw Uprising and survived Sachsenhausen to become a successful writer in Communist Poland, drives home. No one can say "It can't happen here" with any degree of certainty.

The Sultan's Seal

Jenny White's well-written novel set in the waning Ottoman empire falls somewhat short of its literary ambitions but is a worthwhile read nonetheless.

She attempts not one but four literary artifices that I generally don't care for. The main narrative is in the present tense; hard to do, not sure why anyone tries. She shifts from third-person narrative to first-person narrative (in past tense); always jarring. She intersperses that with yet another first-person, epistolary narrative. All this makes a woman writing about a male character the least of her offenses.

While the writing itself is of a very high quality, all this jumping around makes the narrative jerky and sometimes confusing.

I read this to sample another Ottoman murder mystery written by someone besides Jason Goodwin in preparation for reviewing Goodwin's new novel for Washington Independent Review of Books. While Goodwin's Yashim is set in the 1830s, White's Kamil Pasha is set in the 1880s. The half-century time difference permits Goodwin to keep much more of the Oriental exoticism. Yashim dresses in robes and turban, while Kamil wears a coat and fez. Goodwin manages some scenes in Topkapi palace while White must move on the newer, less exotic palaces.

Both writers, however, glory in the charm of Istanbul and the wonders of the Ottoman culture. White's language is even more elegant and powerful in rendering this other time and place.

But I have some other criticisms of this book. Kamil Pasha, unlike Yashim, is not a eunuch, and yet is not particularly virile or convincing as a male character. This book dwells far too long on an incipient romance between Kamil and the daughter of the English ambassador in ways that neither move the plot along or really give us more depth of character. As a result, important allies or would-be allies of magistrate Kamil, the police surgeon and the daughter's American cousin, get short shrift and are never satisfactorily developed for the roles they play. The overlapping, jumbled narratives leave us wondering about motivation, and at the end of the book it's fair to say the reader is not really sure who killed whom or why.

White has since produced two more Kamil Pasha novels and presumably has overcome some of these first-novel jitters. If I do go on to read the subsequent novels, though, it will be for her lyrical descriptions of this period rather than any love for Kamil Pasha.

The Snake Stone

This is the second novel in Jason Goodwin's series about the Ottoman investigator Yashim, which I am reading before reviewing the most recent one, to be published in March.

There is little new in this novel beyond the themes and characters Goodwin introduced in The Janissary Tree. In fact, this book is almost a carbon copy of the previous one. Yashim visits the court -- the sultan is now ill, so the focus is on the valide, the sultan's mother. He eats and pals around with his friend, the Polish ambassador Palewsky, who once again save's Yashim's life by rescuing him from an otherwise fatal predicament. Yashim does some cooking and shopping, experiences once again a eunuch's frustrating yearning for a damsel in distress. The novel turns on one of Istanbul's historic sights -- the Janissary tree in the first book, and the serpent column in this one. And the climactic chase takes place in one of the city's distinctive architectural features.

The author's intimate familiarity with the culture and history of this fabulous city and his skillful prose bringing it alive are still what carry this series, though it is starting to wear thin and I wonder what he will do to pick things up in the subsequent novels. I know that the third book takes place at least in part in Venice, so we'll see what that brings.

Aside from the lack of novelty in this second installment -- other regular characters such as his transvestite entertainer friend and a fruit stall owner dutifully make their appearances here -- what is missing the most is more characterization of Yashim. In fact, after intimating some depths of character in the first book, Goodwin actually seems to pull back from going to deeply into his character. The reader's empathy for this unusual investigator becomes, I think, more attentuated, rather than less so, in this novel.

Wolf Hall

What a stupendous feat of historical imagination. The bestselling novel by Hilary Mantel brings an astonishing freshness to one of the best-known historical periods and some of its most familiar characters. As it paints its descriptions of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More in succeeding layers, we get a different look at these key historical figures and the significance of their interplay.

And yet, the reader is never clubbed over the head with any anachronistic hints at the import of what is happening. There are no distracting and superfluous details of life in the 16th century to demonstrate how well researched this book is. It is clearly well-researched, because every detail seems to vibrate with authenticity.

And the language. Clear, precise, and yet so vigorous. Then there's the wit, the charm, the subtleties of a master novelist who invests these characters and this world with a mesmerizing attraction.

Revisionist history is a literary gimmick, of course. We love it for a writer to tell us the other side of the story we think we know. There's John Gardner's Grendel and Gregory Maguire's Wicked -- neither of which I've read -- and Richard Kluger's Sheriff of Nottingham, which I read years ago. We are willing to suspend our disbelief and with a sense of fair play let a writer imagine for us the other side of the story. Beowulf's monster was not so bad, nor the Wicked Witch of the West, and the sheriff of Nottingham was just trying to catch a thief.

The historical Cromwell was most likely the cynical and ruthless manipulator that has been portrayed for us through the centuries. Mantel does not overdo her revisionism and turn him into a saint, but does try to understand how he rose from the bottom of society to become Henry VIII's right-hand man. Could he be the loyal, shrewd, witty paragon with a soft spot in his heart for the underprivileged as portrayed in Wolf Hall? Perhaps, but more likely not. Is he a sympathetic character to carry a reader through this history once again -- absolutely.

Mantel is not so gentle with Thomas More, whom she strips of his sainthood by portraying him as a pathetic, vain fanatic with many unsympathetic attributes, such as the sadistic pleasure he takes in torturing suspected heretics. It's impossible not to cast Paul Scofield in this role and to play this portrait of him as the "bad Superman" from Superman III. It was equally difficult for me not to see Leo McKern, the character actor who played Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons, in the role of the protagonist. The Hans Holbein portrait even encourages this casting.

In the end, they met the same fate, though we have to wait for the sequel to get Mantel's take on Cromwell's fall from power.

The picture of Henry VIII -- that complex, seductive figure who so changed history -- is well drawn, but not different from the one most of us have at this point. Ann Boleyn comes in for particularly harsh treatment, but that, too, is not too much of surprise after other recent books.

The real hook remains Cromwell himself, with his facinating backstory as an abused blacksmith's son, soldier of fortune, merchant banker and unlikely courtier. The slow, natural tipping of Cromwell and England into Protestantism is particularly well drawn. Perhaps one of the most poignant threads of the novel is the martyrdom of John Frith for the Protestant cause, though the pragmatic Cromwell found it just as pointless as More's principled stand on the oath of succession. It will be interesting to see in the sequel what stand, if any, brings Cromwell to the Tower and his execution. Where can I pre-order the book?