Lies of Silence

As an expatriate of long standing Brian Moore felt that younger authors with in-situ experience would probably write about the troubles in Northern Ireland in a more meaningful way than he. Then he was caught in a bomb scare and found himself evacuated from a hotel with a coach-load of French tourists   ….. The next thing said tourists find themselves in the midst of a similar situation within his 1990 novel,  Lies of Silence.

Imagine yourself plumetted into the following nightmare scenario: your wife is held hostage while you are forced to drive a bomb in your car to your place of work.  If you raise the alarm she will be executed.  This is the unthinkable situation in which Moore places his protagonist, Dillon.  But to complicate the issue, this happens on the very day that Dillon has earmarked to leave his wife.  Another complication: Dillon is apolitical, unhappy about the situation,  but definitely anti-violence:

Dillon felt anger rise within him, anger at the lies which had made this, his … birthplace, sick with a terminal illness of bigotry and injustice, lies told over the years to poor Catholic working people about the Catholics, lies told to poor Catholic working people about the Protestants, lies from parliaments and pulpits, lies at rallies and funeral orations, and, above all, the lies of silence from those in Westminister who did not want to face the injustices of Ulster’s status quo.

So, what would you do in Dillon’s situation? And which choices does he make?   I can’t possibly tell you what happens except this traumatic incident paves the way for a second half in which tension subsides but terror becomes insidious. 

Moore pulls no punches and Lies of Silence, while set specifically in his home town, adds up to an absolute condemnation of terrorism of any kind.  Written in (unputdownable) thriller form, there were those who felt that he was demeaning his subject.  I disagree. The immediacy of the writing allows the reader to feel Dillon’s fear, experience his panic, make the same mistakes?

Lies of Silence is more than a thriller – it’s a literary offering as evidenced by its Booker shortlisting (losing, in the end, to A S Byatt’s Possession).  What makes it literary? The quality of the writing, the assurity of pitch and pace, description and dialogue,  the flesh and blood of its characters.  Moira, Dillon’s wife is a complicated creation.  She is the one who raises the questions of courage, who refuses to kow-tow to the bullies. For that is how Moore pictures the terrorists – badly-educated, mean-spirited bullies.  But he reserves his scorn for the apologists – in this case a weasel of a priest who seeks to prevent justice being served.

Published in his 69th year, Lies of Silence shows absolutely no sign of Moore’s pen mellowing with age.   While that may have dismayed many at the time of publication, it ensures that the novel remains fresh, pertinent and (even if the situation in Northern Ireland is now radically different)  relevant to today’s reading audience.

Lies of Silence

What is the difference between a normal every-day thriller and a literary thriller?

I don’t know, but Lies of Silence reads quickly and easily just like any thriller. However, there are points made which tend to stick with the reader.

I think we can be assured that Brian Moore did not give credence to either side of “The Troubles”.

Beyond that though, there’s a study here about doing “the right thing”; can the value of one person’s life be weighed against the value of many? And once you’ve resolved that in principle, what if that one person was someone else? Tricky!

Lies of Silence reads like a thriller, but after nearly two weeks, I still remember it, so not my normal every-day thriller.

The Magician’s Wife

In 1856 Napoleon III sent Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin to Algeria to frighten the natives with a display of “magical” power so astonishing that they would be discouraged from starting a holy war against the French colonial power.  One of those stranger-than-fiction facts that Moore uses to full effect in his novel The Magician’s Wife (1997).

Robert-Houdin is fictionalised as Henri Lambert, who has retired to a secluded life in Tours with his wife Emmeline.   The first section of the novel focuses on the Lamberts and their recruitment into the French secret service. Henri is invited to a week-long gathering in the company of the Emperor and his Empress, ostensibly to perform for the aristocratic audience.  Emmeline, although bored with the seclusion of her life, is terrified of the grand world she is asked to enter.  But, prevailed upon by Henri, she accepts the invitation. The preparatory shopping list includes eight day costumes, including a travelling suit, seven ball dresses and five gowns for tea - all designed by the Empress’s dressmaker. Duly kitted out, they enter the theatrical spectacle of the French court, where appearance and conformity and sychophancy is everything.  Despite her best efforts, everything conspires to remind Emmeline of her humble origins (from the quality of the her cloth to the location of her room).  Henri is no support.  He is away most of the time, dealing with the real business in hand. However,  there are other men at hand, some gallant (Colonel Deniau), some not (Napoleon III himself), who have other designs on Emmeline. Given that her marriage has been long dead, it is only a matter of time before Emmeline, bored and unloved, falls prey to one or the other.  We observe and understand Emmeline’s loneliness and sadness at a marriage that is neither loving nor the exciting adventure she expected when she married her celebrity husband.

The second section takes the Lamberts to Algeria, where Henri is pacify the natives with his “magical” prowess.  He certainly has no doubts in his powers to perform. Emmeline accompanies him but the more she observes, the more she is disabused of the integrity of Henri’s task.  Colonel Deniau is on hand though to misdirect her penetrating gaze with his continued attentions which he does with ever diminishing success.  Even so, Emmeline is dragged into the deception when her husband’s male assistant falls ill.

It was Deniau who told him to ask me.  Deniau has convinced him that I’m the one he must use.  Deniau who uses him, who uses me, with compliments and flattery.  Deniau is the magician.  We are his marionettes.

Although there are many echoes, Emmeline is no Emma Bovary.  She is an astute assessor of the situation but powerless to prevent events from taking their course.  Through her eyes we see the ingenuity (or is that dishonesty) of her husband’s illusions, the frustrations of the Arabs, the dishonour of the French and an awareness of the ever increasing personal risks to her husband.

In a neat structural device, the sexual tensions of the first section and the danger to Emmeline’s honour are reflected in the political tensions of the second and the danger to Henri’s life.   The opulence, snobbery, sycophancy and moral lassitude of the French aristocratic court contrast strongly with the sincerity and charisma of the Arabs in the Algerian desert.  And let’s not forget the allegories contained in the French hunting scenes.

The ending, while bleak, is not quite what the reader expects.

 

(Originally published on Lizzy’s Literary Life 17/10/2007.)

Black Robe

Graham Greene once described Brian Moore as “my favourite living writer”. Moore’s death in 1999 means I can’t do the same but I can confirm that he is rapidly ascending the ranks of my all-time favourites. He must have something special for I kept reading even though Black Robe is a tale of full of atrocity and foul language. Not my usual fare at all.

But it’s impossible to stop reading a novel that encompasses all of Moore’s compulsive themes: sex, the clash of ideologies, loneliness, betrayal and religion. That’s a heady mix. But then Black Robe is a heady novel.

Set in the mid-17th century, it describes Father Paul Laforgue’s journey into the heart of darkness of Northern Canada. He is sent to relieve a dying priest of his post in a country inhabited by hostile, violent tribes. While he is prepared for martyrdom, his young novice, Daniel, is more ambivalent and succumbs to infatuation and the temptations of the flesh offered him by Annuka, a young Algonkin squaw. And so begin the religious complexities. Not only does Laforgue attempt to save the soul of his fallen Christian brother, he must also attempt the conversion of the pagan and, it must be said, savage natives. These are not the natives, cowed, domesticated and addicted to alcohol that we meet in Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves, set 200 years after the events of Black Robe. The tribes of Black Robe are savages. To illustrate: at one point Laforgue, Daniel and his lover’s family are taken captive by the hostile Iroquois.

“May we caress the captives?” asked one of the women.

“Caress them” said Kiotsaeton, “but carefully, We must make them last.”

The women, gleeful, at once thrust their burning brands against the genitals of Chomina and Laforgue, causng them to double up in pain. They then burned Annuka’s shoulder and thrust a flaming stick into Daniel’s armpit …

and this is just the start of a torture session that ends in the parboiling and cannibalism of a young Algonkin child.

Moore makes it clear that the savagery is a result of the native religious system, which, with its belief in the world of night and the power of dreams, is so far removed from Christianity that the idea of conversion is inconceivable. Daniel and Annuka’s relationship, at face value demonstrating that reconciliation is possible, becomes the catalyst for the destruction of her family. Laforgue’s problems reconciling his experiences with his own beliefs precipitates a personal crisis of faith.

What’s amazing is Moore’s evenhandedness in showing both sides of the religious divide. Raised an Irish Catholic, Moore famously renounced his faith on the boat leaving Ireland. He waited that long, he said, so as not to hurt his mother. Yet, he remained cognisant of religious faith that could inspire men to behaviour beyond what is normal. So, while Black Robe shows the extremities of Indian belief, it does not condemn. It explains. So too Moore’s treatment of Jesuit faith and the behaviour of the missionaries.

The events are shocking and the outcomes bleak. Yet Moore is depicting real history – his source the voluminous letters that the Jesuits sent back to their superiors in France. He doesn’t sanitise the facts and as a result, demonstrates the bravery, the arrogance and the shortsightedness of the seventeenth-century Jesuit Blackrobes.

Presented with Moore’s trademarks, spare unadorned prose, strong visual elements, controlled pace and a tight plotline, this was quite simply unputdownable.

 

(Originally posted on Lizzy’s Literary Life 14.11.2007)

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

Rarely does a paperback cover hint so atmospherically at a novel’s content as this one.  A middle-aged woman,  stands alone, staring out to sea.  Atmosphere in droves.  Loneliness …. desperation …. waste.

Waste?  It’s the psychology behind the red suit.  The woman wants to make a mark.  She wants to live.  She’s not ready to retire into the background.  She’s still has hope but she’s fading and not showing the best of judgement. She is a woman of a certain age and in the Belfast of the fifties derided by the less charitable as “mutton dressed as lamb”.  Which may well be true because the portrait Moore paints of her is, I feel, sympathetic, but not flattering. 

The novel opens as Judith moves into new furnished accommodation – a bedroom in a B&B.  She brings with her two cherished belongings: a picture of her great-aunt and an iconic Sacred Heart.  The former is placed on the mantelpiece, the latter above her bedhead.  Doing so, makes the room home.  It is the first hint that Judith has been on the move for a while.

At the lodgings she meets a variety of subsidiary characters.  All are memorable.  Her landlady and her son have a very unhealthy relationship.  There is another middle-aged spinster there – an absolute female dog (I do wish to keep this polite).  And there is Madden – the landlady’s brother, widowed, recently returned from the States ….

a man, available and with an aura of adventure (let’s face it there’s nothing adventurous in the Belfast that Moore paints).   Judith is the only one that finds Madden’s past fascinating.  She engages him in conversation and a friendship develops – a friendship, unfortunately based on wrong assumptions by both parties.  It would be a comedy of errors, if it wasn’t so tragic.  For both are, in separate ways, as desperate as each other.  Madden wants only a business partner, Judith wants much more – even though she knows that Madden is not an ideal catch and not good enough for her.  But she spent her marriageable years caring for her sick old aunt.  She didn’t get out much.  Incidentally those years coincided with the Second World War.  Now that her aunt is dead, so too are most of the men. Circumstance dictates that any man will do.

And so the crisis cometh and both succumb to their secret vices.

Interspersed with the “romance” is a more serious subtext.  That of Judith’s loneliness and the comfort/redemption she seeks in her Catholic faith. But the Church is unable to provide that which Judith needs and the dissolution of her relationship with Madden precipitates the dissolution of her faith – her crutch – her sanity? Yet, while the Church fails, a ”friend”,  Moira practices a living, breathing christianity, extending a lifeline to Judith in her hour of crisis.  This is a bitter sweet pill for Judith who understands, with demoralising clarity,  that she has moved from the realms of friendship into those of charity.

Moore’s prose is lucid, direct and uncompromising and, I suspect, with regard to the religious themes,  heavily autobiographical.  I winced at times at the searing honesty of the dialogue.  There are no easy solutions.  Particularly heart-rending are the scenes depicting Judith’s tragic loss of faith; a faith which has kept her above sea level. Without it she will drown.

And so I return to the book cover.  I don’t remember such a scene.   Then again,  I may have been reading too quickly; despite the depressing subject matter, this is a pageturner. Moore is a master of pace.  Aspects of character are revealed in a measured, controlled and, at times, shocking way.  Neither Judith nor Madden are fully sympathetic characters yet I felt for them both. These characters live and breathe, jump off the page and punch me in the gut with their flawed humanity.  What more can I ask?

Posting Guidelines

These are initial thoughts – so feel free to offer suggestions, comments.   I’m quite happy to go with the flow.

Content 

Posts should contain reviews of the novel, with categories by title and by contributor.  That way an index will build allowing easy retrieval of reviews by title and by contributor.

Because this is a blog, discussions should be posted as comments to the particular review under discussion.

Will this work?  Let’s see at the weekend.  I’ll post up my Judith Hearne review then.

Reading Sequence

There’s a flurry of buying activity going on out there and it sounds like a few challenge participants, myself included,  have copies of “Lies of Silence” in hand.  So that’s January 2008 sorted!  We’ll see what’s out there at the end of December before deciding February’s book.

How this blog began ….

I was introduced to the writings of Brian Moore by a face2face book group member.   The novels sat in the TBR mountain for over 12 months before I read a word.  I picked Brian Moore for a Reading the Author challenge and after just two novels, I knew my destiny was to become a Brian Moore completist. There are 20 novels and I have to read them all! I am anticipating so much pleasure from this (even though the endings aren’t happy) that I’d like to share the ride.

So here’s the deal – I intend reading one Brian Moore novel per month until I’ve read them all.  I would like you to join me.  The Moore, the merrier!

You don’t have to read all the novels (particularly as some are no longer in print and won’t be that easy to get hold off) but you may fancy one or two or three or four ….. and, if you’re like me, you may want to opt in to all 20!  (They really are that good!)

I’m going to kick this off for real in December 2007.  No time limit but I’ll aim to read one Brian Moore per month – not necessarily in chronological sequence, but, for the purposes of this blog, I will start with his debut novel, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. 

Not many have heard of Brian Moore, despite his being Booker shortlisted 3 times! Graham Greene called Moore “his favourite living writer” …. and he’s fast becoming a favourite of mine.  Why?  Take a peek at my previous reviews.

If you want to join me, please leave a comment. 

If you have a wordpress account, please send me details of the email associated with that account.  I will then be able to give you contributor rights to this blog.

Email details:  lizzysiddal@yahoo.com.