On the brink of war

by Ben Soton

Precipice: Robert Harris, Penguin, London 2024, 464 pp, Hbk £22:00;Pbk £9.99

In late Edwardian London there were twelve postal deliveries a day; I learnt this from reading Precipice, Robert Harris’ latest thriller. It focuses on the affair between the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and the aristocratic socialite Venetia Stanley.  It also provides an insight on the belle époque of a ruling class heading for Armageddon.  
The relationship between “Squiffy” Asquith and Venetia is by no means a Donald Trump; Stormy Daniels affair.  It consists of little more than afternoon drives and the occasional touching of hands.  However the affair soon arouses suspicion when it is discovered that Asquith has been sharing sensitive government documents with Ms Stanley.  As a result the Security Services send Detective Sergeant Paul Deemer to investigate.  Deemer plays the role of the honest everyman obtaining a glimpse into a highly elite world and it eventually transpires that the motives of his superiors are far from honest.  
 Asquith is depicted as a man out of his depth, as well as being in a loveless marriage with his wife Margot.  As a result he seeks advice on matters of state from a twenty-seven-year-old socialite, with almost no knowledge of matters of state.  As his government stumbles from one crisis to another, Asquith faces numerous plots and squabbles from those around him.  The novel starts with the inability of the Asquith government to deal the reactionary Ulster Unionists who were blocking Home-Rule in Ireland; meanwhile as Europe drifts to war new problems emerge, putting the ‘Irish Question’ on the back burner.  
As Britain enters the European conflict, something that it had avoided for a century, new problems emerge.  The Government faces problems resulting from the shortage of munitions as well as the mess caused by Churchill’s disastrous Gallipoli campaign.  The leader of the last totally Liberal Government Asquith was forced to enter into a coalition with the Tories in 1915 and later replaced by Lloyd-George as Prime Minister in 1916. 
Meanwhile Precipice is as much a coming-of-age novel for Ms Stanley.  In Edwardian Britain it was seen as unusual for a woman to be unmarried at twenty-seven.  Although nothing sexual takes place between her and Asquith she soon comes to the conclusion that she is being used as a crux for his personal issues and failings as a politician; in other words a one-sided relationship.  It is often said that power is an aphrodisiac but in this book Asquith seems to lose what little power he had and he seems as a man reacting to events rather than shaping them.    
The author, Robert Harris, has long had a sympathy for elite politicians of the liberal or conservative kind. Notably the Roman Senator Cicero; whom he wrote a trilogy (Lustrum, Imperium and Dictator) about.  But Precipice shows the failings of liberalism as an ideology, least of all its inability to deal with crises...and that’s just for starters. 

The ones that got away

by Ben Soton

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. Hardback: Penguin, London,2022; 480pp; rrp £22. Also available as an audiobook.

As we enter the reign of Charles III it might be worth taking a brief look at his two previous namesakes. Charles II was a playboy King, restored after the brief English Republic. Converting to Catholicism on his deathbed he paved the way for the end of the worthless Stuart dynasty.
    His father Charles I was the first monarch to be executed for crimes against his own people. But what of those who sentenced him to death – the men the Royalists called the “regicides”?
    Some died before the Stuart restoration. Others were arrested for high treason and brutally executed by the Restoration government. And some fled to Europe or New England to escape the wrath of the vengeful Stuarts. Their fate is the subject of Robert Harris’ recent novel Act of Oblivion.
    The title is a reference to the Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion of 1660. Technically the Act pardoned those who had rebelled against Charles I. This was essential considering many of those who invited Charles II to return had fought for Parliament during the Civil War. But those who had signed Charles I’s death warrant were exempt from the Act. Some, most notably Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton, had already died. A few including John Milton, known for his seminal work Paradise Lost, were pardoned. Many of those remaining such as Colonel Thomas Harrison and the Puritan preacher Hugh Peter were hanged, drawn and quartered.
    But some got away. Some, like the maverick general Edmond Ludlow, sought sanctuary in Calvinist Switzerland while this book focuses on the fate of Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe, who fled to the English colonies in North America.
    The novel charts their continual shifting from hiding place to hiding place with numerous Puritan settlers taking considerable risks to ensure they avoided capture. The pair are portrayed as defeated revolutionary exiles separated from their families and home unlikely to return. Although this is not the fate of all revolutionaries it has been sadly repeated time and time again.
    There’s a price on their heads and the book also charts the story of their tormentor Richard Nayler who is entrusted with the role of hunting down the regicides. Nayler, a creation of the author, has a personal grudge against Whalley and Gough whom he holds responsible for the death of his wife.
    The novel, which is well researched, gives the reader an insight into the mindset of the major characters. The younger of the two men, William Goffe is ardently committed to the return of the English Republic and believes the year 1666 will see the Second Coming of Christ. The more cynical Whalley becomes more disillusioned in exile and turns to writing memoirs about his time close to the corridors of power under Cromwell’s “Protectorate” pointing out some of its shortcomings. And the sections of the book where Nayler appears delve into the politics of the Restoration Court.
    With considerable hindsight Act of Oblivion predicts the American colonies eventual independence from Britain. But rhe sympathy for the regicides may have been a contributing factor in the colonists’ desire to become independent a century later. Although the book could be regarded as slow moving in places and has a somewhat odd ending, it does give an insight into the period, the story being largely based on fact.

Rocket Wars

by Ben Soton

V2 by Robert Harris. London: Hutchinson (2020). Hardback: 320pp; rrp £20.00. Paperback:320pp; rrp £10.99.

Historical fiction is a good way of learning historical facts; more people died making the V2 missile than were killed by it. Its victims included 200,000 slave labourers as well as 2,700 civilian casualties mostly in greater London. With this in mind its creator Wernher Von Braun, who was after all an officer in the SS, should have been put on trial for war crimes. The V2 rocket, correct name Retribution Weapon II is the subject and title of Robert Harris latest novel. The novel revolves around two opposing groups of people; those who launched it and those employed to stop it.
    Kay Caton-Walsh, an officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) is part of a group of women using mathematical formulae to calculate the location of the V2 launch sites. She is stationed in the northern Belgian town of Mechelen, recently liberated by the allies. Kay is led astray by vivacious friend Barbara; a touch of Bletchley Girls meets Sex and the City. The local population is desperately short of food and it is difficult to know who to trust. Around eight thousand Belgians joined the Walloon Legion; later integrated into the SS and responsible for numerous atrocities in the Soviet Union.
     Although it was largely destroyed by Soviet forces in the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket in February 1944 its founder Leon Degrelle saw the SS as the first European Army. Are there any more reasons why Remainers should shut themselves away in darkened rooms and hang their heads in shame?
    Ninety-four miles away in the Dutch town of Scheveningen, close to the Hague is Dr Rudi Graf. His job is to launch the V2s. Graf’s story is intertwined with innocent boyhood dreams of space travel, combined with disillusionment with an evil and soon to be defeated regime. Much of Graf’s story concentrates on the technical failings of the V2 and as the novel reaches its climax Graf struggles continually harder with his conscience.
    V2 was written in the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. There are no doubt parallels between today’s NHS workers in the fight against Covid-19 and those, like the WAAF who worked in the backrooms of World War II to limit the damage done by V-weapons. Harris, despite his dreadful politics is still a master of historical fiction and V2 is no exception.

Second time round

  by Ben Soton

 The Second Sleep by Robert Harris, Penguin Books (2019).

Hardback. Imprint: Hutchinson. 336pp, RRP £20. Audio download. Length: 566 mins RRP £13.
Kindle Edition 330pp, RRP £8.99, on sale for £3.99.

 Robert Harris is one of this country’s most successful fiction writers. His politics are very much that of the ‘extreme-centre’, a fusion of neo-liberalism with condescending political correctness; the result of which is an almost uncritical support for the status quo against any form of populism. 

Harris resigned from the Labour Party in opposition to the left-wing columnist Seamus Milne’s appointment as Jeremy Corbyn’s Director of Communications.  His politics are reflected in the Cicero trilogy (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator), where Harris idolises the conservative Roman lawyer and politician who supported the assassination of Julius Caesar but was ultimately defeated by the Populists and executed on the orders of Mark Anthony.

{The Second Sleep} is set in a post-apocalyptic future many years after our civilisation’s collapse. Society has returned to a quasi-medieval state where religion holds sway over science, but within this dystopian world there are attempts to rediscover the lost technology of the past. This movement centres around banned antiquarian literature and artefacts.

In the novel, the search for enlightenment is carried out by a mill-owner, a gentlewoman, a priest and a travelling eccentric. The dynamics between these characters give the story extra excitement. The particular choice of characters may be a sign of Harris’ class perspective, one which views the gentry as enlightened and the masses as ignorant and superstitious.  Although there may be some truth in this, the main characters make little attempt to win ordinary folk to their cause.

Harris’ success lies in his ability to show how everyday modern objects such as smart phones would look to someone in the past, or in this case the future. We are initially told that the novel is set in 1468. This may be deliberate because this was roughly the start of the Renaissance; a period of culture when people started to take an interest in ideas from Classical Rome and Greece. As the novel progresses the reader starts to notice anachronisms; people are drinking tea, didn’t that come much later? Someone is playing a violin, were they around then?

This is another 1468. Civilisation came to an end in the early 21^st Century, after a period of anarchy order was restored – but at a price. Technological progress and the ended calendar re-started.

The Second Sleep is a warning of the fragility of our society with its dependence on web-based technology. We are told in the novel that “The Ancients” did not use coin but instead money would float around in the air in messages sent by small boxes. Have you ever become annoyed when you can’t get a WIFI signal?

It could also be seen as testament to the human spirit; namely that we will always strive for a better, more improved world. As in the case of earlier reformations however, this requires sacrifice and struggle against entrenched power.