The Comedians by Graham Greene. 1965. The Bodley Head and Wm Heinemann

Image of Papa Doc via Wikipedia with attribution and thanks to PikiWikiIsrael

The photo is of Papa Doc at his installation ceremony as Haiti's President for Life in 1963. My thanks to copyright holder Pikiwiki Israel for allowing free use.



The earthquake in Haiti in January this year was a colossal tragedy: 230,000 dead, 300,000 injured and a million people homeless. Amongst the early televised reports and interviews was one with the Haitian ambassador in Washington. He seemed mainly concerned with the safety of his boss, the prime minister of  Haiti. He assured us that this man was safe and well.  I was reminded of an earlier horror of a different type that had happened to this poor country: a governing clique that ruled by fear with a self-appointed President for life. Graham Greene had dramatised this situation in a book I had read many years ago.

Set in the Haiti of dictator Papa Doc Duvalier and the Tonton Macoute (bogey men) with their black glasses and murderous reputation, the title is puzzling. There is not much to laugh at. There is a fine sense of minority representation in the characters. Greene always includes Roman Catholics and on this occasion Vegans. The latter are Mr and Mrs Smith, nice people with nice manners and firm beliefs who make up a lot of food in their hotel bedrooms. Brown, the main character meets up with them as passengers on a cargo ship from Philadelphia to Haiti, where Jones is also a passenger. ( Greene didn't bother with atmospheric names.)

The Rainbow and the Rose by Neville Shute (1958) Heinemann

Image via Wikipedia

The retirement to a small flying club in Tasmania was John Pascoe's choice. He had been an international airline Senior Captain  The choice could be compared to an international golfer retiring as the pro at a small golf club in the Shetlands. People come for lessons, get the hang of the skill and off they go flying their own fairways in the sky. This facet of the story made me feel that I actually could take flying lessons with someone like John and be in the air fearlessly solo in no time.

He always looked about the same, from the time I remember him when I was a boy. He would have been about five feet nine in height with partially grey hair, regular features, rather a fine face, very tanned, a little lined toward the end. He hadn't got a great deal of humour in him, rather stiff. Women liked him.

The narrator of the quote above

The Great Lover (and Others Not So Good?)

Image of Jill Dawson by Tim Allen

The Great Lover by Jill Dawson, 2009, Hodder and Stoughton centres on Rupert Brooke through the eyes mainly of a young maid at The Orchard Tea Gardens near Cambridge with the poet regularly lodging nearby. The casualness with which Jill Dawson allows Brooke and cronies to spurn the law and convention feels real. But can you imagine a clique of academics as the celebrities of their time?  Personally, I can. I think she got it right.

Image by Wikipedia

Brooke had charisma and you are alienated from him at first by his awareness of it. Then you realise it wasn't his fault. He was just being realistic.  Remembering that there was no television and such instant recognisability then: public wasn't quite so public. However, Brooke still seems vain and his clique arrogant. But he did have talent.

"If I should die, think only this of me ..."

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy; my copy published by Macmillan, 1974

I first read this book and others by Hardy on working visits to Siguenza, Spain in the time of Franco.
The coolness and shade of the Dorset countryside: its woods, shady paths and umbriferous hedgerows were havens on the brightly hot and dry afternoons of a Spanish summer. Re-reading recently, in winter after many years, was entirely different.

I was surprised how handy woodland is for an author. In a wood you can come across any character the author wishes you to meet because people stroll out for pleasure. In the evening especially but not only. They must also walk to travel about the local area. In the woods they also overhear each other!! Things they are not supposed to overhear. They also come upon unlikely pairs of each other and so take a different path to be discreet.



The morals of the times

Lost Child by Julie Myerson (2009)

From an e-mail sent by Pippa Hall - with permission



"I have just finished a Julie Myerson book
called Lost Child that I am fuming about as she irritated me all the way
through. It's about her son who gets hooked on
dope, quits school and does all the things that don't feel right to them and
their world - and it runs alongside the research she is doing on a Suffolk
family who lost 5 of their 8 children to consumption......... Incidentally,
I didn't choose this book - it was a Valentine's Day present from ....."

Image via Wikipedia

Click to see a 2009 Review in the Telegraph about this book