Conquest by Stewart Binns

Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Author: English
Published: 2000s

Conquest reads like an old Norse epic, told over countless wintry days when the snow and short days kept people indoors—and the Norse were great story tellers.

And not only does the introduction to the story adopt this attack but the characters are also larger than life: Hereward of Bourne is a demonstrably large character not only in size but early on in his fierceness and lack of control, but later his determination to achieve justice for the “little people”, his wife Torfida’s loyalty and purpose fall into this pattern—and so it continues with all the characters.

This wasn’t a character driven story but one focussed on the history and what a history Binns conquered for me: battle: Hastings, the protagonists; William the Bastard and Harold Godwinson, the winner William the Conqueror. How different would the world be if William the Conqueror not won and remained William the Bastard?

What I got from the story was the people (originally Danes, Celts, Saxons etc) melded together into a society with the underpinning principles of freedom and justice, the interest in maintaining the decentralised powers of the smaller Saxon based society over the strongly centralised control exercised by the feudal Norman structure; and how at the end the struggle was about retaining the underpinning freedom and justice of England at that time within the feudal Norman structure. That was a huge undertaking and one that resonated with me.

And I got to learn a little about a character I’d never heard of before—Hereward of Bourne—and the role he played in history. I never realised that the close run between Harold Godwinson and William the Conqueror was in large part due to the Hereward’s skills (the Normans won by only a few short hours because help did arrive from the north only it was too late to be of any use). I also never understood that the conquering of England wasn’t the end of the resistance as the English continued to overthrow William’s rule—a sort of William Wallace of the English.

Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge

Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Author: English
Published: 1900s

The story starts with the devoted Myrtle following Master Georgie, who discovers his father, dead, in the bed of a blowsy, drunken prostitute. Definitely a beginning to hook you in, and the book meanders through Georgie’s childhood and offers us George, now a surgeon and amateur photographer, as he sets off from his comfortable life as a Victorian gentleman, and heir to a fortune, to offer his services in the Crimea.

George is followed to the Crimea by a caravan of devoted followers. The voices of George himself and others (such as his wife) are quiet as the story is told by only three who offer their perspectives of George: Myrtle and Pompey Jones (two foundlings rescued by Master Georgie) and George’s brother in law Potter, who might be educated but basically he's insensitive and pompous.

But George--as lover, father, surgeon and photographer, human being--is different according to each narrator, and we have to compare and contrast to uncover the “truth” of George.

I don’t know who I believed more: the besotted Myrtle (prepared to be George’s sister in public and the mother of his children to be near him), Pompey Jones (George’s homosexual lover), and Potter (whose insensitivity and intellectual leanings sadly skewed the opinion of the only person who might otherwise be a more disinterested observer than either Myrtle or Pompey).

This book unfolds rather than clings to a plot, and the telling of the tale through the eyes of Myrtle, Pompey and Potter means that everything we see of George is through the filter of these characters. But I didn’t find this detracted from trying to understand who George was.

And who was he: in the end it seems (and probably rightly) that everybody’s perspective is right. Maybe a re-read will help.

721. The Third Man by Graham Greene

Genre: Mystery
Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: The Modern Library New York 2002

Overview:
A recreation of post World War 2 Vienna, occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. Lime is involved in the black market, but Martins believes his childhood friend is innocent and is determined to clear him.

First chapter:
The first chapter is very short (2 pages only) and I fell back on looking for formulaic questions. I think this approach suits this novel given that Greene was writing it as the basis for a film script and he needed the novel to offer sign posts for the movie script:
• Who is Rollo Martins and what should he have told us from the beginning?
• Who is telling the story and why is he important?

Thoughts
I was intrigued with the idea of The Third Man as a parody of post World War 2 Europe through the medium of a Western novel. A far more interesting approach than viewing it only as the plot and characters for the movie of the same name.

What are the broad ideas, messages or morals to be found in westerns?

The western looks at a society that isn't organised around the strict rule of law. Rather, the cowboy hero with an innate code of honour wanders from place to place fighting villains of various kinds; boiled down really as a fight between “good” and “evil”. Frequently, the hero rescues damsels in distress, although the women tend to fall into either the prostitute with the heart of a gold or the love interest (or she could be both). The harshness of the struggle is stressed by the arid, desolate landscape. The setting is often the small frontier town with its saloon, general store, stable and jailhouse. The saloon offers a number of moral dilemmas and often the place for action: music (raucous piano playing or shows), women, gambling (draw poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting.

How are these themes adopted, mocked or challenged in The Third Man?

British writer Rollo Martins (a hack who writes "cheap paper-covered" westerns under the name Buck Dexter) arrives in Vienna, a city destroyed during World War 2. Martins was invited by school friend Harry Lime, "the best friend he ever had" (p14), but he arrives on the day of Lime’s funeral. The man Martins travels back from the funeral with is really a British policeman, Calloway, who tells Martins that Lime "...was about the worse racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city." (p16) And it was pretty bad, selling doctored penicillin responsible for the deaths of children. Martins sets out to investigate Lime’s death with a view to clearing his friend’s name and learns that a neighbour saw the accident that killed Lime and observed three men carrying Lime’s body from the scene. Only two have been identified because the third man has vanished; and the mystery, and the name of the story, is now established.

So far the story has all the hallmarks of a good Western. The once beautiful Vienna is the lawless Wild West. The historic centre of Vienna was administered by the four nations to emerge from the World War II as victors: Russia, France, Great Britain and the United States. But the initial co-operation: "... between the Western Allies and the Russians had practically, though not yet completely, broken down." (p73) Security, rather than the rule of law, is provided on a rotational basis by the four countries, lawlessness can be seen in the flourishing black market which everybody participates in, and by the ease with which the underground sewers are used to make their escape. The story even seems to have a sheriff in the guise of the narrator, British policeman Calloway: Martins tells Calloway: "I have to call them [policemen] sheriffs". (p17)

We accept Martins view of himself and Lime as the heroes.  Martins mentions his book the "Lone Rider of Santa Fe" twice (p22 and p28) and describes the plot of the story as a lone rider whose best friend is shot unlawfully by a sheriff, and who hunts the sheriff down; definitely shades of Calloway claiming Lime was the bad guy with Martins planning to clear his friend's name: he tells Calloway I promise to "... make you look the biggest bloody fool in Vienna." (p18) The token woman, Anna, forms the love interest for the two heroes Martins and Lime. And finally the bad guys, the black marketeers, of whom the worst are the sellers of watered down penicillin.

But the people assigned to each role are not as they seem. Neither Martins or Lime are heroic. Rollo Martins' perception of his friend Harry Lime and himself as heroes parodies the cowboy hero with an innate code of honour fighting villains of various kinds. Harry Lime turns out to be one of the worst of the bad guys, the leader of a penicillin racket that causes the death of innocent adults and children. Further, Martins has no innate code of honour; his view of his friend is blinkered and unrealistic:
• he never saw that he was the mug Lime could use to take the rap over and over again: when Lime and Martins were kids Martins "was a hopeless mug when it came to carrying out his [Lime's] plans.", and Martins "... was always the one who got caught." (p15), and
• he never considered that Lime might have been guilty or listened to the warning by Lime's friend Kurtz: "Has it occurred to you," Kurts said gently,"that youmight dig up something - well, discreditable to Harry?"(p27)

Martins only comes to understand Lime's true nature at the end, including Lime's intention to cut Martins into the racket: "I've never kept you out of anything, old man, yet." (p85), making Martins part of the “evil” he didn't believe Lime was part of. The extent of Harry's lack of repentance and ruthlessness is revealed in the views he expresses to Lime in the fairground, when he talks about the dispensability of human life: "Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving - for ever?" (p 86) But despite his villainy, Lime has devoted and loyal friends.  His Vienna-based friends stage a fake accident to protect him from prosecution and go to great lengths to cover up the truth of his disappearance.   His girlfriend, Anna, despite his own lack of loyalty to her (p86) remains loyal to him even after she is informed of the sordid details of his blackmarketeering: "I told you - a man doesn't alter because you find out more about him. He's still the same man." (p70)

Martins has elements of the heroic, such as his effort to clear his friend but his attempts are dangerous and result in not only the death of Koch, the man who saw the third man, but of Lime himself. The perception of Rollo's heroic fantasies as absurd is reinforced by Lime.  Lime tells Rollo "Don't be so melodramatic." when Rollo asks him whether he's "... ever visited the children's hospital? Have you seen any of your victims? (p86)

The closest Greene comes to the portrayal of a hero is Anna. At first she appears to be the love interest, but she's "not much of an actress at the best of times." (p89) and not a token. Her strength and independence are in evidence several times, as is her commitment to Lime whatever she hears about him: "... we've got to remember him as he was to us. There are always so many things one doens't know about a person, even a person one loves - good things, bad things. We have to leave plenty of room for them." (p69) She also belies Martins’ assumption, and the role of women in a western, that she would turn to him, for support, once her lover was dead: she "... walked away without a word to either of us (Martins or Calloway) down the long avenue of trees ..." (p98)

The most important thing I got from The Third Man is the idea that viewing anything—people, nations, novels—superficially should be avoided. Everything should be questioned, no matter how small or trivial because heroes are not always heroic, the girl is not always empty headed and needing support (she might even be the hero at times), and the bad guy might have qualities deserving loyalty or respect. Good advice I think, and a good way to approach life.

111. Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb

Genre: Autobiography
Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: Faber and Faber 2001

Overview:
Amelie, a well intentioned and eager young westerner, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land where she was born is the fulfilment of a dream, but her working life quickly becomes a comic nightmare of terror and self-abasement. Disturbing, hilarious and totally convincing, Fear and Trembling displays an elegant and shrewd insight into the differences between the "East" and the West.

First chapter:
The novel doesn't really have chapters, and I think the first two sentences (or paragraphs) neatly offers an insight into Amelie Nothomb as part of a huge machine, and a very small and powerless part of that machine: "Mister Haneda was senior to Mister Omochi, who was senior to Mister Saito, who was senior to Miss Mori, who was senior to me. I was senior to no one." (p1).

Thoughts:
I was going to treat Fear and Trembling as a light read; the kind you can while away a train journey with your hand over your mouth to muffle your laughter. And it’s so very funny at times; after a month of not being able to do a simple arithmetic task Nothomb's supervisor asked her: "Are there many ... people like you in your country? I was the first Belgian she had met. I felt a rush of national pride. (p52)

But any ideas about treating Fear and Trembling as nothing more than a humorous read about ‘them’ and ‘us’ (and this makes me think immediately of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold a few weeks ago) flew out the window after a chat with a colleague about the book’s insights into women. Sure I could have walked away full of superficial thoughts about the rigidity of the Japanese, conservatism, the hierarchical nature of their society and the sublimation of self to society’s expectations but that’s far less interesting than exploring the “we” of women the world over.

I'll admit up front that I didn’t see the “we” until it was pointed out to me. I work in the public service, (a huge sheltered workshop really), where inappropriate behaviour is ‘policyed’ out of existence: sexual harassment might occur (sexual harassment policy), people should be promoted on merit (promotion on merit policy). So the behaviour exhibited by Fubuki Mori against Nothomb isn’t high on my radar. But my colleague arrived recently from the “dog eat dog” world of a law firm and she saw parallels between the female lawyers she left behind and Mori:
• the need to work harder than a man to achieve promotion,
• the knowledge they were never respected quite as much as a man,
• jealously guarding any promotion or advantage accrued by them, and
• ruthlessly ensuring other women didn’t achieve more.

That’s not to say that Japanese women don’t have it harder than Western women, which I think they do. Nothomb exposes the expectations placed on Japanese women to work hard and be beautiful but also to be married and sublimate themselves to husband and family. Western women experience these expectations in a far subtler way than Japanese women, and at least we have an out; we can choose to say ‘up yours’ and define our ‘success’ on our own terms.

However, Nothomb presents a world in which there is only one form of ‘success’ for Mori, but which is also a contradiction: Mori must work hard competing against men to achieve professional success but she must also be beautiful, submissive and compliant towards men, and marry by the age of 25: “There was something contradictory in the rules laid down for women.” (p74) And how difficult it was to achieve these conflicting aims is shown in Mori’s dedication (at age 29) to finding a husband: when she met any unmarried man, including a Westerner “She would suddenly become so studiously sweet that it almost veered toward aggression.” “Something nearly comic about watching her sucumb to these antics, which I felt demeaned both her beauty and her position.” (p75) My personal reaction to this behaviour was more humiliation than embarrassment. I thought it was awful that an otherwise intelligent person should be reduced to such absurd behaviour because her ultimate success in life was reduced to whether she could secure a husband.

Mori felt this humiliation, and it was interesting that her world provided her with the power to take that humiliation out on others. In this case, the increasingly severe and outrageous persecution of another woman and Mori’s subordinate, Nothomb, which culminated in Northomb reduced to cleaning the men’s and women’s toilets.

To my eyes Mori’s behaviour was out of line, and in my sheltered workshop steps would have been taken to stop things before they arrived at the point they did (or at least I hope that’s the case). But the society and culture we’re dealing with is different. Not being an individualist and supporting the hierarchy, coupled together with not actively addressing issues creates the circumstances where people have a level of personal power unseen by me. This in turns leads to the increasingly severe methods used by Mori to punish Nothomb, and ensures no-one will call Mori on her behaviour.

And this power certainly isn’t limited to Mori and her subordinates, but arises more than once with Mr Omichi and any subordinate close enough to scream at. subjecting Mori to the most extraordinary public humiliation: “You could not imagine a more humiliating fate for any human being—than this public pillorying. The monster wanted her to lose face; that was clear.” (p83) And Mori wasn’t the only person subject to a verbal dressing down: “The delivery explained much about Japanese history. I would have been capable of anything to stop the hideous screaming—invade Manchuria, persecute millions of Chinese, commit suicide for the Emperor, hurl my airplane into an American battleship, perhaps even work for two Yumimoto Corporations.” (p29) I got exactly how bad it was; and the question of whether this overt pressure goes any way to explaining generally how pressured the Japanese feel to conform?

The book was an interesting insight into a world I know nothing about, and one that leaves me interested in reading more of Nothomb’s work.

582. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre

Genre: Espionage, Spy
Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: Sceptre 1999

Overview:
Alec Leamas, a British secret agent, goes on one last assignment before coming in from the cold; he becomes a double agent dedicated to bringing down the head of the Communist intelligence agency in East Germany. All goes according to plan until Leamas finds himself before a secret tribunal and he realises things are not as they seem.

First chapter:
Using the approach of extracting questions from this book is too formulaic and predictable ... there's so much more to this book than what's being set up in the first chapter. What really impressed me instead was the initial warning about cheating and trust:
• Leamas said: "You teach them [agents] to cheat, to cover their tracks, and they cheat you as well." (p16)
• "... and Leamas swore, not for the first time, never to trust an agent again." (p16)

Thoughts:
Espionage thrillers aren’t really my genre (just think back to my review of The Thirty-Nine Steps), and it’s unfortunate on page 24 I found the 'n' word in the sentence "... ten little n*****s" because otherwise The Spy (short for The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) is in my top ten for 2011. I love the gripping story, the terrific characters, and I never felt at any stage I was being manipulated towards a particular outcome.

The book speaks tellingly of the struggle between democracy and communism, not in an elegant James Bond we're the best and winning side, but in a way that makes it clear that both sides are indistinguishable in methods. I’m no expert about this time period although the world I came of age in was a scant ten years later (the 1970s). I vividly remember the fear of communism (in the media and in the minds of my own parents) and the ‘them’ (the bad guys) and ‘us’ (the good guys). As a naïve teenager I refused to believe the simplicity of an argument that wrote off a portion of the world as monsters (‘them’). For me, the “enemy” breathed, loved, raised families, worked—exactly as we did—and a different economic system wasn’t enough to demonise people. Us and them clearly made 'we' in my world.

What I like about The Spy is how well it creates a ‘we’ that is the human race: good people and bad, working to achieve respective goals and, unfortunately when it comes to the the secret service, using identically unprincipled and nasty methods. It’s by no means an admirable world, but it's a world I've come to recognise as the 'real' world.

From the beginning the moral highground of the West is exposed to Leamas as political rhetoric only ("I mean, you've got to compare method with method, and ideal with ideal. I would say that since the war, our methods - ours and those of the opposition - have become much the same. I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent ..." (p25) and it's clear the end justifies the means for the West. Neatly, by the end, the empty rhetoric and lies of the Communist regime are exposed and a cringingly stupid view of the West is espoused: "The English! The rich have eaten your future and your poor have given them the food." (p210) And sandwiched between these opposing views is an absorbing story: the tired ageing spy sent on one last mission before he comes in from the cold; an elaborate ploy to trap one of the opposition and get his own people to kill him. With great care Leamas dangles himself as bait, and the plan appears to be working. But there are two problems: Leamas falls in love with a Communist Liz, who starts off as part of his cover and unwittingly betrays him, and Control has embedded plots within plots that Leamas isn't aware of and may not be able to extricate himself from.

And it’s here I come full circle to my earlier thoughts about trust and cheating and one of the messages I think Le Carre is proposing:
• a population should be able to trust its government’s statement of ideals and not wonder whether behind the scenes it's pursuing any means to achieve its aims;
• the secret service should be trusted to conform to its government’s stated aims and not cheat not only the population but its own agents; and
• agents should be able to trust the service it works for.

I guess we're still a work in progress.

905. Quartet by Jean Rhys

Genre: Unknown
Rating: 3. Not bad
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: Penguin 20th Century Classics 1973

Overview:
When Marya Zelli's husband, Stephan, a Polish art smuggler, is arrested, Marya is invited to move in with Heidler, a middle-aged and seemingly respectable art dealer, and his wife Lois. But life with the Heidler's is not to be refuge she expects; Heidler makes Marya his mistress with the connivance of his wife, and the three of them live, unhappily, together. On his release from prison, Stephan finds out about the affair and rejects Marya, as does Heidler who will not share Marya with another.

First chapter:
Quartet had a really strong first chapter that set the scene for the story really well:
• What does Miss de Solla start to say about the Heidler s and doesn't finish? (p10)
• What sort of person is a man who lays his hand on the knee of a woman he barely knows? (p13)
• What sort of relationship do the Heidlers have? (p13)

Thoughts:
One good thing about reading is how it holds up a mirror to your preconceived ideas and prejudices. One very definite prejudice I had reflected back to me is the contrast between my dislike of formulaic, happily ever after Hollywood movies and my laziness when it comes to understanding books. But I had to work with Quartet: I read the novel twice and floundered; I researched the plot so I could follow the sequence of events and that helped; and then I read a couple of reviews ... and only after reading and rereading the reviews could I get closer to understanding the constant thread of women’s submission to, and dependence on, men that runs throughout the story. And it's the level of dependence by women (both Marya and Iris), the damage it creates and their unwillingness or inability to take responsibility for themselves that really perplexes me.

When I first read the novel I thought Marya’s life with Stephan was a comfortable one. Stephan petted and loved her, and offered her what she wanted: "He told her that her arms were too thin, that she had a Slav type and a pretty silhouette, that if she were happy and petted she would become charming. Happy, petted, charming - these are magical words. And the man knew what he was talking aobut, Marya could see that." (p16) But I only understood later how the life she enjoyed through her passivity, recklessness and laziness were dangerous; she surrendered her right to understand her partner and play a role in her destiny with terrible results; being left destitute and without support when Stephan is imprisoned. Her gilded cage is, in reality, a mirage.

True to form, however, Marya turns to another man, Heidler, despite not loving or even liking him. And he's not the “prince” Stephan was: "[Stephan was]... a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things toStephan - or so he made her believe. Marya hadn't known that a man could be as nice as all that to a woman - so gentle in little ways." (p20)

But put quite simply ... Heidler was a pig! They'd barely met when she found his "... huge hand lay possessively, heavy as lead, on her knee." (p13) And his seduction of Marya, if you could call it a seduction, is brutal; only a man sure of himself could tell the woman he wants to sleep with that his wife has "... gone away to leave us together ...", and that his wife knows (p56), and that he's making his move on her before someone else gets in first: "I've been watching you; I watched you tonight and now I know that somebody else will get you if I don't. You're that sort." (p57)

And it's not that Marya loves him or can't see what he's like. On more than one occasion Marya says Heidler is not handsome, a good lover or nice. She says to him: “You’re abominably rude and unkind and unfair. And you’re stupid in a lot of ways. Too stupid to realize how unfair you are.” (p72) She also knows that she should leave him but it’s clear as you read that that won’t happen: “I ought to clear out.’ But when she thought of an existence without Heidler her heart turned over in her side and she felt sick.” (p89). Sick because she fears losing him or sick because a life without the safety net of a man seems unthinkable? The answer seems obvious.

Marya’s acceptance of the Heidler’s offer to live with them makes her dependent on the husband and wife in a way she never was with Stephan; not only is she dependent on them for financial support but she becomes part of the struggle between them as Lois submits to Heidler ( Lois says: "I give him what he wants until his mood changes. I found out long ago that that was the only way to manage him." (p52)), but in return she seeks power over her husband in response to his humiliation of her with other women. I think it’s pretty clear that Lois reluctantly assists Heidler with his philandering and this eats at her: (she hids behind "... a drooping felt hat which entirely hid the upper part of her face" (p12), she looks out on the workd through suspicious almost deadened eyes (p12), and the repeated references to Marya that she must keep their living arrangements a secret (Heidler tells Marya that: "Of course, she'll [Lois] be furious if anybody knows." (p70)). But most damaging of all is her anger directed at Marya: she speaks badly of Marya when Heidler is absent but when he is present she is amiable towards her.

While women's inability to live their life without a man is understandable in a Psychology 101 sort of way (and I don't mean in a denigrating way because it happens all the time), what feels worse in the entire book is Marya’s inability to find a safe place away from the Heidlers. When the Heidler’s take Marya into their home she's imprisoned from the beinning: she's given: “a little room which smelt clean and cold. Striped gray and green curtains hung straightly over the long windows” (p44). But a bedroom should be a refuge, and it's clear that this will never be the case for Marya who cannot escape Heidler: “Your door is open because I come up every night and open it. Then I look at you and go away again”. (p57)

Bleak huh? I'm just glad it’s not my world.

327. A Maggot by John Fowles

Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction, Historical, Postmodern
Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Decade: 1900s
Edition: Vintage 1986

Overview
A group of five (Bartholomew, Dick Thurlow, Fanny (Rebecca/Louise), Brown (Lacy) and Farthing (Jones)) travelling through rural England arrive at an inn in a small village. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent the travellers are playing roles in a drama, designed by Bartholomew, that they do not understand. The confusion increases as the reader learns that the point of the journey is not the real reason for the trek. Who are the players, and what is the real reason for the journey?

First chapter:
The first "chapter" is full of fantastic hooks, probably the best book I've read for this:
• What is Bartholomew's secret study? (p24)
• What is the reason behind the strange charade of Fanny making herself up and Dick unbuttoned and exposed? (p32)
• What is the "fixed destiny" Bartholomew thinks he must play? (p43)
• Why do Bartholomew and Dick burn Bartholomew's papers (p47)

Thoughts:
At the start of the year I was sure I didn’t like the epistolary form of writing (novels primarily written as a series of letter but which can also include newspaper articles, diary entries, etc). I can’t say that anymore, because since reading Dracula (Bram Stoker) and now A Maggot by John Fowles I now understand the format of a novel (including one written in the form of Q&As by a lawyer taking depositions) is nothing in the hands of a skilful story teller.

The pace of this novel is slow, but never boringly so … which fits well with its mysterious nature. The title is the first mystery. Fowles explains in the prologue that the title is taken from the archaic sense of the word that means "whim", "quirk", "obsession", or even a snatch of music. Another meaning of the word "maggot", which becomes apparent later in the novel, is used by Fanny to describe a white, oblong machine that appears to be a spaceship. (A spaceship in an 18th century historical novel--are you intrigued?)

The mystery is heightened by the third person narrator, who is not omniscient and clearly no wiser than we are: "One might have supposed the two leading riders and the humble apparent journeyman and wife chance-met, merely keeping together for safety . . ." (p2). But he soon notes: "Yet if they had been chance-met, the two gentlemen would surely have been exchanging some sort of conversation and riding abreast. . ." (pp2-3). And of the woman in the group, the narrator concludes that "She is evidently a servant, a maid" (p5)

Then there's the mystery (even cluelessness) of Henry Ayscough, the lawyer charged by Bartholomew’s father with discovering the details of his son’s disappearance. Part of Ayscough’s role is clearly to protect the status of the family, including its respect and good name. But Ayscough is also more:
• he acts as a pseudo reader and starts from scratch to uncover what's happened to Bartholomew;
• he identifies which information is relevant and acts as the point at which elements are confirmed; and
• he shows that, for the outsider, there is more to the mystery than meets the eye.

The character who intrigued me the most was Fanny. Who is she; the prostitute suggested by the men or is she the lady of Ayscough, Dorcas and the hotel keeper? For the men travelling together (Bartholomew, Lacy and Farthing) it seems clear they knew she was a prostitute, but if she's a prostitute why does no-one appear to be having a sexual relationship with her? The following gives an insight into the early mystery of Fanny:
• Fanny washes herself while Dick sits at her feet with an erection but they don't have sex. (pp29-34)
• Lacy tells Bartholomew that Jones saw Fanny going into a brothel. Lacy believes Jones is mistaken and Bartholomew assures him he is mistaken. Bartholomew infers Dick and Fanny are husband and wife. (p44)
• shortly afterwards Bartholomew chides Fanny about her wantoness, orders her to strip and then sends her away while he prays. (pp47-58)

So is Fanny actually a prostitute? If Dick and Fanny are married, why do they not have sex and why, soon after, is Fanny with Bartholomew, who asks her to strip, chides her and sends her away? If you think this is confusing to the reader, the people observing the group are unaware and further add more to the confusion:
• the innkeeper tells Ayscough that Fanny spoke kindly to Dorcas (p70), and that she might have been a lady in disguise. (p71)
• Dorcas confirms that Fanny is pleasant spoken, while the lawyer Ayscough tries to discover whether she was a lady masquerading as a maid. Dorcas believes she’s not a lady (pp85-86), and relates how Fanny was in Bartholomew’s room but did not stay the night. (pp86-87)

This mystery is resolved when Ayscough learns from a brothel keeper that Fanny's a notorious prostitute known as the Quaker Maid, who's able to pretend to be a virgin. (p140) but all this is smoke and mirrors because after 140 pages we understand the who of Fanny but no nearer to understanding the why?

And the entire book is like this ... I felt I understood the who of the journey, including the roles people played. I'm even happy with the various theories that were debunked, such as: the journey wasn't to allow Bartholomew to elope against the wishes of his family (as there was no woman waiting for him), he wasn't visiting a wealthy aged aunt to secure an inheritance (since she didn't exist), and Fanny's later claims re her impregnation make it unlikely Bartholomew was seeking a cure for impotence. (PS Why did Bartholonew feel the need to create such an elaborate ruse for the trip?)

What I'm left with, and it's much more fantastic than the debunked theories, are two theories: Fanny was destined for impregnation by an alien in order to start a new religious sect, and Bartholomew's interest in the occult took him to a certain location (reason unknown) and Fanny had a religious conversion.

The former theory is at odds with me given the historical nature of the book and my inability to meld science fiction with history, and the latter feels more comfortable to me. The idea that the why is associated with Bartholomew's interest in science or the occult doesn't seem too far fetched. He certainly had ideas about a fixed destiny (p5), he was secretive about his writings (p24) and the burning of the papers by Bartholomew and Dick, his mysterious relationship with Dick, his chastising of Fanny and directions to her that she should behave appropriately (pp52-57) seem to point towards something unusual at the very least.

If you think the answer is more than this or I'm totally on the wrong track ... I’d love to hear. I've never read a story that left me with so many questions.