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Review: The Shadow of the Crescent Moon

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The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is the first novel by Fatima Bhutto, who is the granddaughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, whose sister was Benazir Bhutto.  Fatima Bhutto graduated from Columbia University in 2004.  She lives in Karachi, and is a freelance writer.  Interestingly, her website does not mention this book.  Instead, it mentions three other books.  Judging by one article on her website, she seems to be a political radical.

The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is an interesting novel, relatively brief and quite intense.  It is set in the tribal region of northwest Pakistan and involves three brothers who are preparing to celebrate Eid, the Muslim feast at the end of Ramadan.  The oldest son has decided to leave his childhood sweetheart and go into business away from his home town of Mir Ali.  The middle son has become a doctor in Mir Ali and the youngest has joined his brother’s sweetheart as an insurgent.  In the novel, Mir Ali is the focal point for the armed struggle between Pakistan’s army and local people who crave their own freedom.

Fatima Bhutto does a very good job describing the culture, the issues, the people and the setting.  One gets the sense of a long-running, life-and-death struggle in the northwest of Pakistan.  It is clear that the author’s sentiments are with the insurgents.

I found the novel frustrating in the sense that it lacks focus.  There is an insurgent plot to kill a minister, and the story seems to be headed to a climax there, but the novel ends in uncertainty.  Was he killed?  Who killed him?  Or if not, why not?  There is some uncertainty as to who the insurgents are.  Some are Taliban; some are ordinary people.  What is the relationship between them?  The Pakistani government is clearly an evil influence, but in a book like this which is somewhat polemical, it would be a redeeming feature to hint more broadly at what the government should do differently (other than bringing in local conscripts).  There are also some religious issues: notably Sunnis vs. Shiites, but there are problems for Christians and Hindus, as well.  How do these issues fit into the over-arching themes of justice and freedom?

Ms. Bhutto’s writing in quite engaging.  Occasionally, there is a too long sentence which requires a second reading to gain understanding.  And, like all ‘young, modern authors’ she likes to use unconventional words rather than the conventional.  Mostly, this works well, but there is the occasional grating which disturbs the flow.  The characterisation of the two older brothers, the female sweetheart and the Pakistani colonel are all clear and intriguing.  The character of the youngest brother – the insurgent – is somewhat opaque.  We can understand why the two older brothers do what they do, but what – apart from his father’s lectures – motivates this brother to be an insurgent?

An interesting book and a particularly interesting author. I’m sure we’ll hear more from her!

“Literary Misery Index”

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An article under the headline “Reading between the lines: novels are so last decade” appeared in today’s Daily Telegraph.  It said that the ‘literary misery index’ has demonstrated that  novels reflect accurately the economic hardship of the decade prior to their publication.

“The frequency with which downbeat words appear in more than five million books by authors including George Orwell, Graham Green and John Steinbeck was found too reflect economic conditions in Britain and America.

“Researchers  compared how frequently “mood” words from six categories – anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise – were used, and created the index by subtracting the number of sad words from the number of happy words.  Some periods, such as the 1980’s were clearly marked by literary misery.

“The lead author of the study, Professor Alex Bentley from the University of Bristol, said: ‘When we looked at millions of books published in English every year and looked for a specific category of words denoting unhappiness, we found that those words in aggregate averaged the authors’ economic experiences over the past decade.  It looked like Western economic history, but just shifted forward by a decade.  It makes sense if you think about authors who wrote sad books, like Steinbeck, that their choice of words would have reflected the economic conditions.  In other words, global economics is part of the shared emotional experience of the 20th century.’

“Co-author Dr Alberto Acerbi added: ‘Economic misery coincides with the First World War, the aftermath of the Great Depression and the energy crisis.  But in each case, the literary response lags by about a decade.’  Professor Bentley said: ‘Perhaps this ‘decade effect’ reflects the gap between childhood, when strong memories are formed and early adulthood, when authors may begin writing books.’

“The study, published online by Plos One, also found the same correlation in German novels.”

As I think about this study, it seems to make some sense.  The mood of an author will certainly be coloured by his/her experience of the world.  I’m not so convinced that the cause of the effect is just economic.  What about the effects of major wars – like the First and Second World Wars?  And what about the effect of the socio/political situation?  Would authors writing after the Stalinist period in Russia have a more pessimistic slant than those writing today?  And what about the ten year time lag?  To me it doesn’t seem right to correlate the ten year time lag to the period between childhood and authorship.  For most authors it is more like twenty years, and in my case it’s a lot more than twenty!  Perhaps the time lag has more to do with the aggregate effect of human memory: memories older than ten years begin to fade in importance, and memories younger than ten years haven’t taken their full effect.

What do you think?

 

Review: Stoner

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Stoner, a novel by John Williams, was copyrighted by the author in 1965, and was first published in the UK in 1973.  As the copy I have was published by Vintage in the UK, I can’t tell when the novel was first published, but a safe bet would be in the mid-60’s in the US.

John Williams was born in Clarksville, Texas in 1922.  During the Second World War, he served in the US Air Force in China, Burma and India.  His first novel, Nothing but the Night, was published in 1948, and his second, Butcher’s Crossing, was published in 1960.  His last novel, Augustus, was published in 1972.  Williams received a Ph.D from the University of Missouri and he taught literature and the craft of writing for thirty years at the University of Denver.  He died in 1994 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

It would be fair to say that Williams is not a well-known author, but Stoner has recently attracted significant favourable reviews.  For example, Julian Barnes of the Guardian says, “It is one of those purely sad and sadly pure novels that deserves to be rediscovered.”

Tom Hanks writes in Time Magazine: “It is simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher.  But it is one of the most fascinating things that you’ve ever come across.”

The New York Times says: “Few stories this sad could be so secretly triumphant, or so exhilarating.  Williams brings to Stoner’s fate a quality of attention, a rare empathy that shows us why this unassuming life was worth living.”

I think I read that an employee of a major book seller (was it Waterstones?) rediscovered the novel, and praised it to the point where it became the chain’s book of the year.  I decided I had to get a copy.

Having now read it, I can tell you that I agree with the above reviews.  Moreover the writing is beautiful and captivating.  It is clear, clever and without unnecessary embellishment.  It is a novel that makes one reflect on life in general and one’s own life.

Those of you who have read my reviews will know that I tend to be critical of particular developments that occur without reason.  As someone who was educated in the sciences, I believe that for every effect there is a cause, and I’m not content unless a major effect has a cause that is identified (or at least hinted at); I become sceptical, and I begin to question the author’s attention.

There are three effects in Stoner which for me are presented without cause.  First, Stoner becomes an instructor in literature at a major university.  He is an only child, without self-awareness, or any particular ambition, without childhood friends, growing up on a farm, who goes to university to study agricultural science.  He’s likeable enough, but he does not interact much with others.  In fact, when his literature professor asks him a question in class, he is unable to summon the resources to answer.  We are, in effect, asked to believe that he became a teacher because the same professor told him that that was his destiny.  Based on what?  Most university instructors I have known are outspoken extroverts.  Once Stoner becomes an instructor, I can accept that, over time, he develops the skills to become quite a good instructor.

The second point has to do with Stoner’s wife Edith, whom he takes in marriage based on a fleeting attraction.  This turns out to be a disastrous mistake.  Edith has unpredictable swings in mood and behaviour which are not hinted at when Stoner first meets her.  She seems like a shy girl, but she becomes a nemesis, a witch.  He behaviour is so erratic and so irrational that I found myself doubting her as a character.  Could not Williams not have hinted at a psychological defect or at a strategy which Edith was following.  As a result, I lost interest in trying to understand the relationship between Stoner and his wife.  For me, she was just a “problem”.

The third point has to do with the relationship between Stoner and Katherine Driscoll, a young instructor with whom he has an affair.  I can understand how they could fall in love, but what I don’t understand is how their physical relationship could (apparently) begin so smoothly.  Stoner had no sexual experience before he met his wife, and with her it was disastrous.  Katherine has little experience, and it wasn’t very pleasing.  How could these two sexual misfits behave like practiced lovers immediately?  Give them time, author!

The above tend to be my personal reservations, and they don’t motivate me not to recommend Stoner.  It is a rare and captivating novel.

The Character: Morton Stickler

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Morton Stickler appears toward the end of Sable Shadow and The Presence.  Formerly a non-executive director of United Carbide, he stages a board room coup and becomes chief executive of this very large (fictional) corporation.  He persuades the board that the strategy of the current CEO – to make gradual changes that will improve the profitability of the corporation – is short-changing the shareholders.  He proposes a different strategy: sell off large chunks of the business and buy more profitable pieces.

The reader will almost instantly dislike Morton Stickler.  He seems totally self-absorbed, dismissive of others to the point of rudeness, and totally convinced that his way is the only way.  He is going to prove that not only could he make a huge fortune in venture capital, but that he is also a brilliant executive.  He uses very simple business models that were developed by management consultants to gain new clients.  He does not like people who disagree with him.

Are there really people like Morton Stickler loose in the world of big business?  In my experience, the answer is ‘yes’.  I have to say that I never knew a CEO who had all of Morton’s negative characteristics, but there were some I knew who, if one selected their individual bad characteristics, could be combined into Morton Stickler.

But this then prompts two questions: how does someone like Morton Stickler get to become CEO of a big corporation like United Carbide?  And, once ‘the powers that be’ find out what he is really like, why don’t they get rid of him?  The partial answer to both questions is that there is a dysfunctional board: a board which is cliquish, composed of prima donnas, who have little management experience, and who do not see themselves as servants of the shareholders.  Boards like this may be relatively rare nowadays, but they weren’t so rare a generation ago.  Board members could be very impressed by a guy like Morton.  He’s confident, he’s made tens of millions, and he promises to make them all look like heroes.  When things go wrong, a guy like Morton can find ways to cover up or divert attention from his failings.  And, perhaps interestingly, guys like Morton may just be lucky, or paradoxically, their harsh medicine is just what the business needs.

In any case, Henry, the key character in Sable Shadow and The Presence falls foul of Morton, and he is fired.  But he is fired in circumstances which make the loss of his job – important as it was – seem trivial.  We don’t learn what happened to Morton, except that he (and United Carbide) had to pay Henry for wrongful dismissal and slander.  Did they pay him enough?  Perhaps the test of ‘enough’ is that in his new identity, it isn’t a topic of concern for Henry, much as he may have disliked Morton when he worked for him.

Is Surveillance Undemocratic?

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There is an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph as follows:

“More than 500 of the world’s leading authors have condemned the scale of state surveillance, warning that spy agencies are undermining democracy.  In a statement the writers from 81 different countries, including British authors Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Irvine Welsh, and Martin Amis, call for an international charter enshrining digital rights.  The authors warn that the extent of surveillance has undermined people’s right to “remain unobserved and unmolested” in their communications.

“This fundamental right has been rendered null and void through abuse of technological developments by states and corporations for mass surveillance purposes,” it says.

“A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.  To maintain any validity, our democratic rights must apply in virtual as well as in real space. . . . Surveillance is theft.  . . . . This data is not public property.  It belongs to us.  When it is used to predict our behaviour, we are robbed of something else – the principle of free will crucial to democratic liberty.”

The statement comes after eight of the biggest technical companies formed an alliance to call on Barack Obama, the American president to reform surveillance laws.  Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Yahoo have united to form a group called Reform Government Surveillance, marking the first time competing companies have presented a united front.

From what I have read about Reform Government Surveillance, it seems to make a lot of sense.  But I have major reservations about the language used by the authors in their statement.

Reform Government Surveillance seeks five areas of reform:

1. The government should codify sensible limits on surveillance, limiting surveillance to known users and eliminating bulk surveillance.

2. Executive powers should be subject to strong checks and balances.

3. Government should be transparent: it should allow companies to report demands for data and it should promptly disclose the data publicly.

4. Governments should not restrict the international flow of data.

5. Legal conflicts between different government jurisdictions should be eliminated.

I have no problem with these five reforms, but, for example, where do people get the right to “remain unobserved and unmolested in their communications”?  If we speak publicly, we give up the right to be private and unobserved.  Just ask any celebrity who’s made a mistake on Twitter (or any other public place for that matter): are they unobserved?  No!  Are they unmolested?  They may not feel like it.  Hasn’t the person who wrote this statement for the authors heard of libel or slander laws?

“A person under surveillance is not longer free.”  Strictly speaking, this is true, but does it pass the ‘so what?’ test?  Where in the US Constitution or in the Declaration of Independence is there mention of ‘freedom from surveillance’ (or observation).  No civilized society can function without its citizens being able to observe the behaviour of others.  For a starter, we would have no witnesses in court.

“Surveillance is theft” . . . and when it happens, “we are robbed . . . of the principle of free will”.  There is a leap of logic in here somewhere.  It sounds a little like the existentialist concept of ‘Other’, but even the existentialists believed in free will.

You may have read about the trial currently underway in London of two Islamic terrorists who are on trial for murdering and trying to butcher a UK soldier in the street.  One was a Christian who converted to Islam.  In his defence (he denies murder, but admits killing the soldier) he said that he is a ‘soldier’ (he never served in the military), and that Allah told him to kill a soldier in revenge for all the Muslims who have been killed.  Can we afford, as a society, to overlook the behaviour of people like that?  I don’t think so.  I agree with the eight technical companies, but not with my fellow authors.

By the way, if I had been the prosecutor in the above trial, I would have asked the defendant two questions:

One: did he ever consider the possibility, as a religious person who believes in God and knows about the devious, lying devil, that it was the devil, not God, who gave him the instruction?

Two: has he studied the Qur’an sufficiently to understand, as most Muslims do, that to kill someone is a major sin?

 

 

 

Review: Blue Is the Warmest Color

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My wife and I saw Blue Is the Warmest Color last Friday night.  You may have read that this is the movie with the extended, explicit lesbian love scenes (it carries an 18 rating in the UK).

As I reflected on the film later, it occurs to me that the task of a director, together with those of the actors, are analogous to that of a writer.  In both cases, the artists are striving to tell a story in a way that has unique and special meaning for the audience.  In this respect, Blue is extraordinarily successful: the directing and the acting have an extremely strong effect on the audience.  One cannot help but feel, and sympathise completely with the characters.  The story, itself, provides a firm foundation; it is based on a novel by Julie Maroh: a fifteen-year-old girl of modest circumstances falls in love with an older, middle class, intellectual artist.  But it is the fiery passions of the two characters that make the picture really memorable.  It is the direction of Abdellatif Kechiche, and the acting of Adèle Exarchopoulos (as Adèle, the student) and Léa Seydoux (as Emma, the artist) which give the film its memorable power.  Whatever else you may have heard about this film, in my opinion it is worth seeing just to marvel at the acting and the direction.  (I think it is shameful that after the film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival there was a rather public falling out amongst the actresses and the director.)

This is not to say that the film does not have its flaws.  It’s running time is three hours and seven minutes, and while it is largely successful in carrying its emotional energy that long, I think it would have been more effective had it been edited more rigorously.  At the same time, I felt that a little more attention should have been given to the loneliness which Adèle feels later in the relationship.  She cheats on Emma with a male colleague, and says that she was lonely.  It’s believable, but we were given no evidence of it.  While the average viewer will understand, almost at the outset, that this is a relationship which has no basis in shared values, experiences or goals, it is this lack of shared identity which makes the failure of the relationship so tragic.  The emphasis in the film is on the dramatic break-up.  But it is not the break-up, itself which is the tragedy; it is the causes of the break-up that are tragic.

So, what about the explicit sex scenes?  One of the scenes lasts seven minutes.  Some reviewers have commented that the sex scenes should have been shorter.  In my opinion, the scenes are not erotic.  (While the actresses are fully nude, there were no female genitalia visible.)  There were two absolutely gorgeous female bodies, and the passionate lust was almost palpable!  I read that the author, Julie Maroh, said that the scenes would strike a lesbian audience as ‘ridiculous’.  Maybe so, but for me, they made the point that these women are deeply in love.

If you have a chance, I think that Blue Is the Warmest Color is a film worth seeing.

“Let Children Pick Their Own Books”

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“There is no such thing as a bad book for children,” says author Neil Gaiman, best-selling writer and Carnegie Medal-winner.  He was delivering the second annual Reading Agency lecture at London’s Barbican on October 14.  He said that compelling children to read books deemed appropriate by adults will leave them convinced that reading is ‘uncool and unpleasant’. . . There are no bad authors for children that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. . . . They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories.  A hackneyed worn-out idea isn’t hackneyed or worn out to them.  This is the first time the child has encountered it. . . . Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing.  Fiction you do not like is the gateway drug to other books you may prefer. . . . Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love  of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian ‘improving’ literature.”  My own recent experience with children’s reading involves my grandchildren.  In Sicily this past summer, I brought along two illustrated books: one of Aesop’s fables and the other of fairy tales.  After dinner, I offered to read to them.  One grandson, in particular, was very keen to listen.  He would select one book or the other, pick out a particular story, and comment on it after I had read it (or even during the reading).  His younger brother and sister were interested, initially, but they preferred other occupations. More recently, I read bedtime stories to two other grandsons, aged 5 and 3.  They each picked out a book they wanted me to read.  (They had to take turns.)  The older one picked out a child’s book that would have been difficult for a thirteen-year-old to follow.  (It was a compilation of ancient fairy tales in ancient language.)  I pointed out that it maybe he wouldn’t like it so much, but he insisted that I carry on with the reading, perhaps because he wanted to get an idea of what older children liked to read.  After about the third tale, he selected another book.  His younger brother wanted to be read to, also, but his idea of being read to was to explore illustrated pop-up books, and comment on them. I can remember when I was about thirteen, there was a paperback novel called The Amboy Dukes in which my classmates were highly interested.  I was told, when I finally got a copy, was that the cover illustration was two teenagers having sex.  This seemed rather doubtful, as both the boy and the girl were dressed.  I remember showing the book to my mother, and pointing out the cover illustration.  She, too, was sceptical, but she made no other comment.  But, I decided to read it, in case there were salacious sections.  There weren’t.  It was boring.  King Arthur was much more interesting.

Review: Restless

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William Boyd’s Restless won the Costa Novel Award in 2006, and when I found a copy in our small library in Sicily (it had probably been left by a guest), I decided I had to read it.  The reviews on the cover were effusive in their praise.  For example, The Times was quoted on the front cover as saying: “Boyd is a first-rate storyteller and this is a first-rate story . . . An utterly absorbing page-turner.”

The setting of the novel is the early years of World War II, when Britain and Russia were fighting against Nazi Germany alone, and the US had not entered the war.  The central female characters are Eva Delectorskaya and her daughter, Ruth.  The chapters alternate between Ruth telling her side of the story, in the first person, from 1947 onwards, and Eva’s story being told in the third person from 1935 until 1941.  Ruth does not know her mother as Eva; she knows her as Sally Gilmartin, née Fairchild.  She also didn’t know that her mother was half Russian, half English, and was living in Paris, age 28, when the war broke out in 1939.  The principal male character is Lucas Romer, who recruits Eva into a special branch of the British Secret Service.  Eva is beautiful and fluent in Russian, English and French.  After being recruited and trained in Scotland, one expects that Eva will be parachuted into France to work alongside the French resistance.  But we learn – partly through the files that Eva/Sally passes to her daughter and partly from Eva herself – that she has been recruited into an organisation which attacks Germany through the media.  The stories that the organisation places are sometimes fabrications and sometimes exaggerations or little-noticed Nazi misdeeds. In 1940, the organisation, including Lucas and Eva, move to New York City, where their focus shifts to persuading a reluctant American people to join the war against Germany.  Eva and Lucas become lovers, and for Eva, Lucas is the perfect secret agent: brilliant, and devious, but devastatingly attractive.  Of course, they succeed in persuading the White House to go to war, but just before Pearl Harbor, Eva is sent on a mission during which she is nearly killed.  Suspecting everyone, including Lucas, she goes onto hiding: first in Canada and then in England.  Years later, as an old woman, she persuades Ruth to help her unmask the traitor.

What could be a better story?

What I particularly liked about it was the subversive activity involving the use of the media.  One wouldn’t expect media people to be literally assassins, but when one is a traitor and one has to prevent something from happening, one uses strong measures.  The daughter who doesn’t know the truth about her mother, who discovers it during the course of the novel, and who collaborates with her in realising the conclusion, is another appealing feature.  The story is very well-written – not in a literary style – but in straight-forward, clear language.

The only faults I could find were what seemed to be a little bit of ‘filler material’ about Ruth’s occupation: teaching English as a second language to business people.  I also wasn’t clear about what actually happened during Ruth’s nearly-fatal mission.  Somehow, it didn’t all fit together.

But having said that Restless is a first rate thriller, and if you decide to pick it up, be sure you haven’t any pressing engagements: it’s difficult to put it down.

Book review: Aleph

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I’ve been on holiday in Sicily for almost three weeks, so I had some time to do a little reading.  (The weather, the sea, the beaches and, most importantly, the company were all very nice.)  At the news stand/book store in the main square of Capo d’Orlando, I had a look through their collection of English language books, which are to be found in the darkest inner recesses of the store, mixed in with German language books. Aleph, by Paulo Coelho, a popular and well-regarded Brazilian author, caught my eye.  I had read his Eleven Minutes some time ago, and I was impressed.  It is the allegorical story of a young girl who, through her failures to achieve true love, goes to Switzerland where she becomes a successful prostitute.  But then she meets and falls in love with Ralf, an artist with whom she falls in love, and she discovers sacred sex: a mixture of sex and love in which one gives up one’s soul for the loved one.  Thought provoking and a very nice story.

Aleph is written in the first person, and it is, at one level, an interesting story about a trip across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway.  At the allegorical level it is Paulo Coelho’s complex exploration of self discovery.

The train trip seems to involve the author himself: he reports on his interactions with his publishers, editors, journalists and readers in a very modest yet engaging way.  One sympathises with his hardships: lack of sleep, the cold and bad-tempered colleagues.  I found it easy to wish that I, too, were on that hellish train just for a chance to meet Paulo Coelho.

But the ‘meat’ of the story involves a perceived sin that Paulo committed in an earlier life: as an official in the Spanish Inquisition, he failed to testify to the innocence of several young women who were then burned alive.  One of the young women has been reincarnated as Hilal, a young Turkish woman who believes that her life depends on making contact with him.  Diligently, she tries to establish a relationship with him without really understanding her own motivation.  Paulo learns in a sequence of dreams what he did.  She forgives him unconditionally and unknowingly, and he finally declares his sin to her, and is able to persuade her to get on with her own life as a concert violinist.

The ‘Aleph’ is a condition where all things in the universe and all time are able to converge at one point.  It represents perfect enlightenment.  Paulo and Hilal are almost in an Aleph at a certain point between the carriages of the train.

Interestingly, there is no sex between Paulo and Hilal: not that he isn’t tempted and that she isn’t willing.  At one point, she appears naked to him and he remembers her naked before the Inquisition.  The only difference being that then she had pubic hair, but now she is shaved.  He comments negatively (and quite rightly, I think) on the popularity of women shaving.

This is quite an interesting novel.  The trip, the characters, their relationships, and the actual events are all captivating.  And Coelho’s writing style is both engaging and clear.  The problem for me with this book is that I don’t believe there is such a thing as an aleph, nor do I believe that, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, we carry a debt from one life to another.  It’s another example of my literal mind getting in the way!

Review: Billy Budd

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Two days ago, my wife and I went to see the opera Billy Budd which was performed at Glyndebourne.  More on Glyndebourne later.

I was attracted to that particular opera on that particular day, because it was the day after my birthday (and I felt like celebrating), and because of the opera subject: the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars.  For many years, I have been attracted to the hardship and glamour of wooden warships.  I’ve read dozens of novels on the subject and I even wrote a thesis on Admiral Lord Nelson’s battle tactics when I was attending a post-graduate school in the US Navy.  It helped me decide to go that the Daily Telegraph gave the opera a five star review, and suggested that readers “should grab the remaining tickets”.

Wikipedia has the following synopsis of the opera:

Captain Edward Fairfax Vere, an old man, reflects on his life and his time in the navy. He reflects on the conflict between good and evil, he is tormented by guilt over the case of Billy Budd on board his ship, HMS Indomitable, some years earlier.

The crew of the Indomitable works on deck. For slipping and bumping into an officer, the Novice is sentenced to be flogged. At the same time a cutter approaches, returning from a merchant ship where it has pressed three sailors into the Royal Navy.

One of these sailors, Billy Budd, seems overjoyed with his situation – entirely different from the other two who are not so happy. Claggart, the Master-at-Arms, calls him “a find in a thousand,” despite the slight defect of a stammer. Billy says a jaunty farewell to the Rights o’ Man, his former ship, innocent of what his words imply. The officers take his words as a deliberate provocation and order the men below decks. Claggart tells Squeak, the ship’s corporal, to keep an eye on Billy and give him a rough time.

The Novice returns from his flogging, unable to walk and helped along by a friend. Billy is shocked at the cruelty of the punishment, but is certain that if he follows the rules he will be in no danger. Dansker, an old sailor, nicknames Billy “Baby Budd” for his innocence.

Dansker tells the others Vere’s nickname, “Starry Vere,” and this is enough for the impulsive Billy to swear his loyalty to the unseen captain.

In his cabin, Captain Vere muses over classical literature. His officers enter, and they discuss the revolution in France and the mutinies in the Royal Navy sparked by French ideas of democracy. The officers warn that Billy may cause trouble, but Vere dismisses their fears and expresses his love for the men under his command.

Below decks the sailors rough-house, but old Dansker remains gloomy. Billy goes for some tobacco to cheer him up, and discovers Squeak rifling through his kit. In a rage, Billy begins to stammer. He knocks Squeak to the ground as Claggart and the corporals enter. Billy is still unable to speak, but Claggart takes his side and sends Squeak to the brig. However, when alone, Claggart reveals his hatred for Billy and vows to destroy him. He orders the Novice to try to bribe Billy into joining a mutiny, and the broken-spirited Novice quickly agrees. Billy refuses the bribe and believes he will be rewarded, but Dansker warns him to beware of Claggart.

Claggart begins to tell Vere about the danger that Billy represents, but is interrupted by the sighting of a French ship. The Indomitable attacks, but loses the enemy in the mist. Claggart returns, and tells Vere that Billy poses a threat of mutiny. Vere does not believe him and sends for Billy so that Claggart may confront him.

Later, in Vere’s cabin, Claggart repeats the false charge to Billy’s face. Once again, Billy begins to stammer in rage. Unable to speak, he strikes Claggart, killing him. The Captain is forced to convene an immediate court-martial, and the officers find Billy guilty and sentence him to hang. Billy begs Vere to save him, and the officers appeal to him for guidance, but Vere remains silent and accepts their verdict. He goes into the cabin where Billy is being held, and the orchestra suggests a tender offstage meeting as the captain informs Billy of the death sentence.

Billy prepares for his execution in his cell. Dansker brings him a drink and reveals that the crew is willing to mutiny for his sake, but Billy is resigned to his fate. Four o’clock that morning, the crew assembles on deck, and Billy is brought out. The Articles of War are read, and show that Billy must be hanged. Just before his execution, he praises Vere with his final words, singing “Starry Vere, God Bless you!” echoed by the rest of the crew.

Vere, as an old man, remembers Billy’s burial at sea, reflecting that the man he failed to save has instead blessed and saved him. As he recalls Billy’s blessing, he realises he has discovered genuine goodness and can be at peace with himself.

The one difficulty I had with the plot is that Captain Vere never had an opportunity to ‘save’ Billy. Therefor, Vere’s musing on his failure to save the paragon of goodness is misplaced. In the Royal Navy in the late 18th century, killing a superior demanded death; there was no alternative.  The Royal Navy had no prison sentences, except for brief imprisonment on board ship on bread and water for minor offenses.  Severe flogging was the only real alternative, and as far as I know ‘flogging ’round the fleet’ was only used for mutineers, who died in the process.

I wondered whether the plot could have been altered to give Vere a real opportunity to save Billy.  But I couldn’t think of a variation that would be both credible and simple.  (Operas tend to have relatively simple plots.)  Still, the tension between good and evil, and the effects of that tension on honest people makes a very good theme.

The opera is largely faithful to the novella, Billy Budd, written by Herman Melville and published after his death on 1924.  The exception being the last three chapters of the novella, which are omitted from the opera  and may have represented Melville’s afterthoughts; they introduce ambiguity into the character of Billy.  E M Forster co-wrote the libretto for the British composer, Benjamin Britten.  The opera premiered at the Royal Opera House in 1951.

I would have been inclined to give the performance four stars rather than five.  The singing (all male voices was superb).  The cast and their acting was excellent.  The set was clever and evocative: the interior of a wooden man of war.  Interestingly, the set seemed to have depth, but the characters at the back of the stage seemed surprisingly close.  The music was good, but I have to admit that I like Verdi’s music better.  The first act was interesting; the second act was riveting.

Glyndebourne is a fascinating British institution.  It was started in 1934 by John Christie and his wife Audrey Mildmay in their property with a 300 seat auditorium with the ambition to provide live opera: “Not just the best we can do but the best that can be done anywhere”  Now the auditorium seats 1200, and including touring performances, Glyndeborne stages 150 operatic productions per year.  Located in the rolling countryside of East Sussex, the estate has beautiful lawns and gardens.  About half the attendees opt to have a picnic on the grounds. (Quite elaborate in some cases, with tables, chairs, linen cutlery, glass wear and four-course menus with champagne and two wines.)  The other half of the attendees eat in one of the three restaurants.  (We were among them and the food was excellent.)  The men (except this writer) wear black tie.  Ladies wear evening dresses – very formal to informal.