Cover of The Book of Night Women

Lilith, the main character in the book, takes us through a haunting, soul breaking journey of her life on a Jamaican sugar plantation during the 18Th century. Marlon James the author has written the book in the narrative form of a rhythmic Jamaican patois a stilted language of the slaves. The way the author has used this, adds to the interest of the book. The reader hears the voice of Lilith, the main character of the story, an understanding of her dialect captures the imagination.

As the storyline unfolds, so does the pain and the fear of the slaves. The power of the masters, their cruelty and weakness of character are portrayed throughout page after page. Oppression of the cruelest kind is there for the reader to witness, James writes with no apologies. Rape, love and punishment are described with feeling, the reader is taken on a roller coaster ride of life on the Montpelier estate.

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Negro women, use their bodies and have their bodies abused. They are tortured but remain strong, the bitterness grows within them and adds to their strength and cunning minds. Their African past is kept alive and houses so much hatred it spreads from plantation to plantation, slave to slave. No white master is truly safe as this powerhouse of destruction builds into an organised revolution.

Tragedy, joy and fear is rolled into the blood and destruction that follows Lilith and friends. Friends who are not loyal, those who have ulterior motives and those who find they cannot support her forever. A woman alone, yet surrounded by many. She holds the secrets of many; she is the secret of a few. The subservient women start an uprising with amazing and tragic consequence.

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There are graphic moments and words in the book, however, if they were taken away, along with the sing-song language, the book would lose its personality. It is unique, powerful, a reminder of what slaves went through and will stay with you for a long time.

Perhaps best known from a mildly accurate movie with William Holden, “The Devil’s Brigade”, the group’s members derived their nickname from the Germans defending their lines in Italy against the Allied onslaught.  The movie makes them look like the friends of the Dirty Dozen. However, although numerous Army post commanders did use the opportunity to clean out their stockades, most of the people who made up the FSSF were tough guys, which the organizers were after. Lumberjacks, trappers, wilderness guides, very tough, very macho.

It is an axiom that the conventional army has always had trouble using unconventional units properly. That’s gotten some people killed through improper use.

Like most special forces units, the FSSF was misused after drawing attention for its one major accomplishment that utilized its special talents to the utmost. With their esprit, they tackled each tough mission as if it was something designed for their particular skills.

The big event was capturing a mountaintop defense position that was chewing up Allied soldiers working their way up the Italian boot. As depicted in the movie, the Black Devils climbed an unclimable cliff, went over the top and took the higher of the ridge-linked twin peaks, then moved on to take the second peak. It was a masterful accomplishment.

After that, they were plugged in at Anzio like regular troops to defend a line that a division would normally handle. There they earned the German nickname, Black Devils, by making up for their low numbers by nighttime raids to destroy enemy positions and creating a larger and larger buffer line.

The FSSF also spearheaded the advance into Rome, General Mark Clark (obviously not one of the author’s favorite people) anxious to grab headlines for conquering an Axis capital before the D-Day landings in Normandy took all the attention.

The FSSF was disbanded late in the war once the combat approach of mass armies with close air support made their specific type of contribution obsolete, in the eyes of the military planners.

The final chapter follows the Black Devils after the war, up to a poignant moment when an elderly Force veteran gets an unexpected call from another who is quietly dying in a nursing home. “We really took that mountain, didn’t we?” his friend asks.

A worthy account of the Black Devils. With a photo insert

Now, lets fast forward to the year 1991 in Cambridge Massachusetts.  I know, these two time periods are centuries apart, but Katherine Howe magically puts them together.  So, let’s meet Harvard Graduate student, Connie Goodwin, her specialty is in colonial history.  She has been advanced to candicy and is writing her doctoral dissertation.

Except, her mother, Grace, wants her to clean up her grandmother’s house in Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Just so you know, this house is a complete disaster.  It doesn’t even have electricity, and it hasn’t been lived in for twenty years.  Different, right?  While Connie is cleaning the house she finds a name in a Bible.  The name is Deliverance Dane.  Connie, being the Harvard Grad student of colonial history, researches the name.  Deliverance was excommunicated from the church in 1692, meaning she was a witch.  This is very interesting, she’s living in a house where a ‘convicted witch’ had once lived.  Learning this, Connie researches Deliverance even more, and finds her infamous Physick book.  Only to find a history closely linked with her own.

This book is spellbinding!  I couldn’t put the book down.  Katherine Howe takes the past a present to make one story that is incredible.  This story goes through little snippets of people’s lives in the 1690s to about 1750s and applies it to Connie’s own story.  Katherine Howe gives a new look at the Salem Witch trials!

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Other male family members, bar an eccentric son, read the book and begged for more.  So I trawled the charity shops and found ‘Angels and Demons’ for a pittance.  Avidly they read, enthusiastically they praised, while I got stuck into re-reading the plays of Tennessee Williams.

Then, my darling Tom Hanks, a truly gifted actor whom I admire, took up that boring Langdon man’s role and lo – ‘Angels and Demons’ hit the cinema screen.  Oh, how it is making money, lots of money.  It was written before that Code book, and because of the hype and my love of Tom, I decided to try to read this book.  By the time I reached the bit about antimatter sitting on columns in bean cans, or some-such, I was fit to be tied.  So I slung it on the floor in a tantrum of literary despair and got out my copy of ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran, to calm my soul.

A male birthday was looming and off I went, against my better judgement, to purchase the NEW Dan Brown.  Which is when I discovered the clever marketing that smells of greedy, cynical exploitation.  Nice money if you can get it.  The city bookshops are selling ‘Angels and Demons,’ it has gone to the top of the UK best seller list.  It has been titivated up, and now sports a posh new dark and mysterious-looking cover.  It is selling like hot cakes on the back of the movie.  The exploitative element lies in this: you can order a copy of the NEW Dan Brown for half price if you buy ‘Angels and Demons.’  Cynical or am I too innocent of the ploys of clever marketing?

The answer has got to be “Yes, I am!”  I am also a softie concerning the needs of the loved ones who actually enjoy reading tedious, boring, mind-numbing, non-eventful sludge that is a Dan Brown novel.  Yet even I did not succumb to this deliberate, cynical attempt to part me from my hard-earned cash.  I perused the shelves of those book stores and found an excellent volume of quotations from the great Winston Churchill and a book about bird watching by Rory McGrath.  Both these books have much more intellectual stimulation and entertainment value than any Dan Brown erroneously-described “page turner.”

I just know the NEW book will soon find itself a best seller, but equally quickly, will be found languishing among the bodice-rippers in many local charity shops, within weeks of publication, I expect.    At that point, I may buy it, not to line the pockets of the author, but to help the charity.  That way, the loved ones will get to “enjoy” what they like, I will have saved money, the charity will have benefited and MOST important, I have not paid full price for rubbish.  Am I alone with my criticisms and perspective?  Will there be demons coming for me? 

Crew challenges the ideology of the sanitized White patriarchal society through the ambiguous figure of the Father. The Father represses the truth through creating and changing history, recording names in a ‘great book’ and regulating life and death in New Canaan.

There were also those who believed that the Father kept a book, the great book, and in its pages he recorded the passing of their days. And not recorded only, some said, but created as he recorded, bringing their lives to be. (Prologue)

Although seemingly presented as a ‘God-like’ figure due to his white robes, this view could also have established due to the Father’s control over different aspects of life and parts of society by playing different roles.

Truly, this white Father was a being of many parts: king and priest, friend and confessor [though some said monster and liar, but not often or out loud]. A creature of uncertain origins, uncertain intentions and designs. (Prologue)

In the Father’s church, the central icon is a brass anchor with a grey eye at the centre with ‘vicious barbs’ (p.110) at the intersection of the cross, representing oppression. Crew additionally uses this icon as a contradiction to the biblical crucifix, representing salvation. ‘Thus the Biblical allusion is reversed in the antipodean setting’ (McKenna & Pearce, 2000, p.9) and he is to some extent an ‘anti-Christ.’ The icon portrays an authoritarian patriarchy through the anchor symbolizing the anglers and the grey eye as the omnipresent Father whom manipulates the community by retaining knowledge of the past. (p.110) During a discussion with Sam, Sarah refers to the Father as ‘Grey-eye’ and explains the nickname comes from a children’s rhyme:

Black-eyed beauty

Do your father’s duty,

Grey-eye greedy gut

Eat all the…world up. (46-47)

This clearly shows his form of patriarchic power over the town as selfish, destructive and greedy, representing the males as essentially immoral, bad characters. This is evident as the Father controls what the people knows as true, and therefore has kept the younger generation in ignorance about the truth of the history of New Canaan. Through the ignorance of the youth, the Father is represented negatively, challenging the patriarchal ideology.

Crew furthermore challenges the dominant view of Australia’s history by foregrounding the commonly silenced Aboriginal voice through the means of Sam Shadows.  Raised in an orphanage as a ‘white’ by the request of his deceased mother, he grew to be an intelligent, friendly and respectful wise young man.

Sam Shadows provides a prototype of the new progressive black who is profoundly aware of his black heritage and the white massacre, but who uses those features of white society (science and technology) to help him get on with his own life independently. (McKenna & Pearce, 2000, p.100)

The ‘Black Armband’ view is blatant through Sam perceived as a victim of the black massacre and racist government policy. His surname, ‘Shadows’ meaning ‘feeling incomplete,’ is a representation of the current generation of Aborigines who are seeking for answers from their past. In order to survive an old woman by the name of ‘Hibbert’ assists Sam financially and encourages him to remain positive and goal orientated; ‘Don’t look back. Always look ahead.’ (p.74)  Sam carries out Hibbert’s wise words through the study of archaeology and seismology in New Canaan, seeking for knowledge and answers to recover important Aboriginal history. Crew states, ‘He doesn’t choose some sentimental born black again spirituality. He chooses white science as his saviour.’ (McKenna & Nielsen, 1994: p.15) When unearthing bodies at the core, Sam demonstrates the ongoing link he has with his murdered ancestors through having a vision informing him of the truth of history.

From the darkness came the sound of many voices, shrieking and crying and moaning and there were limbs without bodies, crawling one on the other, rubbing one against the other, and hands, without limbs, reaching and grasping and clawing, and one rose up and opened before his face, its fingers flames, and in its palm was a single eye, and the eye was sightless, and cold as a dead moon…(VIII: p.179)

Crew uses  Sam’s coming to New Canaan as a way to foreground  the silenced Aboriginal perspective,  personifying him as the ‘black Christ,’ a Jesus figure who has the right to judge, forgive and prosecute; the process before reconciliation can truly take place.

Dominant ideologies of Australia’s past are challenged by the usually suppressed female voice, in this case represented by those of Rachel Burgess and Sarah Goodwin; both independent women who are well aware of the male patriarchal society yet chooses to be resistant towards it. Rachel, who is intelligent, hard-working, active and often described to be ‘almost the equal of a son,’ (p.14) is an evident threat to the Father and ‘his’ patriarchal order, therefore considered as dangerous and ‘in need of management’ by the Father. Sarah ‘does not allow the patriarchally determined notions of feminine petiteness to affect her self-confidence’ (McKenna & Pearce, 2000, p.103-104) but rather spends her time gaining knowledge through reading.  Her room consisting of books as well as poetry ‘suggests that through knowledge and art we can achieve freedom.’ (McKenna & Pearce, 2000, p. 104)The girls use this confidence and knowledge to confront the Father regarding the truth about the past, determination and curiousity to seek out the answers for themselves and wisdom to accept this tragedy with the intention of reconciliation. Their independence is a statement to the male patriarchal society as it proves that women are not just ‘wives, mothers and unpaid workers, as well as objects of sexual desire’ (McKenna & Pearce, 2000, p.120) but rather intellectual beings who will fight for freedom. Crew uses the voice of these women to represent the innocent generation of Australians who are discovering the truth of history, seeing the mistakes made and seeking for reconciliation with the Aborigines.

Through an antipodean setting, No Such Country is a clear paradigm of how the minority voices of Aborigines and women challenges a white patriarchal society. It demonstrates that this universal ideology of male dominance is not predominantly the wisest choice, as it does not feature the opinions of every individual, which may lead to future problems regarding truth and freedom. Lastly Crew demonstrates that understanding both the ‘Black Armband’ view as well as the ‘Three Cheers’ view is essential as that leads to reconciliation which is an important step in the hope to mend the wounds of Australia’s past.

The horrible conditions the soldiers must endure are an atrocity of World War I. Paul describes the conditions in his mind, “The front is a cage in which we must await fearfully whatever may happen” (Remarque 101). Paul expresses his distaste for the conditions that his company must endure in the trenches. This is an atrocity of war because the German government does not supply adequate conditions for the soldiers to live and fight in. Paul describes his comrade’s death, “He lived for half an hour, quite conscious, and in terrible pain” (Remarque 279). This description shows that even death cannot be peaceful during war. Clearly, war is quite atrocious.

The war hospitals that the soldiers must go to do not provide the good care that is expected of hospitals, which is very atrocious. Paul describes the surgeons’ procedures as he arrives at the hospital, “…for everyone knows that the surgeons in the dressing stations amputate on the slightest provocation. Under the great business that is much simpler than complicated patching” (Remarque 242). This observation shows that the surgeons do not have enough time or resources to be fixing every injury, so instead they just amputate anything if it would be too much trouble to fix it. This is an atrocity because the soldiers fighting for their country should be getting the best healthcare money can buy, but are actually getting the worst care. Paul then describes the working conditions the sisters must endure, “They [the sisters] certainly have a great deal to do and are all overworked day after day” (Remarque 255). After this observation, one can infer that the care in the hospital is so dreadful because they do not have enough people staffed and the staff they do have are all overworked. The hospital care is an atrocity of war because of the lack of care and experiments.

The Russian POWs are treated very poorly, which can be seen as an atrocity of war. Paul describes what he sees the Russians have to do for food, “[The Russians] slink about our camp and pick over the garbage tins” (Remarque 189). The Russian POWs are reduced to having to dig through the German’s leftover garbage for food. This is an atrocity because even though they are prisoners, the Russians are still people and should be fed at the very least. Paul goes on to describe the POWS clothing, “Now [the Russians] wear only the most pitiful clothing, and try to exchange little carving and objects that they have made” (Remarque 191). This description shows how the POWs do not have anything and Paul pities them. This is an atrocity of war because the Russian POWs cannot even keep their clothes, let alone their dignity. The treatment of the Russian POWs is clearly an atrocity of war.

The atrocities of war are clearly portrayed by Remarque throughout this novel using imagery. This is shown through the horrid trench conditions, the bad care at the war hospitals, and the poor treatment of the Russian POWs. War can produce many atrocities if not planned for very carefully.