Review

The Death of the Fronsac

by Neal Ascherson Apollo Neal Ascherson is a distinguished academic and journalist and now well into his 80s but this is his first novel. It features the Greenock area of Scotland which he knew well as a child at the time of the story. The novel centres around an actual event, the explosion on a French ship, ‘Maille Brese’ (The Fronsac of the title) which suffered an explosion in July 1940 in the dockyard killing a number of French seamen. The ship itself was left lying in the area with the bodies still on board for many years, only eventually being broken up in 1956. Astonishingly it is still visible. De Gaulle visited the site to lay a wreath many years after the war.

This is, however, very much a novel and tells the story of the influence the event had on the lives of many of the local people and the many exiled Poles who were living and working in the area and who were very sympathetic towards the French whose country had just been occupied.

It centres on ‘Mike’ a Polish officer and the local family he is billeted with. Others in focus are: the young daughter, Jackie, who is shocked at the explosion and thinks that she must have caused it by playing truant from school; her father who disappears and who is believed to have been on the ship at the time of the explosion; and her spirited mother, Jackie and mother-in-law, initially resentful of the arrival of Mike into the midst of the family.

The novel spans many years and follows the story of Mike and the family and the influence on their lives and others of the events over the next half century. There are conflicts of loyalty, unsolved mysteries but above all a beautifully written novel and a great read. The characters and setting are excellent.

This is obviously a very personal tale as it captures the period and the feelings of displacement of the many Poles for whom Ascherson clearly has a great affinity since many of his academic books are centred on Poland, Lech Walesa and the Nazi legacy. However, I hope he is going to write more novels! Moira Gamon

Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

by Jan Morris Faber and Faber

Recently, visiting family and friends in Dublin, I mentioned that I had booked a short trip to Italy and specifically the port city of Trieste. James Joyce had lived in Trieste during 1905–1915 while writing and publishing entire sections of his famous novel ‘Ulysses’. There is even a life-size statue in the city centre erected as a memorial by the city elders. Anyway, our host said: “I can lend you ‘Trieste’ by Jan Morris. Read and enjoy before your trip.” So, I did.

Although not a fan of travel-writing as a genre, Jan Morris was known to me. This is a fabulous book, a blend of the travel-writing and personal memoir category, published in 2001. It was at that time the latest of more than forty published books by a wonderful writer who has lived an extraordinary life. James Morris was born in Wales of AngloWelsh parentage and held fast to the traditional values of his homeland. They were revealed in a massive three volume work about the British Empire - it’s creation, it’s rule and consequences across the globe, and finally it’s loss and decline. That contribution was both magisterial and accessible to any ordinary interested reader, including this one. In 1972, in the midst of that major project, James Morris completed a change of sexual role and lived and wrote as Jan Morris.

This book ‘Trieste’ is imbued with the acutely individual and personal. Jan Morris presents atmosphere, remembrance and feelings drawn from her extensive travel experience and a rich interior life. All of this she delivers with great ease and elegance and, of course, great eloquence. She does this with an insightful appreciation based firmly on her research knowledge of Trieste’s place in historical events and impulses. She considers the impact of these forces at a societal level, as well as their out workings in the lives of a multitude of significant local historical figures and their complex integrated local collective identities and, most importantly, on herself as a writer. Bobbing along in that great sweep of history washing across Trieste, which she describes and analyses, were the promoters and benefactors of European and world art forms and those endeavouring to create such works, including, of course, in its later stages, the young Irish immigrant and struggling writer James Joyce.

She reveals to us how Trieste, with its coastal location, was physically fought over by competing interests and repeatedly changed hands with huge consequences for city, environs and inhabitants. What we see also is the work of a writer of great strength and ability describing the ebb and flow of history, and of life itself, ending inevitably in decline and a new cycle of change. This is a delicious feast to consume while seated in the comfort of one’s own home. When one is then fortunate enough to visit that place, walk around the same narrow, very steep, back-streets and alleys, the same commercial and residential streets and majestic squares, along that coastline with its views and vistas, the only possible response is that it is, indeed, great to be alive! Read this book and enjoy a feast. Then, if you are able, interested and have opportunity, visit Trieste – and find yourself alive! Hugh Pollock