The North London Review of Books

The North London Review of Books

Spring 2019 Edition 1

Editorial: It is a great pleasure to launch this, the first edition of the North London Review of Books. The founders intend that it will provide an encouragement to everyone at NLCS to read and read critically. They hope in particular that sixth-formers will find the review useful for finding out about recent publications and broadening their intellectual horizons as they begin to think about the world beyond NLCS. Although the focus of the review will be on books, it will also encompass the visual arts, film, theatre, lectures, and other events. The founders intend that the review will be published termly and will keep up to speed with recent publications.

A review like this may be particularly valuable now. At a time when there are many competing demands on the attention of young people, and when much human communication is abbreviated or fast-paced, there is all the more reason to engage in the pleasure of sustained, immersive reading. The present time is also characterised by stark disagreement in politics and other areas. The founders hope, therefore, that this review will offer something more appealing: reasonable discussion; praise for what is good; and polite criticism of what is in need of further thought.

Dr Roberts

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Contents: Rachel Gardner, Romeo and Juliet

p. 4

Anusha Maciel, Left Bank

p. 5

Jessica Pretorius, Flush

p. 6

Anisha Vasireddy, The Trial of Kaiser

p. 7

Lily Weston, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Ananya Basu, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment Rachel Gardner, Milkman

p. 8-9 p. 9-10

p. 11

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Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican, 16th Nov 2018, Directed by the RSC’s Erica Whyman Never before has our modern era of knife crime, gang violence and suicide seemed so reflected in the 16th-century play Romeo and Juliet. This RSC performance, set in the grungy, brutalist Barbican, shone with a hungry energy. Smacking of the Bas Luhrmann 1996 film version, it was restless and sharp, seeming to hold a mirror up to the dark heart of young London. The youth of the play were what really gave it its edge; the cast was young and fresh, and Shakespeare’s thirteen-year-old Juliet suddenly seemed painfully believable.

Though at times amateur and laughable, the slice of cold reality and current relevance found in this production made it one to watch.

Admittedly, this production wasn’t perfect. The age of the cast often made it seem underdeveloped, reminding the audience of a high-end amateur production. It opened on what could only be described as a concerning start: in the opening act, a collection of young RSC members, formed into a Greek-style chorus, were placed on stage and allowed to unleash as much damage as they could to the audience’s expectations of the play. They took the role of the prologue, delivering a summary complete with plentiful voice breaks, speeches in unison that were never quite in sync, and stiff, frantic place changes. Not much better was Capulet’s feast, where Romeo and Juliet struggled to meet in the midst of a sea of self-conscious slow-motion dancing. It didn’t seem to be to the tastes of either the actors or the audience, and there was a sense of relief throughout the theatre when it was completed.

However, the youth of the cast was breath-taking, with Bally Gill (Romeo) and Karen Fishwick (Juliet) easily passing as an 18 and a 13-year-old respectively. Gill took a while to warm up, but, despite being a little bombastic or foppish at times, he was more than adequate as the lovesick teen. His emphasis of the inevitable humour found in teenage romance was well fitting.

However, the real gem of the play was Fishwick: though twenty years old, she was bold, petulant and energised, each scene acted with precision and emotion. She drew the audience in, presenting every line in a new light, spontaneous and full of the colour of doomed youth. Far from elegant and charming, she looked and acted almost flawlessly as the young teen Juliet, both childish and sharply articulate.

Charlotte Josephine was equally powerful: as Mercutio, she played the role of the battle-hungry bruiser perfectly. Her cocky, confident swagger filled up the stage: She looked at all times as if she had stepped out of an East London boxing club, restless and crackling with energy. What was most notable was the strong sense of inevitability that accompanied her presence – her angry physicality seemed itching to be quieted with her death at the hands of Tybalt. She was supported by Ishia Bennison, a surprisingly magnetic nurse to Juliet, and Andrew French, the charismatic Friar Lawrence.

Overall, it was a vibrant and engaging production, its youth highlighting the relevance and vivacity of the play in a modern context. Though often a little self-indulgent and foolish, there was a real energy throughout. For all its faults, it was a production that certainly captured the brash adolescence of the play, making it a must-see.

Rachel Gardner

4

Left Bank by Agnes Poirier Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2018, RRP £25 When Europe was torn by fascism, the art and literature of Left Bank Paris was flourishing. Politics and philosophy battled in the public consciousness, the leaders of Vichy France at loggerheads with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The figureheads of France’s Existentialist movement including de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Sartre worked and played alongside artistic and cultural icons, such as Juliette Gréco, Pablo Picasso and Albert Giacometti. It is this interweaving of lives to the backdrop of a politically charged Europe that makes Poirier’s novel so compelling.

Spanning the outbreak of war and occupied France, right up to the anniversary of the Marshal Plan, Left Bank explores how the intellectuals that shaped the artistic and literary scene of the 40s and 50s lived and worked, and how the philosophies of the time were products of their political involvement (or lack thereof). Poirier ties together her myriad of characters through the relationship between Sartre and de Beauvoir. Their rejection of bourgeois institutions such as marriage, monogamy and heterosexuality are detailed alongside their political activism, and Poirier’s intermingling of the two paints a vivid and three-dimensional portrait of the intellectuals who “fascinated young people like Hollywood stars”.

Poirier’s descriptions of the battles at the very heart of the Gallimard publishing house in occupied Paris between “house-fascist Drieu La Rochelle” and “in-house résistant Jean Paulhan” shed light on the darker effects of Fascism on intellectualism . In fact, she often foregrounds the integral role political ideology played in the creative products of the time. The Fascist Vichy regime inspired Sartre’s satirical Les Mouches, whilst the popular pamphlet Les Temps Modernes received backlash from both sides of the political spectrum. However, despite such dark scenes, the novel is not short on more amusing anecdotes. When Gallimard published Sartre’s essay ‘L’Être et le néant’ in 1943, they were surprised by its popularity with women.

However, since there was a shortage of copper weights and the work weighed exactly one kilogram, many were simply buying the essay as a replacement and regrettably not for its thoughts on freedom and being.

Despite the historical and factual nature of the novel, Poirier’s clear affection for Paris keeps the story romantic and uplifting; even Saul Bellow who “was intent on not falling into the trap of Paris romanticism” is wooed by the city as Poirier attributes to its “street cleaning system the breakthrough that would lead him directly to the Nobel Prize in Literature”. However, these nostalgias sometimes come at the cost of overstating the city’s influence on global affairs. Whilst the central role Paris played in the artistic and philosophical culture of the 40s and 50s is undeniable, Poirier’s insistence that those across the political spectrum were all working towards ‘The Third Way’ between Communism and Fascism is perhaps a generalisation, as is her attribution of much of the inception of the European Union to “the [French] senior civil servant Jean Monnet”.

Ultimately, however, Poirier’s blend of both a factual and lyrical style makes the novel an enjoyable read, whilst its description of the effects of a politically polarised world on art, literature and philosophy could not be more timely. The novel delivers both an insight into the highs and lows that shaped the famous works of the Left Bank set, from de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex to Camus’ The Outsider, and an introduction to those interested in the vivid lives of these authors and their works.

Anusha Maciel

5

Flush - A Biography by Virginia Woolf with illustrations from Katyuli Lloyd Prosymne Press, London, 2018, RRP £14.99 Virginia Woolf: the author who brought us classics such as Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando and To the Lighthouse; who pioneered with her feminist works, such as A Room of One’s Own, and is widely considered to be one of the most important writers of the 20st century. Her works are, to say the least, original and complicated, dealing with challenging themes, which is precisely why she is still studied in many university courses and countless essays and books have been devoted to her work and life.

This is also, perhaps, why Flush seems to sit in the corner.

With a much lighter tone, this novel seems on the surface less complex than Woolf’s other works and, for the most part, it has been ignored by scholars studying Woolf. Woolf was, in fact, embarrassed by the success of Flush at the time and thought that the novel would be considered ‘ladylike prattler’.

The biography follows the life of a cocker spaniel, Flush, the dog of the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Woolf was inspired to write this novel while reading the love letters of Elisabeth Barratt and Robert Browning, during which Woolf found that 'the figure of their dog made me laugh so I couldn't resist making him a Life.' Despite Flush being fairly forgotten nowadays, it is actually one of Virginia Woolf’s most popular books and sold roughly 19,000 copies within the first 6 months of publishing.

And for good reason. It has all the charms of Woolf’s magnificent writing, combined with a lighter, less challenging story. It would bide well as an introductory novel to Virginia Woolf, presenting many of the central themes that are evident in Woolf’s other novels.

The most recent publication, by Prosymme Press is unique in that it is illustrated by Katyuli Lloyd. As expressive and beautiful as these Matisse-esque drawings are, hopefully this version will not change the perception of Flush to its opposite; a children’s book.

Far from it. Flush is understandably a break from the more heavy-going works of Woolf, standing in stark contrast to The Waves, written just two years beforehand; however, there is actually much more to Flush than might be accounted for.

Flush himself is a remarkably attentive dog who can present Victorian life from a unique standpoint. The novel is separated into 6 chapters, each following a stage of Flush’s life, and through this, Woolf is able to explore many tensions of society at the time. The constraints of city life versus the freedom in the countryside are felt by Flush simultaneous with the constraints of Miss Barret while living in a house with her tyrannical father, and the freedom from English social limitations in Italy is apparent even through a dog’s eyes: ‘here in Pisa, though dogs abounded, there were no ranks; all -could it be possible? – were mongrels’.

Truly, Flush is a novel to be enjoyed by all; as a canine commentary on Victorian society, a gentle introduction to Virginia Woolf’s work, or even just a humble biography about a lovely dog.

Jessica Pretorius

6

The Trial of the Kaiser by William A. Schabas Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018, RRP £24.99 (Hardback) The Trial of the Kaiser recounts the international efforts to bring Kaiser Wilhelm II of Hohenzollern to trial after the fallout of the First World War, in order to hold him accountable for the actions of Germany and its soldiers in the war. Schabas describes the escalating failure of the great powers to bring in the Kaiser, who hid out in Holland - a neutral country that grew increasingly averse to extraditing him as pressure from the British and French grew. The title is intentionally misleading because the trial never actually took place, as Schabas mentions in the very first chapter.

However, the book attempts to consider the questions that would have been discussed if the trial had ever taken place.

The book begins by explaining the motivation of the great powers to put the Kaiser on trial for his ‘supreme crime against international morality and the sanctity of treaties’ and shows the gradual disintegration of the nations’ attempt to carry this trial out. Schabas quotes often from Article 227 of The Treaty of Versailles, which outlines the desire of the signatories to bring the former emperor to trial before a tribunal of judges from the Allied powers. He highlights the uncertainty of this and of the vaguely defined charges “of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression”. These were ambiguous, it turns out, because the Allied powers were attempting to hold the Kaiser responsible for the actions of Germany as a whole during the war. Schabas explains the difficulty this caused in attributing the crimes to Wilhelm, who couldn’t be proved to be a direct perpetrator.

However, Schabas does maintain that the Kaiser was not just an innocent scapegoat and sympathetically explains the reasons why France and Britain wanted the trial: his influence over the military actions of France and the fact that he had done nothing to discourage the oftencruel behaviour of German soldiers. Although the book stresses the failure of the European nations to hold him accountable for any of this, it ends with an idea that seemed to be a common theme throughout the text – that their collective desire for justice was significant in leading to the future emergence of bodies such as the International Criminal Court. Schabas even suggests that such a system would’ve been created then if their attempts had been successful and presents this as one of the key occurrences in the development of international justice. However, the recurring emphasis on the failure of the trial of the Kaiser creates the impression that this is an overstatement.

Overall, The Trial of the Kaiser is a clear, well-written explanation of the events in the international failure to bring Kaiser Wilhelm to trial. Although the extent of the factual details can be overwhelming for the ordinary reader and may cause the book to read like a textbook, the highly informative content is well suited for the scholar, or for those with interests in the fallout of the Second World War. It explores various angles in the sequence of events; from the position of the monarchy in Germany, to the traditions of Holland, to the behaviour of Britain and France. Schabas even devotes the final chapter to the question ‘Was He Guilty?’ and considers whether or not the Kaiser should have been brought to trial at all, regardless of whether it was possible. The interspersion of unusual facts and detail among a clear, balanced presentation of events, sets the book apart from typical historical works and makes it a distinctive and interesting read.

Anisha Vasireddy

7

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari Johnathon Cape, London, 2018, RRP £16.69 When reading 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I felt engaged into an ‘open discussion about the future of humanity’, in which I was moved through daunting topics with an ease that is hard to find when talking about such pressing matters. Yuval Noah Harari tackles grand, frightening questions and topics with an accessibility that many other philosophers, historians and sociologists often fall short of. Harari takes a glimpse into human life in a few decades in the future as well as in the present day and the challenges we may face. From the potential ‘irrelevancy’ of the human race due to our own technological creations to trying to ‘level the global playing field’, Harari covers a spectrum of modern day issues without falling into the traps of patronising, horrifying or threatening the reader.

I was particularly fascinated by ‘Part 1: The Technological Challenge’, as Harari explored many potential outcomes of our growing use and dependency on technology. He puts forward ideas on how in this century technology will mould what it means to be a human, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology and ‘big data’. He questions whether people will continuously need to reinvent themselves to keep up to date with the ever-changing and technologically advancing world. For example, biotechnology may literally shape people in the sense that those who can afford it, will be able to ‘upgrade’ themselves, leaving others behind and therefore widening the gap between rich and poor. This is a fascinating topic as Harari integrates scientific and social factors, which provides a wellrounded viewpoint and overall lesson. The next key topic Harari explores is ‘big data’, which is the newfound accessibility of mass information. Harari very interestingly explains how in this age of the Internet and of information being one click away, what is not important is learning heaps of facts (as traditionally was done in education), but learning how to make sense of it all. Harari explains that we are bombarded daily with news stories, fake and real, about pressing topics in politics and science and about more frivolous things like celebrity drama. The real skills of the future will be learning how to detangle this web of information and find the truths.

I struggled most with his lessons on religion and God. He writes copiously on how secularism cherishes ‘truth’, ‘compassion’ and ‘responsibility’, with evidence that could support conclusions about people of all faiths and none. Harari states that secular people choose not to kill because murder ‘inflicts immense suffering on sentient beings’ and not because a religious doctrine has forbidden it. However, I doubt that all religious people only abstain from murder because they have been told to and I think that most human beings understand moral wrongs without needing to be commanded. But despite differing religious standpoints and minor disagreements, Harari still held my interest as he has a way of driving the reader forward, and forcing them to think in ways you may never have before about topics you wouldn't have considered.

Another minor shortcoming was the structure. The book is divided into 21 lessons, each placed under one of five headings and broken up into numerous sub-headings. Despite this structure allowing Harari to guide the reader through his themes easily, it creates difficult crossovers between themes. Harrari finds questions such as ‘how will big data affect general education?’ or ‘how does fake news affect nationalism?, for example, challenging to answer or explore in great depth as they cross between different themes and lessons. However, this categorisation does make the book much more accessible and (although slightly fragmented) allows him to speak of sometimes heavy and difficult matters without boring or weighing down the reader.

Through this structure, and his style of writing, it felt as though Harari was building towards something, a great truth or answer, and that his 21 lessons (fascinating and astute as they were individually) would merge together to form one grand meaning. However, I was underwhelmed

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by the anti-climactic ending as Harari seemed to quickly conclude with meditation as his final lesson. I recognise that meditation is definitely a beneficial practice for many people; however, it seemed almost insignificant against the previous chapters on such pressing matters and was not the grand conclusion I expected. This left me feeling slightly unconvinced that there were any solutions for the some of the issues of the 21st century because I do not believe that meditating for an hour a day will solve the irrelevancy of the human race, poverty or global warming. However, this book is ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’ and not ‘21 Answers for the 21st Century’, and should not be treated as such.

Despite its minor shortcomings, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is definitely still worth the read.

Harari predicts that our world will change more in the next few decades than in the past few centuries and leads the reader into this uncertain future. I left this book with a strong sense of clarity, which can be difficult to find nowadays, as we are surrounded by billions of different stories of the present and future.

Lily Weston

Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama Profile Books, London, 2018, RRP £16.99 If you were to ask any half-decent political scientist to encapsulate the liberal mood following the collapse of the Soviet Union, you would no doubt be handed a copy of Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992). An international triumph, Fukuyama proudly claimed that a “liberal state linked to a market economy” was humanity’s final, and most perfect, form of government.

Unfortunately, this type of government – and Fukuyama’s pièce de résistance– is under threat.

Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition explores the undeniable truth that identity politics, more than economics or military concerns, define world politics today.

Fukuyama states that his book “would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been elected President”, but rather than narrow the field, Identity somehow manages to touch on a huge variety of matters: Hindu Nationalism, the rise of the far-right in Europe, Xi Jinping, Brexit #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, Syria, gay marriage, debates about privilege and appropriation and Islamism. Almost magically, Fukuyama binds all these topics together; if you want a holistic view on the politics of the last decade in 200 pages wrapped in a rather pleasing minimalist cover, Identity is a must-read.

What reason, then, does Fukuyama offer on why identity is such a hot topic? Simply put, identity politics is a threat to liberalism, because the desire for recognition cannot be satisfied by economic or bureaucratic changes. Fukuyama claims that nearly all political movements in the modern day are centred around the ideas of respect and recognition. Today, the left concentrates on “promoting the interests of a wide variety of groups perceived as being marginalized,” whereas the right “is redefining itself as patriots who seek to protect traditional national identity, an identity that is often explicitly connected to race, ethnicity or religion.”

Fukuyama calls this desire for recognition “thymos”, taken from Plato’s Republic; he illustrates an inherent contradiction in ourselves as we contain both “isothymia”, the desire to be equal to others, and “the desire for status—megalothymia”. It is the rise of “Megalothymia” – not only to

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be equal but above others - that has been the key issue in history, but according to Fukuyama, it is the attempted resolution between the two by the liberal state that is unsteady.

Identity is fantastically written. It is both intellectual and accessible to those uninitiated in political theory- a solid introductory book to read to get a clear overview on identity throughout humanity. However, there are some central flaws that cannot be ignored.

Whilst researching for Identity, Fukuyama has missed the critical keystone of identity politics – its impossibility to be captured. Whilst following his own agenda, Fukuyama has wilfully distained the fracturing of identity into individualism and has thus failed to truly understand it; he has viewed identity through the old classics of Rousseau, Hegel and Kant. Whilst boiling down Freud to a single sentence has made this a decent beginner’s philosophy lesson, this is exceptionally damaging- in an exploration of the diversity of identity, he has managed to make this a book about other people’s books rather than explore other interesting and relevant sources. There is nothing new in this book. Surely, driving down to any migrant camp, for example, would have ceded far more apt and useful information about current-day identity politics than a 15th Century philosopher. By using such outdated sources, Fukuyama misses important factors such as technology and social media in the rise of identity politics. Moreover, there is something deeply ironic about highlighting the global nature of identity politics through the medium of purely Western writers.

There is something to be said for Fukuyama’s ability to weave together this wealth of philosophical ideas. What he does, however limited, he does well, making his writing thoughtprovoking and digestible. Fukuyama must be lauded for actually attempting to provide answers for what must be done in the future, unlike many of his contemporaries. In the conclusion, Fukuyama is rather mature in realising that one cannot entirely annihilate the role of identity in politics, no matter how damaging. Instead, he suggests a policy based on what one might call a ‘progressive patriotism’: the (re)introduction of national service and the provision of meaningful paths to citizenship for immigrant populations. He praises assimilation over multiculturalism and calls for stronger control of the EU’s external borders. In this, Fukuyama truly goes back to his American neo-conservative roots.

One cannot read this book without mentioning the author’s intent. Simply put, the premise of the book is unsteady. The book cannot live up to its ridiculous intent of ‘universalising’ identity; Fukuyama wants to do what he did in The End of History, and orchestrate some grand narrative, allowing him to claim that the feelings that led to the Charlottesville massacre are the same (albeit “on a larger scale”) as the feelings of a woman who feels that her professional career has been hampered by gender discrimination. This is impossible. How can “thymos” be used to resolve people who don’t want differences to matter, such as those in the Black Lives matter movement, with those who do, such as ISIS supporters?

Fukuyama is unable to use empirical data or analysis as he has so wonderfully done in previous books, because it is not possible to chart a perfect linear trend of identity through time. Fukuyama correctly recognises the inability of traditional economic models to understand the complexities of human behaviour but does not see this in his own work.

Present trends in identity politics don’t follow a progression; they produce backlashes and shifts that are difficult to predict – unless, like Fukuyama in The End of History, you are lucky.

To conclude, Identity is well-written and clever: a good overall discussion on identity politics. It is not, however, a satisfying conclusion. This is not the fault of the book, but the intent; therefore, whilst Identity is smart and stimulating, its purpose differs from that which Fukuyama desired. Identity, in the end, appears to be suffering from an identity crisis.

Ananya Basu

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Milkman by Anna Burns Faber, London, 2018, RRP £14.99 ‘The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.’

In the powerful first line of Milkman, Anna Burns introduces the absurd, urgent and deeply provocative tone of the novel. Winner of the Man Booker Prize, this novel is one of the masterpieces of our age, combining the violence of Ireland’s troubled past with a terrifying presentation of an overbearing collective city consciousness. It seems dystopian in its bleakness and horror, and it transcends time in its haunting vagueness.

The story follows someone known only as middle sister, who lives in an unnamed city with her family. Controlled by police and miscellaneous paramilitary figures, she lives in a world in which to be noticed is to be in immediate danger. When a character known as the milkman starts appearing outside her work, house and French classes, her carefully muted, cultivated persona falls apart.

Intricately structured, Burns’ narrative takes the reader on a gripping exploration of the Irish psyche. Echoing the form of Joyce’s Ulysses, the dense prose and extended sentences give a taste of the complexity of the truth of the Troubles. Paradoxically, the long sentences and sparse dialogue evoke reality and immediacy, and contribute to the sweaty terror of the atmosphere in the city.

In this devastating image of Ireland in the 1970s, Burns presents a surreal narrative of divided communities destroying their own citizens. The town of Milkman is cast into a monstrous collective plural, and preys on those who dare to express a singular, different identity. Absurd scenes are woven seamlessly into greying, patchy descriptions of decrepit city life. Unspeakable violence rubs shoulders with visits the chip shop, the paramilitary with the collection of elderly feminists. Bushes click with cameras and cat heads roll around destroyed churches.

The feature which is most striking is the consistent lack of names; the protagonist, middle sister, is hunted down by a seemingly omniscient stalker, known only as the milkman. By wiping the plot of distinctive details, Burns presents a brutal, utilitarian society, where identity matters less than what side of the city you live. Through this, the reader is able to draw chilling connections between the novel and our own society, and is allowed a glimpse into Ireland’s past.

Milkman is lawless, brutal and breath-taking. It is a genuine masterpiece and essential reading for anyone who wants to explore Irish history, Irish literature or the world of literary form. In the words of The Irish Times, Anna Burns has singled herself out as one of Ireland’s “rising literary stars”.

Rachel Gardner

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‘No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to selfchosen ignorance.’ - Confucius

Illustration on front by Katyuli Lloyd, for Flush 12