Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter

Probably the most harrowing book I've ever read - and I've read Mao: The Untold Story by Jung Chang.

45 million now looks like the best estimate for how many people died between 1958 and 1962.  Much of Dikötter's research comes from Chinese archives never before seen by historians, so I tend to trust his judgement on that.   This makes it almost certainly the worst man made disaster in history.

It was caused by a series of stupid and evil decisions.  Mao decided in the late fifties (as part of an internal party struggle, as was so often the case) that China needed to modernise fast.  Overtake Britain in just a few years, in fact.  He did this by destroying almost half of the homes in the country, and putting everyone in communes, where everything was controlled by party cadres, and troublemakers were banned from the canteen.  He forced millions to build dams and take part in irrigation projects - generally in the wrong places, with disastrous consequences.  He also championed new, more socialist agricultural practise from Soviet idiot Trefim Lysenko, which ruined the crops.

Then he told everyone to make steel in the backyards of their communes.  Oh, and he declared war on sparrows for eating grain, and drove them to near exinction in China.  Which caused a plague of locusts.  It's still hard to tell how much of this regime was evil, how much insane and how much just stupid.

At the same time, the state took a higher and higher proportion of the grain being grown.  Part of it went to feed the cities, where there was often so much it was left to rot.  People even took part in eating contests - 2kg of rice in a single sitting was considered a good effort.  But an even larger proportion was exported - to Russia, Eastern Europe, Cuba and Africa.  Showing a successful China off to the world was much more important to Mao than the deaths of millions.

What really shook me about this famine was the cruelty, rather than the stupidity.  The communes became death camps with party officials regularly murdering people.  There are so many heartbreaking stories - from the 8 year old boy who was beaten to death for stealing a handful of rice, to the parents who were forced to bury their 12 year old child alive for a similar crime.  A mother commits suicide, so her young children are bricked up in their home to starve to death.  The violence seems to have become more and more systemic as people got more desperate, and those in charge learned exactly how much power they really had.

Other stories are now seared in my memory.  Corpses were dug up and eaten - the heart was popular because it rotted more slowly than other parts.   People eating mud from riverbanks to fill their bellies, then having to dig out each others' faeces because of the chronic constipation.  I also now know more about prolapsed uteri than most people would ever want to.

In a secret meeting in 1959 Mao told the other party leaders that it was better to let half the people die, so the other half could live.  This at a time when officially a third, but in fact a great deal more, of the grain was being sent to other countries, who didn't really want it in the first place.

Mao learnt his lesson from the Great Famine.  He was sidelined for a few years and returned with the Cultural Revolution.  It's easier to see now how he managed to instigate such hatred from the people towards party officials, and indeed anyone in power.  All that anger and frustration and hatred which should've spelled the end of Mao was instead channeled towards those party cadres who'd been carrying out his policies just a few years before.  And at the end the disgusting psychopath was more powerful than ever before.

Not the easiest of reads this, what with all the unthinkable horror and reams of statististics, but it's easier as a book on tape and I recommend it highly.  It shows us exactly what happens when society is ripped down to its most basic elements and rebuilt by thugs.

The Alteration by Kingsley Amis

More alternate history!  This one's got more Catholics and fewer testicles.

It's set in 1976 and the Pope's in pretty much complete control of the world, aside from some pesky New Englanders and Mohametans.  The Reformation never happened.  Catherine of Aragon dutifully produced a boy for Henry VIII and Martin Luther became Pope Germania I.  There's a Pax Romana across Europe and beyond: no world wars, no nazis, no communists.  And no electricity.

The technology I loved in this book, and that wasn't something I was expecting from a more literary writer like Amis.  Diesel is king.  Petrol engines never caught up, because they use sparkplugs, and electricity is considered pretty suspect by the church.  But the industrial revolution still appears to be in full steam, so to speak.   All railways lead to Rome, and there's a direct link from London, over the channel, over the top of the Alps and down through the Papal States.  And the Yanks at least have airships, so you know for sure this is early steampunk.

Another aspect of this book works wonderfully - historical figures from our world exist here, but in very different aspects.  At the start we meet two cardinals of the "Holy Office" (Inquisition) named Beria and Himler.  Edgar Allan Poe was a great New Englander general, and had one of those airships named after him.  There's a well respected French Jesuit theologian called Jean Paul Sartre.  And two church heavies loom up half way through, called Foot and Redgrave - who in another reality would be well known left wing firebrands of the day.  I'm sure there are plenty more references I've missed.

The plot's about a young boy with the voice of an angel, and of course the authorities would like that voice to remain untouched for the greater glory of God.  By taking his knackers.  The boy Hubert is well portrayed and convincing, and the story really works.  It has a clear narrative drive, we learn a lot about the world, and it explores sexuality, art, power and rebellion without anything seeming forced.  I wasn't totally sure about a twist (literally) towards the end, but it didn't harm the book for me.

It hardly paints a rosy picture of the Church, but I saw this more of a satire on human nature and totalitarianism rather than Catholicism.  Any belief or political system, when unopposed, will tend to brutality and horror.  That's why Amis shows people like Himler and Beria flourishing.  When your system is in complete control, it doesn't really matter if you're a Nazi, a Bolshevik or a Cardinal.  In the end, you're just another thug.

Wake Up and Dream by Ian R Macleod

A shabby private eye gets mixed up with femmes fatales, dodgy doctors, sinister politicians and a buried secret in 1940s Hollywood.  Except this time round the detective is called Clark Gable - a failed actor from the almost forgotten era of the talkies, before the feelies changed everything.

This is a noir in a world with one big change from ours: the invention of a device which records emotions and auras, and can play them back to an audience.  It's supposed to have been introduced just a few years after the silent era came to an end, and like the earlier revolution it left a lot of one time stars on the scrapheap.  Humphrey Bogart makes a brief appearance as a boat captain for tourists, and the actress who ushered in the new era (the Al Jolson of the feelies) is Peg Entwistle.  I thought I recognised her name - in the real world she found fame by throwing herself from the top of the Hollywoodland sign.  I really liked these little touches.

It's also really successful in conjuring up a feeling of dread.  America's on the brink of full blown facism - the jews have been run out of the movie business and Klan feelies are the new big thing.  But what's really scary is the potential of feelies.  It's not really the movies - it's the adverts beforehand which give you a nasty taste of the future in this world.  Joy, lust, pride, hatred can be pumped directly into the brain.  It's already been shipped out to the Nazis to boost their rallies.  There's a real sense that this is describing the beginning of something amazing and horrible.

The plot starts out as a very nice mixture of Chandler and Philip K. Dick, although it sort of falls apart towards the end.  The one big mistake (minor spoiler) is going down the movie monster route towards the end.  If it wanted to capitalise on that dread, it could've gone all Videodrome for instance, rather than the end of Ang Lee's Hulk.

Pretty damn good otherwise, with big ideas carried through convincingly, though I should admit I only read it because I thought it was by Ken Macleod - he of the singularities and space communists.  And yet I probably enjoyed this more.

UPDATE: the only cover art I found for this book was pretty horrible because I think it's only available as an ebook, so I've replaced it with a nice picture of Clark Gable from a happier reality.

Hitch 22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens

Not even I can live on Peter Hitchens alone (this one, or that one or his blog) so I thought it was time to give his late brother another whirl.

And in fact, there are a lot of similarities between PH and CH - both are fiercely independent and intelligent thinkers; both are equally contemptuous of received wisdom and neither are afraid to follow Keynes and change their minds when the facts change.  They both adore Orwell.  And I imagine the pair of them will infuriate many readers, although I find both to be wonderful and exhilarating writers.  Though I have to admit Christopher has the edge.

After a fairly conventional start (childhood, family, school, university) these memoirs become a lot more thematic.  The recent history of Iraq is examined in detail, as a way to explain why he opposed the first Gulf War but became a prominent cheerleader for the second.  His late discovery that he's a little bit jewish sparks an in-depth analysis on the tension between atheism and Jewishness, the history of Israel and Palestine and the horrible mistakes, injustices and hypocrisy on both sides.

Peter was a hardline Trotskyist back in the day before he become, well, what he is today.  Christopher had a similar past, but his journey has been more nuanced.  He fully accepts the seeds of Stalinism were in Leninism, but wonders what conditions allowed those seeds to grow - were there other seeds which could've taken root?  He still admires Trotsky (and Rosa Luxemburg) but admits the left has failed. 

His relationship with the USA is a useful way for him to examine this - not many socialists choose to take US citizenship, you'll notice.  He considers politicians from Kissinger to Clinton to be war criminals, but stands up for neo-con boogeyman Paul Wolfowitz.  His argument isn't that he's changed from a radical left-winger to a rabid right winger - it's the Left in general which has lost its moral compass.  His disgust is more than palpable after 911 when his former comrades can barely hide their delight in seeing the USA brought low by religiously inspired fascism.  If that isn't the kind of thing you should be smashing with all your power, what's the point of the Left any more?

There's plenty more here to enjoy aside from the politics: lots about literature and poetry; great character studies of friends like Martin Amis, the soul searching about his mother's suicide, and a wonderful account of what it was like to be a teenager filled with the spirit of 1968.  And no matter what meandering side streets you're being led down, that beautiful writing just carries you along.

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

Fight Club for girls.  Or transexuals, anyway.

The plot's about a model who's had her jaw shot off by persons unknown.  She teams up with a beautiful pre-op tranny called Brandy Alexander and her brain damaged former boyfriend, who may have been the one who shot her, and who is definitely gay.  They spend most of their time stealing and taking prescription drugs.  It ends in revenge, gunshots, fire and redemption.

This feels very much like a companion piece to Fight Club.  At the centre is a love/hate relationship between the nameless narrator and their glamorous and dangerous alter ego.   But it's the differences which make it interesting - it's all about the feminine rather than the masculine; in this it's the narrator who really knows what's going on (or thinks she does.)  And it's outrageously camp.  But in retrospect, so is Fight Club.

I did wonder when reading it whether it was self-consciously a female version of CP's more famous novel.  In fact, Invisible Monsters was the first book he wrote, so it's really quite an achievement. The narrative's nonlinear, and people change names, gender and personalities, but instead of being confusing it actually drives the story.  I also was really impressed by some of the less extravagant aspects.  I found the relationship between the narrator and Brandy really quite touching.  The way the narrator's parents cope with the death of their son is also funny and sad.

I think I did read this back in the day - or more likely two thirds of it - but it was well worth revisiting.  It was a book on tape, and I listened in one go on the long drive from Birmingham to Aberdeen.  Few better ways to spend a journey.

The Demon Trap by Peter F Hamilton

My second top notch sci-fi police procedural in a month.  What are the chances?

Peter F Hamilton is of course the author of this cumbersome colossus and this brobdingnagian breezeblock but perhaps this is just what the doctor ordered - a Peter F novella!

It's the same world as the Void trilogy, set presumably thousands of years earlier, but featuring one of the many, many characters from those books - Paula Myo.  She had some great action scenes in those books, and I knew she was a feared and respected badass, but finally I've got an idea why.

Paula's a genetically engineered supercop, hardwired to always serve justice.  In fact, she's technically illegal everywhere but her home world, known as Huxley's Haven (TH or Aldous is left deliberately unsaid.)  She's investigating a terrorist attack against the most important families (again, familiar names from the Void books) and of course not all is what it seems, but the nicely unfolding plot turns on fantastic sci-fi ideas.  I especially like the use of wormholes - a train which goes from Paris to London to Sydney to the Moon in just a few hours - then you can catch another train to other solar systems.

It reminded me of how many great concepts there were in his longer books, but how as a whole they became a bit indigestible.  Clearly novellas like this are the way to go first.  Ideally one featuring each of the two or three dozen main characers of his longer books.

This is part of a new collection he's got out called Manhattan in Reverse, and I got this on a cheap kindle download.  I was particularly intrigued by the sound of one of the other stories called Watching Trees Grow, about the Roman Empire in space.  Then I realised I read it years ago, and it's just being re-released.  It's damn good as well though, so this collection gets a double recommendation from me.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

I've always stuck up for the pigs - now I learn they're a bunch of dirty communists.  The ones on Animal Farm at least.  I like to think other farms around Britain were experimenting with other forms of government at the same time - social democracy, anarcho-capitalism and Islamic theocracy, though the latter is unlikely to be run by pigs.

This is one most of us will have read at school, and I remembered it pretty vividly.   Four legs good two legs bad; taking the old workhorse Boxer to the knackers' yard; the end when the pigs become indistinguishable from the greedy farmers.  But it's worth experiencing again when you know a bit more about Stalin and Orwell himself.

What really struck me was the faith the author has in socialism.  Burgess's 1985 made a big deal of how Orwell's was a very English socialism (Ingsoc!) and that's a major issue here.  The animal version of the Internationale is Beasts of England, which explicitly harks back to a golden age of proto-marxism in this green and pleasant land.  It's not just a direct metaphor for Russia under Stalin, it's also the dream of a strangely conservative communism at home.

I am not and have never been a member of the communist party.  To me it's always seemed self evidently evil and stupid, so it's interesting to get such a vicious denunciation of the Soviet Union from a staunch left winger writing at a time when Stalin was at the height of his powers, and the commies were actually our allies (the book was published in 1945.)  He must have been pretty brave.  His disgust is at how the high ideals of Marxism are twisted to become the same tyranny as before - they're not really communists any more.  But that makes the denounciation all the more bitter.

Here's one aspect I found especially intruiging - Napoleon holds late night drinking sessions with his pig cronies in the farm house (breaking at least two tenets of Animalism) which seem very close to Stalin's "parties" with Beria, Malenkov et al.  Were these drunken, terrifying parties common knowledge at the time, or is corruption just that obvious and banal.

This has piqued my interest not only in Orwell, but in left-wing infighting.  I'm keen to read Homage to Catalonia now, especially since a union rep in Aberdeen told me (with a touch of bitterness) about how he'd spied for MI5 during the Spanish Civil War, and sold out the real communists.  Who knows, but I get the feeling that Orwell's moral compass is probably more reliable than most.