OF ANCIENT POLITICS AND THE DOUBLE LIFE

Lets look at what I’ve been reading lately and why. I tend to avoid reading books very close to my period. Well, yes, because of the risk I might find myself plagiarising unintentionally but also because, on the one occasion I broke this rule, I suddenly found I was confusing the reality from my own research with the other author’s fiction – which may have been based on sound research or invented. Best to stay clear.

But I found the politics of 5th century Athens becoming more and more important in my sequel, so I became keen to see how other authors deal with this. Then I registered that Robert Harris’ series about Cicero’s life – Imperium and Lustrum, were straight historicals rather than histmysts so little risk of pollution. So far I’ve read only Imperium and exciting it is. Raw power politics with menace and not much else but very compelling, a real page turner. 

The same author’s Pompeii I hadn’t liked at all. Uninteresting cardboard characters, unbelievable plot sequences, solid undigested lumps of Pliny the Younger (and Elder) plonked on the page, little real understanding of how such a town would work – no thanks. Now here was the real thing – Republican Rome red in tooth and claw. Fascinating. 

But could I learn anything from it? Maybe not. As a histmyst writer, any political background has to serve and be integrated with the crimes the hero has to solve, though some of these may have a political motive. But the pace and excitement? Can I achieve that? Lets see. But, for now, I’m dying to get into Lustrum.

Then, by chance, I came across a bargain price copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel I had never read before. Apart from the glowing quality of the writing and gradually tiring of Wilde’s epigrams and aphorisms in the mouth of Sir Henry Wotton, what’s fascinating here is Dorian’s double life and the way it reflected Wilde’s own and the whole novel almost forecasts Wilde’s own future life and downfall. Lets stick to the double life for now. 

My hero, Lysanias, inherits the estate of his uncle, a wealthy aristocrat in ancient Athens, and all the social expectations that implies yet he has been brought up his father in a distant colony as an artisan, a carpenter, and developed sympathies with craftsmen and workers. 

Now that’s very convenient for me as author (indeed why I invented the device) for Athens is split politically between the aristocrats and the radical people’s party and to be able to investigate his uncle’s death, Lysanias needs to be able to talk to individuals on both sides and get answers. 

So I invented it for story reasons but did it occur to me because my own life carries elements of similarity? Times when I have worked for a PR agency promoting the cause of, say, property developers while, in my spare time active in community organisations campaigning against specific projects of such people or even involved in plays attacking their whole ethos. Whether that was a cause, obviously it must have helped me to write effectively what it feels like to have that ambivalence, having to balance two different ways of thinking and understanding. 

That was fine in No.1. How does it work now when there are people on both sides who know of his connections with their opponents? That’s what I’m working out at the moment.

WE WUZ ROBBED

Everybody's fuming in Drogheda and in County Louth generally. The smallest county in Ireland and 50 years since it won the Leinster region final of the gaelic football championship and this year it reached that final and was winning until the final minutes of injury time. Then, in a melee in front of the Louth goal, the ball trickled across the line. However, no-one had 'played' it to that end which, under the rules, makes it invalid. But the referee awarded a goal to Meath, the other side, and hence victory in the match. He later admitted he had made the wrong decision and it was an invalid goal but too late. Fans invaded the pitch and punched him to great outcry. The governing body said there was nothing they could do. The Meath management committee debated requesting a replay but decided against. The decision stands. Hence the inevitable feeling of "We wuz robbed!"

On a quite different tack. I recently read Robert Harris' "Imperium". I had previously disliked his "Pompeii" immensely with its boring cardboard characters, unexciting style and regurgitated chunks of Pliny the Younger sometimes as straight quotes not to mention major implausibilities. 

This account of the early career of Cicero was completely different. Naked power politics with menace, so exciting I could hardly put it down to go to bed. The battle for power between dynamic and ambitious individuals and factions with real historical characters who came to life as totally real. 

Whether all the incidents actually happened is another matter - if they did Cicero must have been an incredibly brave man to have said some of those things in the those places - but it reads as completely plausible. I can hardly wait to read the next instalment "Lustrum".

I have been very erratic in maintaining this blog so far, so lets hope I can make a fresh start now.