The King's Henchman - Anthony Adolph

I don't pretend to know much about history -certainly not Stuart history. I'm vaguely aware that James I (or VI of Scotland) succeeded Elizabeth I. I'm also aware that Charles I was before the 'Commonwealth', and Charles II was after. I sort of know that the 'Restoration' was Charles II, but that is the limit of my knowledge - or it was, anyway.

Henry Jermyn served both Charles I, and Charles II. But, far more importantly, he served Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, and the mother of Charles II. He seemed to be her real soul-mate, from the beginning when he was dispatched to Paris to negotiate her marriage to Charles, to the very end. He survived her by several years, but his life seemed defined by service to her.

It was rumoured then that they were lovers - who knows? Charles II was considerably taller than both his parents, far more like the imposing height of Henry Jermyn.

I've learned a lot from this book. A lot about the politics of the time, and how the kings of the time were supported and influenced by a limited number of powerful noblemen.

Jermyn had many spheres of influence: not just the queen and the kings, he was possibly an important freemason, and also built 'St James' in London - St James Square, Jermyn Street, etc, following the influence of European classical architecture.

An interesting book giving me a much deeper understanding of 17th C history.

7/10

The Big Necessity: adventures in human waste - Rose George

This was not an easy book to read. I did, at times, consider going and reading something else, because it is distressing. Very...

The book is about human waste, poo/shit in particular, although urine is also addressed.

There are more than 7 billion humans on the planet. An adult human produces some 250 gms of faeces a day - children somewhat less - let's say 200 gms of poo on average.

That means 7 billion x 200 gms - about 1400 million kilos of poo per day. Multiply that by 365 days per year... and yes, you can imagine. We are drowning in shit.

Shit is full of bacteria and parasites. Billions of people in the world have NO toilet, no, not a pit, not a latrine, they have no toilet facilities whatsoever. This means that their waste goes into the local fields and wasteland - where the flies have a field day - before flying off to walk all over any nearby food, and the effluent seeps into the water tables. Or they shit in the street, not because they want to, but because they have nowhere else to go. When the rains come, so does cholera.

In some parts of Africa the 'helicopter toilet' is common. Shit in a plastic bag, whirl it around your head, let go...

The charities and politicians are interested in clean water, because it is high profile, acceptable, but you can't have clean water if there is no safe disposal of effluent. Toilets provided are often pit latrines, with no way of emptying them. Once full, or without maintenance, they are pointless, and people go back to the traditional open air methods.

Even the so called 'civilised' west, where we have flushing toilets... where does that go? Into the rivers or the sea, or the 'sludge' is treated, and then spread onto farmland. This sounds like a good idea, get the nutrients back into the soil, but it isn't. Vast quantities of chemicals, some toxic, are also fed into the sewage system, these cannot be detoxified, they are also spread onto our land, where our food grows.

Did you know, that the thing that terrifies London sewage workers most is FOG? Fat, Oil and Grease. It clogs the sewers of London, building into thick, hard layers. They aren't allowed to use jack hammers on it any more, but it still needs to be removed. Where does it come from? Restaurants disposing of excess fats down the sinks and toilets. The Leicester Square areas is supposed to be particularly bad.

The whole topic is, quite simply, disgusting. But I don't actually know what we can do about it.

Born Liars: why we can't live without deceit

I started this book having read quite a lot of books about how we think and why - I'd just finished reading "the Heretics", which followed on from similar books. At first I felt that "Born Liars" was just too much like the previous books, and that I should have changed tack. However, I did get drawn in, I did find new information, and I did find it enlightening.

Why do we lie? It looks like it is a necessary part of being human. It may well be why our brains developed so much. The process of keeping track of a large number of social relationships and how they all relate to each other may well have been a key trigger in our brain development. How did early humans keep track of others in the group, who was allied to whom, who owed what favour? Our early ancestors needed to be aware of what others were thinking, without being too obvious about their own thoughts.

How do children learn to lie, and how do they learn that it is wrong? Interestingly, not by punishing them for lying, which seems to just teach them how to lie better. Most children learn not to lie as a matter of course, although for a small percentage, where lying serves a different purpose (eg: a fantasy world that they hope will impress others), if they haven't ceased habitually lying by about 7, then they are probably never going to stop. I know that I have certainly come across older students who will that what you just saw didn't happen. These people know the morals of lying, they just don't care.

There are interesting issues of philosophy - is it ever OK to lie? What about lying to the 'murderer at the door'? What about 'white lies'? Can you actually avoid lying? 

There are cultural differences in attitudes to lying - with clear differences in the 'seriousness' of a lie, depending upon what it is about, between different cultures.

Linking into my earlier reading about Shakespeare I also liked the idea that the best playwrights are adept at showing the real thoughts of their characters, contrasted with their actual behaviour. The techniques used by Shakespeare and others were developed at a time when the ability to dissemble could be a life saver in the fraught political and religious milieu of the Tudor court.

I found casuistry, the Jesuit concept of 'mental reservation', at least in the examples given, morally repugnant.  This is lying verbally, while adding a mental addendum to the contrary. For example: "He's not here" ("...to you"). Personally I think that there are times when lies of various types are necessary, but the examples given, where this was used to deceive legitimate enquiry into the behaviour of the church, disturbed me.

Overall, despite my early reservations, an absorbing book. But something very different next time, I think.

8/10.

Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: the Private Diary of a Victorian Lady

A further retrospective review.

This is not something that I would have picked out, although I do read a lot of history, but it was offered as a Kindle 'deal'.  I read the first few pages, and quite liked it, so bought it, then forgot about it for several months.

I did find it interesting, a view into what marriage in Victorian times was like. Isabella was the still young widow of a much older man who had suddenly 'gone mad', and subsequently died. She had a young son, so accepted the suit of Mr Robinson, who she didn't appear to like very much, because - quite frankly - she didn't have much alternative.

She did have an income, but for a widowed woman with a young son there was very little opportunity to meet people, or travel, so she married again. Her husband, Henry, was a boor, who forced her to hand over all her money, and, as father to her two younger sons, had a major hold over her - if she left, she lost her children. They were wealthy, but Isabella needed more from a marriage than financial security.

She was a romantic who loved to discuss poetry, and was interested in phrenology and other topics discussed in the fashionable salons of Edinburgh. She also kept a diary of her passions for handsome and charming younger men. Mostly, it seemed to be the kind of thing that 14 year old girls used to write before Facebook came along, full of half disclosed passions and imaginings. However, there were passages that suggested a more real relationship with one man had developed, albeit briefly.

Eventually her husband found the diary, and attempted to divorce her on the grounds of adultery - the only evidence being the diary. Not withstanding his own adultery and illegitimate children, almost as soon as the law was changed to allow divorce without an act of parliament he took action, obtained a separation and attempted to gain a divorce.

Of course, there were other people involved, and the book turns around the actions of a group of people who tried to get the adultery disproved - because of the damage it would do to the co-respondent in the case.

What did I like about the book? Gaining an understanding of what life was like for a wealthy woman, and how little power women had. The beliefs of the time: phrenology, the idea that women were in thrall to their uteri, and unable to think clearly about anything - even madness caused by 'uterine disease'. I also got a better idea of how men could do whatever they wanted, with little regard for women or women's wishes. 

Because I read this on my Kindle I suddenly found the book coming to an end only about a third of the way through. This was because of the way it is organised: Book, then footnotes/explanations, then extensive references. This wasn't a problem, but I found it a bit weird that I could see the book was close to finished, and my Kindle kept telling me I had a lot still to read.

I liked it 8/10.

1599

Another book that I am writing a retrospective review of, so not very detailed.

I enjoyed 'Contested Will' so much I decided to follow it up with 1599.

It looks at what Shakespeare was probably (best guess) doing throughout the year. What plays he was writing, what influences there were on him, and there were many.  Politics (and conscription for the Invasion of Ireland), the possible second 'Armada' in the summer, building 'the Globe', the sermon he most likely saw preached at Richmond at Easter (Elizabeth made sure that the sermons said what she wanted people to be thinking), the books published, etc. Even the tensions between Shakepeare the playwright, who wanted to project certain ideas in his plays, and Will Kempe, the comic entertainment, or 'clown' of the Chamberlain's Men, who had his own agenda.

It looks at the development of the plays and how Shakespeare moved from a good playwright, to someone who was able to show real depth and character. It looks also at the techniques that Shakespeare developed to give a window into the thoughts and feelings of the characters. 

I loved this, it gave a wonderful window into late medieval life in the last years of Elizabeth, giving an idea of the tensions and plots that surrounded her likely succession. Really recommend it for anyone interested in History or Literature. 9.5/10.

Contested Will - James Shapiro

I read this a couple of months ago, on the advice of a friend, following a discussion about Shakespeare. I'd read Ben Crystal's book about Shakespeare, which had a different slant, more about the interpretation of the plays, and how Shakespeare as an author directed his actors through his writing.

I found this very accessible, and a fairly devastating rebuff to those who think that the works of Shakespeare were written by anyone other than William Shakespeare the actor.

I'm not giving a full review, as this is not a recent read, but I'd certainly give it 8 or 9 out of 10. Having read it I went straight out and read 1599.

The Heretics - Will Storr

I became aware while reading 'the Heretics', of occasional irritation. Niggling discomfort with some of the ways that he portrayed people, or Storr's presentation of of an idea. I felt uncomfortable about the way that he was presenting groups of people that I identify with, or a nagging fear that people I respect would be shown to have feet of clay.

And that is important. Because it's how we handle ideas, particularly those that do not fit in with our world-view, that is central to this book.

Storr says that contrary to our deeply held beliefs about ourselves we do not make a balanced assessment of all of the evidence. When we find our thoughts in conflict (cognitive dissonance) we look for evidence that supports what we already believe. Once we find something that fits, that makes some sense, we stop investigating, we stop thinking, and we give ourselves a mental pat on the back that we have 'proved' our beliefs.

I've come across these ideas before, but Storr presents them well. He travels around the world interviewing various 'Heretics', whose ideas do not fit the mainstream, and considers why they can continue to believe things that quite simply do not fit in with reality. In doing so he exposes his own poorly thought out beliefs, which I found made me increasingly suspicious of my own.

We do not tend to change our beliefs very much, or very fast. When people have a major change of heart it is noteworthy. Pastors that become atheists, atheist philosophers who espouse the concept of god, politicians that switch sides of the house. These people are both lauded by the side that they have switched to, vilified by those they have 'deserted', and regarded suspiciously by many.

We have to have assumptions about the world, without them we would find making the simplest decision impossible, but once those assumptions have been made, we support them by any flimsy evidence that can be shoehorned into fitting with what we already believe to be 'the Truth'.

As an illustration do you know anyone who is as right about how things are as you are? I don't, I know I am right, although I have over the years drifted steadily in my beliefs, with no really big changes (one jump, but not a big one, when I came across new ideas and evidence that pushed me further in the way I was already going). I don't now believe what I did 20 years ago on a number of fronts. But I still think that I am more right about things than anyone else in the world.

Does that strike you as likely? We are all collections of prejudices and half thought through ideas.

Storr investigates how people come to believe what they do, and how they support their beliefs. The people that I felt uncomfortable about his portrayal of come out of it broadly OK in the end, or was that just me, desperately cobbling together a working concept that doesn't tear huge holes in my beliefs?

Overall: good, made me think - a lot: 8.5 out of 10