THE MAN MOST LIKELY TO EXPLOIT VICTORIAN SOCIAL ANXIETITES

Something in the Blood: the untold story of Bram Stoker, the man who wrote Dracula by David J. Skal - W.W. Norton & Co. (2016)

When I chose to study abroad at the University of Westminster, my feelings towards education were fairly tepid. Two years of sleep deprivation and tear-stained essays on such disparate subjects as conflict resolution and nanotechnology left me drained and apathetic. To be fair, a liberal arts approach is wonderful for people who don’t really know where they want to spend their precious time and energy. My problem was that I simply wasn’t ballsy enough to admit that I already knew what I wanted to do with my life. So I ended up spending most of my first two undergraduate years feeling like I was wasting my time (and my parent’s money) studying topics that didn’t even occupy the same galaxy as my interests and dreams. 

Then I flew to London and everything changed. I enrolled myself in four English literature classes and nothing else. I spent most of my free time reading and debating the merits of various authors with my classmates. I rediscovered what it felt like to look forward to a seminar—to have strong feelings about assigned texts. This experience convinced me to uproot my life and enroll as a full-time student in the United Kingdom. The decision to move across the world, start over at a new institution, and push back my expected graduation date was not an easy one to make. Now I feel certain that it was the best choice for me, and ultimately helped to reintroduce me to myself. I don’t recognize the person I was in New York; there are entire months I can’t remember—almost as if I slept through them. I was lost and confused and unhappy and I didn’t feel strongly or passionately about anything. I didn’t know how to elevate myself above the baseline of depression because I couldn’t remember what it was that made me feel happy and inspired as a kid. Turns out the simple answer was books. 

One of the courses I signed up for at Westminster was Victorian Era Gothic fiction. I had no idea what to expect. Now, I don’t know who I would be without such prolific authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker to call upon. Their twisted world—to which more mainstream authors like Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters frequently travelled—was a damp, foggy alley, lit by guttering gaslights and peopled by shapeshifting phantoms. 

This is the dark kingdom to which David J. Skal takes readers in his fantastic biography Something in the Blood: the untold story of Bram Stoker, the man who wrote Dracula. Skal’s previous experience includes managing publicity for theatres in San Francisco and New York and writing three science fiction novels. He has also written numerous nonfiction books on horror as a genre, science fiction, and the cultural obsession with certain monsters. His enthusiasm for supernatural creatures and theatrical flair is obvious in his manner of writing. Not only is Something in the Blood one of the most thrilling, absorbing biographies I have ever read, it is also a veritable mine of information. Skal somehow manages to elaborate upon every macabre aspect of Victorian society—from those haunting ‘portraits’ of newly dead children, to frightening epidemics of syphilis, to the mania surrounding Jack the Ripper, to the public display of corpses and severed limbs for purposes of identification—without straying too far from the framing narrative of Bram Stoker’s life. Skal also shrewdly identifies the Victorian obsession with theatricality and spectacle, taking pains to examine Stoker’s lifelong tie to the Lyceum Theatre and his connection to Oscar Wilde. At times, Skal seems to inhabit the world he writes about, and beckons to the reader from within. Thus, the vocabulary he employs ends up sounding an awful lot like Bram Stoker’s famous tale:

…there is nothing final about Dracula at all, nor can there be, Dracula never ends. Not in my life, or in yours. His immortality and cultural omnipresence have everything to do with the magic of blood, the oldest and deepest and most paradoxical human symbol. As shapeshifting as Dracula himself, with the uncanny power to assume endless metaphorical forms, blood is the all-enveloping essence and measure of everything: life and death, sickness and health, anger, passion, and lust—all are blood driven and blood conceptualized. Blood ties bind us to our families. Bloodlines provide a link to our atavistic past, while serving as our primary connection to the future. The sight of blood terrifies some, is eroticized by others, and never fails to draw attention. We are thinking about blood all the time, whether or not we think we are. 

The world of Gothic fiction is only a slight distortion of the Victorian world in general. It is the same scene viewed through a different lens. In both settings, disease and intoxication fester within swelling urban populations. Mysterious foreigners flock to London like flies to a corpse. Decadence and excess are the visible signs of a widespread moral degeneration. It is important to note that the most memorable monsters of Gothic fiction are all ordinary human beings who make some kind of Faustian bargain based on greed and vanity. What is fascinating about Gothic literature from this period is that it pokes and scratches at Victorian anxieties—social, sexual, political—with the same deranged pleasure we derive from picking at scabs and seeing ourselves bleed. Why do we love to watch Dorian Gray saunter towards his inevitable demise? Why does the transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde make us so delightfully uncomfortable? Perhaps in these doomed characters we catch a glimpse of our own fragility and the ease with which we might sell our souls to the Devil. Gothic fiction is one of those genres with so many motifs and recurrent themes that one would think it a short-lived trend. But these repetitions only seem to emphasize the strength of our deeply-rooted fears. The first thing you learn when studying this genre is how to identify the typical elements. Below is an abbreviated list of the most common:

1. The decay of beautiful things—castles, churches, the human body. In the third example, a deeper layer of fear can be accessed if the process of natural decay has been thwarted by means of dark magic or science. i.e. Dracula is even more terrifying because of his impossible youth. Gothic fiction is often a close and graphic examination of grand-scale ruin.
2. Curses and prophecies—every flickering candle and oblong shadow becomes laden with portentous meaning. This helps create a sense of continuity between past and present. 
3. Immortality—another form of perverse excess, in this case, the excess of life. In contrast to earlier celebrations of immortality as a signal of divine favour, Gothic literature suggests that death is a necessary cap on human greed and depravity. The longer you exist, the more likely you are to flout laws you will probably outlive. 
4. Invasion by a foreign enemy—strange customs and manners often threaten the purity of the host. Broken down to its narrative skeleton, Dracula is about a man determined to relocate to England. 
5. Somnambulism and intoxication—lots of sleepwalking, tinctures, and opium-induced visions. Female characters especially are often ‘taken over’ and controlled by parasitic supernatural beings. 
6. Catholicism vs. Pagan superstition—the thrust of a crucifix might save one from becoming a human sacrifice. On the other hand, churches and graveyards are prime murder sites, so the Gothic stance on Catholicism is decidedly ambivalent. 
7. The ‘Uncanny’—this is a crucial concept to understand before delving into Gothic literature. It is a psychological state of fear and anxiety produced by something that is strangely familiar. Something that is recognizable but somehow twisted or contaminated. To learn more about this, read Sigmund Freud’s essay on the subject or Julia Kristeva’s essay on the related concept of abjection. 

Bram Stoker understood the lucrative potential of Victorian anxieties. He recognized the gruesome thrill with which we are all drawn to disease and destruction. Skal utilizes his admirable talents as a researcher to align Dracula with other notable texts which capitalized upon Victorian hysteria. Drawing frequently upon the sensational trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, Skal constructs a world in which sexual identity was a significant source of worry and paranoia. Writes Skal,

Given its many mysteries, it is not surprising that disease would almost effortlessly inform supernatural metaphor. the signature fictional works of both Wilde and Stoker would be fin-de-siècle horror stories easily interpretable as syphilis parables. The secret, corrupted painting in The Picture of Dorian Gray emblemized the process of a hideously insidious disease rising from sensuality and vice. Dracula similarly fixed on a corruption of the blood, pseudoscientific remedies, and the anxious anticipation of tell-tale marks on the skin. Each book illuminates the other, just as the lives of Stoker and Wilde provide endlessly reciprocal insights. 

Perhaps the reason why Gothic literature is so fascinating is because it is usually about something else. Here is where Skal truly shines, because his ability to draw the following connections indicates an immense store of knowledge of which the life of Bram Stoker is only a small part. In addition to being an expert on Gothic literature, Skal is clearly interested in every aspect of Victorian society, which, to be fair, is rather Gothic anyways. In a typical sample of his literary analysis, Skal manages to draw Stoker into a wider cultural conversation and to indicate his relative position within the literary pantheon of Gothic fiction. 

…it is almost impossible to imagine Poe’s claustrophobic tales not being informed by his famous abuse of alcohol, or not to link Dr. Jekyll’s nightmarish personality transformations (reliably triggered by a liquid potion) to Robert Louis Stevenson’s own lifelong struggle with binge drinking. The use of opium as a creative stimulant by the Romantic poets is well known, and that Percy Shelley administered quantities of opium to the teenaged Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin is hardly controversial.

Perhaps the above quotation will clarify the reason why Gothic novels are a psychoanalyst’s wet dream. Gothic fictions like Dracula can almost always be read as extended metaphors. They say something about the authors—their experiences with childhood trauma or an unhappy marriage. They also say something about the current state of civilization, about the psychological cost of living in a metropolis, and about the destructive powers of drugs and alcohol. They reflect fears of disease and immorality which might proliferate in cities where prostitutes run rampant. They often look upon the past with ambivalence—as the time before such large-scale urban degeneration, but also as the time when such immortal monsters were first conceived. In Something in the Blood, David J. Skal touches upon all of these anxieties and reminds readers why Dracula is more than a handsome guy with pointy teeth and a funny cape. Bram Stoker’s monster is the vessel of Victorian anxiety and his image deserves to outlive its cinematic parodies. 

David J. Skal's website

NYT book review

Bram Stoker's estate website

THE PAINTER MOST LIKELY TO IMMORTALIZE THE PANTHEON OF AMERICAN HEROES

A Revolution in Color by Jane Kamensky - W.W. Norton & Co. (2016)

This was a difficult post to write. Most of my neurons are busy struggling to make logical sense of the political circumstances in which I find myself, and the thought of writing something as mundane as a book review seems somewhat absurd—like celebrating Thanksgiving in the middle of a war. The purring, seductive voice in my head which always seeks to justify laziness urged me to neglect my weekly report and blame my absence on existential despair. It would have been so easy. But then I reflected upon the subject of my unwritten review and I realized that I was being offered a critical (and timely) lesson in perspective. 

A Revolution in Color by Jane Kamensky is a detailed examination of the life of John Singleton Copley—one of America’s first internationally-renowned painters. Kamensky, a professor of history at Harvard University and a finalist for the 2009 George Washington Book Prize, is uniquely skilled at transmuting a human life into a veritable tome of information. A Revolution in Color is heavy, dense, and jam-packed with miniature paintings. It focuses as much on the ‘big picture’ as it does on the minutiae—much like Copley himself. Copley painted before, during, and after the American Revolution. He painted British soldiers and Revolutionary heroes alike. He juggled conflicting emotions on both sides of the Atlantic and never established a firm base in either camp. He wanted to improve his paintings so that they might hang alongside the canvases of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, but that future would necessitate abandoning his homeland. And even if he uprooted himself to cross the Atlantic, it was still more than likely that the British elite would dismiss him as a backwoods upstart. John Singleton Copley’s life played out against a brutal background of instability. He lived though four bloody wars. He watched many of his heroes fall from grace, and others degenerate into bloodthirsty monsters. 

And yet, he chose to find beauty. Here is the crucial lesson we can distill from Kamensky’s fabulous biography: there is room for art in every struggle. From the gory maw of the French Revolution emerged some of the most profound and thought-provoking treatises on what constitutes a man and his contentious relationship with government. Bertolt Brecht converted the horrors of the holocaust and Nazi Germany into fuel for his avant garde theatrical productions. Puppetry and poetry have been implemented as metaphorical weapons during South Africa’s slow emergence from beneath the mantle of apartheid. Art—whatever its form—is a particular kind of resistance. It is both a distraction from, and a critique of, ruling ideologies. It is, along with such things as laughter and religious devotion, a ‘weapon of the weak.’ A person’s appreciation of art cannot be suppressed without their consent—even by the most tyrannical dictator. The determination to find beauty in the darkest of places is itself an act of rebellion. And like every manifestation of rebellion, revolutionary art is complicated and angry and inarticulate and captivating all at once. Kamensky argues that,

To explore Copley’s American Revolution is to treat that war, and its world, with fresh eyes. In the United States, where the War of Independence functions as a national origins story—a ‘founding’—we tend toward histories peopled by Patriots and Tories, victors and villains, right and wrong. Such tales, for all their drama, are ultimately flat: morality plays etched in black and white, as if by engravers who have only ink and paper to depict all the shades of a subject. But like the paintings Copley produced so painstakingly, the revolutionary world was awash in an almost infinite spectrum of color. Allegiance came in many shades. Some pigments were durable, others fugitive and shifting. The age of revolutions takes on a prismatic quality when we try to view it through Copley’s slate-colored eyes, eyes that saw deeply, and revealed many truths, not all of which we now hold to be self-evident. 

Several things can be gleaned from this passage. First, that Kamensky herself is a literary artist of merit. She employs the terminology of a painter to make sense of the greater world. By doing so, she grants her readers access to Copley’s unique perspective, and partially excuses his apparent hesitation—his complicity. Enthusiastic Patriots might accuse Copley of infidelity simply because he painted British soldiers and aristocrats who were loyal to King George. What these readers forget is that Copley belonged to a group of artisans who have long depended upon the patronage of the ruling class. The skills with which an artist might set himself apart from the rest of the ambitious pack—his ability to depict velvet, lace, and jewels—also necessitated a personal relationship with the wealthy and powerful. And, complicating matters even more, there were the benefits Copley personally received during the tumultuous years of warfare. Many artists took advantage of a climate in which performance and symbol had a significant impact on outcome. Writes Kamensky, 

The warm red glow of British valor spread well beyond the front lines. Ordinary colonists mapped out new routes to patronage and preferment within the expanding British fiscal-military state. A portrait in uniform was both a tool in that quest and a reflection of its success, enacting a dawning imperial manhood by robing the sitter in the fabric of the Nation.

Kamensky’s crimson-tinged universe ends up sounding a bit like one of William Blake’s alternative myths of origin—those industrial kilns of creation. She essentially drenches Copley in the blood of the Revolution from which he eventually rose to international fame. She suggests that,

…the war that made British America also made John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West, both of whom grew to manhood during those starving, booming years. The war did not make them artists. The chemical reaction of talent and diligence did that. But war was the crucible in which those volatile elements combined to forge the rudiments of a trade, maybe even a calling. 

This calling went unheard in England. When Copley finally ventured across the Atlantic he found himself on the wrong side of an imposing wall of snobbish elitism. Born and raised in ‘little’ Boston, 

Copley performed both dominance and obeisance poorly. By turns ingratiating and imperious, he kissed up and kicked down. He was probably vain and certainly ambitious: qualities that meshed uneasily with his deep, pervading caution.

Copley was out of his depths in London. Several of his English history paintings achieved critical acclaim and he became a member of the Royal Academy, but he was always an outsider at the mercy of public opinion. Having survived four wars, the loss of his Boston estate, and decades of snide comments from his British peers, Copley ended his life in a state of exhaustion. Writes Kamensky:

Rare is the person who grows easy and generous with passing decades, rare still the artist whose last works transcend biography. The mythos of late style was just emerging at the end of Copley’s life, which means he may have felt some compunction to measure himself against it, thus finding a fresh avenue for disappointment. Copley’s old age was marked by prolonged personal agony, and his late work evinces nothing so much as exhaustion. A faded star in an aging empire, he lived out his final decades still fighting the war he had tried to escape when he left British America in 1774, all the while watching the new United States, with its fetish for youthful innovation and its unshakable faith in its own rising glory, shimmer at the edge of his vision.

John Singleton Copley was too sympathetic to the men and women he painted to be an American. He also lacked the geographic credentials of a true Englishman. This persistent state of limbo must have been excruciating for the artist, but it also provided the electric charge of frustration which pulses beneath some of his most brilliant canvases. Watson and the Shark is one of my favorite history paintings from the eighteenth-century. Likewise, The Death of the Earl of Chatham and The Death of Major Peirson are remarkable in their emotional complexity and neurotic attention to detail. Paul Revere, on which ‘oceans of ink have been lavished,’ is considered by some to be the personification of America. Despite a lifetime of rejection and frustration, Copley did in fact achieve most of his aims. Jane Kamensky makes this clear when she begins her incredible biography with a tour of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Walking past Copley’s portraits of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, she marvels that

They were meant for separate fates, in firelit parlors in middling homes, in a bustling entrepôt at the edge of an empire. Viewed together centuries later, in the chilly splendor of the great museum, through the glaring light of hindsight, they become a patriotic pantheon: American originals painted by another of their breed. 

John Singleton Copley’s story proves that a man can spend his entire life struggling against political fanaticism, elitism, and international upheaval, and still find his place within the whispering vaults of history. Once the turmoil of the current political climate is diluted and we’ve had several decades to reflect and theorize, perhaps we shall drag forth our own unrecognized heroes. America is a bubbling cauldron of strong opinions and volatile energy. With time—and a healthy dose of hindsight—we identify values which endure; individuals whose legacies persist. Thus we build upon the nebulous body of which we are all constituent parts. And we define ourselves. 

Jane Kamensky's Harvard University bio

THE PRINCE MOST LIKELY TO CAST ASIDE HIS ILLEGITIMACY

The Black Prince of Florence by Catherine Fletcher - Oxford University Press (2016)

My favorite period in European history ended before the birth of Shakespeare. In fact, if I were called upon to provide specific dates, it would begin with the ascension of Alexander VI to the papal throne in 1492, and end with the decapitation of Anne Boleyn in 1536. A mere forty-four years during which the face of European politics was ripped apart and stitched back together so many times that it emerged unrecognizable. A period during which ‘common’ men like William Tyndale, Thomas Cromwell, and Niccolo Machiavelli exerted unprecedented influence upon the ruling elite; in which Cesare Borgia flung aside his scarlet robes to pursue princely glory; in which the word ‘heretic’ inspired as much fear as the word ‘communist’ did in McCarthy era America; in which one king’s request for a divorce turned the Christian world upside-down and initiated the Protestant Reformation. A lot can happen in forty-four years, especially when armies and countries can be mobilized to fulfill the selfish whims of monomaniacal sovereigns bent on hoarding treasure and immortal fame. During this period of uninterrupted turbulence, a handful of powerful dynasties competed for dominance, formed alliances, and broke agreements throughout the European world. 

This was the time of child brides, extravagant ceremonial processions, and the strategic dispensation of titles. This was also the time of fratricide, matricide, regicide, and nearly every other kind of ‘cide’ one might imagine. Tyrants loom large in our collective memory. Real men like Henry VIII, Sir Thomas More, and Rodrigo Borgia have been obscured by their mythical personas, constructed by guttering torchlight in the seediest taverns and brothels in Europe. One of the most notorious names in Renaissance Italy belonged to the Medici—an ancient Florentine family whose history reads like a endless loop of violent expulsions and triumphant returns. In her fabulous biography The Black Prince of Florence, Catherine Fletcher examines the spectacular rise (and violent murder) of Alessandro de’ Medici—illegitimate son of the Duke of Urbino and an unknown woman, who may very well have been a black slave. Born in 1510 and murdered in 1537, Alessandro’s life epitomizes the violent absurdity of the times. Fletcher’s scandalous, thrilling biography reads much like an episode of Game of Thrones and is equally addicting—albeit without the added entertainment provided by an army of ice zombies. 

Catherine Fletcher is a notable Renaissance historian who has written extensively on the Borgia, Medici, and Tudor dynasties. Although she claims to be ‘not exclusively interested in the glitzy people at the top,’ her attraction to the despotic rulers of the 15th and 16th century is, in my opinion, completely understandable. One can never spend too much time in the presence of Henry VIII and his six wives, and historians are always anxious to rehabilitate the baddies and uncover new evidence. Just as we begin to tire of the Tudor reign, up pops A Man for All Seasons, or Hillary Mantel and her serpentine reincarnation of Thomas Cromwell. Fletcher has certainly done her part to shine a spotlight on the lesser players of the Renaissance stage. Her 2012 book Our Man in Rome picks apart the diplomatic puppetry of Gregorio ‘The Cavalier’ Casali, Henry VIII’s ambassador to Rome, and the man entrusted with finding a solution to the ‘King’s Great Matter.’ She also served as a historical advisor for the BBC’s adaptation of Wolf Hall, and has participated in numerous academic radio discussions. Fletcher was named a BBC New Generation Thinker in 2015. 

The process of scholarly rehabilitation can be seen in the history of research into the Medici family. Alessandro, twice-damned by his relatives and contemporary biographers for being a bastard and having a dark complexion, enjoyed his own cultural resurrection in the 1930s when African American historian Arturo Alfonso Schomburg published an article about the ‘Negro Medici’ in The Crisis, the NAACP’s official magazine edited by founder W.E.B. Du Bois. Alessandro went on to become a kind of symbol for racial discrimination, and was featured in Augustus Rogers’ 1947 book World’s Great Men of Color. Despite his newly-minted celebrity status, Alessandro cannot be definitively categorized—a fact that Fletcher repeatedly insists upon. In her conclusion she writes, 

The simplest explanation for the existence of a tradition that Alessandro was of African descent is that it was based on fact. The story that his mother was a slave may be true as well, or it may be an invention derived from the fact that Alessandro had dark skin…Beyond that I am reluctant to try to read the specifics of ethnicity from artworks. Race is not a scientific fact: it is a social construction. If there is one thing that Alessandro’s life teaches us, it is that ‘black’ is in the eye of the beholder.

The evidence of Alessandro’s ethnicity is paltry: a few scattered portraits and the imaginative accounts of contemporary biographers who sympathized with his assassin. Even these writers—who were undeniably interested in portraying Alessandro as a vicious tyrant whose dark skin was the visible manifestation of internal corruption—focused more on his illegitimacy than the color of his skin. The fact that his mother might have been a slave is damning because she was a mistress, not because she was black. Fletcher concludes many of her chapters with a warning against reading too much into historical accounts. At one such juncture she writes, 

Reading the accounts of Alessandro’s lascivious behavior, we should bear in mind that most of them were written after his assassination. They fit the classical narrative of hubris, the idea that extreme pride or arrogance comes before a fall, in other words that Alessandro brought his murder upon himself. They reinforce an argument that Alessandro was unfit to rule, that his masculinity was compromised by the excessive influence of women. It is remarkable how hindsight can change a picture. 

Due to her mistrust of Medici biographers (Alessandro’s assassin was also a cousin and the family had to excuse his behavior in order to maintain their Florentine dynasty) Fletcher finds her evidence elsewhere. A surprising amount of information can be found in Alessandro’s household documents, and Fletcher displays her genius in using inventories and transactions to extrapolate upon the Duke of Florence’s relationships with his treacherous cousin Ippolito, his Uncle Pope Clement VII, and Margaret of Parma—illegitimate daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Alessandro’s eventual wife. Fletcher uses an itemized description of the Duke’s closet to introduce a lesson on life in the Renaissance court:

While dressing up was sometimes a matter of fun, it could also be deeply political. During the Italian Wars, for example, the Spanish were subject to similar mockery by locals hostile to their troops’ presence in Italy. For Alessandro himself, masquerading was perhaps a brief distraction from weighty responsibilities, but it might also have had political overtones. As Castiglione had observed, for a prince to put on a mask and ‘mix with his inferiors as an equal’ could also help him show that ‘it is not being a prince that accounts for his worth’; this is one way Alessandro’s contemporaries might have perceived his dress. 

At other points, Fletcher uses the content of Alessandro’s closet to comment on the threat of impending war (new purchases of armour and firearms) and his courtship of Margaret and her imperial father (elaborate gifts and theatrical props). Fletcher also lists Alessandro’s growing collection of art to imply his pride as a patron, and his commission of silver platters to suggest that he hosted regular feasts and was not as detested as Medici biographers would have readers believe. In fact, writes Fletcher, 

…there is much to suggest that Alessandro fulfilled the expectations of a Renaissance prince rather well. By most accounts he was charming and popular, accomplished in sports, a patron of the arts. He kept his hands clean and left the less salubrious aspects of his rise to power to others. If the womanizing stories are true, it would hint at recklessness, but the limited contemporary documentation should lead us to wonder whether they are. Unlike his cousin Ippolito, he respected Pope Clement VII, the head of the family, and did what the house of Medici required of him. Had it not been for Lorenzino [his assassin], Alessandro and Margaret might well have founded a Medici-Habsburg cultural centre in Florence to outshine even the Glamorous court of Duke Cosimo and his wife Eleonora di Toledo.

  

In her examination of Alessandro de Medici, Catherine Fletcher depends more upon the dry, unembellished records of wardrobe supervisors and manservants than she does upon the official family biographies. When she does quote from contemporary historians, she begins with a brief analysis of the writer’s motives and relationship to the Medici family. More often than not, it becomes clear that the historian was a friend of Alessandro’s rivals, and his personal advancement depended upon a condemnation of the fallen Duke. Fletcher introduces positive accounts in a similar manner. This strategy leaves the reader with a feeling of helplessness when it comes to distilling the ‘truth’ from historical accounts. Pinning down an accurate understanding of events is, as it is with the Tudors and the Borgias, an impossibility. Such mythical men cannot be treated fairly. When they are finally laid to rest, the empires they leave behind must choose whether to celebrate or condemn their fallen leader. Was Alessandro de Medici a gracious prince, or a lecherous villain? Should his death be recorded as a murder, or a tyrannicide? When the contemporary biographer’s future (and life) depends upon which adjectives he employs, there can be no middle ground. In The Black Prince of Florence, Catherine Fletcher paints a rich picture of the Manichean world of Renaissance politics. It is luxurious, it is treacherous, it is hysterical. Perhaps this nervous energy is what draws readers to every resurrection.

Catherine Fletcher's website

'The Economist' review

THE WOMAN MOST LIKELY TO REDRAW THE MAP OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Desert Queen by Janet Wallach - Anchor Books (2005)

There have been few historical periods more repressive to female liberty than the English Victorian Era. Contrary to the popular notion that gender equality progresses along a linear trajectory, the Victorian Era in England witnessed a dramatic restriction in opportunities for women. Part of this had to do with the dwindling value of royal blood. Whereas a Republican or Parliamentary government can simply elect an unrelated male to fill a vacated seat, a government based on royal blood might choose to allow a female to rule as Regent or Sovereign rather than paddle beyond the immediate gene pool—as in the case of Elizabeth I. Despite the continuance of the English monarchy under Queen Victoria, commoners during the late nineteenth-century were finally allowed to nourish their own political ambitions, and the marginal space for females within government was further diminished. This is not to dismiss the powerful voices of discontent which did emerge under austere social conditions. Outstanding, resilient women such as George Egerton, Vernon Lee, and Charlotte Mew certainly did what they could to push conventional boundaries (for a comprehensive anthology, read Daughters of Decadence - Virago (1993)). But the pressure placed upon women to maintain the household and produce enough Englishmen to rule the ever-expanding British empire, made the choice to remain unmarried a somewhat treasonous act. Admittance to the domestic and political spheres was rigidly policed and gender-exclusive. Gertrude Bell was just one of many women whose loyalty to the English crown sometimes came into conflict with her desire for independence and her allegiance to the people of the Middle East. Desert Queen, Janet Wallach’s eye-opening account of Bell’s efforts to establish an independent Arab kingdom in Iraq, is a must-read for anyone whose conception of the Middle East begins with the Gulf War. Alongside the modern image of Iraq as a dusty wasteland, Wallach presents the cosmopolitan city of Baghdad as it must have appeared to Gertrude Bell—a city where an ambitious woman could have her say, live on her own, and discuss the future of the Arab world with leading Sheikhs and Emirs.  

Janet Wallach is the author of nine books, including Seraglio: A Novel, and Chanel: Her Style and Her Life. She has also co-authored several books, including Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder, and The New Palestinians. Wallach is deeply committed to rehabilitating the soiled reputations of prominent politicians and intellectuals in the Middle East. As a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and The Smithsonian Magazine, Wallach has produced in-depth profiles of Queen Noor of Jordan, Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, and Saudi entrepreneur Adnan Khashoggi, among others. With her husband John, Wallach co-founded Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit organization committed to building bridges of communication between young thinkers from conflict zones around the world. Every year, gifted teenagers are brought to a Summer camp in Maine where they discuss their shared interests, reservations, and plans for the future. Thus far, Seeds of Peace graduates have included citizens from Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and America. The organization won a UNESCO peace prize in 2000. 

Desert Queen is Wallach’s most successful book to date. Since its initial publication in 1996, the book has been translated into twelve languages and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Its popularity is owed, in part, to Gertrude Bell’s friendship with Lawrence of Arabia and her familiarity as the inspiration behind the movie Queen of the Desert. But Bell’s international fame does not entirely account for Wallach’s commercial success. Desert Queen is a comprehensive, vividly-rendered example of documentary research at its best. Wallach somehow manages to stuff a lifetime of private correspondence, local interactions, and international negotiations into a single volume, without abandoning her reader to a tidal wave of information. Proust might scoff in his mouldering coffin, but the average reader will applaud Wallach’s remarkable ability to organize data in a concise, logical manner. 

Wallach’s biography can be described as a collection of lists. Gertrude Bell achieved so much during her lifetime, that the only way to accurately reflect her importance is to rattle of a list of accomplishments and responsibilities. This narrative technique is applied early on when Wallach writes, 

…none could deny her achievements: the first woman to earn a first-class degree in Modern History at Oxford; the author of seven books, scores of articles in publications that ranged from academic journals to the pages of The Times, and a White Paper considered to be a masterpiece by the British Government. She was the only woman to earn the grade of Political Officer during the Great War and the only woman after the war to be named to the high post of Oriental Secretary; the winner of the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; the honorary director of antiquities at the Baghdad museum; and the recipient of a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. 

The semi-colon shines in all its glory in Wallach’s account. In fact, there is no better punctuation to emphasize Bell’s vigor and determination. Whether Wallach is discussing Bell’s scholarly ambitions, or her responsibilities as a British official in post-WWI Iraq, a percussive, rapid-fire delivery seems to be the best approach:

She wanted to inform the English of the ways of the East. She would tell them about the Arab world and its culture: its people, Bedouin tribesmen and educated townsmen; its language, flowery and circuitous; its manners, both primitive and polished; its delicate art; its intricate architecture; its history of holy wars and conquests; its literature filled with symbolism and poetry; its politics fraught with internecine rivalries and tribal revenge; its religion of Islam; its waling music; its food staples of flat bread and yogurt; its commerce of bazaar merchants and international traders; its agriculture of wheat farming and camel grazing; its oil-rich sand; its terrain of palm trees, incidental water and endless desert. 

Wallach’s style of writing is breathless and rapturous. It is also perfectly calibrated to the experience of a single woman exploring the ‘mystical Orient’ during the golden age of British imperialism. We see the Middle East as a fertile cultural oasis, bursting with spiritual and material possibilities. It is beautiful, and poetic, and draped in ancient symbolism. It is also glittering with natural wealth, and one can almost sympathize with the Western industrialists salivating over the promise of an oil-drenched paradise. Wallach is careful to remind modern readers of the British perspective during the Victorian Era. Appropriating the bombastic rhetoric of conquest, Wallach writes, 

The greatest empire of all time, the one that stretched over a greater amount of ocean, covered a greater amount of land, contained a greater number of people than any before it, was the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Her superpower left its mark on continents and subcontinents, from Europe to Australia to India to America to Africa to Asia, from Adelaide to Wellington, Bombay to Rangoon, Ottawa to the Virgin Islands, Alexandria to Zanzibar, Aden to Singapore. The British navy ruled the seas, British coal fueled the ships and industries, British bankers financed the businesses, British merchants ran the trade, British food fed the stomachs and British factories clothed the bodies of one fourth of all human beings who lived and worked and played in every corner of the world. 

Within this Anglo-centric vision of the world—a world ruled and governed by one tiny, damp island—the role for British females was not open for negotiation. They were, quite literally, the producers of empire. And ‘empire,’ during the Victorian age, was not defined by the same negative terms as it is today. Writes Wallach,

They took pride in the British Empire and its role as custodian of the universe. Whether in the huge and all-important colony of India or on some tiny island in the Caribbean, the British believed it was their duty to protect the natives, uphold the trade, spread morality and defend the territory. If the British did not do it, they assumed, someone else would, and no one—not the Germans, not the French, certainly not the Russians…could ever do it as well. Theirs was a world run by men of initiative, courage and conviction. It was a world graced by women who, in their domesticity, were no less than the guardians of the English race. 

Only through a detailed examination of Victorian mentality can Wallach underscore the extent of Gertrude Bell’s bravery. Not only did Bell choose a life of independence—thereby neglecting her patriotic duty to reproduce—but she also allowed for the gradual dismantling of an entrenched superiority complex. When Bell first arrived in the Middle East, she thought of the native population as most Westerners did—as heathens in need of guidance and protection. After living for years in Baghdad and Cairo, riding alone through the desert to meet with prominent tribal leaders, organizing an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, negotiating the political status and geographical boundaries of the Middle East after the conclusion of WWI, traveling to Paris for the 1919 Peace Conference, and working with Prince Faisal to consolidate an Arab Kingdom in Iraq, her opinions had changed. It can be nearly impossible for a person to change her opinions when racial superiority is a factor. There is little room for cooperation when one side considers the other to be inherently incapable of self-rule. If the relationship between one country and another retains a paternal flavor, little can be accomplished. Burdened with the historical legacy of British arrogance, it is truly remarkable that Gertrude Bell was able listen to her Arab contacts with such an open mind. Wallach celebrates this unprecedented diplomatic accomplishment when she writes, 

[Bell’s] ideas had turned almost one hundred and eighty degrees from where they had been before her trip. She had gone from believing the Arabs could never rule themselves to seeing them govern themselves in Syria. She had gone from denying the notion that there is an Arab nation comprised of one Arab people to seeing the fervor of Arab nationalism in Palestine and in Syria. She had gone from assuming that Britain must stay in control to recognizing the need for it to cede considerable authority.

Having survived such a destabilizing intellectual metamorphosis, it makes sense that Gertrude took pride in Prince Faisal’s simple, offhanded description of her as an ‘Iraqi.’ The title ‘Desert Queen,’ a reference to Bell’s Arabic nickname, is not really an accurate reflection of her diplomatic attitude. In her fantastic, list-filled biography, Janet Wallach makes it clear that Gertrude Bell was ready to leave behind any imperial baggage that couldn’t be carried by a camel. 

Penguin author profile

Seeds of Peace website

THE DIPLOMAT MOST LIKELY TO FACE ACCUSATIONS OF TREASON FROM THREE DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

Our Man in Charleston by Christopher Dickey - Broadway Books (2015)

Have you ever found yourself surrounded by strangers whose opinions differ strongly from your own? Have you ever walked through a city knowing that if the people shuffling past could peer inside your mind, you might be arrested and hanged for treason? Have you ever been forced to reconcile your warm feelings towards a friend with an irrepressible hatred of his values? Such is the life of a diplomat. As representatives of a foreign governmental body, these individuals often find themselves immersed in a culture they neither recognize nor accept. In order to serve as an effective intermediary, they must socialize with those they find morally repellant. They must at least profess to share interests with leading politicians and intellectuals—even if such interests are carefully restricted to the economic sphere. If a diplomat chooses to vocalize his own beliefs, he can burn the bridge of communication between his host and his nation—and risk being abandoned by both. A diplomatic career is rarely relaxing. 

But those who find a way to survive amongst their enemies, who know how to alleviate paranoia from all sides and maintain treacherous avenues of communication, are some of the most gifted, insightful individuals passing through the world. They learn how to read subtle changes in expression, how to suggest outcomes without making promises, and how to appear open-minded and willing to negotiate even when their stomachs boil with anger and disgust. Robert Bunch, the British consul stationed in Charleston during the early years of the American Civil War, was adept at befriending and manipulating the powerful planation-owners of the South. During his time in South Carolina, he somehow managed to convince the Federal Government in Washington, the volatile Southern ‘Fire-eaters’ screaming for secession, and the distant British Crown, that he was definitely on their side. Christopher Dickey’s incredible biography Our Man in Charleston tells the story of how Robert Bunch survived the collapse of the Union without compromising his humanist beliefs. 

Christopher Dickey has written several books on international politics and the evolving relationships between competing nations. His quick, factually-dense style of writing stems from his experience as a foreign correspondent and internationally-renowned journalist. Now serving as the world news editor for The Daily Beast, Dickey has also worked as the Central American foreign corespondent for The Washington Post, and the Middle East foreign corespondent for Newsweek. He has reported from multiple war zones, including those in Central America, the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East. Dickey’s articles and essays have appeared in such publications as Foreign Policy Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and Vanity Fair. He frequently appears as an expert commentator on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera. 

Having lived in hostile territories, having earned the trust of wary individuals, Dickey understands the challenges a diplomat might encounter in a foreign nation on the brink of war. His empathy for the British consul in Charleston encourages the reader to hope for Bunch’s eventual salvation. As the dreams of a Confederate State began to gain traction in the South, Bunch found himself surrounded by fanatics and white supremacists. Dickey skillfully builds suspense by emphasizing the mounting urgency of Bunch’s situation. As the book progresses, Bunch overcomes threats to his personal safety, accusations from the North and South, ridicule from the British Foreign Office in London, and the likely possibility of his being stranded in a new Southern nation, cut-off from the Crown and the more moderate thinkers in America. The image that comes to mind when I think of the narrative progression of Dickey’s book is the scene in Star Wars Episode IV—A New Hope in which Luke, Leia and Han Solo are trapped in a trash compactor while the walls are closing in and a tentacled monster is slithering through the rubbish. Bunch hated South Carolina almost as soon as he arrived in the muggy metropolis, but it wasn’t until the walls started moving and he was forced to wade among the monsters that things really began to look dire. 

Bunch was first sent to Charleston after his predecessor invoked the ire of the Southern planters. Consul Matthew was tasked with bringing about the abolition of the Negro Seaman Act. This law allowed Carolinian policemen to imprison free negro sailors because their presence was seen as a threat to the established social order. The ominous specter of a ‘servile insurrection’ was the white minority’s greatest fear. The British government, which abolished slavery in 1833, had been vocal in its opposition to the slave trade. From a purely economic standpoint, the British navy was greatly inconvenienced every time the freeing of a sailor delayed a transatlantic journey. Sometimes the sailors were ‘accidentally’ sold into slavery and never recovered. Bunch was sent to Charleston to clean up the mess caused by Matthew, whose blustery personality offended leading Carolinians, and whose audacity in sending a letter to Washington asking that the Supreme Court take legal action against South Carolina resulted in his social isolation. Writes Dickey, 

Intentionally or not, Matthew’s tone-deaf handling of what was referred to in correspondence as “the coloured seamen issue” threw into relief the qualities that a man might need to survive as British consul in a place as prone to outrage as Charleston. Any official who hoped to achieve Her Majesty’s ends there must be capable of a more delicate touch, with more savoir faire, more social awareness. To live among the slave-owning planters and make inroads into their society, charming them while never forgetting the core interests of the Crown, required a man with a special background and demeanor…

Robert Bunch had such a demeanor. He knew how to sever his public life from his private one. He know how to communicate without giving too much away. He knew how to remain influential without being conspicuous. Writes Dickey, 

As with many diplomats and spies—who are also functionaries and bureaucrats—Robert Bunch had to try to protect his back as he moved through the maze of duplicity he’d constructed around himself. He did not report everything he did…but he tried to report enough to cover himself if he was caught out. At the same time he constantly tried to read the winds of opinion among his superiors. If he had an inkling that, despite his best secret dispatches, London was inclined to go ahead with recognition of the Confederacy…then he needed to prepare the way for his future. Bunch had principles, but he had to remain in place if he was going to effect them. 

During his time in Charleston, Bunch frequently had to clear the middle-ground between Britain’s moral responsibilities, and its economic interests. The British government promised to send a fleet of warships to guard the African coast, but American smugglers were constantly evading capture and refusing inspection under the protection of the American flag. In an effort to slow the alarming rate of American growth and to satisfy influential abolitionists within the British government, Great Britain emerged as the loudest anti-slavery voice in the industrial world. On the other hand, much of their own economic power depended upon cotton imported from the slave-owning Southern states. Writes Dickey, 

[Charleston] was the epicenter of all the contradictions that London, whatever its passions, found difficult to face. England hated slavery but loved the cotton the slaves raised, and British industry depended on it. Defending Britain’s political interests while serving its commercial interests required constant delicate diplomacy, even in the most informal settings. 

Bunch and his counterparts in Washington, Philadelphia, and London tried to think of a way for Britain to sustain its textile industry without overtly supporting the slave trade. Perhaps they could convince the Southern States to stop importing slaves from Africa, but allow them to cultivate their own. This idea attracted the wealthy planters of Virginia who had raised successive generations of American slaves and were afraid that a flooded slave market would reduce the value of their product. Unfortunately, the push to claim the newly opened Western frontier for the Southern states necessitated a huge population of slaves, and the Virginians simply could not satisfy demand. Another idea was for Britain to grow cotton in some of its other territories—like Egypt or Ceylon—over which it could exert greater control. The downside of this plan was that it would take years for the first crop to grow and for trade networks to be established, and the British economy—so reliant upon the cotton manufacturers in the North—might collapse in the meantime. If the British were no longer able to trade their textiles for silks and teas in the colonies, the whole international economy could break down one trade agreement at a time. The contradictions in British foreign policy were overshadowed only by the hypocrisies of the Southern elite. Every day, Bunch had to brave,

…a palpable undercurrent of fear and mistrust [that] filled what could seem at first a languorous city with a grating, omnipresent tension. From the first few weeks of what eventually became a decade spent in Charleston, Bunch was deeply disturbed by the mixtures of arrogance and fear, cruelty and luxury, piety and hypocrisy that were so deeply ingrained in Southern culture. He tried to look at it all with detached irony, but even in his private letters to his superiors…there were times when the irony, which he could not show publicly, became very bitter indeed on the pages of correspondence marked private and confidential. 

Perhaps he should have been less detached. Perhaps he should have paraded a few of his private opinions before the public eye. Robert Bunch turned out to be such a wonderful spy, that he lost the trust of Washington. From the perspective of Abraham Lincoln and Assistant Secretary of State William Seward, Bunch had ‘gone native.’ He was now a Confederate sympathizer and an enemy of the Union. Bunch, whose geographical distance from London made communication with the Foreign Office slow and unreliable, had to battle suspicions from three sides. The Lincoln administration suspected him of advocating for the Secessionists with the British government. The British government accused him of recklessness when content from his private letters leaked into the American press. The fire-eaters suspected anyone who wasn’t a confirmed fire-eater of being a spy for Lincoln. Bunch found himself in an impossible situation, which Dickey describes as, 

…full of ironies. Robert Bunch, who had worked so hard for so long for the “disentanglement” of Britain from the cotton-growing South, now suddenly became the symbol of secret and supposedly growing ties between the Confederacy and the Crown…The greatest irony was that he had done his job too well, earning the trust of people he despised in order to report honestly and accurately to Her Majesty’s government.

Contrary to most other historical figures, a good spy is measured by how much of his work is ultimately forgotten. Diplomats are unable to achieve much when they are the subject of public scrutiny and speculation. Perhaps the most accomplished representatives are the ones known only by the results they help to orchestrate. If a diplomat can make a carefully manipulated plan appear to unfold organically, he can consider his job well done. A good spy is not a man, but a shadow. This is why Christopher Dickey’s concluding remarks—which would seem depressing in any other biography—stand proud and erect as the greatest testament to Robert Bunch’s remarkable diplomatic success:

Bunch had helped to change the course of history; he had fought secretly but relentlessly against the cruel lunacy of slavery that surrounded him and that threatened to drag the wide world into America’s war; he had defended the humanity of black men and women who were treated no better than animals. And yet he, Robert Bunch, had been forgotten. 

Evidently, as Our Man in Charleston shows, even those who are forgotten can bask in their allotted fifteen minutes of posthumous fame. 

NYT book review

Christopher Dickey's Civil War blog

Christopher Dickey's article archive for 'The Daily Beast'

THE MAN MOST LIKELY TO HEED THE CALL OF THE WILD

Elephant Company by Vicki Constantine Croke - Random House (2014)

There are very few things I care more about than the humane treatment of animals. I am not one to smear my naked body with red paint and dance around in front of the Supreme Court, and I like chicken nuggets as much as the next millennial. That being said, I do think that the verbal barriers which exist between animals and humans do not necessarily prohibit all forms of communication. Ask any pet-lover whether or not she believes animals to be capable of complex emotional responses and the answer will always be a resolute ‘yes’. Speaking from my own experiences, there are certain emotional needs that only animals can fill. Chester, my sprightly, overly-affectionate marshmallow of a feline, provides a therapeutic relief from the pressures of constant verbal communication. He takes me as I am—shortcomings, failures, embarrassments, vices and all. All I need to do is make sure he gets his daily rub and never spies the bottom of his food bowl—a sure sign of impending starvation. He expects nothing of me, so I never have to feel like I’m letting him down. Much as I love my friends and family, the pressure to make them proud and provide them with ample love and support can sometimes feel like suffocation to a natural recluse. The inexplicable bond between humans and animals—and here lets assume we’re speaking of creatures a bit more advanced than your average banana slug—is one of the most vital sources of happiness in my life. Perhaps this is why Vicki Constantine Croke’s delicate book Elephant Company poked me right in the center of my gooey heart. Croke’s biography of Billy Williams, a British ‘forest man’ who cared for elephants in Burma during the second world war, is sensitive and insightful to the highest degree. It is a war biography that celebrates the most innocent of creatures. The inevitable consequence of this peculiar focus is that the contrast between the noble giants of the Burmese forest and the bloodthirsty humans in their midst is as sharp and distinct as the Chinese symbol for duality. 

Published in 2014, Elephant Company quickly became an international bestseller and was listed among The New York Times ‘100 notable books’ of that year. Croke’s work with animals, however, began long before she decided to try her hand at long-form nonfiction. She wrote The Boston Globe’s ‘Animal Beat’ column for thirteen years, worked on several nature documentaries for Disney and A&E, and is a regular contributor to such publications as Popular Science, Time, The New York Times, National Wildlife, and Gourmet. For more than two decades, Croke has dedicated her life to tracking and preserving vulnerable species like the polar bear, the Tasmanian devil, and the fossa (some kind of vicious weasel-cat native to Madagascar). She has been honored with both a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Public Radio News Directors Award. She is an energetic activist, notable for her efforts to raise awareness for the plight of the giant panda. She is also a brilliant historian, whose efforts to understand the values and beliefs motivating her subjects is commendable. Perhaps it is easy for her to embody Billy Williams because she also knows that the uncomplicated warmth of another creature can save a person from disappointment and despair when faced with the shadowy side of human nature. Croke believes that she and Williams share a deep respect for animals, a sentiment she makes explicit in the introduction to her book:

Williams had witnessed a life among the elephants that would be hard for those outside to fathom—in fact, he reported behaviors that many would not believe until they were validated decades later by biologists in the field. He had seen these creatures thoughtfully solve problems, use tools, protect one another, express joy and humor, stand up for something more important than their own safety, and even, perhaps, comprehend the concept of death. There was a largeness to them that was about more than their physical size, a quality triggered especially when their sense of decency or outrage was provoked. 

Any author who writes a book set during wartime, no matter what their intended subject may be, ends up writing about war. When nations face-off across geographical and ideological boundaries, it can be easy to draw rigid lines between distinct groups—to see one’s enemy as another species. Even today, many Americans struggle to identify commonalities between themselves and those fighting a ‘holy war’ in the Middle East. Rather than admit that there are some fundamental attributes we all share as humans—as animals—we prefer to stick labels on one another and recline comfortably in our own La-Z-Boys of superiority. So while Croke is writing about a British man and a herd of Burmese elephants, she is also writing about the communicative gulf that grows between unfamiliar creatures. If we were able to approach other people as we are sometimes able to approach animals, if we marveled at our shared attributes and accepted the limited scope of communication, how many horrifying historical episodes might have been avoided? The persecution of Jews, the enslavement of Africans, the alienation of Muslims in the West, have all been rationalized in part by the belief that we are different from them and can never coexist. Thus, while some might claim that Croke’s book is a distraction from the harsh reality of war, it is in fact directly applicable to the challenges of war when nations—and ideologies—struggle to communicate. 

Nonverbal communication is central to Billy Williams’s relationship with the Burmese elephants,  especially with a particular elephant named Bandoola. Bandoola and Williams do not need to speak the same language in order to understand each other. Writes Croke, 

Bandoola swiveled his trunk, pressing his nostrils to Williams, and breathing in deeply. Even through Williams’s clothing Bandoola was picking up organic clues, especially from the armpits and between the legs. Like all elephants, he was a master chemist, analyzing much of the world through his sensitive nose. Bandoola could ascertain innumerable facts about any animal: last meal eaten, fitness, anxiety level, or hormonal state. Elephants read one another—and people—this way. Bandoola’s prodigious brain, highly evolved to negotiate a complex social world, kept a dossier of the men and women around him, especially Williams, whom he had known for seven years. 

This detailed, almost erotic, description of the encounter between man and elephant is crucial to Croke’s underlying thesis. Bandoola is unable to tell Williams what he is feeling and vice versa, but they gather all the information they need through touch and observation. Again, the lessons contained within this brief scene can be liberally applied. To truly understand another creature, one must be in physical proximity to them. It is easy to reduce a man to his religious views or country of birth when an ocean separates you from him. Things get quite a bit more complicated when you meet him face to face and realize how nuanced and contradictory he really is. Part of the reason Croke is so successful a writer is because she refuses to gloss over the details. Each elephant is portrayed as an individual with singular characteristics. Each man benefits from a thoughtful, empirical consideration of what distinguishes his elephant from the others. Writes Croke, 

Williams ran his palms along the male’s spine: rough, wrinkled skin punctuated all over by harsh, wiry hairs. Sand and dirt, which had lodged in the folds of the tusker’s hide when he had dusted himself, loosened and rained down on Williams’s head and arms. It was an elephant baptism. 

Williams spent more than a decade working as a ‘forest man’ in the dense jungles of Burma before the war arrived at his doorstep. By that time, he had developed a productive, harmonious relationship with both the elephants who hauled the logs and their Burmese handlers. When the Japanese invaded Burma and the English teak companies began to evacuate, the future did not look bright for Williams and his elephants. Elephants were stolen under cover of darkness or brutally murdered in a sinister interpretation of the ‘scorched earth’ policy. Williams knew that if his superiors were forced to choose between saving British lives and saving a bunch of working elephants, they would choose the humans every time. So he made his elephants indispensable. The elephants now became ‘Elephant Company,’ a herd of highly trained war elephants who could clear the way for allied soldiers and build bridges in record time. Within a short period of time, Williams and his elephants became one of the most valuable units active within the strange battlefield of Burma. Writes Croke, 

Only a teak man understood the scope of their ability. Building anything could be a snap since they could act as cranes where no crane could be transported, deftly lifting logs into place at a height of nine or ten feet. They could tow vehicles bogged down in mud, or haul timber for boat construction at the major rivers. Most of all, the elephants could move the army farther and faster across undeveloped terrain by building bridges and enlarging tracks. Tanks and jeeps wouldn’t be thwarted by wide rivers and deep jungle.

It is incredible to think that while molecular physicists raced the build the first atomic bomb, elephants were dragging tanks through the hostile jungles of Burma. As the later conflict in Vietnam confirmed, modern weaponry does not always guarantee victory in the exotic, mysterious East. Having spent more than a decade surrounded by the alarmingly fertile Burmese foliage, Williams was uniquely able to assess the situation and address it efficiently. By the time the war reached Burma, Williams had completed his transformation into an ‘Elephant Man.’ Writes Croke,

All the things Williams had become acclimated to—the heat, the threat of disease, the terrain—were daunting and deadly to the new soldiers. They might hike across hot dry plains one day and then be mired in mud with fifteen inches of rain falling the next. Roads turned into rivers. Tracks became quagmires. After the rains came smothering heat and humidity that made their skin bloom with fungus and rot, and caused corpses to bloat and blacken.

Despite the alien environment, despite the natural obstacles threatening to trap a modern army within an ancient forest, Williams somehow managed to lead a herd of elephants across the border into India. The climax of this journey came when Williams and his men cut a stairway into the sheer side of a cliff and the elephants climbed—in single file, on ledges barely wider than their feet—to the top of a perilous escarpment. Looking over the dense jungle of Burma on one side, and the country of their salvation on the other, Williams experienced something close to transcendence:

Everything he had learned from elephants and about elephants was put to use in one stroke: All those lessons about trust, confidence, the meaning of leadership. The way they had always intuited his intentions. The fact that they could assess situations. That they were loyal. That their courage surpassed even their physical strength. 

Elephant Company is, despite the grim backdrop of world events, a thoroughly hopeful book. Vicki Constantine Croke’s love of animals is evident in her playful, affectionate tone, and her observations on the emotional complexity of elephants will strike a chord with anyone who has ever loved a fellow creature. Her insights into nonverbal communication are critically relevant to the atrocities of war escalating around Billy Williams and his elephants. Croke presents her readers with contrasting examples of evil and innocence, compassion and indifference. Elephant Company is, at its core, a lesson in finding common ground—in identifying the flickers of one’s own emotions in the eyes of a stranger. It is a book about touching, and watching, and seeking the good in others. It is a book about clinging to joy wherever it can be found. In the early days of WWII, Billy Williams made a deliberate choice of perspective, one I hope to replicate:

It was the same, and was never the same. This time, fuzzy-headed babies rolled over and over in the water, chasing one another with their tails sticking straight up in excitement. They still had so much hair it often looked in need of brushing. They planted themselves in the mud, or slid down the banks into the water, bulldozing each other and running with abandon despite the presence of two big bulls. 

Every human reader can learn a little something from these baby elephants: run, and play, and plan for the future, ‘despite the presence of two big bulls.’ 

NYT book review

'National Geographic' article on Billy Williams and his elephants

Vicki Constantine Croke's website