OPINION – ChrisTheo

A European Tragedy

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 Chris Theo

I’ve been following the Greek crisis in the last few weeks with an almost religious fervour and If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the EU (ahem, Germany) is committed to austerity. To witness these politics has been nothing short of revelatory. More than ever we’ve been witness to the tussle between some of Europe’s biggest players on a single issue. So what have we learned?

Ideology is stronger than rationality

I suppose we should have known this all along, but many of us had hoped that the Greek crisis would force some EU states to admit that austerity doesn’t work. It’s evident, however, that we are so committed to the lie, so entrenched with the banks and so deep in the pockets of the wealthy elite that we will commit an entire nation to damnation in its name. It needn’t have been like this, but the likes of Schauble and Merkel are so committed to their ideology that even prolonged human suffering at its hands cannot sway them. In fact, deep down, they welcome it. Their commitment to this brand of fiscal policy resonates with them in a very particular way. It does so because it aligns closely with how we’ve been taught to manage personal finances (more on that later).

Your country is a theme park

Theme parks are are fun, they thrill and when everything is working well, no one dies. For theme parks to run well, however, they need money – a lot of it. The rollercoasters need safety checks, someone needs to ensure the teacups are secured well so that centrifugal forces don’t toss patrons into the air like a sprinkler system. It needs new, fast rides, year after year and it needs a lot of staff. To run, to stay profitable, to grow, a theme park needs investment much like a country. What we’ve seen in Greece over the last few years is what happens when you close down the theme park’s Burger King and forget to grease to rollercoaster carriages. People are thrown off into oblivion – hungry (see: Alton Towers).

In Greece we’ve seen young and old alike cast from the economic wheel in an increasingly spectacular fashion. And in the context of the newly agreed deal (as of Monday 13th July) we’re promised a lot more suffering.

Lessons can only be learned through suffering

But suffering is good, we would be led to believe. Even as Greece comes apart at the seams as a result of austerity, George Osbourne (the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer) is content to ram billions of welfare cuts down the public’s throats while subsidies for businesses eclipse the total savings from those cuts almost ten-fold. You see, the idea of austerity conforms to a very compelling narrative, succinctly: “Oops, we’ve overspent, let’s stop spending so much.” Makes sense right? Well it does for you and me, it aligns with the common experience of examining your bank balance a week before pay day and switching to Pot Noodles for lunch. But it doesn’t make sense for a theme park. In that last week before pay day, as we shovel rehydrated noodles into our mouths we tell ourselves that what we’re doing is right, that this suffering is good and that we’ll soon be eating gourmet soups and sandwiches for lunch if only we can get through this. Tightening our belts makes us feel frugal, it makes us feel efficient and with the promise of reward on the horizon we come to the conclusion that this suffering is for our own good. We must suffer to prosper, we are told, and we believe it.

I’m not going to go into what we should be doing fiscally in order to grow, because this post isn’t about that, however, I will briefly mention it. To me, overspending, up to a certain point, is merely the misallocation of funds to areas that yield little/no return. In the UK you could probably say this of any IT project related to the NHS! In order to “get back on track” we need to examine what we’re spending and start being smarter about where the money goes. What investment will generate more jobs, at a basic level. Now, whether you fall to the left or the right of the nationalisation/privatisation side of the debate is irrelevant, because ultimately you believe that money, well invested is good for the economy. By that logic, Greece is being strangled.

Dear [Insert country here], I don’t care what you voted for

We’ve seen what the EU do when faced with political dissent. Syriza, a far left party, have been hammered into submission due to their anti-austerity stance. At the EU summit last week Alexis Tsipras made an speech that stated that democracy itself was under threat. He’s right.

“It is the sovereign right of a government to choose whether to increase taxation on profit-making businesses and to not cut the benefits to the lowest pensions, the EKAS, in order to meet fiscal targets. If it is not the right of a sovereign government to choose in what way it will find equivalent measures to cover the required targets, then we must adopt an extreme and anti-democratic view. That in the countries that are in a program there must be no elections. That governments must be appointed, technocrats must be appointed and that they assume responsibility for the decisions.”

And now, a week later, we find that Greece’s national sovereignty has indeed been assumed in the interests of a deal. The “NO” vote meant nothing, the vote that brought Syriza into power almost six months ago means nothing. The EU refuses to tolerate the anti-austerity stance of any government, something that Spain’s Pablo Iglesias should take note of now if he ever hopes to get power within his own country and steer his nation as he sees fit. To Europe, austerity beats democracy every time. Fall in line or suffer the consequences.

Clinging to austerity dogma in spite of the damage it causes is worrying beyond its immediate effects. When applied, it benefits only very few, worsening inequality and marginalising the voices of the weak. It’s the kind of behaviour we’d expect from an organised and hierarchical religion circa The Dark Ages. It is truly worrying that for perhaps the first time we see that Europe (and especially Germany) cannot be reached regardless of how impassioned the plea. They answer to a higher power. Austerity has now become Europe’s holy fiscal weapon and it has launched a crusade on the less fortunate. Greece is its first true victory.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts – Book review

May 14, 2015May 15, 2015 Chris Theo

This novel has been around a while; originally published in 2001 it has since sold over 4 million copies. This is a wildly successful book. I should have heard of it, but I hadn’t. Not that I feel bad about that, not until some time last year when I realised that a lot of people I knew had not only read it, but also loved it. As if that wasn’t reason enough to dive into it, a few Google searches revealed that its long awaited sequel “The Mountain Shadow” is out in October this year. That sealed it, what better time begin? I made a promise to myself that I would finish this doorstop of a book and though I wavered on one occasion I can proudly say that its pages are now tattered through turning as opposed to through some kind of industrial accident.

Shantaram is an unusual book. For me it is one that is greater than the sum of its parts, but because I actively disliked many of those parts you may be surprised to hear that I actually enjoyed the book overall. There are moments of brilliance and beauty in it, but often those moments are peppered and punctuated with disappointment. At its core though, once you strip away what doesn’t work, you are left with a rollicking adventure story – and ultimately everyone likes a good adventure story.

This novel is based on the life of Gregory David Roberts (referred to as Lin throughout the book), it charts his escape from an Australian prison to his subsequent life in India, where the vast bulk of the story takes place. However, it is listed as fiction and as such, the reader is often left wondering “how much of this actually happened?”. That may not be a problem for some but for me it introduced a niggling thought that stayed with me during my reading. That niggle surfacing when plot lines converged and tied themselves into a neat little bow or when conversations took a philosophical turn, with major characters often discussing plainly and directly the major themes of the book. The latter seemingly a cheap and easy way to bypass the “show and not tell” rule of writing. “Did this really happen?” I asked myself, again and again and again. I would have been better off believing that this was purely autobiographical – as I had done for the first third of the book.

My other major problem with the book was that with the exception of a few characters, I found that most of the novel’s inhabitants were simply just not very nice. I don’t expect to like every character in a novel, but when so many of its pages are dedicated to conversations with these characters, characters which our protagonist himself seems to like, the desire to carry on through a 930 page tome can evaporate quite quickly. My foremost grievance in this respect is Lin’s principal love interest – Karla. She is beautiful, yes, but she is also cold and distant and in spite of this Lin continues to pine for her whilst failing to recognise that she isn’t particularly pleasant. In fact, it’s that failure to recognise that may very well be at the heart of the problems with the novel. In the same way that 90s sitcom Seinfeld adhered to the mantra “No hugging, no learning.” in many ways so does Shantaram. Seinfeld did this in the name of comedy so that comedic plot lines were not slowly lost to soap opera but Shantaram does it due to an inherent character flaw in its protagonist. It crossed my mind that perhaps this was intentional, a comment on the futility of change, that one cannot cast aside their essential nature by running away. After all, addiction, prison, violence and crime are all facets of Lin’s story in India and they seem to have followed him across continents, from the life he supposedly left behind. If so, then it could have been done in a way that the protagonist actually recognises. As it stands it seems as if many of Lins’s failings manifest as a result of a pattern of behaviours that he is unable to change, and any growth experienced is merely in Lin’s mind. Meanwhile, he continues along the same path, dragged down by the unsavouries around him. Worthy of a special mention is the character Prabaker who seems more richly drawn than many of the others, he is also very likeable and contributes to much of the humour of the novel.

Characters aside, my main problem with Shantaram is with how seriously it takes itself. This novel seems intent on trying to make a philosophical point for everything Lin experiences. Almost without fail, at the beginning and end of every chapter Gregory David Roberts shifts his focus from the events taking place to reflect on what his experiences teach us about humanity. Whether he is writing about morality or love or death he makes a habit of projecting his own feelings, his own thoughts on these grand themes outward to the reader, swapping “I” for “you” as if he is addressing the reader directly. Personally, I found this self-aggrandising rather than revelatory and was responsible for weighing down the plot unnecessarily. Others may find that this insight offers them something (and the numerous five star reviews abound seem to suggest this) but I am not one of them and I felt like it should have done without it. In fact, it’s this philosophising in tandem with my final complaint – Robert’s overtly descriptive writing style, drenched in simile and double barrelled adjectives – that contribute to this book’s greatest weakness: it’s too damn long! Robert’s really went all out on this and it is evident on almost every page. I can’t help but feeling that a good editor could have reigned him into understanding that he was trying to do far too much. Don’t get me wrong, there are moments where the writing works, it’s poetic, vibrant and apt, and in those moments my hopes for this novel were restored. But like an overcooked sponge cake some parts were easier to swallow than others.

In spite of its problems this novel’s saving grace is its story, it is great, it takes you places you don’t expect and presents Bombay (before it was renamed to Mumbai) in an honest and multifaceted light. Roberts loves this city, and not just the nice parts, he loves it in its entirety. This Westerner’s adoptive view of 80s Bombay is one of the main successes of the novel as a whole. Forget Karla; Lin & Roberts, if they are indeed different people, are in love with the city most of all and ultimately it’s the story and the setting that kept me coming back to Shantaram’s pages. But there were oh so many pages. Had the writing been condensed and the attempt at a philosophical underpinning repressed I believe there is a five star novel hidden amongst these pages. At one point I wished I could give editing it to a more tidy and well-paced 600 pages a go myself. As it stands it is hampered by Robert’s attempt to give his own life meaning beyond its merit. So will I be reading the sequel “The Mountain Shadow” (whose publisher lists as it being 976 pages – longer than Shantaram itself) when it comes out in October 2015? That depends. If it is indeed man’s propensity to reflect more deeply on his own life with age, and considering nearly fifteen years has passed since Shantaram was published, I’m inclined to say no. However, if Roberts has become more critical, wizened and perhaps even given George Orwell’s essay on writing a glance then I may very well do so.

3.5 out of 5

An Open Letter to Snap-Happy Gig-Goers

February 12, 2015 Chris Theo

Dear Gig-goer,

Does you smartphone burn a hole in your pocket? Do you itch to snap a quick shot of your favourite artist as they jump, sing, shout and scream on stage? Maybe you prefer video, after all there’s nothing like re-living the moment after the fact in perfect aural clarity, is there? If so this is directed at you…

First, a disclaimer. Before you take this personally I want you to know something, I once did as you do now. There was a time when I would think nothing of removing my phone from my jeans’ pocket mid-gig, lifting it to the sky in the hopes of capturing the eternal, wondrous moment of one of my favourite bands smashing out one of their hits, or struggling to snap a brief cascade of coloured lights that shone through the smoke filled venues. So I’m not judging you, I’m merely offering you an alternate viewpoint, one that I’ve come to adopt over time.

Let’s face it, nowadays the world is stuffed, packed, jimmied and rammed with distraction. Billboards, banner ads, Buzzfeed lists, clickbait tag lines. Boobtubers, chuggers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the inimitable smell of Subway. Crowds, cars and pools of vomit that line bus stops on Saturday mornings. We are inundated and the natural human reaction to this abundance of stimulus is to shut down. And who suffers (besides those struggling to sell The Big Issue)? We all do.

But to say we shut down is an oversimplification, we still connect with what we see, it still registers somewhere in our minds but that connection is superficial at best. We’ve learned to live broadly, not deeply. If ever there was a moment presented to you that demanded your attention, vied for your consciousness then it is “the gig”. That intimate and unavoidable blend of sights and sounds; the music deafening and the bright lights momentarily blinding; the warmth or hostility of the crowd into which you’ve been consumed and that moment when you find yourself singing along to one of your favourite songs, your voice lost to the room.

A good gig will linger in the memory longer and be accessible more readily than a video or image. I still remember gigs I attended 15 years ago, I remember how it felt to be there and to really exist in the moment – those were good days. The number of gigs I remember that viscerally are few and far between but not every gig is worthy of remembrance.

By all means, take out your phone or tablet, take a photo or video of yourself at the venue as some social proof of attendance but once the music starts and the lights dim to black, put it away and actually absorb the experience. Trust me, you’ll remember the ones that count and you won’t have had to resort to the wholesale outsourcing of your memory to the cloud. Plus, there exists no privacy policy (as of yet) for memory.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Theo

Image used under Attribution licensing. Cropped to 1:1 ratio
We Are In The Crowd by Harry Thomas Photography https://www.flickr.com/photos/waffles10/9057925046/

Neverness by David Zindell – A book review

December 19, 2013December 9, 2014 Chris Theo

Every once in a while you come across a book that surprises you, it takes you by the scruff of your neck and thrusts you into a world so well imagined, deep and complex that you lose yourself in it entirely. Neverness is such a book.

The story follows Mallory Ringess, a young Pilot of the Order that finds himself in deep space on a mission that could have been entirely avoided if he wasn’t such a hot-headed, arrogant and stubborn man-child. Zindell expertly tells this tale in the first person and gives us the insight into Mallory’s personality necessary for us to warm to him. It’s ultimately this decision that allows the novel to succeed so completely. As a reader you find yourself sympathising with the flawed pilot and before long you are cheering for him on his dangerous quest. Each trial leaves Mallory changed and it’s these changes that contribute to one of the main themes of the book, is it possible to transcend our genetic programming and control our destinies?

Secondary and ancillary characters are handled just as deftly as our protagonist. Mallory’s portly best friend Bardo provides welcome comic relief during some of the most thematically sombre parts of the novel. But he is no mere mouthpiece. There is a depth to Mallory and Bardo’s relationship that really lifts the novel and gives it a great warmth and familiarity. Another character highlight is the Lord Pilot of the Order Soli whose frictional relationship with Mallory is responsible for some of the most gut-wrenching moments I’ve read. The range of emotions that these relationships invoke in the reader adds a complexity that is often missing in a lot of science fiction and adventure novels. As such, every event carries with it a weight that supersedes those in most space operas.

In addition to depth and complexity, the sheer scope of this novel is nothing short of astounding. It’s easy to see why Zindell has been compared with the likes of Olaf Stapledon and even Tolkien. The scale of his adventure juxtaposed against an intimate first person narrative imbues a sense of wonder in the reader. It’s a feat few novels achieve and even fewer manage to sustain this over hundreds of pages. Like a rag doll I was catapulted from the microcosm of Neanderthal life to a tragic war in the in the far reaches of space and back again. And I liked it. A lot.

Combine these elements – an ambitious story, well rounded characters and themes that connect humanity across thirty thousand years of imagined future and you have an the makings of a great, timeless novel. But Zindell doesn’t stop there, because he also writes beautifully. His words are a pleasure to read, his descriptions succinct yet powerful and his prose poetic. There was one moment I remember clearly, where Mallory and Soli were riding their sleds across the snow in freezing conditions and Zindell’s words shot a shiver of cold down my body.

But it was too cold to snow. We depended on the cold, even though the cold knifed through our furs and chilled us to the core. In truth, the cold nearly killed us. It was so cold that the snow was dry and gritty like sand. The air held no moisture, and the sky was deep blue, almost blue-black like an eschatologist’s folded robes. The dry chill air worked at our noses until they began to bleed. We sucked in air hard as icicles, and we felt ice points crystallizing in our nostrils, freezing and cutting our warm, tunnelled flesh.

It would be easy to imagine another writer struggle to explore the kind of themes present in the novel. But Zindell uses the first person narrative to great effect, with Mallory’s personal journey of change and discovery serving as the novel’s main method of thematic exposition.

We are sheep awaiting the butcheries of time; we are clots of brain tissue and bundles of muscle, meat machines that jump to the touch of our most immediate passions; we – I have said this before – we react rather than act; we have thoughts in place of thinking. We are, simply, robots; robots aware that we are robots, but robots nonetheless.

And yet. And yet we are something more. I have seen a dog, Yuri’s beloved Kyoko, a lowly beast whose programs were mostly muzzle and hunger, growls and smell, overcome her fear and flight programs to hurl herself at a great white bear, purely out of love for her master. Even dogs possess a spark of free will. And for humans, within each of us, I believe, burns a flame of free will. In some it is tenuous and dim as an oilstone’s flame; in others it burns hot and bright. But if our will is truly free, why do our robot programs run our bodies and minds? Why do we not run our programs? Why do we not write our own programs? Was it possible that all women and men could free themselves and thus become their own masters?

As I came to the end of this marvellous adventure I found myself very reluctant to let Mallory and Neverness go, to the point where I almost flipped the book over and started again at page one. I simply have too many good books to read, not to mention the sequels, but I have no doubt that I will return to this novel sooner rather than later. And while I’m hesitant to say such a thing so soon after finishing it, I can’t deny the impact this book has had on me. It’s one of, if not the best book I’ve read. And I’ve read a lot.