18 Guyana – Feeding the ghosts – Fred D’Aguiar – December 2014 (Score 6.14)

The ship’s captain is addressing the crew on the need to jettison some of their cargo in order to save the rest and make a profit from their long and arduous voyage. Some of that profit will have to be made from the insurance to cover the lost cargo.

After some initial, not dissent but grumbling and hesitation, the crew agree. In the middle of an increasingly severe storm the first of what is eventually 132 damaged pieces of cargo are brought from the hold to be thrown overboard into the raging sea – the first of 132 sick and suffering human beings, stolen from their lives in Africa to be transported to the New World, the future “Land of the Free” to be sold as slaves.

Their lives are to be sacrificed to protect the remaining “cargo” from the infection which has struck, and already taken a number of the crew along with the “cargo”.

In the middle of the extended jettisoning operation, a slave called Mintah is tossed overboard, not because she is ill, but because she speaks English and could bear witness.

Miraculously the waves throw her against the hull, allowing her to catch a rope and, with difficulty, pull herself up to a porthole where she climbs into a kitchen and storeroom where she takes a plate of the stew which is cooking. She dissolves into laughter at her situation.

As Mintah sleeps and dreams we see, as frequently in our reading, the beginning of the breakup of indigenous families and the destruction, with whatever good, but ultimately bad and false intentions, of the indigenous culture.

Mintah is helped by young Simon, a boy of limited intelligence, who takes a fancy to her when he finds her and hides her from the search which ensues. This happens because rumours get around the ship when she shows herself to some of the men and women among the slaves.

Part 2 of the book opens in a courtroom in London. The case is between the investors in the slave ship Zong and the insurers of the cargo. The judge seems more interested in finishing in time for lunch than in achieving a fair resolution. I believe that a fair resolution, even in the time of these dreadful evens, is impossible since the insurers are as aware as the investors that the cargo in question was human beings. The judge knows this too.

The investors look like winning until young Simon gives a book (which he cannot read) to the legal representatives of the insurers. It is a record written by Mintah.

We find that the judge himself has slave holdings, and that the law of England declares that Africans are not human and so can therefore, legally, be treated in the way that livestock can be treated. We see how Mintah, after having helped with the slave freedom railroad in Maryland, goes to Jamaica to live her life in Freedom, on land she has bought for herself, amid trees she planted, one for each murdered slave from the Zong.

I can’t say that I enjoyed a book which discusses such horrendous treatment of human beings, but I appreciated the insight which it gave me into the machinations which were gone through to make it possible for decent Europeans to convince themselves that it was acceptable to treat humans like cattle for the purpose of buying and selling them, as a prelude to forcing them into a life of slavery. I gave the book a score of 8.0.

17 United States – The boys in the boat – Daniel James Brown – November 2014 (Score 9.25)

This book was not in our normal sequence of reading. It is an extra book, recommended to us by one of our friends from Maine who joined us for an evening’s discussion and dinner a few years ago. It is a true story, outside our normal reading, but it was so highly recommended that we had to read it.

It is 1933, in Seattle. It is the depths of the Great Depression which hit the United States as badly as anywhere else in the world. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, their homes and their savings. People are hungry, some starving, only saved by soup kitchens and other kinds of public relief such as food banks (just like Scotland at the moment, but worse).

In America 25% of people, ten million workers, are jobless. Franklin Delaney Roosevelt is president. Hitler leads Germany.

We move to the University of Washington where students are sitting on the grass, eating their lunches, apparently carefree. The contrast is remarkable. We meet Roger Morris and Joe Rantz, both new first year students. The young men, and many more, are heading for an old sea-plane hangar on the shore of Lake Washington. The building is full of racing shells.

Roger and Joe hope to be among those selected to join the rowing fraternity. Joe is depending on this to save him from returning to the unemployed masses, struggling for food and work.

Only nine of the 175 young men there are to be selected as crew for the beginners’ boat. Most of them are from well-off families, sons of lawyers and businessmen. A few are from much poorer backgrounds, sons of farmers, lumberjacks and fishermen.

Tom Bolles will be teaching them the fundamentals of shell-boat racing. Al Ulbrickson is the head coach of the University rowing programme.

The story moves back into Joe’s childhood. We watch him growing up, going to school, moving house with his family. Then the Great Depression bites hard. Joe’s family moved away, leaving him to fend for himself – which he did, admirably and inventively though still a youngster.

Back in their present we see how the hard work of the freshmen is beginning to pay off. Interestingly, the first occurrence of the Olympic torch relay from Greece to the Olympic stadium seems to have been for the 1936 Nazi games for Hitler.

The discussion of West versus East rivalry in the developing boat races, American football and horse racing is fascinating. It seems to be a case of Eastern wealth and privilege against western homespun attitudes and normality.

We also see the horrendous effects of the Great Dust Bowl on the land, the people and the animals. We see people who have lost everything, trudging westwards, or packed with whatever little they could carry I old cars, on old trucks.

I was caught up in the lives of these boys and their coaches, and especially that of Joe Rantz. Not being in the least bit interested in sport I would never have imagined I could have become so involved in a story of this nature, with young men trying to weld themselves into a race winning team.

The story of the continuing training and the hard work needed for Washington to pass through the stages of winning major races to qualify for the Olympics was incredible. Then there was the qualifying race on the first day of the Olympics themselves, which Washington won convincingly in a world and Olympic record.

On the third day, the finals, a dreadful rainy and blustery day, America drew lane six, the outer lane on a long curve which even before the race started put them at a disadvantage of a length and a half, and in the teeth of the wind and rain. The United Kingdom were marginally better off in lane five. Germany was in the best, shortest and most sheltered lane one.

As the race went on, and America began to catch up slowly from last position, and with one oarsman seriously ill, my pace of reading picked up in time with the beat of their oars so that, as they pulled over the line to win gold I could feel my heartbeat keep time with their increasing speed. I almost felt that I was there, and I was physically exhausted.

I loved this book. I loved the story of the trials and tribulations of these young men. The book was difficult to put down so as to get on with ordinary life for a while. I was compelled to give it a score of ten. That was a first for me among the thousands of books which I have read, though some have come close.