Alan Coleman

The BBC’s latest Sunday night offering is a ridiculously camp adaptation of Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford. As to be expected, all the usual suspects have been wheeled out for a predictable bout of over acting and stereotypical one liners.
It’s awful, but it got me thinking.
Years ago The Albion Band released a musical version called Lark Rise to Candleford: a Country Tapestry. Dad got into it because folk music was his thing, he’d listen to it over and over in his Vauxhall Cavalier on the way to work– metallic blue, spotlights.
One day, he turned up with the book, not just any book mind, it was the heavy weight hard back version bound in a green spotted fabric. What TV adverts for newspaper commemorative editions would describe as “lavishly illustrated”. He’d sit in bed at the weekends running his hands gently form side to side over the cover before carefully opening it and saying things like, “Look at the lovely pictures” or “It’s beautifully laid out, look at the typography and the weight of the paper”.
He loved that book, and would waste no opportunity to pick it up and admire it happily at arms length.
One day, he came home from work and the dog had chewed it up.

I came to this book with ‘Arbeit macht frei’ ringing in my ears from a recent TV documentary, as it happens within a few pages the ironwork sign that is ‘Work makes freedom’ rears its ugly head with a morbid predictability.

The unknown is probably the most terrifying aspect of this book, the idea of not knowing where or when or what anything carries with it deep undertones that resonate against the basic instincts of humanity. This is furthered by the knowledge of history that allows the reader a terrifying insight into Levi’s destiny, the level of human naivety is explained in often bizarre but completely understandable circumstances.

The story is told honestly from a first hand account. In that respect the focus tends towards the daily running of a concentration camp rather than the genocide for which it is synonymous. It’s about day to day survival, the wooden shoes, the constant toil and unimaginably inhuman conditions. Some aspects of daily life are depicted throughout in unrelenting detail, the striped prisoners shirt and trousers being a good example. The process of replacing a button involves finding one, then a needle and thread to sow it on with, all which will need to be exchanged for the already scarce daily ration of soup.

One of the most shocking aspects of everything that is forced upon the prisoners is the humiliating nature of dehumanization, the process of reducing of a body people to a level far below that of the lowest animal imaginable. For me personally the idea of adults being forced to stand naked in front of each other is for some reason particularly harrowing. Compared to the idea of death itself nudity shouldn’t really be an issue, but I’ve always thought that if humans are stripped of the simple modesty that clothing affords then a collapse in dignity and self respect results. It’s this simple lack of dignity and respect that reduces the characters in the book to the sub human.

Death is never far away, whether it be through simple exhaustion or the grotesquely whimsical nature of selection, the destiny of which is left in no doubt whatsoever. The prisoners submissive resignation in the face of death being the result of a continuous cycle of starvation and grinding brutality, the likes of which formed a pivotal point surrounding ideas of humanity in the 20th century.

The cold also features heavily. The prisoners anticipate winter like it will probably be the one in which they wont survive, day after day of forced labour in freezing conditions often being too much for a starved and essentially naked person. The nature of the cold is beyond the comprehension of the reader, and as with many other aspects of daily life the levels extend beyond the descriptive abilities of any human language.

The fine detail also describes the absurdity of the situation in which the prisoners find themselves. For instance, on arrival they are left naked in a dark room a foot deep in freezing water, thinking that this is for them to bathe they ask for their tooth brushes. Not an unreasonable request given their knowledge at the time, but an utterly insane and even a darkly humorous one in an historical context.

The book also serves as a fascinating insight into the basics of a market economy, the swapping of lumps of bread for a homemade spoon or bowl without which one cannot eat the merge daily ration. The supply, demand and availability of obscure items like a broom, piece of cotton, matchsticks or string. Influence also plays a great part in the mini economy as well as the day to day survival effort, it’s all about who knows who and what that person can steal or make. Even the smallest contact could somehow put a prisoner one step ahead of the next man, which in turn could mean the difference between life and death. With the everyman for himself nature of survival Levi finds himself questioning the behavior of his own people as he does that of his oppressors.

The second book in this edition, The Truce, is an altogether different vibe that details Levis friendships and scrapes as he journeys back to Italy via Russia and eastern Europe. It is a fascinating account of how humans manage to get by through improvisation, bartering and relentless persistence. His description of his traveling companions and how they deal with the unknown nature of almost everything is warm with humility and humor. Like If This Is a Man, Levi refuses to indulge in self pity and hatred, preferring instead to highlight the more positive nature of the human under pressure

At the end of the book the author answers a number of questions that have been asked over the years, like why the Jews didn’t rebel or refuse to go along with the Nazi solution. A ridiculously naive question that I’ve always posed and to which I now know the answer.

If This Is a Man is without doubt one of the most profound stories I’ve read. The human decency and intelligence displayed in the writing has a deeply moving quality that leaves the reader as inspired as it does horrified. Despite everything that occurred Levi manages to tell the story in fine detail and with a brutal honesty. That he manages this without allowing himself to indulge in an understandable hated of Nazism stands as a testimony to his character, that of a fine example of humanity.

It may sound like a bold claim, but in a small way this book changed my life for the better. Over the last year or so I’ve been trying to implement as much standardised CSS and XHTML code into my web development work as possible. This has been an enjoyable and enlightening experience that has been complemented by a gradual move to PHP / MySQL for my personal stuff. In the early days of the web it was like everyone was building their own car for the very first time, now people like me are waking up to standards compliant code as if we would the idea of tuning up the carburettor to make the machine cleaner and more efficient.

In Web Standards Solutions Dan Cederholm succeeds in bringing a sense of order to some of the paths towards standards compliant and lighter code that have been well documented over the past year or so. The book is broken down into 16 easily digestible chapters that each focus on a different aspect of design, there are workable approaches to each solution that are appraised and documented for their individual merits.

Personally I like the way that the chapters remain autonomous, many markup / scripting / code related books tend to revolve around a large project so you can’t turn to the bits you want to without having to relate back to the start. In that respect the examples can seem very simplistic, but that is where the power lies. Chapter 2 for instance, I’ve always used headings (h1, h2…) but have never really had their importance laid bare in a simple manner – now it all makes sense and I can implement accordingly. The same goes for lists, “Evil” tables and other elements.

Essentially what we’re dealing with here is a book that champions the merits of CSS, it does this by not trying to achieve to much and by leaving the real work to the reader, which I think is clever. It also demonstrates that there’s still life left in the book for this sort of thing, whilst all this information is available online this is a neat package that has a beginning and an end. And most importantly, you can put a bookmark in and read it on the train.

I spent most weekday evenings during the mid eighties glued to the Nine O’clock News and Panorama. The news seemed to be full of stories about miners and apartheid whilst Panorama, with its terrifying theme tune, tended to focus on nuclear war and apartheid. The last sentence forms the basis of my argument that the eighties was a tragic, and for me at least, a dark and foreboding decade. It’s not that I was above the whole New Romantic thing, just that there were far more important issues showing on the world stage.

One of those was the South African apartheid regime, a brutal experiment in social engineering that dominated eighties media and needs no introduction from me. I recall watching the demonstrations and state sponsored violence unfold on a nightly basis, the beatings, chaos and primeval nature of humanity was as morbidly fascinating as it was terrifying. The surroundings of that front room scene in suburban Essex are as crystal as those occurring on television, the image of a white South African policeman thrashing a shirtless black teenager with a bull whip. For some reason I’ve always remembered that moment, and after the news blackout soon after I never watched any more violence like it. The Phillips television had wood surrounds and no remote control, the chair in which I was sitting was made of a green velour material and I was wearing adidas tracksuit bottoms. I usually watched on my own or with mum – she had a habit of leaning forward intently, holding a tea towel and biting her nails. Reading this book took me back to those Nine O’clock days as all the familiar names re-appeared, F.W. De Klerk and P.W. Botha spring to mind.

I worked abroad for the first two years of the nineties so missed the beginnings of that power transfer from the minority white racist government to a free and democratic one. The Bang-Bang Club covers that period in which townships erupted in violence during the rush to power and influence. It wasn’t until I started this book that I realised just how bad it had been, and what had been missed while away from papers and TV. Two South African photographers, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, became known in journalistic circles as The Bang–Bang Club along with two others, Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter. The four of them risked life and limb to document in pictures the township wars that raged in the early nineties.

It is a gripping read that holds no punches, the graphic description of hate fuelled violence accompanies those of poverty and oppression in a shocking manner. The story is littered with heartbreaking stories of the destruction of human life and innocence in the most barbaric manner.

Along with the adrenaline seeking excursions into the townships the authors describe the political and social climate of a South Africa on the verge of a radical change. The corruption of white government controlled security forces, and the underhand dealings with white supremacist and black parties alike is documented in a fascinating manner.

There is a personal element here too, as they weave a trail of failed relationships the club struggle with conscience, drugs and inner demons. Their life of exhilaration and journalistic glamour is set against a nagging backdrop of racism, petty jealousy and elitism. It all amounts to a furious journey that ends with as much inevitability as it does happiness and sadness.

I like the way that this book sounds, an historical text rewritten as a story by a journalist who has the ability to make anything sound interesting. The research involved is penetrating in the way that it picks up on personal points from eye witness accounts, this leaves the reader with a genuine sense of enlightenment from the start.

The narrative manages to be informal whilst retaining a certain credibility, like it reads well but isn’t unnecessarily academic. The story is written with an infectious pace and momentum that strings together seemingly unrelated scenarios in a fascinating manner. Towards the end of every chapter the reader is treated to a preview of what’s coming next in the same manner that a DJ will mix themes into a mix. Kurlanksy achieves this amongst the diverse subject matter available from Europe and the Americas, no mean feat considering the differences between the continents at the time.

I looked forward to getting to the station in the mornings for the next instalment of the unending chaos that was 1968. Much of the book is preoccupied with student protests from around the globe, especially those in the US, sometimes at the expense of events in Vietnam and Czechoslovakia. However this is my only criticism worth noting. The tempo of violence towards demonstrators increases as the book moves towards an ending, ultimately finding a conclusion in the disastrous events in Tlatelolco, Mexico. Some of the accounts of Police brutality should shock, but for some reason seem entirely plausible – a sign of the cynicism and reality of modern living maybe.

Around every corner seemed to be a fresh face from the news waiting to have some sort of involvement that would propel them to fame in the next thirty odd years. Some of them are welcome in the form of Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Abbie Hoffman – last weekend I read a large chunk of the book whilst playing the above mentioned music to great effect. Others are more ominous faces from the past that seem to linger with us, think Nixon, Reagan, Colin Powell and the Soviet Union.

1968 is a riveting book written with speed, enthusiasm and humour. A complete success every morning on the District line.