Isola by Allegra Goodman 2025 343pg.

A story of French early settlement in Canada and Christianity 6/6/25

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. 

The novel introduces Marguerite de la Rocque, a French noblewoman born in the 1500s. Orphaned in infancy, her inheritance was squandered by her guardian, Jean-Francois de la Rocque de Roberval. He had been the kings boyhood friend.  Damienne, an older woman with an unwavering moral compass. Accustomed to  privilege, redefine herself when stripped of all material comforts and societal expectations. Contrasting the guardian’s oppressive use of religion as a tool for fear and control. 

This book deals with religion, morality, women's rights ,cruelty. The author lives a tradition Jewish life and her other books are on Jewish subjects this book is different as it is on Christianity.

 Guard against anything that will anger God. Her mother died in her childbirth and her father died fighting for the king in Pavia 1521(battle between France and Italy.) She has her chateau and estates of Périgord. Her guardian controlled everything until she could marry at aged 15. She had 3 maids looking after her and the steward collected the rents from the tenants. Ecu's d'or (gold) or later Ecu d'argent (silver)minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. She had a music master who taught her to play and a tutor to correct her reading writing to be able a lady.

 Jaqualine d'Artois and her daughter Claire. We are ruined when a father dies. Claire had no inheritance but had seen the world with her she shared clothes and reading, she regretted she had no sister. The guardian mortgaged the  house and the Montfort's merchants moved in. Because he had reversals. 

In Greek legend  Griselda obeyed without  complaint Hypsicratea who fought alongside her in battle. Zenobia the huntress. Camilla raised in the wilderness by her exiled father Deborah and  the Judge Dido .  Queen Julia was Caesar's daughter. 

She told Claire you are Reason your mother is Rectitude and Damieone can be Justice. Your guardian lost a kingdom in his ships. The Montfort's have no title or history but are rich enough to buy both. Artemista  the queen loved her husband Mausalus and when he died she build a great tomb afterwards called a mausoleum.

Her guardian threw her a bag of gold and was astonished that she caught it.

One of the children has a drawing with a arrow through a stags heart. She saw  Claire as Penelope working at her loom while suiters paced below as hungry curs. Nicholas was interested in Claire and brought them venison and partridges but he fell when his horse reared and got crushed and died. She gave Claire her mothers Jewel as a parting gift.

1539 -1542 Roberval sent trunks for them to pack and go to a house in La Rochelle. When he was not home the creditors were hammering at the door. The servants also had to wait for Robavals return to get their wages. Claire and Madame D' Artois, and Claire would now be employed by the Montfort's. 

By now she was 20 and no longer considered a good match. The House in Périgord had been sold and was her home no longer. He had sold her lands to fund his expedition trading her future for his own. She tried to send a  message to Claire as she did not want to go on the ships. The maid given the gold for this used it to buy  her trousseau and got married on this, but her guardian was handed this note. Provisions were being readied for the ships and colonists with families recruited, they were all debtors.

She and Damieone got on one of 3 ships to head to La Nuova Francia what Cartier had called Canada. The headed towards the St. Lawrence river supposed to be the northwest passage to the Indies.  Psalms of David to the Rhyme of Clement Marot. 1496-1544 was  friendly with the kings sister, but never the less supported the reformation. Her guardian wanted her to know these  by heart. Because he was a devout person?

 Roberval was going to be the Viceroy of New France and would propagate the Catholic faith.

 1542 at sea. You had children as young as nine working learning to be seamen. They were on Anne but he also rules Lechefraye and Valentine. These ships were her inheritance and she was the instrument of her own exile. Robaval wanted greatness. She heard the sailors stories of serpents cracking hulls like walnuts and great jawed fish swallowing ships whole. Mermaids on rocks and cannibals eating seamen. They dreaded the voyage outlasting supplies. They were joining Cartiers on the established colony.

There was a brawl on a sister ship and she had to watch the 4 men being hanged. The colonist wives did as well. On the ship she begins to get friendly with Robavals secretary who tells her his story that his father was a merchant and taught him to read, but ship sailed on sank on the way to Cadiz. Now his stepfather who had him apprenticed to a tanner died and Robavel supports him. She becomes intimate with the secretary Auguste Dupre and he calls her Marguerite. What would Robaval do if he found us together. "Kill me said Auguste". "Sinners will be dammed to hell whether on the ship or the New World , I will exile them as lepers." Weevils infested the flower and rats the seed. Birds are the first sign of land. and after 8 weeks they arrived.

They saw Jacques Cartier 3 ships sailing east. The French Colony had been named Charlesbourg Royal 1541 -1543 when it was abandoned. There they were besieged by the natives who murdered all that ventured out. 35 colonist had died this way and another 20 from sickness and starvation till Cartier abandoned the settlement. Robaval instructed them not to return to France but during  the night they cut their anchors and vanished.

Augusta drew a sword against Robaval, he was tied up. She Auguste and Damieone were abandoned on an island with vegetation rather the pure granite ones they passed . The island trees were stunted but they found a nesting place for big birds and shot one, with his arquebus now they knew they had a source of food, in summer.

She felt she had to contribute and she tried to grow the seeds they brought and watered and nurtured the the plants but Damieone had warned her that the soil was too thin and just when she thought she had success the plants died.

Here they could live freely but with such uncertainty, Robaval had given them what they wanted most he gave them time, and eternity. When Augusta went to shoot a bird she went to collect eggs from their nests.

 Legendry Queen Zenovia left her palace armed with a sword and spear, while Princess Camilla grew up hunting. They fished and caught cod. Seagrass Damieone laid out to dry it became a tasty herb. The music instruments with them had warped and could not be played.

Before winter they found a narrow entrance to a granite cave. She was pregnant and dreamed of her son becoming a prince. The birds migrated away and with winter came snow and a white fox, an omen. You could walk across the ice to leave the island. Augusta became ill and died and they put him into an empty  trunk and covered it. A white bear  came and dug up the trunk and was devouring the body. She shot the bear and Damieone skinned it as a blanket and they ate the  bear but what was left was picked clean by other creatures. The hoped to kill creatures that came across the ice. A deer followed by 6 wolves but it ran away across the sea.

Her finger was thin  so that she lost Claire's ring. She gave birth to a healthy son but her milk did not come as she was starving. She used the afterbirth as bait to fish for cod in a hole in the ice. The baby died and no scripture could comfort her. Damieone cut her hand badly while cleaning a fish and she had to look after and provide for  her like she had been looked after by Damieone. Damieone told her that she had come to look after her. After Damieone's mother had died her family could not feed her on the farm. Robaval 3 vessels passed but ignored her signals he was sailing home after 1 winter. She felt he had cast her off as a thief might throw away a key.

Her ammunition would only last the season.

Damieone died of sepsis,  quietly she had been blameless for the isolation. Her body was put in the 3rd trunk and a cairn on stones was build on it. Margarita had never been alone in her life. A bear came into the cave entrance but could not fit in, and she shot it. The story of Lazarus moving the stone from the cave.

She finds Claire's ring in the cave. She sees 2 small vessels in the bay, open and with no flag, but a net and silver fish. They cleaned hundreds of cod and dried them in the sun. She discovers they are Basque fishermen and one of them can speak a plausible French from Navarre, on the French border. When they first saw her they thought she was a witch but she proved to them that she was a Christian as she repeated "Hail Mary full of grace in Latin" and she had a Royal token M for Margarita. She brought the jewels, coins , pearls secured in her pocket. She brought the picture of the lady to protect them, and watched her isle. prison, secret kingdom slip away. She slept with a knife from fear of the sailors. A storm came up and washed away half their stock of fish   as well as the virgin, rosary and new testament. They survived but their sister ship had vanished and they had to find there way , as they had been driven off course. The seaman had lost their comrades and the expedition had not paid. They met up with another larger Basque ship that had been whaling and had oil, teeth and ambergris.

The arrived at La  Rochelle and she went to the house of Jean Alfonse, her friend the navigator, but  her clothes were rags, they chased her away. In any case he was abroad. She slept in  the Cathedral till they were thrown out in the morning when she discovered she was not alone. She managed to get other cleaner used clothes and started walking to Périgord  and met with other pilgrims on the way the Camino de Santiago. When she got to the house there she pressed Claire's ring into her hand." Where did you get that? You gave it to me" I am disreputable now and have no claim on this house but charity. The Montfort's now owned the house, they had bought property and nobility. The Lady Montfort  was with the Kings sister in Bearn (in the Pyrenees)while her guardian was with the king.

Everyone knew about Charlesbourg Royal on the Isle of Canada, they had also heard of Cartier's winter there.

Marguerite had kept the bears claw  a trophy from the battle to show as everyone wanted to hear about how she dealt with the bear.

  Robaval wanted a word with her but she refused to talk to him. There was a feast for the arrival of the Queen but she could not eat any of it. She described how she survived with the Basque fishermen.

Claire would have been happy to go into a religious order but the  Queen gave Margarita  and bag of gold to set up a school for orphan girls and they 2 would go do this together.

Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut 2014, 336pg

 

 25/5/25Arctic Summer by EM Forster is only about 100 pages and unfinished. This book basically tells us the feeling that he had between  publishing his book in 1910 and  the book in 1924. He wanted to write a second book on homosexualism  after Maurice which he could not dare publish. So he could not write any novel after that finally he published Passage to India but that was his last and best novel. Galgut's understanding of the interplay between love and power animates this final section of the book. It was Forster's time in Dewas that allowed him to return to his unfinished India novel and bring it to a triumphal conclusion.

EM Forster 1879 to 1970 novel

• (1905) Where Angles Fear to tread   set in Italy
•  (1907)The Longest Journey
•   (1908)A room with a view  set in Italy
•   (1910)Howards End 
• 1913–14, Maurice. published posthumously in 1971)
•   (1924) A passage to India (Published 11 years after he started it)

Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut 2014, 336pg

The year is 1912, and the SS Birmingham is approaching India.  Edward Morgan Forster ,is 33 years old, has writing block and has to come to terms with his homosexualism.   This is only 17 years after Oscar Wilde landed up in jail1895  The novel mostly takes place between the publication of “Howard’s End” in 1910 and the publication of “A Passage to India” in 1924.

In England Morgan lives with his mother his best companion but a problemed relationship.  EM Forster was private secretary to the Maharajah at Pondicherry, 1934 

On the ship he meets Kenneth Searight and army officer on the Khyber Pass frontier who talks too openly about his having male Indian friends. Flesh was generally more visible in India than at home.

Morgan had been to Cambridge at Kings collage where Goldie was a don, their friendship slowly flowered after he left Cambridge. Morgan  had been asked to coach Masood son of a maharaja in Latin and he was now going to visit him. Discretion was the first line of defense after what happened to Oscar Wilde. Morgan had a number of encounters with boy and many Indians. Morgan knew nothing of Mohamadans and this was irksome to Masood.

His father died when he was 2 and his middle aged mother was perpetually unhappy. He had always wanted a brother, there had been another baby before his birth that had died. In religion he considered Jesus boring and lacking in intellect. His good friend and lover  Hom was a student at LSE and said that their relationship was good enough for the Greeks. However Hom as many of his lovers gets married and he feels a loss.

To Morgan most females felt a different species and scared him. He worked this theme out of himself in Where Angles Fear to Tread. He was attracted to a young shepherd who offered him a puff on his pipe and only when the boy stood up that he saw he had a clubfoot. Morgan saw himself with that foot in another life where he got married.

By the time he was married Homs role as a lover had been taken by Masood.

Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936 was always singing about the virtues of the British and inferiority of the natives and the gory glory of a patriotic death.

A friend Malcolm Darling from Kings in the Civil Service in Dewas wrote to compliment Morgan on his book. Morgan had written about marriage but when Malcolm met him accompanied by Merz just before Malcolm's marriage  asked him about himself he would not admit he was lonely.  Morgan and Merz walked towards their homes together said goodbye and the next day Merze was found hung by his own hand. Morgan had been the last to see him alive. What had befallen Ernest Merze was a warning to him.

Back home, Malcolm was married with twins could identify himself with Morgan's book they met and kissed.  

 Massood said if he came to India they could get closer than they were in England.  Masood was in London practicing for the bar. Morgan was back in Italy where he had been a number of times and had set 2 of his novels there.

After  Morgan had published a book of short stories. He now wrote some short stories not to express but to excite himself. Then went on to a novel of that nature, called Arctic Summer. Howards End was selling well and he had enough money to afford a trip to India.

In India starting in Aligath ,he visited a cave that had been polished into a temple, where you voice echoed. In England Masood was out of place but in India Morgan was. He wanted to meet Masoods mother but she kept strict purdah and cannot show herself before you. The discussed that the Balkans was the death battle of Islam and why was Sir George Grey (1911)the first to recognize Italy's colonizing Tripoli. The Bulgarian army (1912) is within 25 miles of Istanbul.

Indian men were seen walking hand in hand and hung to each other. The society was totally divided Moslems and Hindus but the Hindus were stratified with Brahman down to the untouchables. Under the British at the bottom of the heap were Eurasians, the professional men, railway employees, tea planters then army officers and floating at the top the Viceroy. They had clubs that did not allow in Indians. The English are bored in India and their bad manners towards the Indians upset Morgan.

1912 The Capital of India moved from Calcutta to New Delhi announced by George V.  A bomb thrown at Lord Charles Hardinge's  elephant in a procession into the new capital. He suffered only flesh wounds. Delhi was a predominantly Muslim area at the time. Morgan explained that much of Brittan's foreign policy was fear of German and not hatred of Islam. 

Masood was getting married which was much more inevitable here than in Britain.  He visited Lucknow whose Residency  was the site of the Mutiny outbreak  and siege against the British East India company in 1857.

"Do the English think that they will rule us forever?" The Raj will be defeated it will take 50 to 500 years. He was not proud of the treatment the English meted out to the locals, his anger of this showed in his writings. The subject of power , racial power and its ugliness.

Edward Carpenter 35 years older than Morgan had supported ideas like socialism, vegetarianism and women's rights. He spoke of male companionship that went back to the Greeks and shared his home with a younger working class man for over 20 years. Finally he found another person that understood his attitude to India. 

In Aligath Morgan visited the Anglo-Oriental Collage had 2 Muslim men students who loved each other and when the were forced to part killed themselves. One drowned himself and the other ran in front of a train.

1854 The Working Men's collage was set up in London and many of Morgan's friends worked there. By now his Indian book had been forgotten and he had writing on homosexualism  material that he could never publish, Goldie asked him what is the purpose of writing stuff you can't publish? He couldn't even show it to many people. "There will be a time when I can." He was starting middle age with 3 unfinished novels in his hands.

1914 Britain was at war and everyone else was volunteering. He observed European civilization set back 30 years. He could not see himself working as a nurse. He was offered a job cataloguing at the National Gallery.

He got on well with the young novelist DH Lawrence who had a young German wife. 

Duncan Grant a Scottish artist 1885-1978. His father was an army major and his childhood was in India and Burma. He was part of the Bloomsbury group.

Alexandria

Morgan heard that they needed researches in the war hospital for soldiers who were lost or missing. He went for an interview with Gertrude Bell (1868 -1926) He was sent to Alexandria. This was the city founded by Alexander the Great home of Callimachus and Theocritus and death place of  Cleopatra. He traveled around the hospital wards and made notes of who had been reported killed. He was responsible to Miss Victoria Grant Duff the head of the Wounded and Missing Department. After 3 weeks she told him his were the best reports of the team of 4 and London was pleased with them.

One of his very good friend here was C.P. Cavafy a leading Greek poet of  Constantinople extraction and Morgan translated and introduced his poems to the English speaking world in 1923. Morgan and Cavafy never discussed the secret they had in common. The hospital in Montazah had once been the Khedival palace, build in 1892.

Morgan has a close  relation to Mohammod el Adi a tram conductor. With a letter to the Government Employment Bureau he got Mohammod a better paying job. In bed with Mohammod one night who told him he planned to marry his late brothers wife, a common practice, cheaper as no dowry is needed and there is a child that needs a father. Mohammod was diagnosed with consumption and Morgan paid for a private doctor who said it was caught it time and could be cured.

A letter came from London making Morgan head researcher and this upset Miss Duff, he did not want the status and the conflict this caused.

1914 Nov. Armistice signed and Morgan returned to London. When Mahomed landed up in jail Morgan sent him £10 to pay his fine.

1919 Amritsar Punjab  massacre's this marked  the start of the end of the Raj. caused through stupidity and arrogance of a British General in dealing with a big crowd. 

His friend Malcolm brought an invitation from the Maharaja Bapu Sahib  for Morgan to be his secretary.. Morgan now went to India and stopped in Egypt where he saw Mohamad who was in debt and very ill of consumption.

In the Maharaja's palace every festival was celebrated lavishly and opulently, while the palace building was falling apart. Rumors' were going about the palace of Morgan's gay partners. When Morgan told the Maharaja that he was prepared to resign, he told Morgan he had heard nothing about it, and he would find somebody reliable of the hereditary servants to come to him. Asked if he had learned this habit in England. Morgan said it was not possible there. In fact it was illegal. Did you learn it in Egypt - looking for a thing to blame onto Muslims. Kanaya the barber was sent to him by the  Maharaja. This supplied his need of lust for both of them and they looked forward to it.

The Ghoul Ashtami Festival celebrated the birth of Krishna perhaps this could provide the material that Morgan's book needed. He had read   the Bhagavud Purena (written between 500 to 1000CE)and knew the Krishna story.

1921 Prince Edward of Wales visit to India at a time when Mahatma Ghandi was urging Indians not to wear foreign imported clothes. Morgan decided it was time to return home as he all projects he was involved in for the Maharaja stopped because of lack of funds. He would miss the daily lust with Kanaya.

The Muslims had been upset by the break up of the Turkish Empire after WW1. Muslims were united behind The Congress Party supported Ghandis civil disobedience. Everyone in Masood circle objected to the royal visit. The Empires dream was dying Morgan said because of rudeness in Railway carriages.

Going back trough Egypt Mohammad was not able to meet him as he was too ill and he had to go to Mansourah and he knew his friend was dying. 

  Passage to India this would be dedicated to Masood as he was the reason Morgan went to India. They had , had 17 years of friendship.

Back in London Leonard Woolf suggested he read through what he had written and try to finish it. he realized that what he had written was more substantial than he thought but he has not touched it since 1914.

In Egypt he had loved Mohammed but what could Mohammed have felt in return, he had been excited and flattered to be courted by an Englishman and had been eager for the financial help.

Suddenly he thought the answer was to turn the book into a mystery of violence and ghosts. Leonard wanted to publish it through his Horgath press but Morgan was bound to Edward Arnold (Mathew Arnold the poet was his uncle) 2 of his travel books came out to raving reviews.

 Alexandria: A History and Guide (1922)

Pharos and Pharillon (A Novelist's Sketchbook of Alexandria Through the Ages) (1923)

When Morgan visited Edward Carpenter,(1844 to 1929 early activist of gay rights) he was the one who had suggested the title Passage to India from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Rumour was that Whitman and Carpenter had been lovers.

With the publication Morgan found himself famous and wealthy. Letters from Civil Servants said he did not know India but was just a visitor there. In the book he never portrayed the British in a very good light. At Lyons Corner House he heard a women saying you must read his book. Look at EM Forster he is not well dressed." I've heard that his life is unhappy, he lives with his mother and is not the adventurous type.. A timid soul who has only lived in his mind."   

He returned to India aged in 1945 aged 66. He was now able to meet the loftier echelons of British society and dined with the Viceroy(1943-1947) Lord  Archibald  Wavell.  It took him 3 days to get to India in a flying boat via France, Italy and Egypt.

 Masood had become vice Chancellor of the Aligath Muslim University previously the Anglo- Oriental Collage. Then Minister of Education for Bhopal State. He died in 1929 of kidney failure. The Maharajah of Dewas had died 6 months later as he had brought his estate deep into debt. This university bestowed on Morgan an honoree life membership. Finally he visited Masood grave which had been totally neglected and overgrown with weeds.

Note Damon Galgut the author is openly gay. Born 1963 Won Booker prize in 1921 for The Promise.

 

The Promise by Damon Galgut 2021 256pg

From Apartheid to Mandela and afterwards in South Africa. 6/2/22

There are 3 promises 1) That Salome will get the land that her hut is built  on. 2) That Anton will lead the nation and eat the world. 3) That in the new South Africa we bring the freedom expected.

The story takes place over 4 decades with the family getting together over 4 funerals.  1)Jewish 2)Calvinist Afrikaner 3)Catholic 4) African ancestral worship.

1)  You have the Apartheid era 2) Mandela era Rugby World Cup 3)Mabeki era 4)Zuma era.

It deals with religion, aesthetics in SA , and politics is only a part of the story.

Just as today the US people are looking for an Oranja. (A white only country) The narrator acts as a camera.

Cape Town is characterized by being around a mountain.

The Karoo is a sparsely populated semi desert that once could have been a shallow lake.

Story of Mom, Dad Anton , older brother and 2 sisters.  The mother dies promising a small piece of  land to Salome, the family servant.

Democracy is wasted as the blacks get political power but not economic power.

 Time Line for the Promise 

1835-1846  The Voortrekkers (white Boer pioneers )leave the Cape and settle in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. 

1838 "Kill the Wizards" The Voortrekker delegation were invited to Dingane Zulu's kraal to negotiate an agreement and were massecred. This was followed by

1838 Dec 16 Battle of Blood River (Ncomo River) where the Boers managed to defeat the Zulu's. This remembered as Dinganes Day, later called the Day of the Covenant and now called Day of Reconciliation.

1925 Afrikaan became and official language of South Africa replacing written Dutch.

         N P van Wyk Louw one of the team of Afrikaans poets that made Afrikaans a written language.

 1948 Nationalist Party comes to power with the Apartheid platform and ruled till end of white rule.

1950 Group Area Act segregation law determining where non white races could live or own land.

1954 Johannes Strijdom PM died in office, his bust is where Anton gets a ride to the farm.

1958 Hendrk Verwoed PM The designer of the Apartheid policy.

1960 Sharpeville massacre and  State of Emergency

1961 Union of South Africa becomes Republic of South Africa and leaves the British Commonwealth

  1962  to 1981 Chrysler Valiant cars available      

        

1966 Verwoed is assassinated by Tzafendas, locked up without a trial to avoid and uprising. 

          John Voster becomes PM

1971 S. Africa metricized weights, distance etc. fully by then with liters and kilograms.

1975 Portugal gives Angola independence and South Africa has troops in the Civil War that follows against Cuban's sent by Russia. 

1976 Seweto Uprising. Youth Day a  National Holiday will celebrate this later on.

         Toyota Cresida  or Mark2 car became available from then.

1978 Pieter Botha PM

1979 "Sun City" Sol Kerzner set up this hotel and casino, entertainment complex in nominally indepandant black state.

1986  Funeral 1. Jewish.   Anton is 19. 1986 police massacre resulting in State of Emergency

1989President Frederick deKlerk last White Minority leader.

1994  President Nelson Mandela and ANC   African National Congress take over.

1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa   funeral 2 Calvinist

1996 Truth and Reconciliation Commission TRC set up by Mandela, headed by Bishop Desmond Tutu. Any political crime could get amnesty by revealing what was done, and showing remorse.

1999President Thabo Mbeki 

2004 ANC in power 10years    Funeral 3 Catholic

2005 AIDS the government finally starts dealing with this problem

2009 President Jacob Zuma.

2013  Zuma involved the Gupta family in a $6 billion deal with paybacks in mining, railways and the state electricity company.

2015 2018 Water shortage in Cape Town, electrical cuts.

2018 Zuma forced to resign  Funeral 4 Spiritual

        President  Cyril Ramaphosa

Ma has betrayed the whole family by reverting back to Judaism. Amor examines the medicine cabinet of every home she enters.

Majority rule in South Africa during the Cold War meant Communism.

Okie imagines himself as one of his Voortrekker ancestors. Brandy and Coke are my favorite  . The farm is halfway between Pretoria and Hartbeespoort Dam. Rumours of Kruger War gold buried in this area. 

Because Mannie married Rachel their children are fuckups. Oupa drowned in the dam and Pa inherited the farm.

Rachel is not heavy as the sickness hollowed her out,  she has been dying for half a year. She came to the farm as a pregnant bride 20years ago.

Salome came with the land to Pa and she looked after Ma through her illness, but she is apparently invisible. Her son Lukas ' father died in the gold mines. Salome lives in \a house that Opa bought to stop an Indian family moving in when Mrs Lambard died.

Dean De Wet's father died and he helps on the farm with the horses and has a relationship with Astrid. Amor was born when Pa marriage was in trouble and was not planned. Mannie is worried perhaps he is not her child.

Troops in the townships .Anton gets a 7 day pass to go to his mothers funeral and get hit by a rock going the direct route to the farm. He says his parents should never have married.  In Pretoria he waits at bust of Strydom for Lexington to fetch him. Stones hits him on the short way home and with a wound he now looks like a soldier.

The Rabbi finds the Swart family obtuse. Ockie - congratulations instead of condolences. Desiree's father is a cabinet minister who is physically and morally repugnant. All 3 children got names with A's. They slaughter a lamb to soak in the sadness of their loss. Not always possible to please 2 white people simultaneously, when Lexington won't talk about the Swarts family.  Blood is the thickest glue of them all. Funeral with Jewish non Jewish, English and Afrikaans speakers. 

Metal detectors to get into the shopping mall. It's against the law for Salome to own the house. Anton  fell out with his father, desserts the army and becomes a wonderer. Oom Okie is a hollow emphysema husk from working on the mines.

40 years before Alwyn Simmers and his sister Laetitia had an incestious relationship a thing Christians don't do, and he sold his soul on the Altar of Mammon.  At the funeral a troop of baboons come to the food and Anton shoots and them causing the guests to run. Marina turned vegetarian as a result of this braai showing a "communist sentiment"

Cherise her divorce settlement left her lonely and well fed. Pa's girlfriend Lorrain Louw who he never married so gave her no respectability is a beneficiary. Bad news desires transmission like a virus. Amor's taxi driver home is from the Congo. She and Salome have a real feeling for each other. 

Even those who don't like rugby due to a deficiency in their character are watching today. Mandela appears in a Springbok Jersey. SA won in this religion, and the whole country wakes up with a hangover. SA now back in international Rugby.

Mannie died, he thought god would protect him in a glass cage with poisonous snakes.  Amor who left London to come to the funeral now goes to Durban to be with her friend Susan and both become nurses. She goes by bus - only those who are struggling and down on luck travel that way. Amor works with AIDS which the government neglected. Voortrekker shaman burying my father and the prodigal son Anton/ Andrew has to apologize to him to be able to inherit, capitulation was easy. The Abuntu casket represents the open nature of Africa. for Salome the howling jackals in a bad omen.

Astrid was pregnant with Dean before they married in front of the magistrate.

Astrid's husband Jake is in business with a well known politician neighbour. They live in a gated community, and they are invited to the re-inauguration of Thabo Mbeki where they see Castro and Gaddafi, ten years of democracy in SA. Approval matters to Astrid.  Astrid is having an affair with Jake's business partner (a black man)

. A man having a heart attack in the supermarket. This last sight in this world is a bag of dog food. Astrid is hijacked, pushed into the car boot and killed.    dagga and Mandrax (drugs)

Anton has to identify the body and says he shot a woman when he was in the army.  SA they kill each other for fun or  any reason , sometimes for small change. Jake has not been to confession for years and hears from the Father Batty that Astrid was at him the day she was killed, Her divorce from Dean was an offence against god. She had twins with him and they now go to their father. The Priest in a moment of weakness reveals that Astrid had a lover. Anton has been to therapy for a couple of years.  Amor is always drawn to the underclasses and victims.

People who died are always at peace so says the rabbi, dominee, priest.  The homeless man could have had a position of respect once.

It was always Astrid that kept in touch with both Anton and Amor and was the glue of the family. Anton is in debt and is planning to sell part of the farm that near the Church to spite the dominee.

Deseree's father got amnesty by admitting to political crimes. Emphysema takes Okie. Anton goes to the casino and pubs instead of looking after the farm which is falling apart. He is bored by almost everything these days. People and leaving for Perth. The Snake Park partner leaves with the money and goes abroad. Property value is falling all the time. 20 years spent on his novel, wasted his life and killed himself with the  shotgun. Leaves in his will he wants a spiritual cremation no religion.

Desiree's father has dementia. Funerals are for the living, not the dead.  Mowgli /Moti gives a speech at the funeral with very few people. Salome had Amor's phone number but nobody asked her for it. 

Moti's voice has got him further than just the side of the bed. Amor turns up a month later

Amor keeps vanishing. Salome is the only one with her phone number. Amor has no driving license and is vegan. She turns up a month later. Anton was not fertile before he was impotent.  Two life policies that won't pay out as he died by his own hand, and he owes a lot of money to many.

Amor was struck by lightning on the koppie. It is coming back to get her unfinished business.  Moti didn't I tell you the place has energy. Antons novel will get its title last thing. The childhood is well written, then the shooting accident and he wants to run away from himself. With his return to the farm the novel collapses as he loses his way, and all he left was a mess.

There is a community claiming the land that they say they were forcible moved from and the gift to Salome might be a poisoned chalice. Salome at 71 passes from her home to the big house between the 2 and belongs to neither. She originates from Mahikeng (Mafiking) and is Setwana. 

 Luke - the land you are on is ours not yours after he went to jail was never the same again. She asks Salome for her bank account number.. Amor no longer get periods.

Austen Roberts bird sanctuary near Pretoria?

_______________________________ 

Damon Galgut

Born 1963 and won Booker prize 1921. The 3rd SA writer to win the Booker prize after  Nadin Gordimer and JM Coetzee .From  Pretoria , his mother converted to Judaism, he is gay. He wrote his first novel at the age of 17.

Arctic summer is a fictionalised book on EM Forster, a repressed Edwardian gay who can quietly come out when he is abroad in India, Egypt, with WW1 in between. With Nadine Gordimer politics is everything. Whereas he writes about ordinary families but has to place it into a political background .  Influenced by Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.

The Salt path by Raynor Winn 2018 274pg

Walking in Cornwall.    3/4/25

This is the authors first book. The Salt Path usually starts from Poole , Lulworth, Weymouth, Lyme Regis, Sidmouth, Dawlish, Warren, Brixham, Salcombe, Plymouth , Podruan, Gorran Haven, Fulmouth, Kynance Cove, Penzance, Land's End. Then heads northwards St. Ives, Newquay, Padstow, Tinagel,  Bude , Hartland, Westward Ho, Combe Martin, Minehead.

Ray's husband Moth was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration CBD. he had pains in his shoulder and was given a drug Pregabalin that helped for pain but turned him into a bit of a zombie. They had made a bad investment with a friend who went bankrupt and they were shareholders and lost they farm and home.

1381 the first statute against begging came with the Peasants Revolt. 1547 the saw the dissolution of monasteries. Between the 16C and 19C brought about the Enclosures Acts and more homelessness. 

1744 of  Vagrancy Act, categorized beggars, vagabonds, idle and rogues. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars homeless numbers increased again. This resulted in the another  Vagrancy Act of 1824.

2014 Antisocial Behaviors Crime and Policing Act to do with Public Space Disorders Act. There is a wide spread belief that homeless are alcoholics, drug takers and suffering from mental health issues.

They started at Minehead and had an income of £48 per week. They could stay in  private camping sites where hot water and showers were available but that cost £5 per person per night, they did this at times  to wash and clean up.

Sleeping in a tent rough they always had dog walker early in the morning around.

The Coast Path had been establish by the Coast Guard so they could see every cove and bay against smugglers. In 1978 the last section of this was completed in Devon. Westward Ho! was named after a novel by Charles Kingsley 1855 about English pirates. They ran out of Pregabalin medication and Moth felt pain and cold turkey and they were thinking of going back when after 4 days he recovered felt the pain badly but became  lucid again.

Clovelly is a privately owned village and the Hamlyn family rent out the homes to tenants farmers.

Greenham Common. American nuclear warheads were stored here and in 1983 and  there were protests against this.

Robert Steven Hawker (1803–1875) a parson who worried about the burials of shipwrecked sailors and was a poet . He build a hut in a cove in Morewentow  and it is now owned by the National Trust.

Doc Martin was a fictional series filmed  at  at Port Isaac.  They met South Africans but especially Australian surfers hired as Life Guards at Harlyn Bay or working on roadsides cutting the brush. They came for the summer and were surfing when not on duty.

Project Neptune owns a lot of the coast and is supposed to protect it from the ocean.

Bernard Leach 1920 set up a pottery training  at St. Ives where his museum is today.

In season there are lots of blackberries here but you have to eat them just before the get overripe otherwise they are sour. By carrying his heavy load and marching the trail Moth was able to lose weight and had become healthy later when it got colder his muscles became too stiff and painful. Activity and keeping his mind alert was his fight against  his illness.

Greevor was a tin mine till 1991 when it closed and without pumps the sea filled it up  to sea level. The  miners spread as far as Australia, others worked building the Channel Tunnel. The Cornish Mining World Heritage site became a tourist attraction. At lands End a Heinze Baked Beans  label is can be seen as they bought the cape for the National Trust in 1987 .

John le Carre (ne David Cornwall)1931 to 2020  Le Carré lived in St. Buryan Cornwall, for more than 40 years; he owned a mile of cliff near Land' End. The house, Tregiffian Cottage.

1981 Christmas. The cargo ship Union Star on her maiden voyage when her engines failed. In this storm the life boat William Brown recued 4 people and disappeared, both vessels and crews drowned, thus 8 of the town and 8 of the  crew . The town of Mousehole had reporters for weeks after that and was in world press.

Fulmouth University next to Pendinnis Castle which was build in 1540 by Henry VIII.

North of St Austell is the land of the china clay pits of kaolin, this also led to vast mine dumps around the quarry. Thousand of tons of clay were moved out and shipped off from Charlestown harbour.

Charlestown is a picturesque harbor with tall ships, became know by the TV series Poldark.

Menabilly Estate was the place that Daphne du Maurier rented a house and dreamt of Mandalay and Rebecca.

During winter her friend Polly invited them to stay in a small cottage that had been a barn and Moth a trained plasterer completed the walls. He however found that this work was very painful on his arms and shoulders. Polly came to her and told her that the shearing team needed a  fleece packer. As the fleece is shorn she would take it and fold it into a bag. They travelled around to the farms of the area some big and some small family places. She earned £1500 for the season but Polly now had a sheep shearer who was a potential paying tenant for the shed.

At the start of summer they came to Poole. The World Heritage Site runs from Orcombe Point to Exmouth for 92 miles. This is the Jurassic coast and in this area the erosion has exposed rocks with 185 million years of history, through the Triassic , Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

There are people here who want to return the forest to the indigenous heath as described by Thomas Hardy (1840 to 1928) in the Woodlanders. 

Chisel beach is not a beach but a 15 meter high and 18 mile long barrier or a tombolo (Italian for pillow) The pebbles are fist size in Portland but grape size in West bay.

2007 the Napoli ran into trouble and a mile off listed and dropped her containers and scavengers came to look for the motorbikes, perfumes and wines that came off many said they were volunteering to clean up this ecological disaster.

They were offered a small flat in Polrun and Moth received a student loan to study as he could not work physically while Ray became a writer.

The Barbary Pirates by CS Forester 1953 183pg

 US  Barbary Wars First 1801 to 1805 and second 1815 to 1806    3/5/25

The Barbary pirates were a plague for centuries  even Miguel de Cervantes was a hostage of theirs before Raleigh landed at Roanoke in 1587. The word barbary comes from the Greek barbarians or Berbers in N. Africa. Pirates needed plunder to keep their leader in power and Non-Moslems were not considered humans. Christians were considered fair game especially from the weaker divided Italian states in the Mediterranean.

1783 the Moroccan warship captured the US Betsy as they were at war with any Christian nation. They took hostages and forced the US to send an Ambassador. The American were released a year later when Morocco made peace with the US as they were also a trading nation. Portugal stopped Algerian ships from entering the Atlantic so that became safer. In France their were religious orders denoted to freeing Christians captives but these broke down with the French Revolution.

1789 the US constitution came into operation. The US could only deal with foreign affairs once they had a Constitution. With wars between England and France neutral ship could make money blockade running. With Portugal's busy attention in her colonies they could not afford to waste time with Algiers and made a hasty peace.

1794 the US president Washington was empowered to start a navy and Joshua Humphreys "Master Naval Constructor" designed and produced the fighting ships the first was the Philadelphia. Training  seamen was a long task and with wars on merchant seamen earned good wages. Patriotic men enlisted as were those that could not find employment on a ship plus foreigners who got better wages than at home. Seamen enlisted for a year.

It was difficult to blockade  the Tripoli port as  small coastal boats could sneak in at night.

Edward Preble was a skilled commander and popular with his men. He was named by Jefferson for the role. The later victories of 1812 were by people trained by Preble. When he arrived in Morocco he demanded an immediate exchange of prisoners and refused to pay compensation.

The  Philadelphia ran aground and was attacked in Tripoli and captured with seamen aboard who became hostages. Stephen Decantur sent a team to set it alight as he didn't want the enemy to have a powerful warship. Seamen in general were a floating population with no ties. American could dessert to British ships and the other way around. So by using Sicilian ports there were less chance of desertions.1812 during this war the US developed a strong navy. In 1815 The second Barbary War. Decantur captured 2 Algerian ships in battle, crept in Tripoli with a strong navy, and later into Algiers with a large force and dictated terms of peace. Tunis handed over hard cash for its breaches of neutrality, and the US flag was safe from insult.

1816 The British with the help of 6 Dutch ships  bombarded Algiers as they never kept to the agreements. A treaty was signed  in 1816. The British Consul and 1,083 other Christian slaves were freed, and the U.S. ransom money repaid

1830 France occupied Algiers bringing an end to piracy altogether.

The Great Quake by Henry Fountain 2017 240pg to edit

 

: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet 

 25/2/25

A brief history of Alfred Wegener’s continental-drift hypothesis in 1911, He looked at the coast lines of Africa and South America and saw that the fit parallels with identical limestone deposits. British coal deposits and American ones are similar. Glossopteris fossils found everywhere including Africa , S America, India  and Australia.

1890 with discovery of Radioactivity and  the heat of the earth crust, which was floating on denser material. Lighter continents could thus move across the heavier ocean basin.

In 1940 during the war it was realized that the sea floor was covered with canyons and trenches and volcanoes.  Radio dating estimated the earth was 1.6 billion years old. Ships laying cables from Europe to American saw the mid Atlantic ridge. In 1959 these were recognized as places of hot rock and magma. and were spreading and rifting.

 1959, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake popped off right near Yellowstone National Park. It caused a great deal of damage, including the nation’s biggest recorded rock slide.

1964 Alaska’s Good Friday Quake . A magnitude 9.2.  the second most powerful in world history in  Alaska.   devastated the southern half of the state and killed more than 130 people. A day later, George Plafker, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, arrived to investigate. The guess was that this had occurred about 10 miles under the surface. His fascinating scientific detective work in the months that followed helped confirm the then-controversial theory of plate tectonics.

Much of north Alaska tundra in the north and south is boreal forest thick with conifers, willows and beaches, hard to find outcrops of rocks for geologists, the south had more rocks to study. 

1940 Arthur Grantz (1927 to 2021)had explored Alaska with packhorses to do geological fieldwork in 1945.Reuben Kachadoorian a geological engineer was part of this team.

1963 Christin Madsen a  teacher and had studied anthropology got a job in Alaska teaching with 2 other teacher elementary school but wanted to be in a 1 class schoolhouse so she was sent to island village of Chenega. The 14 children in her class had mostly Russian names and some Russian blood. She was paid $5000 a year a lot of money at the time. This village was based on hunting and fishing but was more tied to the sea than other tribes. Halibut began in late winter, Seal hunting in May and then Salmon (the main part of the diet) in early summer. Shellfish the whole year. The Russian Orthodox Church has left its mark 

1741 a Danish captain in charge of a Russian naval expedition came to the William Sound. 1778 Captain Cook on his third and final voyage also came on a quest for the Northwest Passage. Human settlement in the area dates back to 4,500 years ago.

The Russians trades were interested in pelts of sea otter and other animals, which fetched a high price in China and virtually enslaved the natives, by holding women  hostage. Alaska has an annual average of 22 feet of snow. Corpses were stored till spring to be able to bury.

1867 Henry Seward US Secretary of State bought  Alaska for $7.2 million in 1959 it became the 49th State.

1897 of 4000 adventurers who landed in Valdez only 1 in 10 got near the Yukon or Klondike.

Valdez was built on unconsolidated sediments and if water came up this became like quicksand. 1907 The road was completed to Valdez and it was the main port of supplies to the interior and ice free all year. The population there exceeded 5000 exclusively white. Rich copper deposits in the Wrangell Mountains. Fort Liscum was an army base here. There was a regular horse drawn sled service to Fairbanks. Gold mining went into decline by the 1930s. By 1961 there was still enough commercial fishing to support a cannery.

George Plafker did a major  a civil engineering , but did a course in geology and was attracted to to that by his teachers. His mother died and he was brought up and the Hebrew National Orphans Home in Yonkers with another 184 boys an orthodox institution for boys from 6 to 18. The geology class was taken out into Manhattan parks to study the bedrock there every week. 1949 he went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers in Sacramento California. The after he married went on the US geological survey in Alaska which is twice the size of Texas.

Many of Alaska's mountains are volcanoes active and extinct. 50 of these have been active in the last 2 and half centuries. It is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. This included Chile Ecuador ,New Zealand , ,Indonesia with Krakatoa  erupted in  1883 and Pinatubo in Philippines in 1991.Also Japan and the Siberian Coast of Russia.

Geologist are put down by a plane and if the pilot crashes there is nobody to identify where they are They had army tents but would got without poles which they would cut from willow branches. They had military K-rations that were 10 years old. The spent summer in Alaska and processed their notes in winter back at the Menlo Park office back at his family. 

He now worked for Chevron oil in Guatemala as he earned far better. Then Bolivia, where he saw drop stones that come from glaciers. Chevron now pulled out as they could get all the oil needed from the Gulf of Mexico for $3 a barrel and Saudi for $1.50 to get out of the ground. He could get work with Shell in Libya.

By 1954 the population of Alaska was 250,000 including 40,000 natives. Half the population lived in  Fairbanks. and Anchorage which was the hub of the railway line from 1920s. In 1951 A proper airport was build in Anchorage.

1935 with the New Deal program over 200 families   were brought to Palmer, Alaska from the mid West. During the Cold War millions were spent on airfields. In Prince William Sound, Cordova became the centre of salmon fisheries.

Tourism grew and the military was a strong economic engine.

Madsen teaching in Chanega had to teach 180 days in the year including Saturdays because as soon and the salmon season started the school year would end. The school house would also be the movie house for the whole village on Friday nights. TV never came till the 1970s. The Alaska Steamship company converted Liberty ships to cargo carriers for regular runs to Seattle.

Mount Fairweather in the highest peak on the coast 15,525 feet. 1906 San Francisco is on the San Andreas Fault which moves horizontally, by 20 feet the Fault which is 810 miles long. 7% of world earthquake energy release in a year is in Alaska. In 1899 an earthquake shattered the Muir glacier that sent down so many icebergs that they blocked the bay for a decade.

1964 Valdez was wiped out, the port vanished a half a minute after the shaking started as the land turned into liquid.

Cordova badly damaged and Whittier and Seward ablaze. About 2 dozen Chenagans were missing. Land was rising or falling 3 or 4 feet with every quake wave. With uplift there were thousand of dead fish covering the surface, red snappers, if fish rise to the surface too fast their swim bladders burst. There were places where heavy equipment had moved hundreds of feet , hillsides stripped bare of vegetation and ton boulders found halfway up slopes. Clocks had stopped at 5.36pm, the shaking lasted 4 to 5 minutes, landslides blocked roads and bridges collapsed. Port Alberni  25 miles inlet , residents knew that the first wave would by followed by other and evacuated to higher ground without loss of life, but the town and stores were lost.  The main highway was blocked by collapsed land and eventually the highway dept. brought loads of sand to fill it in. Villages on bedrock remained intact despite damage to homes. Undersea cables had survived.

Waves even reached the Antarctic peninsula.  

Charles F. Richter had developed the Scale with Beno Guttenber in 1930.

1960 they US government wanted a standardized Seismology network funded by the military DARPA could also detect nuclear weapon tests.

Acorn barnacle Semibalonus balonoined lives in cold oceans. In 1830 Charles Thomson a British army surgeon biologist understood these. They are crustaceans like shrimp but the larvae swim off and find a rock and stick to it between the high and low tide. The barnicles would have died but left a mark where the high and low tide were., and thenext generation of barnacles a year later also left a mark to compaire to the old line. People who live by the sea know the tides and could expain what had altered.. At Tatitlek high tide was 6 foot lower than before the quake. The boat captain said sid there were   drift wood piles 8 foot above where they were. They concluded that this quake had released twice the energy of the 1906 S. Francisco one. No report was given on the Anchorage nuclear missiles. some river beds hardly flowed for a week. as perhaps fissures had swallowed the water 

Madsen decided to leave Alaska and would return to her parents in Long Beach and decide on her next stage of life.

President Lyndon B Johnson immediately declared a state of disaster ad allocated money and eventually it cost  $310 million. The army corp.  worked but all construction has to be done in summer. By 1967 the New Valdez had the population that the Old Valdez had befor the quake.

The Chenege became a diaspora tribe in different towns. Valdez the whole town was rebuild safe inland.

Plafker now returned to Alaska and he knew what the area geologically was like before the earthquake. He tried understanding why so much land had been uplifted and so much had subsided.  There was a "hinge" line zone where there was no uplift or subsidence. Montagne Island had moved 60feet to the southeast. so there was also lateral movement. Like pulling pizza dough the crust gets thinner in the middle, like the lower land.

Rocks contain a permanent record of the orientation of magnetic field to the magnetic pole at the time of formation. The wandering and even polar reversal. The idea was to look at magnetized  rocks of the world determine their age and put together a time line of when their magnetic field reversed. he data proved that Continental Drift was real. Thus you have polar reversal.

Plafkers task was to figure out what had happened below Alaska the mechanism that caused this uplift and subsidence. They also wanted to understand the seismic signature of earthquakes versus atomic bomb tests. The San Andreas fault is about 1,200 km long.  The oceanic crust slid underneath the continental crust. Plafkers work is known as the theory of plate tectonics. Frank Press suggested the he look at the 1960 earthquake that struck Chile to find a confirmation of the oceanic crust colliding with the continental one. it lasted 10 minutes and had a bigger tidal wave. The continents are moving and the earths crust are moving.

Designing structures in earthquake zones were made stricter. The size of the slip can be determined by the size of the seismic waves.. 3 years after his work in Chile, Plafkers got his doctorate.

1968 oil was discovered on the north side of the Brooks Range, near Prudhoe Bay.

1971  Alaska Claims Settlement Act passed by Congress the they relinquished their claim to State land and the native population received 40 million acres outright. 

1989 Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground  in the prince William Sound.  This brought a big population back to Valdez to the clean up operation. The Trans Alaskan Pipeline runs from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez  a distance of 800 miles. At its peak it sent 2 million barrels a day  in the late 1980 and that is down to a quarter today.

However major Megathrust quakes happened here only once in 6 to8 hundred years.

Other books I have read on Alaska and written on this blog.

  Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel by Ruth Gruber2002

  John Muir The ice that started a fire by Kim Heacox 2016 212pg