JDC posted: " Civilizations - Laurent Binet (translated by Sam Taylor)Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021 As he did in his earlier work Laurent Binet is using fiction to question how history is seen and depicted but in this novel he takes a different approach. He has"
As he did in his earlier work Laurent Binet is using fiction to question how history is seen and depicted but in this novel he takes a different approach. He has written a fictitious pastiche of primary historical accounts and letters telling a story of European history that has the conquest narrative flowing the other way across the Atlantic, and is great fun to read. In his popular HHhH, Binet questioned whether the reality of historical events can really be known by trying to write a fictional account of Reinhardt Heydrich's assassination, and alongside it the story of his own attempts to write such a novel. However, he ends up doing exactly that in spite of all his angst.
'Ship' by David Burliuk; oil on canvas
In this book he leaves the angst aside and throws himself whole-heartedly into telling an imaginative counter-factual tale of European conquest. It opens in an unexpected way with The Saga of Freydis Eriksdottir, whose father is Erik the Red, and who is prone to wanderlust. Along with her brothers and husband she sails off west and after various violent adventures and encounters, the remaining group find themselves far further south than anyone from their part of the world has reached before. Their journeys come to an end after several stops along the coast but not before they make their own marks on the land and the people.
The next part is a collection of fragments from The Journal of Christopher Columbus. He does sail west with a group of ships to find gold and bring Christianity to the poor, benighted natives, but his journey doesn't go quite the way history says it did. Columbus writes about himself as a man who is trying to humbly serve his God and his rulers, and be as kind as he can to all. What the reader sees is someone who is clueless, delusional, and arrogant, but also someone who could have been harsher than he was. A part of the reason so many of his decisions go awry is due to his efforts to do the right thing, at least as he sees it. After kidnapping six men to take back with them, his crew then:
They brought me back six women, some young and some old, and three children. I did this because the men will behave better in Spain if they have women from their own land.
That night, a man came aboard. He was the husband of one of the women and the father of the three children: one boy and two girls. He asked me to let him come with them.
The longest part of the book is The Chronicles of Atahualpa which is the heart of this tale. It starts in the lands of the Incas, the Empire of the Four Quarters, where the half-brothers Huascar and Atahualpa who govern different parts of the empire, go to war. Atahualpa racks up victories against the man who declared war on him, but is stopped at the very edge of taking it all. His forces are chased down by Huascar and finally reach an abundant and beautiful island with the sea of front of them, but are still pursued. So, what else to do but resurrect two of Columbus's beached ships, build another and set sail eastwards towards a New World?
They come within sight of a seemingly deserted land and sail inland on a river. As it turns out they have reached an earthquake-devastated Portugal.
The first sounds that they heard in this New World were the barking of dogs and the crying of children.
The one building still standing and on dry ground is a monastery, Atahualpa's party of '183 people, thirty-seven horses, one puma and several llamas' arrives to the consternation of the residents. The presence of women really agitates them, especially Higuénamota, the Taíno princess who asked to accompany Atahualpa because as a little girl she had spent time with Columbus's party and speaks the language. Except for the bracelets and anklets given to her by her mother and a necklace, she goes naked as her people always have, although when it's cold she does don a coat.
After their stay at the monastery they move on to Spain. Here their adventures in this New World, or Fifth Quarter as Atahualpa has named it, really start. One of the first things they witness when they reach Toledo is a barbaric result of the Inquisition in which people who have fallen foul of the inquisitors are burned alive. There are cultural shocks and misunderstandings on both sides, but thanks to the tribulations the Quitonians have been through in their native land, Atahualpa's loyal generals: Quizquiz, Chalco Chimac, and Ruminahui, Atahualpa's canny inner circle, including the invaluable Higuénamota, his own abilities as a ruler, and his discovery of the writings of Machiavelli, Atahualpa and his people gradually amass power. He starts with a valuable insight that comes from his stay on the island that Higuénamota's mother rules:
He also knew that the foreigners from long ago had been obsessed by two things: their god and gold. They liked to plant crosses.
The Chronicles as I've mentioned, is the longest section and much of it is wonderfully done, but there is a point when it becomes too much 'and then-ish' although that was probably difficult to avoid with so much happening during Atahualpa's life. There's a striking section of an exchange of letters between Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam which mimics the style of the real exchanges of letters the two men did have. One of the thorniest people Atahualpa has to deal with is Martin Luther. However, one day residents of Wittenberg find Ninety-Five Theses of the Sun nailed to the famous church door written by an unknown hand countering Luther's views.
However, trouble does arrive in the Inca's Fifth Quarter towards the end of his reign from an entirely unexpected quarter and there's another exchange of letters, this time between Atahualpa and Higuénamota. The final part of the book is The Adventures of Cervantes. Miguel de Cervantes has an incident-filled life, but it's not the one the author of Don Quixote had. It takes a surprising turn and opens up the possibility of a whole new adventure tale and that is where this book ends.
Binet and the wonderful English translation by Sam Taylor come up with some telling terminology: documents and books are talking sheets, Europeans are Levantines, sheep are small llamas, the Pope is the chief of the shaved men, and the crucified figure depicted everywhere that causes so much dissension in the New World is the nailed god. The Quitonians grow very fond of the black drink that becomes red when poured into a glass and are impressed by the New World's tall towers and multi-story buildings. Often places in both the Old and New Worlds are described as seen through new eyes:
Within this palace was a sacred place with translucent patches of red, yellow, green and blue. The ceiling there was like a spider's web carved into the stone, and even higher than Pachacuti's palace.
This tale of Atahualpa the Inca, the Quitonians, and their history is the first revisionist fiction I've ever got on with. Although I liked Binet's HHhH, I wasn't quite as bowled over by it as many readers were, but enjoyed Civilizations far more. Part of what sets this counter-factual story apart is Binet's intelligence in handling his material, the humor, and the clever solutions to the problems Atahualpa encounters in his New World. Europe might really have been better off with him as a ruler. But Binet doesn't make his characters starkly good or bad, they are all complex with elements of both. Atahualpa's rule has its own weaknesses and carries out its share of reprehensible actions, but Binet has an expansive enough imagination to give an interesting perspective on how European civilization might be seen as looked at by different eyes. A surprise hit with me especially after my mixed feelings about his earlier book.
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