What are you reading now?

[Richard Tarleton]

I've just finished Mario Vargas Llosa's fictionalised account of the life of Roger Casement, "El Sueño del celta" - coming out in English in April I think but his Spanish is not at all difficult (if you have reasonable Spanish ). There is a slew of biographies of Casement around, from every point of view - including anti-slavery, gay rights, flawed hero, etc., but Llosa's device enables him to get insode his subject's head, reconstruct conversations or scenes of which there is no record or where there were no witnesses. It is based on the same sort of research as a biography, though it lacks an index, bibliography, glossary or list of dramatis personae which would have helped.

I was aware of the outline of Casement's contribution to Ireland in 1916, and vaguely aware of his work uncovering atrocities in the Belgian Congo rubber trade, but entirely ignorant of the similar work he did in the Peruvian Amazon - this is the best section of the book, IMV. It begins and ends in the condemned cell at Pentonville, and returns there at intervals through the book as Casement receives visitors, reflects on things, etc. A harrowing but worthwhile read.

[verismissimo]

RT, how does Vargas Llosa deal with Casement's alleged paedophilia?

[Richard Tarleton]

No reference to paedophilia as such, though some to encounters with younger men in both the Congo and S America - by that stage considerably younger - as well as to casual encounters of the more conventional kind in the UK, and his relationship with the young Norwegian which may have contributed to his undoing in the final stages. I don't know enough about Casement to know what all the allegations are. There is (obviously fictional) conversation with his confessor in prison, and Llosa discusses the Black Diaries briefly in a short epilogue without coming to any firm conclusions as to their genuineness.

What I came away with was a sense of his achievement in (with ED Morel) exposing the horrors of King Leopold's regime in the Congo, and almost single-handedly bringing the horrific edifice of the Peruvian Amazon Company, with its regime of slavery, rape and murder in pursuit of the rubber trade, crashing down. Had it not been for his singularly bizarre and incompetent contibution to the 1916 rising he would have come down as one of the great humanitarians, up there with Wilberforce only more so in view of his hands-on involvement and enormous physical and moral courage in the face of life-threatening danger, disease etc.

I've since been told that Seamus O Siochain's biography - Imperialist, Rebel and Revolutionary - is one to look out for, but he's clearly been written about from every point of view (the most written about Irishman of the 20th century) and with the amount of vilification involved it's not easy to sort out fact from fiction.

[amateur51]

RT, how does Vargas Llosa deal with Casement's alleged paedophilia?

I'm not convinced by the suggestions of 'paedophilia'. Firstly we have to consdider the state of the law and the age of consent at the time. And then we need to see that a lot of materials relating to Casement's diaries and sexuality were 'released' around the time of his trial for treason. There was a concerted effort to besmirch his name via his homosexuality in case anyone should find his politics to be less reprehensible than the authorities wished.

[amateur51]

I'm just tucking into 'Finishing the Hat' by Stephen Sondheim, which is huge, extremely detailed and beautifully produced. I can see this taking me a long time to finish, but it's all fascinating stuff.

And apparently he's at work on the second volume!

He expresses some controversial views too and is very rude about Noel Coward, which frankly smacks of sour grapes

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Firstly we have to consider the state of the law and the age of consent at the time. . . .

Surely there was no "age of consent" until 1967! Not in England anyway, but admittedly in foreign lands things may have been different.

May we recommend a little green Penguin we purchased in 1964 for 3/6? One of the series "Penguin Crime," it is entitled "Famous Trials 9: Roger Casement," and was written by H. Montgomery Hyde (Henry James's cousin you know). It contains four interesting appendixes: "Funds for Casement's defence," "Petitions on his behalf," "House of Commons Proceedings concerning the Casement Diaries," and (last but not least) "Extract from Casement's unpublished diary for the year 1911."

This last appendix consists of the entries in Casement's hand-writing in his diary for the two weeks immediately after his arrival in Iquitos (Peru). The 1911 diary was not included by Girodias in the Olympia Press "Black Diaries" of 1959.

It is all far too rude to reproduce here, but in our judgement the entries are almost certainly the genuine musings and observations of a "size queen" among the native Peruvians.

[french frank]

Firstly we have to consider the state of the law and the age of consent at the time.

This is a fascinating issue to pursue. There is the aspect of the individual's conscience and inbuilt, intuitive moral concerns v. what is legally permitted. Like the argument against the slavers (references to Edward Colston of Bristol having been recently mentioned elsewhere). The tempora and the mores.

[vinteuil]

This is a fascinating issue to pursue. There is the aspect of the individual's conscience and inbuilt, intuitive moral concerns v. what is legally permitted. Like the argument against the slavers (references to Edward Colston of Bristol having been recently mentioned elsewhere). The tempora and the mores.

A fascinating issue indeed. Has anyone offered an improvement recently on Kant's 'categorical imperative'? ["Ich soll niemahls anders verfahren, als so, daß ich auch wollen könne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden."]

[amateur51]

Surely there was no "age of consent" until 1967! Not in England anyway, but admittedly in foreign lands things may have been different.

May we recommend a little green Penguin we purchased in 1964 for 3/6? One of the series "Penguin Crime," it is entitled "Famous Trials 9: Roger Casement," and was written by H. Montgomery Hyde (Henry James's cousin you know). It contains four interesting appendixes: "Funds for Casement's defence," "Petitions on his behalf," "House of Commons Proceedings concerning the Casement Diaries," and (last but not least) "Extract from Casement's unpublished diary for the year 1911."

This last appendix consists of the entries in Casement's hand-writing in his diary for the two weeks immediately after his arrival in Iquitos (Peru). The 1911 diary was not included by Girodias in the Olympia Press "Black Diaries" of 1959.

It is all far too rude to reproduce here, but in our judgement the entries are almost certainly the genuine musings and observations of a "size queen" among the native Peruvians.

According to wikipedia:

"Traditionally the age of consent for a sexual union was a matter for the family to decide, or a tribal custom. In most cases this coincided with signs of puberty, menstruation for a woman and pubic hair for a man.[2]

The first recorded age-of-consent law dates back 800 years: In 1275, in England, as part of the rape law, a statute, Westminster 1, made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age," whether with or without her consent. The phrase "within age" was interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was 12 years of age.[3]

In the 12th century Gratian, the influential founder of Canon law in medieval Europe, accepted age of puberty for marriage to be between 12 and 14 but acknowledged consent to be meaningful if the children were older than seven. There were authorities that said that consent could take place earlier. Marriage would then be valid as long as neither of the two parties annulled the marital agreement before reaching puberty, or if they had already consummated the marriage. It should be noted that Judges honored marriages based on mutual consent at ages younger than seven, in spite of what Gratian had said; there are recorded marriages of two and three year olds.[2]

The American colonies followed the English tradition, and the law was more of a guide. For example, Mary Hathaway (Virginia, 1689) was only nine when she was married to William Williams. Sir Edward Coke (England, 17th century) made it clear that "the marriage of girls under twelve was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was nine even though her husband be only four years old."[2]

Reliable data for when people used to marry is very difficult to find. In England for example, the only reliable data on age at marriage in the early modern period comes from records which involved only those who left property after their death. Not only were the records relatively rare, but not all bothered to record the participants' ages, and it seemed that the more complete the records are, the more likely they are to reveal young marriages. Additionally, 20th and 21st centuries' historians have sometimes shown reluctance to accept data regarding young ages of marriage, and would instead explain the data away as a misreading by a later copier of the records.[2]

A small group of Italian and German states which introduced an age of consent in the 16th century also set it at 12 years. Towards the end of the 18th century, other European nations also began to enact age of consent laws. The French Napoleonic Code established an age of consent of 11 years in 1791, which was raised to 13 years in 1863. Nations such as Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons, initially set the age of consent at 10–12 years and then raised it to between 13 and 16 years in the second half of the 19th century.[3]

In the United States, by the 1880s, most states set the age of consent at ten or twelve, and in one state, Delaware, the age of consent was only seven. Women reformers and advocates of social purity initiated a campaign in 1885 to petition legislators to raise the legal age of consent to at least sixteen, with ultimate goal to raise the age to eighteen; the campaign was successful: by 1920, almost all states had raised the age of consent to sixteen or eighteen.[4][5]

Social (and the resulting legal) attitudes toward the appropriate age of consent have drifted upwards in modern times. For example, while ages from 10 to 13 were typically acceptable in western countries during the mid-19th century,[1] the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were marked by changing attitudes towards sexuality, childhood and adolescence, resulting in raising the ages of consent.[3]"

A tad more complex than you seem to believe, Sydney.

When you write "size queen" you are referring to adult male genital size, I assume Sydney. It's unlike you to be coy and to lapse into the demotic, and I wouldn't want you to confuse the less wordly members of the forum

[french frank]

A fascinating issue indeed. Has anyone offered an improvement recently on Kant's 'categorical imperative'? ["Ich soll niemahls anders verfahren, als so, daß ich auch wollen könne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden."]

Being less well acquainted with Kant, I can but run to Wikipedia for the elucidation:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

[Richard Tarleton]

This is a fascinating issue to pursue. There is the aspect of the individual's conscience and inbuilt, intuitive moral concerns v. what is legally permitted. Like the argument against the slavers (references to Edward Colston of Bristol having been recently mentioned elsewhere). The tempora and the mores.

Indeed. This discussion reminds me of an episode I came across in Neruda's Memorias, (p.136-7 in my paperback edn) in Ceylon where he - basically rapes - a female Tamil cleaner. whose job it is to empty the latrines under the bungalows. He is much struck by her beauty, etc. etc., and takes her up to his room. The worst he can find to say about himself is that she "Permaneció todo el tiempo con sus ojos abiertos, impasible. Hacía bien en despreciarme [understatement of the millenium ]. No se repetió la experiéncia". Just about everything is here - culture, imperialism, power of every variety (physical, economic, you name it)....and this from a man who received not only a Nobel Prize but also every honour going in the communist world, so I suppose you could add hypocrisy as well.

In Casement's case, I get the impression from the book (and understand this comes from the Black Diaries) that his interests lay in more mature young men, but that these encounters took place in cultures far removed from his own raises the issues you refer to, ff. After all he was fighting one sort of imperialism.

[vinteuil]

Indeed. This discussion reminds me of an episode I came across in Neruda's Memorias, (p.136-7 in my paperback edn) in Ceylon where he - basically rapes - a female Tamil cleaner. whose job it is to empty the latrines under the bungalows. He is much struck by her beauty, etc. etc., and takes her up to his room. The worst he can find to say about himself is that she "Permaneció todo el tiempo con sus ojos abiertos, impasible. Hacía bien en despreciarme [understatement of the millenium ]. No se repetió la experiéncia". Just about everything is here - culture, imperialism, power of every variety (physical, economic, you name it)....and this from a man who received not only a Nobel Prize but also every honour going in the communist world, so I suppose you could add hypocrisy as well.

Richard - very instructive. And the sentence of Neruda's before the bit you quote sums it up too - "The encounter was that between a man and a statue." Talk about 'objectification'!

[amateur51]

This is a fascinating issue to pursue. There is the aspect of the individual's conscience and inbuilt, intuitive moral concerns v. what is legally permitted. Like the argument against the slavers (references to Edward Colston of Bristol having been recently mentioned elsewhere). The tempora and the mores.

We should also remember that Casement had the relatively recent example to consider of what the British (English?) state did to Oscar Wilde, a fellow Irish would-be voluptuary who flaunted his sexuality under the noses of the English establishment and who allowed his sexual nature to be the subject of judicial scrutiny. At this time it was almost inevitable that educated gay men of means would chose to explore sexual adventures away from home turf and prying eyes. In this case the Empire was the heterosexual establishment backed-up by the established Church.

[verismissimo]

Having started this particular hare running, perhaps boarders would like to read this short essay on the forgery/authenticity debate from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Casement#The_Black_Diaries_and_Casement.E2.80.99s_sexuality

Seems the jury may still be out.

[sigolene euphemia]

Just finished

The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

and

In the Kitchen by Monica Ali
where upon page 292 is a Eudaimonia moment:
"Or maybe I spent too long reading Schopenhauer," said Nicolai.

now in the beginning pages of

The Crime of Olga Arbyelina
by Andrei Makine