This book, along with a number of other 'bricks', has been sitting on my shelf for quite a while and I realised that if I wanted to reduce number of books that I have not read I was going to have to tackle some of these 'bricks', so since I have already read some of Dostoevsky I decided that I would start off with this one. The ironic thing was that when I checked the website for the Literary Classics Society, of which I am a member, I discovered that the book for this month turns out to be Crime and Punishment. Well, I am now tempted to grab that book from my local bookshop (and the Vintage cover looks pretty cool by the way) and attempt to read it in the two weeks prior to when the club next meets.

Dostoevsky certainly has an interesting view of the world, and the novels of his that I have read tend to be quite dark and gritty (though the only other one happens to be House of the Dead, which doesn't necessarily have a bad ending, though the subject, namely life in a Siberian prison, is pretty horrific). In The Devil's (or The Demons, or The Possessed, depending on the translation that you have, though somebody suggested that the Possessed is not the best translation because it deals with the objects as opposed to the subject) we are taken to a provincial Russian town in the mid-nineteenth century where we see how new ideas from Europe affect the local population. These ideas, the Devil's of the title if you will, are ideas that have been around Europe for quite a while, having come about during the Enlightenment in the mid-eighteenth century. As I have suggested elsewhere, ideas of freedom of thought, freedom of religion, and the concept of political liberty are like a Pandora's box because when they take hold they are very difficult to shake loose. In fact these ideas, which originally came from England, went to the United States, and were then brought back by the French after the war of Independence, changed Europe dramatically (through the French revolution). However, while Western Europe was gripped in revolution, Russia had managed to remain isolated and stuck in the middle ages. In fact there had been no Reformation in Russia so the idea of freedom of religion was not even on the radar, that is until these philosophies came flooding over in the years after the Napoleonic Wars.

Dostoevsky, in this book, is very critical of these new ideas, and it is not as if he wasn't exposed to them. Dostoevsky spent quite a lot of time in Germany as well as travelling around other parts of Europe, but at heart he was Russian Orthodox, and was very dogmatic in that regard. It was not as if he was not radical – he did spend time in Sibera for his views – however he saw the danger in going too far over into these radical spheres, and that danger is clearly outlined in novel.

It is difficult to put one's finger on the exact idea that is explored in this novel – it is Atheism, but it is also Nihilism, and also in a way it could be Anarchism, though that is never mentioned. It could also be a radical form of Socialism, however what we do know is that this idea works on the principle that if a new society is to arise, then the old society must first be completely destroyed, and thus we are taken through an orgy of blood and violence as people are murdered, or commit suicide, and whole villages are burnt to the ground. All the while the secret police are combing the province for these revolutionaries.

The Devil's (or what you wish to call this novel) is certainly a powerful novel, and it also seemed to continue to drag me back in to see how it unfolded and how Dostoevsky understood the nature of humanity, and the destruction that these ideas had on a nation that had not developed enough to understand the ideas that had been filtering over from Europe. However, Europe had had its revolutions, it was just a matter of time before Russia were to have hers. However, while Europe ended up settling into the Social Democracies of the mid to late twentieth centuries, Russia still had yet to emerge from the totalitarian regimes. Maybe it is the case that since Russia was not ready for these ideas, that when these ideas arrived they become corrupted which lead to such extreme results, though the more I think about it, the more I realise that such extreme reactions were not necessarily restricted to Russia.

This is a story about a General who is thrust into the world of politics, namely because he was such a good general. However, while he happpens to be a great general, as a politician he positively sucks. Basically, Gaius Marcius' main flaw (despite the fact that I don't believe in fatal flaws) is that he simply speaks his mind, which is a noble characteristic is most professions, but not in politics. To put it bluntly, Marcius (aka Coriolanus, a name he receives after capturing the city of Coriolai) has absolutely no time for the hoi poloi (namely the great unwashed, the peasantry, the plebeians, or whatever other name you can come up with that describes those of us who are not members of the ruling class) and he does not mince any words regarding this dislike. This is clear right from the beginning for when the people are rioting over the price of grain he basically tells them to bugger off, and no amount of whinging and whining was going to make him release any more grain, because, well, there is not all that much grain to go around, and if they didn't put up and shut up, then he was going to start busting some heads – and this is from the guy that later in the play is being positioned to become consul of Rome, a position equivalent to president.

The thing I like about Coriolanus is that it gives us an idea into the way politics worked in Republican Rome. Okay, it is Shakespeare, and if we want a better understanding we need to go to the ancient sources, however Coriolanus still gives us a pretty good idea of what the system was like. Basically, in Republican Rome, (as in other ancient democracies) the military and the government were intertwined, so it was not uncommon for the members of the senate and the rulers to have been soldiers and generals. This was the case with Julius Ceaser. However, to be a great ruler one generally had to be a great general, be loved by the patricians, and also be loved by the plebeians (or at least tolerated). Now for Coriolanus: he met two of the three conditions, namely he was not loved by the people (and there was a similar situation with Ceaser, but it was the opposite in that he was loved by the people but hated by the patricians).

These days the idea of a general being a president in an advanced democracy generally does not happen, (though it has happened in the United States with George Washington, Ulysses S Grant, and Eisenhower as examples, but generally the military to not go into politics). However, Rome was quite different, namely because the military was so intertwined with civilian life. Civilians would have participated in the military - especially in times of war. In fact many of the middle class citizens had gained their status after stints in the Roman army (it was common for soldiers who had served in the army to be given plots of land to farm after retiring from the army). As such, one of the rewards for being an outstanding soldier (such as Coriolanus) was a nice plump position in government, and the better the soldier you were, the higher up the chain you could get.

However, Coriolanus' problem was that to become Consul, he needed the consent of the people, and while his political allies could sway the people, his political enemies could also sway them the other way, which is what happened. Basically, the tribunes, who represented the people, and could veto rulings on behalf of the people, swayed them away from Coriolanus, and to such an extent that he was forced to go into exile. In doing so, however, he ends up defecting over to his enemy forces, and fuming in anger over being kicked out of his homeland, he leads his new found allies (the Volsces) against Rome and besieges the city.

The problem was that Coriolanus' as at heart a Roman, and while he was angry at his treatment, he could not stay angry at his people for too long, which turns out bad for him because when he signs the peace treaty with Rome on behalf of the Volsces, and withdawls his forces, he ends up angering the Volsces, who then proceed to kill him.

There was a movie recently released based on this play, starring Ralph Finness. This is actually set in a modern setting, and it is a pretty good movie. For a play that is not performed all that much, if you want to actually see a version of this play, I would highly recommend getting your hands on that movie.

If you are interesting in some more thoughts on the play, I have written a blog post, which I did after watching the Donmar Theatre production.

This is the last play that Racine ever wrote and produced and it did not seem to go down all that well with the people of the time, maybe because there had recently been a political affair involving a woman who was trying to set herself up as Queen (read king) of France. However, it did garner some accord from a number of intellectuals at the time, including Voltaire, who believed that it was one of Racine's greatest plays. The political machinations that Racine manages to bring out of his plays do exalt him to the position of one of the great playwrights, and in a way he is set apart from Shakespeare because of this. However, despite the fact that he is French and he wrote in French, he still does not seem to attract the popularity that the Bard's plays tend to (probably because he is French).

Athalie is one of two plays that Racine wrote based around biblical stories, both of them from the Old Testament. The other biblical play that he wrote is Esther, and anybody somewhat familiar with the Bible is probably familiar with the book of Esther. However the story of Athalie (or Athaliah in English) is much less familiar, and I would not be surprised if there are a number of Christians out there who have been Christians for a long time that are unfamiliar with the story of Athalie.

The story itself comes from 1 Kings 11 and occurs after the brutal murders (not that they weren't asking for it) of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel (the monarchs of the northern Kingdom of Israel) by King Jehu (the king of the southern Kingdom of Judah – Racine explains this in his introduction). While at the time Jehu did what was right in the eyes of God, as he grew old he become corrupted with power, and no doubt threw away his faith in God. It appears that he did not produce an heir because his mother, Athalie, took hold of the reigns of power in Judah and then proceeded to execute the rest of the royal family, leaving her firmly in control.

The play begins pretty quickly after she had ascended to the throne of Judah and had brought the worship of the Baals (foreign gods) back into Judah. However the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem continued the worship of the one true God, and they also had an ace up their sleeve – the only surviving heir to the throne of Judah and the only surviving descendant of the line of King David. Thus the play is set up to be a play where the queen and her prophets struggle and fight against the high priest and his prophets, who are also trying to keep the soul surviving heir a secret.

Some have suggested, and this is probably true, that this play comes out of Racine's Jansenist upbringing. In fact after Phaedre, Racine left the lime light and returned to the faith of his youth, and it was only later in life that he returned to the stage to produce a couple of plays outlining his new found faith. However it is interesting to note that Racine still does not bring the extra-ordinary into his plays. This is similar to what we see in Shakespeare and which differs from the great tragedians (and even the old comics) of the Ancient world who had the gods playing an important role in the plays. However, it is also the case that in the Ancient World the gods played an important role in civil life.

It is not that the Christian god did not play an important role however, it is just that it appears that ever since Christ's ascension to heaven, literature tended to drift away from the direct intervention of a divine ruler. Most of the stories that have come about have either come directly from the Bible, or simply focus only on the physical aspects of the world. We see this in Racine's Greek plays where the gods simply do not appear (which differs from Euripides, who would have the gods introduce and conclude the play, and also appear so as to set things right). In the European plays we tend to see a much more humanist aspect in the action, in that the play is not resolved through divine intervention, but through the acts of mere mortals.

Maybe this is what Schaeffer is talking about when he talks about nature eating up grace. Namely, we divide the world into an upper and lower story (that is heaven and Earth) and by separating heaven from Earth we restrict the power of heaven's influence over Earth. We also see this in discussions on the Greek plays where modern commentators will criticise Euripides' use of the deus ex machina, in that it is a poor attempt to resolve the play's conflict when in Eurpides' time such scenes were accepted by the audience. I suspect that it has a lot to do with us moderns drifting further and further away from the acceptance of a divinity that can actually influence the world in which we live.

Some have suggested that this is one of Heinlein's most political books, and while it this is only the forth that I have read so far, I am probably not that inclined to agree. While it was much better than Podkayne of Mars, it was pretty much on par with Stranger in a Strange Land (the other one I read was Starship Troopers). In a way, one could say that this novel is an anatomy of a revolution, in the same what that Stranger in a Strange Land is an anatomy of a religious cult (and while I could say that Starship Troopers is an anatomy of an army, the army in that book seems to be of a different sort than what we know of armies today).

The book is set about 100 years in the future at the time of writing, which at the time was in the middle of the space race. Basically the novel appeared almost half way between Kennedy proclaiming that by the end of the decade they would have put a man on the moon, and Nixon actually doing it, and this was played out in the background of Russia attempting to do the same thing. However, despite a number of voyages during the 70s, all of the sudden the idea of visiting the moon suddenly dropped off, and nobody has been back since.

Anyway, at the time of writing, people were still looking forward to the possibilities of what might come of the space race, and one of them was a full fledged colony on the moon. However, it appears that in Heinlein's future, the colonisation of space had ended with the moon. Luna has become a penal colony, and it was sustained by the enormous amounts of ice found there (which solves the water problem) and has been turned into a farming community that exports grain to Earth (which to an extent solves the oxygen problem as well). It is also suggested that much of the food is grown hydroponically.

However, life on the moon is not pleasant. In a way it reflects the world of the late 18th and early 19th century, where the Great Powers of Europe would establish penal colonies in far away locations (such as Australia and Siberia) and if one was sent there there generally was no hope of ever returning. This is the case with Luna, because it is too expensive to send people there and back, and while there is some two-way traffic, it is not common, and in fact the colony is run from Earth by an organisation known as the Lunar Authority, though there is a Warden who lives on the moon.

Some have said that this is a handbook on revolution, but I do not think that that is the case. Rather Heinlein is telling a sort of future history. The story is written as a memoir of by one of the leaders of the revolution, though it is interesting to note that everything is meticulously planned, and the person writing the memoir, a techie named Manuel, is little more than a puppet. It is also interesting that the head of the revolution is a computer named Mike who is convinced to participate because he is interested in learning about humour, but also because the only person that he considers a friend is Manuel. While Mike was built by the authority, it is his programmer than he comes to trust, which makes us wonder whether it is the owner, or the maintainer, that truly controls a computer system.

Heinlein says a lot of really interesting things in this book. Sort of short one liners that make you think quite deeply about what is going on. At the beginning of the book he talks about Mike's processor speed, and in fact this is raised a number of times during the story. Remember, this was written in 1965 when computers still pretty much filled a room (and were much less powerful that the computer currently sitting on my lap on which I am writing this). What caught me though, and it is something that I have read elsewhere, is that the faster the computer processes information, the slower time appears to the computer. It made me think that if I could actually speed up my brain's processing ability, I could actually slow time down, at least to my perception. Obviously, the problem with that is that if my brain was operating a four times the speed that it currently is, that means that I would simply not be able to communicate with anybody around me (because I would be talking at four times the speed that I am currently speaking). However, it would mean that my train trips into the city, and my plane flights would be four times as long, which means I would be able to get through much more reading than I currently do. However, watching movies would be an absolute pain, unless I could effectively speed them up as well, but unfortunately it generally does not work that way.

Another thing that I found intriguing was when the professor (the real brains behind the whole revolution) outlined how a constitution should be drafted, and that is that it should be full of things that a government cannot do. Many constitutions are like that, though others simply outline how the government bodies are constituted and how laws are passed and interpreted. It is interesting that when Napoleon went storming across Europe, he would set up constitutions in countries that he conquered modelled on the new French Constitution, though I suspect that the states that the Americans are 'helping' to establish, are begin directed through their own imperialist agenda. The Australian constitution is set up to give the government restrictive powers, in that there are a set of powers that it has and can use, and only use. I guess that reflects John Locke's idea that nothing is beyond the power of a parliament. I suspect that Heinlein was thinking of that idea when he wrote the passage about filling a constitution up with restrictions on what a government can do.

Anyway, all of this is idealistic, and Heinlein knows this as well, because despite the revolution that runs perfectly (but he does give good reasons behind that as well), human nature is human nature, and he knows that. We see this when the Earth is being bombarded from orbit. Despite warnings that the people of Earth should stay away from certain places, and despite the attempts to hit places that people would not be, people instead flock to those locations, believing that the Loonies (inhabitants of Luna) are bluffing. Mind you, in the end, the whole idea of the revolution is based entirely on bluff and counterbluff, and who is willing to call which bluff. The problem with calling a bluff though, is that you can never know if your opponent is bluffing until you call their bluff, and by then it is too late.

One final thing, I really did like how Heinlein structured the language of the Loonies. It seems a bit odd at first, but you soon get used to it. Basically it is full of redundancies, namely anything that is not needed is tossed out. He also indicates that it has borrowed from other languages, sort of a result of the mixtures of cultures that have appeared on the moon, though he restricts this to da (yes in Russian) and Nyat (no in Russian), and a small smattering of German sounding words that Google Translate doesn't seem to recognise. I guess he was very restricted in that way since he was writing to an English audience, and too many borrowings from too many languages would have made the book unreadable.