The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

 

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

Introducing the book Mark W noted that this was another book set within a historical event with a mixture of real and fictional characters. Past experience is that this can work well (e.g. Apeirogon) or can be a disaster (The Sunrise). This book deals with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, an event which has a relatively low profile in the UK, very much overshadowed by the Second World War. It’s not until one reads about such wars, (one sided as they tend to be), from the point of view of the nation that has been invaded, that one realises how catastrophic they can be, particularly as those on the losing side tend to be  ‘less developed’ from the military and economic point of view if not from the social and intellectual point of view.

The book itself is a great mix of an interesting narrative, a number of strong characters and an original lyrical style which is one that Mark felt would be either loved or hated. The two main characters of Hirut and Ettore in particular were beautifully developed but the supporting cast as well, in particular Aster, Kidane, Fucelli and the cook, (always known as cook), were also memorable.

Mark identified three scenes in particular that were particularly memorable, all horrific: firstly the scene near the beginning where there is a graphic description of Aster whipping Hirut after she found that she had stolen some items from the house. Secondly the scene where the Italian planes dropped poison gas on the retreating Ethiopian fighters and thirdly the final part of the book set against the construction of the ‘prison’ which consisted of a small building and a cliff between two large rocks where prisoners were thrown to their deaths, being photographed by Ettore during their descent. The scenes where Aster and Hirut were held and abused in the prison were full of tension although we know that Hirut, at least, must have survived.

Finally, the Epilogue, which Mark felt to be a well-crafted bringing together  of Hirut and Ettore, continuing the Prologue, and bringing Haile Selasse into the mix at the Station. It was interesting to go back to the Prologue having read the book, just to get a different perspective having got to know the characters.

There was even a bit of local colour, in that Haile Selasse fled to the UK and was domiciled in Fairfield House in Bath for a number of years. Worth going to see the house which is tucked around the back of Kelston Rd!

Willm struggled to get into the book at the beginning. He thought it was going to be a ‘fall in love with your enemy’ story but maybe it was from Ettore’s side.  However, as the plot moved on to preparations for, and engagement in, the war, he found it very interesting and something of a page-turner. There were some beautiful descriptions, though somewhat overblown and florid, in places, and some good characters. The idea of shadows - the light and dark - displayed within the characters and exemplified by the photos was quite clever. As was the mythic quality of the king - be this symbolic figure ‘real’ or ‘fake’, and the illustration that under the robes and the pomp is a rather small creature - like the Wizard of Oz. He was surprised by the ending but overall found the book to be very well written.

Chris W opened by providing us with some background To Fairfield House. Apparently it reopened in 2015 after 15 years of closure. Regarding the book itself, he wasn’t sure if he enjoyed it. He felt it was too long and found he had to re-read paragraphs several times because of the over cinematic style. Some of the descriptions were to florid (second use of the term (Mark W comment)). He found the educational and historical side of the book interesting, particularly regarding Mussolini wanting to create an Empire. He was aware that the Italians had used all sorts of illegal methods against the Ethiopians. He found the characters to be very well explained but rather over-exaggerated. He got a bit fed up with the continuous repetition of all Haile Selassie’s names. It was interesting that the photographer was Jewish. Overall he that the book was ok but far from excellent.

Steve was a bit conflicted by this book. Overall he thought it was good and enjoyed reading it. Some bits were brilliant, particularly some of the descriptions of combat. It was a very person based description and very powerful in places. Although he was gripped by some sections but he was also frustrated. Some of the bits of prose were over written. He found himself frequently stalled by some of the passages, and was a bit confused by some of the characters. Although it was slow going, he still enjoyed it. Like Chris W, he found some of the historical aspects interesting. He did add that he hadn’t finished it and would let us know whether he had any changes of view!

Later, on finishing it, he added: it’s a good book, covering a (to Steve) little-known aspect of 20th Century history. The part played by women in the Ethiopian struggle was fascinating, shocking and deserves wider recognition. However there were aspects of the writing that grated. The permanent present tense is always tricky, and here, where the timeframe jumps around a bit (not much but a bit), it added a strange sense of aimlessness. Some of the text had a style of of almost biblical portentousness that inflated the sense if its own importance. It’s good but not great.

Mark T was unable to get into the book and gave up at around page 100. He was disappointed that he didn’t get into the flow at all.The one bit that kindled his interest was the wedding scene. Overall disappointed.

Chris B thought it was an incredibly powerful book, beautifully and originally written about the power of women and the violence of both war and men. He loved the language, poetic and full of new juxtapositions of words and phrases, full of colour and action as well as reflection and personality. It conjured up the place, the individuals, the action and the deep conflicting feelings of the protagonists. It brought to life the way of life, the politics and the course of history.

He liked the structure with interludes getting inside the head of the emperor, the chorus commenting poetically on what was happening to individual characters, the photos and their meaning. He found the story to be full of real characters doing real things, living real and harsh lives, especially for women and for the poor within a culture that embraced terrible violence to women, making it impossible for men to be soft and yet also creating huge pride in its people, its institutions and its customs and set piece events.

 

It appeared to be meticulous in its telling of history, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, a generation on from the last time when they were defeated. This was something he was barely aware of. It captured well the distended connection between Il Duce’s high command and the local action of their army under individual commanders. It highlighted the long reach of the fascist machine for the elimination of Jewish people, including those fighting in the army.

 

The characters were very full and complex, Hirut, Kidane, Aster, Carlo, Ettore, alongside the important but smaller roles. Ibrahim, the cook, Ferres/Fife, Haile Salassie. There was a very strong focus on family relationships, especially fathers with daughters and sons with the long arm of childhood experience affecting the characters along with the betrayals of children by parents.

 

It was full of action which made it exciting and tense, including the terrible arguments and hostility between characters e.g. Aster and Hirut, egged on by pride, class and jealousy. The scenes leading into and during battles were at once exhilarating and frightening. The scenes of cruelty towards prisoners and even to people on one’s own side were told realistically and full of horror and yet with beauty in the descriptive language e.g. the flights of people thrown off the rock.

 

He liked the careful, restrained and recurring use of cultural references e.g. Aida, Ethiopian folk songs recalling heroism.

 

The book left him with two questions: firstly, was there too much violence, especially the violence towards women and people considered inferior? It did not feel unreal or excessive for the sake of it. It seemed to reflect what actually happened in families, between people and in war. Secondly, was it all bad, leaving people scarred, angry and bitter? There was some kind of redemption in the final pages as Hirut was able to leave her rage and disrespect of Ettore behind. It seemed that Aster and Hirut became friends and neighbours. Even Haile Salassie found a modicum of peace in Hirut’s protection. Even Carlo showed humanity to Ettore and his men before he was killed.

Richard, on the other hand, didn’t enjoy the book, finding it hard going. He thought that the history was very interesting, as was the colonial material, the longer history of Ethiopia, and the contrasting cultures between Italy and Ethiopia. But, he also found the writing style not at all to his liking, the characters not very interesting and the overall effect of the book being like seeing things through a fog. He thought it was very long-winded, with weak, scared characters, most things seeming to be  very unsubstantial. One sentence was “Since the photographs were taken weeks ago, a thick fog surrounds her every thought” - and that was his feeling all through the book. He thought  both Hirut and Aster seemed weak, scared, damaged, ignorant – was Ethiopia really so awful? The writer seemed to hold Ethiopia in great contempt, full of ignorant and insubstantial people! Hirut was described: “She is a feeble light slanting into the room through a crack in the wall”. And in fact, Hirut did not appear to inhabit this story. She seemed almost throughout to be just a passive onlooker.

This seemed to be the same with all the characters, especially the Emperor! “Time has collapsed and there is only this: an invasion. Haile Selassie reads the telegram again and stares into the stunned face of his adviser. He doesn’t want to ask, How? He cannot bring himself to say, Like this?” So Haile Selassie is the same as Hirut – a paralysed observer. And later: “Emperor Haile Selassie sits rooted in place, afraid to move, afraid” - Again!? And yet later: “Haile Selassie sets the bag on the floor then walks out of his bedroom into the hallway and down the stairs, uncertain of where he is going.” He always IS uncertain, in this version of him.

And then people have all sorts of ill-described emotions: arrogance, and especially anger, where both the cause of the anger, and what they might do about that anger, are badly explained. “she has inherited the arrogance of those born into noble households and it is a fire that burns inside of her, illuminating every feature. It is something the poor are not born with: that way of gliding into large homes and expansive fields as if the ground begged for their footsteps.” (In the UK this is something that education at private schools confers!!) “What are you? Kidane asks. What have you done? Beneath his anguish, beneath the defeat and fatigue, glows a bright and curdling rage.” What is this even about? Why would he be so angry?

About half-way through the book, Hirut shows a few signs of being a more interesting figure. She says “the dead are stronger. That they know no physical boundaries. They reside in the corners of every memory and rise up, again and again, to resist all our efforts to leave them behind and let them rest.” This is an interesting thought, but not a thought that the person so far described in this book would have had!

Richard did admit that it was not all bad - there were a few interesting themes, but he felt that they were all badly developed. One was ‘How difficult it is for women to be taken seriously’. “You’ll follow behind us and tend to the wounded. Pack bandages and medicines, he says. Tell your women this is their way to fight.”

Another was how women seem to get blamed (often by other women) for men’s bad behaviour: “I’ll kill him, Hirut says softly. Though her voice is steady, the words deflate her. She is speaking against a current. The problem is you think you’re the only one, Aster says quietly. You don’t know how common you are. Then she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. If you do anything to hurt my husband, I will kill you myself.” - It is always the woman’s fault.

And there were a few short passages where he thought the writing was good, scattered throughout the book – examples are:

· “a fist of sunlight” which I thought caught the heat in such hot countries;

· “the familiar scars of village life: the poorly grafted broken bone, the cratered marks of childhood disease, the raised knot of an old burn” again good and capturing the reality of life in such physically impoverished countries.

· “Hirut cannot see past the shifting paleness of his skin to really look at him” which catches the difficulty of different races really seeing each other-

· “Every day, he will grow back into himself until he can be who he is: a man who was once everything to everyone, then was reborn again to be nothing” which was I thought a rather lyrical description of Minim’s movement back to being who he once was.

· “A drop of sun zigzags through the valley to skid along the grass.” The occasional felicitous phrasing.

John interestingly had spent some time in Ethiopia and made the point that this was a very Ethiopian book, and she captured the sense and style very well. The fogginess and lyricism, that some of the book club had difficulty with, was very indicative of their writing style.

The message of the book was that war is deeply unpleasant (s**t), particularly these small colonial wars, of which there are a whole raft of overlooked ones such as the British in Aden. In the end Nationalism overrides Feudalism. At the time of the invasion, the country was run by a pretty nasty top-heavy regime but this was almost forgotten by most of the people when asked to defend their country. As always, however, there were exceptions. In fact the book also touches on the early stages of the overthrow of Haile Selasse in 1974 and his eventual replacement with Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1977 (Good illustration of ‘Be careful what you wish for’ (Mark W comment).

John felt that the book did capture the role of women and captured relationships, particularly the tensions where people are thrown together, very well. For John, the stand out character was Ettore, who was portrayed very sympathetically. It illustrated the great importance of war photographers . Although he recognised some of the flaws in the book he felt that overall, it captured the themes very well.

Andrew, on the other hand, wasn’t sure. It was interesting to read a book about women soldiers usually written out of history, and about female power. Every character was damaged or had suffered trauma, but seemingly these made the women stronger and better leaders, while the men descended into shows of power which diminished them.

He read that the author spent 9 years writing this book and nearly gave up after 4 years when the novel was strictly historical and dull. She then delved into mythology, and rewrote it completely, finding out at some stage that her great-grandmother had taken her father’s gun and gone to war herself.

He liked its themes of shadows and light, echoes and memories, and belonging – to ancestors and land. There was physical and psychological violence everywhere, both from the invaders and the feudal system, particularly towards women and the poor.

The rather ethereal start wasn’t a strong hook for Andrew but immediately after that, the glorious writing made him want to get to know Hirut in a hurry. There were numerous tremendous descriptions – battle scenes, Seifu attacking Fucelli, whippings, and wedding nights – and some beautiful writing:

“They have crept behind dozing guards and sleepy administrators and left nothing but slumped figures. They are everywhere and nowhere, men and women of a shadow world where a different king rules.”

“Hirut, he repeats. It is a name and a call for forgiveness, a sound falling at his feet to clear a path for him to walk.”

“The two of them stare into each other’s faces, gazing into what the years have done”.

However, he felt that quite a few other passages were a bit florid, (again, Mark W comment),and overwritten. He also didn’t like all the colons at the start of sentences and found these distracted from the beautiful prose – they’d have been less obtrusive had the prose been ordinary. They disrupted the flow - and worked against the atmosphere and magic that the words by themselves were creating.

Andrew really enjoyed the story and thought the plot was strong, with Hirut as a prisoner of Fucelli and the cook plus Fifi, sister of Seigu, in the centre. Also, Ettore being Jewish made him vulnerable despite being one of the invaders. Hirut and Aster ending up as neighbours happily ever after seemed a bit weak, and the ending at the train station meant the story lost some intensity, but he wasn’t sure how Mengiste could have ended it better, and it did link nicely with the start. It also seemed odd how Ettore was able to remain in Addis. However,  he found Hirut’s journey compelling, the cook too, and Fifi’s intrigue, and the internal dialogue of Fucelli, Ettore and Kidane was excellent.

He liked the way Minim went from Nothing to Emperor, and it seemed the author wanted to the reader to see Haile Selassie as a similar construct, going from Emperor to Nothing. Perhaps the shadow king of the title is in fact the absent Haile Selassie.

Overall, he felt it to be a great story, beautifully written with some compelling characters – and some detracting colons.

Two favourite quotes to end with:

“what do girls like her know about resistance, what do girls like her know but how to live and obey and keep quiet until it is time to die?”

“She is Hirut, daughter of Fasil and Getey, feared guard of the Shadow King and she is no longer afraid of what men can do to women like her”.

Mark W Post Discussion Summary: overall, a book that resulted in a very interesting discussion, particularly as there were so many different views. The main difference seemed to be the reaction to the writing style of the book; many found the style to be over florid, whereas others really enjoyed the style. Most felt that the subject matter was interesting, but there were differing views on how the book dealt with the treatment of women and how the characters developed through the book.

One other interesting fact was that three of the Book Club members actually read some of the book while in holiday in Sicily at the same time!

Scores: Mark W: 9.0, Willm: 7.25, Chris W: 6.0, Steve 7.0, Chris B: 8.5, Mark T: 3.0, Richard: 4.5, John: 6.75, Andrew: 7.0